Academic literature on the topic 'Cities and towns Energy consumption'

More than half of the global population now lives in towns and cities. At the same time, transport has become the highest single energy-consuming human activity. Hence, one of the major topics today is the reduction of urban transport demand and of energy consumption in cities. In this article we focused on the whole package of instruments that can reduce energy consumption and transport demand in Belgrade, a city that is currently at a major crossroad. Belgrade can prevent a dramatic increase in energy consumption and CO2 emissions (and mitigate the negative local environmental effects of traffic congestion, traffic accidents and air pollution), only if it: 1) implements a more decisive strategy to limit private vehicles use while its level of car passenger km (PKT) is still relatively low; 2) does not try to solve its transport problems only by trying to build urban road infrastructure (bridges and ring roads); and 3) if it continues to provide priority movement for buses (a dominant form of public transport), while 4) at the same time developing urban rail systems (metro or LRT) with exclusive tracks, immune to the traffic congestion on urban streets.

Integrated Urban Regeneration can make an enormous contribution to the resolution of main problems such as the current economic situation, global warming, energy consumption, social exclusion and urban decline. The principles of urban regeneration are well established. The experience of urban regeneration in European Cities and Towns is well proven. This will only be achieved if concerted action is taken across all European countries. Experience has shown the benefit of European programs applied to Cities and Towns. There is therefore an opportunity for the creation of a European program to provide dynamics Urban Regeneration all over Europe to deliver the required Urban Renaissance.

ABSTRACT In accordance with international protocols and directions, the APEC Energy Working Group has concentrated on constraining operational energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in cities across the Asia Pacific, especially from the widespread consumption of fossil fuels. In addition to economy level policies and recognising the different characteristics within the region, APEC has sought to take action at the town/city level via the Low-Carbon Model Town (LCMT) project, including the development of self-assessment tools and indicator systems. However, the “low carbon” landscape is changing. There is increasing recognition of embodied carbon, accompanied by the emergence of methods for its measurement, while the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group has recently highlighted the significance of consumption-based carbon. Similarly, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol for Cities (GPC) is likely to extend its ambit from Scope 1 GHG emissions, derived from energy use within a city boundaries, and Scope 2 emissions from grid-supplied electricity, heating and / or cooling, to Scope 3 emissions derived from materials and goods produced outside the boundaries of a city but associated with construction within that city. After describing these emerging approaches and the current landscape, the paper examines the significance and implications of these changes for APEC approaches, especially in relation to the LCMT project, its indicators and the varying characteristics of towns and cities within the Asia-Pacific region. Special attention is given to the built environment, which is known to be a major contributor to operational and embodied emissions. Consistent with the theme of the Asia-Pacific Energy Sustainable Development Forum covering “sustainable development of energy and the city,” a case is put forward for the current APEC approach to be extended to encompass both embodied and consumption-based emissions.

In this paper, we developed a new integrated analysis environment in order to thoroughly analyses urban-building energy patterns, named IUBEA (integrated urban building energy analysis), which focuses on energy modeling and analysis of a city’s building stock to support district or city-scale efficiency programs. It is argued that cities and towns account for more than two-thirds of world energy consumption. Thus, this paper explores techniques to integrate a spatial analysis environment in the field of urban building energy assessment in cites to make full use of current spatial data relevant to urban-building energy consumption and energy efficiency policies. We illustrate how multi-scale sampling and analysis for energy consumption and simulate the energy-saving scenarios by taking as an example of Greater London. In the final part, is an application of an agent-based model (ABM) in IUBEA regarding behavioral and economic characteristics of building stocks in the context of building energy efficiency. This paper first describes the basic concept for this integrated spatial analysis environment IUBEA. Then, this paper discusses the main functions for this new environment in detail. The research serves a new paradigm of the multi-scale integrated analysis that can lead to an efficient energy model, which contributes the body of knowledge of energy modeling beyond the single building scale. Findings also proved that ABM is a feasible tool to tackle intellectual challenges in energy modeling. The final adoption example of Greater London demonstrated that the integrated analysis environment as a feasible tool for building energy consumption have unique advantages and wide applicability.

Public lighting is an essential service in today’s cities, towns, and highways, including improving public safety and reducing traffic accidents. Public lighting could consume up to 40% of the energy budget of the local governments. Therefore, the technical innovations related to public lighting always bring significant value to municipal governments. In Vietnam, the public lighting in big cities account for 25% of the total power consumption. The solutions to reducing electricity consumption for public lighting are also of interest to domestic and foreign organizations, including the use of on-site energy such as wind and solar energy. In this paper, on the basis of the current state of the public lighting system and the potential of solar energy in Hanoi, the authors have roughly calculated the technical and economic efficiency of power supply solutions using solar energy in public lighting. The proposal of solving the power supply problem, by using solar energy in public lighting in Hanoi is another result of the paper.

At the world level, the 20th century saw an increase from 220 million urbanites in 1900 to 2.84 billion in year 2000. The present century will match this absolute increase in about four decades. Developing regions, as a whole, will account for 93% of this growth [1]. Until now humankind has lived and worked primarily in rural areas. But the world is about to leave its rural past behind. Today we are witness, for the first time, that more than half of the globe?s population is living in towns and cities. The number and proportion of urban dwellers will continue to rise quickly. Urban population will grow to 4.9 billion by 2030. At the global level, all of future population growth will be in towns and cities [1]. Two centuries ago there was only one city on the planet that could say it had a million inhabitants - that was London. Today more than 400 cities can boast that - 408 to be precise, according to the Earth Policy Institute. But today a population of 1 million people means nothing; we are moving into the era of megacities of 10 million (and more) people. Today, there are 20 so-called megacities, whose population, and therefore energy needs, easily exceed some countries population, according to Earth Policy Institute. More people now live in Tokyo than Canada, for example [2]. Despite only occupying 2% of the world's surface area, they are responsible for 75% of the world's energy consumption.

Knowing how energy consumption correlates with transport sector in GCC can offer crucial strategies for planning and implementing policies in this sector. Therefore, an accurate prediction of energy consumption in transport and precise planning in energy consumption so as to effectively control the energy demand in the transport sector is crucial. Air pollution and public health are two of the most vital environmental issues. Urbanization, economic development, the growth of population, transportation, and energy consumption are viewed as the common factors that cause air pollution in towns and cities. The goal of this study is to use multiple liner regression (MLS) and artificial neural network (ANN) models for the prediction of energy consumption for the transport sector in GCC. Data on how energy is used in the transportation sector was incorporated as the output variable of predictive models. Moreover, this paper will discuss how advanced technology can come in to solve problems related to transport in the GCC.

It is well known that growing motor traffic in urban areas causes air pollution and noise which affects the environment and public health. It is hardly surprising then that cycling should be used as an alternative mode of transport, not just in major cities but also in smaller ones including those that are members of the Cittaslow network. Their approach is based on sustainable development, care for the environment and transport solutions which will support a healthy lifestyle, reduced energy consumption and fewer emissions. The objective of the article is to analyse how well cycling is used as a means of transport in Polish Cittaslow towns. For this purpose, an analysis was conducted to understand how towns use their transport space to ensure accessibility and road safety. Reference is made to revitalisation programmes of Cittaslow towns with focus on what has been done to improve and build cycle paths in each town and outside of it. The work uses the following research methods: analysis of the literature, analysis of documents, including analysis of road incidents and traffic count. It has been demonstrated that cycling infrastructure in the towns under analysis has been marginalised. As a result, recommendations and suggestions are given which may inform decisions on how to build and transform cycling infrastructure in Cittaslow towns and in similar towns in Poland and abroad.

In a global world, the human population invariably increases while resources gradually decrease as cities and towns constantly consume resources to satisfy their needs and requirements. At this point, it is very necessary to focus on making these urban areas more sustainable and greener. The need for some advanced and automated systems improves the situation, which leads to the innovation of smart cities. Smart city is the concept that helps in developing sustainable cities via optimized resource utilization methods. In smart city development, various sensing technologies can be used that can sense and utilize natural resources in better ways, like storing rainwater to use afterward, intelligent and smart control system, smart infrastructure monitoring system, smart healthcare system, smart transportation system, and smart system for energy consumption and generation by various facilities. To make the city smart and sustainable with efficient energy consumption, we propose renewable solar and wind energy-enabled hybrid heating and cooling HVAC-DHW (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning-Domestic Hot Water) system in which energy consumption is evaluated using optimized NARX-ANN and fuzzy controller based on user needs, dynamic behavior of the atmospheric environment, and spatial distribution of energy supply. To achieve the proposed goal, first, via sensor, heating and cooling effect of environment and building is sensed and these sensed inputs are then fed into deep-learning-based NARX-ANN that forecast internal building temperature. This forecasted temperature is fed into a fuzzy controller for optimizing output based on user demand. This processed information leads to energy distribution based on their requirement using a smart energy sensing system. Based on the experimentation result and performance analysis, it was found that the proposed system is more robust and has a high control response in comparison to the existing systems with minimum energy consumption. The analytical results support the feasibility of the proposed framework architecture to facilitate energy conserving in smart city buildings.

Large cities are more productive and generate more output per person. Using data from the UK on energy demand and waste generation, we show that they are also more energy-efficient. Large cities are therefore greener than small towns. The amount of energy demanded and waste generated per person is decreasing in total output produced, that is, energy demand and waste generation scale sublinearly with output. Our research provides the first direct evidence of green urbanization by calculating the rate at which per capita electricity use and waste decrease with city population. The energy demand elasticity with respect to city output is 83%: as the total output of a city increases by one percent, energy demand increases less than one percent, and the Urban Energy Premium is therefore 17%. The energy premium by source of energy demand is from households (13%), transport (20%), and industry (16%). Similarly, we find that the elasticity of waste generation with respect to city output is 90%. For one percent increase in total city output, there is a less than one percent increase in waste, with an Urban Waste Premium of 10%. Because large cities are energy-efficient ways of generating output, energy efficiency can be improved by encouraging urbanization and thus green living. We perform a counterfactual analysis in a spatial equilibrium model that makes income taxes contingent on city population, which attracts more people to big cities. We find that this pro-urbanization counterfactual not only increases economic output but also lowers energy consumption and waste production in the aggregate.

A technique is presented for estimating hourly and seasonal energy consumption profiles in the building sector at spatial scales down to the individual taxlot or parcel. The method combines annual building energy simulations for cityspecific prototypical buildings and commonly available geospatial data in a Geographical Information System (GIS) framework. Hourly results can be extracted for any day and exported as a raster output at spatial scales as fine as an individual parcel (

Suburban growth in the U.S. urban regions has been defined by large subdivisions of single-family detached units. This growth is made possible by the mobility supported by automobiles and an extensive highway network. These dispersed and highly automobile-dependent developments have generated a large body of work examining the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of suburban growth on cities. The particular debate that this study addresses is whether suburban residents are more energy intensive in their travel behavior than central city residents. If indeed suburban residents have needs that are not satisfied by the amenities around them, they may be traveling farther to access such services. However, if suburbs are becoming like cities with a wide range of services and amenities, travel might be contained and no different from the travel behavior of residents in central areas. This paper will compare the effects of long term suburban growth on travel behavior, energy consumption, and GHG emissions through a case study of neighborhoods in central Phoenix and the city of Gilbert, both in the Phoenix metropolitan region. Motorized travel patterns in these study areas will be generated using 2001 and 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data by developing a four-step transportation demand model in TransCAD. Energy consumption and GHG emissions, including both Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) and Nitrous Oxide (N₂O) for each study area will be estimated based on the corresponding trip distribution results. The final normalized outcomes will not only be compared spatially between Phoenix and Gilbert within the same year, but also temporally between years 2001 and 2009 to determine how the differential land use changes in those places influenced travel. The results from this study reveal that suburban growth does have an impact on people's travel behaviors. As suburbs grew and diversified, the difference in travel behavior between people living in suburban and urban areas became smaller. In the case of shopping trips the average length of trips for suburban residents in 2009 was slightly shorter than that for central city residents. This convergence was substantially due to the faster growth in trip lengths for central city compared to suburban residents in the 8-year period. However, suburban residents continue to be more energy intensive in their travel behavior, as the effect of reduction in trip length is likely to be offset by the more intensive growth in trip frequency. Additionally, overall energy consumption has grown significantly in both study areas over the period of study.

Doctor of Philosophy
Following decades of sweeping social change, a 'new' Thai middle class emerged to become the main agents of the mass demonstrations which have rocked Bangkok for the better part of the past four years. Yet, the academic literature reveals a marked paucity of data on the urban middle class, and on Bangkok's systems of stratification. This dissertation addresses this lacuna with research based on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Bangkok. My investigations suggest that an indigenous spatial-symbolic matrix, encapsulated in centralising and hierarchising mandalic principles, continues to inform both cultural understandings of stratification and the socio-spatial structure of Bangkok. However, traditional status distinctions are now pervaded by the idiom of material wealth introduced by the forces of global markets. Today, life in Bangkok is framed by a hierarchy of affluence which echoes the numerical precision of the premodern sakdina system of status differentiation. Accordingly, I argue that the notion of the 'urban-rural divide' popularly used to describe the conflict obscures a more complex reality in which city and countryside are linked by reciprocal relations within both urban and national systems of status and class. This is clearly discernable in the nature of everyday interclass relations in Bangkok which have been exacerbated by contemporary diminishment and marginalisation of upcountry Thais by the urban middle classes. It is an incendiary dynamic that has been exploited to tremendous effect in the current political power struggle. I demonstrate that the middle class is significantly stratified internally, and explore how middle class culture and identity are drawn in large part from their understandings of status practices of elites. Much of this takes place in the public spaces of the city's scores of shopping malls, which articulate a local vernacular of prestige where hierarchical power relations are inscribed in urban space. Structural constraints and the societal privileging of wealth and connections are constant challenges to middle class aspirations for upward mobility, and the Bangkokian middle class harbours no illusions of Thai society as a meritocracy. This disenchantment has been channelled into a churning politics of resentment with demonstrably explosive potential. Ultimately, however, I argue that middle class discontent will contribute little to reform while the majority of individuals feel their only avenue for social mobility is to negotiate a pre-existing system of stratification which many perceive as unjust.

A questão central desta tese doutoral é de conhecer as mudanças que aconteceram no consumo e no comportamento do consumidor tendo como unidade espacial de análise o comércio tradicional (no Centro comercial e bairro Brasil) e Shopping Conquista Sul em Vitória da Conquista-BA, correlacionado o consumo com as variáveis geográficas e socioeconômicas. Os autores lidos para subsidiar a presente tese foram Max Weber (1947), Karl Marx, Engls (1884), Keynes (1983), Bourdieu (1979), Baudrillard (1995), Pintaudi (1989), Santos (1996), Moreno (2011), Martinez-Rigol (2010), Carreras (2013), dentre tantos outros. O método escolhido para realizar o presente trabalho é bastante eclético, no qual consiste em uma ampla e variada leitura entre livros, artigos, teses, dissertações, jornous e periódicos de autores latino-americanos e também europeus. Contém um estudo quantitativo-descritivo, também qualitativo e documental, cujo objetivo principal é de descrever as relações quantitativas entre as variáveis independentes espaciais e socioeconômicas estudadas correlacionadas à variável dependente consumo estabelecento relações causais. Foram utilizados dois questionários distintos, sendo um específico para os consumidores e outro com os empresários/logistas e também entrevistas semi-estruturadas com os presidentes e diretores da – CDL e Shopping. Também foi feita uma pesquisa secundária no IBGE; SEI, dentre tantas outras fontesexploradas, sendo os dados espacializados em mapas temáticos. As análises foram confirmadas por testes de significância e confiabilidade, e também medidas de dispersão e tendência central. percebeu-se que tanto os fatos inusitados como os já esperados aconteceram no presente estudo. Assim, descobriu-se com a investigação, que este novo formato do varejo representou impactos significativos na economia local e regional e também culminou em novos hábitos de consumo por parte dos conquistenses e das cidades circuvizinhas. Apesar de o shopping apresentar um modelo de consumo inovador, global e modernizante, os consumidores conquistenses ainda preferem consumir no mercado dito tradicional. Esta preferência pelo consumo no mercado a céu aberto é inclusive superior ao consumo via e-commerce (lojas virtuais). Em média, os consumidores se deslocam semanalmente para o centro da cidade, a fim de consumir. Já quanto ao shopping, a periodicidade de consumo é mensal, como predominância nos dias de quinta-feira a domingo e feriados. O consumo está se ampliando gradativamente entre os bairros periféricos, tornando independentes e autossuficientes na oferta de produtos e serviços, entre eles os bairros do lado leste da cidade: Candeias, Alto Maron, Felícia dentre outros, e do lado oeste, Patagônia, Zabelê e o próprio bairro Brasil que, embora estando mal avaliado entre os quesitos satisfação do consumidor e demais atributos de periodicidade no consumo (ficando com uma média de visitação semestral) ainda é o segundo bairro em melhor oferta de produtos e serviços de Vitória da Conquista. Os maiores índices de satisfação do consumidor foram com relação ao shopping Consquista Sul que apresentou como melhores preditores de consumo a infraestrutura física (possuir estacionamento, segurança, climatização, entretenimento) e como piores atributos os altos preços dos produtos e serviços. Já para o Centro comercial, os melhores preditores foram variedade de produtos e serviços, tradicionalismo, equipamentos públicos e privados, e bons preços no varejo. Já para o bairro Brasil, os melhores determinantes de consumo foram para bairrismo, boa vizinhança, bairro de domicílio (os próximos) cosmética pública favorável; Os maiores achados deste trabalho indicaram a variável espacial “estado civil” como bom preditor de consumo e bairro de domicílio, com ótimos índices de confiabilidade e significância. Os mapas cognitivos deram muita contribuição para estudar a localização dos pontos, afirmando em sua totalidade que os custos de manutenção e operação no shopping são muito elevados se comparando ao comércio tradicional, o que culmina com elevação dos preços finais, Também os mapas cognitivos confirmaram as maiores vantagens de se consumir nos três espaços.
The central question of this doctoral thesis is to know the changes that happened in consumption and consumer behavior taking as spatial units of analysis the traditional trade (at the mall and Brazil neighborhood) and Shopping Conquista Sul in Vitoria da Conquista, Bahia, correlated the consumption with the geographical and socioeconomic variables. The authors read to support this thesis were Max Weber (1947), Karl Marx, Engls (1884), Keynes (1983), Bourdieu (1979), Baudrillard (1995), Pintaudi (1989), Santos (1996), Moreno ( 2011), Martinez-Rigol (2010), Carreras (2013), among many others.The method chosen to carry out this work is quite eclectic, which consists of a wide and varied reading of books, articles, theses, dissertations, jornous and periodicals of Latin American authors and also European. It contains a quantitative descriptive also qualitative and documental study, whose main objective is to describe the quantitative relationships between spatial and socioeconomic independent variables correlated with the dependent variable consumption estabelecento causal relationships. two different questionnaires were used, being specific to consumers and the other with entrepreneurs / gists and also semi-structured interviews with the presidents and directors - CDL and Shopping. There was also a secondary search at IBGE; I know, among many other sources explored, and the data spatially in thematic maps. The analyzes were confirmed by tests of significance and reliability, as well as measures of dispersion and central tendency. it was realized that both the unusual facts as already expected happened in the present study. Thus, it turned out to research, this new retail format represented a significant impact on the local and regional economy and also resulted in new consumption habits by the conquistenses and neighborhood cities. Although the shopping present a model of innovative, global and modernizing consumption, conquistenses consumers still prefer to consume in the traditional market said. This preference for consumption in the open air market is even higher than the consumer via e-commerce (online stores). On average, consumers moving weekly to the city center in order to consume. As for the shopping, the frequency is monthly consumption, as predominance in the days from Thursday to Sunday and holidays. Consumption is increasing gradually from the suburbs, becoming independent and self-sufficient in the supply of goods and services, including the neighborhoods on the east side of the city: Candeias, Alto Maron, Felicia among others, and the west side, Patagonia, Zabelê and Brazil itself neighborhood that while being poorly rated among the questions customer satisfaction and other timing attributes in consumption (getting an average six-monthly visits) is still the second quarter in a better range of products and services from Vitoria da Conquista. The highest consumer satisfaction ratings were regarding conquers South mall who presented the best predictors of consumption physical infrastructure (own parking, security, HVAC, entertainment) and as worst attributes the high prices of goods and services. As for the shopping center, the best predictors were variety of products and services, traditionalism, public and private facilities, and good prices at retail. For Brazil neighborhood, the determinants of consumption were best for localism, good neighborhood, home neighborhood (the next) favorable public cosmetic; The major findings of this study indicated the spatial variable "marital status" as a good predictor of consumer and home district, with excellent levels of reliability and significance. The cognitive maps given much contribution to study the location of points, stating in its entirety that maintenance and operating costs at the mall are very high comparing to the traditional trade, culminating in rising consumer prices, also the cognitive maps confirmed the biggest advantages of consuming the three spaces.
La pregunta central de esta tesis doctoral se propuso conocer los cambios que ocurrieron en el consumo y el comportamiento de los consumidores que toman como unidades espaciales de análisis del comercio tradicional (en el centro comercial y el Barrio Brasil) y Shopping Conquista Sul de Vitoria da Conquista, Bahía, correlaciona la el consumo con las variables geográficas y socioeconómicas. Los autores leídos para apoyar esta tesis fueron Max Weber (1947), Carlos Marx, Engels (1884), Keynes (1983), Bourdieu (1979), Baudrillard (1995), Pintaudi (1989), Santos (1996), Moreno ( 2011), Martínez-Rigol (2010), Carreras (2013), entre muchos otros.El método elegido para llevar a cabo este trabajo es bastante ecléctica, que consta de una amplia y variada lectura de libros, artículos, tesis, disertaciones, jornous y publicaciones periódicas de autores latinoamericanos y también de Europa. Contiene un estudio descriptivo cuantitativo también estudio cualitativo y documental, cuyo principal objetivo es describir las relaciones cuantitativas entre variables independientes espaciales y socioeconómicos correlacionados con el consumo variable dependiente estabelecento relaciones causales. También había una búsqueda secundaria en el IBGE; Sé que, entre muchas otras fuentes exploradas, y los datos espacialmente en mapas temáticos. Los análisis fueron confirmados por pruebas de significación y la fiabilidad, así como medidas de dispersión y tendencia central. se dieron cuenta de que tanto los hechos como inusuales ya que se espera que ocurrió en el presente estudio. Por lo tanto, resultó que a la investigación, este nuevo formato minorista representó un impacto significativo en la economía local y regional y también dio lugar a nuevos hábitos de consumo por parte de los conquistenses y ciudades circuvizinhas. A pesar de que el carro de presentar un modelo de consumo innovadora, global y la modernización, conquistenses consumidores todavía prefieren consumir en el mercado tradicional, dijo. Esta preferencia por el consumo en el mercado al aire libre es incluso mayor que el consumidor a través de comercio electrónico (tiendas online). En promedio, los consumidores en movimiento semanal al centro de la ciudad con el fin de consumir. En cuanto a las compras, la frecuencia es de consumo mensual, como el predominio en los días de jueves a domingos y festivos. El consumo está aumentando gradualmente desde los suburbios, llegando a ser independiente y autosuficiente en el suministro de bienes y servicios, incluyendo los barrios en el lado este de la ciudad: Candeias, Alto Maron, Felicia entre otros, y el lado oeste, Patagonia, Zabelê y Brasil mismo barrio que al ser mal clasificado entre la satisfacción del cliente y otra pregunta momento atributos en el consumo (que consigue una media de visitas semestrales) sigue siendo el segundo trimestre en una mejor gama de productos y servicios. El más alto de los consumidores índices de satisfacción eran sobre vence Shopping Conquista Sul que presentó los mejores predictores de la infraestructura física de consumo (aparcamiento propio, seguridad, climatización, entretenimiento) y peor que atribuye los altos precios de los bienes y servicios. En cuanto al centro comercial, los mejores predictores fueron variedad de productos y servicios, el tradicionalismo, pública y baño privado, y buenos precios al por menor. Para el Barrio de Brasil, los determinantes del consumo eran mejores para el localismo, buen barrio, vecindad casa (el siguiente) favorables cosméticos pública; Las principales conclusiones de este estudio indicaron que el "estado civil" variable espacial como un buen predictor de los consumidores y distrito de residencia, con excelentes niveles de fiabilidad y significado. Los mapas cognitivos dado mucho aporte para el estudio de la localización de puntos, indicando en su totalidad que los costos de mantenimiento y operación en el centro comercial están muy alto en comparación con el comercio tradicional, que culminó en el aumento de los precios al consumidor, también los mapas cognitivos confirmaron la mayores ventajas de consumir los tres espacios.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Antioch University New England, 2009.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed July 9, 2009). Advisor: Alesia Maltz, Ph. D. "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England, 2009"--The title page. Includes bibliographical references (p. 466-487).

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Como resultado da migração rural e suburbana para as cidades, a vida urbana tornouse um desafio significativo para os cidadãos e para a gestão da cidade, impondo uma enorme preocupação na utilização sustentável de recursos como energia, água, transportes e habitação. Cidades inteligentes são a maior aposta para enfrentar estes desafios de forma eficiente através de um acompanhamento em tempo real que visa auxiliar no planejamento inteligente e desenvolvimento urbano sustentável. Entretanto, para que este acompanhamento ocorra de forma eficiente e possibilite a utilização sustentável dos recursos é necessária uma integração entre cidadãos, dispositivos da cidade, administração pública e a plataforma de computação em nuvem, onde os dados serão armazenados e processados. Para tal, propõe-se o modelo ElCity, um modelo que combina dados de cidadãos e dispositivos da cidade para permitir uma gestão elástica multinível do consumo de energia de uma cidade. Como decisão de projeto, essa gestão deve ocorrer de forma automática, sem afetar a qualidade dos serviços já oferecidos. A principal contribuição do modelo ElCity diz respeito à extensão do conceito de elasticidade em nuvem para os demais níveis (smartphones dos cidadãos, dispositivos da cidade e data center), alterando o estado dos componentes em cada nível entre ligado e desligado de acordo com a demanda. Desta forma, este trabalho apresenta o modelo ElCity, detalhando seus módulos distribuídos ao longo das três fontes de dados, além dos experimentos que utilizam dispositivos da cidade e dados de cidadãos de Roma para explorar a economia de energia. Os resultados são promissores, onde o módulo monitor de energia permite estimar o consumo de energia das aplicações elásticas baseado em traços de CPU e memória com uma precisão média e mediana de 97,15% e 97,72%. Além disso, os resultados apontam a possibilidade de redução de mais de 90% no consumo de energia relativo a iluminação pública na cidade de Roma, obtido através da análise de dados de localização de seus cidadãos.
As a result of rural and suburban migration to the cities, urban life has become a significant challenge for citizens and, particularly, for city administrators who must manage the sustainable use of resources such as energy, water and transportation. Smart cities are the biggest vision to efficiently address these challenges through a real-time monitoring, providing an intelligent planning and a sustainable urban development. However, to accomplish them we need a tightly integration among citizens, city devices, city administrators and the data center platform where all data is stored, combined and processed. In this context, we propose ElCity, a model that combines citizens and city devices data to enable an elastic multi-level management of energy consumption for a particular city. As design decision, this management must occur automatically without affecting the quality of already offered services. The main contribution of ElCity model concerns the exploration of the cloud elasticity concept in multiple target levels (smartphones from citizens, city devices involved in the public lightning and data center nodes), turning on or off the resources on each level in accordance with their demands. In this way, this work presents the ElCity architecture, detailing its modules distributed along the three data sources, in addition to an experiment that uses city devices and citizens data from Rome to explore energy saving. The results are promising, with an Energy Monitor module that allows the estimation of the energy consumption of elastic applications based on CPU and memory traces with an average and median precision of 97.15% and 97.72%. Moreover, the results point to a reduction of more than 90% in the energy spent in public lightning in the city of Rome which was obtained thanks to an analysis of geolocation data from their citizens.

M.Ing.
Water demand prediction can be useful for future planning and has a significant economic effect on a city, town or suburb. There are numerous factors influencing water demand and therefore influencing the prediction thereof. The effect of each of these factors on the water demand is called the elasticity of that factor. The main aim of this study is to determine area and income elasticities of demand. This will enable the reader to predict water demand by taking stand size (area) and income into account. The stand value of each user was used as a surrogate for the income of that user. Another aim of this study is to compare average water demands for different cities and towns in Gauteng, South Africa with each other. Over 190 000 users' data were used for this study.

AbstractAfrica’s urban morphology is expected to develop at a steady rate between 2020 and 2050. Population growth, rising urbanization rates, growing energy consumption, and industrialization are only a few of the reasons causing these changes. Likewise, waste production is projected to rise from 125 million tons in 2012 to 244 million tons annually by 2025. Around 60.0% and 80.0% of African waste is made up of organic material, which is a viable methane source. Fly tipping, free disposal, landfilling, and incineration have been used as a large-scale waste treatment system in most African cities. However, with the anticipated morphological changes, these solutions are no longer viable in the future due to lack of airspace, availability of urban land for new landfill sites, and concerns over carbon emissions. This chapter discusses the potential for improved adoption of material recycling facilities (MRF) in urban environments as an incentive to support waste diversion from landfills, decentralize waste separation activities, and increase the transformation of waste materials into valuable raw materials. A case study is discussed for Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa with the goal of explaining current processes, urban planning initiatives required for greater implementation, and how they can be interpreted as adaptation initiatives.

Cities and towns account for more than two-thirds of world energy consumption, a significant proportion of which is spent on operating buildings. Ambitious national energy and emission reduction targets necessitate that energy demand due to buildings is considered as an important measure when any future evolution of a district or city is planned. Energy consumption of buildings in cities is influenced by their immediate local environment. Factors such as local temperatures, wind speed (street-canyon effect), air pollution levels, human activities, access to daylight, etc. Indeed, in order to reduce energy consumption and associated carbon emissions globally, more attention should be focused on urban-scale energy analysis of the built environment. Nowadays, with the rise of the scientific paradigm shift and model theory, and the development of the spatial data, the use of the complex model of urban-system analysis become one of the important research of urban theory. Under this circumstance, this research will focus in the research stream, the application of a new integrated agent-based and spatial analysis modeling for energy prediction and energy-saving policy analysis in Urban Planning. The basis of the research will be to develop new, general purpose, computer models that can be used to assess the distribution of energy demand according to the spatial scale of the evaluated policy (e.g. local, city level). These models will look not only at the individual building level, but also at the district and city scales, in order to be able to assess the impact of urban planning policy and practice in land economy and spatial building pattern or design interventions on the energy demand of the wider scale.

As cities have begun to implement greenhouse gas initiatives, one technology that has become of interest is building level combined heat and power (CHP). In New York City, over two thirds of greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to buildings. As space heating is the major end use of building energy consumption in the Northeast, building level CHP systems have the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions especially since many buildings utilize fuel oil to fire boilers for space heating. While distributed CHP has potential to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, this statement is quite dependent on the current types and efficiencies of generators used to supply electricity. In New York State, approximately 50% of electricity is produced from nuclear and hydro power plants with the majority of the remainder supplied by simple and combined cycle gas turbines. Only 1% of electricity is supplied by less efficient oil power plants. In the current work we seek to determine how the emissions benefits of distributed generation change with increasing penetration of CHP systems (up to 1.58 GW of aggregated capacity) considering the current mix of electricity generation capacity in New York State. The analysis indicates while there are emissions reductions for all scenarios the impact reduces on the order of 400 metric tons per MWe.

This paper is based on data compiled in the course of developing, for InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB), a WTE Guidebook for managers and policymakers in the Latin America and Caribbean region. As part of this work, a list was compiled of nearly all plants in the world that thermally treat nearly 200 million tons of municipal solid wastes (MSW) and produce electricity and heat. An estimated 200 WTE facilities were built, during the first decade of the 21st century, mostly in Europe and Asia. The great majority of these plants use the grate combustion of as-received MSW and produce electricity. The dominance of the grate combustion technology is apparently due to simplicity of operation, high plant availability (>90%), and facility for training personnel at existing plants. Novel gasification processes have been implemented mostly in Japan but a compilation of all Japanese WTE facilities showed that 84% of Japan’s MSW is treated in grate combustion plants. Several small-scale WTE plants (<5 tons/hour) are operating in Europe and Japan and are based both on grate combustion and in implementing WTE projects. This paper is based on the sections of the WTE Guidebook that discuss the current use of WTE technology around the world. Since the beginning of history, humans have generated solid wastes and disposed them in makeshift waste dumps or set them on fire. After the industrial revolution, near the end of the 18th century, the amount of goods used and then discarded by people increased so much that it was necessary for cities to provide landfills and incinerators for disposing wastes. The management of urban, or municipal, solid wastes (MSW) became problematic since the middle of the 20th century when the consumption of goods, and the corresponding generation of MSW, increased by an order of magnitude. In response, the most advanced countries developed various means and technologies for dealing with solid wastes. These range from reducing wastes by designing products and packaging, to gasification technologies. Lists of several European plants are presented that co-combust medical wastes (average of 1.8% of the total feedstock) and wastewater plant residue (average of 2% of the feedstock).

An experimental comparison between two heat sinks systems has been performed. The area of the study is Guayaquil, Ecuador with an average annual temperature of 27 °C and an average annual relative humidity of 77% (UTM 0621517/09749485) where typical large HVAC systems with cooling towers are used. As a result of the high relative humidity in the area, the thermal efficiency of this type of heat exchanger is reduced. A geothermal heat exchanger cooling water using the constant and relatively low soil temperature is considered as a viable alternative for HVAC systems in this location. In this project, a prototype geothermal heat exchanger is built and experimentally compared with a cooling tower system. Through previous research, it was determined that the soil at this borehole consist of 5 % of landfill material; 86 % several strata of low plasticity silt, alternating silt; and 5 % sand. This location corresponds to the estuarine deposits of the Guayas River. The average soil temperature is 27 ° C, associated with a thermal conductivity of 1.87 W / m K and a thermal diffusivity of 0.085 m2 / day obtained from a Thermal Response Test of the soil. An experiment for the comparison of these two types of heat exchangers under a uniform heat load is designed and built. The cooling tower water installed has a capacity of 5 Tons of Refrigeration with a flow of 15 Gallons per minute. The geothermal heat exchanger consisting of four drilled to 42 meters deep vertical holes and connected in a parallel circuit. Both systems operate in periods of 8 and 12 hours during the hours of daylight. To simulate the thermal load in both cases, water is heated using two identical electric boilers with a nominal power of 9 kW each. Data from the energy consumption, and energy dissipation from each system is collected and analyzed. The Energy Efficiency Rating obtained for each system is on the order of 10.61 for the cooling tower water, and on the order of 14.78 for the geothermal heat exchanger, with savings of 61.7% in energy consumption and CO2 emissions by the system of geothermal cooling through better efficiency. We have also projected the costs of installation, operation and maintenance of both systems. Results suggest that despite the high cost of installation, a geothermal sink is a valid option for HVAC systems in cities or regions that have high temperatures and high humidity.

Recycling plastics is widely accepted as the most beneficial end use of plastic products. Consequently, many cities are turning towards single-stream recycling to make it easier for consumers to recycle and to increase the total amount of municipal solid waste (in particular, energy-dense plastic waste) that is diverted to recycling facilities. However, single-stream recycling Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) are now faced with sorting more diverse material flows with increased contamination from the mixing of recyclable and non-recyclable materials, leading to roughly 5–10% of the incoming material being sent to landfills. Converting the energy dense MRF waste material into solid recovery fuel (SRF) pellets creates an additional use for the products, diverts the material from the landfill, and displaces some fossil fuel use. However, there are some non-obvious energetic and environmental tradeoffs that require analysis to quantify. That is the intent of the research presented here. To analyze the potential of SRFs as viable alternative fuel sources, a first-order thermodynamic materials and energy balance was constructed using cement kilns as a test-bed. The proposed methodology allows for a range of traditional fuels to be compared with and without supplemental SRF. The SRF case can be benchmarked against the reference case, or conventional plastic end-of-life pathway, landfilling of the non-recycled plastic. The comparison includes transportation and processing steps required for each pathway, including any additional sorting needed for creating the SRF as well as the pelletization process itself. A robust methodology was created that allows for the MRF residue to be adjusted on a compositional basis because residue composition varies by season and location, which affects the analysis. Additionally, proximity to SRF conversion facilities and cement kilns will vary for each MRF and can impact the analysis so the methodology allows these factors to be adjusted. A test case was studied to compare the landfilling or combustion of MRF residue in a cement kiln at a rate of 0.9 metric tons per hour (7884 metric tons for a one year period). The analysis details the total energy consumed, landfill avoidance, amount of fuel displaced, and the total equivalent CO2 emissions of each scenario. The methodology successfully models the reference and SRF case and is robust enough to be used with a wide variety of potential SRF scenarios. A few parametric studies were performed on the transportation and landfill variables to determine their relative effect on results. It was found that additional transportation would have minimal effect of total energy consumption. When using SRF as a supplementary cement kiln fuel, the equivalent CO2 reductions are higher in scenarios with low methane capture efficiency at the landfill. Overall, it was found that using SRF as a supplementary fuel at cement kilns reduces the total fossil energy consumption and total equivalent CO2 reductions by 6% and 76%, respectively.

Climate change and urbanisation are inextricably linked. With the acceleration of urbanisation in many developing countries, urban areas play a major role in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. This is true of Nepal, which has experienced rapid urbanisation in recent decades. However, no studies were identified that evaluate the efforts of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from low carbon cities in rapidly urbanising developing countries. Although, there is literature out there on this that focuses on developed countries and the Global North, this is outside the scope of this report. Given the rapid nature of this review and its limitations it was not possible to fully answer the question of whether investments in low-carbon cities reduce carbon emissions in rapidly urbanising contexts. The first section of this report looks at the theory of low carbon cities and touches on some of the methodologies for measuring carbon emissions from cities (and the complexities and difficulties with these). The second section looks at Nepal in more detail, highlighting previous literature which has attempted to quantify emissions from cities in Nepal (namely Kathmandu Valley) and the co-benefits of low carbon investment in Nepal. However, overall, literature was largely limited on these topics, and was often older being from 5 years or more ago. Of note is an emissions inventory for Nepal for 2016 by Sadavarte et al. (2019) – although other literature notes that data on emission characteristics are still limited (IMC Worldwide, 2020). ICLEI (2009) also produced city emissions profiles for 3 Nepalese cities, but these are quite outdated. There are several studies related to low carbon development pathways for major cities in developed countries or China, however such studies from the perspective of emerging cities from the developing world are limited. Research into other developing countries with similar characteristics to Nepal was briefly explored in this rapid review but there was not time to fully explore this literature base. Most of the literature explored is from academia, although some is from non-governmental organisations particularly those looking at engaging cities in climate action (such as C40). The literature explored does not look at gender issues or issues of people with disabilities.

According to future projections based on current demographic growth trends, Auckland’s population will reach two million in 2033. Since the city is already afflicted by a serious housing crisis, at the beginning of 2017 the newly elected Mayor Phil Goff set up a task force. Formed by representatives of various stakeholders, it was given the task of producing a report with strategic and tactical guidelines to mitigate the situation. Unitec researchers were invited to respond to the report, which came out at the end of 2017, in the form of three think pieces towards the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities National Science Challenge. This paper is a new iteration of one of these think pieces, focused on collaborative living, and expands on the new role that designers should play in this field. Its ideological position is that the house cannot and should not be considered as a commodity on the free market; nor should focus solely be on bringing down prices by increasing the number of houses on offer. Over time, housing might evolve to being more about social (use) value than exchange value. Other models of the production and consumption of household goods are documented throughout the world as alternatives to mainstream market logic, using collective procurement mechanisms to cut construction and marketing costs with savings of up to 30%. These experiments, not limited to achieving financially sustainable outcomes, are linked to new social practices of collaboration between neighbours. The sharing of spaces and equipment to complement private housing units also leads to social and environmental sustainability.

The fourth technological revolution has brought great advances in manufacturing processes and human communications. Although processors have become increasingly efficient, both in speed, capacity and energy consumption, their functionality regarding this last point has yet to improve. The latest innovations represent an opportunity to create "green computing" and not only more environmentally friendly electronics and software, but also to use their new efficiency to improve our daily activities, as well as the designs of our cities themselves to make them more environmentally sustainable. These new computerized systems must also be applied in accordance with the socioeconomic factors that must be taken into account in order to be modified in favor of sustainability and efficiency.