1.
Ecological footprint
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An ecological footprint is a measure of human impact on Earths ecosystems. Its typically measured in area of wilderness or amount of natural capital consumed each year, at a global scale, it is used to estimate how rapidly we are depleting natural capital. The Global Footprint Network calculates the global ecological footprint from UN and they estimate that as of 2007 our planet has been using natural capital 1.6 times as fast as nature can renew it. Ecological footprint analysis is used around the Earth as an indicator of environmental sustainability. Since 2006, a first set of ecological footprint standards exist that detail both communication and calculation procedures, Ecological footprints can be calculated at any scale, for an activity, a person, a community, a city, a region, a nation or humanity as a whole. Cities, due to concentration, have large ecological footprints and have become ground zero for footprint reduction. However, there has been some convergence of metrics and standards since 2006, City Ecological Footprints, are being measured. There are two types of measurements in use, the first measures ecosystem displacement which is defined as City Area minus remaining green spaces. This is a measurement that does not include human or other biological activity. The Second attempts to quantify surviving ecosystem health, specifically, it attempts to quantify both area and biological health of ecosystems surviving inside city areas such as nature reserves, parks, other green spaces. City footprints are being calculated and ranked with city ecological indexes, the first academic publication about ecological footprints was by William Rees in 1992. Originally, Wackernagel and Rees called the concept appropriated carrying capacity, to make the idea more accessible, Rees came up with the term ecological footprint, inspired by a computer technician who praised his new computers small footprint on the desk. In early 1996, Wackernagel and Rees published the book Our Ecological Footprint and this approach can also be applied to an activity such as the manufacturing of a product or driving of a car. Per capita ecological footprint, or ecological footprint analysis, is a means of comparing consumption and lifestyles, the tool can inform policy by examining to what extent a nation uses more than is available within its territory, or to what extent the nations lifestyle would be replicable worldwide. The footprint can also be a tool to educate people about carrying capacity and overconsumption. Ecological footprints may be used to argue that many current lifestyles are not sustainable, such a global comparison also clearly shows the inequalities of resource use on this planet at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In 2007, the biologically productive area per person worldwide was approximately 1.8 global hectares per capita. The U. S. footprint per capita was 9.0 gha, the WWF claims that the human footprint has exceeded the biocapacity of the planet by 20%
2.
Carbon capture and storage
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The aim is to prevent the release of large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. It is a means of mitigating the contribution of fossil fuel emissions to global warming. Although CO2 has been injected into geological formations for several decades for various purposes, including enhanced oil recovery, the first commercial example was the Weyburn-Midale Carbon Dioxide Project in 2000. Other examples include SaskPowers Boundary Dam and Mississippi Powers Kemper Project, CCS can also be used to describe the scrubbing of CO2 from ambient air as a climate engineering technique. CCS applied to a conventional power plant could reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere by approximately 80–90% compared to a plant without CCS. The IPCC estimates that the potential of CCS could be between 10% and 55% of the total carbon mitigation effort until year 2100. Carbon dioxide can be captured out of air or fossil fuel power plant flue gas using adsorption, membrane gas separation, amines are the leading carbon scrubbing technology. Capturing and compressing CO2 may increase the needs of a coal-fired CCS plant by 25–40%. These and other costs are estimated to increase the cost per watt energy produced by 21–91% for fossil fuel power plants. Applying the technology to existing plants would be expensive, especially if they are far from a sequestration site. Storage of the CO2 is envisaged either in deep geological formations, deep ocean storage is not currently considered feasible due to the associated effect of ocean acidification. Geological formations are considered the most promising sequestration sites. The National Energy Technology Laboratory reported that North America has enough capacity for more than 900 years worth of carbon dioxide at current production rates. A general problem is that long term predictions about submarine or underground storage security are difficult and uncertain. Extracting CO2 from air is possible, but not very practical because the CO2 is not concentrated. Organisms that produce ethanol by fermentation generate cool, essentially pure CO2 that can be pumped underground, fermentation produces slightly less CO2 than ethanol by weight. Flue gas from the combustion of coal in oxygen has a concentration of CO2. Therefore, it is energy and cost efficient to capture CO2 from coal-fired power plants
3.
European Union
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The European Union is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km2, the EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states. Within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished, a monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002, and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency. The EU operates through a system of supranational and intergovernmental decision-making. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community, the community and its successors have grown in size by the accession of new member states and in power by the addition of policy areas to its remit. While no member state has left the EU or its antecedent organisations, the Maastricht Treaty established the European Union in 1993 and introduced European citizenship. The latest major amendment to the basis of the EU. The EU as a whole is the largest economy in the world, additionally,27 out of 28 EU countries have a very high Human Development Index, according to the United Nations Development Programme. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has developed a role in external relations and defence. The union maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G7, because of its global influence, the European Union has been described as an emerging superpower. After World War II, European integration was seen as an antidote to the nationalism which had devastated the continent. 1952 saw the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the supporters of the Community included Alcide De Gasperi, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, and Paul-Henri Spaak. These men and others are credited as the Founding fathers of the European Union. In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome and they also signed another pact creating the European Atomic Energy Community for co-operation in developing nuclear energy. Both treaties came into force in 1958, the EEC and Euratom were created separately from the ECSC, although they shared the same courts and the Common Assembly. The EEC was headed by Walter Hallstein and Euratom was headed by Louis Armand, Euratom was to integrate sectors in nuclear energy while the EEC would develop a customs union among members. During the 1960s, tensions began to show, with France seeking to limit supranational power, Jean Rey presided over the first merged Commission. In 1973, the Communities enlarged to include Denmark, Ireland, Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
Luxembourg
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Luxembourg /ˈlʌksəmbɜːrɡ/, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east and its culture, people and languages are highly intertwined with its neighbours, making it essentially a mixture of French and Germanic cultures. It comprises two regions, the Oesling in the north as part of the Ardennes massif. With an area of 2,586 square kilometres, it is one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe, Luxembourg had a population of 524,853 in October 2012, ranking it the 8th least-populous country in Europe. As a representative democracy with a monarch, it is headed by a Grand Duke, Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg. Luxembourg is a country, with an advanced economy and the worlds highest GDP per capita. Luxembourg is a member of the European Union, OECD, United Nations, NATO, and Benelux, reflecting its political consensus in favour of economic, political. The city of Luxembourg, which is the capital and largest city, is the seat of several institutions. Luxembourg served on the United Nations Security Council for the years 2013 and 2014, around this fort, a town gradually developed, which became the centre of a state of great strategic value. In the 14th and early 15th centuries, three members of the House of Luxembourg reigned as Holy Roman Emperors, in the following centuries, Luxembourgs fortress was steadily enlarged and strengthened by its successive occupants, the Bourbons, Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns and the French. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Luxembourg was disputed between Prussia and the Netherlands and this arrangement was revised by the 1839 First Treaty of London, from which date Luxembourgs full independence is reckoned. In 1842 Luxembourg joined the German Customs Union, the King of the Netherlands remained Head of State as Grand Duke of Luxembourg, maintaining a personal union between the two countries until 1890. At the death of William III, the throne of the Netherlands passed to his daughter Wilhelmina and this allowed Germany the military advantage of controlling and expanding the railways there. In August 1914, Imperial Germany violated Luxembourgs neutrality in the war by invading it in the war against France and this allowed Germany to use the railway lines, while at the same time denying them to France. Nevertheless, despite the German occupation, Luxembourg was allowed to maintain much of its independence, in 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, Luxembourgs neutrality was again violated when the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany entered the country, entirely without justification. A government in exile based in London supported the Allies, sending a group of volunteers who participated in the Normandy invasion. Luxembourg was liberated in September 1944, and became a member of the United Nations in 1945. Luxembourgs neutral status under the constitution formally ended in 1948, in 2005, a referendum on the EU treaty establishing a constitution for Europe was held
6.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
7.
Africa
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Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace
8.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
9.
World population
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In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. As of March 2017, it was estimated at 7.49 billion, the United Nations estimates it will further increase to 11.2 billion in the year 2100. World population has experienced growth since the end of the Great Famine of 1315–17 and the Black Death in 1350. The highest population growth rates – global population increases above 1. 8% per year – occurred between 1955-1975 peaking to 2. 06% between 1965-1970, the growth rate has declined to 1. 18% between 2010-2015 and is projected to decline to 0. 13% by the year 2100. World population reached 7 billion on October 31,2011 according to the United Nations Population Fund, and on March 12,2012 according to the United States Census Bureau. The median age of the population was estimated to be 30.1 years in 2016, with the male median age estimated to be 29.4 years. 2003 UN Population Division population projections for the year 2150 range between 3.2 and 24.8 billion. One of many independent mathematical models supports the estimate, while a 2014 estimate forecasts between 9.3 and 12.6 billion in 2100, and continued growth thereafter. Some analysts have questioned the sustainability of further population growth, highlighting the growing pressures on the environment, global food supplies. Estimates on the number of humans who have ever lived range in the order of 106 to 108 billion. Six of the Earths seven continents are permanently inhabited on a large scale, Asia is the most populous continent, with its 4.3 billion inhabitants accounting for 60% of the world population. The worlds two most populated countries alone, China and India, together constitute about 37% of the worlds population, Africa is the second most populated continent, with around 1 billion people, or 15% of the worlds population. Europes 733 million people make up 12% of the population as of 2012. Northern America, primarily consisting of the United States, Mexico, and Canada, has a population of around 352 million, and Oceania, the least-populated region, has about 35 million inhabitants. Though it is not permanently inhabited by any fixed population, Antarctica has a small, fluctuating international population and this population tends to rise in the summer months and decrease significantly in winter, as visiting researchers return to their home countries. Estimates of world population by their nature are an aspect of modernity, more refined estimates, broken down by continents, were published in the first half of the 19th century, at 600 to 1000 million in the early 1800s and at 800 to 1000 million in the 1840s. Estimates of the population of the world at the time agriculture emerged in around 10,000 BCE have ranged between 1 million and 15 million. Even earlier, genetic evidence suggests humans may have gone through a bottleneck of between 1,000 and 10,000 people about 70,000 BCE, according to the Toba catastrophe theory
10.
Greenhouse gas
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A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earths atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earths surface would be about −18 °C, rather than the present average of 15 °C. In the Solar System, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution have produced a 40% increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, from 280 ppm in 1750 to 400 ppm in 2015. This increase has occurred despite the uptake of a portion of the emissions by various natural sinks involved in the carbon cycle. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions come from combustion of fuels, principally coal, oil. Greenhouse gases are those that absorb and emit infrared radiation in the range emitted by Earth. The proportion of an emission remaining in the atmosphere after a time is the airborne fraction. The annual airborne fraction is the ratio of the increase in a given year to that years total emissions. Over the last 50 years the annual airborne fraction for CO2 has been increasing at 0.25 ±0. 21%/year, therefore, they do not contribute significantly to the greenhouse effect and usually are omitted when discussing greenhouse gases. Some gases have indirect radiative effects and this happens in two main ways. One way is that when they break down in the atmosphere they produce another greenhouse gas, for example, methane and carbon monoxide are oxidized to give carbon dioxide. Oxidation of CO to CO2 directly produces an increase in radiative forcing although the reason is subtle. The peak of the thermal IR emission from Earths surface is close to a strong vibrational absorption band of CO2. On the other hand, the single CO vibrational band only absorbs IR at much higher frequencies, where the ~300 K thermal emission of the surface is at least a factor of ten lower. Oxidation of methane to CO2, which requires reactions with the OH radical, produces a reduction, since CO2 is a weaker greenhouse gas than methane. As described below this is not the story, since the oxidations of CO. In any case, the calculation of the radiative effect needs to include both the direct and indirect forcing
11.
Land use, land-use change, and forestry
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LULUCF has impacts on the global carbon cycle and as such, these activities can add or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, influencing climate. LULUCF has been the subject of two reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Additionally, land use is of importance for biodiversity. Land-use change can be a factor in CO2 atmospheric concentration, and is thus a contributor to climate change. IPCC estimates that land-use change contributes a net 1.6 ±0.8 Gt carbon per year to the atmosphere. For comparison, the source of CO2, namely emissions from fossil fuel combustion. This decision sets out the rules that govern how Kyoto Parties with emission reduction commitments account for changes in carbon stocks in land use, land-use change, the most recent options for rule changes under consideration are summarized in a Non-Paper the co-chairs of the contact group on LULUCF. The impact of change on the climate is also more and more recognized by the climate modelling community. On regional or local scales, the impact of LUC can be assess by Regional Climate Models and this is however difficult, particularly for variables, which are inherently noisy, such as precipitation. For this reason, it is suggested to conduct RCM ensemble simulations, the extent, and type of land use directly affects wildlife habitat and thereby impacts local and global biodiversity. Human alteration of landscapes from natural vegetation to any other use typically results in loss, degradation. Land conversion is the single greatest cause of extinction of terrestrial species, an example of land conversion being a chief cause of the critically endangered status of a carnivore is the reduction in habitat for the African wild dog, Lycaon pictus. Deforestation is also the reason for loss of a natural habitat, urban growth has become a problem for forests and agriculture, the expansion of structures prevents natural resources from producing in their environment. The loss of forest land is estimated to have sixteen to thirty four million. In order to prevent the loss of wildlife the forests must maintain a stable climate, the U. S. Forest service predicts that urban and developing terrain in the U. S. will expand by forty one percent in the year 2060. These conditions cause displacement for the wildlife and limited resources for the environment to maintain a sustainble balance, deforestation and climate change Land use Satoyama Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry
12.
Thermal energy
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In thermodynamics, thermal energy refers to the internal energy present in a system due to its temperature. Heat is energy transferred spontaneously from a hotter to a system or body. Heat is energy in transfer, not a property of the system, on the other hand, internal energy is a property of a system. The internal energy of a gas can in this sense be regarded as thermal energy. In this case, however, thermal energy and internal energy are identical, systems that are more complex than ideal gases can undergo phase transitions. Phase transitions can change the energy of the system without changing its temperature. Therefore, the thermal energy cannot be defined solely by the temperature, for these reasons, the concept of the thermal energy of a system is ill-defined and is not used in thermodynamics. In an 1847 lecture entitled On Matter, Living Force, and Heat, James Prescott Joule characterized various terms that are related to thermal energy. He identified the terms latent heat and sensible heat as forms of heat each effecting distinct physical phenomena, namely the potential and kinetic energy of particles, Heat transfer Ocean thermal energy conversion Thermal science Example of incorrect use of heat and thermal energy
13.
Electrical energy
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Electrical energy is the energy newly derived from electric potential energy or kinetic energy. When loosely used to describe energy absorbed or delivered by an electrical circuit electrical energy talks about energy which has converted from electric potential energy. This energy is supplied by the combination of current and electric potential that is delivered by the circuit. At the point that this potential energy has been converted to another type of energy. Thus, all energy is potential energy before it is delivered to the end-use. Once converted from potential energy, electrical energy can always be called another type of energy, electric generation is The fundamental principle of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday. His basic method is used today, electricity is generated by the movement of a loop of wire. For electric utilities, it is the first step in the delivery of electricity to consumers, the other processes, electricity transmission, distribution, and electrical power storage and recovery using pumped-storage methods are normally carried out by the electric power industry. There are many technologies that can be and are used to generate electricity such as solar photovoltaics
14.
Coal
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Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. Coal is composed primarily of carbon, along with quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen. A fossil fuel, coal forms when plant matter is converted into peat, which in turn is converted into lignite, then sub-bituminous coal, after that bituminous coal. This involves biological and geological processes that take place over time, throughout history, coal has been used as an energy resource, primarily burned for the production of electricity and heat, and is also used for industrial purposes, such as refining metals. Coal is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity worldwide, the extraction of coal, its use in energy production and its byproducts are all associated with environmental and health effects including climate change. Coal is extracted from the ground by coal mining, since 1983, the worlds top coal producer has been China. In 2015 China produced 3,747 million tonnes of coal –47. 7% of 7,861 million tonnes world coal production, in 2015 other large producers were United States, India, European Union and Australia. The word originally took the col in Old English, from Proto-Germanic *kula. In Old Turkic languages, kül is ash, cinders, öčür is quench, the compound charcoal in Turkic is öčür kül, literally quenched ashes, cinders, coals with elided anlaut ö- and inflection affixes -ülmüş. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying wetland areas, due to natural processes such as flooding, these forests were buried underneath soil. As more and more soil deposited over them, they were compressed, the temperature also rose as they sank deeper and deeper. As the process continued the plant matter was protected from biodegradation and oxidation and this trapped the carbon in immense peat bogs that were eventually covered and deeply buried by sediments. Under high pressure and high temperature, dead vegetation was slowly converted to coal, as coal contains mainly carbon, the conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called carbonization. The wide, shallow seas of the Carboniferous Period provided ideal conditions for coal formation, the exception is the coal gap in the Permian–Triassic extinction event, where coal is rare. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants — this coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae, in its dehydrated form, peat is a highly effective absorbent for fuel and oil spills on land and water. It is also used as a conditioner for soil to make it able to retain. Lignite, or brown coal, is the lowest rank of coal, jet, a compact form of lignite, is sometimes polished and has been used as an ornamental stone since the Upper Palaeolithic
15.
Oil
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An oil is any neutral, nonpolar chemical substance that is a viscous liquid at ambient temperatures and is both hydrophobic and lipophilic. Oils have a carbon and hydrogen content and are usually flammable. The general definition of oil includes classes of compounds that may be otherwise unrelated in structure, properties. Oils may be animal, vegetable, or petrochemical in origin and they are used for food, fuel, medical purposes, lubrication, and the manufacture of many types of paints, plastics, and other materials. Specially prepared oils are used in religious ceremonies and rituals as purifying agents. First attested in English 1176, the oil comes from Old French oile, from Latin oleum, which in turn comes from the Greek ἔλαιον, olive oil, oil. The earliest attested forms of the word are the Mycenaean Greek
16.
Natural gas
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It is formed when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to intense heat and pressure under the surface of the Earth over millions of years. The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of bonds in the gas. Natural gas is a fuel used as a source of energy for heating, cooking. It is also used as fuel for vehicles and as a feedstock in the manufacture of plastics. Natural gas is found in underground rock formations or associated with other hydrocarbon reservoirs in coal beds. Petroleum is another resource and fossil fuel found in proximity to. Most natural gas was created over time by two mechanisms, biogenic and thermogenic, biogenic gas is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, landfills, and shallow sediments. Deeper in the earth, at temperature and pressure, thermogenic gas is created from buried organic material. In petroleum production gas is burnt as flare gas. The World Bank estimates that over 150 cubic kilometers of gas are flared or vented annually. Before natural gas can be used as a fuel, most, Natural gas is often informally referred to simply as gas, especially when compared to other energy sources such as oil or coal. However, it is not to be confused with gasoline, especially in North America, Natural gas was used by the Chinese in about 500 BCE. They discovered a way to transport gas seeping from the ground in crude pipelines of bamboo to where it was used to salt water to extract the salt. The worlds first industrial extraction of gas started at Fredonia, New York. By 2009,66000 km³ had been used out of the total 850000 km³ of estimated remaining reserves of natural gas. An annual increase in usage of 2–3% could result in currently recoverable reserves lasting significantly less, unwanted natural gas was a disposal problem in the active oil fields. If there was not a market for natural gas near the wellhead it was expensive to pipe to the end user. In the 19th century and early 20th century, unwanted gas was burned off at oil fields
17.
Geothermal power
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Geothermal power is power generated by geothermal energy. Technologies in use include dry steam power stations, flash steam power stations, Geothermal electricity generation is currently used in 24 countries, while geothermal heating is in use in 70 countries. As of 2015, worldwide geothermal power capacity amounts to 12.8 gigawatts, International markets grew at an average annual rate of 5 percent over the last three years and global geothermal power capacity is expected to reach 14. 5–17.6 GW by 2020. Countries generating more than 15 percent of their electricity from geothermal sources include El Salvador, Kenya, Geothermal power is considered to be a sustainable, renewable source of energy because the heat extraction is small compared with the Earths heat content. In the 20th century, demand for electricity led to the consideration of geothermal power as a generating source, prince Piero Ginori Conti tested the first geothermal power generator on 4 July 1904 in Larderello, Italy. It successfully lit four light bulbs, later, in 1911, the worlds first commercial geothermal power station was built there. Experimental generators were built in Beppu, Japan and the Geysers, California, in the 1920s, in 1958, New Zealand became the second major industrial producer of geothermal electricity when its Wairakei station was commissioned. Wairakei was the first station to use flash steam technology, in 1960, Pacific Gas and Electric began operation of the first successful geothermal electric power station in the United States at The Geysers in California. The original turbine lasted for more than 30 years and produced 11 MW net power, the binary cycle power station was first demonstrated in 1967 in Russia and later introduced to the USA in 1981, following the 1970s energy crisis and significant changes in regulatory policies. This technology allows the use of lower temperature resources than were previously recoverable. In 2006, a binary cycle station in Chena Hot Springs, Alaska, came on-line, Geothermal electric stations have until recently been built exclusively where high temperature geothermal resources are available near the surface. The development of binary cycle power plants and improvements in drilling, demonstration projects are operational in Landau-Pfalz, Germany, and Soultz-sous-Forêts, France, while an earlier effort in Basel, Switzerland was shut down after it triggered earthquakes. Other demonstration projects are under construction in Australia, the United Kingdom, the thermal efficiency of geothermal electric stations is low, around 7–10%, because geothermal fluids are at a low temperature compared with steam from boilers. By the laws of thermodynamics this low temperature limits the efficiency of engines in extracting useful energy during the generation of electricity. Exhaust heat is wasted, unless it can be used directly and locally, for example in greenhouses, timber mills, and district heating. The efficiency of the system does not affect operational costs as it would for a coal or other fossil fuel plant, in order to produce more energy than the pumps consume, electricity generation requires high temperature geothermal fields and specialized heat cycles. Because geothermal power does not rely on sources of energy, unlike, for example, wind or solar. However the global average capacity factor was 74. 5% in 2008, the earth’s heat content is about 1031 joules
18.
Uranium
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Uranium is a chemical element with symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons, Uranium is weakly radioactive because all its isotopes are unstable. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 and uranium-235, Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead, and it occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few parts per million in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite. In nature, uranium is found as uranium-238, uranium-235, Uranium decays slowly by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of uranium-238 is about 4.47 billion years, many contemporary uses of uranium exploit its unique nuclear properties. Uranium-235 is the naturally occurring fissile isotope, which makes it widely used in nuclear power plants. However, because of the amounts found in nature, uranium needs to undergo enrichment so that enough uranium-235 is present. Uranium-238 is fissionable by fast neutrons, and is fertile, meaning it can be transmuted to fissile plutonium-239 in a nuclear reactor, another fissile isotope, uranium-233, can be produced from natural thorium and is also important in nuclear technology. In sufficient concentration, these maintain a sustained nuclear chain reaction. This generates the heat in nuclear reactors, and produces the fissile material for nuclear weapons. Depleted uranium is used in kinetic energy penetrators and armor plating, Uranium is used as a colorant in uranium glass, producing lemon yellow to green colors. Uranium glass fluoresces green in ultraviolet light and it was also used for tinting and shading in early photography. The 1789 discovery of uranium in the mineral pitchblende is credited to Martin Heinrich Klaproth, eugène-Melchior Péligot was the first person to isolate the metal and its radioactive properties were discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel. An ensuing arms race during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union produced tens of thousands of weapons that used uranium metal. The security of those weapons and their fissile material following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 is a concern for public health. When refined, uranium is a white, weakly radioactive metal
19.
Nuclear power
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Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions that release nuclear energy to generate heat, which most frequently is then used in steam turbines to produce electricity in a nuclear power plant. The term includes nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion, since all electricity supplying technologies use cement, etc. during construction, emissions are yet to be brought to zero. Each result is contrasted with coal and fossil gas at 820 and 490 g CO2 eq/kWh, there is a social debate about nuclear power. Proponents, such as the World Nuclear Association and Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, contend that nuclear power is a safe, opponents, such as Greenpeace International and NIRS, contend that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment. These include the Chernobyl disaster which occurred in 1986, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, there have also been some nuclear submarine accidents. Energy production from coal, petroleum, natural gas and hydroelectricity has caused a number of fatalities per unit of energy generated due to air pollution. In 2015, Ten new reactors were connected to the grid, seven reactors were permanently shut down. 441 reactors had a net capacity of 382,855 megawatts of electricity. 67 new nuclear reactors were under construction, Most of the new activity is in China where there is an urgent need to control pollution from coal plants. In October 2016, Watts Bar 2 became the first new United States reactor to enter commercial operation since 1996. The same year, his doctoral student James Chadwick discovered the neutron, further work by Enrico Fermi in the 1930s focused on using slow neutrons to increase the effectiveness of induced radioactivity. Experiments bombarding uranium with neutrons led Fermi to believe he had created a new, transuranic element and they determined that the relatively tiny neutron split the nucleus of the massive uranium atoms into two roughly equal pieces, contradicting Fermi. Numerous scientists, including Leó Szilárd, who was one of the first, recognized that if fission reactions released additional neutrons, a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction could result. In the United States, where Fermi and Szilárd had both emigrated, this led to the creation of the first man-made reactor, known as Chicago Pile-1, which achieved criticality on December 2,1942. In 1945, the pocketbook The Atomic Age heralded the untapped atomic power in everyday objects and depicted a future where fossil fuels would go unused. One science writer, David Dietz, wrote that instead of filling the gas tank of a car two or three times a week, people travel for a year on a pellet of atomic energy the size of a vitamin pill. The United Kingdom, Canada, and the USSR proceeded over the course of the late 1940s, electricity was generated for the first time by a nuclear reactor on December 20,1951, at the EBR-I experimental station near Arco, Idaho, which initially produced about 100 kW. Work was also researched in the US on nuclear marine propulsion
20.
Hydroelectricity
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Hydroelectricity is electricity produced from hydropower. In 2015 hydropower generated 16. 6% of the total electricity and 70% of all renewable electricity. Hydropower is produced in 150 countries, with the Asia-Pacific region generating 33 percent of global hydropower in 2013, China is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 920 TWh of production in 2013, representing 16.9 percent of domestic electricity use. The cost of hydroelectricity is relatively low, making it a source of renewable electricity. The hydro station consumes no water, unlike coal or gas plants, the average cost of electricity from a hydro station larger than 10 megawatts is 3 to 5 U. S. cents per kilowatt-hour. With a dam and reservoir it is also a source of electricity since the amount produced by the station can be changed up or down very quickly to adapt to changing energy demands. Once a hydroelectric complex is constructed, the project produces no direct waste, Hydropower has been used since ancient times to grind flour and perform other tasks. In the mid-1770s, French engineer Bernard Forest de Bélidor published Architecture Hydraulique which described vertical-, by the late 19th century, the electrical generator was developed and could now be coupled with hydraulics. The growing demand for the Industrial Revolution would drive development as well, in 1878 the worlds first hydroelectric power scheme was developed at Cragside in Northumberland, England by William George Armstrong. It was used to power an arc lamp in his art gallery. The old Schoelkopf Power Station No.1 near Niagara Falls in the U. S. side began to produce electricity in 1881. The first Edison hydroelectric power station, the Vulcan Street Plant, began operating September 30,1882, in Appleton, Wisconsin, by 1886 there were 45 hydroelectric power stations in the U. S. and Canada. By 1889 there were 200 in the U. S. alone, at the beginning of the 20th century, many small hydroelectric power stations were being constructed by commercial companies in mountains near metropolitan areas. Grenoble, France held the International Exhibition of Hydropower and Tourism with over one million visitors, by 1920 as 40% of the power produced in the United States was hydroelectric, the Federal Power Act was enacted into law. The Act created the Federal Power Commission to regulate hydroelectric power stations on federal land, as the power stations became larger, their associated dams developed additional purposes to include flood control, irrigation and navigation. Federal funding became necessary for development and federally owned corporations, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority. Hydroelectric power stations continued to become larger throughout the 20th century, Hydropower was referred to as white coal for its power and plenty. Hoover Dams initial 1,345 MW power station was the worlds largest hydroelectric station in 1936
21.
Concentrated solar power
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Concentrated solar power systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight, or solar thermal energy, onto a small area. Electricity is generated when the light is converted to heat. Heat storage in molten salts allows some solar thermal plants to continue to generate after sunset, CSP is being commercialized and the CSP market saw about 740 megawatt of generating capacity added between 2007 and the end of 2010. More than half of this was installed during 2010, bringing the total to 1095 MW. Spain added 400 MW in 2010, taking the lead with a total of 632 MW, while the US ended the year with 509 MW after adding 78 MW. The Middle East is also ramping up their plans to install CSP based projects, shams-I has been installed in Abu Dhabi, by Masdar. The largest CSP projects in the world is Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in the United States, as of January 2014, Spain had a total capacity of 2,300 MW making this country the world leader in CSP. United States follows with 1,740 MW, interest is also notable in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as India and China. In Italy, a handful of companies are trying to get authorization for 14 plants, totalling 392 MW, the global market has been dominated by parabolic-trough plants, which account for 90% of CSP plants. However, the Chile Copiapó reached ¢6. 3/kWh, in 2015, CSP represented less than 2% of worldwide installed capacity of solar electricity plants. CSP is not to be confused with concentrator photovoltaics, in CPV, the concentrated sunlight is converted directly to electricity via the photovoltaic effect. A legend has it that Archimedes used a glass to concentrate sunlight on the invading Roman fleet. In 1973 a Greek scientist, Dr, the ship caught fire after a few minutes, however, historians continue to doubt the Archimedes story. In 1866, Auguste Mouchout used a trough to producе steam for the first solar steam engine. The first patent for a collector was obtained by the Italian Alessandro Battaglia in Genoa, Italy. Over the following years, invеntors such as John Ericsson and Frank Shuman developed concentrating solar-powered dеvices for irrigation, refrigеration, in 1913 Shuman finished a 55 HP parabolic solar thermal energy station in Maadi, Egypt for irrigation. Professor Giovanni Francia designed and built the first concentrated-solar plant, which entered operation in SantIlario, near Genoa. This plant had the architecture of todays concentrated-solar plants with a receiver in the center of a field of solar collectors
22.
Photovoltaics
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A typical photovoltaic system employs solar panels, each comprising a number of solar cells, which generate electrical power. PV installations may be ground-mounted, rooftop mounted or wall mounted, the mount may be fixed, or use a solar tracker to follow the sun across the sky. Dust, clouds, and other things in the atmosphere also diminish the power output, another main issue is the concentration of the production in the hours corresponding to main insolation, which dont usually match the peaks in demand in human activity cycles. Unless current societal patterns of consumption and electrical networks mutually adjust to this scenario, electricity still need to be made up by other power sources, Photovoltaic systems have long been used in specialized applications, and standalone and grid-connected PV systems have been in use since the 1990s. They were first mass-produced in 2000, when German environmentalists and the Eurosolar organization got government funding for a ten thousand roof program, advances in technology and increased manufacturing scale have in any case reduced the cost, increased the reliability, and increased the efficiency of photovoltaic installations. Net metering and financial incentives, such as preferential feed-in tariffs for solar-generated electricity, have supported solar PV installations in many countries, more than 100 countries now use solar PV. After hydro and wind powers, PV is the renewable energy source in terms of globally capacity. In 2014, worldwide installed PV capacity increased to 177 gigawatts, with current technology, photovoltaics recoups the energy needed to manufacture them in 1.5 years in Southern Europe and 2.5 years in Northern Europe. The term photo-voltaic has been in use in English since 1849, photovoltaics are best known as a method for generating electric power by using solar cells to convert energy from the sun into a flow of electrons by the photovoltaic effect. Solar cells produce direct current electricity from sunlight which can be used to power equipment or to recharge a battery, the first practical application of photovoltaics was to power orbiting satellites and other spacecraft, but today the majority of photovoltaic modules are used for grid connected power generation. In this case an inverter is required to convert the DC to AC, there is a smaller market for off-grid power for remote dwellings, boats, recreational vehicles, electric cars, roadside emergency telephones, remote sensing, and cathodic protection of pipelines. Photovoltaic power generation employs solar panels composed of a number of cells containing a photovoltaic material. Copper solar cables connect modules, arrays, and sub-fields, because of the growing demand for renewable energy sources, the manufacturing of solar cells and photovoltaic arrays has advanced considerably in recent years. Solar photovoltaic power generation has long seen as a clean energy technology which draws upon the planet’s most plentiful. Cells require protection from the environment and are usually packaged tightly in solar panels, Photovoltaic power capacity is measured as maximum power output under standardized test conditions in Wp. Solar photovoltaic array capacity factors are typically under 25%, which is lower than other industrial sources of electricity. For best performance, terrestrial PV systems aim to maximize the time they face the sun, Solar trackers achieve this by moving PV panels to follow the sun. The increase can be by as much as 20% in winter, static mounted systems can be optimized by analysis of the sun path
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Wind power
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Wind power is the use of air flow through wind turbines to mechanically power generators for electric power. The net effects on the environment are far less problematic than those of power sources. Wind farms consist of individual wind turbines which are connected to the electric power transmission network. Onshore wind is a source of electric power, competitive with or in many places cheaper than coal or gas plants. Offshore wind is steadier and stronger than on land, and offshore farms have less visual impact, small onshore wind farms can feed some energy into the grid or provide electric power to isolated off-grid locations. Wind power gives variable power which is consistent from year to year. It is therefore used in conjunction with other power sources to give a reliable supply. As the proportion of power in a region increases, a need to upgrade the grid. In addition, weather forecasting permits the power network to be readied for the predictable variations in production that occur. As of 2015, Denmark generates 40% of its power from wind. In 2014 global wind power capacity expanded 16% to 369,553 MW, yearly wind energy production is also growing rapidly and has reached around 4% of worldwide electric power usage,11. 4% in the EU. Wind power has been used as long as humans have put sails into the wind, for more than two millennia wind-powered machines have ground grain and pumped water. Wind power was available and not confined to the banks of fast-flowing streams, or later. Wind-powered pumps drained the polders of the Netherlands, and in regions such as the American mid-west or the Australian outback, wind pumps provided water for live stock. The first windmill used for the production of power was built in Scotland in July 1887 by Prof James Blyth of Andersons College. Blyth offered the surplus power to the people of Marykirk for lighting the main street, however. The Brush wind turbine had a rotor 17 metres in diameter and was mounted on an 18 metres tower, although large by todays standards, the machine was only rated at 12 kW. The connected dynamo was used either to charge a bank of batteries or to operate up to 100 incandescent light bulbs, with the development of electric power, wind power found new applications in lighting buildings remote from centrally-generated power
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Solar power
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Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics, or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam, Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic effect. Most solar installations would be in China and India, Solar PV is rapidly becoming an inexpensive, low-carbon technology to harness renewable energy from the Sun. The current largest photovoltaic power station in the world is the 850 MW Longyangxia Dam Solar Park, in Qinghai, commercial concentrated solar power plants were first developed in the 1980s. The 392 MW Ivanpah installation is the largest concentrating solar power plant in the world, long distance transmission allows remote renewable energy resources to displace fossil fuel consumption. Solar power plants use one of two technologies, Photovoltaic systems use solar panels, either on rooftops or in ground-mounted solar farms, concentrated solar power plants use solar thermal energy to make steam, that is thereafter converted into electricity by a turbine. A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is a device that converts light into electric current using the photovoltaic effect, the first solar cell was constructed by Charles Fritts in the 1880s. The German industrialist Ernst Werner von Siemens was among those who recognized the importance of this discovery, following the work of Russell Ohl in the 1940s, researchers Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller and Daryl Chapin created the silicon solar cell in 1954. These early solar cells cost 286 USD/watt and reached efficiencies of 4. 5–6%, the array of a photovoltaic power system, or PV system, produces direct current power which fluctuates with the sunlights intensity. For practical use this usually requires conversion to certain desired voltages or alternating current, multiple solar cells are connected inside modules. Modules are wired together to form arrays, then tied to an inverter, which produces power at the voltage, and for AC. Many residential PV systems are connected to the grid wherever available, in these grid-connected PV systems, use of energy storage is optional. In certain applications such as satellites, lighthouses, or in developing countries, batteries or additional power generators are often added as back-ups, such stand-alone power systems permit operations at night and at other times of limited sunlight. Concentrated solar power, also called concentrated solar thermal, uses lenses or mirrors, contrary to photovoltaics – which converts light directly into electricity – CSP uses the heat of the suns radiation to generate electricity from conventional steam-driven turbines. A wide range of concentrating technologies exists, among the best known are the trough, the compact linear Fresnel reflector, the Stirling dish. Various techniques are used to track the sun and focus light, in all of these systems a working fluid is heated by the concentrated sunlight, and is then used for power generation or energy storage. Thermal storage efficiently allows up to 24-hour electricity generation, a parabolic trough consists of a linear parabolic reflector that concentrates light onto a receiver positioned along the reflectors focal line. The receiver is a tube positioned right above the middle of the mirror and is filled with a working fluid
25.
Hydropower
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Hydropower or water power is power derived from the energy of falling water or fast running water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. A trompe, which compressed air from falling water, is sometimes used to power other machinery at a distance. In the late 19th century, hydropower became a source for generating electricity, cragside in Northumberland was the first house powered by hydroelectricity in 1878 and the first commercial hydroelectric power plant was built at Niagara Falls in 1879. In 1881, street lamps in the city of Niagara Falls were powered by hydropower, since the early 20th century, the term has been used almost exclusively in conjunction with the modern development of hydroelectric power. In China and the rest of the Far East, hydraulically operated pot wheel pumps raised water into crop or irrigation canals, the power of a wave of water released from a tank was used for extraction of metal ores in a method known as hushing. The method was first used at the Dolaucothi Gold Mines in Wales from 75 AD onwards, hushing was also widely used in Britain in the Medieval and later periods to extract lead and tin ores. It later evolved into hydraulic mining when used during the California Gold Rush and these include an endless belt with jugs attached, a cow-powered shadoof, and a reciprocating device with hinged valves. In 1753, French engineer Bernard Forest de Bélidor published Architecture Hydraulique which described vertical-, the growing demand for the Industrial Revolution would drive development as well. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, water was the source of power for new inventions such as Richard Arkwrights water frame. In the 1830s, at the peak in US canal-building, hydropower provided the energy to transport barge traffic up. Technological advances had moved the water wheel into an enclosed turbine or water motor. Francis, while working as engineer of Lowells Locks and Canals company. He applied scientific principles and testing methods to the problem of turbine design and his mathematical and graphical calculation methods allowed confident design of high efficiency turbines to exactly match a sites specific flow conditions. The Francis reaction turbine is still in use today. Hydraulic power networks used pipes to carrying pressurized water and transmit power from the source to end users. The power source was normally a head of water, which could also be assisted by a pump and these were extensive in Victorian cities in the United Kingdom. A hydraulic power network was developed in Geneva, Switzerland. The world-famous Jet dEau was originally designed as the relief valve for the network
26.
Environmental impact of aviation
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The environmental impact of aviation occurs because aircraft engines emit heat, noise, particulates and gases which contribute to climate change and global dimming. From 1992 to 2005, passenger kilometers increased 5. 2% per year, and in the European Union, greenhouse gas emissions from aviation increased by 87% between 1990 and 2006. These concerns are highlighted by the present volume of commercial aviation, globally, about 8.3 million people fly daily, twice the total in 1999. U. S. airlines alone burned about 16.2 billion gallons of fuel during the months between October 2013 and September 2014. Emissions weighting factor i. e. the factor by which aviation CO2 emissions should be multiplied to get the CO2-equivalent emissions for annual fleet average conditions is in the range 1. 3–2.9. In 1999 the contribution of civil aircraft-in-flight to global CO2 emissions was estimated to be around 2%, a 2007 report from Environmental Change Institute / Oxford University posits a range closer to 4 percent cumulative effect. The level and effects of CO2 emissions are currently believed to be broadly the same regardless of altitude, at the high altitudes flown by large jet airliners around the tropopause, emissions of NOx are particularly effective in forming ozone in the upper troposphere. High altitude NOx emissions result in greater concentrations of O3 than surface NOx emissions, the effect of O3 concentrations are regional and local. NOx emissions also reduce ambient levels of methane, another greenhouse gas, but this effect does not offset the O3 forming effect of NOx emissions. It is now believed that aircraft sulfur and water emissions in the stratosphere tend to deplete O3 and these effects have not been quantified. This problem does not apply to aircraft that fly lower in the troposphere, one of the products of burning hydrocarbons in oxygen is water vapour, a greenhouse gas. Water vapour produced by aircraft engines at high altitude, under certain conditions, condenses into droplets to form Condensation trails. Contrails are visible line clouds that form in cold, humid atmospheres and are thought to have a warming effect. Contrails are extremely rare from lower-altitude aircraft, or from aircraft or rotorcraft. Cirrus clouds have been observed to develop after the persistent formation of contrails and have found to have a global warming effect over-and-above that of contrail formation alone. However, a 2015 study found that artificial cloudiness caused by contrail outbreaks reduce the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures, the former are decreased and the latter are increased, in comparison to temperatures the day before and the day after such outbreaks. On days with outbreaks the day/night temperature difference was diminished by about 6F° in the U. S, south and 5F° in the Midwest. Least significant is the release of soot and sulfate particles, soot absorbs heat and has a warming effect, sulfate particles reflect radiation and have a small cooling effect
27.
New European Driving Cycle
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The New European Driving Cycle is a driving cycle, last updated in 1997, designed to assess the emission levels of car engines and fuel economy in passenger cars. It is also referred to as MVEG cycle, the NEDC, which is supposed to represent the typical usage of a car in Europe, is repeatedly criticised for delivering economy-figures which are unachievable in reality. It consists of four repeated ECE-15 urban driving cycles and one Extra-Urban driving cycle and it is maintained by the UNECE World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations, which also works on its successor, the Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedures. Several measurements are performed along the cycle. The cycle must be performed on a vehicle at 20–30 °C. The cycles may be performed on a road, in the absence of wind. However, to improve repeatability, they are performed on a roller test bench. This type of bench is equipped with a machine to emulate resistance due to aerodynamic drag. For each vehicle configuration, a table is applied, each speed corresponds to a certain value of resistance. This arrangement enables the use of a single vehicle to test all vehicle body styles by simply changing the look-up table. A fan is coupled to the bench to provide the vehicle air intakes with an airflow matching the current speed. Many more tests can be performed during vehicle development with this arrangement than with road tests. The cycle has been designed to represent typical driving conditions of busy European cities, and is characterized by low engine load, low exhaust gas temperature, and a maximum speed of 50 km/h. At 49 s, the car accelerates to 32 km/h in 12 s, cruises for 24 s, slowly brakes to a full stop in 11 s. The cycle ends on 195 s after a distance of 994.03 meters. Total duration is 780 s over a distance of 3976.1 meters. The Extra-Urban Driving Cycle EUDC, introduced by ECE R101 in 1990, has designed to represent more aggressive. The maximum speed of the EUDC cycle is 120 km/h, low-powered vehicles are limited to 90 km/h, at 201 s, the car cruises at 70 km/h for 50 s, then slowly accelerates to 100 km/h in 35 s and cruises for 30 s
28.
Car
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A car is a wheeled, self-powered motor vehicle used for transportation and a product of the automotive industry. The year 1886 is regarded as the year of the modern car. In that year, German inventor Karl Benz built the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, cars did not become widely available until the early 20th century. One of the first cars that was accessible to the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the United States of America, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts, cars are equipped with controls used for driving, parking, passenger comfort and safety, and controlling a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, examples include rear reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in car entertainment. Most cars in use in the 2010s are propelled by a combustion engine. Both fuels cause air pollution and are blamed for contributing to climate change. Vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and natural gas vehicles are also gaining popularity in some countries, electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the car, began to become commercially available in 2008. There are costs and benefits to car use, the costs of car usage include the cost of, acquiring the vehicle, interest payments, repairs and auto maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance. The costs to society of car use include, maintaining roads, land use, road congestion, air pollution, public health, health care, road traffic accidents are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide. The benefits may include transportation, mobility, independence. The ability for humans to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies and it was estimated in 2010 that the number of cars had risen to over 1 billion vehicles, up from the 500 million of 1986. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China, India, the word car is believed to originate from the Latin word carrus or carrum, or the Middle English word carre. In turn, these originated from the Gaulish word karros, the Gaulish language was a branch of the Brythoic language which also used the word Karr, the Brythonig language evolved into Welsh where Car llusg and car rhyfel still survive. It originally referred to any wheeled vehicle, such as a cart, carriage. Motor car is attested from 1895, and is the formal name for cars in British English. Autocar is a variant that is attested from 1895
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Hybrid electric vehicle
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A hybrid electric vehicle is a type of hybrid vehicle and electric vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine propulsion system with an electric propulsion system. The presence of the powertrain is intended to achieve either better fuel economy than a conventional vehicle or better performance. There are a variety of HEV types, and the degree to which functions as an electric vehicle varies as well. The most common form of HEV is the electric car, although hybrid electric trucks. Many HEVs reduce idle emissions by shutting down the ICE at idle and restarting it when needed, as of January 2017, over 12 million hybrid electric vehicles have been sold worldwide since their inception in 1997.5 million hybrids delivered since 2000. Japan also has the worlds highest hybrid market penetration, in 2016 the hybrid market share accounted for 38% of new standard passenger car sales, and 25. 7% of new passenger vehicle sales including kei cars. Norway ranks second with a market share of 6. 9% of new car sales in 2014, followed by the Netherlands with 3. 7%, France and Sweden. As of January 2017, worldwide sales are led by the Toyota Prius liftback. The Prius nameplate had sold more than 6 million hybrids up to January 2017, global Lexus hybrid sales achieved the 1 million unit milestone in March 2016. As of January 2017, the conventional Prius is the all-time bst-selling hybrid car in both Japan and the U. S. with sales of over 1.8 million in Japan and 1.75 million in the United States. The internal combustion engine of many parallel hybrids can also act as a generator for supplemental recharging, in series hybrids, only the electric motor drives the drivetrain, and a smaller ICE works as a generator to power the electric motor or to recharge the batteries. They also usually have a battery pack than parallel hybrids. Once the batteries are low, the combustion engine can generate power at its optimum settings at all times. Power-split hybrids have the benefits of a combination of series and parallel characteristics, examples of power-split hybrid powertrains include current models of Ford, General Motors, Lexus, Nissan, and Toyota. In each of the hybrids above it is common to use regenerative braking to recharge the batteries, full hybrid, sometimes also called a strong hybrid, is a vehicle that can run on just the engine, just the batteries, or a combination of both. Fords hybrid system, Toyotas Hybrid Synergy Drive and General Motors/Chryslers Two-Mode Hybrid technologies are full hybrid systems, the Toyota Prius, Ford Escape Hybrid, and Ford Fusion Hybrid are examples of full hybrids, as these cars can be moved forward on battery power alone. A large, high-capacity battery pack is needed for battery-only operation and these vehicles have a split power path allowing greater flexibility in the drivetrain by interconverting mechanical and electrical power, at some cost in complexity. Mild hybrid, is a vehicle that cannot be solely on its electric motor
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Light commercial vehicle
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Qualifying light commercial vehicles include pickup trucks, vans and three-wheelers all commercially based goods or passenger carrier. All of the light commercial vehicles are sold through dealer networks. Usually a car dealer will have a franchise for the sale of a manufacturers cars, isuzu Truck market commercial vehicles up to 18 tonnes GVW and Iveco market their heavy truck range with their Daily van to complement this. Many franchised dealers also retail used LCVs, with the poorer quality examples sent to specialist auctions for sale, there is a large network of independent used commercial vehicle retailers who retail thousands of used commercial vehicles every month. LCV dealers are using the Internet to help sell their vehicles in addition to the traditional print media. Enhanced environmentally friendly vehicle Light Haulage
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United States Environmental Protection Agency
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The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2,1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House, the agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Scott Pruitt, the EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D. C. regional offices for each of the ten regions. The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education and it has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U. S. states, EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs. In 2016, the agency had 15,376 full-time employees, more than half of EPAs employees are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists, other employees include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists. Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment. Senator James E. Murray introduced a bill, the Resources and Conservation Act of 1959, the 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson alerted the public about the detrimental effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. In the years following, similar bills were introduced and hearings were held to discuss the state of the environment, in the colloquium, some members of Congress expressed a continuing concern over federal agency actions affecting the environment. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 was modeled on RCA, President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1,1970. The law created the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President, NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The detailed statement would ultimately be referred to as an impact statement. On July 9,1970, Nixon proposed a reorganization that consolidated many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency. After conducting hearings during that summer, the House and Senate approved the proposal, the agency’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, took the oath of office on December 4,1970. In May 2013, Congress renamed the EPA headquarters as the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, the EPA is led by an Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As of 2017 Scott Pruitt is the 14th administrator, each EPA regional office is responsible within its states for implementing the Agencys programs, except those programs that have been specifically delegated to states
32.
FTP-75
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The testing was mandated by the Energy Tax Act of 1978 in order to determine the rate of the guzzler tax that applies for the sales of new cars. The current procedure has been updated in 2008 and includes four tests, city driving, highway driving, aggressive driving, the Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule is a mandated dynamometer test on tailpipe emissions of a car that represents city driving conditions. It is defined in 40 C. F. R and it is also known as FTP-72 or LA-4, and it is also used in Sweden as the A10 or CVS cycle and in Australia as the ADR27 cycle. The cycle simulates an urban route of 12.07 km with frequent stops, the maximum speed is 91.2 km/h and the average speed is 31.5 km/h. The cycle has two phases, a cold phase of 505 seconds over a projected distance of 5.78 km at 41.2 km/h average speed. The city driving program of the EPA Federal Test Procedure is identical to the UDDS plus the first 505 seconds of an additional UDDS cycle, the average speed is thus different but the maximum speed remains the same as in the UDDS. The weighting factors are 0.43 for the cold start, the highway program or Highway Fuel Economy Driving Schedule is defined in 40 C. F. R. It uses an engine and makes no stops, averaging 48 mph with a top speed of 60 mph over a 10-mile distance. In 2007, the EPA added three new Supplemental Federal Test Procedure tests that combine the current city and highway cycles to reflect real world economy more accurately. Estimates are available for back to the 1985 model year. SFTP US06 is a high speed/quick acceleration loop that lasts 10 minutes, covers 8 miles, averages 48 mph, four stops are included, and brisk acceleration maximizes at a rate of 8.46 mph per second. The engine begins warm and air conditioning is not used, ambient temperature varies between 68 °F to 86 °F. The cycle represents an 8.01 mile route with an speed of 48.4 miles/h, maximum speed 80.3 miles/h. SFTO SC03 is the air conditioning test, which raises ambient temperatures to 95 °F, lasting 9.9 minutes, the 3. 6-mile loop averages 22 mph and maximizes at a rate of 54.8 mph. Five stops are included, idling occurs 19 percent of the time, the cycle represents a 3.6 mile route with an average speed of 21.6 miles/h, maximum speed 54.8 miles/h, and a duration of 596 seconds. A200 W electrical load can produce a 0.4 km/L reduction in efficiency on the FTP75 cycle test
33.
Truck
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A truck is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, smaller varieties may be similar to some automobiles. Commercial trucks can be large and powerful, and may be configured to mount specialized equipment, such as in the case of fire trucks and concrete mixers. Modern trucks are powered by diesel engines, although small to medium size trucks with gasoline engines exist in the US. In the European Union, vehicles with a gross mass of up to 3.5 t are known as light commercial vehicles. Trucks and cars have an ancestor, the steam-powered fardier Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built in 1769. However, steam wagons were not common until the mid-1800s, the roads of the time, built for horse and carriages, limited these vehicles to very short hauls, usually from a factory to the nearest railway station. The first semi-trailer appeared in 1881, towed by a tractor manufactured by De Dion-Bouton. In 1895 Karl Benz designed and built the first truck in history using the internal combustion engine, later that year some of Benzs trucks were modified to become the first bus by the Netphener, the first motorbus company in history. A year later, in 1896, another internal combustion engine truck was built by Gottlieb Daimler, other companies, such as Peugeot, Renault and Büssing, also built their own versions. The first truck in the United States was built by Autocar in 1899 and was available with optional 5 or 8 horsepower motors, trucks of the era mostly used two-cylinder engines and had a carrying capacity of 3,300 to 4,400 lb. In 1904,700 heavy trucks were built in the United States,1000 in 1907,6000 in 1910, after World War I, several advances were made, pneumatic tires replaced the previously common full rubber versions. Electric starters, power brakes,4,6, and 8 cylinder engines, closed cabs, the first modern semi-trailer trucks also appeared. Touring car builders such as Ford and Renault entered the heavy truck market, although it had been invented in 1890, the diesel engine was not common in trucks in Europe until the 1930s. In the United States, it took longer for diesel engines to be accepted. The word truck might come from a back-formation of truckle, meaning small wheel or pulley, from Middle English trokell, another possible source is the Latin trochus, meaning iron hoop. In turn, both sources emanate from the Greek trokhos, meaning wheel, from trekhein, the first known usage of truck was in 1611, when it referred to the small strong wheels on ships cannon carriages. In its extended usage it came to refer to carts for carrying heavy loads and its expanded application to motor-powered load carrier has been in usage since 1930, shortened from motor truck, which dates back to 1901
34.
Knot (unit)
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The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour, approximately 1.151 mph. The ISO Standard symbol for the knot is kn, the same symbol is preferred by the IEEE, kt is also common. The knot is a unit that is accepted for use with the SI. Etymologically, the term derives from counting the number of knots in the line that unspooled from the reel of a log in a specific time. 1 international knot =1 nautical mile per hour,1.852 kilometres per hour,0.514 metres per second,1.151 miles per hour,20.254 inches per second,1852 m is the length of the internationally agreed nautical mile. The US adopted the definition in 1954, having previously used the US nautical mile. The UK adopted the international nautical mile definition in 1970, having used the UK Admiralty nautical mile. The speeds of vessels relative to the fluids in which they travel are measured in knots, for consistency, the speeds of navigational fluids are also measured in knots. Thus, speed over the ground and rate of progress towards a distant point are given in knots. Until the mid-19th century, vessel speed at sea was measured using a chip log, the chip log was cast over the stern of the moving vessel and the line allowed to pay out. Knots placed at a distance of 8 fathoms -47 feet 3 inches from each other, passed through a sailors fingers, the knot count would be reported and used in the sailing masters dead reckoning and navigation. This method gives a value for the knot of 20.25 in/s, the difference from the modern definition is less than 0. 02%. On a chart of the North Atlantic, the scale varies by a factor of two from Florida to Greenland, a single graphic scale, of the sort on many maps, would therefore be useless on such a chart. Recent British Admiralty charts have a latitude scale down the middle to make this even easier, speed is sometimes incorrectly expressed as knots per hour, which is in fact a measure of acceleration. Prior to 1969, airworthiness standards for aircraft in the United States Federal Aviation Regulations specified that distances were to be in statute miles. In 1969, these standards were amended to specify that distances were to be in nautical miles. At 11000 m, an airspeed of 300 kn may correspond to a true airspeed of 500 kn in standard conditions. Beaufort scale Hull speed, which deals with theoretical estimates of maximum speed of displacement hulls Knot count Knotted cord Metre per second Orders of magnitude Rope Kemp
35.
Publicly Available Specification
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A Publicly Available Specification or PAS is a standardization document that closely resembles a formal standard in structure and format but which has a different development model. The objective of a Publicly Available Specification is to speed up standardization, pASs are often produced in response to an urgent market need. BSI Group pioneered the PAS format, the timescale for the development of a PAS can be shorter, typically around 8 months, and is why it is sometimes referred to as a fast-track standard. The development of a PAS cannot conflict with, or contradict, existing or draft work within the formal standards arena and must complement, not conflict with, any legislation in the subject area. It is also written in accordance with BS drafting rules, which means that the content must be technically robust and it is written unambiguously and with objectively verifiable requirements or recommendations. According to a BSI document Principles of PAS standardization The term PAS was originally an acronym derived from “publicly available specification”, however, not all PAS documents are structured as specifications and the term is now sufficiently well established not to require any further amplification. However, early examples of PAS were actually titled Product Approval Specification as illustrated in the photograph showing part of PAS003
36.
Cement
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A cement is a binder, a substance used in construction that sets, hardens and adheres to other materials, binding them together. Cement is seldom used solely, but is used to bind sand, Cement is used with fine aggregate to produce mortar for masonry, or with sand and gravel aggregates to produce concrete. Non-hydraulic cement will not set in wet conditions or underwater, rather, it sets as it dries and it is resistant to attack by chemicals after setting. Hydraulic cements set and become adhesive due to a reaction between the dry ingredients and water. The chemical reaction results in mineral hydrates that are not very water-soluble and so are quite durable in water and this allows setting in wet condition or underwater and further protects the hardened material from chemical attack. The chemical process for hydraulic cement found by ancient Romans used volcanic ash with added lime, the word cement can be traced back to the Roman term opus caementicium, used to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed rock with burnt lime as binder. The volcanic ash and pulverized brick supplements that were added to the burnt lime, to obtain a hydraulic binder, were referred to as cementum, cimentum, cäment. In modern times, organic polymers are used as cements in concrete. Non-hydraulic cement, such as slaked lime, hardens by carbonation in the presence of carbon dioxide which is present in the air. The carbonation reaction requires the dry cement to be exposed to air and this whole process is called the lime cycle. Conversely, hydraulic cement hardens by hydration when water is added, Hydraulic cements are made of a mixture of silicates and oxides, the four main components being, Belite, Alite, Tricalcium aluminate, Brownmillerite. The chemistry of the above listed reactions is not completely clear and is still the object of research, Cement, chemically speaking, is a product that includes lime as the primary curing ingredient, but is far from the first material used for cementation. The Babylonians and Assyrians used bitumen to bind together burnt brick or alabaster slabs, in Egypt stone blocks were cemented together with a mortar made of sand and roughly burnt gypsum, which often contained calcium carbonate. Lime was used on Crete and by the ancient Greeks, there is evidence that the Minoans of Crete used crushed potshards as an artificial pozzolan for hydraulic cement. A kind of powder which from natural causes produces astonishing results and it is found in the neighborhood of Baiae and in the country belonging to the towns round about Mt. Vesuvius. This substance when mixed with lime and rubble not only lends strength to buildings of other kinds, the Greeks used volcanic tuff from the island of Thera as their pozzolan and the Romans used crushed volcanic ash with lime. This mixture was able to set under water increasing its resistance, the material was called pozzolana from the town of Pozzuoli, west of Naples where volcanic ash was extracted. In the absence of ash, the Romans used powdered brick or pottery as a substitute
37.
Carbon offset
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A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for or to offset an emission made elsewhere. One carbon offset represents the reduction of one ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases. There are two markets for carbon offsets, in the larger, compliance market, companies, governments, or other entities buy carbon offsets in order to comply with caps on the total amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit. This market exists in order to achieve compliance with obligations of Annex 1 Parties under the Kyoto Protocol, in 2006, about $5.5 billion of carbon offsets were purchased in the compliance market, representing about 1.6 billion metric tons of CO2e reductions. For example, an individual might purchase carbon offsets to compensate for the gas emissions caused by personal air travel. Many companies offer carbon offsets as an up-sell during the process so that customers can mitigate the emissions related with their product or service purchase. In 2008, about $705 million of carbon offsets were purchased in the voluntary market, some fuel suppliers in the UK offer fuel which has been carbon offset such as Fuel dyes. Offsets are typically achieved through financial support of projects that reduce the emission of gases in the short- or long-term. The most common type is renewable energy, such as wind farms, biomass energy. Others include energy efficiency projects, the destruction of pollutants or agricultural byproducts, destruction of landfill methane. Some of the most popular carbon offset projects from a corporate perspective are energy efficiency, the Kyoto Protocol has sanctioned offsets as a way for governments and private companies to earn carbon credits that can be traded on a marketplace. Organizations that are unable to meet their emissions quota can offset their emissions by buying CDM-approved Certified Emissions Reductions, Emissions from burning fuel, such as red diesel, has pushed one UK fuel supplier to create a carbon offset fuel named Carbon Offset Red Diesel. Offsets may be cheaper or more convenient alternatives to reducing ones own fossil-fuel consumption, however, some critics object to carbon offsets, and question the benefits of certain types of offsets. Offsets are viewed as an important policy tool to maintain stable economies, Carbon offsets have several common features, Vintage. The vintage is the year in which the carbon takes place. The source refers to the project or technology used in offsetting the carbon emissions, projects can include land-use, methane, biomass, renewable energy and industrial energy efficiency. Projects may also have secondary benefits, for example, projects that reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions may improve water quality by reducing fertilizer usage. The certification regime describes the systems and procedures that are used to certify, different methodologies are used for measuring and verifying emissions reductions, depending on project type, size and location
38.
Kyoto Protocol
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The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There are currently 192 parties to the Protocol, the Protocols first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have stated that they may withdraw from the Protocol or not put into force the Amendment with second round targets. Japan, New Zealand and Russia have participated in Kyotos first-round but have not taken on new targets in the commitment period. Other developed countries without second-round targets are Canada and the United States, as of July 2016,66 states have accepted the Doha Amendment, while entry into force requires the acceptances of 144 states. Of the 37 countries with binding commitments,7 have ratified, negotiations were held in the framework of the yearly UNFCCC Climate Change Conferences on measures to be taken after the second commitment period ends in 2020. This resulted in the 2015 adoption of the Paris Agreement, which is an instrument under the UNFCCC rather than an amendment of the Kyoto protocol. The view that human activities are responsible for most of the observed increase in global mean temperature since the mid-20th century is an accurate reflection of current scientific thinking. Human-induced warming of the climate is expected to continue throughout the 21st century, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have produced a range of projections of what the future increase in global mean temperature might be. The IPCCs projections are baseline projections, meaning that they assume no future efforts are made to reduce gas emissions. The IPCC projections cover the period from the beginning of the 21st century to the end of the 21st century. The likely range is a increase in global mean temperature over the 21st century of between 1.1 and 6.4 °C. The range in temperature projections partly reflects different projections of greenhouse gas emissions. Different projections contain different assumptions of social and economic development. The range also reflects uncertainty in the response of the system to past. 1992 The UN Conference on the Environment and Development is held in Rio de Janeiro and it results in the Framework Convention on Climate Change among other agreements. 1995 Parties to the UNFCCC meet in Berlin to outline specific targets on emissions,1997 In December the parties conclude the Kyoto Protocol in Kyoto, Japan, in which they agree to the broad outlines of emissions targets. 2002 Russia and Canada ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC bringing the treaty into effect on 16 February 2005,2011 Canada became the first signatory to announce its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol
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