Search

The origin of particulate matter (PM) concentrations in the Netherlands is established using the LOTOS-EUROS model with a source attribution module. Emissions from the ten main economic sectors (SNAP1) were tracked, separating Dutch and foreign sources. Of the modelled PM10 in the Netherlands, about 25% comes from natural sources and 75% is of anthropogenic origin. Dutch sources contribute one third to the anthropogenic part, with the highest contributions from transport and agriculture. During episodes, the contribution of foreign sources becomes more important. This source attribution is based on model results only, and LOTOS-EUROS captures only about 60% of the measured concentrations. This is mainly caused by a strong underestimation of the concentration of organic carbon particles. Reducing the missing mass is an important step to improve the source attribution of PM. Source attribution of PM has also been performed for Flanders, with a focus on agriculture. Flanders has a large agricultural sector and therefore considerable ammonia emissions, which contribute to secondary inorganic aerosol formation. Manure transport data was used to estimate the temporal variability of ammonia emission from manure application in the LOTOS-EUROS model. This approach strongly improves the model performance for ammonia, but does not affect secondary inorganic aerosol. A scenario study showed that restricting manure spreading shortly before and during a period with high particulate matter concentrations is not an effective way to reduce particulate matter concentrations during these episodes. Two papers in this thesis investigate possible consequences of energy transitions for air quality. During the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives there is likely a phase in which fossil fuel energy production will be mainly used to provide back-up capacity. This causes a change in the temporal emission variability from power plants. The effect of this projected shift in emission timing on air pollutant concentrations is assessed. For all PM components considered, air concentrations in a model experiment accounting for the change in emission timing were higher than expected based on the emission change. As back-up capacity, power plants are more likely to operate during stagnant weather conditions and during nighttime in this transition phase, conditions in which air pollution is transport and dilution is ineffective. This work illustrates that emission timing is important to look into when assessing the impacts of system changes on air quality. The second scenario study focuses on ozone. When bioenergy use in increased, more production area is needed causing a change in land use. In this work the effects of land use change as well as changes in anthropogenic emissions are taken into account using realistic energy and air quality scenarios for Europe. The increase in ozone damage caused by increased production of biomass is only marginal compared to the reduction in ozone damage because of reduced ozone precursor emissions in other sectors. The total effect is a significant reduction in health damage due to ozone, especially in southern Europe. However, taking into account the effects of projected climate change, ozone damage towards 2050 might actually increase.

The origin of particulate matter (PM) concentrations in the Netherlands is established using the LOTOS-EUROS model with a source attribution module. Emissions from the ten main economic sectors (SNAP1) were tracked, separating Dutch and foreign sources. Of the modelled PM10 in the Netherlands, about 25% comes from natural sources and 75% is of anthropogenic origin. Dutch sources contribute one third to the anthropogenic part, with the highest contributions from transport and agriculture. During episodes, the contribution of foreign sources becomes more important. This source attribution is based on model results only, and LOTOS-EUROS captures only about 60% of the measured concentrations. This is mainly caused by a strong underestimation of the concentration of organic carbon particles. Reducing the missing mass is an important step to improve the source attribution of PM. Source attribution of PM has also been performed for Flanders, with a focus on agriculture. Flanders has a large agricultural sector and therefore considerable ammonia emissions, which contribute to secondary inorganic aerosol formation. Manure transport data was used to estimate the temporal variability of ammonia emission from manure application in the LOTOS-EUROS model. This approach strongly improves the model performance for ammonia, but does not affect secondary inorganic aerosol. A scenario study showed that restricting manure spreading shortly before and during a period with high particulate matter concentrations is not an effective way to reduce particulate matter concentrations during these episodes. Two papers in this thesis investigate possible consequences of energy transitions for air quality. During the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives there is likely a phase in which fossil fuel energy production will be mainly used to provide back-up capacity. This causes a change in the temporal emission variability from power plants. The effect of this projected shift in emission timing on air pollutant concentrations is assessed. For all PM components considered, air concentrations in a model experiment accounting for the change in emission timing were higher than expected based on the emission change. As back-up capacity, power plants are more likely to operate during stagnant weather conditions and during nighttime in this transition phase, conditions in which air pollution is transport and dilution is ineffective. This work illustrates that emission timing is important to look into when assessing the impacts of system changes on air quality. The second scenario study focuses on ozone. When bioenergy use in increased, more production area is needed causing a change in land use. In this work the effects of land use change as well as changes in anthropogenic emissions are taken into account using realistic energy and air quality scenarios for Europe. The increase in ozone damage caused by increased production of biomass is only marginal compared to the reduction in ozone damage because of reduced ozone precursor emissions in other sectors. The total effect is a significant reduction in health damage due to ozone, especially in southern Europe. However, taking into account the effects of projected climate change, ozone damage towards 2050 might actually increase.

We refined an urban-scale dispersion modelling system by adding a road dust suspension model, FORE. The deterministic modelling includes both vehicular exhaust emissions (including cold start and cold driving) and suspended road dust. The urban scale modelling system was used in combination with the regional scale chemical transport model LOTOS- EUROS, for 2008, and the measured regional background concentrations, for 2010. The predictions were compared against measured concentrations of PM 2.5 and PM 10 . PM 2.5 concentrations were slightly and the PM 10 concentrations substantially under-predicted in 2008, mainly due to the under-predicted regional background concentration. Source contri- butions of suspended road dust varied from 2% to 8% and from 12% to 38% for PM 2.5 and PM 10 , respectively. Long-range transported contributions at the urban traffic stations were 72% to 92% for PM 2.5 and 50% to 83% for PM 10 .

Four regional chemistry transport models were applied to simulate the concentration and composition of particulate matter (PM) in Europe for 2005 with horizontal resolution 20 km. The modelled concentrations were compared with the measurements of PM chemical composition by the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) monitoring network. All models systematically underestimated PM10 and PM2.5 by 10-60 %, depending on the model and the season of the year, when the calculated dry PM mass was compared with the measurements. The average water content at laboratory conditions was estimated between 5 and 20% for PM2.5 and between 10 and 25% for PM10. For majority of the PM chemical components, the relative underestimation was smaller than it was for total PM, exceptions being the carbonaceous particles and mineral dust. Some species, such as sea salt and NO-3 , were overpredicted by the models. There were notable differences between the models' predictions of the seasonal variations of PM, mainly attributable to different treatments or omission of some source categories and aerosol processes. Benzo(a)pyrene concentrations were overestimated by all the models over the whole year. The study stresses the importance of improving the models' skill in simulating mineral dust and carbonaceous compounds, necessity for high-quality emissions from wildland fires, as well as the need for an explicit consideration of aerosol water content in model-measurement comparison. © Author(s) 2016.

Introduction Measuring the beam profile on a medical cyclo-tron in real time can aid in improved tuning of the cyclotron and give important information for a smooth operation. Typically the beam profile is measured by an autoradiography technique or even by a scintillator that can be viewed in real time [1, 2]. Another method is to use collimators in front of the target to assess the beam center-ing [3]. All these methods have potential draw-backs including; an inability to monitor the beam in real time for the radiograph, exhibiting a non-linear correlation in signal response to the power deposited for a scintillator, and not providing a 2-dimensional profile of the complete beam for collimators. Our goal was to design a realtime, linear, 2-dimensional beam-profile monitor that is able to withstand the high power of a PET cyclotron. Material and Methods The beam-profile monitor (PM) is designed for the TR13, a 13MeV negative hydrogen-ion cyclotron at TRIUMF. The design follows the concept of a ‘harp’ monitor, widely used at TRIUMF for tuning proton and radioactive ion beams, and is installed on the extraction port without separation from the tank vacuum. The TR13 monitor is designed to withstand a 13 MeV proton beam with a beam current of up to 25 µA, has an active area of 10 by 10 mm and does not affect the 10-7 torr tank vacuum. The device consists of a water-cooled Faraday cup made out of aluminium for low activation and two orthogonal rows of eight tungsten electrodes each mounted on a water-cooled support frame. Electrodes are spaced 1 mm apart from each other, see FIG. 1. The electrodes are electrically isolated from each other and each has a current pickup soldered to it. The material and the shape of the electrodes are optimized to withstand the deposited power of the proton beam. A voltage of -90 V is applied to the electrodes to repel secondary electrons and prevent crosstalk between neighbouring electrodes. The electrode current is amplified using a custom current amplifier, and read by an ADC. From there, the current data is displayed on a PC. This allows one to observe changes of the beam profile in real time. The electronics are designed to read out all sixteen channels in parallel, or, if only a limited number of ADC channels are available, to cycle through the different channels. In our current setup all sixteen channels are read out simultaneously. Results and Conclusion The beam-profile monitor provides a real-time representation of the proton beam, see FIG. 2. The data can also be recorded and analyzed at a later time. The linearity of the monitor has been measured up to 30 µA of proton beam current [4]. With the use of the monitor, it was possible to increase the output of the ion source into the target by 50% in comparison to the standard tune.

Het verdisconteren van de invloed van weersomstandigheden op ammoniakemissies uit landbouwactiviteiten leidt tot een betere modellering van ammnoniakconcentraties. Dat blijkt uit een studie van TNO in Vlaanderen

Geïnformeerde publieke opinies over CO2 mitigatie opties in Nederland: overweging van expert informatie en percepties van leken.

Contains fulltext : VMS_DuurzameSamenleving.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) 81 p.

For the hard-core lattice gas model defined on independent sets weighted by an activity λ, we study the critical activity λc(ℤ2) for the uniqueness threshold on the 2-dimensional integer lattice ℤ2. The conjectured value of the critical activity is approximately 3.796. Until recently, the best lower bound followed from algorithmic results of Weitz (2006). Weitz presented an FPTAS for approximating the partition function for graphs of constant maximum degree Δ when λ < λc(TΔ)λ < λc(TΔ) where TΔ is the infinite, regular tree of degree Δ. His result established a certain decay of correlations property called strong spatial mixing (SSM) on ℤ2 by proving that SSM holds on its self-avoiding walk tree Tsaw(ℤ2), and as a consequence he obtained that λc(Z2) ≥ λc(T4) = 1.675. Restrepo et al. (2011) improved Weitz’s approach for the particular case of ℤ2 and obtained that λc(ℤ2) > 2.388. In this paper, we establish an upper bound for this approach, by showing that SSM does not hold on Tsaw(ℤ2) when λ > 3.4. We also present a refinement of the approach of Restrepo et al. which improves the lower bound to λc(ℤ2) > 2.48.

Varkenshouder Lei Hermans voert zijn zogende biggen geen hagelslagvoer meer, maar korrels met een doorsnee van 15 milimeter. "Het was even wenne, maar ik ga er zeker mee door. De biggen zijn gezonder en de groei na spenen is enorm gestegen."

Tijdens de onderhandelingen over het Kyoto Protocol, werd door Brazilie het zogenaamde Braziliaanse voorstel ingediend. Dit bevat een methodiek om de relatieve bijdrage van Annex I landen (de geindustrialiseerde landen) aan emissiereducties te koppelen aan hun bijdrage aan de gerealiseerde mondiaal gemiddelde temperatuurstijging. Het Braziliaanse voorstel is niet in het Kyoto Protocol opgenomen, maar door de Conference of Parties in Kyoto (CoP-3) verwezen naar SBSTA (Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technical Advise) voor een nadere bestudering van wetenschappelijke en methodologische aspecten van het voorstel. In de tussentijd vond een herziening van het Brazilianen plaats. In dit rapport worden zowel de originele als de herziene methodologie geevalueerd. De oorspronkelijke methodologie is wetenschappelijk incorrect bevonden. Het herziene model vormt een aanzienlijke, maar bevat nog steeds een aantal tekortkomingen. Deze kunnen alle worden opgelost door een verbeterde parametrisatie, en door de toevoeging van een aantal extra processen of benaderingen te kiezen die al in andere modellen zijn getest en toegepast. Voor het evalueren van het Braziliaanse voorstel en het vergelijken van het voorstel met andere opties voor internationale is een nieuw model ontwikkeld: FAIR (Framework to Assess International Regimes for burden sharing). Lastenverdelingscriteria die rekening houden met historische emissies en/of gebaseerd zijn op een per capita benadering zijn gunstig voor de ontwikkelingslanden. Daarentegen is het meenemen van de antropogene emissies van alle broeikasgassen en de emissies ten gevolge van landgebruiksveranderingen gunstig voor de geindustrialiseerde landen. Een indicator later in de oorzaak-effect keten van het klimaatsprobleem, zoals de bijdrage aan mondiale temperatuurstijging in plaats van emissies, is gunstig voor de ontwikkelingslanden. Toepassing van het Braziliaanse voorstel op wereldschaal zou betekenen dat alle landen onmiddellijk hun emissies zouden moeten reduceren, ongeacht hun niveau van economische ontwikkeling. Om rekening te houden met de verschillen in ontwikkelingsniveau, kan een deelname drempel worden ingevoerd. Daarbij lijkt met name het gebruik van een deelnamedrempel gebaseerd op mondiaal gemiddelde emissie per hoofd interessant, omdat het resulteert in een mondiale convergentie van hoofdelijke emissieruimte. Het beloont reductie-inspanningen van de geindustrialiseerde landen, terwijl het een ontwikkelingslanden stimuleert de groei in hun emissies te beperken. Tenslotte is ook een sector-georienteerde aanpak van internationale lastenverdeling. De resultaten van een eerste voorlopige toepassing van deze benadering op een mondiale schaal, worden hier tevens gepresenteerd.

In this study, an Information-Choice Questionnaire (ICQ) was used to find out how a representative sample of the Dutch public (n =971) would evaluate and choose between seven mitigation options after having been thoroughly informed. The results suggest that due to the comparison with other mitigation options, people are less positive about CCS options. Still, only few respondents firmly reject the CCS options.

The idea of wage restraint has a long history in the Netherlands and has been presented as the recipe for economic recovery for many years now. In times of economic (and political) crisis, wage restraint has been the standard response of the Dutch government, often in cooperation with unions and employers’ organisations. Wage restraint, so the argument runs, will lead to economic and jobs growth by improving Dutch competitiveness and exports. The economic successes linked to the so-called Dutch Polder Model of the second half of the 1990s seemed to prove this point: ever since agreeing on wage restraint in the Accord of Wassenaar of 1982, the Netherlands has arguably performed rather well in international comparison. The Story behind the Dutch Model analyses this prominent role of the idea of wage restraint in the Dutch Polder politics. Why do we always talk about wage restraint? More specifically, the question is why wage restraint has been presented as the core of the Dutch Model in the second half of the 1990s, and how a near-universal acceptance of this policy idea could develop over this period? As will be demonstrated, the answer to this question is not as simple as the phrase ‘it is good for the Dutch economy’ suggests. This book looks into more cultural en discursive mechanisms that might explain the recurrence of wage restraint in public discourse. Wage restraint needs to be constantly negotiated about, constructed as ‘good and successful’ and legitimised by the political actors supporting this policy strategy. Wage restraint therefore is not just an idea, but involves a whole story on what is economically needed, politically feasible and considered a ‘normal’ outcome in society. This study is about this story of wage restraint the Wage Restraint Storyline which constitutes the real story behind the Dutch Model.

Industrial CO2 emissions and opportunities for CO2 geological storage in the Baltic Region were studied within the EU GeoCapacity project supported by the European Union Framework Programme 6. Estonia produces the largest amounts of CO2 emissions in the region, due to the combustion of Estonian oil shale for energy production. Owing to the shallow sedimentary basin containing mainly potable groundwater, the geological conditions are unfavourable for CO2 storage in Estonia. Therefore the main Estonian power company Eesti Energia is searching for CO2 storage options in the neighbouring regions. The most favourable geological conditions for CO2 storage in the Baltic Region are found in Latvia in the Middle Cambrian reservoir, sealed by Ordovician clayey carbonate rocks. The total CO2 storage capacity of 16 largest structural traps exceeds 400 million tonnes (Mt). Two power plants close to the city of Narva, with annual CO2 emissions of 8.0 and 2.7 Mt were chosen for the economic modelling of the capture-transport-sink scenario using the GeoCapacity Decision Support System (DSS) based on the GeoCapacity GIS database. Two anticlinal structures of Latvia, Luku-Duku and South Kandava with the area of 50-70 km 2 were selected for the CO2 storage. The depth of the top of the Cambrian reservoir is 1020-1050 m, the thickness 28-45 m; permeability of sandstone is more than 300 mD, and the trap storage efficiency factor 40%. The conservative storage capacity of these structures 40 and 44 Mt of CO2 respectively will be enough for 8 years. The estimated pipeline length required for CO2 transportation is about 800 km. The oxyfuel capture technology is applied in this scenario. With a conservative storage capacity for 8 years of emissions, avoidance costs are rated at € 37.4 per tonne of CO2. The total cost of the project estimated by the Decision Support System using the GeoCapacity GIS is about € 2.8 billion for 30 years of payment period. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

This paper describes the development and application of a methodology to screen and rank Dutch reservoirs suitable for long-term large scale CO2 storage. The screening focuses on off- and on-shore individual aquifers, gas and oil fields. In total 176 storage reservoirs have been taken into consideration: 138 gas fields, 4 oil fields and 34 aquifers, with a total theoretical storage potential of about 3200 Mt CO2. The reservoirs are screened according to three criteria: potential storage capacity, storage costs and effort needed to manage risk. Due to the large number of reservoirs, which limits the possibility to use any pair-wise comparison method (e.g. Multi-Criteria programs such as Bosda or Naiade), a spreadsheet tool was designed to provide an assessment of each of the criteria through an evaluation of the fields present in the database and a set of scores provided by a (inter)national panel of experts. The assessment is sufficiently simple and allows others to review it, re-do it or expand it. The results of the methodology show that plausible comparisons of prospective sites with limited characterization data are possible. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper describes the development and application of a methodology to screen and rank Dutch reservoirs suitable for long-term large scale CO2 storage. The screening focuses on off- and on-shore individual aquifers, gas and oil fields. In total 176 storage reservoirs have been taken into consideration: 138 gas fields, 4 oil fields and 34 aquifers, with a total theoretical storage potential of about 3200 Mt CO2. The reservoirs are screened according to three criteria: potential storage capacity, storage costs and effort needed to manage risk. Due to the large number of reservoirs, which limits the possibility to use any pair-wise comparison method (e.g. Multi-Criteria programs such as Bosda or Naiade), a spreadsheet tool was designed to provide an assessment of each of the criteria through an evaluation of the fields present in the database and a set of scores provided by a (inter)national panel of experts. The assessment is sufficiently simple and allows others to review it, re-do it or expand it. The results of the methodology show that plausible comparisons of prospective sites with limited characterization data are possible.

The focus of the GeoCapacity project is GIS mapping of CO2 point sources, infrastructure and geological storage in Europe. The main objective is to assess the European capacity for geological storage of CO2 in deep saline aquifers, oil and gas structures and coal beds. Other priorities are further development of methods for capacity assessment, economic modelling and site selection as well as international cooperation, especially with China. The results of GeoCapacity will include 25 countries and comprises most European sedimentary basins suitable for geological storage of CO2. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Met lit.opg

A Decision Support System (DSS) has been developed to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of CO2 storage in the subsurface. The system can be used to define CO2 capture, transport and storage systems, consisting of a selection of CO2 sources and sinks and the connecting pipeline network. The DSS uses the database of CO2 emission points and storage locations in Europe that has been compiled in the EU GeoCapacity project. The system is a combination of an internet application, which visualises the data and allows the user to select sources and sinks and create a pipeline network, and an application to be run on a local computer, which performs a stochastic analysis of the costs of a CO2 capture, transport and storage system

This document is the public GeoCapacity Final Report and is deliverable D42 of WP7 Project Management and Reporting. A description of the project, summary of the work carried out and results of the individual work packages WP1 - WP7 are given in the report

Lit.opg.

Sustainability considerations guide political decisions concerning energy supply options. In this article a start has been made for the development of a sustainability framework for carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems in the Netherlands. Using a participatory approach (which includes an exploratory workshop, two interactive meetings, an international survey and in-depth interviews), nine sustainability criteria for CCS based energy systems were defined and 36 main concerns about the sustainability of carbon, capture and storage systems (by criterion) were identified. Analysis shows that concerns related to the following criteria are most relevant: clean, flexible, just, competitive and publicly acceptable. Furthermore, via stakeholder consultations and through interviews, a list of actions to tackle the concerns was developed. These actions can be clustered into three groups: (i) increasing research and development, (ii) including CCS in a policy portfolio, and (iii) raising public awareness. Finally, actions that should take place in the next 2 years were identified.