How sustainable is Australia’s pattern of energy supply and use? What are the major factors explaining Australia’s sustainable energy performance relative to other countries? This thesis explores energy supply and use in Australia during the 1990s and 2000s and examines major drivers such as policy decisions, economic structure and trade profile. Performance and drivers in Australia are compared with other OECD countries. / To address the questions posed above, it is first necessary to explore the concepts of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainable energy’ and consider how best to measure sustainable energy performance. Alternative sustainability frameworks and models are examined, with the ‘strong sustainability’ model adopted for this thesis being distinguished from other models in three principal ways: i) it places biophysical constraints on economic activity; ii) it regards certain critical natural capital is being non-substitutable; and iii) it places roughly equal emphasis on intra- and intergenerational equity. The strong sustainability model is operationalised into a series of principles and objectives for energy sustainability, which in turn are used as a basis for systematically developing a suite of sustainable energy indicators. This approach is preferred over other approaches to assessing sustainable energy performance given the study’s focus on measurable objectives and outcomes. / The second part of the thesis is devoted to measuring the sustainable energy performance of Australia and other OECD countries against twelve indicators. Some of the indicators selected are ‘standard’, being quite commonly used in other contexts. A number of the indicators though, are unique or have unique features that increase their validity as measures of strong sustainability. Initial results of the performance assessment suggest that Australia is amongst the weakest performing OECD countries, ranking last of all OECD countries against two of the twelve sustainable energy indicators and in the lower quartile of OECD countries against a further six indicators. Further analysis, combining and weighting indicator scores and country rankings across the 12 indicators confirms Australia’s poor performance. Australia ranks 28th of 30 OECD countries by two different ranking methods and 15th of 16 OECD countries by another two methods. Only the USA ranks consistently lower than Australia. Denmark consistently ranks highest of all countries by all methods. / The third and final part of the thesis examines drivers of sustainable energy performance by Australia and a subset of four OECD countries: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden (OECD 4). The primary basis for OECD 4 selection was strong performance against the sustainable energy indicators, although other criteria including economic structure, trade and demography were also considered. A range of techniques, including factorisation, ‘what if’ analysis and linear regression are used to diagnose the underlying factors driving the performance of Australia and the OECD 4 against the sustainable energy indicators. The analysis is extended to include a qualitative assessment of policy drivers including strategic and institutional settings, energy pricing, electricity market policies, R & D and regulation. / A major conclusion of the thesis based on the analysis is that Australia’s weak sustainable energy performance since 1990, relative to other OECD countries, has been substantially shaped by domestic policy decisions, decisions that were not inevitable given Australia’s economic structure, trade profile, demography, and geography.

Jatropha constitutes one of promising species suitable for providing oil for biodiesel production. So, looking for good practice and sustainable use of energy during Jatropha cultivation and lack of information about Jatropha in Mozambique, this study pretends to estimate the energy balance in Jatropha plantation in Sun biofuel farm, by calculating the energy indicators based on a life cycle approach in Sun Biofuel farm located in Manica province, Central Mozambique. Energy balance is a tool which can help to calculate all energy indicators in order to evaluate and analyse the energy efficiency, sustainability and environmental benefits. This study estimated the indicator of energy balance namely: energy input is the sum of all energy used during the process of Jatropha cultivation and oil production, energy output is the amount of energy produced, Net energy value can be calculated subtracting the energy output from the energy input, Energy productivity is the division of Jatropha produced by the respective input energy, specific energy is the division of energy input by Jatropha seed output and energy ratio is the energy output divided by energy input. Also data was collected on the farm of Sun Biofuel to estimate the sustainability of agricultural production of the company. The Jatropha production in Sun Biofuel farm (SBF) absorbed around 28 579 MJ/ha of energy during the production and 121 820 MJ/ha of energy gain as result of the all production. The total energy input was direct energy with 77% and Indirect energy with 23% used in Jatropha farm, and also the total energy input was divided into renewable with 26% and non-renewable with 74% of its contribution. The results revealed that the contribution of seed husks was (8%), woody products (38%), raw seed oil (30%), Shell (9%) and press cake (15%) of total energy output in Jatropha oil production farm. Net energy value (NEV), energy productivity, energy use efficiency and Specific energy was 93 241 MJ ha-1, 0.067 Kg MJ-1, 4.3 and 15.04 MJ Kg-1, respectively. According to these results the energy balance is positive and the energy use in Jatropha production is efficient.

Jatropha constitutes one of promising species suitable for providing oil for biodiesel production. So, looking for good practice and sustainable use of energy during Jatropha cultivation and lack of information about Jatropha in Mozambique, this study pretends to estimate the energy balance in Jatropha plantation in Sun biofuel farm, by calculating the energy indicators based on a life cycle approach in Sun Biofuel farm located in Manica province, Central Mozambique. Energy balance is a tool which can help to calculate all energy indicators in order to evaluate and analyse the energy efficiency, sustainability and environmental benefits. This study estimated the indicator of energy balance namely: energy input is the sum of all energy used during the process of Jatropha cultivation and oil production, energy output is the amount of energy produced, Net energy value can be calculated subtracting the energy output from the energy input, Energy productivity is the division of Jatropha produced by the respective input energy, specific energy is the division of energy input by Jatropha seed output and energy ratio is the energy output divided by energy input. Also data was collected on the farm of Sun Biofuel to estimate the sustainability of agricultural production of the company. The Jatropha production in Sun Biofuel farm (SBF) absorbed around 28 579 MJ/ha of energy during the production and 121 820 MJ/ha of energy gain as result of the all production. The total energy input was direct energy with 77% and Indirect energy with 23% used in Jatropha farm, and also the total energy input was divided into renewable with 26% and non-renewable with 74% of its contribution. The results revealed that the contribution of seed husks was (8%), woody products (38%), raw seed oil (30%), Shell (9%) and press cake (15%) of total energy output in Jatropha oil production farm. Net energy value (NEV), energy productivity, energy use efficiency and Specific energy was 93 241 MJ ha-1, 0.067 Kg MJ-1, 4.3 and 15.04 MJ Kg-1, respectively. According to these results the energy balance is positive and the energy use in Jatropha production is efficient.

The aim of this study is to compare the sustainable development perspective of Turkey with selected European Union countries in terms of Energy Indicators for Sustainable Energy between 1980-2008. The study is conducted in a comparative and descriptive way by using energy indicators. The common energy policy priorities of Turkey and European Union are determined in the light of recent literature. An energy indicator set is constructed according to energy priorities, namely, energy efficiency and energy intensity / energy security and fuel mix / and environmental concerns. The analysis of relevant indicators demonstrates that Turkey does not meet the sustainability criteria in terms of energy use. In general, findings of the study indicate that Turkey does not use energy efficiently and energy intensities in the economy do not decrease except for the industry sector, for the period 1980-2008. Import dependency has increased and fuel mix of energy sources is dominantly carbon based. Expectations about increasing renewable energy share do not exhibit a significant trend thus energy security and fuel mix are still important issues for Turkey. Lastly, environmental protection in terms of decreasing GHG emissions, air pollution and deforestation could not be achieved as GHG emissions, air pollution and deforestation have increased in Turkey during 1980- 2008 period.

Notre recherche s'inscrit dans le cadre de la problématique générale du développement et de la ville durable. En partant de l’analyse de notre environnement construit et notamment des réponses architecturales et urbaines à apporter en vue de diminuer de façon significative les émissions des gaz CO2, limiter l'effet de serre et préserver la biodiversité, nous nous sommes attachés à l'étude d'un écoquartier situé dans une ville emblématique du point de vue écologique, celle de Grenoble, et dans l'un de ses espaces urbains : la caserne de Bonne. Nous sommes partis de l'hypothèse que c'est tout d’abord au plan local, puis régional et national que l’on devra élaborer et mettre en pratique des solutions adaptées pour lutter contre toutes les formes de pollution, créer et innover en matière d'énergie renouvelable, tout en diminuant de façon progressive l'usage des énergies fossiles. C'est en tant qu'architecte urbaniste praticien que nous avons voulu apporter notre contribution dans ce domaine, en optant pour une analyse approfondie de l’écoquartier de l'ancienne caserne de Bonne à Grenoble. / Our research addresses the general issue of urban development and how to design sustainable cities through architecture and town planning. Our analysis focused on a study of caserne de Bonne, an ecodistrict located in Grenoble, which is an emblematic city from an ecological viewpoint. Our task was to significantly reduce CO2 gas emissions, limit the greenhouse effect, and preserve biodiversity. We developed our hypothesis to devise satisfactory solutions to fight pollution, reduce the use of fossil fuels, and create innovative ways to employ renewable energy. Our program will start locally, then expand on a regional and national level. We observed that in residential districts, remedies such as reducing transportation generated pollution, conserving energy, treating household waste, and other parameters,can be scaled up and implemented regionally and nationally. As architect and urban planner, we wanted to contribute to this field by providing an analysis of Bonne ecodistrict.