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In Iran, bakers use baking soda and sodium dithionate to lower baking costs, save time, and hide their product's imperfections. Because of the harmful effects of these additives on human's health, the Ministry of Health of Iran has banned their use for baking bread. The residuals of baking soda and sodium dithionate in bread, the relationship between these substances and bread type, baking time, and sanitary status of bakeries in military bases of one of Iran's military forces were examined. Out of 21 organizational dormitories, 15 were randomly selected, and 30 Iranian bread samples (Sangak, Lavash, Taftoon, and Barbari) were purchased. Baking soda and sodium dithionate content was investigated following the national standard methods. The sanitary status of bakeries was assessed by a checklist developed by the Ministry of Health. Based on the pH standard cut off point, 60% of the samples were considered positive in terms of using baking soda. Taftoon with 75% and Lavash with 66% had the highest frequencies of using baking soda. There was a statistically significant relationship between the type of bread and pH at the error level of 0.05 (p=0.05). All the samples were negative for using sodium dithionate. The sanitary status of bakeries was satisfactory; however, personal hygiene needed improvement. There is a need for constant monitoring to prevent bakeries from using the additives. Strict rules along with resolving deficiencies and educating sanitation guidelines will help to improve the sanitary status of bakeries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decarbonizing energy systems through the integration of decentralized renewable energy generators creates opportunities for community-scale actors to participate in energy system decision-making. However, typical modelling approaches exclude community stakeholders, causing a loss of local knowledge. This exclusion is problematic for Indigenous peoples in so-called Canada where the natural resource industry harms their land and communities. The Exploring Grassroots Renewable Energy Transitions (EGRET) platform introduced in this work presents an alternative to typical energy system modelling because it facilitates community participation throughout the model development and application process. This platform was developed in partnership with a local First Nation's energy specialist to assess whether solar panels could increase community energy sovereignty. The platform's user interface, visualization suite, and high-speed machine learning models make energy system modelling accessible to community members through interactive workshops. In the future, the EGRET approach could be generalized for stakeholder-led renewable energy exploration in other community settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy hub concept has been emerged as a suitable tool to analyze multi-carrier energy systems. Deregulation and increasing competition in the energy industry have provided a suitable platform for developing the multi-agent energy systems. Planning of energy hubs considering the competition between the hubs has not been sufficiently addressed, yet. A model has been proposed in this study for planning of a multi-hub energy system considering the competition between the hubs. The hubs are interconnected via an electric transmission system. A linear model has been developed to determine the optimal planning/operation strategy for energy hubs in a multi-period planning horizon to meet the heat and electricity demand for the defined load zone. The problem has been formulated and solved using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions. The proposed model has been applied to 3-Hub and 5-Hub energy systems. The effect of renewable generation and storage system has also been evaluatedIt has also been observed that inclusion of renewable generation or storage technologies can reduce the conventional electricity generation capacity by 63 percent in HUB2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aimed at investigating the impacts of some cultural, social and economic factors of the students' families on the students' education and attitude toward mathematics. This study has been carried out through the use of data envelopment analysis. Data envelopment analysis is a linear programming method that its main purpose is to compare and evaluate the efficiency of a number of similar decision-making units, and to compare and analyze them, which have different values of consumed inputs and produced outputs. In this study, the inputs are the various aspects of cultural, social and economic conditions (such as family income, physical and mental health condition of the family members, and parents' occupation) of the families of 300 sixth-grade elementary school students in district 4 of Tehran, and the outputs are the extent of achievement in the mathematics test and the interest of the students of the mentioned schools to the activities related to the mathematics course and moral discipline. After the completion of the investigations, the effective and ineffective units were identified and the results were completely interpreted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A power grid with a lower global warming impact has the potential to extend its benefits to energy systems that conventionally do not utilize electricity as their primary energy source. This study presents the case of Ontario where the role of complementing policies in transitioning electricity systems is assessed. The policy cost to incentivize surplus low emission electricity via an established mechanism for the transportation sector has been estimated (Electric and Hydrogen Vehicle Incentive Program). It is estimated that the 9056 (4760 battery and 4296 plug-in hybrid) electric vehicles that qualified for incentives from the provincial government at the end of 2016 vehicles cost $732.5-$883.9 to reduce a tonne of CO 2,e emissions over an eight year lifetime. This is then compared with the potential cost incurred by two power to gas energy hubs that utilize clean surplus electricity from the province to offset emissions within the natural gas sector. The use of hydrogen-enriched natural gas and synthetic natural gas (SNG) offsets emissions at $87.8 and $228.7 per tonne of CO 2,e in the natural gas sector. This analysis highlights the potential future costs for incentivizing new clean technologies such as electric vehicles and power to gas energy hubs in jurisdictions with a transitioning electricity system. • Compared the economics of potential clean energy sinks: Power to Gas and EVs. • Established an emission policy cost of the power to gas energy hub concept. • Economic cost of reducing emissions higher in transportation sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this work, we are analyzing the advantages of energy incentives for all the stakeholders in an energy system. The stakeholders include the government, the energy hub operator, and the energy consumer. Two streams of energy incentives were compared in this work: incentives for renewable energy generation technologies and incentives for energy storage technologies. The first type aims increasing the share of renewable energies in the electricity system while the second type aims development of systems which use clean electricity to replace fossil fuels in other sectors of an energy system such as the transportation, residential and industrial sector. In this work, we are analyzing the advantages of energy incentives for all the stakeholders in an energy system. The stakeholders include the government, the energy hub operator, and the energy consumer. Two streams of energy incentives were compared in this work: incentives for renewable energy generation technologies and incentives for energy storage technologies. The first type aims to increase the share of renewable energies in the electricity system while the second type aims the development of systems which use clean electricity to replace fossil fuels in other sectors of an energy system such as the transportation, residential and industrial sector. The results of the analysis showed that replacing fossil fuel-based electricity generation with wind and solar power is a less expensive way for the energy consumer to reduce GHG emissions (60 and 92 CAD/ tonne CO 2e for wind and solar, respectively) compared to investing on energy storage technologies (225 and 317 CAD/ tonne CO 2e for Power-to-Gas and battery powered forklifts, respectively). However, considering the current Ontario's electricity mix, incentives for the Power-to-Gas and battery powered technologies are less expensive ways to reduce emissions compared to replacing the grid with wind and solar power technologies (1479 and 2418 CAD/ tonne CO 2e for wind and solar, respectively). Our analysis also shows that battery storage and hydrogen storage are complementary technologies for reducing GHG emissions in Ontario. Highlights • Effect of energy incentives on all stakeholders is analyzed. • Externalities of energy incentives (health impacts and taxes) are considered. • Wind and solar are not the cost-effective ways to reduce emissions in Ontario now. • Hydrogen produced with clean power can be used for reducing emissions in Ontario. • Hydrogen and electric technologies are complementary in reducing GHG emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Long-term planning for replacement of fossil fuel energy technologies with renewables is of great importance for achieving GHG emission reduction targets. The current study is focused on developing a five-year mathematical model for finding the optimal sizing of renewable energy technologies for achieving certain CO 2 emission reduction targets. A manufacturing industrial facility which uses CHP for electricity generation and natural gas for heating is considered as the base case in this work. Different renewable energy technologies are developed each year to achieve a 4.53% annual CO 2 emission reduction target. The results of this study show that wind power is the most cost-effective technology for reducing emissions in the first and second year with a cost of 44 and 69 CAD per tonne of CO 2 , respectively. Hydrogen, on the other hand, is more cost-effective than wind power in reducing CO 2 emissions from the third year on. The cost of CO 2 emission reduction with hydrogen doesn't change drastically from the first year to the fifth year (107 and 130 CAD per tonne of CO 2). Solar power is a more expensive technology than wind power for reducing CO 2 emissions in all years due to lower capacity factor (in Ontario), more intermittency (requiring mores storage capacity), and higher investment cost. A hybrid wind/battery/hydrogen energy system has the lowest emission reduction cost over five years. The emission reduction cost of such hybrid system increases from 44 CAD per tonne of CO 2 in the first year to 156 CAD per tonne of CO 2 in the fifth year. The developed model can be used for long-term planning of energy systems for achieving GHG emission targets in a regions/country which has fossil fuel-based electricity and heat generation infrastructure. Highlights • A five-year technology selection optimization model is developed. • Wind power is a cost-efficient technology for reducing emissions in the first years. • Hydrogen is more cost-effective than wind power from the third year on. • The cost of emission reduction with hydrogen doesn't change drastically in five years. • Hybrid wind/battery/hydrogen system has the lowest emission reduction cost overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]