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Energy retrofits can improve the sustainability of a building by decreasing the energy consumption and resulting GHG emissions throughout its life. Adopting critical life cycle thinking is crucial when deciding on how to implement building retrofits. This article first evaluates innovative and proven building energy retrofits through a life cycle thinking lens. Next, it develops a methodological framework to assess building retrofits using four principal measures: environmental, economic, social, and technical criteria. The proposed method was demonstrated using an institutional building in Windsor, Ontario, as a case study. The case study revealed that the selected retrofit might result in the least energy savings, but it is still the preferred alternative because other factors can present valuable trade-offs that are desirable. The outcomes of this research, with the demonstrated tool, will assist building managers in determining the optimal energy retrofit for their buildings. Key words: environmental sustainability, buildings, energy retrofit, life cycle assessment. Les ameliorations ecoenergetiques peuvent augmenter la durabilite d'un batiment en reduisant la consommation d'energie et les emissions de GES qui en decoulent tout au long du cycle de vie. L'adoption de la pensee critique par rapport au cycle de vie est cruciale pour decider de la facon de mettre en oeuvre les modernisations des batiments. Cet article evalue d'abord les ameliorations econergetiques novatrices et reconnues pour les batiments en tenant compte du cycle de vie. Ensuite, on elabore un cadre methodologique pour evaluer les modernisations des batiments en utilisant quatre mesures principales : les criteres environnementaux, economiques, sociaux et techniques. La methode proposee a ete demontree a l'aide d'un batiment institutionnel a Windsor, en Ontario, comme etude de cas. Les resultats de cette recherche, avec l'outil confirme, aideront les gestionnaires d'immeubles a determiner les ameliorations econergetiques optimales pour leurs immeubles. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles : durabilite de l'environnement, batiments, amelioration econergetique, evaluation du cycle de vie., 1. Introduction Climate change poses a momentous threat across the globe and from sources not typically associated with the mainstream images of pollution generators, such as transportation and heavy industry. [...]

The assessment of industrial-level energy efficiency's (EE) development is a critical research topic that has entrenched in the global battle against climate change. Under the Energy Efficiency Directives 2012/27/EU and 2018/2002/EU, European Commission sets specific industrial energy efficiency targets, rules and obligations for the 2020-2030 period aiming, among others, at specific energy intensity reduction and energy efficiency improvements. In this paper we use a balanced panel of fourteen European industries from twenty-seven countries for the period 1995-2011 under a metatechnology framework. The aim of this study is to evaluate, at a first stage, the industrial total factor energy efficiency (TFEE) at a national and European level by incorporating technological heterogeneity through a nonparametric approach. Reflecting the divergent views on the importance of desirable and undesirable outcomes in the pursuit of TFEE, we additionally estimate industrial performance by prioritizing either economic or environmental aspects. At the second stage of our analysis, econometric models are applied to investigate the main factors of industrial TFEE using sector specific and country characteristics while we further proceed with a [beta] and [sigma]-convergence analysis for our TFEE measures. The results of this study reveal that small-scale economies exhibit persistent high TFEE scores. At the same time, TFEE determinants suggest that path dependence phenomena have a strong presence, climatic characteristics occur while energy mix displays both linear and non-linear relationship. Either considering one desirable output or consolidating the undesirable output in the production function our results indicate a strong evidence of conditional and unconditional convergence in TFEE scores. Keywords: European industries, Total Factor Energy Efficiency, Metafrontier, Directional Distance Function, Energy mix, Path dependence, Convergence, 1. INTRODUCTION Industrial activities in Europe are in the foreground of the policy agenda imposing a heavy burden on the quality of the environment. Under this perspective, European industries have [...]

Eradicating poverty and achieving food and nutrition security in a sustainable environment is difficult to achieve without adequate access to affordable cooking fuel. It is therefore important to understand the common sources of cooking energy used by people in rural areas and the challenges faced in making fuel sources economically viable, socially acceptable and ecologically sustainable. In the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region, more than 90% of the population relies on firewood and charcoal (wood fuel, collectively) as a primary source of domestic energy. Wood fuel sustainability is challenged by unsustainable harvesting and inefficient methods of converting wood into energy. The use of inefficient cook stoves contributes to wood wastage and smoke exposure associated with severe illnesses. Households often abandon traditional nutritious diets that take a long time to cook, reduce the number of meals, and spend income on fuel at the expense of food costs. Innovations exist that have the potential to provide affordable and cleaner tree-based cooking fuel. Pruning trees on the farm as a fuel source brings firewood closer to women, lightens their workload, saves time and reduces income spent on cooking fuel. Using briquettes or gas cook stoves can reduce health risks associated with food preparation and reduce income spent on cooking fuel due to increased fuel efficiency. The development of these innovations indicates the need for a multi-disciplinary approach to increase awareness of the benefits of cooking fuel innovations, encourage further research on product quality enhancement and standardization, to understand cultural and behavioral issues influencing adoption, and integrate innovations into bioenergy policy frameworks. Key words: agroforestry, firewood, fuel briquettes, gasifier cook stove, emissions, climate change, Background Eradicating poverty and achieving food and nutrition security sustainably is difficult without access to affordable cooking fuel. Wood is a key source of energy in many rural areas in [...]

It is agreed that connected vehicle technologies have broad implications to traffic management systems. In order to alleviate urban congestion and improve road capacity, this paper proposes a multilane spatiotemporal trajectory optimization method (MSTTOM) to reach full potential of connected vehicles by considering vehicular safety, traffic capacity, fuel efficiency, and driver comfort. In this MSTTOM, the dynamic characteristics of connected vehicles, the vehicular state vector, the optimized objective function, and the constraints are formulated. The method for solving the trajectory problem is optimized based on Pontryagin's maximum principle and reinforcement learning (RL). A typical scenario of intersection with a one-way 4-lane section is measured, and the data within 24 hours are collected for tests. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can optimize the traffic flow by enhancing vehicle fuel efficiency by 32% and reducing pollutants emissions by 17% compared with the advanced glidepath prototype application (GPPA) scheme., Author(s): Pangwei Wang [1]; Yunfeng Wang [1]; Hui Deng [1]; Mingfang Zhang [1]; Juan Zhang (corresponding author) [2] 1. Introduction The traffic capacity of urban road network is restricted by [...]

Motor vehicle's fuel consumption is one of the main sources of energy consumption in road transportation and is highly influenced by driver performance in the process of driving. Eco-driving behavior has been proved to be an effective way to improve the fuel efficiency of vehicles. Essential to the efforts towards saving vehicle fuel is the need to estimate the eco-level of driver performance accurately and practically. Depending on on-board diagnostics and Global Position devices, individual vehicle's instantaneous fuel consumption, engine revolution and torque, speed, acceleration, and dynamic location were collected. Back-propagation network was adopted to explore the relationship between vehicle fuel consumption and the parameters of driver performance. Taking 700 data samples in basic segments of urban expressways as our training set and 100 data samples as validation test, we found the optimal model structure and parameters through repeated simulation experiments. In addition to the average and standard deviation value, the fluctuation frequency of driver performance data was also viewed as influence factors in eco-level estimation model. The average estimation accuracy of our developed model has been tested to be 96.37%, which is quite higher than that of linear regression model. The study results provide a practical way to evaluate drivers' performance from the perspective of fuel consumption and thus give basis for rewarding best drivers within eco-driving programs., Author(s): Jianbin Zheng [1]; Yiping Wu (corresponding author) [2] 1. Introduction Fuel consumption of motor vehicles is one of the main sources of energy consumption in road transportation and has [...]

SmNi[O.sub.3] (SNO) belongs to a series of rare-earth nickelates (RNi[O.sub.3] or RNO) with the perovskite structure (AB[O.sub.3]), which exhibits linked corner-shared B[O.sub.6] octahedra (Fig. 1a) (7). In perovskite oxides, protons [...], Fuel cells convert chemical energy directly into electrical energy with high efficiencies and environmental benefits, as compared with traditional heat engines (1-4). Yttria-stabilized zirconia is perhaps the material with the most potential as an electrolyte in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), owing to its stability and near-unity ionic transference number (5). Although there exist materials with superior ionic conductivity, they are often limited by their ability to suppress electronic leakage when exposed to the reducing environment at the fuel interface. Such electronic leakage reduces fuel cell power output and the associated chemo-mechanical stresses can also lead to catastrophic fracture of electrolyte membranes (6). Here we depart from traditional electrolyte design that relies on cation substitution to sustain ionic conduction. Instead, we use a perovskite nickelate as an electrolyte with high initial ionic and electronic conductivity. Since many such oxides are also correlated electron systems, we can suppress the electronic conduction through a filling-controlled Mott transition induced by spontaneous hydrogen incorporation. Using such a nickelate as the electrolyte in free-standing membrane geometry, we demonstrate a low-temperature micro-fabricated SOFC with high performance. The ionic conductivity of the nickelate perovskite is comparable to the best-performing solid electrolytes in the same temperature range, with a very low activation energy. The results present a design strategy for high-performance materials exhibiting emergent properties arising from strong electron correlations.

This paper evaluates the energy efficiency of EU countries over the period 2000-2010. At the first stage, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used, combining multiple energy consumption data and economic outputs. The efficiency estimates obtained from the analysis are evaluated in a second stage through a multiple criteria decision aiding methodology (MCDA). The proposed non-parametric approach combining DEA with MCDA enables modeling of the problem in an integrated manner, not only providing energy efficiency estimates but also supporting the analysis of the main contributing factors, as well as the development of a benchmarking model for energy efficiency evaluation at the country level. Keywords: Energy efficiency, Data envelopment analysis, Multiple criteria decision aiding, 1. INTRODUCTION In the 1970s and early 1980s, energy efficiency emerged as a major issue for sustainable economic growth. Even after the 1986 counter oil shock and the decline in [...]