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published_or_final_version / China Development Studies / Master / Master of Arts in China Development Studies

Companies, governments and NGOs are involved in designing and planning the future energy landscape of countries. Engineers and scientists contribute highly to this planning through bringing innovative, efficient and reliable technical solutions. Their know-how is used during the project development, the EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) phase as well as during the Operation and Maintenance stage. However, a successful energy plan depends on many other parameters such as the legal side, the political background of the country, the financing methods, the funding, the environmental aspects and the social acceptance. This Master Thesis Project focuses on the financing side of energy projects, which is a key point to properly manage competitive and viable projects. The strong link between the financing and the political background will be shortly commented throughout the report. In the first part of the report, the focus is put on the Project Finance. All along the report, the theoretical concepts will be illustrated with examples taken from the EDF EN projects, mainly in the Middle East and North African area. The second part deals with the risks associated to power projects. Commercial and political risks are listed and the main mitigation tools are explained. The third part of the report is dedicated to basic business models for energy projects. A simplified economical and financial model is described in detail and run for a wind farm project in a Moroccan-like environment. A sensitivity analysis (fourth part) concludes the report through analyzing: - the impact of technological choices on the internal return on investment will be studied - the impact of the financial parameters on the project structure.

Thesis (Master Diploma (Electrical Engineering))--Cape Technikon, Cape Town,1996 / In order to design a coolerbox, utilising Thermo-electric technology as a heat pump, it was necessary to determine if this type of technology would be suitable for a coolerbox heat pump application. A detailed TEC (Thermo Electric Cooler) sizing estimation was done, using formulas supplied by the manufacturer, and using thermo-electric themy formulas to calculate the absolute theoretical performance parameters for a suitable TEe The correct heat pumping capability is important since.it is possible to obtain TEes with different input currents, voltages and heat pumping capabilities. Using the TEC as a heat pump, it was decided to use water cooling due to the extremely high cost of a suitable air cooled heatsink. It should be noted that to cool the hot side of theTEe a vel}' efficient heat exchanger should be used. A simulator was constructed to simulate, under variable operating temperatures and input powers, the cooling capacity of the TEC heat exchanger. The cooling characteristics were then used to determine if the theol}' and manufacturers claims correspond with the cooling characteristics of the coolerbox. It might be possible that the performance of the TEC would be drastically influenced, since installation con~itions may not be ideal when installed; and, that the manufacturers performance claims are done when the TEC is operated under ideal conditions. This would ensure optimum results because, should an under sized TEC be used, the result would be poor cooling characteristics; or, if the TEC is over sized, the coolerbox would consume too much power, resulting in an inefficient system.

D. Tech. Business Administration / The study attempts to identify and quantify socio-economic factors that are influence the production and distribution of biofuels products in Zimbabwe. It also seeks to provide an empirical analysis of the importance of stakeholders in Biofuel production and distribution and how their perceptions and influences tend to affect production and distribution.

Orientador: Osmar de Carvalho Bueno / Banca: Elias José Simon / Banca: Osmar Delmanto Junior / Banca: Gerson Henrique da Silva / Banca: Alessandro Antonangelo / Resumo: O objetivo do presente trabalho foi analisar os índices de eficiência energética e econômica das explorações agropecuárias familiares cuja principal atividade é a produção de leite, na região de Botucatu-SP, especificamente no município de Pardinho-SP. Para melhor definição dos produtores familiares estudados foram utilizados os critérios do sistema oficial de crédito rural FEAP (Fundo de Expansão do Agronegócio Paulista). Por intermédio de dados primários, obtidos por relatos orais, foram reconstituídos os itinerários técnicos do agroecossistema de criação, detalhando as operações utilizadas. A partir de então, foram descritas as características de produção do sistema, possibilitando detalhar as máquinas, implementos, equipamentos, insumos e mão-de-obra utilizados. Assim, determinou-se as diversas exigências físicas e respectivos coeficientes técnicos. Estes, por sua vez, e acompanhando a literatura, foram transformados em unidades energéticas e econômicas que permitiram a determinação das relações estabelecidas entre "outputs" e "inputs" energéticos/econômicos presentes no agroecossistema pesquisado. Os resultados foram apresentados conforme o Sistema Internacional, ou seja, em unidades energéticas por unidades de área Megajoules por hectare (MJ . ha-1) e em unidades monetárias (R$ . ha-1). Como a hipótese que orienta este estudo é de que a relação energética pode ser coincidente com as relações econômicas buscou-se estudar os fluxos energéticos e econômicos apresentando-se por meio da estrutura de dispêndios, por tipo, fonte e forma de energia bruta, tanto do ponto de vista econômico quanto energético. Foram encontrados quatro produtores com diferentes itinerários técnicos, representando-se assim os dados separadamente, para melhor compreensão. O produtor um e dois... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract : The purpose of this study was to analyze the levels of efficiency energetics and economic operation of agricultural households whose main activity is the production of milk in the region of Botucatu, specifically the city of Pardinho-SP. For better definition of the family farmers studied were used criteria of the official system of rural credit FEAP (Fund Expansion of Agribusiness Paulista). Through primary data obtained through oral accounts were traced the routes technical to agroecosystem of creation, detailing the operations employed. Since then, were described the characteristics of the production system, detailing the machinery, implements, equipment, materials and manual labor used. Thus, determined the various physical requirements and their technical coefficients. these, in turn, and accompanying literature, were transformed into units energetic and economic that allowed to determine the relationship between outputs and inputs energetic/economic in the agroecosystem studied. The results were presented as the International System, ie, in units energy per unit area MegaJoules per hectare (MJ . ha-1) and currency units (R$ . ha-1). Since the hypothesis that guides this study is that the energy relationship may be coincidental with the economic relations aimed to study the energy and economic flows is presented through the structure of expenditures, by type, source and form, and gross energy, both economically and energy. We found four producers with different technical routes, thus representing the data separately for better understanding. The producer who obtained are higher rate... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

Using crops for fuel generates concerns over competition with food uses. As Rajagopal et al (2009) asserts, “In 2008 the world entered a food crisis amid record-high commodity and energy prices that induced hunger and political unrest in developing countries, by export restrictions in top grain-producing countries”. This took place at the same time when biofuel production, reached its pinnacle in developed countries. This paper examines the effect that biofuel prices and or production has had on food prices in Brazil and U.S. by employing the panel cointegration and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) method of analysis. In regressing food prices as a function of demand and supply factors, such as oil prices, biofuel prices, interest rates and biofuel production, the study found that the increase in biofuels production over the past eighteen years has had a significant impact on food prices. Over the period January 1995- December 2013, the study estimates that a one hundred percent increase in biofuels production across time and between countries results in the increase of food prices by 21,9%. The study therefore rejects the null hypothesis that states, biofuel production does not have a statistically significant negative impact on food prices in U.S. and Brazil. , and accepts the alternative that biofuel production does have a statistically significant negative impact on food prices in U.S. and Brazil. Other predictors of food prices that the study revealed as significant were oil and interest rates. Policy recommendations for other countries like South Africa are therefore, made based on the results obtained.

In recent years, proponents of 'green and clean fuel' have argued that the costs of overreliance on fossil fuels could be reduced through transition to biofuels such as bio-ethanol. Global biofuel discourses suggest that any transition to biofuel invariably results in significant benefits, including energy independence, job creation, development of agro-industrial centres at local level and high revenue generations for the state with minimum negative impacts on the environment. With many risks and costs associated with traditional 'dirty' fuels, it is likely that many countries, particularly African countries, will move towards the 'green and clean fuel' alternative. However, until recently research has arguably paid limited attention to the local livelihood impacts related to land acquisition for biofuel development or the policy frameworks required to maximise biofuel benefits. With regards to biofuel benefits, some recent studies suggest that the much bandied potential for greater tax revenue, lowered fuel costs and wealth distribution from biofuel production have all been perverted with relatively little payoff in wage labour opportunities in return (e.g. Richardson, 2010; Wilkinson and Herrera, 2010). Based on work done in Chisumbanje communal lands of Zimbabwe (Thondhlana, 2015), this policy brief highlights the local livelihood impacts of biofuel development and discusses policy implications of the findings. By highlighting the justifications of biofuel development at any cost by the state, the study sheds some light on the conflicts between state interests and local livelihood needs.

How has the Indian state changed with economic liberalization? While many scholars have explored the altered party politics and class basis of the liberalization-era state, few have studied its transforming internal organizational forms and functioning. This thesis aims to provide an empirically grounded answer to this question. To do this it uses the lens of electricity: the sector lies at the heart of contemporary capital accumulation, state power, and distributive politics, and has witnessed almost a quarter-century of institutional reforms since 1991. In the sector, new or reworked organizational forms—such as imported regulatory agencies, corporatized state-owned enterprises, and public-private partnerships—have been grafted onto the older statist system in a process of institutional layering. Favouring state-business collaboration and prioritizing rapid economic growth, this mode of state operation is distinct both from a liberal, market-oriented state and from India’s older state-led mode. It combines state intervention and selective adoption of parts of the Washington Consensus template to produce a reinvented mode of power governance that I term state capitalism 2.0. India’s new state-market hybrid is not a functional alternative to the older models, however. The layered process through which it has emerged means that it is distinctively dysfunctional. Organizations have emerged in an ad hoc fashion, each shaped and reshaped by multiple collective interests, while existing organizations are rarely destroyed. The resulting layered amalgam institutionalizes contradictory state strategies, co-optation by competing interest groups, and a dualistic system of services and subsidies. Consequently the sector’s performance remains poor. As a result, developments in the Indian power sector suggest that the state's 'pro-business' transition has been painful and incomplete. At least in this sector, the Indian state remains simultaneously more indispensable, more ambivalently pro-business, and more chaotic than much theory might suggest.

A study conducted by the World Health Organization and United Nations Children's Fund, concluded that approximately 768 million people worldwide are not receiving sanitary drinking water suitable for consumption. While there are many water treatment methods, lime softening proves to be one of the more effective approaches as it removes a wide variety of harmful compounds including arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium under the correct conditions. The greatest issues with lime softening on a smaller scale include the complexity of the chemistry and need for monitoring. By designing the system for groundwater sources and with a smaller capacity, this thesis hoped to reduce the level of monitoring, chemical expertise, and cost needed for operation. While promising results occurred in the removal of arsenic and total hardness, this project was unable to obtain consistent results and final water samples with pH values between the recommended standard of 6.5 to 8. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection