The costs for solar photovoltaics, wind, and battery storage have dropped markedly since 2010, however, many recent studies and reports around the world have not adequately captured such dramatic decrease. Those costs are projected to decline further in the near future, bringing new prospects for the widespread penetration of renewables and extensive power-sector decarbonization that previous policy discussions did not fully consider. Here we show if cost trends for renewables continue, 62% of China's electricity could come from nonfossil sources by 2030 at a cost that is 11% lower than achieved through a business-as-usual approach. Further, China's power sector could cut half of its 2015 carbon emissions at a cost about 6% lower compared to business-as-usual conditions.
Recent forecasts suggest that African countries must triple their current electricity generation by 2030. Our multicriteria assessment of wind and solar potential for large regions of Africa shows how economically competitive and low-environmentalimpact renewable resources can significantly contribute to meeting this demand. We created the Multicriteria Analysis for Planning Renewable Energy (MapRE) framework to map and characterize solar and wind energy zones in 21 countries in the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) and the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) and find that potential is several times greater than demand in many countries. Significant fractions of demand can be quickly served with "no-regrets" options-or zones that are low-cost, low-environmental impact, and highly accessible. Because no-regrets options are spatially heterogeneous, international interconnections are necessary to help achieve low-carbon development for the region as a whole, and interconnections that support the best renewable options may differ from those planned for hydropower expansion. Additionally, interconnections and selecting wind sites to match demand reduce the need for SAPP-wide conventional generation capacity by 9.5% in a high-wind scenario, resulting in a 6-20% cost savings, depending on the avoided conventional technology. Strategic selection of low-impact and accessible zones is more cost effective with interconnections compared with solutions without interconnections. Overall results are robust to multiple load growth scenarios. Together, results show that multicriteria site selection and deliberate planning of interconnections may significantly increase the economic and environmental competitiveness of renewable alternatives relative to conventional generation. Africa | energy policy | interconnections | renewable energy | siting A s a region, Africa has the lowest per capita electricity consumption in the world, due in large part to lack of generation and transmission infrastructure development at both the national and regional levels (1). However, the average cost of electricity in most African countries is at least twice that of other developing countries (1). For the region to successfully meet goals to increase affordable electricity access and reduce demand curtailment, electricity generation will need to grow exponentially. By some estimates, demand in the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) and Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), which encompass more than 50% of the continent's population, may collectively exceed 1,000 TWh by 2030, nearly triple their electricity consumption in 2010 (2, 3).To meet energy goals, decision makers are looking to fossil fuel and hydropower as familiar and undertapped resources (1-3). With the insecurity and high costs of fossil fuels, the planning paradigm has become increasingly hydropower centric (1-3). Yet climate vulnerability (4), international cooperation barriers and transboundary water rights issues, large cost overruns (5), and high socio-environmental impacts (6) plague th...
Rubber vulcanizates can be reclaimed by milling them with curing ingredients. Physical properties of the RR vulcanizates are inferior to those of the control vulcanizate. RR compounds exhibit poor processing characteristics. Poor physical properties and processing characteristics can be improved by blending with fresh rubber. However, a higher proportion of RR increases the stiffness and causes brittle failure.
Nearly all US locomotives are propelled by diesel-electric drives, which emit 35 million tonnes of CO2 and produce air pollution causing about 1,000 premature deaths annually, accounting for approximately US$6.5 billion in annual health damage costs. Improved battery technology plus access to cheap renewable electricity open the possibility of battery-electric rail. Here we show that a 241-km range can be achieved using a single standard boxcar equipped with a 14-MWh battery and inverter, while consuming half the energy consumed by diesel trains. At near-future battery prices, battery-electric trains can achieve parity with diesel-electric trains if environmental costs are included or if rail companies can access wholesale electricity prices and achieve 40% use of fast-charging infrastructure. Accounting for reduced criteria air pollutants and CO2 emissions, switching to battery-electric propulsion would save the US freight rail sector US$94 billion over 20 years.
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