Exposure to indoor air pollution from the combustion of solid fuels has been implicated, with varying degrees of evidence, as a causal agent of several diseases in developing countries. In a review of the epidemiological evidence for the health effects of indoor smoke from solid fuels, Bruce et al. concluded that, despite some methodological limitations, epidemiological studies provide compelling evidence of causality for acute respiratory infections (ARI) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This is reinforced by experimental data, studies of pathogenesis, and indirect evidence from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and ambient air pollution studies. (more…)
Important research over the past few decades has illustrated that indoor air pollution and indoor smoke from solid fuel poses i ...
Exposure to air pollutants and air pollution problem are very high in indoor environments in developing countries. Smith has es ...
Smoke from biomass and coal combustion contains a large number of pollutants with known health hazards, including particulate matte ...
Indoor air quality (IAQ) research deals with the presence, levels, health effects, and control of physical, chemical, and biologica ...
In terms of aggregate health effects, household solid fuel use is currently the most important source of indoor air pollution i ...
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…)
Under both former President Bush and new President Obama, the U.S. government has vowed to reduce reliance on imported oil. The ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next ...
From prehistory until the Industrial Revolution, most energy sources used by humans were localized (i.e., available within 5–10 mil ...
Do we have the resources? Rudolf Diesel developed the diesel engine which ran on biodiesel vegetable oil in the late 1800s. At the ...
One study that does address the peak-oil scenario directly is a 2005 report conducted for the National Energy Technology Labora ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term projection puts forward three scenarios for the next 30 years with GDP growth rates of roughly 2.5, 1.5 and 0.5% p.a. The highest value corresponds to slightly less than the 1948 - 72 average, the central value is close to the long-run average over the last 80 years, and the lowest figure is similar to the performance during the current recession since 1973. (more…)
Following the recent completion of three nuclear power plants, there is now some 9.6 GW of nuclear capacity in the United Kingd ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next ...
Most major oil and gas firms engage in both upstream (i.e., hydrocarbon exploration and production) and downstream (i.e., hydro ...
Energy is consumed by various segments of the economy, including households, commercial establishments, manufacturing enterpris ...
World energy use has increased steadily over the past several decades. Much of the growth in world energy consumption has been ...
At present, in the United States and worldwide, motor vehicles are fueled almost exclusively by petroleum based gasoline (or reformulated gasoline) and diesel fuels. Since the first oil price shock in 1973, efforts have been made to seek alternative fuels to displace gasoline and diesel fuels and achieve energy and environmental benefits. Some of the alternative fuels that have been researched and used are liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), methanol (MeOH), dimethyl ether (DME), Fischer– Tropsch diesel (FTD), hydrogen (H 2 ), ethanol (EtOH), biodiesel, and electricity. Production processes associated with gasoline, diesel, and each of these alternative fuels differ. (more…)
There are different types of vehicle propulsion systems and the transportation fuels that have been studied for their potential ...
Gasoline is used mainly by cars, motorcycles, and light trucks; diesel is used mainly by heavier trucks, buses, and trains. Togethe ...
The energy efficiencies of various fuel production pathways from well to pump. The efficiencies shown are defined as the energy ...
The United States depends heavily on imported oil to fuel its transportation infrastructure. The use of alternative fuel derive ...
Most alternative fuel vehicles on the road today were originally designed for gasoline, but converted for use with an alternative f ...
Do we have the resources? Rudolf Diesel developed the diesel engine which ran on biodiesel vegetable oil in the late 1800s. At the time, he speculated that his discovery seemed insignificant, but later could prove to be as important as mankind’s uncovering of future energy uses for petroleum and coal tar. Given the U.S.’ rapid expansion into biofuels, it would appear his vision was correct due to the drawbacks of biofuels. But widespread adoption of biomass-based fuels is not a foregone conclusion. Two questions haunt its progress. First, will it truly reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels? And second, is there enough farmland to accommodate widespread production, without jeopardizing food supplies? (more…)
Biofuels are made from living matter, plant or animal, and are strongly favored by agricultural interests because of the large ...
We had expressed our disagreement with Biofuels and tell them also that the European Union also wants to distance themselves from t ...
At present, in the United States and worldwide, motor vehicles are fueled almost exclusively by petroleum based gasoline (or re ...
One of the main benefits from future use of biofuels would be the reduction of greenhouse gases compared to the use of fossil f ...
Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns ...
Climate change caused by the enhanced greenhouse effect is one of the most significant global environmental issues. Increased emissions of GHG to the atmosphere, most notably CO2 , are considered the main cause of global climate change. Increasing energy consumption, a reliance on fossil fuels to meet these needs, and deforestation related to land use change are the main sources of increasing atmospheric CO2. (more…)
Bioenergy produced from biomass is sometimes called a carbon-neutral energy source, because the same quantity of carbon released wh ...
To date, most discussion and research relating to the various of biomass role in mitigating CO2 emissions has been focused around i ...
Ten industry giants – with business operations spanning the utilities, manufacturing, chemicals and financial-services sector – joi ...
The quantification of the actual reduction in green house gases sourcess emissions resulting from the substitution of fossil fu ...
It is of interest to examine potential sources of greenhouse gases sources or atmospheric CO2 by analysis of the global distrib ...
Recently, attention to energy efficiency has been gaining momentum. The attention given by policy maker is mainly due to concerns about climate change emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. Particular attention has been paid on how the role of technological improvements in energy efficiency can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. (more…)
Another possible non-market-failure explanation for the energy efficiency gap is associated with the fact that even if a given tech ...
Not surprisingly, most Energy Research and Development takes place in industrialized countries where both the public and private se ...
Beginning at the end of the technological change process, research has consistently shown that diffusion of new, economically ...
Energy efficiency is defined here to mean energy services provided per unit of energy input (for example, gallons of water hea ...
Energy performance ratings tell what the energy performance of a building is, but if the energy performance of a building is to be ...
The question has long been not whether or not to reduce air pollution, but by how much and by what means. Since the extent of the reduced discomfort and illness is not clear—and the measurement of peoples’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for reduced discomfort and illness is uncertain—it is not easy to know how much the pollution should be reduced. But it has always been clear that reducing automotive air pollution had to be part of the overall strategy. (more…)
Smoke from biomass and coal combustion contains a large number of pollutants with known health hazards, including particulate matte ...
The leading automotive brands are being focused to produce electric vehicles because they believe they represent a harmony to the e ...
These days we have two main concerns in the world of business and finance. First the greenhouse global warming and second the finan ...
Almost all fossil fuels use is by burning them to create energy. Burning process then produces waste products due to impurities in ...
The spark-ignition and compression-ignition engine and internal combustion engines technologies that are currently employed in ...
There are many possible reasons for suspecting market failure in a product like gasoline. Throughout the world, the exploration, refining, and selling of petroleum products has long been controlled by large firms in oligopolistic or monopolized national markets. The United States is a sufficiently large importer of oil that it could have monopsony power, which would mean that we could increase the welfare of our own citizens by reducing our imports. Moreover, the consumption of petroleum products, especially in motor vehicles, generates many negative external costs, and will begin to examine closely in the next chapter. Where there are negative externalities, a free market will overproduce and over consume. (more…)
Because transportation is such a large contributor to global warming, both globally and in the United States, climate and energy ex ...
In the post-World War II period, until the beginning of the 1970s, oil price fluctuations were very small. From 1949 to 1970, a ...
Most major oil and gas firms engage in both upstream (i.e., hydrocarbon exploration and production) and downstream (i.e., hydro ...
The volatility in oil prices since the early 1970s is a remarkable feature of energy economics. Annual fluctuations in the oil ...
Analysis of future light-duty transportation energy use require estimates of the impact of fuel prices on travel and fleet fuel ...
Biomass has been a main energy sources in the world since the beginning of civilization. It has been important in development processes, including early stages of industrialization in several countries. In Sweden, for example, the first concerns about preservation date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, resulting from the recognition of the central role played by forests in energy provision. Biomass was also essential in the initial development of the iron industry in Sweden and, later on, the same happened in Brazil, where charcoal is still largely utilized in iron reduction. Biomass remains a major source of energy in many countries. (more…)
Over the last decade, the number of countries researching the potential of biomass and bioenergy for energy services rose rapid ...
The convention aims not only at stabilizing CO2 emissions in developed countries but also at ultimately reducing man-made CO2 e ...
Indoor air quality (IAQ) research deals with the presence, levels, health effects, and control of physical, chemical, and biologica ...
The relationship of gross national product per capita to energy consumption per capita for most countries of the world correlat ...
Bioenergy produced from biomass is sometimes called a carbon-neutral energy source, because the same quantity of carbon released wh ...