170 research outputs found
Innovation in the energy sector: advancing or frustrating climate policy goals?
The energy sector is well known for the relatively modest level of resource that it devotes to research and development (R&D). However, the incremental pace of energy innovation has speeded up in the last decade as measured by public sector R&D budgets, deployment of alternative technologies and novel institutional arrangements. While much of this effort has been targeted at technologies that promise to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, there have also been major innovations that extend the fossil fuel resource base and reduce the cost of extraction. The last decadeâs developments can be seen in terms of a challenge to the existing energy paradigm in parallel with a renewed innovative response focusing on conventional fuels and technologies. This paper examines this tension, by exploring the expectations of a variety of organisations in both the public and private sector regarding energy sector developments and by analysing private sector expenditure on energy research and development (R&D) and public sector budgets for energy R&D and demonstration (RD&D). Scenarios and outlook exercises that have been published since 2013 reveal a wide range of beliefs about the future development of the energy system. The contrasting views underpinning the different scenarios are reflected in divergent patterns of R&D investment between the private and public sectors. There appears to be a tension between the drive to transform energy systems, on the part of public bodies, mainly motivated by the need to combat global climate change, and private sector activity, which tends to reinforce and extend existing patterns of energy provision. The paper addresses, but not answer definitively, the key question as to whether technological change is enabling or frustrating ambitious carbon goals
The global surge in energy innovation
Policymakers are seeking a transformation of the energy system driven by concerns about climate change, energy security and affordability. At the same time, emerging developments in underpinning science and engineering are opening up new possibilities across the whole technology spectrum covering renewables and other supply side technologies, energy demand and energy infrastructure. This paper reviews both the âpolicy pullâ for energy innovation activities and the âscience and technology pushâ. It explores the expectations of a variety of organisations in both the public and private sector regarding these pressures and possibilities by assessing various scenarios and outlook exercises that have been published since 2013. It reveals a wide range of beliefs about the future development of the energy system. The paper then moves on to analyse private sector expenditure on energy research and development (R&D) and public sector budgets for energy R&D and demonstration (RD&D). This analysis demonstrates significant divergences in patterns of innovation between the private and public sectors and leads to the hypothesis that the private sector is, broadly, taking measures to reinforce the existing energy paradigm while the public sector is focusing on new energy technologies that support wider policy objectives. This pattern is consistent with past technological transitions, with innovation efforts that would transform the energy system being counteracted by countervailing efforts that reinforce the existing fossil fuel-based paradigm
Local freedom in the gravitational field revisited
Maartens {\it et al.}\@ gave a covariant characterization, in a 1+3 formalism
based on a perfect fluid's velocity, of the parts of the first derivatives of
the curvature tensor in general relativity which are ``locally free'', i.e. not
pointwise determined by the fluid energy momentum and its derivative. The full
decomposition of independent curvature derivative components given in earlier
work on the spinor approach to the equivalence problem enables analogous
general results to be stated for any order: the independent matter terms can
also be characterized. Explicit relations between the two sets of results are
obtained. The 24 Maartens {\it et al.} locally free data are shown to
correspond to the quantities in the spinor approach, and the
fluid terms are similarly related to the remaining 16 independent quantities in
the first derivatives of the curvature.Comment: LaTeX. 13 pp. To be submitted to Class. Quant. Gra
All conformally flat pure radiation metrics
The complete class of conformally flat, pure radiation metrics is given,
generalising the metric recently given by Wils.Comment: 7 pages, plain Te
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