Oil, Gas, and Energy Commons^™

Evaluating The Oil Sands Reclamation Process: Assessing Policy Capacity And Stakeholder Access For Government And Non-Governmental Organizations Operating In Alberta’S Oil Sands, Tyler Patterson

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

By employing interpretive policy analysis this thesis aims to assess, measure, and explain policy capacity for government and non-government organizations involved in reclaiming Alberta's oil sands. Using this type of analysis to assess policy capacity is a novel approach for understanding reclamation policy; and therefore, this research will provide a unique contribution to the literature surrounding reclamation policy. The oil sands region in northeast Alberta, Canada is an area of interest for a few reasons; primarily because of the vast reserves of bitumen and the environmental cost associated with developing this resource. An increase in global oil demand has established …

Question 1: Star Speeds; Question 2: Slurping Gasoline, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

One piece of evidence that the center of our galaxy contains a super-massive black hole came from measuring the speed of a star orbiting that black hole. What is the maximum speed of that star?

If instead of carrying their gas in fuel tanks, cars “slurped up” a stream of gas as they drove, how thick a stream of gas would each car need?

Reforestation, Renewal, And The Cost Of Coal: Opposing A Manichean Worldview In Central Appalachia, Elizabeth R. Hansen

Pomona Senior Theses

Surface coal mining is a major form of land change and environmental degradation in Central Appalachia. Traditional mine reclamation iresults in unmanaged, unproductive grasslands that fail to mitigate many of the environmental costs of coal mining and are of minimal use to communities. Forestry reclamation is an alternative reclamation tactic that has the potential to address both environmental and socioeconomic concerns in Central Appalachia. A case study of Laurel Fork Mine in Eastern Kentucky is included.

Looking Beyond Fossil Fuel Divestment: Combating Climate Change In Higher Education, Robin Xu

Pomona Senior Theses

The young fossil fuel divestment movement is altering the landscape of climate change activism on US campuses. Student-run divestment campaigns are now pushing for institutions of higher education to withdraw their investments from the top 200 public fossil fuel companies. Despite student fervor, however, divestment has remained a controversial tactic for combating climate change. The first half of this thesis examines the stated motives of a selection of institutions that have officially agreed or declined to divest, and investigates the hypothesis that pushing for divestment alone will not achieve broad success because it does not appeal to a wide enough …

Applying The Analytic Hierarchy Process To Oil Sands Environmental Compliance Risk Management, Izak Johannes Roux

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Oil companies in Alberta, Canada, invested $32 billion on new oil sands projects in 2013. Despite the size of this investment, there is a demonstrable deficiency in the uniformity and understanding of environmental legislation requirements that manifest into increased project compliance risks. This descriptive study developed 2 prioritized lists of environmental regulatory compliance risks and mitigation strategies and used multi-criteria decision theory for its theoretical framework. Information from compiled lists of environmental compliance risks and mitigation strategies was used to generate a specialized pairwise survey, which was piloted by 5 subject matter experts (SMEs). The survey was validated by a …

Relationship Of Solar Energy Installation Permits To Renewable Portfolio Standards And Insolation, Kirt Gordon Butler

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Legislated renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) may not be the key to ensure forecast energy demands are met. States without a legislated RPS and with efficient permitting procedures were found to have approved and issued 28.57% more permits on average than those with a legislated RPS. Assessment models to make informed decisions about the need and effect of legislated RPSs do not exist. Decision makers and policy creators need to use empirical data and a viable model to resolve the debate over a nationally legislated RPS. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to determine if relationships between the independent variables …

Achieving Reliable Generation \& Delivery Of Energy Through Robust Optimization, Anna Danandeh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we elaborate on the inherent risks and uncertainties in power systems and associated industries, and develop practical solution methods to eliminate their adverse effects.

our research agenda consists of practice-driven problems in different stages of power generation as follows. (1) Affordable fuel procurement through developing a comprehensive fuel supply chain design and operations planning system for electricity generation companies, (2) reliable electricity generation through incorporating dynamic asset rating concept in the unit commitment problem, and (3) efficient demand management through proposing a job scheduling model for effective local generation consumption.

Since reliability cannot be compromised in energy …

Experimental Investigation Of Encapsulated Phase Change Materials For Thermal Energy Storage, Tanvir E. Alam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Thermal energy storage (TES) is one of the most attractive and cost effective solutions to the intermittent generation systems like solar, wind and other renewable sources, compared to alternatives. It creates a bridge between the power supply and demand during peak hours or at times of emergency to ensure the continuous supply of energy. Among all the TES systems, latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) draws lots of interests as it has high energy density and can store or retrieve energy isothermally. Two major technical challenges associated with the LHTES are low thermal conductivity of the phase change materials (PCMs), …

Ecosystem-Based Management And Refining Governance Of Wind Energy In The Massachusetts Coastal Zone: A Case Study Approach, Enid C. Kumin

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

While there are as yet no wind energy facilities in New England coastal waters, a number of wind turbine projects are now operating on land adjacent to the coast. In the Gulf of Maine region (from Maine to Massachusetts), at least two such projects, one in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and another on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine, began operation with public backing only to face subsequent opposition from some who were initially project supporters. I investigate the reasons for this dynamic using content analysis of documents related to wind energy facility development in three case study communities. For comparison and contrast …

Using Sustainable Development As A Competitive Strategy, Pat Spearman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Sustainable development reduces construction waste by 43%, generating 50% cost savings. Residential construction executives lacking adequate knowledge regarding the benefits of sustainable development practices are at a competitive disadvantage. Drawing from the diffusion of innovation theory, the purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore knowledge acquisition within the bounds of sustainable residential construction. The purposive sample size of 11 executive decision makers fulfilled the sample size requirements and enabled the extraction of meaningful data. Participants were members of the National Home Builders Association and had experience of a minimum of 5 years in residential construction. The research question …

Dynamically Hedging Oil And Currency Futures Using Receding Horizontal Control And Stochastic Programming, Paul Edward Cottrell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is a lack of research in the area of hedging future contracts, especially in illiquid or very volatile market conditions. It is important to understand the volatility of the oil and currency markets because reduced fluctuations in these markets could lead to better hedging performance. This study compared different hedging methods by using a hedging error metric, supplementing the Receding Horizontal Control and Stochastic Programming (RHCSP) method by utilizing the London Interbank Offered Rate with the Levy process. The RHCSP hedging method was investigated to determine if improved hedging error was accomplished compared to the Black-Scholes, Leland, and Whalley …

Romania's Participation To The European Assessment Project Titled Hyunder, Multi-Criterial Analyses Of Salt Cavern Locations, Ioan Iordache, Dorin Schitea, Adriana Marinoiu, Mihaela Buga, Mihai Balan, Ioan Stefanescu, Adrian Gheorghe, Mihaela Iordache, Viviana Cigolotti (Ed.), Chiara Barchiesi (Ed.), Michela Chianella (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The scope of the work is to assess the potential, the actors and relevant business cases for large scale storage of renewable electricity by hydrogen underground storage in Romania. This presentation intends to provide a picture of the multi-criterial analyses of salt cavern locations in Romania.

The energy sector is facing with the necessity to store large energy quantities for short to long term in order to adapt to the increasingly intermittent renewable energy. The results of this presentation have originated from an ongoing European assessment project by the name of HyUnder (FCH JU, grant 303417) regarding utilization of salt …

Learning By Doing - Energy Systems Management, Nima Shahriari, Adrian V. Gheorghe

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Climate change concerns have confronted energy policy makers by unprecedented challenges in the 21st century. Revolution of renewable energy technologies, as well as more efficient energy systems, has been promising in the context of global warming. However, these technologies are not maturing and chaning. Consequently planning for development of these resources requires dealing with various multidisciplinary research questions such as financial feasibility of renewable energy projects. Nevertheless, there is considerable lack of education programs offering multidisciplinary approach for addressing the current energy challenges. Based on the 21st evolving energy landscape, an interdisciplinary graduate certificate course work was designed at Old …

Processing And Property Evaluation Of Tungsten-Based Mixed Oxides For Photovoltaics And Optoelectronics, Mirella Vargas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Tungsten Oxide (WO3) films and low-dimensional structures have proven to be promising candidates in the fields of photonics and electronics. WO3 is a well-established n-type semiconductor characterized by unique electrochromic behavior, an ideal optical band gap that permits transparency over a wide spectral range, and high chemical integrity. The plethora of diverse properties endow WO3 to be highly effective in applications related to electrochromism, gas sensing, and deriving economical energy. Compared to the bulk films, a materials system involving WO3 and a related species (elements or metal oxides) offer the opportunity to tailor the electrochromic response, and an overall enhancement …

Study Of A Directly Heated Oxy-Fuel Supercritical Power Generation System, A S M Arifur Rahim Chowdhury

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Directly heated supercritical oxy-fuel gas turbines have the potential to become an important addition to current power generation systems. They provide a higher thermal efficiency and more effective carbon capture techniques than existing gas turbines. Due to the higher density of the working fluids, the turbomachinery size in these systems can be reduced significantly; this will facilitate to minimize the operational cost. To achieve supercritical working fluid at the turbine inlet combustion needs to be conducted under enormous amounts of pressure; these values are is about 10 times those found in the present gas turbines. Additionally, existing material operational …

High Temperature Helical Tubular Receiver For Concentrating Solar Power System, Nazmul Hossain

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the field of conventional cleaner power generation technology, concentrating solar power systems have introduced remarkable opportunity. In a solar power tower, solar energy concentrated by the heliostats at a single point produces very high temperature. Falling solid particles or heat transfer fluid passing through that high temperature region absorbs heat to generate electricity. Increasing the residence time will result in more heat gain and increase efficiency. A novel design of solar receiver for both fluid and solid particle is approached in this paper which can increase residence time resulting in higher temperature gain in one cycle compared to conventional …

Wind Farm Optimization Using Evolutionary Algorithms, Carlos Marco Ituarte-Villarreal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In recent years, the wind power industry has focused its efforts on solving the Wind Farm Layout Optimization (WFLO) problem. Wind resource assessment is a pivotal step in optimizing the wind-farm design and siting and, in determining whether a project is economically feasible or not. In the present work, three (3) different optimization methods are proposed for the solution of the WFLO: (i) A modified Viral System Algorithm applied to the optimization of the proper location of the components in a wind-farm to maximize the energy output given a stated wind environment of the site. The optimization problem is formulated …

Heat Absorption Analysis By Falling Particles At High Temperatures For Concentrating Solar Power Systems, Arturo Sepulveda Fernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

High temperature Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) for the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology can provide a large and relatively cheaper storage option, as opposed to limited and expensive electrical battery storage with PV technology, and hence, it has potential to maintain a constant production when no sunlight is available. Research of material like aluminum, silicon, graphite could be potential candidates to work as thermal energy storage. Currently, nitrate and chloride molten salts are widely used as the TES medium for a CSP plant. However, molten salt, especially chlorides, must be handled carefully at high temperature …

Single And Multiple Objective Biomass-To-Biofuel Supply Chain Optimization Considering Environmental Impacts, Claudia Evangelina Valles Sosa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Bioenergy has become an important alternative source of energy to alleviate the reliance on petroleum energy. Bioenergy offers diminishing climate change by reducing Green House Gas Emissions, as well as providing energy security and enhancing rural development. The Energy Independence and Security Act mandate the use of 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels including 16 billion gallons of cellulosic biofuels by the year 2022. It is clear that Biomass can make a substantial contribution to supply future energy demand in a sustainable way. However, the supply of sustainable energy is one of the main challenges that mankind will face over …