scholarly journals An innovative method for creating and using nanoparticles for gas extraction from gas hydrates

2019 ◽  
Vol 123 ◽  
pp. 01003
Author(s):  
Volodymyr Bondarenko ◽  
Olena Svietkina ◽  
Kostiantyn Prokopenko ◽  
Baochang Liu

The growth of prices for traditional energy sources prompts Ukraine to seek new approaches to solving energy problems. Today, the country has intensified its work in this direction, in particular, legislative support is being developed and improved, and the investment climate for alternative energy projects is improving. In many countries of the world, it has long been understood how serious and necessary is the development of alternative energy. At present, in the face of various gas contradictions and unstable oil prices, the need for energy carriers is constantly increasing, which makes it necessary to seek the latest solutions to the energy problem. Many leading countries in the world are engaged in the search for alternative sources of energy, one of which is natural gas hydrates. This relatively new resource offers great opportunities both for economic growth and stability of states, and for the development of scientific institutions in this field. Flagships in the study and development of gas-hydrated deposits are the United States, China, Japan and Canada. Along with them should be noted the achievements of scientists in India, EU countries, Ukraine, Russia and Bulgaria.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Lauren K. D’Souza ◽  
William L. Ascher ◽  
Tanja Srebotnjak

Native American reservations are among the most economically disadvantaged regions in the United States; lacking access to economic and educational opportunities that are exacerbated by “energy insecurity” due to insufficient connectivity to the electric grid and power outages. Local renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass offer energy alternatives but their implementation encounters barriers such as lack of financing, infrastructure, and expertise, as well as divergent attitudes among tribal leaders. Biomass, in particular, could be a source of stable base-load power that is abundant and scalable in many rural communities. This case study examines the feasibility of a biomass energy plant on the Cocopah reservation in southwestern Arizona. It considers feedstock availability, cost and energy content, technology options, nameplate capacity, discount and interest rates, construction, operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, and alternative investment options. This study finds that at current electricity prices and based on typical costs for fuel, O&M over 30 years, none of the tested scenarios is presently cost-effective on a net present value (NPV) basis when compared with an alternative investment yielding annual returns of 3% or higher. The technology most likely to be economically viable and suitable for remote, rural contexts—a combustion stoker—resulted in a levelized costs of energy (LCOE) ranging from US$0.056 to 0.147/kWh. The most favorable scenario is a combustion stoker with an estimated NPV of US$4,791,243. The NPV of the corresponding alternative investment is US$7,123,380. However, if the tribes were able to secure a zero-interest loan to finance the plant’s installation cost, the project would be on par with the alternative investment. Even if this were the case, the scenario still relies on some of the most optimistic assumptions for the biomass-to-power plant and excludes abatement costs for air emissions. The study thus concludes that at present small-scale, biomass-to-energy projects require a mix of favorable market and local conditions as well as appropriate policy support to make biomass energy projects a cost-competitive source of stable, alternative energy for remote rural tribal communities that can provide greater tribal sovereignty and economic opportunities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-107
Author(s):  
Richard Francis Wilson

This article is a theological-ethical Lenten sermon that attempts to discern the transcendent themes in the narrative of Luke 9-19 with an especial focus upon “setting the face toward Jerusalem” and the subsequent weeping over Jerusalem. The sermon moves from a passage from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through a series of hermeneutical turns that rely upon insights from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Will Campbell, Augustine, and Paul Tillich with the hope of illuminating what setting of the face on Jerusalem might mean. Tillich’s “eternal now” theme elaborates Augustine’s insight that memory and time reduce the present as, to paraphrase the Saint, that all we have is a present: a present remembered, a present experienced, and a present anticipated. The Gospel is a timeless message applicable to every moment in time and history. The sermon seeks to connect with recent events in the United States and the world that focus upon challenges to the ideals of social justice and political tyranny.


Author(s):  
Kai Erikson

This chapter tells the story of peasants from rural Poland who entered a migrant stream around the turn of the twentieth century that carried them, along with tens of millions of others, across a number of clearly marked national borderlines as well as a number of unmarked cultural ones. The peasants were a couple named Piotr and Kasia Walkowiak, and the words spoken by them as well as the events recalled here are based on the hundreds of letters and diaries gathered in the 1910s by two sociologists from the University of Chicago, W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki. The chapter first describes the world into which Piotr and Kasia were born, focusing on family, village, and land. It then considers their journey, together with millions of other immigrants, and how they changed both the face of Europe and the face of the United States.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Michal Bula

The American Century began in 1941 and ended on January 20, 2017. While the United States remains a military giant and is still an economic powerhouse, it no longer dominates the world economy or geopolitics as it once did. The current turn toward nationalism and “America first” unilateralism in foreign policy will not make America great. Instead, it represents the abdication of our responsibilities in the face of severe environmental threats, political upheaval, mass migration, and other global challenges.In this incisive and forceful book, Jeffrey D. Sachs provides the blueprint for a new foreign policy that embraces global cooperation, international law, and aspirations for worldwide prosperity―not nationalism and gauzy dreams of past glory. He argues that America’s approach to the world must shift from military might and wars of choice to a commitment to shared objectives of sustainable development. Our pursuit of primacy has embroiled us in unwise and unwinnable wars, and it is time to shift from making war to making peace and time to embrace the opportunities that international cooperation offers. A New Foreign Policy explores both the danger of the “America first” mindset and the possibilities for a new way forward, proposing timely and achievable plans to foster global economic growth, reconfigure the United Nations for the twenty-first century, and build a multipolar world that is prosperous, peaceful, fair, and resilient.


2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110543
Author(s):  
Sean F Kennedy ◽  
Ryan Stock

California is one of the most climate-challenged regions of North America and is considered the vanguard of climate action in the United States. California's climate policy framework has strongly promoted the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure, and the state generates more solar energy than any other in the nation. Using the case of Lancaster, a city of 170,000 residents in northern Los Angeles County seeking to position itself as the “alternative energy capital of the world,” this article examines private investments in solar energy infrastructure as a response to California's entwined economic and ecological crises. Drawing on recent scholarship on socioecological fix, we argue that private accumulation through renewable energy infrastructures in California has required both the presence of crisis conditions and innovations in financial risk mitigation that manage tensions between mobility and fixity inherent in the formation of fixed capital. However, a narrow focus on short-term financial risk obviates other forms of risk, including future impacts of extreme weather on grid infrastructure and electricity supply. While this does not foreclose opportunities for solar energy infrastructure to support positive social and ecological transformation, we argue that such opportunities may be constrained under a mode of energy transition predicated on private accumulation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 667-669
Author(s):  
Martha Kropf

We have kept our republic through a variety of localized disasters and various problem elections. The research presented here highlights the field of “Election Science and Administration” (ESA). Research in our field maximize our probability of continuing to keep our republic—even in the face of a pandemic which is a national—and international challenge. As the United States and the world deal with the specter of a pandemic election, the growth of the scholarly field designed to advocate for transparency in data collection and to improve the quality of elections is more important than ever.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (07) ◽  
pp. 36-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig F. Smith

This article discusses that the future of nuclear energy could lie in plants that can be factory built, shipped to a site, and operated 30 years without refueling. The scope and timing •of the “nuclear renaissance,” however, remain somewhat uncertain. All that is known is that in countries around the globe, including the United States, significant numbers of new nuclear energy projects are under way or in various stages of planning, and this activity represents a departure from that of recent decades. The broad interest in developing new small reactor system concepts seems to be in conflict with the trend toward ever-larger central station power plants, which is driven by the principle of economy of scale. The Secure Transportable Autonomous Reactor (STAR) concept and the Small Secure Transportable Autonomous Reactor (SSTAR) reactor in particular provide good examples of additional design features that could make the introduction of such reactors more readily accepted while offering the potential for economic performance that makes sense in comparison to other alternative sources of energy.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey Scranton

In the United States today, Muslim women are portrayed as weak, submissive, one-dimensional, and occupying a place of contradiction. These master narratives of Muslim women as uncivilized or anti-American lead them to be misunderstood at best and victims of hate crimes at worst. In this environment, a space emerges to explore counterstories, or narratives that depict a group as desirable in the face of a detrimental dominant narrative. In order to study how Muslim women construct their identities in this environment, a thematic analysis of stories told by Muslim women in an online setting was conducted. Findings reveal four prominent constructions or responses to this narrative: (1) I am multidimensional, (2) I am strong, (3) I change the world, and (4) I am special. Implications for the study of counterstories and future directions for research are discussed.


2019 ◽  
pp. c2-64
Author(s):  
The Editors

buy this issue The situation in Venezuela has become extremely dire due to Washington's heightened economic warfare, its continuing attempts to engineer a political coup, and its growing threats of massive military intervention—all aimed at bringing down the Bolivarian Republic. The recent seizure of Venezuelan oil assets in the United States and its gold reserves in British banks, as well as the sanctioning of Venezuelan oil sales, have come on top of a long series of economic sanctions—beginning with the Obama administration and now intensified under Trump's—that constitute nothing less than a modern form of siege warfare, extended to food supplies and medicine. But the Venezuelan Revolution has managed to resist in the face of the economic and political warfare of the most powerful imperialist nation in the world, and the reasons why are to be found in the nature of the Bolivarian Revolution and the Venezuelan people themselves.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Cherry

Around the world, the current political conjuncture is one of profound challenges for constitutionalism and the rule of law. In the United States, the executive has willfully engaged in a prolonged attempt to weaponize the machinery of the state and radicalize public opinion in order to undermine a democratic election. In the European Union, the increasingly authoritarian relationship between the executive and the judiciary in Poland and Hungary is posing the most profound threat to European constitutionalism in decades. In Hong Kong, the Chinese state is actively seeking to undermine legislative and judicial independence in the face of unprecedented pro-democracy mobilizations. In India, Lebanon, Bolivia, and elsewhere mass mobilizations are challenging, and being suppressed in the name of, the rule of law. Here in Canada, the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters, as well as the Tsleil Waututh, Haudenosaunee, L’nu (Mi’kmaq), Inuit, and members of countless other Indigenous nations are contesting the very nature of the rule of law, as they assert Indigenous laws against the law enforcement of the colonial state. Around the world, the use of emergency powers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is also raising profound constitutional concerns.


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