Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone / This case study examines housing on the Hopi reservation, both traditional and contemporary and aims to create a future type of housing that will contribute to addressing the critical housing needs and alternative solutions addressing substandard housing on and for the Hopi people. Westernization has created a plague of substandard housing on the reservation that ignores pre-existing vernacular architecture and thus, the environment and the culture of the Hopi people. Rather, Westernization has created a move toward inexpensive, and quick but highly inefficient types of housing. The housing situation on Hopi presents a critical need for solution, an alternative to the substandard housing by creating a housing design that is sustainable, affordable and energy efficient. This solution can be found by (re)linking to cultural patterns of sustainability, essentially the history of a cultural people which includes traditional housing methods and materials. Traditional Hopi housing was studied and a list of common strategies was compiled from traditional houses on the reservation into a Basecase. Modern strategies were applied to the Basecase to create a Newcase. The percent savings in annual energy use and annual operation costs were compared between the two cases, however, it is important to note that the results were skewed due to a variety of factors that are discussed as limitations in the study. Nevertheless, the study offered an alternative housing solution, one that demonstrated significant savings in annual energy use and operation costs.

This thesis explored the opportunities to reduce energy demand and renewable energy feasibility at an off-grid science “community” called the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in Ontario. Being off-grid, ELA is completely dependent on diesel and propane fuel supply for all its electrical and heating needs, which makes ELA vulnerable to fluctuating fuel prices. As a result ELA emits a large amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) for its size. Energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies can reduce energy consumption and consequently energy cost, as well as GHG. Energy efficiency was very important to ELA due to the elevated fuel costs at this remote location. Minor upgrades to lighting, equipment and building envelope were able to reduce energy costs and reduce load. Efficient energy saving measures were recommended that save on operating and maintenance costs, namely, changing to LED lights, replacing old equipment like refrigerators and downsizing of ice makers. This resulted in a 4.8% load reduction and subsequently reduced the initial capital cost for biomass by $27,000, by $49,500 for wind power and by $136,500 for solar power. Many alternative energies show promise as potential energy sources to reduce the diesel and propane consumption at ELA including wind energy, solar heating and bio-mass. A biomass based CHP system using the existing diesel generators as back-up has the shortest pay back period of the technologies modeled. The biomass based CHP system has a pay back period of 4.1 years at $0.80 per liter of diesel, as diesel price approaches $ 2.00 per liter the pay back period reduces to 0.9 years, 50% the generation cost compared to present generation costs. Biomass has been successfully tried and tested in many off-grid communities particularly in a small-scale off-grid setting in North America and internationally. Also, the site specific solar and wind data show that ELA has potential to harvest renewable resources and produce heat and power at competitive rates compared to diesel and propane.

This thesis explored the opportunities to reduce energy demand and renewable energy feasibility at an off-grid science “community” called the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in Ontario. Being off-grid, ELA is completely dependent on diesel and propane fuel supply for all its electrical and heating needs, which makes ELA vulnerable to fluctuating fuel prices. As a result ELA emits a large amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) for its size. Energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies can reduce energy consumption and consequently energy cost, as well as GHG. Energy efficiency was very important to ELA due to the elevated fuel costs at this remote location. Minor upgrades to lighting, equipment and building envelope were able to reduce energy costs and reduce load. Efficient energy saving measures were recommended that save on operating and maintenance costs, namely, changing to LED lights, replacing old equipment like refrigerators and downsizing of ice makers. This resulted in a 4.8% load reduction and subsequently reduced the initial capital cost for biomass by $27,000, by $49,500 for wind power and by $136,500 for solar power. Many alternative energies show promise as potential energy sources to reduce the diesel and propane consumption at ELA including wind energy, solar heating and bio-mass. A biomass based CHP system using the existing diesel generators as back-up has the shortest pay back period of the technologies modeled. The biomass based CHP system has a pay back period of 4.1 years at $0.80 per liter of diesel, as diesel price approaches $ 2.00 per liter the pay back period reduces to 0.9 years, 50% the generation cost compared to present generation costs. Biomass has been successfully tried and tested in many off-grid communities particularly in a small-scale off-grid setting in North America and internationally. Also, the site specific solar and wind data show that ELA has potential to harvest renewable resources and produce heat and power at competitive rates compared to diesel and propane.

Electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (ECO2RR) powered by renewable electricity possesses the potential to store intermittent energy in chemical bonds while producing sustainable chemicals and fuels. Unfortunately, it is hard to achieve low overpotential, high selectivity, and activity simultaneously of ECO2RR. Developing efficient electrocatalysts is the most promising strategy to enhance electrocatalytic activity in CO2 reduction. Herein, we designed novel Bi-Cu2S heterostructures by a one-pot wet-chemistry method. The epitaxial growth of Cu2S on Bi results in abundant interfacial sites and these heterostructured nanocrystals demonstrated high electrocatalytic performance of ECO2RR with high current density, largely reduced overpotential, near-unity FE for formate production (Chapter 2). Meanwhile, we see a lot of opportunities for catalysis in a confined space due to their tunable microenvironment and active sites on the surface, leading to a broad spectrum of electrochemical conversion schemes. Herein, we reveal fundamental concepts of confined catalysis by summarizing recent experimental investigations. We mainly focus on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) encapsulated metal-based materials and summarize their applications in emerging electrochemical reactions, including ECO2RR and more (Chapter 3). Although we were able to obtain high activity and selectivity toward C1 products, it is more attractive to go beyond C1 chemicals to produce C2 products due to their high industrial value. Herein, we designed Ag-modified Cu alloy catalysts that can create a CO-rich local environment for enhancing C-C coupling on Cu for C2 formation. Moreover, Ag corporate in Cu can chemically improve the structural stability of Cu lattice. (Chapter 4) Nevertheless, advanced electrocatalytic platforms cannot be developed without a fundamental understanding of binding configurations of the surface-adsorbed intermediates and adsorbate-adsorbate interaction on the local environment in electrochemical CO2 reduction. In this case, we make discussions of recent developments of machine learning based models of adsorbate-adsorbate interactions, including the oversimplified linear analytic relationships, the cluster expansion models parameterized by machine learning algorithms, and the highly nonlinear deep learning models. We also discuss the challenges of the field, particularly overcoming the limitations of pure data driven models with the integration of computational theory and machine learning of lateral interactions for catalyst materials design. (Chapter 5). / Doctor of Philosophy / Excessive CO2 emissions into the atmosphere have had severe environmental impacts and pose an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human activity. Fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas, have continued to play a dominant role in the global energy system. However, fossil fuels produce substantial greenhouse gases, which are the main contributor to global warming. This year, the global average CO2 level is increasing to 413.6 parts per million, higher than at any point in the past hundred years. To address this global warming issue, we see lots of opportunities to use alternative energy sources to convert atmospheric CO2 into value-added products through the electrochemical reduction of CO2. Nevertheless, advanced electrocatalytic platforms cannot be developed without efficient electrocatalysts in the reaction system. Therefore, we have been working on the design of catalysts with various features that improve the electrochemical reduction of CO2. The interface plays an important role as the reactions are happening at the active sites which mostly locate at the interface of electrocatalysts. We designed a novel Bi-Cu2S hetero-structured catalyst, which has abundant interfacial sites between Bi and Cu2S, demonstrating the improved catalytic performance of ECO2RR toward formate production (Chapter 2). Catalysis in a confined space offers another opportunity for tuning the catalytic performance, where carbon nanotubes (CNTs) encapsulated metal-based materials have been shown to increase the reactivity of electrochemical reactions, including ECO2RR and more (Chapter 3). Interfaces in alloys provide multifunctional environments which have been shown to have reactivity toward complicated reactions. To produce more value-added C2 chemicals, Ag-modified Cu alloy catalysts are developed, which can create a CO-rich local environment for enhancing C-C coupling on Cu to enhance C2 formation (Chapter 4). To develop advanced electrocatalytic platforms for CO2 electroreduction, it is essential to have a fundamental understanding of the binding configurations of surface-adsorbed intermediates and the adsorbate-adsorbate interaction within the local environment. In this regard, we discussed recent developments in machine learning-based models of adsorbate-adsorbate interactions for multiple electrochemical reactions (Chapter 5).

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.

Human activities pressure the socio-ecological system that maintains our quality of life by causing global repercussions such as climate change. The energy system, a major contributor to climate change due to its reliance on fossil fuels makes the transition to sustainable energy an imperative. The purpose of this thesis is to identify focus areas that support businesses in changing their energy habits. This leads to the research question: How can local businesses on small islands become drivers in the transition towards sustainable energy? The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) enabled us to employ a systems perspective, place sustainable energy into a comprehensive and scientific definition of sustainability, and align our findings’ relevance to a strategic approach. The Motivation-capability-implementation- results (MCIR) framework was a suitable tool for our needs. For data collection purposes, literature analysis and a case study on the French island Île d’Oléron were conducted. The main findings of the thesis are that in order for businesses to become drivers in the transition to sustainability energy, Awareness, Consistent and Proactive Political System, Engaged Community, Supporting Infrastructure, Financial Capability and Agile Approach need to be addressed. The six focus areas cover the many barriers and enablers for achieving sustainable energy.

Global sustainable energy and environmental policies have increased the need to understand how new energy innovations diffuse into the market. The transport sector is currently a major source of unsustainable energy use contributing ~20-25% global CO2 emissions. Although the potential benefits of alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) technologies to reduce CO2 emissions and fossil fuel dependency have been demonstrated, many uncertainties exist in their market diffusion. It is also not well understood how policy can influence rapid diffusion of AFVs. To transition to a more sustainable energy-transport system, we need to understand the market conditions and factors necessary for triggering widespread adoption of new energy innovations such as AFVs. Modelling the diffusion of innovations is one way to explain why some ideas and technologies spread through society successfully, while others do not. These diffusion processes are characterized by non-linear interactions between heterogeneous agents in complex networked systems. Diffusion theory has typically been applied to consumer durable goods but has found less application to new energy and environmental innovations. There is much scope for advanced diffusion methods to inform energy policy. This depends upon understanding how consumer behaviour and technologies interact and can influence each other over time. There is also need to understand the underlying mechanisms that influence adoption behaviour among heterogeneous agents. This thesis tackles the above issues using a combination of empirical data analysis, scenarios, and simulation modelling as follows: 1) We first develop the empirical basis for assessing innovation diffusion from a technology-behavioural perspective, where we explicitly account for interactions between consumer preferences and technological performance across different spatial and temporal scales; 2) Scenarios are then used to disaggregate consumer markets and analyze the technological and behavioural factors that might trigger large-scale adoption of AFVs; 3) We then case-analyze the UK transport sector and develop a model of the dynamics between how vehicle technologies and consumer preferences can change and influence the diffusion process; 4) Finally, we develop exploratory simulations to assess how social network effects can influence individual adoption behaviour; 5) We close with policy implications of our findings, contributions and limitations of the thesis, and possible avenues for taking the research forward.

Natural gas combined cycles with oxy-fuel combustion is expected tobe an important component of the future carbon constrained energyscenario. An oxy-combustion power cycle enables the fuel to burn in anitrogen free environment and thereby helps separate the CO2 streamfor storage. Depending on the oxygen source and purity, the CO2stream may need further purification via a purification unit (CPU)before compressing it to a high pressure for storage. The major energy penalty in this type of power cycle is the production of oxygenand the downstream purification to remove volatiles. It is this energypenalty which results in the cost of avoiding the CO2 emissions to theatmosphere.Cryogenic Air Separation Units (ASU) for oxygen production con-tribute to approximately 20% of the total energy penalty of such powerplants. Oxygen Transport Membranes (OTM) for oxygen production offers a potential solution to reduce the energy penalty of oxy-combustion natural gas cycles. The energy penalties associated withOTMs are that membranes operate at high temperatures and requirea sweep gas to establish an oxygen partial pressure difference betweenthe feed and permeate streams. Further, while the Cryogenic ASUhas minimum integration with the power process, oxy-combustion cycles with OTMs are tightly integrated with the power plant. Thusthe contributions to efficiency penalty in an OTM-based cycles aredistributed and not easily identified.The objective of the thesis is to answer the question: "Where doesthe plant efficiency loss originate in oxy-combustion CO2 capture process using Oxygen Transport Membrane as compared to one withcryogenic ASU?" The contribution of the work will be to highlight thelosses at the sub-process and at the equipment level.This work studies three different cases of oxy-combustion naturalgas combined cycles (NGCC) with CO2 capture. The baseline scenario, modified/improved scenario and the advanced scenario. Thebaseline scenario is a simple oxy-combustion NGCC power plant withASU as the oxygen source. Various losses associated with this systemare studied in detail. The modified/improved scenario involves analysis of possible modifications to the baseline case and applying theresults in-order to improve the baseline case. The modified scenario isexpected to have a better overall plant performance. The advancedscenario involves usage of OTM for oxygen production.The power plants are simulated in Aspen HYSYS and plant massand heat balances are calculated. Using the stream enthalpy, entropyand composition, we can calculate the stream exergy values. Controlvolumes help us analyze the component and sub-system exergy lossesand arrive at the overall power plant exergetic efficiency. The base-line power plant scheme is found to have an exergetic efficiency of 47percentage points with a thermal efficiency of 49.6 percentage, withcapture.The modified power plant scheme is obtained by increasing the gasturbine pressure ratio and this has a significant impact on the over-all system design and hence the performance. The modified systemhas exergetic and thermal efficiency of 49 and 51 percentage pointsrespectively. The advanced power plant with OTM, also called as theAdvanced Zero Emissions Powerplant (AZEP) has an exergetic efficiency of 51 and a thermal efficiency of 53.4 percentage. In all the cases, the combustor where most of the fuel is burnt is responsible formajority of the exergy destruction.There is potential for improving the ASU and thereby achieving alesser specific oxygen production power and also due to system integration and other improvements, the overall oxy-combustion NGCCpower plant is expected to play an important role in 5 - 10 years. Alsoas the working fluid is different from that of a normal air based powerplant, significant work needs to be done in the gas turbine and compressor part. Also detailed cost estimations, reliability and flexibilitystudies, operability and safety related studies need to be carried outin-order to boost the confidence in oxy-fuel NGCC power plants andtake it to the next phase.

Biofuels are a promising solution to society's quest for sustainable energy. In the transportation sector, biodiesel is the leading alternative diesel fuel currently in use today. However, the current global and domestic production of biodiesel is far below the petro-diesel consumption and demand. To increase the availability of biodiesel in the market, new methods of biodiesel production must be developed to take advantage of the plentiful low quality waste derived feed stocks that currently present problems to biodiesel production using conventional methods. This research presents one new approach based upon using heterogeneous highly cross linked mixed bed solid phase catalysts to facilitate the production of biodiesel from feed stocks with high concentrations of free fatty acids (FFA). The performance of the heterogeneous mixed bed catalysts method developed in this research was evaluated and optimized for catalyst concentration and reaction duration while the mixing rate, reaction temperature, initial FFA composition of the feed stock and the alcohol-to-oil molar ratio were kept constant. The presented method reduces the FFA content of the starting feed stock while limiting the release of water into the reaction. Through experimentation, it was found that FFA removal with the mixed bed resin is due to ion exchange with the quaternary ammonium functional group and not catalysis to form esters. A model describing the heterogeneous processing method is presented. The outcome of this research is the development of a new processing method that can be used to create biodiesel from poor quality raw feed stock materials.

The automotive industry is conservative and doesn’t take enough responsibility in emerging markets. Thus, countries such asChina and India have experienced huge problems with pollution as they have increased their living standards and enteredthe western consumption society. In these booming economies there are still people who live their lives according to oldcustoms, in small sustainable societies. It is also they who suffer most from the ongoing urbanization. Hence the automotiveindustry should rather adapt to their cultures than let these people adjust to the consumption society.Now, imagine a third industrial revolution where sustainable energy and manufacturing set the standards for production.Africa is then in the forefront when it comes to alternative and sustainable solutions. Maasaica is a concept from BMW whichis locally built in Serengeti using 3D printing technology, degradable materials and traditional handcraft.