Energy technologies in the future will need to be based on renewable sources of energy and will, ultimately, need to be sustainable. This book provides insight into unintended, negative impacts and how they can be avoided. In order to steer away from the pitfalls and unintended effects, it is essential that the necessary knowledge is available to the developers and decision makers engaged in renewable energy. The value of this book lies in its presentation of the unintended health and envi...

Topics in Experimental Dynamics Substructuring and Wind Turbine Dynamics, Volume 2, Proceedings of the 30th IMAC, A Conference and Exposition on Structural Dynamics, 2012, the second volume of six from the Conference, brings together 31 contributions to this important area of research and engineering. The collection presents early findings and case studies on fundamental and applied aspects of Structural Dynamics.

This book focuses on solar-energy-based renewable energy systems and discusses the generation of electric power using solar photovoltaics, as well as some new techniques, such as solar towers, for both residential and commercial needs. Such systems have played an important role in the move towards low-emission and sustainable energy sources. The book covers a variety of applications, such as solar water heaters, solar air heaters, solar drying, nanoparticle-based direct absorption solar sy...

Renewable energy resources now play an essential role in the energy supply debate, and especially a new interest in wind energy has resulted in the intensified construction of wind farms. Thanks to the growing demand for renewable energy, offshore wind farms (OWFs) are increasingly gaining in popularity, since yields over sea are greater and more reliable than over land. Against this background it is becoming particularly urgent to determine whether and if so to what extent such OWF expans...

A timely overview of the energy landscape in South Africa (RSA) is presented in this Springerbrief. The background and context to the current situation, and analysis of the policies being put forward by the government for the near future are described. Four broad areas are covered: reserves and production of fossil fuels, the electricity sector, the rapidly growing exploitation of renewable energy, and the recent push towards developing an industry around hydrogen and fuel cells. This Spri...

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the third ECML PKDD Workshop on Data Analytics for Renewable Energy Integration, DARE 2015, held in Porto, Portugal, in September 2015.The 10 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book.

MOX fuel, a mixture of weapon-grade plutonium and natural or depleted uranium, may be used to deplete a portion of the world's surplus of weapon-grade plutonium. A number of reactors currently operate in Europe with one-third MOX cores, and others are scheduled to begin using MOX fuels in both Europe and Japan in the near future. While Russia has laboratory-scale MOX fabrication facilities, the technology remains under study. No fuels containing plutonium are used in the U.S.The 25 ...

Also called energy scavenging, energy harvesting captures, stores, and uses "clean" energy sources by employing interfaces, storage devices, and other units. Unlike conventional electric power generation systems, renewable energy harvesting does not use fossil fuels and the generation units can be decentralized, thereby significantly reducing transmission and distribution losses. But advanced technical methods must be developed to increase the efficiency of devices in harvesting energy fro...

Solar Energy in the Winemaking Industry fully documents all aspects of the modern solar winery, beginning with the main drivers (environmental, economic and political) and detailing the current winemaking industry and solar technologies available. It details the various energy demands in the winemaking process from harvest to bottling and beyond.Solar Energy in the Winemaking Industry catalogues the range of wineries globally that have installed a substantial sola...

This book features different approaches to non-biochemical pathways for solar fuel production. This one-of-a-kind book addresses photovoltaics, photocatalytic water splitting for clean hydrogen production and CO2 conversion to hydrocarbon fuel through in-depth comprehensive contributions from a select blend of established and experienced authors from across the world. The commercial application of solar based systems, with particular emphasis on non-PV based devices have been discussed. Th...

This book addresses the potential of the transformation of biomass into a wide range of marketable products, and examines the biological, biochemical, physical and thermal processing of biomass into products such as fuels, power, heat, feeds, chemicals and materials. Respective chapters explore various topics including biomass characterization, biomass pre-conditioning and sustainability analysis, aspects that are supplemented by a global overview of their implementation in current pilot b...

This book examines what lies behind the uncertainties surrounding the fuel and power markets. Exploring the role of renewables and how they potentially disrupt or create opportunities, it challenges widely accepted wisdoms in investment. The author asks questions such as: Are “business as usual” strategies that favour fossil fuels the best route to future prosperity? What prospects do firms face when their competitors diversify into renewables? Why do generous subsidies to renewables often...