Articles

10 Items

Floating desalination unit "Hydriada" powered by wind and solar energy

Creative Commons

Journal Article - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

Towards Sustainability in Water-energy Nexus: Ocean Energy for Seawater Desalination

In this article, the authors review the state of the art of ocean energy in desalination. It explores different sources of energy from the ocean that include electricity generation, as well as mechanical force and thermal energy and salinity gradients that can also be directly harnessed for powering the desalination processes. They also examine recent advances in scaling up for commercial deployment and discuss relevant cost, environmental, and social concerns.

Earth at night, 2012. People around the world depend upon electric lighting. Generating electricity using increased amounts of non-fossil fuels is critical to slowing climate change.

USA.gov

Journal Article - Ecological Economics

Using Inclusive Wealth for Policy Evaluation: Application to Electricity Infrastructure Planning in Oil-Exporting Countries

| 2017

Decision-makers often seek to design policies that support sustainable development. Prospective evaluations of how effectively such policies are likely to meet sustainability goals have nonetheless remained relatively challenging. Evaluating policies against sustainability goals can be facilitated through the inclusive wealth framework, which characterizes development in terms of the value to society of its underlying capital assets, and defines development to be potentially sustainable if that value does not decline over time.

Journal Article - Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences

Technology Innovation and Energy

Energy technology innovation is the key to driving the technological changes that are necessary to meet the challenge of mitigating energy-related greenhouse gas emissions to avoid 'dangerous climate change.' Success in innovation requires the enhancement of public investment in the innovation process, the creation of markets for low-carbon technologies through stronger climate policies, and a continued focus on energy access and equity.

Nuclear Fuel Rod Assembly

NEAMS/DOE Photo

Journal Article - Environmental Science and Technology

Expert Judgments about RD&D and the Future of Nuclear Energy

| 2012

Probabilistic estimates of the cost and performance of future nuclear energy systems under different scenarios of government research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) spending were obtained from 30 U.S. and 30 European nuclear technology experts. The majority expected that such RD&D would have only a modest effect on cost, but would improve performance in other areas, such as safety, waste management, and uranium resource utilization. The U.S. and E.U. experts were in relative agreement regarding how government RD&D funds should be allocated, placing particular focus on very high temperature reactors, sodium-cooled fast reactors, fuels and materials, and fuel cycle technologies.

Dong Energy's Nick Brodigan on an offshore wind turbine's base platform, Gunfleet Sands Wind Farm off the coast of Brightlingsea, Essex, Apr. 24, 2009. The Carbon Trust launched a global competition for new designs of offshore wind turbine foundations.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Research Policy

Missions-oriented RD&D Institutions in Energy Between 2000 and 2010: A Comparative Analysis of China, the United Kingdom, and the United States

| December 2012

By analyzing the institutions that have been created to stimulate energy technology innovation in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China—three countries with very different sizes, political systems and cultures, natural resources, and histories of involvement in the energy sector—this article highlights how variations in national objectives and industrial and political environments have translated into variations in policy.

Sept. 1, 2010: A coal-fired power plant's emissions are seen during the night in Changchun, China. China spent $34.6 billion on clean energy in 2009.

AP Photo

Journal Article - International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control

Preparing to Ramp up Large-scale CCS Demonstrations: An Engineering-economic Assessment of CO2 Pipeline Transportation in China

| July 2011

An integrated carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) system requires safe and cost-efficient solutions for transportation of the CO2 from the capturing facility to the location of storage. While growing efforts in China are underway to understand CO2 capture and storage, comparatively less attention has been paid to CO2 transportation issues. Also, to the best of our knowledge, there are no publicly available China-specific cost models for CO2 pipeline transportation that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. This paper has been developed to determine a first-order estimate of China's cost of onshore CO2 pipeline transportation.

Journal Article - Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy

Growing Interest in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) for Climate Change Mitigation

| Fall 2006

Interest in technologies associated with carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been growing rapidly in both the public and private sectors over the past five to ten years as governments, industry, and individuals grapple with how to reconcile increased energy demand with the need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations to mitigate the risks of climate change.