Understanding indicator choice for the assessment of research, development, and demonstration financing of low-carbon energy technologies: Lessons from the Nordic countries

Rapid decarbonization of whole countries requires additional research, development, and demonstration of low-carbon energy technologies. Governments support research, development, and demonstration in this area with various financing instruments. These instruments are frequently assessed by carrying out indicator-based evaluations. So far there is no standard set of indicators for this purpose. This study looks at research, development, and demonstration financing in the Nordic countries, which are frequently mentioned as leading countries with respect to eco-innovation. Different indicators are identified, selected, and analysed. The analysis of the indicator-based evaluation method includes the acceptance of an indicator, its ease of monitoring, and its robustness as assessment criteria. No indicator or set of indicators emerges as clearly superior from the analysis. Indicator choice is subject to trade-offs. This means in turn that there is room for directing evaluation results by choosing certain indicators over others. The study concludes by discussing potential policy implications of biases in indicator-based evaluation of low-carbon energy technologies research, development, and demonstration funding

Rapid decarbonisation of cities by addressing behavioural failures? A critical review of policy interventions

While many of the interventions to reduce carbon emissions target market failures, little attention is given to behavioural failures. This study investigates to what degree cities, which have taken a central role in global decarbonisation efforts, already incorporate findings from behavioural economics in their policy interventions. The ‘traditional taxonomy’ for policy intervention, represented among others in the work of the IPCC, is taken as a benchmark for assessing city’s decarbonisation interventions in the areas of building energy efficiency and transportation. Based on an extensive literature review and empirical data of urban climate networks, the study finds that market failures in adopting low-carbon technologies largely dominate the framing of policy interventions. Based on few examples of non-traditional interventions addressing behavioural failures, an alternative taxonomy to frame decarbonisation policy is discussed

Topological spinon bands and vison excitations in spin-orbit coupled quantum spin liquids

Spin liquids are exotic quantum states characterized by the existence of fractional and deconfined quasiparticle excitations, referred to as spinons and visons. Their fractional nature establishes topological properties such as a protected ground-state degeneracy. This work investigates spin-orbit coupled spin liquids where, additionally, topology enters via nontrivial band structures of the spinons. We revisit the Z2 spin-liquid phases that have recently been identified in a projective symmetry-group analysis on the square lattice when spin-rotation symmetry is maximally lifted [J. Reuther et al., Phys. Rev. B 90, 174417 (2014)]. We find that in the case of nearest-neighbor couplings only, Z2 spin liquids on the square lattice always exhibit trivial spinon bands. Adding second-neighbor terms, the simplest projective symmetry- group solution closely resembles the Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang model for topological insulators. Assuming that the emergent gauge fields are static, we investigate vison excitations, which we confirm to be deconfined in all investigated spin phases. Particularly, if the spinon bands are topological, the spinons and visons form bound states consisting of several spinon-Majorana zero modes coupling to one vison. The existence of such zero modes follows from an exact mapping between these spin phases and topological p+ip superconductors with vortices. We propose experimental probes to detect such states in real materials

The German Energiewende. A transition towards an efficient, sufficient Green Energy Economy

The German “Energiewende” (energy transition) is meant to be a contract between generations. The rebuilding of the whole energy system is designed and financed today in order to safeguard our children and grandchildren against fundamental risks: the enormous economic, social and environmental costs of a fossil-nuclear energy system, the risks of the nuclear fuel-cycle and the impacts of climate change, as well as energy import dependency, price shocks and geopolitical disputes over scarce resources. In contrast, a successful Energiewende creates new business areas and qualified jobs and increases competitiveness in the ‘green race’ – in particular on the lead markets for efficiency technology and renewable energy. Accordingly, the Energiewende is described in this book as the collective effort of post-war German history and as a unique learning arena for a positive socio-economic transformation with international relevance. The book covers the formation of both the social and scientific Energiewende consensus, quantitative scenarios, the state of the Energiewende in 2015, the need for further policy intervention – in particular with respect to energy efficiency, and not least the integration of efficiency, sufficiency and renewable energy policies

Minimum energy performance standards for the 1.5 °C target: an effective complement to carbon pricing

Radical energy efficiency improvements are needed to keep global warming within 1.5 °C until the end of the century. Minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) are a widely applied policy instrument to improve the energy efficiency of appliances and reduce CO2 emissions, but they are criticized as redundant if an overarching carbon pricing scheme is in place. In order to better understand how MEPS could play a more effective role in reaching the 1.5 °C target, life cycle costs (LCC) for four home appliances were modelled considering a cost for emitting CO2. First, a significant social cost of carbon was introduced in a LCC optimisation model and it was found that a modest tightening of MEPS is sufficient to account for the climate externality. Second, more stringent MEPS were modelled and it was found that the switching prices needed to incentivize a shift up one or two efficiency classes were far higher than current carbon prices. These results have several implications for climate policy towards the 1.5 °C target. MEPS can easily internalize the climate externality and have the advantage over carbon pricing that policy makers can be certain that consumers actually move to more efficient appliances. While stringent MEPS do not appear to be economically efficient on the short-run, they are likely cost-effective in long-run 1.5 °C-consistent scenarios

Quantum spin liquids on the diamond lattice

We perform a projective symmetry group classification of spin $S=1/2$ symmetric quantum spin liquids with different gauge groups on the diamond lattice. Employing the Abrikosov fermion representation, we obtain $8$ $SU(2)$, $62$ $U(1)$ and $80$ $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ algebraic PSGs. Constraining these solutions to mean-field parton Ans\"atze with short-range amplitudes, the classification reduces to only $2$ $SU(2)$, $7$ $U(1)$ and $8$ $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ distinctly realizable phases. We obtain both the singlet and triplet fields for all Ans\"atze, discuss the spinon dispersions, and present the dynamical spin structure factors within a self-consistent treatment of the Heisenberg Hamiltonian with up to third-nearest neighbor couplings. Interestingly, we find that a zero-flux $SU(2)$ state and some descendent $U(1)$ and $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ states host robust gapless nodal loops in their dispersion spectrum, owing their stability at the mean-field level to the projective implementation of rotoinversion and screw symmetries. A nontrivial connection is drawn between one of our $U(1)$ spinon Hamiltonians (belonging to the nonprojective class) and the Fu-Kane-Mele model for a three-dimensional topological insulator on the diamond lattice. We show that Gutzwiller projection of the 0- and $\pi$-flux $SU(2)$ spin liquids generates long-range N\'eel order.Comment: Editors' Suggestion. 36 pages, 9 figures, 9 table

Fachliches Problemlösen in der Maschinenkonstruktion - Untersuchung von Struktur und Erlernbarkeit mittels multimodaler Technikmodelle

Technische Herausforderungen des Maschinenbauingenieurwesens erfordern umfangreiche Kompetenzen des fachspezifischen, problemlösenden Denkens und Handelns. Im Beitrag wird ein entsprechendes Kompetenzmodell hergeleitet, welches ein strukturiertes Erlernen dieser Kompetenzen ermöglicht und technische Problemlösekompetenz (tPLK) in einem Konstrukt beschreiben, das durch Formulierungshilfen für Aufgabenstellungen einerseits eine Messung ermöglicht und andererseits Lernschritte modularisiert. In einer empirischen Studie wurde die Erlernbarkeit technischer Problemlösekompetenz anhand multimodaler Modelle von typischen Mechanik-Bauteilen ermittelt. In der Auswertung konnte neben einem positiven Effekt bei Motivation, ein mittlerer positiver Effekt bezüglich Systemverständnis festgestellt werden.Schlüsselwörter: Maschinenkonstruktionslehre, Produktentwicklung, technische Problemlöse-kompetenz, multimodale Technikmodell

Fachliches Problemlösen in der Maschinenkonstruktion : Untersuchung von Struktur und Erlernbarkeit mittels multimodaler Technikmodelle

Technische Herausforderungen des Maschinenbauingenieurwesens erfordern umfangreiche Kompetenzen des fachspezifischen, problemlösenden Denkens und Handelns. Im Beitrag wird ein entsprechendes Kompetenzmodell hergeleitet, welches ein strukturiertes Erlernen dieser Kompetenzen ermöglicht und technische Problemlösekompetenz (tPLK) in einem Konstrukt beschreiben, das durch Formulierungshilfen für Aufgabenstellungen einerseits eine Messung ermöglicht und andererseits Lernschritte modularisiert. In einer empirischen Studie wurde die Erlernbarkeit technischer Problemlösekompetenz anhand multimodaler Modelle von typischen Mechanik-Bauteilen ermittelt. In der Auswertung konnte neben einem positiven Effekt bei Motivation, ein mittlerer positiver Effekt bezüglich Systemverständnis festgestellt werden.Schlüsselwörter: Maschinenkonstruktionslehre, Produktentwicklung, technische Problemlöse-kompetenz, multimodale Technikmodell

The ocean sampling day consortium.

Ocean Sampling Day was initiated by the EU-funded Micro B3 (Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology) project to obtain a snapshot of the marine microbial biodiversity and function of the world's oceans. It is a simultaneous global mega-sequencing campaign aiming to generate the largest standardized microbial data set in a single day. This will be achievable only through the coordinated efforts of an Ocean Sampling Day Consortium, supportive partnerships and networks between sites. This commentary outlines the establishment, function and aims of the Consortium and describes our vision for a sustainable study of marine microbial communities and their embedded functional traits