A regional typology of innovation capacities in new member States & candidate countries

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White paper on the future of plasma science and technology in plastics and textiles

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: “Uros, C., Walsh, J., Cernák, M., Labay, C., Canal, J.M., Canal, C. (2019) White paper on the future of plasma science and technology in plastics and textiles. Plasma processes and polymers, 16 1 which has been published in final form at [doi: 10.1002/ppap.201700228]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving."This white paper considers the future of plasma science and technology related to the manufacturing and modifications of plastics and textiles, summarizing existing efforts and the current state‐of‐art for major topics related to plasma processing techniques. It draws on the frontier of plasma technologies in order to see beyond and identify the grand challenges which we face in the following 5–10 years. To progress and move the frontier forward, the paper highlights the major enabling technologies and topics related to the design of surfaces, coatings and materials with non‐equilibrium plasmas. The aim is to progress the field of plastics and textile production using advanced plasma processing as the key enabling technology which is environmentally friendly, cost efficient, and offers high‐speed processingPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Sector coupling in an urban development on a city district level

The concept of sector coupling has garnered attention over the last few years as an important component in the energy transition. Particularly, the term holds growing interest given the benefits it delivers in energy systems, providing flexibility and higher integration of renewable energy sources in an environment where the stability of the grid is increasingly volatile. This holds pertinence in the development of urban landscapes given the high energy requirements of such areas. As such, this Master’s thesis aims to gain an understanding of the viability and impact of sector coupling in urban developments on a city district level, investigating the integration of generation and storage assets in the energy system of Ulleråker. The city district in the Södra Staden project is part of the expansion of southern Uppsala and is chosen as the study area due to its primarily domestic and commercial profile, providing insights into the development of future residential areas. Additionally, the ongoing construction activities in Ulleråker and Uppsala kommun's commitment to climate-neutrality objectives make it a practical and relevant case study for examining sector coupling and its implications. To assess the potential for sector coupling in the development of Ulleråker, a comprehensive methodology is employed in this study. Initially, a thematic analysis using NVivo software is conducted to identify the relevant elements of sector coupling based on previous research. This analysis helps in determining the key features and characteristics of sector coupling that are most pertinent to the case study. Subsequently, available schematics of the program area, consulting reports, and interviews with both Uppsala kommun and Vattenfall are utilized to perform a thorough analysis of the program area. EnergyPLAN is ultimately selected as the modelling tool due to its holistic approach to energy systems modelling and ability to provide output at an hourly resolution. The model's built-in distribution library is also used in conjunction with annual demand measurements to project demand profiles for Ulleråker, facilitating a comprehensive assessment of sector coupling opportunities in the area. The energy system design is optimized based on technical and market-economic considerations relative to a base case. The implementation of sector coupling applications in the city district study yields notable outcomes. Carbon intensity is reduced by an average of 41.33% through the substitution of boiler plants with heat pumps, leading to a less carbon-intensive system. The annual heating supply remains consistent at approximately 41.2 GWh, while the electricity supply increases from 13.5 GWh to an average of 20.1 GWh in both simulations due to a more diverse supply profile and additional demands from heat generation and storage assets. The technical simulation results in a more energy-independent system with a 62.88% decrease in import from the main grid, while the market simulation relies more on grid import with an 18.33% increase. The cost analysis shows similar costs for both simulations, averaging 118,763 MSEK, representing a 14% increase compared to the base case without sector coupling technologies. Based on simulations, it is also deemed that simplifications in EnergyPLAN limit the detailed assessment of heat production and storage, potentially affecting the accuracy of the results and indicating a significant limitation of the modelling tool. Future work should address the limitations of the current study and explore the potential of sector coupling on larger scales, enabling a more integrated and comprehensive approach to energy system design and managemen

An Assessment of Civil Nuclear ‘Enabling’ and ‘Amelioration’ Factors for EROI Analysis

Nuclear fission is a primary energy source that may be important to future efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The energy return on investment (EROI) of any energy source is important because aggregate global EROI must be maintained at a minimum level to support complex global systems. Previous studies considering nuclear EROI have emphasised energy investments linked to ‘enabling’ factors (upstream activities that enable the operation of nuclear technology such as fuel enrichment), have attracted controversy, and challenges also persist regarding system boundary definition. This study advocates that improved consideration of ‘amelioration’ factors (downstream activities that remediate nuclear externalities such as decommissioning), is an important task for calculating a realistic nuclear EROI. Components of the ‘nuclear system’ were analysed and energy investment for five representative ‘amelioration’ factors calculated. These ‘first approximation’ calculations made numerous assumptions, exclusions, and simplifications, but accounted for a greater level of detail than had previously been attempted. The amelioration energy costs were found to be approximately 1.5–2 orders of magnitude lower than representative ‘enabling’ costs. Future refinement of the ‘amelioration’ factors may indicate that they are of greater significance, and may also have characteristics making them systemically significant, notably in terms of timing in relation to future global EROI declines

Cohesion policy in the light of place-based innovation support: New approaches in multi-actors, decentralised regional settings with bottom-up strategies?

According to the Barca report and the OECD, the place-based development approach is a new paradigm of regional policy. It underlines the necessity to distribute policy design and implementation among different policy levels in order to tailor policy measures to the specific local conditions. Place-based initiatives inherit a strong bottom-up element in public governance. Taking the innovation orientation in European cohesion policy as a starting point, it is the objective of this paper to analyse whether the recent implementation of structural and cohesion policy shows indications for place-based policy designs and governance. Germany is used as a case study, because it can be expected that in federal systems multi-level and bottom-up policy structures are already strongly evident. The major question the paper seeks to answer is whether the recent experiences from German cohesion policy formulation and implementation allow to identify starting points for the future design of European cohesion policy. --place-based approach,cohesion policy,multi-level governance,innovation policy,Germany