Toward an Efficient and Sustainable Use of Energy in Industries and Cities

Francesco Calise, Maria Vicidomini, Mário Costa, Qiuwang Wang, Poul Alberg Østergaard and Neven Duić
Additional contact information
Francesco Calise: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Naples, Italy
Maria Vicidomini: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Naples, Italy
Mário Costa: IDMEC, Mechanical Engineering Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-004 Lisboa, Portugal
Qiuwang Wang: Key Laboratory of Thermo-Fluid Science and Engineering (Ministry of Education), Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Poul Alberg Østergaard: Department of Planning, Aalborg University, Rendsburggade 14, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark
Neven Duić: Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, Ivana Lučića 5, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 16, 1-28

Abstract: Several countries have recently realized that the present development paradigm is not sustainable from an environmental and energy point of view. The growing awareness of the population regarding environmental issues is pushing governments worldwide more and more to promote policies aiming at limiting harmful effects of human development. In particular, the rapid increase of the global temperature, especially in the polar regions, and the management of human wastes, mainly plastic in seas, are some of the main points to be addressed by these novel policies. Several actions must be implemented in order to limit such issues. Unfortunately, the recent COP 24 Conference was not successful, but hopefully an agreement will be established in 2020 at the COP 26 Conference. The effort performed by policymakers must be mandatorily supported by the scientific community. In this framework, this paper aims at showing that countries worldwide are trying to negotiate an agreement to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, in this paper all the researchers reported can provide quantitative measures of the actions to be implemented in order to address a sustainable and efficient use of energy. Here, innovations in terms of novel efficient and environmentally friendly technologies mainly based on renewable energy sources have been also investigated. The study also highlights different sectors that have been involved for this aim, such as energy conversion systems, urban areas, mobility, sustainability, water management, social aspects, etc. In this framework, specific conferences are periodically organized in order to provide a forum for discussion regarding these topics. In this area the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) conference is the most ordinary conference. The 13th Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Conference was held in Palermo, Italy in 2018. The current Special Issue of Energies, precisely dedicated to the 13th SDEWES Conference, is based on three main topics: energy policy and energy efficiency in urban areas, energy efficiency in industry and biomass and other miscellaneous energy systems.

Keywords: sustainable development; renewable energy; biomass; energy efficiency in industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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