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This book offers an authoritative analysis of the state-of-the art
in energy and climate research and policy. It starts by describing
the current status of technologies that are expected to have an
influence on the energy systems of the future. For an adequate
evaluation, it presents the latest findings on the effects of
energy supply and consumption as well as of the emissions on both
the environment and people's health. This is followed by an
extensive discussion of the economic and social problems related to
climate change, the need for energy transitions, and other issues
that may require public investment and international agreements.
The book reviews the problem of energy policy from a global
perspective, providing readers with the technical, political,
economic and ethical background needed to understand the current
situation and work at better solutions for a sustainable, just and
prospering world.
This book offers an authoritative analysis of the state-of-the art
in energy and climate research and policy. It starts by describing
the current status of technologies that are expected to have an
influence on the energy systems of the future. For an adequate
evaluation, it presents the latest findings on the effects of
energy supply and consumption as well as of the emissions on both
the environment and people's health. This is followed by an
extensive discussion of the economic and social problems related to
climate change, the need for energy transitions, and other issues
that may require public investment and international agreements.
The book reviews the problem of energy policy from a global
perspective, providing readers with the technical, political,
economic and ethical background needed to understand the current
situation and work at better solutions for a sustainable, just and
prospering world.
The safe management of the complex distributed systems and critical
infrastructures which constitute the backbone of modern industry
and society entails identifying and quantifying their
vulnerabilities to design adequate protection, mitigation, and
emergency action against failure. In practice, there is no
fail-safe solution to such problems and various frameworks are
being proposed to effectively integrate different methods of
complex systems analysis in a problem-driven approach to their
solution. Vulnerable Systems reflects the current state of
knowledge on the procedures which are being put forward for the
risk and vulnerability analysis of critical infrastructures.
Classical methods of reliability and risk analysis, as well as new
paradigms based on network and systems theory, including
simulation, are considered in a dynamic and holistic way. Readers
of Vulnerable Systems will benefit from its structured presentation
of the current knowledge base on this subject. It will enable
graduate students, researchers and safety and risk analysts to
understand the methods suitable for different phases of analysis
and to identify their criticalities in application.
The safe management of the complex distributed systems and critical
infrastructures which constitute the backbone of modern industry
and society entails identifying and quantifying their
vulnerabilities to design adequate protection, mitigation, and
emergency action against failure. In practice, there is no
fail-safe solution to such problems and various frameworks are
being proposed to effectively integrate different methods of
complex systems analysis in a problem-driven approach to their
solution. Vulnerable Systems reflects the current state of
knowledge on the procedures which are being put forward for the
risk and vulnerability analysis of critical infrastructures.
Classical methods of reliability and risk analysis, as well as new
paradigms based on network and systems theory, including
simulation, are considered in a dynamic and holistic way. Readers
of Vulnerable Systems will benefit from its structured presentation
of the current knowledge base on this subject. It will enable
graduate students, researchers and safety and risk analysts to
understand the methods suitable for different phases of analysis
and to identify their criticalities in application.
Safety and Reliability of Complex Engineered Systems contains the
Proceedings of the 25th European Safety and Reliability Conference,
ESREL 2015, held 7-10 September 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland. It
includes about 570 papers accepted for presentation at the
conference. These contributions focus on theories and methods in
the area of risk, safety and reliability, and their applications to
a wide range of industrial, civil and social sectors. The main goal
of this book is to showcase the advancements in understanding,
modeling and management of complex engineered systems. The book
offers a multidisciplinary platform to address technological,
societal and financial aspects of system safety and reliability.
Emphasis is given to the intra- and interdependencies of functions
and the cascading failures that characterize complex engineered
systems. Safety and Reliability of Complex Engineered Systems
(abstracts book 730 pages + full paper CD-ROM 4634 pages) will be
of interest to academics and professionals involved or interested
in aspect of risk, safety and reliability in various engineering
areas.
The history of mankind is a story of ascent to unprecedented levels
of comfort, productivity and consumption, enabled by the increased
mastery of the basic reserves and flows of energy. This miraculous
trajectory is confronted by the consensus that anthropogenic
emissions are harmful and must decrease, requiring de-carbonization
of the energy system. The mature field of indicator-based
sustainability assessment provides a rigorous systematic framework
to balance the pros and cons of the various existing energy
technologies using lifecycle assessments and weighting criteria
covering the environment, economy, and society, as the three
pillars of sustainability. In such a framework, nuclear power is
ranked favorably, but since emphasis is often placed on radioactive
wastes and risk aversion, renewables are usually ranked top.
However, quantifying the severity of the consequences of nuclear
accidents on a rough integral cost basis and balancing severity
with low core-damage accident probabilities indicates that the
average external cost of such accidents is similar to that of
modern renewables, and far less than carbon-based energy. This book
formulates the overall goal and associated unprecedented demanding
criteria of taming nuclear risks by excluding mechanisms that lead
to serious accidents and avoiding extremely long stewardship times
as far as possible, by design. It reviews the key design features
of nuclear power generation, paving the way for the exploration of
radically new combinations of technologies to come up with
"revolutionary" or even "exotic" system designs. The book also
provides scores for the selected designs and discusses the high
potential for far-reaching improvements, with small modular lines
of the best versions as being most attractive. Given the ambition
and challenges, the authors call for an urgent increase in funding
of at least two orders of magnitude for a broad international
civilian "super-Apollo" program on nuclear energy systems.
Experience indicates that such investments in fundamental
technologies enable otherwise unattainable revolutionary
innovations with massive beneficial spillovers to the private
sector and the public for the next generations.
The history of mankind is a story of ascent to unprecedented levels
of comfort, productivity and consumption, enabled by the increased
mastery of the basic reserves and flows of energy. This miraculous
trajectory is confronted by the consensus that anthropogenic
emissions are harmful and must decrease, requiring de-carbonization
of the energy system. The mature field of indicator-based
sustainability assessment provides a rigorous systematic framework
to balance the pros and cons of the various existing energy
technologies using lifecycle assessments and weighting criteria
covering the environment, economy, and society, as the three
pillars of sustainability. In such a framework, nuclear power is
ranked favorably, but since emphasis is often placed on radioactive
wastes and risk aversion, renewables are usually ranked top.
However, quantifying the severity of the consequences of nuclear
accidents on a rough integral cost basis and balancing severity
with low core-damage accident probabilities indicates that the
average external cost of such accidents is similar to that of
modern renewables, and far less than carbon-based energy. This book
formulates the overall goal and associated unprecedented demanding
criteria of taming nuclear risks by excluding mechanisms that lead
to serious accidents and avoiding extremely long stewardship times
as far as possible, by design. It reviews the key design features
of nuclear power generation, paving the way for the exploration of
radically new combinations of technologies to come up with
"revolutionary" or even "exotic" system designs. The book also
provides scores for the selected designs and discusses the high
potential for far-reaching improvements, with small modular lines
of the best versions as being most attractive. Given the ambition
and challenges, the authors call for an urgent increase in funding
of at least two orders of magnitude for a broad international
civilian "super-Apollo" program on nuclear energy systems.
Experience indicates that such investments in fundamental
technologies enable otherwise unattainable revolutionary
innovations with massive beneficial spillovers to the private
sector and the public for the next generations.
Radioactive waste (above all highly radioactive wastes from nuclear
installations) caused by research, medicine and technology must be
disposed of safely. However both the strategies disputed for the
disposal of radioactive waste as well as concrete proposals for
choosing a location for final waste disposal are highly debatable.
An appropriate disposal must conform to both complex, technical
requirements and fulfill the radio-biological conditions to
appropriately protect man and nature. Ethical, legal and social
conditions must also be considered. An interdisciplinary team from
various, relevant fields compiled the current status-quo and
developed criteria and strategies, which on the one hand meet the
requirements of optimal warning and prevention of risk for present
and future generations, and additionally on the other hand meet the
needs of what current society agrees what is expected to be
allowed.
This study can be understood as an advanced and continuing
contribution to the corresponding scientific specialized debates,
due to its interdisciplinary treatment. At the same time it serves
as a fundamentally informing contribution to public and political
debates, offering an easily comprehensible executive summary and
precise content recommendations.
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