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To tackle climate change and secure energy supplies, many countries invest heavily on wind energy as it is a clean source and is becoming more cost effective with the technological advancement and increased capacity per unit installed. The investigation of the availability of wind resources is an essential step of any feasibility study of a wind farm project and is vital for securing financial resources. With this intent, the main aspects for designing a wind farm at Ajloun (north of Jordan) is investigated and wind energy potential is determined based on available wind data. Based on the site characteristic, the required infrastructure is highlighted, including the turbine array layout and the pattern of connections with the external transmission lines. The investigation of the feasibility of the project includes an appraisal of social and environmental consequences of constructing the wind farm project. The results show that the selected location for the wind farm is encouraging and has a promising profit potential. The findings estimate the annual electricity generation of the wind farm at 379659.51 MWh, with a breakeven selling point of around $30.03/MWh, at a highly competitive price. However, with an estimated selling price of $36.65/MWh on average, it will settle the interest rate demanded by the banks that have an internal rate of return of 7%. No major issues with geotechnical and environmental issues were identified with respect to the project.

The limitation in the allowed new capacities of renewable energy sources to be connected to the electric utility grid is a challenge. This limitation will form an obstacle in expanding towards full dependence on the clean available resource of electricity in Jordan. Battery electricity storage system (BESS) can be a solution for this limitation, and which has been studied to allow storing more electricity from new renewable energy sources, such as PV, to be supplied on demand. This paper evaluates different battery technologies using HOMER (Hybrid Optimization Modelling Software) simulation software, which allows comparing different available battery technologies to different technical specifications from an economic point of view. The essential primary outcome of the simulation is the cost of the electricity stored in each battery technology that can be used to optimize the battery storage system size for each type of battery. The simulation was made for a photovoltaic system in Jordan, connected to the grid, and with different kinds of battery technologies with varying sizes in order to understand their effect on the final cost of energy, and to know the needed minimum tariff that will encourage investors in the field of renewable energy to invest more in battery electricity storage. The findings of this paper show that a tariff of $0.140 per kWh will make the battery electricity storage system more attractive for storing energy from solar PV systems for shares around 20% of the average PV production. The resulted Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE) will help in securing more electricity for Jordan from solar PV plants, and to depend less on fossil fuel which has environmental impacts, fluctuating prices, and not indigenously available in Jordan.

An assessment of biomass resources potential in Jordan for power/heat generation and biogas production is presented in this paper. The investigation is based on five crucial requirements toward process sustainability and production cost. These requirements include biomass analysis and availability, conversion technologies, optimizing efficiency, reduction of environmental impact, and political decisions. All of these requirements collectively work in synergy toward commercial implementation of bioconversion technologies of biomass into energy. The information obtained in this study is expected to be useful for both decentralized and centralized wastes based energy planning by policymakers and industry developers, which can increase the biomass based renewable energy share to the energy mix. Direct biomass resources including agricultural residues, animal manure and municipal solid waste are considered in the analysis. Jordan produces more than 5.83 MT of wastes and residues annually, where 42% of which are estimated as available sources for energy generation and biogas production. The corresponding annual biogas and power potential is 313.14 MCM and 847.39 GWh, respectively. The produced biogas could replace almost 23.64% of Jordan primary energy consumed in the year 2012 in the form of natural gas (656 toe). Amongst all wastes and residues, municipal solid waste generated in the middle region of Jordan has the highest potential for biogas and power generation at 24.26%. This is followed by poultry manure with 18.58% and olive residues with 15.1%. The potential of the other wastes and residues is estimated at 42.06%.

COVID-19 has posed an unprecedented global public health threat and caused a significant number of severe cases that necessitated long hospitalization and overwhelmed health services in the most affected countries. In response, governments initiated a series of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that led to severe economic and social impacts. The effect of these intervention measures on the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic are not well investigated within developing country settings. This study simulated the trajectories of the COVID-19 pandemic curve in Jordan between February and May and assessed the effect of Jordan&rsquo, s strict NPI measures on the spread of COVID-19. A modified susceptible, exposed, infected, and recovered (SEIR) epidemic model was utilized. The compartments in the proposed model categorized the Jordanian population into six deterministic compartments: suspected, exposed, infectious pre-symptomatic, infectious with mild symptoms, infectious with moderate to severe symptoms, and recovered. The GLEAMviz client simulator was used to run the simulation model. Epidemic curves were plotted for estimated COVID-19 cases in the simulation model, and compared against the reported cases. The simulation model estimated the highest number of total daily new COVID-19 cases, in the pre-symptomatic compartmental state, to be 65 cases, with an epidemic curve growing to its peak in 49 days and terminating in a duration of 83 days, and a total simulated cumulative case count of 1048 cases. The curve representing the number of actual reported cases in Jordan showed a good pattern compatibility to that in the mild and moderate to severe compartmental states. The reproduction number under the NPIs was reduced from 5.6 to less than one. NPIs in Jordan seem to be effective in controlling the COVID-19 epidemic and reducing the reproduction rate. Early strict intervention measures showed evidence of containing and suppressing the disease.

Paper mill sludge (PMS) can be efficiently utilized to produce fuels and chemicals. However, wastewater is usually generated during the de-ashing step of the PMS for fibrous materials recovery. Per process requirements, the wastewater stream must be treated which results in an increase in the overall process production cost. Therefore, this research aims at reusing the wastewater produced during the de-ashing step as a substitute for freshwater addition during the conversion of PMS into ethanol. The advantages of this approach include reducing the amount of wastewater produced and enhancing the overall efficiency of the process. It will contribute to the circular economy of zero waste discharges. The results showed that 30% of the process wastewater can be recycled without affecting the enzymatic hydrolysis and ethanol fermentation. Hence, the amount of wastewater that needs to be treated is reduced by 30% resulting in a cost reduction of 22.5%. The results also showed that wastewater recycling minimized the energy demands in the distillation and evaporation units by 1206 kJ/kg. The energy reduction is due to the increase of metals and total soluble solids in the broth stream after fermentation. This process configuration enhanced the process economy, saved energy and managed waste streams.

Generation of different types and quantities of non-hazardous solid waste in the industrial sector are subject to different factors including the type of industry, production capacity, and raw materials involved in the production processes. The present study is a cross-sectional descriptive study which was conducted in 400 industries in Jordan in 2016. A structured questionnaire was used to collect all data related to the industrial processes, the types and quantities of waste generation, waste management practices and other general data. Moreover, quick-walk through assessment and observations were needed to get more details in some industries. The collected data were statistically analyzed using SPSS 19 software. Based on the results, the monthly generation rate of waste and daily waste generation per worker indicators were determined as 10,580.3 tonnes/month and 10.16 kg per day per worker, respectively. Also, it was found that the chemical industries followed by the agricultural and food Industries were the most waste generating sectors with 47.7% and 35.26%, respectively. Breaking down by NHIW category type, plastics (31.9%) and metals (28%) constituted about 59.9% of total waste generated. While only 28% of the industries showed recycling practice which is not very common in the surveyed industries, segregation of solid waste was reported by nearly 54.3% of industries within the five sectors. Moreover, the total waste generation was extrapolated based on the currently existing number of workers (93030 workers) in the five industrial sectors, and consequently estimated to equal 331743.7 tonnes per year. Finally, in total more than $71 million per year can be gained by expenses savings and recyclables selling of NHIW categories.

A new Master Program in environmental technology and management has been developed in the framework of the Swiss-Jordanian cooperation, to ensure sustainable knowledge transfer in environmental management, technology, and economics. The areas represented in this program are cleaner production, hazardous substances management, and meso-economic analysis. All of these areas are under the theme of integrated resources management. The program implementation is carried out at Princess Sumaya University for Technology PSUT through cooperation with universities and environmental organizations in Switzerland, which was started in February 2008. The need for establishing this program in Jordan emerged from the practical experience of the Swiss partners who are working in environmental management. It was found that the concept of integrated resources management and the efficient utilization of resources were under estimated by practitioners. This leads to the urge of establishing a comprehensive program to upgrade the capacity of practitioners and new graduates to be able to handle environmental resources in a sustainable manner. For this purpose, the program includes and promotes the use of a number of tools. Meso-economic analysis is introduced in the program as a suitable tool to reflect the environmental values in monetary perspective, and to fill the gap at a meso (sector level) between the traditional micro (enterprise level) and macro (country level). Thus, meso-analysis comes out with integrated picture about the whole country’s sector and its related environmental damage and remediation options.

There is a need for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) stream characterization and composition analysis to allow for an accurate estimation of its recycling potential and for effective management of the entire system. Recycling provides employment and a livelihood for vulnerable social groups such as refugees. The aim of this paper is to determine the composition of MSW in Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp, where approximately 430,000 Syrian refugees have passed through the camp. The representative waste samples and analysis included household waste and commercial waste produced by the refugees in the selected districts in Zaatari. The waste sampling was performed in 2015 over two seasons to ensure that the seasonal fluctuations in the composition of the waste stream are taken into consideration. Hand sorting was used for classifying the collected wastes into the categories and subcategories. The organic waste represents the main waste category with 53% of the total MSW, while plastics, textile, and paper and cardboard are 12.85%, 10.22% and 9%, respectively. Moreover, the MSW composition percentage in Zaatari Camp is similar to that in municipalities in Jordan with slight disparity. The potential recyclable materials market has been investigated in this study. Plastics and paper and cardboard have significant potential to be separated and collected for recycling purposes. Financial revenues of potential recyclables have been analyzed based on local prices. Recycling model in the camp is also proposed based on the present study findings. Consequently, these results should be taken as a baseline for all Syrian refugees camps in the Middle East, as well as, in Europe.

A process improvement in a tablet manufacturing process within a pharmaceutical industry was carried out based on an eco-efficiency approach. As it is one of the most energy consuming processes in the production line, the tablet manufacturing process was considered. It has the highest production volume with a complicated and long manufacturing product life cycle. Data were collected on energy inputs and emissions data for the stages of powder direct mixing, particle size reduction, and tableting. A straightforward approach was then used to analyze environmental impacts in terms of GHG emissions. Non- added value steps were removed from the product life cycle process, which has led to significant time and cost savings, as well as to a reduction in the emission. Annual economic savings have been achieved, a time reduction of approximately 71% was attained, and the reduction in GHG emissions and energy cost were 73.2%. The g CO2eq per tablet reduction has been calculated within the process improvement to be 2.06 g CO2eq per tablet instead of 7.71 g CO2eq per tablet.

Aviation is different from other energy-using activities. Currently it makes about 2% of the global CO2 emission but it is rising fast. This will negatively affecting on the environment and urges us to pay more attention to the risks of travelling on environment The principal aviation emissions include the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor (H2O), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), and soot. The emissions affect the climate through various mechanisms. CO2 has a long atmospheric residence time of about 100 years. It is well mixed throughout the atmosphere and affects the global climate as a green house gas. Aircraft engines represent an increasing and potent source of greenhouse gas emissions, due in part to the unprecedented growth in air travel. This study highlights for the first time the importance and carbon footprint of Royal Jordanian Airlines aircraft fuel in producing CO₂ airborne emissions as well as emissions generated during the flight due to the use of wide variety of products and equipment.