The Assessment of Hydrogen Energy Systems for Fuel Cell Vehicles Using Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis

Hydrogen energy which has been recognized as an alternative instead of fossil fuel has been developed rapidly in fuel cell vehicles. Different hydrogen energy systems have different performances on environmental, economic, and energy aspects. A methodology for the quantitative evaluation and analysis of the hydrogen systems is meaningful for decision makers to select the best scenario. principal component analysis (PCA) has been used to evaluate the integrated performance of different hydrogen energy systems and select the best scenario, and hierarchical cluster analysis (CA) has been used to verify the correctness and accuracy of the principal components (PCs) determined by PCA in this paper. A case including 11 different hydrogen energy systems for fuel cell vehicles has been studied in this paper, and the system using steam reforming of natural gas for hydrogen production, pipeline for transportation of hydrogen, hydrogen gas tank for the storage of hydrogen at refueling stations, and gaseous hydrogen as power energy for fuel cell vehicles has been recognized as the best scenario. Also, the clustering results calculated by CA are consistent with those determined by PCA, denoting that the results calculated by PCA are scientific and accurate

The dragon awakens: innovation, competition, and transition in the energy strategy of the People’s Republic of China, 1949-2017

Based on a mix of original archival research and an extensive review of the contemporary peer reviewed literature, this article reviews the history of the People’s Republic of China’s national energy policies since 1949. We divide this history into six phases: Emergence (1949–1957), Socialist construction (1958–1965), Turbulence (1966–1978), Reform (1979–2000), Contestation (2001–2014), and transition (2015-present). Over the whole history of more than sixty years, China’s energy production and consumption grew at a surprising speed, while energy intensity exhibited early fluctuations and a subsequent gradual decrease after the turbulence phase. In tracing this history, the article offers new historical and policy insights into the world’s largest developing country and a theoretical contribution to the role of the state in shaping economy and society through energy policy. The article lastly offers an in-depth exploration of how command-and-control style administrative intervention and low levels of market liquidity have had a prophylactic effect on innovation and competition

Renewable Energy and Sustainable Development

As the contradiction between human development and environmental maintenance is increasingly prominent, sustainability has become a significantly important goal for future development. The renewable energy plays an essential role in the achievement of sustainable development, since it is relatively cleaner comparing with fossil fuels. The renewable energy has the advantages that it has fewer negative impacts on the environment than fossil fuels, so it is beneficial in improving the environment, increasing the diversity of fuels, ensuring stable energy supply, and promoting regional economic development. To improve the sustainability and development of renewable energy, countries worldwide set up goals and implemented relative regulations and policies. This keynote paper firstly introduced sustainable development; subsequently, summarized the roles of renewable energy on sustainable development; then, had an overview of the achievements on sustainable development and renewable energy; after this, investigated the barriers and in sighted; and concluded this paper. The results reveal that there is still a far way to go before all Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) will be finally achieved although many progresses of sustainability and renewable energy development in technological, economic, environmental and social aspects have been made during the past 20 years with the efforts of all countries.</p

Measuring energy security performance within China: toward an inter-provincial prospective

China has been the world's largest energy consumer and producer for many years, yet while myriad studies have investigated Chinese performance on energy metrics compared to other countries, few to none have looked internally at Chinese provinces. This paper firstly develops a five-dimensional evaluation system centered on the energy security dimensions of availability and diversity, affordability and equality, technology and efficiency, environmental sustainability, and governance and innovation. It then correlates these dimensions to 20 distinct energy security metrics that are used to assess the energy security performance of 30 Chinese provinces, divided into eight regions. Our results reveal both trends in energy policy and practice as well as provincial status of comparative energy security for the year 2013. We find, for instance, that there is no province which performs well in all five of the energy security dimensions, and that all provinces confronted threats related to energy availability and diversity. We also demonstrate that in comparative terms, the Middle Reaches of Yellow River and the Northwest were the most energy-secure, while the Middle Reaches of Yangtze River and the Northeast were least energy-secure

Pleasure or profit? Surveying the purchasing intentions of potential electric vehicle adopters in China

China is a leading global market for electric mobility, inclusive of e-bikes (motorcycles and scooters) as well as electric vehicles (EVs). This paper provides a novel contribution to the field by examining the factors related to willingness of potential Chinese consumers to further adopt EVs. Much of the research to date has focused primarily on consumer perceptions in European countries, or within particular cities or urban provinces of China. Given that China also is the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, and that transportation is growing in its contribution to China’s national carbon footprint, the potential for larger scale uptake of EVs by Chinese consumers is an important area of research. We therefore utilize a survey instrument among a fairly large national sample (805 respondents across all Chinese provinces) to solicit perceptions of Chinese consumers about their willingness to adopt EVs, and the importance of different types of motivations, controlling for socio-demographic variables. Using descriptive statistics as well as multivariate analysis and principal component analysis, we find that willingness to adopt EVs is associated with performance features of electric vehicles, the perceived benefits of driving an electric vehicle and policy support for the promotion of electric vehicles. We conclude by elaborating on the implications of our findings, namely insights for car dealerships and sales personnel, automotive manufacturers, local and national planners, and users and adopters

CO₂ emission reduction potential in China from combined effects of structural adjustment of economy and efficiency improvement

China has committed to decreasing its emission intensity by 60% to 65% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. It is of great importance to evaluate the CO2 emission reduction potential to quantify the amount of CO2 emissions that can be less generated and the amount that should be balanced out. Economic structure adjustment and CO2 emission efficiency improvement will contribute to mitigating CO2 emissions, which always happen simultaneously in the real world. However, few studies consider these issues simultaneously, which can lead to inaccurate estimation. A scenario analysis framework is proposed to estimate their combined effects, and an indicator is proposed to measure the technical feasibility of achieving the reduction potential. A set of scenarios are designed based on this framework and we find that: (1) to achieve carbon neutrality, 6161.16 Mt of CO2 emissions of China can be less generated compared to 2017 levels by significantly increasing its tertiary industry share to high-income entities’ level and adopting the most advanced technology to improve emission efficiency; the remaining 2732.40 Mt of CO2 emissions should be removed by carbon offsetting. Regarding emission intensity, 81.39% can be reduced compared with the 2005 level; and (2) Technical feasibility analysis shows Sichuan, Chongqing, and Anhui have the largest technical barriers in achieving the reduction potential. The proposed scenario analysis framework can provide a reference not only for China to achieve the emission mitigation pledges, but for countries with significant technological differences and structure adjustment to formulate mitigation strategies.</p

A novel unambiguous strategy of molecular feature extraction in machine learning assisted predictive models for environmental properties

Environmental properties of compounds provide significant information in treating organic pollutants, which drives the chemical process and environmental science toward eco-friendly technology. Traditional group contribution methods play an important role in property estimations, whereas various disadvantages emerge in their applications, such as scattered predicted values for certain groups of compounds. In order to address such issues, an extraction strategy for molecular features is proposed in this research, which is characterized by interpretability and discriminating power with regard to isomers. Based on the Henry's law constant data of organic compounds in water, we developed a hybrid predictive model that integrates the proposed strategy in conjunction with a neural network framework. The structure of the predictive model is optimized using cross-validation and grid search to improve its robustness. Moreover, the predictive model is improved by introducing the plane of best fit descriptor as input and adopting k-means clustering in sampling. In contrast with reported models in the literature, the developed predictive model demonstrates improved generality, higher accuracy, and fewer molecular features used in its development