Geoengineering Governance, the Linear Model of Innovation, and the Accompanying Geoengineering Approach

This paper aims to address the lack of critique of the linear model in geoengineering governance discourse, and to illustrate different considerations for a geoengineering governance framework that is not based on a linear model of technology innovation. Finally, we set to explore a particular approach to geoengineering governance based on Peter-Paul Verbeek’s notion of ‘technology accompaniment

The responses of older adults to smart energy monitors

By 2020, every UK household has the option to have a Smart Energy Monitor (SEM) installed, displaying electricity consumption monetarily. The success of the £11 billion scheme in enabling people to reduce energy consumption is questioned amongst researchers and relatively little is known about older adults' (60 + years) responses to SEMs. This paper explores older adult responses to SEM feedback and compares them to those of younger-middle aged adults (25–59 years). A qualitative, interpretative methodology was used with participants from 20 households recording their SEM experiences during one month through a diary, and post-study semi-structured interview allowing methodological triangulation. Data analysis indicated that older adults were generally more aware of their energy use pre-SEM and practiced energy saving behaviours learnt from upbringing. This appeared to result in negligible positive benefits and low engagement with the device. Other limiting factors included lack of technical skills and confidence, and the risk of losing the comfort and convenience of using electrical appliances. The device also triggered negative emotions and depression amongst some older adults surrounding electricity usage, potentially leading to dangerously cold homes. Consequently, the scheme's appropriateness is questioned, especially for older adults, and improvements are suggested for SEMs and the scheme

Presidendi-instituut : peale ilmasõda tekkinud põhikordade järgi

Digiteeritud Rahvusarhiivi koordineeritud MKMi rahastatud SF-projekti „Vaba rahvas vabal maal (1920-1940)“ raames OÜ Andmevara Services poolthttps://www.ester.ee/record=b3605321*es

‘Cleaner innovation’? A political process approach to environmental aspects of process technology innovations

This thesis seeks to improve our understanding of the integration of explicit environmental motives into innovation processes. This will be done by applying insights from the social shaping of technology field as well as organisation studies to the area of environmental innovation, which is dominated by environmental management literature. The environmental innovation literature typically conflates the motives behind environmental innovations and the resulting technological outcomes, thus reifying environmental motives and causing confusion regarding the concepts of ‘environmental innovation’ and ‘cleaner technology’. We will here disentangle motives and outcomes and contextualise innovations in terms of other motives as well as other practices than those labelled environmental. An underlying assumption in the literature is also that firms are monolithic, rational actors where management decisions are implemented by straightforward translations into technological solutions, neglecting any influence from other actors in the firm. We will here instead investigate the processual and political aspects of innovations and their environmental aspects. Special attention will be given to the roles and expertise of engineers, environmental staff and managers. Moreover, a lot of the environmental innovation literature is determinist in its attempts to promote ‘best practice’ and the greening of firms. To avoid this we will, through a focus on the processual and structural dimensions of firm organisation, seek to distinguish between one-off contingencies and longer lasting changes. We will also be sensitive to the possibility that organisational change may lead to worse as well as better environmental performance. This thesis looks at chemicals industry firms since they have a long history of exposure to environmental regulation, and are likely to have well-developed routines and expertise for environmental innovations. As a comparison dairy industry firms are also studied. To avoid decontextualisation and environmental management determinism, we chose cases irrespective of whether the environmental motive was central to the innovation or not. The cases include both core technology and end-of-pipe innovations. The data was collected mainly through semi-structured interviews with actors in the firms. The analysis is based on comparison of cases in the two industrial sectors, and in Sweden and Scotland. A central result of the thesis is that we can and should distinguish between ‘unintentional’, ‘intentional’ and ‘ambitious’ cleaner technology innovations, depending on the role of environmental motives in the innovation process. We also saw that the environmental label could be doing purely rhetorical work independently of the design choices made. In fact, we saw no example of ambitious cleaner technology, and few cases of intentional cleaner technology, which is surprising given the choice of chemicals industry cases. In terms of firm organisation, we have developed the concept of the Company Social Constitution to capture the structured context of environmental work in innovation processes. This helped us explain the roles of environmental staff as buffers and boundary spanners, in competition with engineers regarding technological work, and depending on current and past regulatory pressure. Finally, we were able to put forth a new theorisation of environmental championing that captures both structural and action aspects of organisational life to explain this behaviour

Efficiency of building related pump and fan operation - Application and system solutions

The electric energy use in Swedish non-industrial buildings is 71 TWh per year out of which 30 TWh per year is used for the operation of technical systems. A significant part of those 30 TWh/year is used for pump and fan operation. The Swedish parliament decided in 2009 on a national energy and climate plan. By the year 2050 the energy use per unit conditioned floor area in the Swedish building stock must be halved compared to the year of 1995. The objective of this thesis is to find means to reduce pump and fan energy in the non-industrial buildings. The aim is to find systems and components that can provide energy reduction in pump and fan systems by 50 %. In the thesis the current situation in non-industrial buildings regarding pump and fan systems has been described and the energy saving potentials, both at component and at system level, have been identified and discussed. Furthermore, the possibility of decentralized pump and fan systems has been examined. The calculated saving potential is 50 % and 40 % respectively for pump and fan operation in non-industrial buildings. This may be achieved by improving pump efficiency and specific fan power to state-of-the-art efficiency and recommended SFP values. System changes can also provide major additional energy savings in pump and fan operation. A decentralized pump heating system has been implemented in real life and results show a reduction of pump energy by 70 %. The theoretical parts of the thesis are supported by four case studies in real buildings and by three laboratory studies

Total bacterial count as an attribute for raw milk quality

Milk is a nutritious food and at the same time a substrate where microorganisms thrive. Their metabolic impact can be useful in dairy fermentation, but the degradation of compounds within its habitat can also cause dairy food spoilage. The amount and type of bacteria directly affect the quality of the milk, in industry mostly evaluated by total bacterial count (TBC). TBC is an indicator of the hygienic conditions at farm level, as well as for the hygienic quality of the raw milk, where premium payment systems use TBC in the prizing of milk to the farmer. However, TBC merely gives the enumeration of bacteria in milk and not its microbial composition. Milk microbiota is today known to mainly consist of a few genera, but with high diversity and variations, thus the gap between TBC and milk microbiota has widened. Therefore, the aim in this literature study was to evaluate TBC as an attribute for milk quality and to relate TBC to alternative methods. Many factors related to farm management influence both bacterial counts and microbiota. Properly maintained hygiene and milk storing is of major importance from farm to dairy plant, and deviations cause bacterial counts to increase and contaminants with spoilage capacity to dominate. Correlations between TBC and bacteria of specific concern have been reported, although not consistently. TBC and psychrotrophic counts show similar dynamics, whereas thermotolerant bacteria are more frequent in milk with low total counts. Spoilage of pasteurized and ultra-high temperature processing (UHT) milk is mainly due to the heat-resistant enzymes produced by Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter and Bacillus. The numbers of these bacteria are of great importance for the industry in a milk production of high hygienic quality. Proteolytic activity is shown to have a relatively strong correlation with those bacteria and could thus be a more adequate indicator of milk quality, preferably evaluated close in time for processing. A focus on establishing alternative methods is needed to find more adequate indicators that meet dairy industry´s current needs.Mjölk är en näringsrik vätska men samtidigt ett substrat där mikroorganismer trivs. Deras metaboliska inverkan kan vara användbar i fermenteringen för olika mejeriprodukter, men omvandlingen av mjölkens komponenter kan också orsaka svinn. Den hygieniska mjölkkvaliteten beror på mängden och typen av bakterier i råmjölk, i mejeribranschen mestadels utvärderad som totala antalet bakterier. Bakterietal är en hygienindikator på gårdsnivå, liksom för den hygieniska kvaliteten på mjölk där betalningssystem använder måttet vid prissättning av råmjölk till mjölkproducenten. Men bakterietal ger bara antalet bakterier och inte någon information om dess mikrobiotiska uppbyggnad. Mjölkens mikrobiota är idag känt för att huvudsakligen bestå av några få släkten, men i hög mångfald och variation. Avståndet mellan bakterietal och mjölkens mikrobiota har således ökat. Syftet med denna litteraturstudie var att utvärdera bakterietal som attribut för hygienisk mjölkkvalitet i relation till andra analysmetoder. Många faktorer på gård påverkar både bakterietal och dess mikrobiotiska sammansättning. God hygien och bibehållen kyllagring från gård till mejeri är avgörande och avvikelser gör att bakterietal och andelen oönskade bakterier ökar. Samband mellan bakterietal och bakterier av särskilt intresse finns rapporterat. Dock finns studier där sambandet saknas. Totala antalet bakterier och psykrotrofa bakterier visar en likartad dynamik medan termotoleranta bakterier är rapporterat att vara vanligare i mjölk med lågt bakterietal. Pastöriserad och UHT-mjölk härsknar främst på grund av de värmetoleranta enzymer som produceras av Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter och Bacillus. Antalet av dessa bakterier är i och med detta av stor betydelse för industrin i en mjölkproduktion av hög hygienisk kvalitet. Proteolytisk aktivitet har visat sig vara jämförelsevis starkt relaterat med dessa bakterier och kan vara lämpligare som indikator av mjölkkvaliteten direkt före vidare förädling. Fokus på att finna mer lämpliga indikatorer för att möta branschens nuvarande behov är nödvändigt

Political obstacles to carbon capture and storage for carbon removal

Using carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) for carbon removal is crucial to climate policy, but implementation at scale is at risk owing to political obstacles. Climate policies must avoid relying on empty promises of CCS for carbon removal without necessary financial resourcing and support emissions reductions separately from carbon removal

Increased photovoltaic utilisation from direct current distribution: Quantification of geographical location impact

In this paper, the performance of a direct current (DC) distribution system is modelled for a single-family residential building and compared with a conventional alternating current (AC) system to quantify the potential energy savings and gains in photovoltaic (PV) utilisation. The modelling is made for two different climates to quantify the impact of the geographical location. Results show that the system losses are reduced by 19–46% and the PV utilisation increased by 3.9–7.4% when using a DC distribution system compared to an AC equivalent, resulting in system efficiency gains in the range of 1.3–8.8%. Furthermore, it is shown that the geographical location has some effect on the system\u27s performance and PV utilisation, but most importantly, the grid interaction is paramount for the performance of the DC topology

Battery loss prediction using various loss models: A case study for a residential building

This work compares and quantifies the annual losses for three battery system loss representations in a case study for a residential building with solar photovoltaic (PV). Two loss representations consider the varying operating conditions and use the measured performance of battery power electronic converters (PECs) but differ in using either a constant or current-dependent internal battery cell resistance. The third representation is load-independent and uses a (fixed) round trip efficiency. The work uses sub-hourly measurements of the load and PV profiles and includes the results from varying PV and battery size combinations. The results reveal an inadequacy of using a constant battery internal resistance and quantify the annual loss discrepancy to −38.6%, compared to a case with current-dependent internal resistance. The results also show the flaw of modelling the battery system\u27s efficiency with a fixed round trip efficiency, with loss discrepancy variation between −5 to 17% depending on the scenario. Furthermore, the necessity of accounting for the cell\u27s loss is highlighted, and its dependence on converter loading is quantified