Energy consumption and environmental degradation nexus: A systematic review and meta-analysis of fossil fuel and renewable energy consumption

Strategic analysis of wind energy potential and optimal turbine selection in Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia

Wind power is considered one of the most environmentally friendly and rapidly growing form of renewable energy. This study aims at assessment of wind power potential for Al-Jouf region in Saudi Arabia. A long term historical wind speed data of 21 years (2000-2021) was analytically modeled using Weibull distribution function to determine the wind characteristics. The Weibull parameters and average wind speed for monthly and yearly were evaluated using MATLAB program. An online wind power calculator developed by Meteotest was used to evaluate the wind energy by selecting various turbines. Six types of commercial wind turbines of 3 MW capacity were selected for wind power assessment to optimize the turbine selection. Our analysis showed that average wind speed varies between 3.88 m/s and 4.99 m/s and an overall average wind speed is 4.38 m/s. The most frequent wind speed observed was 3.9 m/s with a probability of 20 % approximately. The Weibull distribution parameters, shape parameter "k" values ranged between 1.89 and 2.21 with an average of 1.98 and scale factor "c" values varied between 4.41 and 5.66 m/s with a mean value of 4.86 m/s. Performance evaluations of selected wind turbine models reveal that the Vestas V126 turbine outperforms others at the Al-Jouf site, generating an annual energy yield of 3779400 kWh at a capacity factor of 14.4 %. These results suggest that by constructing a wind farm consisting of 100 V126 turbines may compensate for the energy needs of 46000 individuals. These findings establish Al-Jouf as a viable location for utility-scale wind power projects, offering valuable insights for turbine manufacturers, developers, operators, and policymakers interested in deploying large-capacity turbines in the region. The method used in this study for wind power analysis and turbine selection is simple and helpful to provide an initial assessment about the site suitability and turbine selection without undergoing exhaustive efforts.

A Multielectron and High-Potential Spirobifluorene-Based Posolyte for Aqueous Redox Flow Batteries

The rising energy demand driven by human activity has posed pressing challenges in embracing renewable energy, necessitating advances in energy storage technologies to maximize their utilization efficiency. Recent studies in aqueous organic redox flow batteries have focused primarily on the development of organic negative electrolytes, while the progress in organic positive electrolytes remains constrained by limitations in their redox potentials and effective electron concentrations. Herein, we report a spatially twisted chlorinated spirobifluorene ammonium salts (CSFAs), created through an unexpected green chlorination-protection pathway during the initial cycling in the flow battery cell, utilizing chloride ions from counterions in aqueous solution. The chlorinated, nonplanar spiral structure of CSFAs possesses a one-step four-electron transfer electrochemical property and offers exceptional resistance to nucleophilic attacks, exhibiting an unprecedented redox potential as high as 1.05 V (vs. SHE). A full redox flow battery based on CSFA-Cl (chloride ions as the counter ions) with 1.4 M electron concentration achieved an average coulombic efficiency exceeding 99.4 % and a capacity utilization reaching 95 % of the four-electron capacity for a stable cycling over 250 cycles (~22 days). The present work exemplifies the use of side reactions to develop new redox species, which can be extended to create more structurally versatile energy storage materials.

A comprehensive analysis of key factors' impact on environmental performance: Evidence from Globe by novel super learner algorithm

This study aims to analyze comprehensively the impact of different economic and demographic factors, which affect economic development, on environmental performance. In this context, the study considers the Environmental Performance Index as the response variable, uses GDP per capita, tariff rate, tax burden, government expenditure, inflation, unemployment, population, income tax rate, public debt, FDI inflow, and corporate tax rate as the explanatory variables, examines 181 countries, performs a novel Super Learner (SL) algorithm, which includes a total of six machine learning (ML) algorithms, and uses data for the years 2018, 2020, and 2022. The results demonstrate that (i) the SL algorithm has a superior capacity with regard to other ML algorithms; (ii) gross domestic product per capita is the most crucial factor in the environmental performance followed by tariff rates, tax burden, government expenditure, and inflation, in order; (iii) among all, the corporate tax rate has the lowest importance on the environmental performance followed by also foreign direct investment, public debt, income tax rate, population, and unemployment; (iv) there are some critical thresholds, which imply that the impact of the factors on the environmental performance change according to these barriers. Overall, the study reveals the nonlinear impact of the variables on environmental performance as well as their relative importance and critical threshold. Thus, the study provides policymakers valuable insights in re-formulating their environmental policies to increase environmental performance. Accordingly, various policy options are discussed.

Bipolar Membrane Seawater Splitting for Hydrogen Production: A Review

The growing demand for clean energy has spurred the quest for sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels. Hydrogen has emerged as a promising candidate with its exceptional heating value and zero emissions upon combustion. However, conventional hydrogen production methods contribute to CO2 emissions, necessitating environmentally friendly alternatives. With its vast potential, seawater has garnered attention as a valuable resource for hydrogen production, especially in arid coastal regions with surplus renewable energy. Direct seawater electrolysis presents a viable option, although it faces challenges such as corrosion, competing reactions, and the presence of various impurities. To enhance the seawater electrolysis efficiency and overcome these challenges, researchers have turned to bipolar membranes (BPMs). These membranes create two distinct pH environments and selectively facilitate water dissociation by allowing the passage of protons and hydroxide ions, while acting as a barrier to cations and anions. Moreover, the presence of catalysts at the BPM junction or interface can further accelerate water dissociation. Alongside the thermodynamic potential, the efficiency of the system is significantly influenced by the water dissociation potential of BPMs. By exploiting these unique properties, BPMs offer a promising solution to improve the overall efficiency of seawater electrolysis processes. This paper reviews BPM electrolysis, including the water dissociation mechanism, recent advancements in BPM synthesis, and the challenges encountered in seawater electrolysis. Furthermore, it explores promising strategies to optimize the water dissociation reaction in BPMs, paving the way for sustainable hydrogen production from seawater.

Long run renewable energy productivity, carbon capture patents and air quality in Taiwan

This study investigates the connection between nonrenewable energy productivity, renewable energy productivity, and air quality degradation in Taiwan from 2002 to 2019. We specifically emphasize the novel contribution of analyzing the productivity of renewable energy consumption. Robust estimation models, namely Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) and Robust Standard Estimation, are employed for comprehensive analyses. Our findings reveal a strong correlation between nonrenewable energy productivity and increased air pollutants, highlighting the significant impact of fossil fuels on air quality deterioration. Although renewable energy productivity demonstrates a negative association with air degradation, its effect is not statistically significant. This can be attributed to Taiwan's continued reliance on non-renewable energy sources within the overall energy mix. Hence, reducing dependence on fossil fuels is crucial for improving air quality. Importantly, the identified relationships have long-term implications, underscoring the necessity of persistent policy measures that promote renewable energy transition and emissions reduction over time. Our research emphasizes the urgency of addressing fossil fuel dependency to mitigate air pollution and highlights the potential benefits of enhancing renewable energy efficiency to achieve cleaner and healthier environments.

Evaluating the role of financial globalization and oil consumption on ecological quality: A new perspective from quantile-on-quantile granger causality

Global warming has progressed into a pressing global concern, primarily driven by human activities. To address this issue, it is vital to identify the key drivers of ecological quality and develop effective policies in response. Consequently, this study seeks to empirically examine the causal effect of financial globalization, economic growth, economic policy uncertainty, and oil consumption on the load capacity factor (LF) in Brazil. The analysis utilizes quarterly data spanning from 1990 to 2021. In this pursuit, the study introduces an array of quantile-based methodologies, encompassing quantile ADF, PP, and KPSS tests, as well as the innovative Quantile-on-Quantile Granger Causality (QQGC) approach. The QQGC represents a notable advancement beyond traditional quantile Granger causality (QGC) methods, as it accounts for the conditional distribution of dependent and independent variables. This study bridges a critical gap in the existing literature by introducing the QQGC to capture the causal influence of the regressors on LF. The findings derived from the QQGC analysis indicate that financial globalization, economic growth, economic policy uncertainty, and oil consumption significantly predict LF across all quantiles. These results offer valuable insights that can inform the formulation of effective policies and strategies aimed at addressing ecological quality and mitigating the impacts of global warming.

Effectiveness of energy depletion, green growth, and technological cooperation grants on CO2 emissions in Pakistan's perspective

According to Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), Pakistan proposed to set a very ambitious conditional objective of an overall 50 % reduction in anticipated emissions by 2030, with 15 % coming from domestic resources and 35 % contingent on international grant financing, which would entail USD 101 billion just for the energy transition. Due to this consideration, the current study examines the impact of energy depletion, green growth, technological cooperation grants, and labor force on CO2 emissions in Pakistan for 1990 to 2020. This research used the STIRPAT framework and novel dynamic ARDL techniques. Additionally, a robustness check is also carried out using Kernel-based regularized least squares (KRLS) and the Granger causality approach is utilized to establish cause-effect relationships. The findings indicate that energy depletion leads to environmental contamination in the long run. In contrast, Green growth is reducing environmental contaminations in the long run. Furthermore, we found that technological cooperation grants also decline environmental contamination in the short run. Likewise, the Labor force dwindles CO2 emissions in the long run. According to Granger causality, there is bidirectional causality between GG↔CO2, and TCG ↔CO2, while there is one-way causality between END→CO2 and CO → LF. The findings show that policymakers should emphasize on the transition to green growth with extensive investment in technological innovations, so the country can achieve its CO2 reduction targets.

Strong Intermixing Effects of LFO1-x/STOx toward the Development of Efficient Photoanodes for Photoelectrocatalytic Applications

Aiming to improve the photocatalytic properties of transition metal perovskites to be used as robust photoanodes, [LaFeO3]1-x/[SrTiO3]x nanocomposites (LFO1-x/STOx) are considered. This hybrid structure combines good semiconducting properties and an interesting intrinsic remanent polarization. All the studied samples were fabricated using a solid-state method followed by high-energy ball milling, and they were subsequently deposited by spray coating. The synthesized compounds were demonstrated to possess orthorhombic (Pnma) and cubic (Pm3¯m) structures for LFO and STO, respectively, with an average grain size of 55-70 nm. The LFO1-x/STOx nanocomposites appeared to exhibit high visible light absorption, corresponding to band gaps of 2.17-3.21 eV. Our findings show that LFO0.5/STO0.5 is the optimized heterostructure; it achieved a high photocurrent density of 11 μA/cm2 at 1.23 V bias vs. RHE and an applied bias photo-to-current efficiency of 4.1 × 10-3% at 0.76 V vs. RHE, as demonstrated by the photoelectrochemical measurements. These results underline the role of the two phases intermixing LFO and STO at the appropriate content to yield a high-performing photoanode ascribed to efficient charge separation and transfer. This suggests that LFO0.5/STO0.5 could be a potential candidate for the development of efficient photoanodes for hydrogen generation via photoelectrocatalytic water splitting.

Impact of green technological innovations on environmental quality for Turkey: evidence from the novel dynamic ARDL simulation model

The contribution of this research is to provide empirical evidence that investing in green technology innovation (GTI) can reduce the ecological footprint in Turkey, which can lead to sustainable economic growth and environmental quality. The research also highlights the importance of controlling energy consumption, GDP, trade openness, and urbanization, as these variables have a positive or negative effect on ecological footprint. The findings of this research can be useful for the Turkish government, policymakers, and environmentalists to promote the implementation of GTI and eco-friendly resources, which can reduce the impact of climate change and contribute to economic prosperity. Overall, this research provides important information for decision-makers to adopt policies that prioritize green innovation and environmental protection in Turkey.

New insights into the hydrogen evolution reaction using Ni-ZIF8/67-derived electrocatalysts

One of the present great challenges is finding nonprecious materials characterized by efficient electrocatalytic behavior in order to substitute the expensive platinum-based materials for the purpose of hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs). In this study, ZIF-67 and ZIF-67 were used as precursors in order to fabricate metallic-doped N-enriched carbon successfully through a simple process of pyrolysis for applying the hydrogen evolution reaction. In addition, nickel was added to these structures in the course of the synthesis procedure. While under high-temperature treatment, Nickel doped ZIF-67 was transformed into metallic NiCo doped N enriched carbon (NiCo/NC), under high-temperature treatments, Ni-doped ZIF-8 changed into metallic NiZn doped N enriched carbon (NiZn/NC). By combining metallic precursors, the following five structures were synthesized: NiCo/NC, Co/NC, NiZn/NC, NiCoZn/NC, as well as CoZn/NC. It is noteworthy that the produced Co/NC shows optimum hydrogen evolution reaction activity along with superior overpotential of 97 mV and the minimum Tafel slope of 60 mV/dec at 10 mA cm. In addition, the superb behavior of hydrogen evolution reaction can be attributable to the numerous active sites, the superior electrical conductivity of carbon, and the firm structure. As a result, the present paper suggests a novel strategy in order to produce nonprecious materials characterized by superb HER efficiency for future scholars.

Asymmetric effect of economic policy uncertainty, political stability, energy consumption, and economic growth on CO2 emissions: evidence from G-7 countries

This study deals with the asymmetric effect of economic policy uncertainty and political stability on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions considering also energy consumption and economic growth. In this context, the study investigates G-7 countries, which make up an important part of the world economy. Also, the study uses yearly data between 1997 and 2021 as the most available intersection data for all countries included. Besides, this study applies a novel nonlinear approach as quantile-on-quantile regression (QQR) as the base model, and quantile regression (QR) is used for robustness. The empirical results present that (i) economic policy uncertainty has a decreasing effect on CO₂ emissions in Italy, Japan, and the United States of America (USA), whereas it has a mixed effect in Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK); (ii) political stability also has a mixed effect on CO₂ emissions; (iii) energy consumption has an accelerating effect on CO₂ emissions while the power of effect changes at quantiles; (iv) economic growth has generally an increasing effect on CO₂ emissions, whereas it has a decreasing effect at lower quantiles in Japan, at middle quantiles in France and Germany, and at higher quantiles in Italy; and (v) the QR results support the robustness of QQR findings. Thus, the empirical results highlight that G-7 countries should consider the asymmetric and quantile-based varying effects of the economic policy uncertainty, political stability, and economic growth to reach their carbon neutrality targets.

Asymmetric effect of environmental cost of forest rents in the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic: The Nigerian experience

Several studies have identified deforestation as a major cause of environmental degradation, but little is known about the asymmetric effect of the environmental cost of forest rents. To fill this gap, our study uses the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model and asymmetric causality test to examine the environmental implication of forest rents in the Guinean Forest-Savanna Mosaic of Nigeria over the period 1990:Q1 to 2016:Q4. The empirical results show that forest rents increase CO₂ emissions when the shock to forest rents is positive and decreases CO₂ emissions when the shock to forest rents is negative. The results further show evidence of asymmetric effects of crop production, fossil fuel energy consumption, and economic growth on CO₂ emissions. Moreover, the effects of both positive and negative shocks in economic growth are elastic, suggesting that CO₂ emissions respond in a larger magnitude to a 1% positive or negative shock in economic growth. While the positive shock to crop production and economic growth stimulates CO₂ emissions, their negative shocks dampen CO₂ emissions. In addition, the positive (negative) shocks to fossil energy consumption exert upward (downward) pressure on CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, the asymmetric causality test divulges that a positive change in forest rents causes a negative change in CO₂ emissions and a negative change in forest rents causes a positive change in CO₂ emissions. Based on these findings, the study recommends the need for policymakers to formulate sound policies to protect the forests and transit toward clean energy consumption to minimize energy-related CO₂ emissions in the country.

Realizing the Sustainable Development Goals through technological innovation: juxtaposing the economic and environmental effects of financial development and energy use

The BRICS comprise of group of emerging market economies which are committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals agenda of the United Nations by the end of the year 2030. In this regard, it is critically important for these nations to sustain their annual rise in their economic growth rates while simultaneously declining the rate of discharge of carbon dioxide emissions. Against this backdrop, this study aims to investigate how financial development, greater primary energy consumption, and technological innovation affect the prospects of the BRICS nations in achieving economic and environmental sustainability. Considering the period from 1990 to 2020 and utilizing methods that are robust to working with cross-sectionally dependent, heterogeneous, and endogenous panel data, the key analytical findings derived in this study reveal that higher levels of financial development, primary energy consumption, and technological innovation boost the per capita economic growth rates of the BRICS nations. Besides, technological innovation also moderates the financial development-economic growth and the primary energy consumption-economic growth nexuses by jointly boosting economic growth rates with these two macroeconomic variables. On the other hand, financial development and higher primary energy consumption are seen to boost the annual per capita carbon dioxide emission growth in these emerging nations, while technological innovation is observed to do the opposite. Furthermore, technological innovation is witnessed to moderate the nexus between energy use and economic growth to further reduce the emission growth rate in the BRICS nations. Accordingly, a set of policies are recommended to the concerned governments in order to enable the BRICS nations to attain the Sustainable Development Goals agenda.