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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 …

Advanced Computational Modeling Of The Internal Structure Of Smart Wind-Turbine Blades, Sanket Seetaram Bhogle

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

Implementation of stable aeroelastic models with the ability to capture the complex features of Multi concept smartblades is a prime step in reducing the uncertainties that come along with blade dynamics. The numerical simulations of fluid structure interaction can thus be used to test a realistic scenarios comprising of full-scale blades at a reasonably low computational cost.

A code which was a combination of two advanced numerical models was designed and was run with the help of paralell HPC supercomputer platform. The first model was based on a variation of dimensional reduction technique proposed by Hodges and Yu. This model …

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 …

The Use Of Jatropha Curcas To Achieve A Self Sufficient Water Distribution System: A Case Study In Rural Senegal, Alexandra Archer

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

The use of Jatropha curcas as a source of oil for fueling water pumps holds promise for rural communities struggling to achieve water security in arid climates. The potential for use in developing communities as an affordable, sustainable fuel source has been highly recommended for many reasons: it is easily propagated, drought resistant, grows rapidly, and has high-oil-content seeds, as well as medicinal and economic potential. This study uses a rural community in Senegal, West Africa, and calculates at what level of Jatropha curcas production the village is able to be self-sufficient in fueling their water system to meet drinking, …

Integrating Truck Emissions Cost In Traffic Assignment, Peter Foytik, R. Michael Robinson

VMASC Publications

The adverse impacts of greenhouse gasses (GHG) and the imperative for reducing the existing rate of GHG production are well established. In the United States, the largest source of GHG emissions from human activities is from burning fossil fuels, primarily for the generation of electricity and transportation. The transportation sector accounts for 28% of all U.S. GHG production. Heavy-duty vehicles, such as large freight trucks, account for nearly one-fifth of the U.S. total, and this fraction is expected to grow rapidly. Consequently, many efforts are being used to reduce the total emissions of freight trucks. Most efforts emphasize one of …

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 …

Strategies Utility Managers Used To Implement Renewable Energy Technologies In The Caribbean, Nneka Cori-Anne Archer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Government officials in the Caribbean are encouraging the production of electricity from renewable energy sources to reduce the impact of high electricity rates to customers due to region's dependency on imported fossil fuel. The purpose of this single-case study was to explore the strategies electric utility managers in the Caribbean used to implement renewable energy technologies. The diffusion of innovation theory served as the conceptual framework for the study. Three managers of an electric utility in the Caribbean, who had created strategies to implement renewable energy technologies, participated in face-to-face semistructured interviews. These managers provided in-depth information on approaches used …

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 …

Novel Endohedral Derivatives Of Sc3n@C2n (N = 34, 40) And Unique Tether Controlled Bis-Functionalization Of Fullerenes, Maira Raquel Ceron Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Since the discovery of fullerenes in 1985, their exohedral functionalization has been necessary to increase their solubility and explore their properties and potential applications in materials science and medicinal chemistry. This Thesis provides a short overview of the importance of electronic, size and shape complementarity in determining the structures of specific endohedral fullerene compounds. This is followed by a description of a new method for the separation of scandium nitride endohedral fullerenes Sc3N@C2n (n = 34, 39 and 40), and their monofunctionalization.

We also present the regioselective synThesis of easily isolable bis-derivatives of C60, C70, and M3N@Ih-C80 (M = Sc, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Verification And Validation Of A Transient Heat Exchanger Model, Jayme Lee Carper

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

A statistical based verification and validation process is applied to the transient modeling of a shell and tube heat exchanger. A generic model of a heat exchanger was developed based on first principles as a sub-system of a larger thermal system model. This model was originally created without any experimental data, as it was not readily available. To provide the data necessary to apply the validation process, a thermal emulator was designed and built that allowed control of all system inputs to the heat exchanger, while also providing the instrumentation to record all required data. A wide test matrix was …

Initial Evaluations Of A U.S. Navy Rapidly Relocatable Gulf Of Mexico/Caribbean Ocean Forecast System In The Context Of The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster, Edward D. Zaron, Patrick J. Fitzpatrick, Scott L. Cross, John M. Harding, Frank L. Bub, Jerry D. Wiggert, Dong S. Ko, Yee Lau, Katharine Woodward, Christopher N.K. Mooers

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In response to the Deepwater Horizon (DwH) oil spill event in 2010, the Naval Oceanographic Office deployed a nowcast-forecast system covering the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent Caribbean Sea that was designated Americas Seas, or AMSEAS, which is documented in this manuscript. The DwH disaster provided a challenge to the application of available ocean-forecast capabilities, and also generated a historically large observational dataset. AMSEAS was evaluated by four complementary efforts, each with somewhat different aims and approaches: a university research consortium within an Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) testbed; a petroleum industry consortium, the Gulf of Mexico 3-D Operational Ocean …

Assessing The Carbon Impacts Of Colby College’S Biomass Plant, Alice Hotopp

Honors Theses

Biomass energy plants are considered to be carbon neutral systems under some definitions. However, this concept of carbon neutrality needs to be rethought in order to understand the true carbon impact of biomass plants upon global climate change. A biomass plant’s wood source, the extent to which the biomass plant emits carbon dioxide, and the timescale over which the biomass plant emits carbon should all be taken into account. In this study, I consider the Colby College biomass plant’s role in carbon cycling. Colby’s Physical Plant Department provided me with information on how much carbon (tons of woodchips) is used …

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?