Economic and Environmental Considerations for Zero-emission Transport and Thermal Energy Generation on an Energy Autonomous Island

Journal Title: European Journal of Sustainable Development Research - Year 2018, Vol 2, Issue 1

Abstract

The high cost and environmental impact of fossil-fuel energy generation in remote regions can make renewable energy applications more competitive than business-as-usual scenarios. Furthermore, energy and transport are two of the main sectors that significantly contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions. This paper focuses on the generation of thermal energy and the transport sector of a fossil fuel-based energy independent island in Greece. We evaluate (1) technologies for fully renewable thermal energy generation using building-specific solar thermal systems and (2) the replacement of the vehicle fleet of the island with electric and hydrogen-fueled vehicles. The analysis, based on economic and environmental criteria, shows that although solar thermal decreases greenhouse gases by 83%, when compared to the current diesel-based situation, it only becomes economically attractive with subsidy scenarios equal to or higher than 50%. However, in the transport sector, the sum of fuel and maintenance costs of fuel-cell and electric vehicles is found to be 45% lower than that of the current fleet, due to their approximately seven times lower fuel cost. Lastly, it will take approximately six years of use of the new vehicles to balance out the emissions of their manufacturing phase.

Authors and Affiliations

Fontina Petrakopoulou

Keywords

Performance Characteristics Comparison of CNG Port and CNG Direct Injection in Spark Ignition Engine

A comparative performance analysis is being carried out on a four cylinder, four stroke cycle, spark ignition engine having displacement volume 1297cc. The cylinder head of original gasoline based engine was modified by...

Balancing Comfort and Energy Use for Sustainable Buildings: Thermal Comfort Modeling using a Space-variant Manikin

To help balance comfort and energy use in residential, institutional and commercial buildings in order to make them more sustainable, a thermal comfort model is coupled with a computational fluid dynamic approach. The de...

Investigating Differential Learning Outcomes of Students in Physics Using Animation and Textual Information Teaching Strategies in Ondo State Secondary School

Background The study investigated the main effects of animation information and textual information on students' performance and improving students' attitude towards physics. Material and methods The study adopted the pr...

How Can We “Take Urgent Action to Combat Climate Change and its Impact” (UN SDG N.13) under Ambiguity Aversion?

The objective of this paper is to study in which way the strategies to combat climate change, as prescribed in the UN SDG number 13, are influenced by ambiguity aversion. Countries can tailor the UN SDGs to their priorit...

Different Injection Strategies to Enhance the Performance of Diesel Engine Powered with Biodiesel Fuels

The compression ignition (CI) engines are most efficient and robust but they rely on depleting fossil fuel. Hence there is a speedy need to use alternative fuels that replaces diesel and at the same time engine should yi...