scholarly journals Analysis of the thermal loads required by a small-medium sized winery in the Mediterranean area

Author(s):  
Alberto Barbaresi ◽  
Daniele Torreggiani ◽  
Francesco Tinti ◽  
Patrizia Tassinari

Since the Nineties of the previous century winery design has been undergoing deep changes. Some factors are affecting the main design criteria, focusing on a new conception where the winery becomes more and more open to customers, energy demand reduction is a crucial goal driven by economic and environmental reasons, and the whole systems is aimed at the research of a renovate quality of the product. The state of the art in this specific sector highlights how a reduction of the energy consumed by a winery can almost reduce to zero the carbon emissions of the whole wine-making process, as well as the existing lack of specific design criteria addressing the most recent above-mentioned trends and challenges, in particular for small and medium-sized farms, that on the whole account for a huge production in the Mediterranean area. The main aim of this work is to provide information about yearly thermal demand in the wine-making sector, by means of an integrated approach that considers the thermal loads required by room heating and air conditioning, must/juice pre-cooling, and fermentation cooling. Different models have been created and tested on a case study, in order to analyze the contribution of various farm design choices to the total energy demand. The most representative models are described and analyzed in this work: they differ for harvesting modality, and materials and vertical distribution of the building envelope (aboveground vs underground). The results highlight the relevance of the three contributions in terms of total annual energy consumption, power peaks, and time distribution of energy demand over the year. The analysis of the data obtained by the different models have allowed to identify the strengths and potential critical issues, and to provide professionals, oenologists and farmers with useful elements to lend support in their decision making processes, as well as to define the next steps of the research, aimed at defining specific design criteria for small and medium-sized wineries.

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Corradini ◽  
F. Melone

Evidence is given of the distribution of pre-warm front rainfall at the meso-γ scale, together with a discussion of the main mechanisms producing this variability. An inland region in the Mediterranean area is considered. The selected rainfall type is commonly considered the most regular inasmuch as it is usually unaffected by extended convective motions. Despite this, within a storm a large variability in space was observed. For 90% of measurements, the typical deviations from the area-average total depth ranged from - 40 to 60 % and the storm ensemble-average rainfall rate over an hilly zone was 60 % greater than that in a contiguous low-land zone generally placed upwind. This variability is largely explained in terms of forced uplift of air mass over an envelope type orography. For a few storms smaller orographic effects were found in locations influenced by an orography with higher slopes and elevations. This feature is ascribed to the compact structure of these mountains which probably determines a deflection of air mass in the boundary layer. The importance of this type of analysis in the hydrological practice is also emphasized.


Author(s):  
J. Donald Hughes

This chapter deals with ancient warfare and the environment. Hunting was often been considered as a form of warfare, and art frequently portrayed humans in battle with animals. Armed conflict had its direct influences on the environment. Along with damage to settled agriculture, warfare had affected other lands such as pastures, brush lands, and forests. It is noted that birds, pigs, bears, rodents, snakes, bees, wasps, scorpions, beetles, assassin bugs, and jellyfish have been employed as weaponized animals in ancient warfare, which, in the Mediterranean area and Near East, had vital environmental properties. The direct effects of battle have been shown by ancient historians, but just as important were the influences of the military-oriented organization of societies on the natural environment and resources.


Author(s):  
Lucia De Marchi ◽  
Carlo Pretti ◽  
Alessia Cuccaro ◽  
Matteo Oliva ◽  
Federica Tardelli ◽  
...  

AbstractThe phylum Porifera and their symbionts produce a wide variety of bioactive compounds, playing a central role in their ecology and evolution. In this study, four different extracts (obtained by non-polar and semi-polar extraction methodologies) of the Mediterranean sponge Ircinia oros were tested through a multi-bioassay integrated approach to assess their antifouling potential. Tests were performed using three common species, associated with three different endpoints: the marine bacterium Aliivibrio fischeri (inhibition of bioluminescence), the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum (inhibition of growth), and different development stages of the brackish water serpulid Ficopomatus enigmaticus (gametes: sperm motion, vitality inhibition and cellular damage; larvae: development; adults: AChE (acetylcholinesterase)-inhibitory activity). The effects of extracts were species specific and did not vary among different extraction methodologies. In particular, no significant reduction of bioluminescence of A. fischeri was observed for all tested samples. By contrast, extracts inhibited P. tricornutum growth and had toxic effects on different F. enigmaticus’ developmental stages. Our results suggest that the proposed test battery can be considered a suitable tool as bioactivity screening of marine natural products.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2045
Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Garavaso ◽  
Fabio Bignucolo ◽  
Jacopo Vivian ◽  
Giulia Alessio ◽  
Michele De Carli

Energy communities (ECs) are becoming increasingly common entities in power distribution networks. To promote local consumption of renewable energy sources, governments are supporting members of ECs with strong incentives on shared electricity. This policy encourages investments in the residential sector for building retrofit interventions and technical equipment renovations. In this paper, a general EC is modeled as an energy hub, which is deemed as a multi-energy system where different energy carriers are converted or stored to meet the building energy needs. Following the standardized matrix modeling approach, this paper introduces a novel methodology that aims at jointly identifying both optimal investments (planning) and optimal management strategies (operation) to supply the EC’s energy demand in the most convenient way under the current economic framework and policies. Optimal planning and operating results of five refurbishment cases for a real multi-family building are found and discussed, both in terms of overall cost and environmental impact. Simulation results verify that investing in building thermal efficiency leads to progressive electrification of end uses. It is demonstrated that the combination of improvements on building envelope thermal performances, photovoltaic (PV) generation, and heat pump results to be the most convenient refurbishment investment, allowing a 28% overall cost reduction compared to the benchmark scenario. Furthermore, incentives on shared electricity prove to stimulate higher renewable energy source (RES) penetration, reaching a significant reduction of emissions due to decreased net energy import.


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