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Many countries have some kind of energy-system transformation either planned or ongoing for various reasons, such as to curb carbon emissions or to compensate for the phasing out of nuclear energy. One important component of these transformations is the overall reduction in energy demand. It is generally acknowledged that the domestic sector represents a large share of total energy consumption in many countries. Increased energy efficiency is one factor that reduces energy demand, but behavioral approaches (known as “sufficiency”) and their respective interventions also play important roles. In this paper, we address citizens’ heterogeneity regarding both their current behaviors and their willingness to realize their sufficiency potentials—that is, to reduce their energy consumption through behavioral change. We collaborated with three Swiss cities for this study. A survey conducted in the three cities yielded thematic sets of energy-consumption behavior that various groups of participants rated differently. Using this data, we identified four groups of participants with different patterns of both current behaviors and sufficiency potentials. The paper discusses intervention types and addresses citizens’ heterogeneity and behaviors from a city-based perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes GCAM v5.1, an open source model that represents the linkages between energy, water, land, climate, and economic systems. GCAM is a market equilibrium model, is global in scope, and operates from 1990 to 2100 in five-year time steps. It can be used to examine, for example, how changes in population, income, or technology cost might alter crop production, energy demand, or water withdrawals, or how changes in one region's demand for energy affect energy, water, and land in other regions. This paper describes the model, including its assumptions, inputs, and outputs. We then use eleven scenarios, varying socioeconomic and climate policy assumptions, to illustrate the results from the model. The resulting scenarios illustrate a wide range of potential future energy, water, and land uses. We compare the results from GCAM v5.1 to historical data and to future scenario simulations from earlier versions of GCAM and from other models. Finally, we provide information on how to obtain the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chen, L., 2020. The green building design of subtropical ocean climate adaptability. In: Li, L. and Huang, X. (eds.), Sustainable Development in Coastal Regions: A Perspective of Environment, Economy, and Technology. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 112, pp. 50-54. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. With the increasing global warming, climate change has affected human survival and development, which has become an important problem facing the world. Therefore, green building has become the most important development trend, which is an important measure of the corresponding sustainable development strategy. Through green building, China can implement energy conservation and emission reduction strategy, which will better deal with global warming. Green building needs mult-disciplinary technology combination, which needs to set the design goal according to the local environment, form and function. By strengthening the natural regulation of climate, green buildings can better apply the environmental climate change, which will meet the requirements of energy conservation and health. This paper mainly studies the adaptability of the subtropical marine climate green building, which can better design the building in line with energy conservation, health and function. Taking Guangzhou as an example, this paper analyzes the adaptive design of green building through examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to reduce the amount of energy being spent in the construction industry and to achieve the EU Climate and Energy Package goals by 2020, new ways of constructing houses is required. This research proposes construction of bio-based nearly zero energy or passive houses as one solution. Typical house construction methods in the Balkan region are analysed and compared to current Austrian house construction methods (in particular straw bale house built to passive house standards), since Austria is now one of the leading countries in Europe when it comes to offering smart and eco-friendly construction methods. This paper aims to enhance the understanding of the environmental performance of straw bale house in the Balkan region, develop the mainstream acceptance and use of straw as a construction material by proving that, such home is not only healthier for the environment, but also economically justifiable to construct than concrete/brick homes usually built in this region of the world. This is done via energy analysis in both BIM and Baubook software and construction cost calculation and comparison of two different house types virtually placed in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a representative country of Balkan region. Type 1 is bio-based house, while Type 2 is concrete house of similar geometry. During the analysis, it was discovered that Type 1 house is in compliance with passive house standards, while Type 2 isn't. Furthermore, energy use intensity according to BIM analysis for Type 1 is half of the value of the Type 2 house. Peak heating load for Type 2 house is much larger than for the Type 1 house. Global warming potential of Type 1 house is negative, which means that bio-based materials absorb CO 2 during its life. Global warming potential for Type 2 is 435.02 kgCO 2 /m 2 . In addition to this, it costs slightly less to construct Type 1 house than Type 2 house. Therefore, this paper proves that Type 1 – Bio-based house is cheaper to construct and more energy efficient than Type 2 – Concrete house that is typically being constructed in the Balkan region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently there has been growing interest in regenerative evaporative coolers (REC), which can reduce the temperature of the supply air to below the wet-bulb of intake air and approach its dew-point. In this paper, we designed, fabricated and experimentally tested a counter-flow REC in laboratory. The REC’s core heat and mass exchanger was fabricated using stacked sheets composed of high wicking evaporation (wickability of available materials was measured) and waterproof aluminium materials. The developed REC system has a much higher cooling performance compared to conventional indirect evaporative cooler. However, the decision to use the REC for China buildings depends on a dedicated evaluation of the net energy saved against the capital expended. Such an evaluation requires the hourly-based data on the availability of cooling capacity provided by the REC for various climates. The paper used an experiment-based method to estimate the cooling capacity and energy savings provided by the proposed REC for China’s various climates. By using the experimental results and regional hourly-based weather data, the energy saving potential of the REC against an equivalent-sized mechanical air conditioner alone was analysed. The results indicate that, for all selected regions, the REC could reduce 53–100% of cooling load and 13–58% of electrical energy consumption annually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present some basic conceptual aspects and empiric examples of urban mitigation and adaptation to climate change, of greening urban development, as there is strong need for further research and education on these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Starting with a review of the 4th IPCC report and the Stern Review, a strategy is developed on how to make cities main actors in fighting climate change. First examples of successful urban greening are presented. Findings – Cities are main drivers of climate change, and they are driven by climate change. Therefore, there is a strong need for "greening" urban development, i.e. for both mitigation and adaptation activities. Practical implications – Mitigation requires the reduction (more or less drastically) of urban energy and material flows. Adaptation requires restructure (more or less radically) of the established urban stocks. Originality/value – Until recently, cities and urban areas have not been in the focus of climate change research and climate policy. The paper shows the need for change of both theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases can be reduced significantly using existing technologies, but stabilizing concentrations will require a technological revolution--a “revolution” because it will require fundamental change, achieved within a relatively short period of time. Inspiration for a climate-technology revolution is often drawn from the Apollo space program or the Manhattan Project, but averting dangerous climate change cannot be “solved” by a single new technology, deployed by a single government. The technological changes needed to address climate change fundamentally will have to be pervasive; they will have to involve markets; and they will have to be global in scope. My focus in this paper is not on the moderate emission reductions that can be achieved using existing technologies, but on the breakthrough technologies that are needed to reduce emissions dramatically. The challenges are formidable. Indeed, it is possible that the revolution needed to dramatically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases will fail. Should the climate change abruptly, the incentive to “engineer” the climate will be strong. There will be a climate-technology revolution, but its nature will depend on the institutions we develop to address the challenge we face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermally activated building system (TABS) is a hydronic cooling system, in which cold water is circulated through pipes embedded in the building structure to remove the heat from the indoor space. This paper proposes a hybrid passive cooling system, in which TABS is integrated with a cooling tower. The performance of this integrated system greatly depends on the climatic conditions of the geographical area. Hence, the feasibility of the proposed system to provide thermal comfort in twelve Indian cities spread over five different climatic regions is investigated using COMSOL Multiphysics. Different cooling scenarios like Roof and Floor cooled TABS (RF) and All Surfaces cooled TABS (AS) are compared. The proposed system performs well in arid and semi-arid regions, and the RF scenario is sufficient to achieve thermal comfort. The system is able to reduce the indoor operative temperature by 14 °C for the arid climatic conditions of Jaipur. In the other three regions, i.e., humid subtropical, tropical wet and dry and tropical wet regions, the performance of the proposed system is relatively low and the AS scenario is required to achieve thermal comfort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat gain through the windows is of great importance as it is the main part of cooling load in the hot summer and cold winter climate. This paper attempts to find out the most efficient energy saving technology for windows by analysing the thermal process of the south and west oriented windows in Shanghai. By numerical calculation, the ratios of different compositions are compared to find out which is the main source of heat gain of windows. The calculation result shows that solar radiation heat gain is much bigger than the heat transmission caused by temperature difference between indoor and outdoor air. Solar heat gain for west windows is much higher than for south windows after 12:00. For south windows, diffuse radiation and reflected radiation from ground are the main source of solar heat gain. As for west windows, direct radiation heat gain takes up most of solar heat gain after 12:00. Therefore different strategies should be taken according to different orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high temporal variability of wind power generation represents a major challenge for the realization of a sustainable energy supply. Large backup and storage facilities are necessary to secure the supply in periods of low renewable generation, especially in countries with a high share of renewables. We show that strong climate change is likely to impede the system integration of intermittent wind energy. To this end, we analyze the temporal characteristics of wind power generation based on high-resolution climate projections for Europe and uncover a robust increase of backup energy and storage needs in most of Central, Northern and North-Western Europe. This effect can be traced back to an increase of the likelihood for long periods of low wind generation and an increase in the seasonal wind variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new approach based on energy conservation principle for satellite gravimetry mission has been developed and yields more accurate estimation of in situ geopotential difference observables using K-band ranging (KBR) measurements from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) twin-satellite mission. This new approach preserves more gravity information sensed by KBR range-rate measurements and reduces orbit error as compared to previous energy balance methods. Results from analysis of 11 yr of GRACE data indicated that the resulting geopotential difference estimates agree well with predicted values from official Level 2 solutions: with much higher correlation at 0.9, as compared to 0.5-0.8 reported by previous published energy balance studies. We demonstrate that our approach produced a comparable time-variable gravity solution with the Level 2 solutions. The regional GRACE temporal gravity solutions over Greenland reveals that a substantially higher temporal resolution is achievable at 10-d sampling as compared to the official monthly solutions, but without the compromise of spatial resolution, nor the need to use regularization or post-processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop an urban canopy scheme coupled to a mesoscale atmospheric numerical model and evaluate the simulated climate of an Australian city. The urban canopy scheme is based on the Town Energy Budget approach, but is modified to efficiently represent the predominately suburban component of Australian cities in regional climate simulations. Energy conservation is improved by adding a simple model of air-conditioning to prevent the urban parametrization acting as an energy sink during the Australian summer. In-canyon vegetation for suburban areas is represented by a big-leaf model, but with a largely reduced set of prognostic variables compared to previous approaches. Although we have used a recirculation/venting based parametrization of in-canyon turbulent heat fluxes that employs two canyon wall energy budgets, we avoid using a fixed canyon orientation by averaging the canyon fluxes after integrating over 180° of possible canyon orientations. The urban canopy scheme is evaluated by simulating the climate for Melbourne, Australia after coupling it to The Air Pollution Model. The combined system was found to predict a realistic climatology of air temperatures and winds when compared with observations from Environmental Protection Authority monitoring stations. The model also produced a plausible partitioning of the urban energy budget when compared to urban flux-tower studies. Overall, the urban canyon parametrization appears to have reasonable potential for studying present and predicting changes in future Australian urban climates in regional climate simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Daylighting is one of the basic components of passive solar building design and its estimation is essential. In India there are a few available data of measured illuminance as in many regions of the world. The Indian climate is generally clear with overcast conditions prevailing through the months of July to September, which provides good potential to daylighting in buildings. Therefore, an analytical model that would encompass the weather conditions of New Delhi was selected. Hourly exterior horizontal and slope daylight availability has been estimated for New Delhi using daylight modeling techniques based on solar radiation data. A model to estimate interior illuminance was investigated and validated using experimental hourly inside illuminance data of an existing skylight integrated vault roof mud house in composite climate of New Delhi. The interior illuminance model was found in good agreement with experimental value of interior illuminance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on climate change and on the impact that climate change has on the built environment and public health. She suggests that the effects of climate change are experienced in the built environments which surround most individuals. She argues that as the effects of climate change become more apparent greater attention and approaches to increase awareness and reduce climate change are necessary to protect public health.

Nowadays, awareness concerning the need to use energy efficiently is increasing significantly worldwide, thus, improving the energy efficiency levels in the building sector has acquired high importance because of their energy saving potential. However, several intervention options are available to achieve high energy efficiency levels in buildings, and the choice must be made considering the efficiency of the solution and the costs involved. Considering this, the present research aimed to develop a parametric study of several energy retrofit solutions for buildings located in the hot-humid climate of Paraguay, in order to analyse their efficiency in terms of comfort rates and cooling energy needs. Furthermore, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is employed as a decision-making method to choose the most suitable intervention considering the investment costs required. Thus, threshold values of thermal transmittance for the building thermal envelope components are established through a parametric study and sensitivity analysis of the simulations results. Considering that Paraguay does not have national building energy codes, the outcomes of this research will constitute a support and contribute for the thermal parameters regulation of buildings aiding to improve the energy efficiency of Paraguayan buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that Bob Inglis, a former U.S. legislator, has started an institution to promote conservative approaches to mitigate climate change and achieving energy security for the U.S. Inglis, whose Energy and Enterprise Initiative is housed within George Mason University, says if fuel producers are held fully accountable for the health, productivity, and environmental costs of their products, free enterprise will naturally give rise to the cleanest, most sustainable fuels. INSET: Hidden Costs of Fossil Fuels.