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Industry poses one of the biggest challenges in the renewable energy transition. In this paper, fossil fuels in the European industrial sector are replaced by renewable energy using a novel tool, IndustryPLAN, a planning tool for the assessment of national industrial sectors. In a bottom-up approach, each industry sub-sector is addressed with energy efficiency and fossil fuel replacement measures based on best available and innovative technologies, and in a top-down approach, the fuel and electricity consumption per country is analysed and decarbonised. The results indicate that: 1. Known technologies can decarbonise most of the industrial sector; 2. Costs and efficiencies are improved by energy savings and electrification; 3. Limiting bioenergy consumption is a critical challenge, emphasising the key role of energy savings and electrification, and the alternative of using hydrogen or hydrogen-based electrofuels will make the transition more expensive and induce energy losses. A full transition to renewable energy and a decarbonised industry sector may be possible before 2050, however, this requires that all investments are sustainable from 2030 onwards and that grid electricity is fully decarbonised. This paper presents several pathways toward 100% renewable energy supply in the European industrial sector and discusses the implications of the outlined scenarios. • Four tangible 100% renewable energy scenarios for industry in EU27 + UK are established. • 100% renewable energy in industry is feasible before 2050. • Energy efficiency improvements are essential to limit biomass consumption. • Industry energy transition needs to be prioritised in short- and long-term planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental degradation has become one of the major challenges facing the global community. This paper aims to explore the more effective options to combat environmental degradation by investigating the linearity and nonlinearity (trade openness set as a threshold variable) of energy efficiency, natural gas, renewable energy and ecological footprint. To this end, linear and non-linear panel models were constructed using panel data from 60 countries. The results of the linear analysis show that improving energy efficiency, and increasing the consumption of natural gas and renewable energy are conducive to inhibiting environmental degradation. Energy efficiency has the most significant negative correlation with ecological footprint, followed by renewable energy, and then natural gas, implying that improving energy efficiency and developing renewable energy is a more effective strategy to combat environmental degradation. The results of the nonlinear analysis show that there are threshold effects of trade openness between energy efficiency and ecological footprint, and between renewable energy and ecological footprint. The negative impact of both renewable energy and energy efficiency on the ecological footprint increases when trade openness exceeds the threshold. This suggests that, in terms of curbing environmental degradation, enhancing trade openness may further increase the negative impacts of energy efficiency and renewable energy on ecological footprint. At the same time, this confirms the positive role of trade openness in environmental protection. [Display omitted] • Exploring more effective option to combat environmental degradation. • Energy efficiency, renewable energy, natural gas can reduce ecological footprint. • Trade openness help energy efficiency, renewables lower ecological footprint. • The most effective strategy is energy efficiency, followed by renewables and natural gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a thermodynamic model for the regenerative Brayton cycle that uses monochlorobiphenyl waste as fuel in a combustion chamber to power a gas turbine. The regenerator increases the air temperature entering the combustion chamber to react with monochlorobiphenyl wastes to produce a higher turbine inlet temperature. The pressure ratio and turbine inlet temperature can negatively or positively affect power plants' thermal efficiency. Thus, different pressure ratios and turbine inlet temperatures are used to calculate the overall thermal efficiency. A stoichiometric reaction-based gas composition model is used to determine the combustion gas composition at the combustion chamber exit and to calculate the heat capacity of air and combustion gases as a function of temperature. The exergy analysis of the proposed power plant is presented to determine the effect of the pressure ratio on the exergy efficiency of the turbine, compressor, and regenerator. According to the results, an increase in pressure ratio increases cycle thermal efficiency and turbine inlet temperature when using a regenerator, whereas the temperatures decrease when not using a regenerator. The Brayton cycle with a regenerator increases thermal efficiency from 30% to 100% for a pressure ratio of 6–30. This contrasts with the Brayton cycle without a regenerator. In addition, for the regenerative Brayton cycle, the turbine inlet temperature rises from 1050 K to 1200 K as the pressure ratio rises from 1 to 30. In the absence of the regenerator, however, this variation's trend is in the opposite direction. Furthermore, the results show that an increase in pressure ratio will increase the exergy efficiency of the compressor and regenerator, while a decrease will occur in the exergy efficiency of the turbine. Findings indicate that the regenerator has the highest exergy efficiency at a pressure ratio higher than five, followed by turbine and compressor exergy efficiency. [Display omitted] • Increase in pressure ratio, improves regenerator and compressor exergy efficiency. • Turbine efficiency increases system efficiency in "with regenerative" mode. • In "no regeneration" mode, boosting the pressure ratio improves thermal efficiency. • In "with regeneration" mode, turbine intake temperature decrease with pressure ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]