Thesis (M.S.) in Resource Economics and Policy--University of Maine, 2008. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-85).

Thesis (PhD)-Open University. BLDSC no.DX172040.

Energy plays a vital role in socio-economic development and raising living standards of human beings. The overreliance on fossil fuels results in the depletion of fossil fuels as well as environmental pollution from the green-house gases that result from the use of fossil fuels. Biomass feedstock are able to ameliorate this situation by utilizing the CO2 that has been used by plants during photosynthesis. This study investigated the suitability of the three garden grass species (Chloris gayana, Cynodon dactylon and Pennisetum clandestum) as biomass feedstock for gasification purposes. The three garden grass species were collected at the Alice Campus of the University of Fort Hare. These grass species were characterized using elemental analyser (CHNS), FT-IR, EDX and TGA. The Activation energy (Ea) of the three grass species were 48.22 kJ/mol for P. clandestum, 36.8 kJ/mol for C. gayana and 258 kJ/mol for C. dactylon. Of the three grass species, C. gayana had the lowest Activation energy of 36.8 kJ/mol and also had the highest maximum efficiency of 69 percent compared to 65.3 percent for P. clandestum and 63.5 percent for C. dactylon. Actual gasification was not carried out but the results on maximum efficiency were obtained from computer simulation of gasification.

Global concerns of climate change, increased greenhouse gas emissions and security of energy supply have accelerated the search for alternative energy sources both indeveloped and developing countries. Developing countries are now embracingutilization of biogas as a renewable energy option to meet some of their cooking andlighting needs. In Uganda, despite the introduction of biogas in the 1950’s, thetechnology has not received considerable acceptance and as a result its penetrationhas remained relatively low.  Several installed biogas plants have failed and those working are not working to theexpectation of the technicians and their owners. This research presents results of thestudy carried out to establish the performance of farm based biogas systems so as toassess the challenges faced by the users and to identify the possible causes of failurefor the non-operational systems.  A survey of 144 biogas plants was carried out after which performance monitoring ofselected digesters in the districts of Luwero, Kampala, Wakiso, Mbale, Jinja andMukono. It was found that 55% of the surveyed  biogas  plants  were  not  operational and  others  not  performing  to  the  users expectations. Most of the plants monitoredwere operating in the temperature range of 18°C-25°C with the gas quality rangingbetween 50-60% methane. Most digesters showed evidence of high organic loadingrates indicated by traces of biogas at the expansion chamber. The identified  causes of  failure  were  poor  system  maintenance, poor workmanship during constructionworks, poor  operation  practices, availability of other cheap fuel alternatives, lazinessand lack of interest amongst  the users, lack of alternative sources of feedstock andsystem blockages. Furthermore, there is need to sensitize people on the need for using alternativesources of energy such as biogas and improved cooking stoves for fuel saving as mostof them use wood and charcoal as supplementary fuels. This would reduce globalwarming through reduced deforestation and bring about environmental sustainabilityas a whole.

The Comparison of Climate Change Rates in Rural versus Urban Areas in Tennessee An analysis of climate data was performed in three counties in Tennessee. The goal of this study is to identify the different rates of climate change in counties of varying urbanization levels. Davidson County, which contains the city of Nashville, is used as the most urban county. Two counties outside Nashville, Sumner and Dickson Counties, are used as a moderately urban county and a rural county, respectively. The level of urbanization was adopted from Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations' Index of Relative Rurality. Yearly average temperature and daily mean temperature for the warm season (May through October) were collected on each county from the years of 1960-2020 via the PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University. A Mann-Kendall (MK) trend test was used for each individual county’s data to determine if the series had a monotonic upward trend, meaning overall temperature increase. The hypothesis of this analysis is that the most urban county will have the highest rate of warming due to the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The analysis of the yearly average temperature data for the three counties showed that Davidson and Sumner had higher Sen’s slopes and Kendall’s Taus, which were the prominent factors examined to determine the extent of climate change. Comparatively, Dickson County was found to have a lower Sen’s slope and Kendall’s Tau, which implies a lower overall rate of warming. Significance was found within all the results, since P-values were α Laina Caywood: Environmental Health, East Tennessee State University. Ying Li: Environmental Health, East Tennessee State University. Andrew Joyner: Department of Geosciences, East Tennessee State University.

No description available.

Honors Thesis (Environmental Resources)--Oberlin College, 2009. / "May 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-78).

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on August 4, 2009). Interdisciplinary thesis in International Studies and Environment and Natural Resources. Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-63).

It is now widely believed that globally averaged temperatures will rise significantly over the next 100 years as a result of increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide. Responses to the threat of future climate change are both adaptations to new climate conditions, and mitigation of the magnitude of change. Mitigation can be achieved both through reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and by increasing storage of carbon in the earth system. In particular it is thought that there is potential for increased storage of carbon on land in soils and growing vegetation. There is now a need for research on the potential impacts of changing land use on terrestrial carbon storage, in particular as rapid land use and land cover change has taken place in most of regions of world over the past few decades due to accelerated industrialization, urbanization and agricultural practice. This thesis has developed a novel methodology for estimating the impacts of land use and land cover change (LULCC) on terrestrial carbon storage using Geographic Information Systems and Optimization modelling, using a regional case study (the Tamar Valley Catchment, southwest England) and drawing entirely on secondary data sources (current distributions of soils and vegetation). A series of scenarios for future land cover change have been developed, for which carbon storage, GHG and energy emissions amount have been calculated over the short, medium and long term (2020, 2050 and 2080). Results show that in this region, improving permanent grassland and expanding forestry land are the best options for increasing carbon storage in soils and biomass. The model has been validated using sensitivity analysis, which demonstrates that although there is uncertainty within the input parameters, the results remain significant when this is modelled within the linear programme. The methodology proposed here has the potential to make an important contribution to assessing the impacts of policies relating to land use at the preparation and formulation stages, and is applicable in any geographic situation where the appropriate secondary data sources are available.