Estimating Regional Shadow Prices of CO2 in China: A Directional Environmental Production Frontier Approach

Shadow price of carbon dioxide (CO2) plays a fundamental role in evaluating CO2 abatement cost and formulating regional environmental policies. In this study, CO2 shadow prices are estimated in 29 provinces of China from 2006 to 2015. Directional Environmental Production Frontier Function (DEPFF) measures the distance between actual production points and the effective production frontier surface, which yields the shadow prices of CO2 emission. With the relationship between CO2 emission and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth which is encapsulated in the shadow price, the provinces are classified into three groups: acceleration zone, buffer zone, and deceleration zone. The acceleration zone is characterized by a smaller emission growth driving a greater economic growth, and the provincial average price of CO2 is 184.16 US$/ton. In the buffer zone, a significant emission increase brings about less economic growth with the average shadow price at 86.57 US$/ton. In the deceleration zone, a high growth rate of CO2 emissions is accompanied with an economic output decrease, which implies that the shadow price of CO2 should be negative, and the mean value is −200.7 US$/ton. As the CO2 abatement potential differs significantly across provinces, the environmental policy and CO2 reduction targets should be region-specific

Short-Term Wind Speed Forecasting Based on Hybrid Variational Mode Decomposition and Least Squares Support Vector Machine Optimized by Bat Algorithm Model

With the integration of wind energy into electricity grids, wind speed forecasting plays an important role in energy generation planning, power grid integration and turbine maintenance scheduling. This study proposes a hybrid wind speed forecasting model to enhance prediction performance. Variational mode decomposition (VMD) was applied to decompose the original wind speed series into different sub-series with various frequencies. A least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) model with the pertinent parameters being optimized by a bat algorithm (BA) was established to forecast those sub-series extracted from VMD. The ultimate forecast of wind speed can be obtained by accumulating the prediction values of each sub-series. The results show that: (a) VMD-BA-LSSVM displays better capacity for the prediction of ultra short-term (15 min) and short-term (1 h) wind speed forecasting; (b) the proposed forecasting model was compared with wavelet decomposition (WD) and ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD), and the results indicate that VMD has stronger decomposition ability than WD and EEMD, thus, significant improvements in forecasting accuracy were obtained with the proposed forecasting models compared with other forecasting methods

Effect of Rice Protein Meal Replacement of Fish Meal on Growth, Anti-Oxidation Capacity, and Non-Specific Immunity for Juvenile Shrimp <i>Litopenaeus vannamei</i>

This study assessed the effect of rice protein meal replacement for fish meal on the growth, nonspecific immunity, and disease resistance on juvenile shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei. Six groups of iso-nitrogenous and iso-lipid feeds named FM, R10, R20, R40, R60, and R80 were prepared by replacing 0%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 60%, and 80% in FM protein with RPM, respectively, and then fed to the shrimps (0.54 ± 0.01 g). An amount of 720 healthy and evenly sized shrimps were allocated to six groups (three replicates per group) and fed four times a day (7:00, 11:00, 17:00 and 21:00) for eight weeks. Results revealed no significant differences in WG, FCR, and SGR of shrimps after replacing FM with 10% RPM (p > 0.05). In the R10 and R20 groups, SOD and T-AOC activities were significantly higher than those in the FM group, whereas the opposite was observed for MDA content (p p p p eif3k) gene was significantly up-regulated in the R10 group, whereas the penaiedin 3a (pen 3a) and anti-lipopolysaccharide factor (alf) genes were significantly up-regulated in the R10 and R20 groups (p cru a), immune deficiency (imd), and lysozyme (lzm) mRNA levels were significantly higher in the R10, R20, and R40 groups than in the other groups (p PO) mRNA levels in the R20 group were significantly higher than those in the FM group (p Aspergillus and Vibrio) abundance. After the challenge test of Vibrio parahaemolyticus (7 days), the cumulative mortality in the R10 group significantly decreased (p L. vannamei

Study on the Co-Benefits of Air Pollution Control and Carbon Reduction in the Yellow River Basin: An Assessment Based on a Spatial Econometric Model

To assess the green and low-carbon development of the Yellow River Basin (YRB) in China, this study utilizes an evaluation index system based on the framework of driving force, pressure, state, impacts, response, and management, and it measured the comprehensive scores of the co-benefits of carbon reduction and air pollution control in the YRB. The global Moran index was used to analyze the spatial correlation characteristics of co-benefits, and a generalized spatial measurement model was constructed to demonstrate their spatial spillover effects. The results show that the co-benefits steadily increased every year. The co-benefits had a significant positive spatial correlation and showed a development trend of &ldquo;up&ndash;down&ndash;up&rdquo;. According to the spillover effect test, the economic development level, education level, and intensity of environmental regulations had significant positive effects, while the level of urbanization and foreign investment had significant negative effects. Considering these results and the aim of promoting green and low-carbon development, clear detection of the spatial spillover characteristics of the co-benefits should be prioritized, followed by an understanding of the spatial transmission mechanism of carbon and air pollutant emission and transfer. Policy recommendations are also proposed including upgrading industrial structure, focusing on the development of modern services and high-tech industry, and strictly implementing the industrial environment access system

Influence of Storage Temperature on the Qualities of Fresh Soybeans during Storage

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of storage temperature on the qualities of fresh soybeans during storage and to determine the optimum storage temperature for fresh soybeans. Fresh soybeans were stored at 1, 5, 9 and 13 ℃. During storage, the sensory indicators (weight loss rate, hardness, browning index, brightness, red-green value and yellow-blue value), nutritional indicators (soluble protein content, total sugar content and reducing sugar content) and physiological indicators (respiration intensity and malondialdehyde content) of fresh soybeans were monitored, and the correlation analysis of these indicators was carried out. Finally, the optimal storage temperature was determined by principal component analysis. The results showed that compared with the storage temperatures of 9 ℃ and 13 ℃, 1 ℃ and 5 ℃ low storage temperature were significantly conducive to reducing the weight loss rate, delaying the browning, maintaining the colours, keeping the appropriate hardness, holding the contents of soluble protein, total sugar and reducing sugar of fresh soybeans relatively stable. And after 15 days of storage, it still retained its edible value. While the storage time of fresh soybeans stored at 9 ℃ and 13 ℃ shall not exceed 9~12 days. The start time of malondialdehyde accumulation was delayed in fresh soybeans stored at 1 ℃. Its accumulation amount (only twice that of the fresh samples) was much lower than that in the other three storage temperatures after 15 days of storage. Meanwhile, its respiration intensity remained at 40% when the fresh soybeans were returned to room temperature. Correlation analysis showed that the sensory index, nutritional index and physiological index were closely related. PCA analysis showed that among the four storage temperatures, 1 ℃ had the best freshness preservation effect, followed by 5 ℃

Social Network Relationships between Biomass Industry Stakeholders in the Agricultural Waste Power Generation Industry&mdash;A Case of Northern Jiangsu, China

This study aimed to explore the impact of the interaction between stakeholders in the sustainable development of the biomass industry and to reveal network issues relating to material flow and information flow under the current biomass energy development model. This study focused on the agriculture and forestry waste power generation industry. Taking the biomass industry in Nanjing, Suqian, and Yancheng as examples, the study selected six stakeholder groups involved in the industry and conducted field investigations by using semi-open interviews and questionnaires. The research mainly applied social network analysis methods, combined with UCINET software, to draw a network diagram of the stakeholder relationships and to quantitatively analyze stakeholder centrality and overall network density. The results revealed that (1) the biomass enterprises had the highest centrality in the overall network, which played a vital role in the construction of the overall network; (2) the farmers were positioned at the outer fringes of the industrial social network and their information acquisition capabilities and degree of control over the network were the lowest; and (3) the overall network density was low, which showed that the connections between stakeholders were not close enough to support the circulation of material and information in the overall network

Social Network Relationships between Biomass Industry Stakeholders in the Agricultural Waste Power Generation Industry—A Case of Northern Jiangsu, China

This study aimed to explore the impact of the interaction between stakeholders in the sustainable development of the biomass industry and to reveal network issues relating to material flow and information flow under the current biomass energy development model. This study focused on the agriculture and forestry waste power generation industry. Taking the biomass industry in Nanjing, Suqian, and Yancheng as examples, the study selected six stakeholder groups involved in the industry and conducted field investigations by using semi-open interviews and questionnaires. The research mainly applied social network analysis methods, combined with UCINET software, to draw a network diagram of the stakeholder relationships and to quantitatively analyze stakeholder centrality and overall network density. The results revealed that (1) the biomass enterprises had the highest centrality in the overall network, which played a vital role in the construction of the overall network; (2) the farmers were positioned at the outer fringes of the industrial social network and their information acquisition capabilities and degree of control over the network were the lowest; and (3) the overall network density was low, which showed that the connections between stakeholders were not close enough to support the circulation of material and information in the overall network

Synergic emissions reduction effect of China's "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan": benefits and efficiency

Large amounts of fossil fuels that are consumed in association with the urbanization process, lead to billions of tons of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Air pollution control policies have the synergic effects on carbon emissions reduction, but whether they can improve the synergic emission reduction efficiency (SERE) needs to be studied. 279 Chinese cities are selected as research samples. We evaluate the synergic effect of China's "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan" (APPCAP) from the perspectives of benefits and efficiency with the Difference-in-differences (DID) model. We further decompose the SERE into synergic emission reduction technological efficiency change (SEREEC) and synergic emission reduction technological change (SERETC) to analyze the internal impact mechanisms. The result shows that: (1) SERE has increased by 8 % from 2010 to 2017, for the expansion of the possibility boundary. (2) The APPCAP has co-benefit of carbon emissions reduction by 1.5 %, but inhibits the SERE increase by 1.2 % because of the lack of resource allocation efficiency improvement. (3) The APPCAP has an inhibitory effect on SEREEC and a promoting effect on SERETC. Therefore, the government should emphasize the source control and treatment efficiency, and further strengthen the system innovation for achieving urban sustainable development effectively.This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos: 71774033 and 31961143006), and Fudan Tyndall Centre of Fudan University (grant no. IDH6286315)