Evaluation and analysis of noise levels in Ilorin metropolis, Nigeria

Evaluation and analysis of noise pollution levels have been carried out to determine the level of noise and its sources in Ilorin metropolis. Noise measurements have been done in the morning, at noon, in the evening, and at night to determine noise pollution all over the city. The selected areas of study are commercial centers, road junctions/busy roads, passenger loading parks, and high-density and low-density residential areas. The road junctions had the highest noise pollution levels, followed by commercial centers. The results of this study show that the noise levels in Ilorin metropolis exceeded allowed values at 30 of 42 measurements points. There is a significant difference (P < 0.05) in the noise pollution levels and traffic noise index in all the locations. From the measured noise values, a map of noise pollution was developed for Ilorin. Many solutions proposed for noise abatement in the city are set out

Towards achieving energy for sustainable development in Nigeria

The importance of energy availability in the economic growth, social and political development of every nation cannot be overemphasized. Affordable and reliable energy availability is the precondition for sustainable development. Sustainable development calls for an efficient, reliable and decentralized energy economy, based on local and clean energy sources, in which the price paid by the consumer will reflect the real cost of energy products to the economy. There is clear evidence that Nigeria is blessed with abundant resources of fossil fuels as well as renewable energy resources. The major challenge is inefficient utilization of energy in the country. There is no doubt that the present power crisis afflicting Nigeria will persist unless the government diversifies her energy sources and adopt new available technologies to reduce energy wastages and save cost. This study examines the perspective of energy efficiency and renewable energy in the making of strategies for a sustainable development in Nigeria. Such strategies involve energy savings on the demand side, efficiency improvements in the energy production, and replacement of fossil fuels by various sources of renewable energy. Factors that need to be considered in the shift to its sustainable energy future are examined in this article

An Overview of Industrial Employees’ Exposure to Noise in Sundry Processing and Manufacturing Industries in Ilorin Metropolis, Nigeria

In this work, an overview of industrial employees’ noise exposure level in five selected processing and manufacturing industries in Ilorin are evaluated and compared. Emphasis is given to noise emitted by individual industrial machinery from the selected industries. Event LAeq and LN cycle were studied to identify the noisy machines and to generate baseline data. Findings show that, hammer mill machine from mineral crushing mills produced the highest average noise (98.4 dB(A), electric generator1 (95.6 dB(A) from soft drink bottling industry, electric generator (97.7 dB(A)) from beer brewing and bottling industry, vacuum pump (93.1 dB(A)) from tobacco making industry and electric generator 2 (94.1 dB(A) from mattress making industry. The highest and lowest average noise exposure levels are recorded in mineral crushing mills (93.16 dB(A)) and mattress making industry (84.69 dB(A)) respectively. The study shows that at 95% confidence level, there is significant difference (p<0.05) in noise levels in the industries surveyed. The percentages of machines emit noise above FEPA and OSHA recommendation (90 dB(A)) are: soft drink bottling industry (83.3%), beer brewing and bottling industry (42.9%), tobacco making industry (71.4%), mattress making industry (11.1%) and minerals crushing mills (87.5%). In the past 20 years, the noise levels in soft drink bottling industry reduced by 0.58 dB(A) and that of beer brewing and bottling industry reduced by 9.66 dB(A). But that of mattress making industry increased by 2.69 dB(A). On the average, the noise level in these industries has reduced by 2.52 dB(A). The results of this study show that the noise control measures put in place have significant impact on the noise exposure level in the industries surveyed

Energy and sustainable development in Nigeria: the way forward

Access to clean modern energy services is an enormous challenge facing the African continent because energy is fundamental for socioeconomic development and poverty eradication. Today, 60% to 70% of the Nigerian population does not have access to electricity. There is no doubt that the present power crisis afflicting Nigeria will persist unless the government diversifies the energy sources in domestic, commercial, and industrial sectors and adopts new available technologies to reduce energy wastages and to save cost. This review examines a set of energy policy interventions, which can make a major contribution to the sustainable economic, environmental, and social development of Africa's most populated country, Nigeria. Energy efficiency leads to important social benefits, such as reducing the energy bills for poor households. From an economic point of view, implementing the country's renewable energy target will have significant costs, but these can partly be offset by selling carbon credits according to the rules of the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ agreed some 10 years ago, which will result in indirect health benefits. Nigeria could benefit from the targeted interventions that would reduce the local air pollution and help the country to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. Many factors that need to be considered and appropriately addressed in the shift to its sustainable energy future are examined in this article. These include a full exploitation and promotion of renewable energy resources, energy efficiency practices, as well as the application of energy conservation measures in various sectors such as in the construction of industrial, residential, and office buildings, in transportation, etc

On energy for sustainable development in Nigeria

The fuel driving the engine of growth and sustainable development of any nation is the nation’s access to reliable and adequate energy. Access to energy is a crucial enabling condition for achieving sustainable development. Prudent energy policies and research can play an important role in steering both industrialized and developing countries onto more sustainable energy development paths. Specifically, they can strengthen the three pillars of sustainable development: the economy, by boosting productivity; social welfare, by improving living standards and enhancing safety and security; and the environment, by reducing indoor and outdoor pollution and remediating environmental degradation. Many factors that need to be considered and appropriately addressed in moving towards energy sustainability in Nigeria are examined in this article. These include full exploitation and promotion of renewable energy resources and application of energy conservation measures in various sectors such as manufacturing industrial set-up, office and residential buildings and transportation

Thermodynamic Performance Analysis of Selected Gas Turbine Power Plants in Nigeria

In the last two decades, electricity generating plants in Nigeria have been operating below their capacity with available capacity barely surpassing half the installed capacity which is short of international standards of over 95% installed capacity. Due to this low availability, other key performance indicators such as capacity factor and load factor have also been relatively low. This research work therefore aims at evaluating the performance of selected gas turbine power plants in Nigeria thermodynamically with a view of providing possible ways of improving the performance thus meeting the international standards. A thermodynamic analysis of the design and performance of eleven selected gas turbine power plants was carried out using the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Energy, exergy, exergo-economic and exergo-environmental analyses were conducted using operating data collected from the power plants to determine the energy loss and exergy destruction of each major component of the gas turbine in each plant. The carbon dioxide (CO2) emission and cost of environmental impact were determined for each plant. Energy analysis result shows that the turbine has the highest proportion of energy loss in the plants. The exergy analysis revealed that the combustion chamber is the most exergy destructive component compared to other cycle components. Also, its exergy efficiency is less than that of other components studied, which is due to the high temperature difference between working fluid and burner temperature. In addition, it was found that by increasing gas turbine inlet temperature (GTIT), the exergy destruction of this component can be reduced. Exergo-economic analysis shows that the cost of exergy destruction is high for the combustion chamber. Increasing the GTIT effectively decreases the cost associated with exergy destruction in combustion chamber. The exergy costing analysis revealed that the unit cost of electricity produced in the plants varies from cents 1.88/kWh (N2.99/kWh) to cents 5.65 /kWh (N8.98/kWh). Exergo-environmental analysis shows that the CO2 emissions vary from 100.18 to 408.78 kgCO2/MWh while cost rate of environmental impact varies from $40.18 /hour (N6, 388.62/hour) to$276.97 /hour (N44, 038. 23/hour). The results show that CO2 emissions and cost of environmental impact decrease with increasing GTIT. The effects of design parameters on exergy efficiency showed that an increase in the pressure ratio and GTIT increases the total exergy efficiency of the cycle. These results imply that increase in gas turbine efficiency can be achieved by improving the performance of the most inefficient component of the system. The statistical analysis result of plant availability showed significant difference (p>0.05) in the availability of the selected power plants. The research work has established the possibility of increasing power generation efficiency, strategies of reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in the selected gas turbine power plants in Nigeria, thus meeting the required international standards. It has also provided a suitable methodology for relatively quick identification of the key items requiring performance improvement in a gas turbine power plant

Thermodynamic Analysis of a Gas Turbine Power Plant Modelled with an Evaporative Cooler

Performance of a gas turbine is mainly depends on the inlet air temperature. The power output of a gas turbine depends on the flow of mass through it. Inlet air cooling increases the power output by taking advantage of the gas turbine’s feature of higher mass flow rate when the compressor inlet temperature decreases. This is precisely the reason why on hot days, when air is less dense, power output falls off. A rise of 1°C temperature of inlet air decreases the power output by 1%. In this paper the performance enhancement of gas turbine power plants by cooling the compressor intake air with an evaporative cooler is studied. This study investigated the effect of inlet air cooling system on the performance of an existing gas turbine power plant in Nigeria. The results show that for each 5oC decrease of inlet air temperature, net output power increases around 5-10% and the first and second law efficiencies increase around 2-5%. It is shown that the amount of this increase is higher when the pressure ratio is high and turbine inlet temperature is low. The results of this study shows that retrofitting of the existing gas turbine plant with inlet air cooling system gives a better system performance and may prove to be an attractive investment opportunity to the Nigeria government and stakeholders of the plant

Performance Evaluation of Two Palm Kernel Nut Cracker Machines

In this study performance evaluation of centrifugal impact approach and vertical palm kernel nut cracker machine was carried out. The results of the study show that the vertical centrifugal palm kernel cracker is more efficient than the centrifugal impact approach palm kernel cracker. The efficiency of Vertical centrifugal palm kernel cracker is 71.3% and that of centrifugal impact approach is 50.38%. Apart from this, the vertical centrifugal machine though has low speed but it produces clean and neat nut cracked output

Design and Development of Vapor Absorption Refrigeration System for Rural Dwellers

In this study, the experimental analysis of the performance of vapor absorption system was developed and developed. The influence of generator, evaporator and condenser’s temperatures on the system performance was studied using gas burner as source of energy, ammonia-water combination as working fluid and energy equations as governing equations for the work. There was variation in the results when compared with the earlier worker who used kerosene burner as source of energy and ammonia-water combination. Result of this study shows that if higher cooling capacity and also lower evaporator`s temperature are desired from the system, generator`s temperature should be increased considerably. Also the combination of an analyzer, rectifier and heat exchanger would produce better COP of the Syste

Development of noise map for Ilorin metropolis, Nigeria

The present work aimed at development of noise map for Ilorin metropolis. In this study, a total of 42 locations were selected for collection of data. The noise map developed reveals high noise exposure at the nucleus of the metropolis where commercial activities, high traffic volume and clustered buildings with high population exist