9,039 research outputs found
Car Industry developments – oil industry challenges
Automotive industry of Europe is one of the greatest economical powers, the „engine
of Europe”. It employs directly 2.2 million people and 10 million in related industries and
services. Combined turnover of automotive manufacturers reaches 700 billion EUR (retail
another 520 billion EUR). The industry is the largest R&D investor in EU. On the other hand
the transport sector carries a huge safety and environmental risk. Thanks to this fact the
automotive industry is one of the most regulated sectors in the EU. As a result of these
regulations: one average car built in 1970s produced as many pollutant elements as one
hundred cars manufactured today.
These achievements are based on struggles of both the auto and oil industry as
parallel with technology development in car industry fuel quality developments achieved by
the oil industry drove to a much “cleaner” fuel quality (unleaded sulphur free petrol, reduction
of aromatics, benzene; sulphur free diesel, reduction of density, poly-aromatics, etc.).
In the end of the 1990s, and especially for the last few years new challenges came
into the focus of the auto and oil industry of the EU and the world. Concerns about high
energy prices and price volatility, security of worldwide oil supply and climate change
became a main policy agenda of the EU and the world. This new policy is reflected in new
regulatory initiatives requiring cars using less energy more efficiently, emitting less carbondioxide
and using growing proportion of renewable fuels. The European Commission
declared the idea of “Cars for Fuels” instead of “Fuels for Cars”.
This article discusses in detail the regulations and challenges that rose towards oil
and car industry during the recent years. It describes the possible solutions in order to fulfil
the requirements of the EU. After that a wide picture is presented without going into much
detail on developments of the automotive industry. Developments are divided between
vehicle level, engine level and fuel level technologies, also paying attention to technologies
that are less known or rather futuristic
Measuring the solar potential of a city and its implications on energy policy
This research investigates the maximum potential energy that can be made available by efficiently installing PV systems on buildings throughout a city, from the central business district (CBD) out to low density suburbs. The purpose of this is to evaluate the contribution that electricity from PVs can make to reduce the electricity load of a city, supply the needs of a mixture of building types, reduce peak electricity demand and contribute towards the charging of electric vehicles (EVs).
A sample of the main urban building types have been taken and reassembled into a representative typical cross-section of a city. The application of PVs for all the building types is investigated and then the potential electricity distribution is evaluated for different urban densities and dispersion patterns. This research is concerned not only with how individual buildings may gain from distributed generation (DG) but, more importantly, how a city as a whole may benefit.
The results indicate that low dense suburbia is not only the most efficient collector of solar energy but that enough excess electricity can be generated to power daily transport needs of suburbia and also contribute to peak daytime electrical loads in the city centre. This challenges conventional thinking that suburbia is energy inefficient. While a compact city may be more efficient for the internal combustion engine vehicles, a dispersed city is more efficient when DG solar power is the main energy source and EVs are the means of transport
Ultra Low Carbon Vehicles: New Parameters for Automotive Design
As the influence of vehicle emissions on our environment has become better understood, the UK government has recently placed urgent emphasis on the implementation of low carbon
technologies in the automotive industry through: the UK Low Carbon Industrial Strategy. The overall objective is to offer big incentives to consumers and support for the development of infrastructure and engineering solutions. This scheme however does not consider how the development of functional and experiential user value might drive consumer demand, contributing to the adoption of low carbon vehicles (LCVs) in the mass market.
With the emergence of the North East of England as the UK’s first specialised region for the development of ultra-low carbon vehicles (ULCVs), ONE North East, as a development agency for the region's economic and business development, and Northumbria University Ideas-lab have supported a project to facilitate innovation through the collaboration of technology, research and development (R&D) and business. The High Value Low Carbon (HVLC) project aims to envisage
new user value made possible by the integration of low carbon vehicle platforms with new process and network technologies. The HVLC consortium represents vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers as well as technology based companies and through an ongoing process of design concept generation the project offers a hub for innovation led enterprise.
Whilst new technological developments in areas such as power generation, nano materials, hydrogen fuel cells, printed electronics and networked communications will all impact on future automotive design, the mass adoption of low carbon technologies represents a paradigm shift for the motorist. This paper aims to describe how the mapping of new parameters will lead to new transport scenarios that will create the space for new collaborative research on user experiences supported by innovative technologies and related services
AQUIFER Nano-Electrofuel Energy Economy and Powered Aircraft Operations
The Aqueous, QUick-charging battery Integration For Electric flight Research project is explained and the major subsystems are described, including nano-electric fluid, rim-driven motors, and integration concepts. The nano-electric fluid concept is a new type of aqueous flow battery that could reduce or retire the fire and explosion hazards of conventional batteries and fuel cells. The nano-electric fluid itself could enable energy storage and increased available energy per fuel weight ratios. The rim-driven motor is being developed to improve propulsion system safety and stability and to reduce noise. The rim-driven motor concept could enable motors that are more efficient both electrically and aerodynamically. The Energy Economy of the project concept is presented as a potential renewable or green energy sustainment for utilizing in-place infrastructure. The nano-electric fluid energy charge-use-recharge cycle is presented using renewable energy input from solar, wind, and hydroelectricity. Powered aircraft operations are presented, and the logistics of the new nano-electric fluid technology are explored. Powered aircraft operations topics include weight and balance, fueling, recharging, safety, and derivative considerations
Advances in Repurposing and Recycling of Post-Vehicle-Application Lithium-Ion Batteries
Increased electrification of vehicles has increased the use of lithium-ion batteries for energy storage, and raised the issue of what to do with post-vehicle-application batteries. Three possibilities have been identified: 1) remanufacturing for intended reuse in vehicles; 2) repurposing for non-vehicle, stationary storage applications; and 3) recycling, extracting the precious metals, chemicals and other byproducts. Advances in repurposing and recycling are presented, along with a mathematical model that forecasts the manufacturing capacity needed for remanufacturing, repurposing, and recycling. Results obtained by simulating the model show that up to a 25% reduction in the need for new batteries can be achieved through remanufacturing, that the sum of repurposing and remanufacturing capacity is approximately constant across various scenarios encouraging the sharing of resources, and that the need for recycling capacity will be significant by 2030. A repurposing demonstration shows the use of post-vehicle-application batteries to support a semi-portable recycling platform. Energy is collected from solar panels, and dispensed to electrical devices as required. Recycling may be complicated: lithium-ion batteries produced by different manufacturers contain different active materials, particularly for the cathodes. In all cases, however, the collecting foils used in the anodes are copper, and in the cathodes are aluminum. A common recycling process using relatively low acid concentrations, low temperatures, and short time periods was developed and demonstrated
On the potential contribution of rooftop PV to a sustainable electricity mix: the case of Spain
This work evaluates the potential contribution of rooftop PV to the future
electricity mix. Several sustainable scenarios are considered, each comprising
different shares of centralized renewables, rooftop PV and storage. For each
generation scenario, the storage capacity that balances the net hourly demand
is determined, and the portfolio combination that minimizes the cost of
supplying electricity is obtained. The analysis is applied to mainland Spain,
using public information and detailed granular models, both in time (hourly
resolution) and space (municipal level). For the Spanish case, when the
flexibility of hydro and biomass generation is taken into account, the
least-cost portfolio involves rather modest storage capacities, in the order of
daily rather than seasonal values. This shows that a sustainable, almost
emissions-free electricity system for Spain is possible, at a cost that can be
even lower than current wholesale market prices.Comment: 7 tables & 11 figures in the main body (24 pages), and 13 pages for
the supplementary material, wit
Distributed multi-agent algorithm for residential energy management in smart grids
Distributed renewable power generators, such as solar cells and wind turbines are difficult to predict, making the demand-supply problem more complex than in the traditional energy production scenario. They also introduce bidirectional energy flows in the low-voltage power grid, possibly causing voltage violations and grid instabilities. In this article we describe a distributed algorithm for residential energy management in smart power grids. This algorithm consists of a market-oriented multi-agent system using virtual energy prices, levels of renewable energy in the real-time production mix, and historical price information, to achieve a shifting of loads to periods with a high production of renewable energy. Evaluations in our smart grid simulator for three scenarios show that the designed algorithm is capable of improving the self consumption of renewable energy in a residential area and reducing the average and peak loads for externally supplied power
Smart Procurement of Naturally Generated Energy (SPONGE) for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Buses
We discuss a recently introduced ECO-driving concept known as SPONGE in the
context of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Buses (PHEB)'s.Examples are given to
illustrate the benefits of this approach to ECO-driving. Finally, distributed
algorithms to realise SPONGE are discussed, paying attention to the privacy
implications of the underlying optimisation problems.Comment: This paper is recently submitted to the IEEE Transactions on
Automation Science and Engineerin
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