Sustainable business models for wind and solar energy in Romania

Renewable energy has become a crucial element for the business environment as the need for new energy resources and the degree of climate change are increasing. As developed economies strive towards greater progress, sustainable business models are of the essence in order to maintain a balance between the triple bottom line: people, planet and profit. In recent years, European Union countries have installed important capacities of renewable energy, especially wind and solar energy to achieve this purpose. The objective of this article is to make a comparative study between the current sustainable business models implemented in companies that are active in the wind and solar energy sector in Romania. Both sectors underwent tremendous changes in the last two years due to changing support schemes which have had a significant influence on the mechanism of the renewable energy market, as well as on its development. Using the classical Delphi method, based on questionnaires and interviews with experts in the fields of wind and solar energy, this paper offers an overview of the sustainable business models of wind and solar energy companies, both sectors opting for the alternative of selling electricity to trading companies as a main source of revenue until 2013 and as the main future trend until 2020. Furthermore, the participating wind energy companies noted a pessimistic outlook of future investments due to legal instability that made them to reduce their projects in comparison to PV investments, which are expected to continue. The subject of the article is of interest to scientific literature because sustainable business models in wind and photovoltaic energy have been scarcely researched in previous articles and are essential in understanding the activity of the companies in these two fields of renewable energy

Public reactions towards wind energy instalments. Case study: Romania and the Netherlands

Wind energy experienced an exponential development in the past two decades, forming a main source of energy today, but also a frequently encountered issue of debate due to the increased proximity of wind turbines to citizens’ residence, especially in the case of the Western part of the European Union. Although the benefits of renewable sources of energy represent a compulsory effort towards ensuring sustainable energy strategies for the future, due to the increased pressure of balancing climate change, limitation of traditional energy resources and economic competition, the expansion of wind parks has caused strong reactions of local communities in many regions leading to the reorganization of public exposure strategies of many companies in the field. This research intends to offer a sample of public perceptions of wind turbines depending on several influence factors, based on the answers of 64 Dutch citizens and 40 Romanian respondents. Through the implementation of the Delphi method based on questionnaires and interviews, an overview of perceptions towards placement of wind turbines in the two analyzed countries has been offered, providing significant answers to the influence factors of public reactions for or against wind turbines. The main results of the research revealed the importance of financial benefits in increasing public acceptance of wind farms, as well as several subjective factors, such as the visual impact of wind turbines and onshore or offshore placement, that contribute to a positive or negative behavior of citizens towards it

Study regarding the sequence of eruption of permanent teeth at a group of children from Buzau

Tooth eruption is a physiological process in which the tooth migrates from the maxillary bone towards the oral cavity, at the end of which teeth find their place on the arch creating vicinity relations according to a genetic code characteristic to each individual. Dental eruption begins with the eruption of the first primary teeth around 6 months and finishes at 2 years and a half for primary teeth, and around 18 – 25 years for permanent teeth, when the third molar erupts. The teeth’s eruption and development is, usually, related to the child’s chronological age, but there can also be some discordances as we refer to a precocious eruption or, on the contrary, to a delayed one. The chronology of dental eruption is submitted to a genetic model that is valid for the entire human population. Nevertheless, the values for the initial and ending moments of each stage present important variations that require the study of the average values and mostly of the variability limits for different characteristic human samples thus to create reliable norms for comparing individual values