Energy Science, Engineering and Technology

This book examines the tradeoffs among financing methods for businesses installing onsite photovoltaics (PV). The authors present case studies of PV financing strategies used by two large commercial retailers that have deployed substantial U.S. PV capacity: IKEA, which owns its PV, and Staples, which purchases power generated from onsite PV systems through power purchase agreements…

The U.S. industrial sector accounts for the largest share of energy consumption in the country, and energy efficiency improvements in this sector can significantly reduce the nation’s demand for energy. Fortunately, the industrial sector has shown steady progress in improving energy efficiency over the past few decades, and energy efficiency improvements are expected to continue.…

Recent expansion in natural gas production has made the resource an increasingly significant component in the U.S. energy market. Further, a number of policies recently proposed and/or promulgated at the federal, state, and local levels may serve to accelerate this development. Examples of federal policies include U.S. Environmental Protection Agency air standards for power plants…

The federal government first supported a program for energy storage and electric power system technology during the 1970s, before the establishment of the Department of Energy (DOE). In the early days, the program was focused mainly on energy storage—especially to even out the variable power production from wind and solar technologies—but also to support large…

In order to further understand the transfer processes of radionuclides from soil and air to plants in tropical areas affected by coal mining and burning, the absorption of 234U, 238U and 210Po by ferns, lichens, mosses, soybean, wheat, pine and eucalyptus cultivated around a coal-fired power plant and coal mining area in southern Brazil was…