Community Energy Literature Review

In an address to the UN Security Council, Secretary-General António Guterres described the phenomenon of sea level rise as a “threat multiplier” which jeopardizes access to water, food and healthcare. He also referred to the potential damage to agriculture, fisheries and tourism, and to infrastructure, such as transportation systems, hospitals and schools, and to the possibility of the “mass exodus of entire populations”. He warned that “under any temperature rise scenario, countries from Bangladesh to China, India and the Netherlands will all be at risk” ( UN News, 2023 ). This post will focus on the risk to a single UK region, but some of the resources cited will be of much more general interest. Climate Central describes itself as “an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives.” Its work is organised into several programs, one of which is Sea Level Rise, which aims to provide accu...

  Ammonia is of interest in the context of global decarbonisation not only because it can be used as a carrier of hydrogen, but also because it can be a carbon-free fuel in its own right. Kobayashi et al. (2019) note the difficulties of transporting and storing hydrogen, and that ammonia, which is much easier to handle, “comprises 17.8% of hydrogen by mass and can be produced from renewable hydrogen and nitrogen separated from air.” Since ammonia has long been used “as a fertilizer, chemical raw material, and refrigerant” there is ample experience in its use. The paper explores the successful use of ammonia as fuel in gas turbines and in industrial furnaces, and discusses methods of overcoming problems associated with its use, such as low combustibility and the production of nitrogen oxides (NOx). The authors have a particular interest in ammonia as a means of satisfying Japan’s need for imported carbon-free fuel, following closure of all its nuclear power plants in 2011 after th...

How to support fuel-efficient driving? (2018) by Ekaterina Gilman et al.  published in IET Intelligent Transport Systems doi: 10.1049/iet-its.2016.0280    There are many ways in which the emissions from road transport can be reduced. An appropriate initial choice of vehicle, together with suitable maintenance, may be thought of as a strategic decision. This paper concentrates on tactics and operation; issues of route selection and driver behaviour, and in particular the technical systems available to inform them.    The authors acknowledge that cultivating sustainable change in driving behaviour is difficult, and that this needs to be reflected in the design of any form of technical assistance. (Readers may notice points in this study which are analogous to issues in other areas of energy saving, such as domestic heating). The paper reviews the literature on driving assistance systems, and notes some general points. Feedback to the driver o...