Narrow Results

This chapter carries out an investigation on the consumption of energy and emission of CO₂ in 16 Students’ halls of residence (hostels) in Lagos, Nigeria, to gain an understanding on the status, impacts and performance of energy use in public student residences. The use of energy in Nigeria was highlighted and the continuously evolving built environment was shown to have an impact on the electricity infrastructure of the nation. Residential buildings were shown to significantly impact energy supply around the world. Methods of benchmarking were applied for the identification of variables capable of impacting on the consumption of energy in the buildings, these methods also identified the variables that significantly correlated with the energy consumption. The energy usage intensity (EUI) was characterized and with EUI acting as an indicator for building energy performance (BEP), the derived annual benchmark range of EUI was derived and given as 93.61–147.1kWh/m². The CO₂ emission levels were calculated using an emission factor and correlation analysis was carried out to show that floor area, number of occupants and number of rooms all had significant correlation with the CO₂ emissions.

Senegal is located in West Africa with a population close to 16 million inhabitants unequally distributed on a land of 196,722 km² area. In the 2000s, a national energy information system (known as SIE-Sénégal) aiming at monitoring and forecasting the energy demand and the efficient planning of the energy infrastructure was put in place in the Ministry of Oil and Energies. A lot of data were recorded of which some are analyzed and presented here for a better understanding of the energy system of Senegal. In the period 2000–2013, the energy demand has been increasing reaching 3.72 Mtoe in 2013. The demand is covered by imported fossil fuels and traditional biomass. The energy consumption has been increasing in the same period from 1.69 Mtoe in 2000 up to 2.56 Mtoe in 2013. The energy pattern shows a lion’s share for the residential sector followed by the transport and industrial sectors. In the residential sector, firewood is the main fuel, and electricity is deemed marginal. The transport sector is dominated by the road subsector where diesel oil represents 81% of the energy use. In the industrial sector, more than 80% of energy used is from fossil origin and the share of coal is becoming significant.

Sustainable development goals (SDGs) acknowledge the interlinkages between human well-being, economic prosperity, and a healthy environment, and hence, are associated with a wide range of topical issues that include the securities of water, energy, and food (WEF) resources, poverty eradication, economic development, climate change, health, among others. As SDGs are assessed through targets to be achieved by 2030 and monitored through measurable indicators, nexus planning was applied as a transformative approach to monitor and assess progress toward SDG in 2015 and 2018 using South Africa. WEF nexus-related SDGs that were evaluated include Goals 2 (zero hunger), 6 (clean water and sanitation), and 7 (affordable and clean energy). The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to integrate indicators for each of the reference years. Resource management and implementation of WEF-related SDGs improved by 31% (from 0.155 to 0.203) between 2015 and 2018 in South Africa but remained marginally sustainable. The assessment provided an evidence-based support framework for improved and effective management strategies to meet set SDG targets. The connections between the WEF nexus and SDGs strengthen cross-sectoral collaboration among stakeholders, unpack measures for cooperative governance and management, and supporting outcomes that arise from different cross-sectoral interventions. As food production, water provision, and energy accessibility are the major socio-economic and environmental issues currently attracting global attention, the method enhances climate change adaptation.

Arguably, to nourish or take care of the needs of all of humankind — sustainable and affordable access to clean water, safe sanitation, and clean air, together with a sufficiency of energy, food, and shelter — should be universally available. Yet, many humans do not enjoy such access or availability, even though it has been 70 years since the 1948 United Nations (UN) declaration on human rights proclaimed “that all human beings are equal, and have inherent rights.” However, only food and shelter were explicitly mentioned in the initial declaration. Others were recently added to the UN list, but not air and energy. Nevertheless, basic human needs do not have to be declared as a human right before national actions are taken. Today’s key driver is the UN 2030 Agenda, a plan to eradicate all global poverty and set the world onto a “sustainable and resilient path,” through the achievement of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopted by all UN members, the 2030 Agenda in essence, is a 21^st century version of the 1948 proclamation. The SDGs explicitly detail, or implicitly in the case of clean air, all the necessary needs for the nourishing of tomorrow. To achieve the plan will likely require, at least, changes in national cultural values, eliminating inequalities and disparities, developing more appropriate governance strategies, and meaningful technical innovation. In this chapter, these requirements are discussed against a backdrop of presently known deficiencies in global nourishment needs.

Supercapacitors and fuel cells are essential energy devices for the implementation of a real renewable energy economy. The development of highly efficient and low-cost electrode materials is one of the major challenges to improve these devices. Biomass-derived carbon materials are postulated as a very interesting alternative, as they can be obtained from inexpensive precursors and abundant resources obtained directly from nature. However, they commonly exhibit an underdeveloped porous structure and a lack of controlled surface functionalities that limit their real application. Therefore, it is essential to apply different approaches to modify and design their properties to fit the requirements of energy storage and conversion devices. This chapter attempts to provide a broad overview of the most promising strategies that can be followed to design biomass-derived carbon materials with highly efficient performance in energy applications, such as supercapacitors and fuel cells.