Environmental Pollution From Waste And Biomass Energy Generation

In the sectors of waste and biomass to energy, some debatable paradigms persist both among the specialists and among the population, concerning the performances of a few energy options. The present article wants to give a contribution to clarify the debate related to three cases: (a) local impact of waste to energy plants, from conventional solutions to innovative ones (thermochemical processes); (b) local impact of Solid Recovered Fuel generation before energy exploitation; (c) local impact of combustion of wood. Three key articles have been selected from the Author’s production (more than one hundred Scopus indexed works) in order to perform a deeper analysis. Results demonstrate that, changing the perspective, some paradigms on the environmental performances of a few waste and biomass options for energy generation must be at least modified

COVID-19 and municipal solid waste management

The present work analyses the scientific literature available on the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 in the sector of municipal solid waste. After a bibliometric analysis based on data taken from Scopus®, the analysis deals with effects on waste composition, waste quantity, collection, and treatment. As expected, results show that the most productive authors on this topic belong to scientific bodies located in the countries more affected from COVID-19 in the world. Moreover, different strategies of international journals resulted in an unbalanced concentration of papers on this topic. Effects have been observed concerning municipal solid waste composition and amount (mostly for the role of masks and packaging). Impacts on management and circular economy are discussed too

Oscillatory subglacial drainage in the absence of surface melt

The presence of strong diurnal cycling in basal water pressure records obtained during the melt season is well established for many glaciers. The behaviour of the drainage system outside the melt season is less well understood. Here we present borehole observations from a surge-type valley glacier in the St Elias Mountains, Yukon Territory, Canada. Our data indicate the onset of strongly correlated multi-day oscillations in water pressure in multiple boreholes straddling a main drainage axis, starting several weeks after the disappearance of a dominant diurnal mode in August 2011 and persisting until at least January 2012, when multiple data loggers suffered power failure. Jökulhlaups provide a template for understanding spontaneous water pressure oscillations not driven by external supply variability. Using a subglacial drainage model, we show that water pressure oscillations can also be driven on a much smaller scale by the interaction between conduit growth and distributed water storage in smaller water pockets, basal crevasses and moulins, and that oscillations can be triggered when water supply drops below a critical value. We suggest this in combination with a steady background supply of water from ground water or englacial drainage as a possible explanation for the observed wintertime pressure oscillations

Improving the approach to efficiency assessment of investment projects in the energy sector

According to the annual world statistics, primary energy consumption demonstrated a steady growth over the past decade but in 2018, its average value was doubled. A rapid development of energy sector will not only lead to the growth of CO2 emissions and other negative consequences, but also to more intensive use of natural resources in the immediate future. Growing pressure on resources might give rise to a number of challenges in virtually all branches of human activity. The energy sector\u2019s impact on the environment is increasing at a high speed, which necessitates the efficiency assessment of investments in energy projects applying a system of technical, economic and environmental indicators. Nowadays, most of the energy projects comprise eco-friendly technological solutions that significantly decrease the use of natural resources but at the same time they might affect financial costs that dampen the attractiveness of investment projects at all. Despite that fact, the economic and environmental evaluation allows identifying the total exposure of the project in the long term and aids in measuring its multiplier effect on the region economy as lots of energy projects have a considerable innovative potential. The present study provides a system of environmental indicators that improves the efficiency assessment process of investment projects in the energy sector

Students' attitudes towards nuclear energy: Russian and Italian experience

Nowadays, the energy sector faces a lot of challenges because of environmental issues, the potential depletion of fossil fuels in the future, problems of technological development, etc. Despite the fact that alternative energy is a key factor of the energy sector's development, it still has several controversial questions, and one of them is "to what extent is nuclear energy safe for the world?" As a consequence, public acceptability has a role to play as it significantly affects the way nuclear energy should be developed in the next decades. In this paper, we provide the main results of the research made in December 2018 in Italy and Russia on students' attitude towards nuclear energy and its development in their homelands. The research method is a questionnaire which was carried out at the University of Trento, Italy, and at Ural Federal University, Russia. According to the given results, most of the students from both countries do not have a negative perception of nuclear energy. However, the opinions on its development in Italy and Russia are completely different: Russian students support the government's energy program in which nuclear energy is one of the most promising trends for the future, whereas Italian students do not accept the possibility that nuclear energy could come back into the Italian energy sector

Relaciones entre el mercado de divisas y el enfoque Elasticidades de la Balanza de Pagos

Fil: Verstraete, Juan M. C. E.. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias EconómicasFil: Rada, Daniel A.. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Económica

Classical and Keynesian models of inequality and stagnation

This paper studies two formal models of long run growth with a medium-run distributive cycle, both of which feature causal links from the rise in inequality to a deterioration of long run macroeconomic performance. Both versions feature an endogenous income-capital ratio: one through the Keynesian notion of effective demand, the other building on induced bias in technical change. A key focus of the analysis is on the assumptions necessary in both frameworks to generate policy implications consistent with the observed decline of the labor share, the income-capital ratio, and labor productivity growth during the neoliberal era. Importantly, both theories: (a) provide space for mutually reinforcing pro-labor and pro-growth policies in the long run, although they differ in the mechanisms at play in these processes; (b) imply a potential tradeoff between pro-labor policies and growth on one hand, and long-run employment on the other; (c) are consistent with the evidence on the distributive cycle at business cycle frequency

Critical Analysis of the GreenMetric World University Ranking System: The Issue of Comparability

The Universitas Indonesia GreenMetric World Ranking is the most widely adopted system nowadays to rank worldwide universities' sustainability. The number of participating universities has consistently increased throughout the last decade. An in-depth analysis of this ranking system is made to assess how sustainability in universities is measured through specific indicators. Specifically, based on expert knowledge, common logic and the scientific literature, these indicators are assessed with respect to whether they can be used to fairly quantify and rank worldwide universities' sustainability development. Some indicators proposed by the ranking system, such as the number of renewable energy sources on campus and the number of various types of programs for sustainable development, were found to be unable to measure any sustainability development effectively and fairly. Many others, such as the opted sewage disposal modality, the percentage of university budget for sustainability efforts and the ratio of sustainability research funding to total research funding, were found to need adjustment to account for context-specific factors such as availability of renewable energy sources, weather, landscape, original construction and the cultural habits of the enrolled people. Taking into account these considerations, a fairer evaluation and comparison of universities' sustainability could be achieved which provides universities with information on how to effectively improve their sustainability

Energy and sustainability assessment of municipal wastewater treatment under circular economy paradigm

Climate change and anthropogenic pollution have put limited water resources under pressure. Lack of basic sanitation services as well as the discharge of improperly treated effluent from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) result in the deposition of large amounts of organic matter and nutrients, which have major detrimental effects on health. Wastewater treatment (WWT) can reduce water pollution but at the cost of increasing energy consumption and the corresponding atmosphere and climate problems. Sustainable WWT management is a global challenge to preserve fresh water and decrease energy consumption. Nowadays it becomes obvious that existing WWTP operation model, based on the linear "take-make-dispose" pattern, is no longer sustainable. Furthermore, disposal of a product in landfill means that all residual energy is lost. The adoption of circular economy (CE) practices with its 3R principles of reducing, reusing and recycling material appears as a timely, relevant and practical option to meet the goals of sustainable development. WWTP is a critical element in CE implementation policy and to measure the degree of "circularity" there is a need for indicators. This study considers the holistic overview of measuring the progress of CE implementation at WWTP under 3R principles using life cycle analysis (LCA) and material flow analysis (MFA) frameworks. The paper presents the principles of CE indicators set construction using managerial approach. The proposed set of indicators and integral circularity index are studied under three scenarios, based on real performance of northern and southern WWTP in Ekaterinburg, Russia. This study provides an efficient assessment tool of CE progress, which is rather simple for calculation and interpretation and suitable for the use of wide range of stakeholders

Removal and survival of fecal indicators in a constructed wetland after uasb pre-treatment

The experimentation plant, based on a sub-surface horizontal flow phytodepuration (SSHFP) unit with a pre-treatment by an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor, proved valuable in treating the sewage of a small rural community located in north Brazil. During a six-month trial, the plant achieved an average removal efficiency of 98.2% (1.74 log removal) for fecal coliforms (FC) and 96.0% (1.40 log removal) for Enterococci (EN), as well as 95.6% for BOD5, 91.0% for COD,00 and 95.4% for suspended solids (SS). The contribution of the UASB reactor to this overall performance was very significant as, alone, it achieved a yield of 62.7% for FC and 60% for EN, in addition to 65.2% for BOD5 and 65.0% for SS. EN was chosen, in addition to FC, because of its higher specificity and strong environmental persistence, leading to an increased risk to human health. In fact, the experimental results confirmed its lower removal efficiency compared to FC. The mechanical and biological mechanisms that led to such a removal efficiency of the two fecal indicators (FIs) are outlined in the article. The same mechanisms led to a good level of equivalence between the removal efficiency of the two FIs with the removal efficiency of SS and BOD5, for both the whole plant and the UASB reactor alone. The research demonstrated the close correlation between the concentrations of EN and FC for the plant effluent. This correlation can be explained by the following mathematical expression of the regression line Log EN = 0.2571 Log FC + 3.5301, with a coefficient of determination R-2 = 0.912. This implies that the concentration of the more specific indicator EN could be calculated, with acceptable approximation, from the simple analysis of FC and vice versa. The experimental plant brought important health benefits to the local population. In particular, there were no significant odor emissions; moreover, the risk of fecal pathogenic diseases was drastically reduced; finally, there was no proliferation of insects and other disease vectors, due to the absence of stagnant or semi-stagnant water exposed to the atmosphere