Integrated multidimensional sustainability assessment of energy system transformation pathways

Sustainable development embraces a broad spectrum of social, economic and ecological aspects. Thus, a sustainable transformation process of energy systems is inevitably multidimensional and needs to go beyond climate impact and cost considerations. An approach for an integrated and interdisciplinary sustainability assessment of energy system transformation pathways is presented here. It first integrates energy system modeling with a multidimensional impact assessment that focuses on life cycle-based environmental and macroeconomic impacts. Then, stakeholders’ preferences with respect to defined sustainability indicators are inquired, which are finally integrated into a comparative scenario evaluation through a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), all in one consistent assessment framework. As an illustrative example, this holistic approach is applied to the sustainability assessment of ten different transformation strategies for Germany. Applying multi-criteria decision analysis reveals that both ambitious (80%) and highly ambitious (95%) carbon reduction scenarios can achieve top sustainability ranks, depending on the underlying energy transformation pathways and respective scores in other sustainability dimensions. Furthermore, this research highlights an increasingly dominant contribution of energy systems’ upstream chains on total environmental impacts, reveals rather small differences in macroeconomic effects between different scenarios and identifies the transition among societal segments and climate impact minimization as the most important stakeholder preferences

Direct covariance measurement of CO2 gas transfer velocity during the 2008 Southern Ocean Gas Exchange Experiment: Wind speed dependency

Direct measurements of air-sea heat, momentum, and mass (including CO2, DMS, and water vapor) fluxes using the direct covariance method were made over the open ocean from the NOAA R/V Ronald H. Brown during the Southern Ocean Gas Exchange (SO GasEx) program. Observations of fluxes and the physical processes associated with driving air-sea exchange are key components of SO GasEx. This paper focuses on the exchange of CO2 and the wind speed dependency of the transfer velocity, k, used to model the CO2 flux between the atmosphere and ocean. A quadratic dependence of k on wind speed based on dual tracer experiments is most frequently encountered in the literature. However, in recent years, bubble-mediated enhancement of k, which exhibits a cubic relationship with wind speed, has emerged as a key issue for flux parameterization in high-wind regions. Therefore, a major question addressed in SO GasEx is whether the transfer velocities obey a quadratic or cubic relationship with wind speed. After significant correction to the flux estimates (primarily due to moisture contamination), the direct covariance CO2 fluxes confirm a significant enhancement of the transfer velocity at high winds compared with previous quadratic formulations. Regression analysis suggests that a cubic relationship provides a more accurate parameterization over a wind speed range of 0 to 18 m s−1. The Southern Ocean results are in good agreement with the 1998 GasEx experiment in the North Atlantic and a recent separate field program in the North Sea

Energy [R]evolution 2010-a sustainable world energy outlook

The Energy [R]evolution 2010 scenario is an update of the Energy [R]evolution scenarios published in 2007 and 2008. It takes up recent trends in global energy demand and production and analyses to which extent this affects chances for achieving climate protection targets. The main target is to reduce global CO2 emissions to 3.7 Gt/a in 2050, thus limiting global average temperature increase to below 2°C and preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. A ten-region energy system model is used for simulating global energy supply strategies. A review of sector and region specific energy efficiency measures resulted in the specification of a global energy demand scenario incorporating strong energy efficiency measures. The corresponding supply scenario has been developed in an iterative process in close cooperation with stakeholders and regional counterparts from academia, NGOs and the renewable energy industry. The Energy [R]evolution scenario shows that renewable energy can provide more than 80% of the world's energy needs by 2050. Developing countries can virtually stabilise their CO2 emissions by 2025 and reduce afterwards, whilst at the same time increasing energy consumption due to economic growth. OECD countries will be able to reduce their emissions by up to 90% by 2050. However, without a comprehensive energy efficiency implementation strategy across all sectors, the renewable energy development alone will not be enough to make these drastic emissions cuts. © 2010 The Author(s)

Energy [R]evolution - a sustainable Netherlands energy outlook. Report 2013 Netherlands energy scenario

The Energy [R]evolution Scenario has became a well known and well respected energy analysis since it was first published for Europe in 2005. Global Energy [R]evolution editions were published in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012. This is the first Dutch edition. The Energy [R]evolution provides a consistent fundamental pathway for how to protect our climate: getting the world from where we are now to where we need to be by phasing out fossil fuels and cutting CO2 emissions while ensuring energy security

Fachkräfte sichern: Wie Krankenhäuser sich für die Zukunft rüsten können

Für Kliniken wird es zunehmend schwieriger, sich in dem unübersichtlichen und hart umkämpften Mediziner-Markt klar zu positionieren. Aktives Personalmarketing liegt im Trend – der Fachkräftemangel ist zu einer konkreten Herausforderung für das Personalmanagement in Kliniken geworden. Kliniken müssen ihre Personalmarketingaktivitäten, um Ärzte zu gewinnen und zu binden, schon jetzt neu skizzieren und für ihre Human-Ressource-Abteilung die Strukturen moderner Unternehmensführung übernehmen. Die Kliniken werden sich zukünftig einem verschärften Wettbewerb um die „besten medizinischen Köpfe“ stellen müssen. Im Rahmen einer qualitativen Untersuchung wurden Repräsentanten von Krankenhäusern, regionalen Gesundheitsnetzwerken und Hochschulen zu den Auswirkungen des Fachkräftemangels, zu Stellenwert, Ansätzen sowie den internen und externen Strategien des Personalmarketings interviewt. Im Spannungsfeld der derzeitigen Rekrutierungsmaßnahmen und den internen begrenzten klinischen Möglichkeiten der langfristigen Beschäftigung von Medizinern und Sicherstellung der Patientenversorgung werden die Kliniken den Blick über den besagten Tellerrand vornehmen müssen – Pioniere sind gefragt

Energy [r]evolution - a sustainable world energy outlook

Energy [R]evolution 2012 provides a consistent fundamental pathway for how to protect our climate: getting the world from where we are now to where we need to be by phasing out fossil fuels and cutting CO2 emissions while ensuring energy security.The Energy [R]evolution Scenario has become a well known and well respected energy analysis since it was first published for Europe in 2005. This is the fourth Global Energy [R]evolution scenario; earlier editions were published in 2007, 2008 and 2010. The evolution of the scenarios has included a detailed employment analysis in 2010, and now this edition expands the research further to incorporate new demand and transport projections, new constraints for the oil and gas pathways and techno-economic aspects of renewable heating systems. While the 2010 edition had two scenarios – a basic and an advanced Energy [R]evolution, this edition puts forward only one; based on the previous ‘advanced’ case

Energy [r]evolution - a sustainable world energy outlook

Energy [R]evolution 2012 provides a consistent fundamental pathway for how to protect our climate: getting the world from where we are now to where we need to be by phasing out fossil fuels and cutting CO2 emissions while ensuring energy security.The Energy [R]evolution Scenario has become a well known and well respected energy analysis since it was first published for Europe in 2005. This is the fourth Global Energy [R]evolution scenario; earlier editions were published in 2007, 2008 and 2010. The evolution of the scenarios has included a detailed employment analysis in 2010, and now this edition expands the research further to incorporate new demand and transport projections, new constraints for the oil and gas pathways and techno-economic aspects of renewable heating systems. While the 2010 edition had two scenarios – a basic and an advanced Energy [R]evolution, this edition puts forward only one; based on the previous ‘advanced’ case