In this paper we address the problem of short-term electric energy prediction using a time series forecasting approach applied to data generated by a Paraguayan electricity distribution provider. The dataset used in this work contains data collected over a three-year period. This is the first time that these data have been used; therefore, a preprocessing phase of the data was also performed. In particular, we propose a comparative study of various machine learning and statistical strategies with the objective of (...) predicting the electric energy consumption for a given prediction horizon, in our case seven days, using historical data. In this paper we have tested the effectiveness of the techniques with different historical window sizes. Specifically, we considered two ensemble strategies, a neural network, a deep learning technique and linear regression. Moreover, in this study, we tested whether the inclusion of meteorological data can help achieve better predictions. In particular, we considered data regarding temperature, humidity, wind speed and atmospheric pressure registered during the three-year period of data collection. The results show that, in general, the deep learning approach obtains the best results and that such results are obtained when meteorological data are also considered. Moreover, when meteorological data is used, a smaller historical window size is required to obtain precise predictions. (shrink)

Computer technology and related Internet of things technology have penetrated into people’s daily life and industrial production; even in competitive sports training and competition, the Internet of things technology has also been a large number of applications. Traditional intelligent wearable devices are mainly used to calculate the steps of athletes or sports enthusiasts, corresponding physical data, and corresponding body indicators. The energy consumption calculated by these indexes is rough and the corresponding error is large. Based on this, this (...) paper will design a wearable device which can accurately calculate and monitor sports energy consumption based on relevant sensors and Internet of things technology. The corresponding core algorithm is the step counting algorithm, which can accurately calculate the relationship between human motion and the corresponding energy consumption and feed back to the intelligent device. In the experiment, the wearable device designed in this paper is compared with the traditional intelligent device. The experiment shows that the wearable device proposed in this paper is more accurate in energy consumption estimation than the traditional device, and its corresponding energy consumption is relatively small. (shrink)

Mobile ad hoc network is a network composed of mobile terminals without infrastructure. Due to its fast-networking ability, it is widely used in smart cities, car networking, military, agriculture, medicine, and other fields. Routing technology is a key technology in the field of MANET. The energy consumption is optimized through the technical network simulator NS-3, and the nodes in the MANET routing protocol can accurately simulate the problem, thereby optimizing the MAC layer of important research tools. This article (...) combines the advantages of the lithium-ion battery model. Compared with the KiBaM battery model, the effective charge in the KiBaM model simulates the output voltage well, which can reflect the battery capacity effect rate and the recovery effect of the lithium-ion-KiBaM battery model. The model can respond to the characteristics of the output voltage as the society gets lower and lower. In order to solve the problem that the analytic solution of differential equations cannot be obtained in the model, a numerical solution of the optimization algorithm is proposed based on the implicit Runge–Kutta method. The MAC layer energy consumption and routing protocol optimization algorithm proposed in this paper can be applied well in various fields. (shrink)

The guide dog robot (GDR) is a low-speed companion robot that serves visually impaired people and is used to guide blind people to walk steadily, carrying a variety of intelligent technologies and needing to have the ability to guide with optimal energy consumption in specific scenarios. This paper proposes an innovative technique for virtual-real collaborative path planning and navigation of the GDR specific indoor scenarios, and designs an experimental method for virtual-real collaborative path planning of the GDR specific (...) scenarios. The energy consumption integral equation is used to solve for the energy consumption of the GDR with virtual-real synergy, and the difference in energy consumption is compared for three different navigation directions: horizontal, vertical and oblique obstacle avoidance. The results show that the optimized GDR saves 6.91% in rectilinear movement and 10.60% in curved movement. The efficiency of planning and navigating the GDR in specific domestic scenarios is verified by a virtual-real cooperative. The realization of optimal path planning for energy consumption is instrumental in exploring many of the most significant thought in the path planning and navigation of mobile robots in indoor specific scenarios. (shrink)

We argue that behavioural public policies (BPP) should be categorized by the kind of mechanism through which they operate, not by the kind of treatment they implement. Reviewing the energy consumption BPP literature, we argue (i) that BPPs are currently categorized by treatment; (ii) that treatment-based categories are subject to mechanistic heterogeneity: there is substantial variation of mechanisms within each treatment type; and (iii) that they also display mechanistic overlap: there is substantial overlap between mechanisms across treatment types. (...) Consequently, current categorizations of BPPs do not reveal the conditions of their efficacy and should be revised to better reflect mechanistic information. (shrink)

The article proposes an approach to monitoring the efficiency of consumption of energy resources in technological systems, which is based on observing the precedents of stationary energy consumption. This approach allows us to adapt to the local conditions of the technological system and to detect in a timely manner any disturbances of the technological process that lead to unexpected energy losses. The peculiarity of energy monitoring based on observing and fixing the precedents of stationary (...) conditions of energy consumption consists of the formation of precedent images in the form of stochastic estimates of factors of influence on energy consumption and subsequent processing by methods of artificial intelligence. (shrink)

The mounting pollution burden has raised the need for renewable energy demand throughout the world. The study aims to explore the effect of public debt on renewable energy consumption for selected 23 Asian economies for the time period 1990–2019. Long-run empirical findings of the group-wise symmetric ARDL model reveal that increasing public debt results in declining renewable energy consumption. However, findings of the long-run group-wise asymmetric ARDL model reveal that positive shock in public debt reduces (...) renewable energy consumption, and negative shock in public debt results in increasing renewable energy consumption. The economy-wise empirical findings of the FMOLS model reveal that an increase in public debt results in increased renewable energy consumption in nine economies and decreased renewable energy consumption in six economies. The asymmetric FMOLS findings reveal that positive shock in public debt increases renewable energy consumption in nine economies and also decreases renewable energy consumption in nine economies. However, a negative shock in public debt increases renewable energy consumption in 12 economies and decreases renewable energy consumption in 5 economies. Additionally, this research provides numerous policy implications for renewable energy sources in Asian economies. Asian governments should use public debt for the consumption of renewable energy resources. (shrink)

Sports energy consumption is a quantitative reflection of physical exercise effect. Combined with different sports modes and students’ physical characteristics, the calculation model of sports energy consumption is put forward. Firstly, the relationship between students’ age, height, weight, gender, and energy consumption is analyzed by using multiple linear regression method, and a linear acceleration model is proposed by combining different exercise methods. The relationship between the integral value of acceleration and energy consumption (...) is analyzed, and a linear integral model based on different motion modes is proposed. Based on the kinetic energy theorem, the student movement energy expenditure is estimated. This paper proposes a human movement recognition method based on hybrid features, which mostly can represent the curve of the second generation wavelet transform edge thinning, and from the edge and texture features of the optimal said human posture, the statistical characteristic of the second generation wavelet transform is subtly trained as image characteristics, learning and recognition of human movement. Then, the motion recognition algorithm is tested, which can effectively identify the common movement patterns of primary and middle school students. Finally, the linear relationship between the estimation results of the model and the calculation results of Meijer is analyzed. The analysis results show that the linear acceleration model proposed in this paper can estimate the energy consumption of primary and middle school students’ motion relatively accurately. (shrink)

This work presents a novel approach to forecast streaming big time series based on nearest similar patterns. This approach combines a clustering algorithm with a classifier and the nearest neighbours algorithm. It presents two separate stages: offline and online. The offline phase is for training and finding the best models for clustering, classification and the nearest neighbours algorithm. The online phase is to predict big time series in real time. In the offline phase, data are divided into clusters and a (...) forecasting model based on the nearest neighbours is trained for each cluster. In addition, a classifier is trained using the cluster assignments previously generated by the clustering algorithm. In the online phase, the classifier predicts the cluster label of an instance, and the proper nearest neighbours model according to the predicted cluster label is applied to obtain the final prediction using the similar patterns. The algorithm is able to be updated incrementally for online learning from data streams. Results are reported using electricity consumption with a granularity of |$10$| minutes for 4-hour-ahead forecasting and compared with well-known online benchmark learners, showing a remarkable improvement in prediction accuracy. (shrink)

We question Baumard's underlying assumption that humans have a propensity to innovate. Affordable transportation and energy underpinned the Industrial Revolution, making mass production/consumption possible. Although we cannot accept Baumard's thesis on the Industrial Revolution, it may help explain why complexity and innovation increase rapidly in the context of abundant energy.

Buildings energy consumption is growing gradually and put away around 40% of total energy use. Predicting heating and cooling loads of a building in the initial phase of the design to find out optimal solutions amongst different designs is very important, as ell as in the operating phase after the building has been finished for efficient energy. In this study, an artificial neural network model was designed and developed for predicting heating and cooling loads of a (...) building based on a dataset for building energy performance. The main factors for input variables are: relative compactness, roof area, overall height, surface area, glazing are a, wall area, glazing area distribution of a building, orientation, and the output variables: heating and cooling loads of the building. The dataset used for training are the data published in the literature for various 768 residential buildings. The model was trained and validated, most important factors affecting heating load and cooling load are identified, and the accuracy for the validation was 99.60%. (shrink)

The convergent development of distributed electricity sources, storage technologies, ‘big data’ devices, and novel ICT infrastructure matching energy supply and demand enables new local and collective forms of energy consumption and production. This socio-technical evolution has been accompanied by the development of citizen energy communities that have been supported by EU energy governance and directives, adopting a political narrative of placing the citizen central in the ongoing energy transition. But to what extent are the (...) ideals that motivate the energy community movement compatible with those of neoliberalism that have guided EU energy policy for the last four decades? Using a framework inspired by Michel Foucault’s idea of governmentality, we analyze the two political forms from three dimensions: ontological, economic and power politics. For the ontological and the economic dimensions, neoliberal governmentality is flexible enough to accommodate the tensions raised by the communitarians. In the dimension of power politics however, the communitarian logic does raise a fundamental challenge to neoliberal governmentality in the sense that it explicitly aims for a redefinition of the ‘common good’ of society’s energy supply based on democratic premises. (shrink)

Instead of relying on the usual price elasticity technique, this book combines economic and engineering analysis to study economic growth and energy demands to the year 2000. It asserts that future energy demand will be determined by two basic factors--the gross national product and the efficiency with which energy is used to produce this output in the household, commercial, industrial, and transport sectors of the economy.Labor hours multiplied by a productivity factor results in the GNP. This study (...) predicts that, in the long run, productivity in the United States will recover most of the sharp losses registered in the past five years. The study points out the decelerating population growth, the higher number of women in the labor force, and new investments as having an influence on this situation.After projecting the size and composition of each of the four energy consuming sectors that account for the total GNP. Energy and Economic Growth estimates efficiency improvements for each. It shows, for example, that higher levels of thermal insulation will reduce sharply energy needs for household heating and cooling. Similarly, the study notes that improvements in energy consumption per dollar of output can be made for each of the energy intensive manufacturing industries, nothing that although the savings in energy are significant, none is a consequence of pushing improvements to known technological limits. Finally, the book establishes the price elasticities that are inherent in the calculated energy requirements and checks these against elasticity estimates made by other researchers. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Two concepts of consumption Historical background Why do we consume so much? How much do we need to consume? Consumption and the environment Are resources limited? The difference between nature and the environment.

An objective, comprehensive treatment of the world's energy situation assesses the major trends in energy consumption across the globe while examining the potential of wind, solar, hydroenergy, and biomass energy.

Recently, philosophers and social scientists have shown increased interest in questions of social, global, and intergenerational distributive justice related to energy production and consumption. However, so far there have been only a few attempts to analyse questions of distributive energy justice from a religious point of view, which should be considered a lack since religions are an important basis of morality for a large part of the world’s population. In this article, I analyse issues of distributive (...) class='Hi'>energy justice from a Christian theological viewpoint by employing the Catholic common good tradition as a theoretical framework. First, I present and argue for a global and ecological interpretation of the Catholic common good tradition. Then I analyse the implications of such an interpretation on questions of distributive energy justice, focusing on the view of property rights within the Catholic common good tradition. I conclude that, in comparison with Nussbaum’s liberal capabilities approach, the common good tradition provides stronger reasons for individuals and groups in more economically developed countries to share their resources and knowledge with individuals and groups in less economically developed countries. (shrink)

Building on research in anthropology and philosophy, one can make a distinction between type I and type II energy ethics as a framework for advancing public debate about energy. Type I holds energy production and use as a fundamental good and is grounded in the assumption that increases in energy production and consumption result in increases in human wellbeing. Conversely, type II questions the linear relationship between energy production and progress by examining questions of (...) equity and human happiness. The type I versus type II framework helps to advance public debates about energy that address broad questions of profitability, regulation, and the environment, and in the process poses fundamental questions about the reverence for energy growth in advanced technological societies. (shrink)

Energy production and consumption give rise to issues of justice for future humans. By analysing a specific case – Swedish energy politics – this article contributes to the discussion of how consideration for future humans should affect energy policy making. It outlines three different energy scenarios for the period 2035-2065 – the nuclear-renewables, the renewables-low and the renewables-high scenarios – and assesses them from the point of view of justice for future individuals by using the (...) capabilities approach as a normative framework. We cannot make a definitive assessment of the different scenarios due to the great uncertainties involved in determining the impacts on individuals living between 2035 and 2065 and individuals born thereafter, but we still conclude that we have certain reasons to prefer the renewables-low scenario since it avoids certain risks connected with the other scenarios. The economic growth in this scenario is lower than in the others, but we question whether this is a disadvantage from the point of view of the capabilities approach. _Keywords:_ energy scenarios, justice, future generations, capabilities approach. (shrink)

The widespread adoption of radioisotopes as tools in biomedical research and therapy became one of the major consequences of the "physicists' war" for postwar life science. Scientists in the Manhattan Project, as part of their efforts to advocate for civilian uses of atomic energy after the war, proposed using infrastructure from the wartime bomb project to develop a government-run radioisotope distribution program. After the Atomic Energy Bill was passed and before the Atomic Energy Commission was formally established, (...) the Manhattan Project began shipping isotopes from Oak Ridge. Scientists and physicians put these reactor-produced isotopes to many of the same uses that had been pioneered with cyclotron-generated radioisotopes in the 1930s and early 1940s. The majority of early AEC shipments were radioiodine and radiophosphorus, employed to evaluate thyroid function, diagnose medical disorders, and irradiate tumors. Both researchers and politicians lauded radioisotopes publicly for their potential in curing diseases, particularly cancer. However, isotopes proved less successful than anticipated in treating cancer and more successful in medical diagnostics. On the research side, reactor-generated radioisotopes equipped biologists with new tools to trace molecular transformations from metabolic pathways to ecosystems. The U.S. government's production and promotion of isotopes stimulated their consumption by scientists and physicians, such that in the postwar period isotopes became routine elements of laboratory and clinical use. In the early postwar years, radioisotopes signified the government's commitment to harness the atom for peace, particularly through contributions to biology, medicine, and agriculture. (shrink)

Following aluminum as part of a material culture of speed and lightness, this article examines how assemblages of energy and metals connect built environments, ways of life, and ideologies of acceleration. Aluminum can be theorized as a circulatory matrix that forms an energy culture. Through a discussion of speed and social justice, the history of aluminium-based socioecologies reveals how the materiality of energy forms assemblages of objects, infrastructures, and practices. The article then traces the aluminum industry’s involvement (...) in the production and distribution of energy itself both at the national scale of power grids and in the emergence of transnational transfers of energy, such as hydropowered smelters in Iceland. Finally, this analysis of deeply embedded energy cultures calls for a transnational approach to the accelerated socioecologies of aluminum production and consumption; and for energy transition theories to pay closer attention to the figured worlds and figuring work of the military-industrial complex. (shrink)

Climate change, rising energy costs, and other dilemmas raise the prospect for major change in energy-ecology-society relations. Two prominent proposals for change include: a nuclear power renaissance; and mega-scale renewable energy development. Both suggest that modern society will receive a rising stream of less CO2-rich kilowatt-hours, so that increased energy consumption and economic growth can continue. The article doubts these CO2 claims and finds both options lead to deepening unsustainability and environmental injustice. A third approach (...) is proposed. A new institutional and community strategy called a Sustainability Energy Utility. The SEU looks to reduce energy use and seeks to support remaining energy needs by community-scale renewables. To accomplish deep energy change, the authors show how an SEU can move society from an energy commodity to energy commons regime. Commonwealth economy and community trusts are key means to significant change: a future commons is offered as the more appropriate strategy. (shrink)

With the rapid development of Internet of Things technology, the energy consumption of service composition in the IoT environment is a key problem to be studied. At present, the problems of service composition in the IoT environment mostly focus on the evaluation research based on quality of service, ignoring the overall energy consumption in the process of dynamic configuration of service composition. Therefore, we construct the service composition structure for the IoT and propose the QoS evaluation (...) model and energy evaluation model for the service composition in the IoT environment. Considering that the service composition in the Internet of things environment is NP hard, moth algorithm is successfully applied to the QoS evaluation model and energy evaluation model. The simulation results reveal that MFO has good optimization effect in the abovementioned models, and the optimization effect of MFO is improved by 8% and 6% compared with the genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization, so as to realize the green energy strategic management of QoS composition in the environment of IoT. (shrink)

The energy sector contributes approximately two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions. In this context, the sector must adapt to new supply and demand networks for all future energy sources. The ongoing transformation in the European energy field is driven by the ambition of the European Union to reach the climate objectives set for 2030. The main actions are increasing renewable energy production, adapting transition fuels like natural gas to reduce emissions, improving energy efficiency across all (...) economic sectors, prioritizing building, transportation, and industry, developing Carbon Capture and Storage technologies, and ensuring universal access to clean and affordable energy. The significant changes envisaged in the energy sector to increase renewable energy production and consumption require improved integration and more use of predictive tools to support stakeholders' decision-making processes. This article presents a case study to assess the performance of predictive models based on a Feed-Forward Neural Network architecture that employ Root Mean Squared Propagation as their optimization function in terms of choosing the most appropriate activation function for this kind of data input and output. The training and testing phases of the models use data about building energy consumption. The lowest training time and Root Mean Square Error values were similar for Rectified Linear Unit and Tanh activation functions. The model with the Rectified linear Unit activation function performed best. (shrink)

In this paper, we redefine the term luxus consumption to mean food waste and overconsumption leading to storage of body fat, health problems, and excess resource utilization. We develop estimates of the prevalence of luxus consumption and its environmental consequences using US food supply, agricultural, and environmental data and using procedures modeled after energetics analysis and ecological footprint analysis. Between 1983 and 2000, US food availability (food consumption including waste) increased by 18% or 600 kcal (2.51 MJ) (...) per person. This luxus consumption required 0.36 hectares (ha) of land and fishing area per capita, 100.6 million ha for the US population, and 3.1% of total US energy consumption. Luxus consumption increased more for particular foods, such as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), 22% of which was used in carbonated beverages. As an example, the luxus consumption of sweetened soda, 31.8 l per capita, used 0.8% of the US corn crop (230,555 ha of land); 33.6 million kg of nitrogen fertilizer; 175,000 kg of Atrazine herbicide; 34 million kg of nitrogen fertilizer; 2.44 trillion kcal (10.2 PJ) for production inputs and post-harvest handling; and led to 4.9 million metric tons of soil erosion. Diet soft drink luxus consumption was 43.9 l/capita. Assuming half of US soft drink luxus consumption was bottled in plastic, the energy cost for plastics would have been 2.49 trillion kcal (10.4 PJ) in 2000. Total HFCS availability above baseline in 2000 required 4.6 times the resources used for soft drinks alone. This analysis suggests the utility and applicability of the concept of luxus consumption to environmental analysis and for estimating the effects of excess food utilization. (shrink)

Raising awareness of the environmental impact of energy generation and consumption has been a recent concern of contemporary society worldwide. Underlying the awareness of energy consumption is an intricate network of perception and social interaction that can be mediated by technology. In this paper we argue that issues regarding energy, environment and technology are very much situated and involve tensions of sociocultural nature. This exploratory investigation addresses the subject by introducing the design of a Socially-inspired (...) Energy Eco-Feedback Technology, which is composed of an interactive system to trigger and mediate collective savings and a tangible device as a public feedback. Results of an evaluation situated in the context of a school in a socially disadvantaged area in Brazil are discussed, shedding light on the sociocultural aspects related to the subject. The role of the SEET to motivate energy awareness collectively among the social group is assessed, as well as the design characteristics that contributed to that. Outcomes bring to light social aspects and dynamics that would hardly have been predicted, evidencing critical factors related to a socially inspired design approach in the energy awareness domain. (shrink)

The Holy Quran and the Sunnah provide the Islamic approach to a complete food system, regulating the consumption of food and drinks, clarifying permissibility and prohibition, to protect human health. This analytical study aimed to explore various categories and benefits of food in Islam derived from plants and animals, focusing specifically on how Islamic Shariah advocates halal food consumption, and what permissions or prohibitions are granted, highlighting the underlying religious evidence and reasoning. The data was collected through both (...) inductive and deductive approaches; the inductive method gathered literature on the topic from the Quran, Sunnah, and Hadith commentaries, while the deductive approach classified plant-based and animal-based foods and elaborated on the benefits of halal items versus the harms of prohibited ones. The study found the plant foods endorsed in Islam include fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts like dates, beans, olives, and ziziphus, while the permissible animal foods comprise seafood, fish, beef, dairy products, and honey. These foods assist in the growth and repair of body tissues, digestion, energy, metabolism, and overall wellbeing. Meanwhile, prohibited foods contained toxins, germs, and substances that lead to obesity, cancer, blood issues, and more. The implications of this study lie in showcasing how Islam forbids monopoly control of commodities and encourages activities like land rehabilitation for farming and public cultivation. Islam also advises only consuming foods from permitted animals while emphasizing sustenance provisions for milk-producing animals to avoid wastage, as commanded by Allah. (shrink)

Problems of climate change present new challenges for social theory. In this article we focus on the task of understanding and analyzing car dependence, using this as a case through which to introduce and explore what we take to be central but underdeveloped questions about how infrastructures and complexes of social practice connect across space and time. In taking this approach we work with the proposition that forms of energy consumption, including those associated with automobility, are usefully understood (...) as outcomes of interconnected patterns of social practices, including working, shopping, visiting friends and family, going to school, and so forth. We also acknowledge that social practices are partly constituted by, and always embedded in material arrangements. Linking these two features together, we suggest that forms of car dependence emerge through the intersection of infrastructural arrangements that are integral to the conduct of many practices at once. We consequently explore the significance of professional – and not only ‘ordinary’ – practices, especially those of planners and designers who are involved in reconfiguring infrastructures of different scales, and in the practice dynamics that follow. (shrink)

Anthropological tests of patch choice models from optimal foraging theory have primarily employed acquisition rates as the currency of the model. Where foragers share their returns, acquisition rates may not be similar to consumption rates and thus may not be an appropriate currency to use when modeling foraging decisions. Indeed, on Ifaluk Atoll the distribution patterns of fish vary by fishing method and location. Previous analyses of Ifaluk patch choice decisions suggested that if Ifaluk fishers are trying to maximize (...) their production rates they should rarely torch fish for dogtoothed tuna. However, some men do spend considerable time and energy exploiting the dogtoothed tuna patch. To improve our understanding of the constraints and motivations influencing men’s decisions to exploit this patch, here I use per capita consumption rates as a currency, rather than production rates, to evaluate predictions generated from a patch choice model. Results indicate that although fish caught in other patches are more widely distributed than fish caught in the dogtoothed tuna patch, the consumption rates of torch fishers and their kin are still considerably lower than the consumption rates of men pursuing fish in other patches. Although these results are unable to explain why Ifaluk men exploit the dogtoothed tuna patch, an important explanatory hypothesis is eliminated. (shrink)

The widespread adoption of radioisotopes as tools in biomedical research and therapy became one of the major consequences of the "physicists' war" for postwar life science. Scientists in the Manhattan Project, as part of their efforts to advocate for civilian uses of atomic energy after the war, proposed using infrastructure from the wartime bomb project to develop a government-run radioisotope distribution program. After the Atomic Energy Bill was passed and before the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was formally (...) established, the Manhattan Project began shipping isotopes from Oak Ridge. Scientists and physicians put these reactor-produced isotopes to many of the same uses that had been pioneered with cyclotron-generated radioisotopes in the 1930s and early 1940s. The majority of early AEC shipments were radioiodine and radiophosphorus, employed to evaluate thyroid function, diagnose medical disorders, and irradiate tumors. Both researchers and politicians lauded radioisotopes publicly for their potential in curing diseases, particularly cancer. However, isotopes proved less successful than anticipated in treating cancer and more successful in medical diagnostics. On the research side, reactor-generated radioisotopes equipped biologists with new tools to trace molecular transformations from metabolic pathways to ecosystems. The U.S. government's production and promotion of isotopes stimulated their consumption by scientists and physicians (both domestic and abroad), such that in the postwar period isotopes became routine elements of laboratory and clinical use. In the early postwar years, radioisotopes signified the government's commitment to harness the atom for peace, particularly through contributions to biology, medicine, and agriculture. (shrink)

A way to make people save energy is by informing them that “comparable others” save more. We investigated whether one can further improve this nudge by manipulating Who the “comparable others” are. We asked participants to imagine receiving feedback stating that their energy consumption exceeded that of “comparable others” by 10%. We varied Who the “comparable others” were in a 2 × 2 design: they were a household that was located either in the same neighborhood as themselves (...) or in a different neighborhood, and its members were either identified (by names and a photograph) or unidentified. We also included two control conditions: one where no feedback was provided, and one where only statistical feedback was provided (feedback about an average household). We found that it matters Who the “comparable others” are. The most effective feedback was when the referent household was from the same neighborhood as the individual’s and its members were not identified. (shrink)

Energy consumption is central to both a number of pressing environmental issues and to people’s attempts to improve their well-being. Although typically understood as essential for people to thrive, this paper sketches a theoretical foundation for the possibility that the form and amount of energy consumption in modern society may inhibit rather than enable human flourishing. It achieves this goal by connecting and critically assessing the writings of Ivan Illich and Albert Borgmann, which offer a number (...) of concepts that enable a qualitative discussion on energy practices. For different reasons, both authors are highly critical of the societal tendency to command ever-increasing amounts of energy. Illich focuses on negative effects of high energy consumption at the societal level, whereas in my particular re-reading of Borgmann, one finds reasons why high energy consumption fails to realize intended positive effects. It is argued that therefore, energy transition should involve a re-appreciation of the function of energy consumption: to support, rather than to be central to life. (shrink)

Over and above the probable peaking of worldwide oil production as a current reality, the arrival of hard limits on all energy resources is very much nearer in the future than many people realize. The public discourse on Peak Oil and the associated arrival of hard limitson energy availability has attracted more than its share of brilliant and creative minds. In addition to scientific and technical analysts, thisgroup includes a fair number of generalists who have engaged in broader (...) forms of reflection upon the likely economic, social, political, and cultural effects of Peak Oil and other hard energy limits on the structure of current world civilization. In this paper, I select for examination three such generalists who are both especially talented and widely read by those having an interest in this topic: James Howard Kunstler, John Michael Greer, and Dmitri Orlov. My intention is to survey their central ideas in turn, with a view to forming a reasonably well-developed and concrete notion as to how the impending arrival of hard limits on energy consumption will affect the structure of built space in coming decades. I focus both on the macro-infrastructural level and on what one might term the micro-infrastructural level of the built space within which the denizens of contemporary industrial civilization live their daily lives. Theprincipal focus of the discussion will be on the situation in the United States, though many of the lines of argument presented may be applied much more broadly if suitably adjusted in light of locally prevailing conditions elsewhere. (shrink)

As the price of oil climbs toward $100 a barrel, our impending post-fossil fuel future appears to offer two alternatives: a bleak existence defined by scarcity and sacrifice or one in which humanity places its faith in technological solutions with unforeseen consequences. Are there other ways to imagine life in an era that will be characterized by resource depletion? The French intellectual Georges Bataille saw energy as the basis of all human activity--the essence of the human--and he envisioned a (...) society that, instead of renouncing profligate spending, would embrace a more radical type of energy expenditure: la depense , or "spending without return." In Bataille's Peak , Allan Stoekl demonstrates how a close reading of Bataille--in the wake of Giordano Bruno and the Marquis de Sade-- can help us rethink not only energy and consumption, but also such related topics as the city, the body, eroticism, and religion. Through these cases, Stoekl identifies the differences between waste, which Bataille condemned, and expenditure, which he celebrated. The challenge of living in the twenty-first century, Stoekl argues, will be to comprehend--without recourse to austerity and self-denial--the inevitable and necessary shift from a civilization founded on waste to one based on Bataillean expenditure. Allan Stoekl is professor of French and comparative literature at Penn State University. He is the author of Agonies of the Intellectual: Commitment, Subjectivity, and the Performative in the Twentieth-Century French Tradition and translator of Bataille's Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 (Minnesota, 1985). (shrink)

With the further acceleration of urbanization in China, the proportions of both urban residents’ energy consumption and energy-consuming terminal electricity are showing an increasing trend at the same time. In view of the dynamic and time-varying complex system characteristics of power system, it is of great significance to study the impact mechanism of urbanization residents’ electricity consumption on the realization of demand-side management and environmental protection. Based on the one-year follow-up survey data obtained from household meter (...) reading, this paper studies the impact mechanism of urban residents’ electricity consumption in different seasons and terminals by descriptive analysis and multiple linear regression model. The results show that, on the whole, electricity is a necessity for urban households and does not change significantly with changes in income. At the turn of summer and autumn and the turn of winter and spring, high-income families tend to use higher levels of energy in pursuit of comfort, while low- and middle-income families do not have luxury consumption. In different seasons, the influence mechanism of household electricity consumption at different terminals is different. (shrink)

Local food has become the rising star of the sustainable agriculture movement, in part because of the energy efficiencies thought to be gained when food travels shorter distances. In this essay I critique four key assumptions that underlie this connection between local foods and energy. I then describe two competing conclusions implied by the critique. On the one hand, local food systems may need a more extensive and integrated transportation infrastructure to achieve sustainability. On the other hand, the (...) production, transportation, and consumption of local foods are fundamentally as reliant on fossil fuels as are long distance foods. A more holistic approach to energy use in the food system is needed to determine which particular sociotechnical factors optimize energetic sustainability. (shrink)

An econometric study of the demand for energy in industrialized and underdeveloped countries, examining the role that energy plays as a consumption good and as a factor in industrial production.

In this paper, we apply the capabilities approach—with the addition of capability ceilings—to energy justice. We argue that, to ensure energy justice, energy policies and scenarios should consider enabling not only minimal capability thresholds but also maximum capability ceilings. It is permissible, perhaps even morally required, to limit the capabilities of those above the threshold if it is necessary for enabling those below the threshold to reach the level required by justice. We make a distinction between tragic (...) and non-tragic conflicts of capabilities: tragic conflicts are instances when one cannot raise an agent’s capabilities above the threshold that justice requires without pushing someone else below the threshold or restricting someone from reaching the threshold. In contrast, a non-tragic choice is when increasing someone above the threshold required by justice does not entail pushing someone else’s capabilities below the threshold. We utilise this framework to discuss energy justice and emissions of greenhouse gases. Drawing on the relation between points on the human development index and levels of energy consumption, we conclude that non-tragic mitigation policies now are highly preferable to tragic policies later. (shrink)

Contemporary research highlights multiple societal and environmental benefits in addition to potential economic advantages associated with renewable energy utilization. As federal and state incentives for investments in RE technologies become more prevalent, RE sources represent increasingly viable alternatives to established fossil fuel energy. RE utilization is recognized as a key component of “green” product innovation that helps firms reduce the environmental impact of production processes and diminish their ecological footprints and energy consumption. Yet, despite consistent evidence (...) that corporate sustainability initiatives are favorably associated with firm performance, the limited research that examines associations between RE initiatives and firm performance yields mixed results and an explicit link has yet to be established. Drawing on the natural resource-based view of the firm, we examine the association between RE utilization and firm financial performance over time. Annual ROI, Tobin’s Q, and operating margin for large U.S. firms identified as exceptional users of RE in the EPA’s Fortune 500 Top Green Power Partners list are compared with their respective industry medians over a 7-year period and post hoc bootstrapping and sensitivity analyses are performed to further validate the study findings. Our research advances current knowledge about the influence of RE utilization by demonstrating that top RE user firms consistently generated superior financial performance compared to their industry competitors. As such, the study findings lend credence to the existence of a business case that complements the societal and environmental benefits of RE utilization. (shrink)

As an advanced network calculation mode, cloud computing is becoming more and more popular. However, with the proliferation of large data centers hosting cloud applications, the growth of energy consumption has been explosive. Surveys show that a remarkable part of the large energy consumed in data center results from over-provisioning of the network resource to meet requests during peak demand times. In this paper, we propose a solution to this problem by constructing a dynamic energy-efficient resource (...) management scheme. As a way of saving energy as well as maintaining cloud user’s quality of experience, the scheme presents a multitier cloud architecture by configuring physical machines into two pools: a hot pool and a warm pool. Each PM is configured with a resource search engine that finds an available virtual machine for the request, and a synchronous sleep mechanism is introduced to the warm pool. To analyze the end-to-end performance of the cloud system’s service with the proposed scheme, we establish a hybrid queueing system composed of three stochastic submodels by using a matrix-geometric solution. Accordingly, the average latency of requests and the energy-saving rate of the system are derived. Through numerical results, we show the influence of the synchronous sleep mechanism on the system performance. Moreover, from the perspective of economics, we build a system cost function to study the trade-off between different performance measures. An improved Salp Swarm Algorithm is presented to minimize the system cost and optimize the sleep parameter. (shrink)

This book brings together the latest technological research in computational intelligence and fuzzy logic as a way to care for our environment, highlighting current advances and future trends in environmental sustainability using the principles of soft computing.

Precise prediction of future vehicle information can improve the control efficiency of hybrid electric vehicles. Nowadays, most prediction models use previous information of vehicles to predict future driving velocity, which cannot reflect the impact of the driver and the environment. In this paper, a real-time energy management strategy based on driver-action-impact MPC is proposed for series hybrid electric vehicles. The proposed EMS consists of two modules: the velocity prediction module and the real-time MPC module. In the velocity prediction module, (...) a long short-term memory neural network model, which is trained by the traffic data derived from a VR-based driving simulator, is adopted to predict the future driving information by using driver action information and current vehicle’s velocity. The obtained future driving velocity is treated as the inputs of the real-time MPC module, which outputs the control variables to act on the underlying controllers of power components by solving a standard quadratic programming problem. Compared with the rule-based strategy, a 5.6% average reduction of fuel consumption is obtained. The effectiveness of real-time computation of the EMS is validated and verified through a hardware-in-the-loop test platform. (shrink)