This research studies variations in biodiesel upon addition of different concentrations of antioxidant and petrodiesel additives. Oxidation onset temperature, oxidation induction time, oxidative stability, thermal stability, crystallization onset temperature and moisture retention properties of the biodiesel, with and without antioxidants have been studied. Antioxidants like BHT, BHA, PrG, Vit E and Vit C were added to the biodiesel during the study. These samples were analyzed using the PDSC, TGA, DSC and TGA-SA instrumentation. The results of this research show an improvement in the OOT, OIT and Oxidative stability of biodiesel with the addition of antioxidants and by blending the biodiesel with different amounts of Petro-diesel. A significant improvement in oxidative stability of biodiesel has been observed with the addition of antioxidants and petrodiesel. There was no significant change noticed in the thermal stability, crystallization and the moisture retention properties of biodiesel. I hope that this research would help improving the oxidative stability of the biodiesel. The results from the analysis made in this study would also be helpful in designing a better antioxidant and aid in improving the present experimental methods for the OIT and thermal analysis.

During the 2008 spike in oil prices, oil companies and government officials were brought under close scrutiny as many Americans began to question why prices were able to rise so quickly. Americans had become accustomed to living in an economy where cheap oil was the norm, and demanded answers when that situation changed. What most of them did not know is that they were repeating history and mimicking the response to the 1973 oil embargo. Just as in 2008, the United States faced a crisis in 1973 with which it was unprepared to effectively cope. This thesis analyzes the reasons for and consequences of this lack of preparation in 1973 drawing on the writings of major policy makers and leaders of the time, most notably Henry Kissinger, Anwar el-Sadat, and Richard Nixon, Senate hearings testimony, recently declassified government documents detailing plans for U.S. invasion, and contemporary newspapers which recorded public perception. I argue that decades of living with cheaply priced oil, an over reliance on multinational corporations and a lack of understanding of Middle Eastern resentment toward these oil companies, combined with a fundamental misunderstanding of how oil and politics could be linked brought the United States to the ultimate near-decision of invading the Middle East. The 1973 oil embargo brought the United States face-to-face with the consequences of reliance on foreign oil and with the hardships that resulted from it. The United States had relied on oil companies to manage their interests in the Middle East for decades but in 1973 the situation changed forever. I close by considering the ongoing deep ties between the United States and the Middle East that are present still. The same problems that existed in 1973 exist today, and until those are corrected the United States and its economy will be deeply tied to the Middle East and to events in the region.

The performance of parabolic trough based solar power plants over the last 25 years has proven that this technology is an excellent alternative for the commercial power industry. Compared to conventional power plants, parabolic trough solar power plants produce significantly lower levels of carbon dioxide, although additional research is required to bring the cost of concentrator solar plants to a competitive level. The cost reduction is focused on three areas: thermodynamic efficiency improvements by research and development, scaling up of the unit size, and mass production of the equipment. The optimum design, performance simulation and cost analysis of the parabolic trough solar plants are essential for the successful implementation of this technology. A detailed solar power plant simulation and analysis of its components is needed for the design of parabolic trough solar systems which is the subject of this research. Preliminary analysis was carried out by complex models of the solar field components. These components were then integrated into the system whose performance is simulated to emulate real operating conditions. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to get the optimum conditions and minimum levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). A simplified methodology was then developed based on correlations obtained from the detailed component simulations. A comprehensive numerical simulation of a parabolic trough solar power plant was developed, focusing primarily on obtaining a preliminary optimum design through the simplified methodology developed in this research. The proposed methodology is used to obtain optimum parameters and conditions such as: solar field size, operating conditions, parasitic losses, initial investment and LCOE. The methodology is also used to evaluate different scenarios and conditions of operation. The new methodology was implemented for a 50 MWe parabolic trough solar power plant for two cities: Tampa and Daggett. The results obtained for the proposed methodology were compared to another physical model (System Advisor Model, SAM) and a good agreement was achieved, thus showing that this methodology is suitable for any location.

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 range of motives that may persuade people to engage in environmentally beneficial behavior. A multi-pronged approach to climate change activism that advocates for many initiatives to fight climate change may see more success than a singularly divestment-centered approach because it is more flexible and inclusive. The second half of this thesis offers an index of suggested actions from which activists and institutions of higher education could craft a multi-pronged approach to fight climate change. These measures, including climate neutrality goals, environmental education initiatives, and various types of internal financial mechanisms, may go a long way in improving the chances for success in climate change activism on campuses.

Surface coal mining is a major form of land change and environmental degradation in Central Appalachia. Traditional mine reclamation iresults in unmanaged, unproductive grasslands that fail to mitigate many of the environmental costs of coal mining and are of minimal use to communities. Forestry reclamation is an alternative reclamation tactic that has the potential to address both environmental and socioeconomic concerns in Central Appalachia. A case study of Laurel Fork Mine in Eastern Kentucky is included.

The process of natural gas recovery by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, is a major scientific advance in unconventional energy development. Attention has largely been focused on its economic advantages and potential negative environmental repercussions, while less consideration given to its social dimensions. The purpose of this study was to explore the social consequences of fracking for communities in the Appalachian Basin's Marcellus shale. Research questions focused on the role of stakeholders and the resource needs of localities in shaping public policy. This study was guided by the tenets of the Boomtown theory along with key issues in fracking research such as environmental impacts, water resources, public health and safety, economics, and ethical concerns. An embedded case study research design was employed, using a purposive sample of 8 economic and policy subject matter experts from the 3 most prolific drilling counties in Pennsylvania. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews and were analyzed using open and axial coding with cross-case comparison. Results suggested that positive economic social consequences of fracking involved sustainability in providing generational and employment stability. Negative consequences, such as traffic, damaged infrastructure, and housing shortages, were temporary and manageable. Logistical and demographic information were valuable resources for community leadership, and stakeholders favored autonomy in decision making. The implications for social change include informing policy makers how to prepare the local workforce to be adaptable, establish sufficient infrastructure to support change, and educate communities to leverage opportunity in advance of new industry.

The Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (Altamont) near Livermore, California is the oldest and largest wind farm in the United States. It is known as a location of high avian mortality, especially for diurnal raptors such as the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). Using the avian monitoring data collected at Altamont for over thirteen years (1998-2003, 2005- 2011), records were analyzed of 134 golden eagle deaths caused by wind turbine collisions. All wind turbines present during the same temporal range were characterized according to turbine variables, and geographic placement characteristics. Values of turbines that killed golden eagles were compared to values of turbnes that did not. It was discovered that turbines that have killed golden eagles (kill turbines) share characteristics that are significantly different from those that have not. Kill turbines are more often situated on lattice structure towers, have larger rotor blade-swept areas, placed in less dense turbine arrays, are further away from the next nearest turbine and are less often placed on top of ridgelines compared to nonkill turbines. Finally, kill turbines are more often situated at the end of a turbine row than are nonkill turbines. The differences between kill and nonkill turbine model, hill slope, tower height, generating capacity, array diversity, row count of turbines and placement in a hill saddle were found to be not significant. These findings support in part, earlier turbine studies at Altamont, but do not concur with all previous findings. The methods used in this study can be applied to any bird species at Altamont and at any wind resource area throughout the world. As the wind industry continues to grow, techniques used in studies such as this are an important tool that can be used to direct wildlife conservation policies.

The needs to the sustainable development of electricity, energy efficiency improvement, and environment pollution reduction have favored the development of distributed generation (DG). But the problems come with increasing DG penetration in distribution networks. This thesis presents the Solar Energy Grid Integration System (SEGIS) Stage III project done by Portland General Electric (PGE), Advanced Energy, Sandia National Lab on a PGE selected distribution feeder. The feeder has six monitored commercial solar PV systems connected. The total power output from the PV systems has the potential to reach 30% of the feeder load. The author analyzes the performance of the solar feeder on both generation and voltage effects. As a project report, it introduced a new islanding detection done by other team members to give an islanding solution of future high penetration distribution networks. At last, the author describes micro-grid and grid support concepts in a SEGIS concept paper with some examples.

This study explored energy-related attitudes and energy-saving behaviors that are no- or low-cost and relatively simple to perform. This study relied on two data sources: a longitudinal but cross-sectional survey of 4,102 U.S. residents (five biennial waves of this survey were conducted from 2002 to 2010) and a 2010 cross-sectional survey of 2,000 California residents. These two surveys contained data on two no- and low-cost behaviors: changing thermostat setting to save energy (no-cost behavior) and CFL installation behavior (low-cost behavior). In terms of attitudes, two attitudinal measures emerged from these data following a Cronbach's alpha and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): the pro-environmental attitude and concern for the energy use in the U.S. society. These two attitudes, along with other socio-demographic and external factors (home ownership, weather, price of energy, etc.), were examined to assess whether attitude-behavior relationships persisted over time, were more prominent across certain groups, or were constrained by income or other socio-demographic factors. Three theoretical viewpoints of how attitudes may relate to behavior guided the analysis on how attitudes and contextual factors may inter-relate either directly or through a moderator variable to affect thermostat-setting and CFL installation behavior. Results from these analyses revealed four important patterns. First, a relationship between the pro-environmental attitude and the two behaviors (thermostat-setting and CFL installation behavior) was weak but persistent across time. Second, financial factors such as income moderated the pro-environmental attitude and CFL installation relationship, indicating that the pro-environmental attitude could influence the behavior in those situations where financial resources are sufficient to comfortably allow the consumer to participate. Third, this study documented that most people reported changing thermostat settings to save energy or having one or more CFLs in their homes. This finding suggests that organizations, policy makers, or energy efficiency program administrators may want to assess whether they should pursue these two behaviors further, since they appear to be very common in the U.S. population. Last, this study showed that thermostat-setting and CFL installation behavior have multi-factorial influences; many factors in addition to attitudes were significantly associated with these behaviors, and all these factors together explained no more than 16% of behavioral variance. This suggested that if energy-saving behaviors are a function of many different variables, of which none appear to be the "silver bullet" in explaining the behaviors (as noted in this study), then policy analysis should explore a broader number of causal pathways and entertain a wider range of interventions to influence consumers to save energy.

In this modern era, energy is a key element required for sustainable development and prosperity of a society. Pakistan is an energy deficient country facing problems due to the shortage of over 4000 MW of electricity. The national energy sector is heavily dependent on imported fossil-fuel resources. The energy crisis is negatively affecting all economic and business activities, and it is widely recognized as a severe obstacle to growth and poverty reduction in the country. Establishment of wind farms can help to overcome the energy crisis. In this research, a national level wind energy roadmap is developed through scenario planning. Multiple future scenarios are developed using the fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) approach. This research has extended technology roadmapping through FCM-based scenario analysis. Building scenarios with FCM is a very new approach, and for the first time FCM-based scenarios are developed for the wind energy sector of Pakistan. Based on these multiple scenarios, a technology roadmap has been developed. This research approach is applied to the wind energy sector of Pakistan as a case study. This approach has been used to establish objectives and national targets of the roadmap. Then in a systematic way, critical roadmap barriers are identified against each scenario, and appropriate action items have been proposed to overcome barriers and promote deployment of wind energy projects in Pakistan. The objectives and targets of the roadmap have been translated into action items. The technology roadmap has four layers: strategic objectives, targets, barriers, and action items. Expert panels have been utilized to develop scenarios and technology roadmaps. Validation of this research is also carried out using experts. This new approach has helped to develop a robust roadmap and enabled anticipation of a wide range of possible future outcomes. This research fills an important gap by combining scenario planning and technology roadmapping techniques in future studies, and it has enhanced flexibility of the developed roadmap. Moreover, for the first time multiple and plausible FCM-based scenarios are developed, which combine the benefits of both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Moreover, the technology roadmap for the wind energy sector of Pakistan is developed with a comprehensive study of practical obstacles and barriers towards deployment of wind energy technology. The research findings suggest that policy, financial, economic, lack of competition with conventional power plants, and technical are the most critical barriers towards deployment of wind energy projects in the country. Appropriate action items required to overcome the roadmap barriers against each scenario are also proposed in the developed roadmap. The experts also assigned responsibilities for the key roadmap action items to the major stakeholders.