In terms of aggregate health effects, household solid fuel use is currently the most important source of indoor air pollution in developing countries. Although relatively equitable economic and rural development has contributed to reducing the use of solid fuels in some settings (e.g., in some newly industrialized Asian countries), indoor air pollution is likely to remain an important health risk in poorer developing countries in the absence of successful intervention programs. More broadly, indoor air quality issues in developing countries are dynamic phenomena that require dynamic research and policy responses. (more…)
Indoor air quality (IAQ) research deals with the presence, levels, health effects, and control of physical, chemical, and biologica ...
Important research over the past few decades has illustrated that indoor air pollution and indoor smoke from solid fuel poses i ...
Smoke from biomass and coal combustion contains a large number of pollutants with known health hazards, including particulate matte ...
Exposure to indoor air pollution from the combustion of solid fuels has been implicated, with varying degrees of evidence, as a ...
Lack of access to cleaner energy and the negative outwardnesses associated with energy consumption tend to cycle of poverty for ...
The water levels of most of the world’s rivers fluctuate with seasonal rains, melting snows, or droughts, and in the arid zones there are flash floods. It makes sense to capture and store the abundant waters and later release it during the low flow periods or use it for power. So dams have been built for the purposes of irrigation, municipal water supply, and hydroelectricity generation. Flood control and transportation benefits are also important. Cities are growing all over the developing world, and they require water supplies and reservoirs. Since the beginning of the 20th century, hydropower energy has steadily increased and it now supplies 19% of worldwide electricity. (more…)
Hydropower, also known as hydroelectric power, is the use of water to produce power. Harnessing water to perform work has been ...
The winners in hydropower and other large dam projects are those who gain electricity, domestic water supplies, sanitation, dro ...
The World Commission on Dams (WCD) was formed in 1998 by a joint initiative of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Worl ...
Up to around 1980, hydropower research and development (R&D) efforts focused mainly on improving turbine efficiency, reducing c ...
Water power sources is an interesting source of energy. It is available freely in nature. The constant flow of water can guaran ...
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 ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next 50 years. However, we expect to see significant differences between the last 50 years and the next. The past increase was stimulated by relatively “cheap” fossil fuels and increased rates of industrialization in North America, Europe, and Japan; yet while energy consumption in these countries continues to increase, additional factors are making the picture for the next 50 years more complex. These additional complicating factors include the very rapid increase fuel economy in energy use in China and India (countries representing about a third of the world’s population); the expected depletion of oil resources in the not-too-distant future; and the effect of human activities on global climate change. (more…)
The relationship of gross national product per capita to energy consumption per capita for most countries of the world correlat ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term proje ...
Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns ...
The development of the ‘‘new’’ wind and solar technologies is of great importance for the future contribution of RESs to energy sup ...
To determine the effects of past climate trends on global energy consumption, the econometric equations providing the degree day el ...
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 ...
One of the most important aerodynamic effects on energy consumption required to keep a body moving through a fluid is the aerodynamic drag force. The drag must be overcome by the thrust of a propulsion mechanism, which in turn is consuming energy. Everything else being equal, the higher the drag, the more energy is consumed. Therefore, for energy efficiency, bodies moving through a fluid should be low drag bodies. To understand how to obtain low drag, we have to first understand the nature of drag, and what really causes it. (more…)
The next time you hear an airplane flying overhead, look up, and pause for a moment. What you see is a machine that is heavier than ...
Plate tectonics is conceptually simple. It treats Earth’s outer shell as made up of approximately 15 rigid plates, about 100 km thi ...
The most fundamental process from an energy systems standpoint is heat transfer to (or from) a working fluid. This unit operation t ...
Mixing is a process where two or more liquids or gas phase components are brought together and combined to form a uniform compositi ...
Hydraulic turbines have two main classifications: impulse and reaction. The impulse turbine generally uses the velocity of the wate ...
Taxation of energy in the United States, the federal government does not impose an energy tax or a general sales tax that is broadly applicable to energy. However, excise taxes are imposed on certain fuels, and there are a number of income tax provisions specific to the energy sector. There are three separate categories of taxes and fees that affect energy use: (1) excise taxes/fees that primarily affect energy demand; (2) income tax provisions that primarily affect energy supply by operating on the after-tax rate of return on investment; and (3) income tax provisions that primarily affect the demand for specific energy sources. (more…)
Various provisions in the federal income tax treat energy producers more or less favorably than other businesses. By changing t ...
The primary purpose of all forms of taxation, whether on energy or on non-energy items, is to raise money for the government to fin ...
Economists have overwhelmingly favored fuel taxes over fuel economy standards as a means to reduce fuel or gasoline consumption ...
Federal Excise Taxes placed on specific energy sources tend to reduce energy demand for these energy sources in both the short ...
A number of countries have vehicle tax incentives programs designed to reward purchasers and owners of alternative fuel-efficient v ...
Federal Excise Taxes placed on specific energy sources tend to reduce energy demand for these energy sources in both the short and the long run. The federal government imposes excise taxes on almost all petroleum products (including petroleum additives) and coal (see Table 1). The federal government also imposes federal excise taxes on many transportation uses of methanol, ethanol, natural gas, and propane and imposes a fee on electricity produced from nuclear power plants and nuclear power electricity. (more…)
Economists have overwhelmingly favored fuel taxes over fuel economy standards as a means to reduce fuel or gasoline consumption ...
Taxation of energy in the United States, the federal government does not impose an energy tax or a general sales tax that is br ...
Analysis of future light-duty transportation energy use require estimates of the impact of fuel prices on travel and fleet fuel ...
Various provisions in the federal income tax treat energy producers more or less favorably than other businesses. By changing t ...
A number of countries have vehicle tax incentives programs designed to reward purchasers and owners of alternative fuel-efficient v ...
Electromagnetic Suspension (EMS) system in which an array of magnets is attracted upwards to a steel rail. It is possible to design the magnets so that there is an upward force produced by magnetic attraction that cancels the downward gravitational force: the magnets are suspended in space! If steel beams were mounted on either side of a “guideway,” then a vehicle with magnets on both sides could move along the guideway and be supported and guided by the steel rails. (more…)
Electrodynamic Suspension (EDS) can be viewed as an array of magnets moving over a conducting sheet and being pushed upwards by ...
All electromagnetic suspension-based systems employ some type of feedback control mechanism to maintain stable levitation. (An inte ...
In contrast to electromagnetic suspension systems, electrodynamic suspension systems can provide stable suspension without a feedba ...
A propulsion alternative is to transfer power to the vehicle and then have a magnetic structure on the vehicle that can create ...
Wind energy alongside solar energy is one form of renewable energy and its supply is abundant in earth. Most people distinguish ...
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…)
There are numerous possible applications for hybrid power systems. The most common examples are (1) remote AC network, (2) dist ...
The characteristics and components of a hybrid system depend greatly on the application. The most important consideration is wh ...
Renewable energy generators are devices that convert energy from its original form in the renewable energy source into electric ...
The primary electric drivetrain components for fuel cell vehicles are the same as those for any electric vehicle: traction motors, ...