Assessment of Greenhouse Gases Emission in Maize-Wheat Cropping System Under Varied N Fertilizer Application Using Cool Farm Tool

In recent decades, climate change induced by enhanced global warming is one of the biggest challenges at the global level. Agriculture sectors significantly contribute to total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission to the atmosphere. Wheat and maize, cultivated globally, and consumed in different forms, are considered as crucial staple cereal for ensuring food security to global population. The management practices involving land preparation, sowing, fertilizer application, irrigation, pest management, etc. significantly influence the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from agricultural soil. In this study, CO2 and N2O emission were assessed from maize and wheat crops at four different levels of N fertilizer using cool farm tool model. Emissions of CO2 per hectare varied from 331.4 to 1,088.3 kgCO2 in maize and ranged from 292.3 to 765.3 kgCO2 in wheat on application of different doses of N. The total GHG emission in maize crops ranged from 859.5 to 3,003.4 kgCO2 eq per hectare with the application of nitrogen at varying levels (0–240 kg N per hectare). The highest N2O efflux (0.368 kg per ton) was observed at 240 kg N per hectare under wheat crop. The total on-farm emissions, through fertilizer production, account for about 33.7%, and emission of N2O contributes only 65.9%, whereas pesticides account merely 0.4% under maize-wheat cropping. This study confirms that the direct emission of N2O was totally dependent on N fertilizers application rate; however, the indirect emission was controlled by the fuels and energy consumption.

New Insights into Ion Adsorption Type Rare-Earths Mining—Bacterial Adsorption of Yttrium Integrated with Ammonia Nitrogen Removal by a Fungus

Ion adsorption-type heavy rare earths found in southern China are important ore resources, whose yttrium(Y)-group rare-earth elements account for 90% of the total mass of rare earths known on the planet. At present, ammonia-nitrogen wastewater from extraction of rare earths pose threats to the environment. A bacterial strain (Bacillus sp. ZD 1) isolated from the “Foot Cave” mining area was used for adsorption of Y3+. Its adsorption capacity reached 428 μmol/g when the initial concentration of Y3+ was 1.13 mM. Moreover, 50 mg of Bacillus sp. ZD 1 (converted to dry mass) could completely adsorb Y3+ in the mother solution of mixed rare earths from the rare-earth mining area. Ammonia nitrogen in the remaining solution after adsorption was removed through denitrification using a fungus named Galactomyces sp. ZD 27. The final concentration of ammonia nitrogen in wastewater was lower than Indirect Emission Standard of Pollutants for Rare-earth Industry (GB 26451-2011). Furthermore, the resulting fungal cells of Galactomyces sp. ZD 27 could be used to produce single cell proteins, whose content accounted for 70.75% of the dry mass of cells. This study offers a new idea for integrated environmentally-friendly extraction and ecological restoration of the mining area in southern China.

The optical response of artificially twisted MoS$$_2$$ bilayers

Two-dimensional layered materials offer the possibility to create artificial vertically stacked structures possessing an additional degree of freedom—theinterlayertwist. We present a comprehensive optical study of artificially stacked bilayers (BLs) MoS$$_2$$ 2 encapsulated in hexagonal BN with interlayer twist angle ranging from 0$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ to 60$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ using Raman scattering and photoluminescence spectroscopies. It is found that the strength of the interlayer coupling in the studied BLs can be estimated using the energy dependence of indirect emission versus the A$$_\text {1g}$$ 1g –E$$_\text {2g}^1$$ 2g 1 energy separation. Due to the hybridization of electronic states in the valence band, the emission line related to the interlayer exciton is apparent in both the natural (2H) and artificial (62$$^\circ $$ ∘ ) MoS$$_2$$ 2 BLs, while it is absent in the structures with other twist angles. The interlayer coupling energy is estimated to be of about 50 meV. The effect of temperature on energies and intensities of the direct and indirect emission lines in MoS$$_2$$ 2 BLs is also quantified.

Greenhouse Gas Emission Transfer of Inter-Provincial Electricity Trade in China

Inter-regional electricity trade is an important way to mitigate the imbalance between regional electricity generation and consumption. With the increasing amount of inter-regional electricity trade in China, the emission transfer problem is more severe. By using Quasi-Input-Output model, which can consider the ripple effect of electricity trade network, this study analyzed embodied greenhouse gas emissions of electricity trade among 30 provinces in China. Results indicated that, in 2017, the national transfer volumes of CO2, CH4, and N2O embodied in inter-provincial electricity trade were 603.25 Mt, 6803.81 t, and 9899.25 t, respectively. Emissions are mainly transferred from the eastern to the western regions, especially to those with high proportion of electricity generated from fossil fuels. The amount of emission transfer is not consistent with that of purchased electricity, since some regions are rich in clean energy. Although direct emission transfer plays the dominant role for most province, indirect emission transfer should also be noticed. Provinces with larger indirect emission transfer generally purchase electricity from provinces with a lot of electricity inflows. The findings could help policy makers coordinate regional energy utilization strategies and issue more effective emission reduction policies in the electricity industry.

Sustainable Fishing? Ecological Footprint Analysis of an Artisanal Fishing Organization

Background: Small-scale fisheries are an important economic sector in terms of employment, national food security, enterprise development and foreign exchange earnings. Overfishing is one of the main impacts directly affecting fisheries. However, there are other kinds of global impacts not frequently considered. The ecological footprint indicator is not new but has been mostly overlooked by scholars in the artisanal fishing sector. The aim of this study was to evaluate the corporate ecological footprint of small-scale fisheries through a fishing cooperative at La Cruz de Loreto in Mexico, and determine its eco-efficiency as non-direct global impacts. Methods: The Compound Method Based on Financial Accounts (MC3.V.2 for its acronym in Spanish, version 2) was used. It includes the categories of emissions, materials, resources, services and contracts, land use and waste. Results: Eco-efficiency, determined by the organization´s ecological footprint, was 0.6 t/ha and its carbon footprint was 0.2 t/tCO2 per year, a low one when compared to others. The consumption category that contributed most to the footprint was indirect emissions and the ecosystem’s fossil energy, which could be explained by the characteristics of the fishing cooperative analyzed. Conclusion: The corporate ecological footprint for La Cruz de Loreto fishing cooperative is low when compared to others, but it indicates that they should improve in the category of indirect emission (reduce the consumption of electricity generated by fossil fuel and use of alternative energy) and should invest in the “forest” type of ecosystem to increase carbon sinks and mitigate the impacts.

Towards an Energy Efficient Solution for Bike-Sharing Rebalancing Problems: A Battery Electric Vehicle Scenario

A free-float bike-sharing system faces various operational challenges to maintain good service quality while optimizing the operational cost. The primary problems include the fulfillment of the users demand at all stations, and the replacement of faulty bikes presented in the system. This study focuses on a free-float bike-sharing system rebalancing problem (FFBP) with faulty bikes using battery electric vehicles (BEVs). The target inventory of bikes at each station is obtained while minimizing the total traveling time through the presented formulation. Using CPLEX solver, the model is demonstrated through numerical experiments considering the various vehicle and battery capacities, and a cost–benefit analysis is performed for BEV and conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) while taking the BEV manufacturing and indirect emission into account. The results show that the annual cost incurred on an ICEV is 56.9% more as compared to the cost of using an equivalent BEV. Since BEVs consume less energy than conventional ICEVs, the use of BEVs for rebalancing the bike-sharing systems results in significant energy savings for an urban transport network. Moreover, the life cycle emissions of an ICEV are 48.3% more as compared to an equivalent BEV. Furthermore, the operational cost of a BEV significantly reduces with the increase in battery capacity.

Direct oceanic emissions unlikely to account for the missing source of atmospheric carbonyl sulfide

The climate active trace-gas carbonyl sulfide (OCS) is the most abundant sulfur gas in the atmosphere. A missing source in its atmospheric budget is currently suggested, resulting from an upward revision of the vegetation sink. Tropical oceanic emissions have been proposed to close the resulting gap in the atmospheric budget. We present a bottom-up approach including (i) new observations of OCS in surface waters of the tropical Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and (ii) a further improved global box model to show that direct OCS emissions are unlikely to account for the missing source. The box model suggests an undersaturation of the surface water with respect to OCS integrated over the entire tropical ocean area and, further, global annual direct emissions of OCS well below that suggested by top-down estimates. In addition, we discuss the potential of indirect emission from CS2 and dimethylsulfide (DMS) to account for the gap in the atmospheric budget. This bottom-up estimate of oceanic emissions has implications for using OCS as a proxy for global terrestrial CO2 uptake, which is currently impeded by the inadequate quantification of atmospheric OCS sources and sinks.

HVAC design for college auditorium

In Today’s life, it is being indispensable to live healthier life and for that environment must be free from hazardous effects but it is not easy to achieve comfort condition in every season and every place. For better environmental condition in specific arena we have used HVAC (Heating, Ventilating & Air conditioning) systems. from literature survey and online sources we found that there is no any standard process for designing the HVAC systems so, this poster provides standard process with an example, we consider place as Auditorium in Changa, Gujarat, India and season is summer and according to that situation we developed most efficient HVAC plant with all design aspects. It is designed as that so ODP (Ozone Depletion Potential) and GWP (Global Warming Potential) will maintain at minimum level and indirect emission will also not take place.