Energy consumption in the UK food chill chain – primary chilling

There is increasing pressure on governments and industries to make significant reductions in carbon emissions. In the UK, 11% of electricity is consumed by the food industry and in some sectors a substantial portion of site energy, up to 90%, is consumed by refrigeration systems. The aim of this work was to: identify the major primary chilling energy requirements in the UK; calculate or make a best estimate of their efficiency; and determine which chilling processes have the highest energy saving potential. In terms of the heat energy to be extracted during the primary chilling process, the six most important categories in rank order were milk (532 GWh/year), meat (114 GWh/year), potatoes (59 GWh/year), other vegetables (36 GWh/year), fish (6.5 GWh/ year) and fruit (5.9 GWh/year). There is little published data on the measured energy consumption of commercial primary chilling processes in the UK or that is directly applicable to the UK. From the data that is available, the energy efficiency (useful heat extracted from material/measured electrical energy used) varies from 0.138 to 5.337, with cooling of milk being far more efficient than that of the next two most important categories, meat and potatoes. Using the best of existing technologies it is estimated that 154 GWh could be saved per year in potato cooling, 128 GWh in milk and between 51 and 80 GWh in the cooling of carcass meat. Savings in other commodity areas are likely to be more than an order of magnitude less

Energy consumption in the UK food chill chain – primary chilling

There is increasing pressure on governments and industries to make significant reductions in carbon emissions. In the UK, 11% of electricity is consumed by the food industry and in some sectors a substantial portion of site energy, up to 90%, is consumed by refrigeration systems. The aim of this work was to: identify the major primary chilling energy requirements in the UK; calculate or make a best estimate of their efficiency; and determine which chilling processes have the highest energy saving potential. In terms of the heat energy to be extracted during the primary chilling process, the six most important categories in rank order were milk (532 GWh/year), meat (114 GWh/year), potatoes (59 GWh/year), other vegetables (36 GWh/year), fish (6.5 GWh/ year) and fruit (5.9 GWh/year). There is little published data on the measured energy consumption of commercial primary chilling processes in the UK or that is directly applicable to the UK. From the data that is available, the energy efficiency (useful heat extracted from material/measured electrical energy used) varies from 0.138 to 5.337, with cooling of milk being far more efficient than that of the next two most important categories, meat and potatoes. Using the best of existing technologies it is estimated that 154 GWh could be saved per year in potato cooling, 128 GWh in milk and between 51 and 80 GWh in the cooling of carcass meat. Savings in other commodity areas are likely to be more than an order of magnitude less

SPIFI: a Direct-Detection Imaging Spectrometer for Submillimeter Wavelengths

The South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer (SPIFI) is the first instrument of its kind -a direct-detection imaging spectrometer for astronomy in the submillimeter band. SPIFI ’s focal plane is a square array of 25 silicon bolometers cooled to 60 mK; the spectrometer consists of two cryogenic scanning Fabry-Perot interferometers in series with a 60-mK bandpass filter. The instrument operates in the short submillimeter windows (350 and 450 μm) available from the ground, with spectral resolving power selectable between 500 and 10,000. At present, SPIFI’s sensitivity is within a factor of 1.5-3 of the photon background limit, comparable with the best heterodyne spectrometers. The instrument ’s large bandwidth and mapping capability provide substantial advantages for specific astrophysical projects, including deep extragalactic observations. We present the motivation for and design of SPIFI and its operational characteristics on the telescope

Toward a neuroscience of interactive parent–infant dyad empathy

In accord with social neuroscience's progression to include interactive experimental paradigms, parents' brains have been activated by emotionally charged infant stimuli - especially of their own infant - including baby cry and picture. More recent research includes the use of brief video clips and opportunities for maternal response. Among brain systems important to parenting are those involved in empathy. This research may inform recent studies of decreased societal empathy, offer mechanisms and solutions

Developing Freight Analysis Zones at a State Level: A Cluster Analysis Approach

The ability to forecast freight to support transportation infrastructure decisions is limited by data availability at a level of detail meaningful to the transportation planner. The Freight Analysis Framework Version 2 is a national, comprehensive public freight database. The difficulty that transportation planners encounter when using this data is due to extensive aggregation. In this paper, the authors develop a methodology for creating freight analysis zones (FAZs) at a sub-state level by partitioning a state into meaningful zones that support freight transportation planning and analysis. The authors conc

Post-hospital medical respite care and hospital readmission of homeless persons

Medical respite programs offer medical, nursing, and other care as well as accommodation for homeless persons discharged from acute hospital stays. They represent a community-based adaptation of urban health systems to the specific needs of homeless persons. This article examines whether post-hospital discharge to a homeless medical respite program was associated with a reduced chance of 90-day readmission compared to other disposition options. Adjusting for imbalances in patient characteristics using propensity scores, respite patients were the only group that was significantly less likely to be readmitted within 90 days compared to those released to Own Care. Respite programs merit attention as a potentially efficacious service for homeless persons leaving the hospital