14,112 research outputs found
Potential for Solar Energy in Food Manufacturing, Distribution and Retail
The overall aim of the study was to assess the potential for increasing the use of solar energy in the food sector. For comparative purposes the study also included an assessment of the benefits that could arise from the use of other renewable energy sources, and the potential for more effective use of energy in food retail and distribution. Specific objectives were to: i) establish the current state of the art in relevant available solar technology; ii) identify the barriers for the adoption of solar technology; iii) assess the potential for solar energy capture; iv) appraise the potential of alternative relevant technologies for providing renewable energy; v) assess the benefits from energy saving technologies; vi) compare the alternative strategies for the next 5-10 years and vii) Consider the merits of specific research programmes on solar energy and energy conservation in the food sector.
To obtain the views of the main stakeholders in the relevant food and energy sectors on the opportunities and barriers to the adoption of solar energy and other renewable energy technologies by the food industry, personal interviews and structured questionnaires tailored to the main stakeholders (supermarkets, consultants for supermarket design; energy and equipment suppliers) were used. The main findings from
the questionnaires and interviews are:
- Key personnel in supermarkets and engineers involved in the design of supermarkets are aware of the potential contribution of renewable energy technologies and other energy conservation measures to energy conservation and environmental impact reduction in the food industry. A number of supermarket chains have implemented such technologies at pilot scale to gain operating experience, and more importantly, for marketing reasons, to gain competitive advantage through a green image.
- From installations to date in the UK the most notable are a 600 kW wind turbine at a Sainsbury's distribution centre in East Kilbride and a 60 kWp photovoltaic array at a Tesco store in Swansea.
- The main barrier to the application of renewable energy technologies in the food sector is the capital cost. Even though significant progress has been made towards the improvement of the energy conversion efficiencies of photovoltaic technologies (PVs) and reduction in their cost, payback periods are still far too long, for them to become attractive to the food industry.
- Wind energy can be more attractive than PVs in areas of high wind speed. Apart from relatively high cost, the main barrier to the wide application of wind turbines for local power generation is planning restrictions. This technology is more attractive for application in food distribution centres that are normally located outside build-up areas where planning restrictions can be less severe than in urban areas. In these applications it is likely that preference will be for large wind turbines of more than 1.0 MW power generation capacity as the cost of generation per unit power reduces with the size of the turbine
A cost comparison of traditional drainage and SUDS in Scotland
The Dunfermline Eastern Expansion (DEX) is a 350 ha mixed development which commenced in 1996. Downstream water quality and flooding issues necessitated a holistic approach to drainage planning and the site has become a European showcase for the application of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS). However, there is minimal data available regarding the real costs of operating and maintaining SUDS to ensure they continue to perform as per their design function. This remains one of the primary barriers to the uptake and adoption of SUDS. This paper reports on what is understood to be the only study in the UK where actual costs of constructing and maintaining SUDS have been compared to an equivalent traditional drainage solution. To compare SUDS costs with traditional drainage, capital and maintenance costs of underground storage chambers of analogous storage volumes were estimated. A whole life costing methodology was then applied to data gathered. The main objective was to produce a reliable and robust cost comparison between SUDS and traditional drainage. The cost analysis is supportive of SUDS and indicates that well designed and maintained SUDS are more cost effective to construct, and cost less to maintain than traditional drainage solutions which are unable to meet the environmental requirements of current legislation
Effect of forward motion on engine noise
Methods used to determine a procedure for correcting static engine data for the effects of forward motion are described. Data were analyzed from airplane flyover and static-engine tests with a JT8D-109 low-bypass-ratio turbofan engine installed on a DC-9-30, with a CF6-6D high-bypass-ratio turbofan engine installed on a DC-10-10, and with a JT9D-59A high-bypass-ratio turbofan engine installed on a DC-10-40. The observed differences between the static and the flyover data bases are discussed in terms of noise generation, convective amplification, atmospheric propagation, and engine installation. The results indicate that each noise source must be adjusted separately for forward-motion and installation effects and then projected to flight conditions as a function of source-path angle, directivity angle, and acoustic range relative to the microphones on the ground
A Slight Excess of Large Scale Power from Moments of the Peculiar Velocity Field
The peculiar motions of galaxies can be used to infer the distribution of
matter in the Universe. It has recently been shown that measurements of the
peculiar velocity field indicates an anomalously high bulk flow of galaxies in
our local volume. In this paper we find the implications of the high bulk flow
for the power spectrum of density fluctuations. We find that analyzing only the
dipole moment of the velocity field yields an average power spectrum amplitude
which is indeed much higher than the LCDM value. However, by also including
shear and octupole moments of the velocity field, and marginalizing over
possible values for the growth rate, an average power spectrum amplitude which
is consistent with LCDM is recovered. We attempt to infer the shape of the
matter power spectrum from moments of the velocity field, and find a slight
excess of power on scales ~ h-1 Gpc.Comment: 6 pages,6 figures, updated to match accepted versio
Maximizing the hyperpolarizability of one-dimensional systems
Previous studies have used numerical methods to optimize the
hyperpolarizability of a one-dimensional quantum system. These studies were
used to suggest properties of one-dimensional organic molecules, such as the
degree of modulation of conjugation, that could potentially be adjusted to
improve the nonlinear-optical response. However, there were no conditions set
on the optimized potential energy function to ensure that the resulting
energies were consistent with what is observed in real molecules. Furthermore,
the system was placed into a one-dimensional box with infinite walls, forcing
the wavefunctions to vanish at the ends of the molecule. In the present work,
the walls are separated by a distance much larger than the molecule's length;
and, the variations of the potential energy function are restricted to levels
that are more typical of a real molecule. In addition to being a more
physically-reasonable model, our present approach better approximates the bound
states and approximates the continuum states - which are usually ignored. We
find that the same universal properties continue to be important for optimizing
the nonlinear-optical response, though the details of the wavefunctions differ
from previous result.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
Searching for Planets in the Hyades. I. The Keck Radial Velocity Survey
We describe a high-precision radial velocity search for jovian-mass
companions to main sequence stars in the Hyades star cluster. The Hyades
provides an extremely well controlled sample of stars of the same age, the same
metallicity, and a common birth and early dynamical environment. This sample
allows us to explore the dependence of the process of planet formation on only
a single independent variable: the stellar mass. In this paper we describe the
survey and summarize results for the first five years.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; To appear in the July 2002 issue of The
Astronomical Journa
Nucleation, solvation and boiling of helium excimer clusters
Helium excimers generated by a corona discharge were investigated in the gas
and normal liquid phases of helium as a function of temperature and pressure
between 3.8 and 5.0 K and 0.2 and 5.6 bar. Intense fluorescence in the visible
region showed the rotationally resolved
transition of He. With increasing pressure, the rotational lines merged
into single features. The observed pressure dependence of linewidths, shapes
and lineshifts established phases of coexistence and separation of
excimer-helium mixtures, providing detailed insight into nucleation, solvation
and boiling of He-He clusters.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
A stochastic theory for temporal fluctuations in self-organized critical systems
A stochastic theory for the toppling activity in sandpile models is
developed, based on a simple mean-field assumption about the toppling process.
The theory describes the process as an anti-persistent Gaussian walk, where the
diffusion coefficient is proportional to the activity. It is formulated as a
generalization of the It\^{o} stochastic differential equation with an
anti-persistent fractional Gaussian noise source. An essential element of the
theory is re-scaling to obtain a proper thermodynamic limit, and it captures
all temporal features of the toppling process obtained by numerical simulation
of the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld sandpile in this limit.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Flows on scales of 150 Mpc?
We investigate the reality of large-scale streaming on scales of up to 150
Mpc using the peculiar motions of galaxies in three directions. New R-band CCD
photometry and spectroscopy for elliptical galaxies is used. The Fundamental
Plane distance indicator is calibrated using the Coma cluster and an
inhomogeneous Malmquist bias correction is applied. A linear bulk-flow model is
fitted to the peculiar velocities in the sample regions and the results do not
reflect the bulk flow observed by Lauer and Postman (LP). Accounting for the
difference in geometry between the galaxy distribution in the three regions and
the LP clustersconfirms the disagreement; assuming a low-density CDM power
spectrum, we find that the observed bulk flow of the galaxies in our sample
excludes the LP bulk flow at the 99.8% confidence level.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur
Content & Watkins's account of natural axiomatizations
This paper briefly recounts the importance of the notion of natural axiomatizations for explicating hypothetico-deductivism, empirical significance, theoretical reduction, and organic fertility. Problems for the account of natural axiomatizations developed by John Watkins in Science and Scepticism and the revised account developed by Elie Zahar are demonstrated. It is then shown that Watkins's account can be salvaged from various counter-examples in a principled way by adding the demand that every axiom of a natural axiomatization should be part of the content of the theory being axiomatized. The crucial point here is that content cannot simply be identified with the set of logical consequences of a theory, but must be restricted to a proper subset of the consequence set. It is concluded that the revised Watkins account has certain advantages over the account of natural axiomatizations offered in Gemes (1993)
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