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• A case study based on the national BCycle bike-sharing program was presented. • The bike usage patterns were compared among different membership groups. • The spatio-temporal trends of empty and full bike stations were examined. • The current system configuration was optimized under three hypothetical scenarios. • This study has important implications to other cities in the BCycle program. Many cities around the world have integrated bike-sharing programs into their public transit systems to promise sustainable, affordable transportation and reduce environmental pollution in urban areas. Investigating the usage patterns of shared bikes is of key importance to understand cyclist's behaviors and subsequently optimize bike-sharing programs. Based on the historical trip records of bike users and station empty/full status data, this paper evaluated and optimized the bike-sharing program BCycle in the city of Boulder, Colorado, the United States, using a combination of different methods including the Potential Path Area (PPA) and the Capacitated Maximal Covering Location Problem (CMCLP). Results showed significantly different usage patterns between membership groups, revealed diverse imbalance patterns of bike supply and demand across stations in the city and provided three system upgrading strategies about maximizing the service coverage. This case study is committed to future energy conservation and sustainable energy systems nationwide and ultimately worldwide, by holding immerse potential to adapt the resulting optimization strategies to the cities with a similar urban context across the United States, as well as more emerging bike-sharing programs in other countries, such as China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four major themes will dominate United States energy-security in the 21st century. One is the need to diversify the fuel mix (i.e., oil, natural gas, nuclear power, hydro-electricity and other renewable and alternative energy resources). Another is the need to diversify the geographic origin of energy. A third theme is conservation and energy efficiency. And the final theme is devising new ways of managing growing dependence on oil imports rather than aiming at achieving “energy independence”. This paper will examine the new frontiers of the United States’ energy security in the 21st century. It will argue that fossil fuels will continue to dominate US energy needs well into the 21st century and that the Gulf region will maintain its strategic importance for US energy security for the foreseeable future. The paper will conclude that US energy-security could be better served by devising ways of managing dependence on oil imports rather than engaging in meaningless debate over energy independence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Occupants are integral elements of a building ecosystem and their behavior can have a substantial impact on energy consumption in buildings. A wide range of energy feedback programs have been developed to make energy consumption more visible and interpretable to occupants and help them learn how to control and save energy. In this paper, we conduct a critical review of the literature related to energy feedback and identify four key methodological approaches to designing and studying energy feedback programs: experiments, analytics, surveys and simulation. Our meta-analysis reveals five research gaps and opportunities for future methodological fusion at the intersection between such approaches, including the analytics-survey, experiments-analytics, experiments-analytics-surveys, simulation-experiments and analytics-simulation interfaces. Future research at these crucial interfaces could provide the deeper understanding necessary to develop energy feedback programs that yield substantial and persistent energy savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates potential changes in the power system associated with sustained growth in wind generation in the United States to 35% of end-use demand by 2050; Wiser et al. (2016) evaluate societal benefits and other impacts for this same scenario. Under reference or central conditions, the analysis finds cumulative wind capacity of 404 gigawatts (GW) would be required to reach this level and drive 2050 incremental electricity rate and cumulative electric sector savings of 2% and 3% respectively, relative to a scenario with no new wind capacity additions. Greater savings are estimated under higher fossil fuel costs or with greater advancements in wind technologies. Conversely, incremental costs are found when fossil fuel costs are lower than central assumptions or wind technology improvements are more-limited. Through 2030, the primary generation sources displaced by new wind capacity include natural gas and coal-fired generation. By 2050, wind could displace other renewables. Incremental new transmission infrastructure totaling 29 million megawatt-miles is estimated to be needed by 2050. In conjunction with related societal benefits, this work demonstrates that 35% wind energy by 2050 is plausible, could support enduring benefits, and could result in long-term consumer savings, if nearer-term (pre-2030) cost barriers are overcome; at the same time, these opportunities are not anticipated to be realized in their full form under “business-as-usual” conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper quantifies the theoretical limit of energy consumption for the removal of 20 representative organic contaminants (9 chlorinated alkyl hydrocarbons, 3 chlorinated alkenes, 3 brominated methanes, 5 aromatic hydrocarbons and their derivatives) in the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Priority Pollutant List by physical procedures. The general rules of the theoretical limit of energy consumption with different initial concentrations at 298.15K and 1.01325×105 Pa by NRTL, UNIQUAC and Wilson models are obtained from the thermodynamic analysis with our previously established method based on the thermodynamic first and second law. The results show that the waste treatment process needs a high energy consumption and the theoretical limit of energy consumption for organic contaminant removal increases with decreasing initial concentrations in aqueous solutions. The theoretical limit of energy consumption decreases with the more C–H bonds being replaced by C–Cl or C–Br bonds in chlorinated methanes, ethanes, ethenes or brominated methanes except for 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane, and the energy consumption for the removal of chlorinated methanes is higher than that of chlorinated ethanes with the same C–H bonds being replaced by C–Cl bonds. For the removal of chlorinated ethenes, brominated methanes and benzene and its derivatives studied, the energy consumption has corresponding relationship with solubility and the energy consumption is higher for the removal of organics with higher solubility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]