Reducing Indoor Air Pollution in Developing Countries

indoor air pollution
Important research over the past few decades has illustrated that indoor air pollution and indoor smoke from solid fuel poses important health risks in developing countries. Unfortunately, affordable and effective interventions for reducing these risks are limited. This may be because in designing new interventions, the complexities of household energy use and exposure have been often overlooked, and there is a lack of infrastructure to support technological innovations, marketing and dissemination, and maintenance. Even less is known about combinations of technologies that may be used in a household and the factors that motivate the households to adopt them. (more…)

Health Benefits Of Household Energy Transitions

household energy consumption
Reducing exposure to indoor air pollution from household energy use can be achieved through interventions in of the following areas:

* Emissions source and energy technology (fuel– stove combination).
* Housing design and ventilation.
* Behavior and time–activity budget. (more…)

Primary Energy Use and Clean Coal Technology

clean coal technology
Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns as it is a significant source of CO2 emissions and other airborne pollutants, and it is almost totally based on oil as its energy source. An important aspect of future changes in transportation depends on what happens to the available oil resources, production and prices. At present, 95% of all energy for transportation comes from oil. (more…)

Hybrid Energy Systems: Introduction And Definitions

Hybrid Energy Systems
The term hybrid energy system refers to those applications in which multiple energy unit conversion devices are used together to supply an energy requirement. These systems are often used in isolated applications and normally include at least one renewable energy source in the configuration. Hybrid energy systems are used an alternative to more conventional systems, which typically are based on a single fossil fuel source. Hybrid energy systems may also be used as part of distributed generation application in conventional electricity grid. (more…)

Renewable Energy Sources in Europe: Geothermal, Wind Energy, Biomass

In Europe, modern renewable energy sources technologies were explored thoroughly for the first time after the oil embargo/ price crisis of 1973. Notably, market introduction of renewable energy technology started in about 1985, but the renewable energy sources industry has become vital only during the past decade. Accordingly, relevant statistical renewable energy sources data have been systematically compiled only over the past decade, although reliable and consistent statistical renewable energy sources data, collected since 1989, exist for all 15 countries of the European Union and for Western Europe (defined here as the EU-15 plus Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland). (more…)

Well-to-Pump Energy Efficiencies

Well-to-Pump
The energy efficiencies of various fuel production pathways from well to pump. The efficiencies shown are defined as the energy in a given fuel (available at pumps in vehicle refueling stations) divided by total energy inputs during all Well-to-Pump activities, including the energy content of the fuel. One way to interpret the Well-to-Pump efficiencies in the figure is as the difference between 100% and the energy efficiencies, which roughly represent energy losses during Well-to-Pump stages for making a given fuel available at the pump. As stated in Section 3, Well-to-Pump activities include biomass feedstock production; feedstock transportation and storage; fuel production; and fuel transportation, storage, and distribution. (more…)

Fuel Pathways And Vehicle Fuel Efficiency Combinations

Vehicle Fuel Efficiency
There are different types of vehicle propulsion systems and the transportation fuels that have been studied for their potential to power the vehicles. Gasoline, CNG, LNG, LPG, methanol, ethanol, and hydrogen can be used in vehicles equipped with conventional spark-ignition (SI) engines. Interest in developing efficient, low-emission, spark-ignition direct-injection (SIDI) engine technologies has heightened in recent years. (more…)

Information Programs To Increase & Improve Fuel Economy

A variety of information programs exist in the major automobile markets to assist potential purchasers of new cars in comparing fuel economy characteristics (and other attributes) among competing vehicles. However, there is no evidence that the existence of such systems plays a significant role in consumer choice of vehicles. For example, in 1995, the light duty fleets in the two European countries with fuel economy labeling systems (Sweden and the United Kingdom) were the least efficient in Europe (according to International Energy Agency data). (more…)

Well-to-Wheels Total Energy and Fossil Energy Results

Well-to-Wheels
The combination of well-to-pump results and the energy use and emissions associated with vehicle operation (also called the pump-to-wheels stage) results in full well-to-wheels energy and emission results for vehicle/fuel systems. The energy efficiencies of 19 fuel pathways were presented in the preceding section. The well-to-wheels energy use and emissions results for 23 representative vehicle fuel systems, combined with some of the vehicle technology options are now considered. (more…)

U.S Government Sponsorship For Vehicle Efficiency Technology R&D

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Although the automotive industry is a vigorous sponsor of research and development in vehicle efficiency technology—worldwide, nearly $20 billion U.S. worth in 1997—governments throughout the world sponsor additional automotive R&D, both separately from and in partnership with the industry. This work focuses primarily on four areas: emissions reduction, safety, fuels, and fuel economy. Within the past few years, government sponsorship of automotive R&D has moved sharply in the direction of attempting to advance the performance and cost-effectiveness of automotive fuel cells vehicles, which address three of the four areas: emissions, fuels, and fuel economy. (more…)

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