Future Cities and Environment

This paper endeavours to understand the climate change phenomenon and identify measures taken to contain it. It discusses global warming causes and consequences and assesses effectiveness of the United Nations (UN) polices following failure of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In pursuing this course of action, this paper utilizes data collected from East Africa region. Key issues discussed in the paper include findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the role of urbanization in global warming as cities emit most of greenhouse gases. Special reference is made to developing cities which are growing extremely fast and will consume more energy in future. They are becoming economic engines and adopting industrialization as an economic model while developed cities are experiencing de-industrialization. Developing cities have neither the ability to adopt green technology nor the capacity to establish large capacity public transport systems to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It is evident that UN efforts to combat climate change are not effective because past experience shows that CO2 generation cuts weren’t near enough. The recent Paris Agreement may restore a faith in UN process if implemented but doesn’t reduce temperatures as needed unless all drivers of climate variability are considered, particularly the abortive role of developing cities. The UN Programme appears to be focusing on attaining urban resilience rather than targeting grassroots causes. Urbane-bias global policies drive the rural population to leave their land and flood cities while over-usage of natural resources by the rich is left unchecked. A new UN strategy making the countryside a more appealing place to live in and work whilst normalising urban growth is needed as well as mobilizing local leaders who enjoy more autonomy to enact regulations. It should also alleviate poverty, deter excessive practices and put science and technology under community control.

The excellent thermal insulation performance of vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) make them widely applied in energy conservation fields, especially in buildings engineering. This research work proposes a simple, yet extremely effective, alternative model for prediction of the effective thermal conductivity (ETC.) of VIPs. The ETC. of VIPs is function of the thermal conductivity of the core materials, the equivalent thermal conductivity of the rarefied gas embraced in the core and the equivalent thermal conductivity of radiation in the early studies. The micro structure of the porous core materials and vacuum degree are taken into consideration and the prediction numerical model for the ECT of VIPs is developed. The relationship of the vacuum degree versus the ETC. is theoretical analyzed. Three types VIPs are made from the polyurethane foam materials, superfine fibrous materials and nano-granular silica materials as the core materials. For each type, the vacuum degree and the thermal conductivity are collected, including the comparison between the testing results and the prediction model. The agreement between the model and the experimental results is fairly well when the air pressure is very low. The vacuum maintaining and service life of the VIPs are also discussed. The research work is meaningful for the enhancement of stability and the development of vacuum insulation panels.

Treated sullage water could be the answer to urban water scarcity. In this study, urban sullage water was subjected to various tests to determine a number of physiochemical parameters, heavy metal content and coliform count. Obtained results were compared with the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) water samples. The sullage water was then treated using a proposed filtration system with indigenous gravel-coal-sand filter. The pH, chlorine (Cl−) and phosphate (PO4 3−) of the sullage water, DWASA water and treated sullage water were found to be within the allowed limit set by Bangladesh Drinking Water Quality Standard. The nitrate (NO3 1−), BOD, DO, coliform and phosphate (PO4 3−) of the sullage water exceeded both the Bangladesh and WHO standard. The amount of toxic heavy metals, lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury and arsenic, were determined to be below the standards. The results indicated that sullage water is not safe and the treated one is safe from toxic heavy metals for household use. The significant portion of treated water can be reutilized which is equivalent of 29 % savings from the annual DWASA water bill. The quality of the treated sullage water revealed that it can be reused for cleaning, washing, bathing in household activities along with other agricultural and industrial purposes.

Urban growth management has become a common term to circumscribe strategies and tools to regulate urban land use in metropolitan areas. It is particularly used to counteract negative impacts of urban sprawl but also to frame future urban development. We discuss recent challenges of urban growth in 6 European and 2 US American city-regions. The paper compares the urban development focusing on a quantification of drivers and effects of urban growth and a qualitative analysis of the applied urban growth management tools. We build our analysis on findings from the EU-FP6 project PLUREL. The cities have different success in dealing with urban growth pressure - some can accommodate most growth in existing urban areas and densify, others expand or sprawl. Urban growth management is no guarantee to contain urban growth, but the case studies offer some innovative ways how to deal with particular challenges.

Năng lượng là yếu tố không thể thiếu cho mọi hoạt động của con người. Giao thông, sản xuất công nghiệp, thương mại, truyền thông, v.v. phụ thuộc vào khả năng cung cấp năng lượng. Truyền thống, người tiêu dùng đáp ứng nhu cầu năng lượng của họ bằng cách mua điện và nhiên liệu từ các công ty phân phối. Đối với việc sản xuất năng lượng điện mà người tiêu dùng tiêu thụ, một phần lớn được sản xuất tại các nhà máy nhiệt điện truyền thống. Tại các nhà máy điện hiện đại, tổng thiệt hại trong năng lượng có thể lên tới 52,5% mà không có bất kỳ hình thức hồi phục nào. Năng lượng nhiệt được thu được từ nhiên liệu mà người tiêu dùng đã mua trong các hệ thống đốt với hiệu suất trung bình tối đa, tốt nhất, khoảng 90% (10% bị mất). Đối mặt với vấn đề này, yêu cầu nâng cao hiệu suất của quá trình sản xuất điện và tạo ra nhiệt để giảm chi phí tài chính và môi trường đặt ra. Do đó, như một sự thay thế cho các nhà máy điện truyền thống lớn, việc sản xuất điện phân tán xuất hiện, đặc biệt là đồng phát điện (cogeneration), nhằm khai thác các hạn chế vốn có của việc chuyển đổi nhiệt thành công việc. CHP (Nhiệt điện kết hợp) là một quy trình kết hợp sản xuất và khai thác năng lượng nhiệt và điện, trong một hệ thống tích hợp, từ cùng một nguồn sơ cấp. Mặc dù không phải là công nghệ mới nhưng các ứng dụng của nó chủ yếu được sử dụng trong ngành công nghiệp. Các hệ thống như vậy cũng góp phần giảm lượng phát thải CO2 ra môi trường. Mục tiêu của nghiên cứu này là phân tích tiềm năng kỹ thuật và kinh tế của một tình huống thực tế tại một khách sạn nhỏ nằm ở thành phố Portugal. Thay vì chỉ sử dụng CHP, nhiệt sinh ra cũng được sử dụng cho quá trình làm mát - CHCP (Nhiệt, làm lạnh và điện kết hợp). Để làm điều đó, ngoài phân tích năng lượng được thực hiện, còn thực hiện một phân tích kinh tế chi tiết nhằm đánh giá tính khả thi và rủi ro liên quan đến các tham số chính cần xem xét, cụ thể là NPV (Giá trị hiện tại ròng), IRR (Tỷ suất hoàn vốn nội bộ), Thời gian hoàn vốn và PES (Tiết kiệm năng lượng sơ cấp) cũng như lượng phát thải bị trì hoãn (AE) của CO2. Các kết luận chính thu được là CHCP góp phần vào PES là 57 tep/năm, AE là 68 teq CO2/năm. Thời gian hoàn vốn là 3,6 năm.

As one of the most energy-, emission- and pollution-intensive industries, iron and steel production is responsible for significant emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollutants. Although many energy-efficiency measures have been proposed by the Chinese government to mitigate GHG emissions and to improve air quality, lacking full understanding of the costs and benefits has created barriers against implementing these measures widely. This paper sets out to advance the understanding by addressing the knowledge gap in costs, benefits, and cost-effectiveness of energy-efficiency measures in iron and steel production. Specifically, we build a new evaluation framework to quantify energy benefits and environmental benefits (i.e., CO2 emission reduction, air-pollutants emission reduction and water savings) associated with 36 energy-efficiency measures. Results show that inclusion of benefits from CO2 and air-pollutants emission reduction affects the cost-effectiveness of energy-efficiency measures significantly, while impacts from water-savings benefits are moderate but notable when compared to the effects by considering energy benefits alone. The new information resulted from this study should be used to augment future programs and efforts in reducing energy use and environmental impacts associated with steel production.

The question of density is closely connected to urbanization and how our cities may evolve in the future. Density and compactness are two closely related but different criteria, both relevant for sustainable urban development and the transformation of cities; however, their relationship is not always well understood. While a high degree of compactness is desirable, too much density can be detrimental to liveability, health and urban well-being. The purpose of this article is to report first on an extreme case of hyper-density: the Kowloon Walled City (demolished in 1993), where 50,000 residents led a grim life in one of the most densely populated precincts in the world with intolerable sanitary conditions. While the Walled City was a truly mixed-use and extremely compact precinct, it was neither a ‘liveable neighbourhood’ nor sustainable. The article then explores some more recent cases of optimized quality density in developments in Singapore, Sydney and Vancouver. This article sets out to answer the question: Since density is key to sustainable urbanism, what are the drivers and different planning approaches in relation to establishing an optimal density? And what is the ideal density model for tomorrow’s sustainable cities? Some of the critical thinking around the high-density cases is replicable and could translate to other cities to inform new approaches to quality density. Medium to high-density living is acceptable to residents as long as these developments also provide at the same time an increase in quality green spaces close by. The article explores which density types could help us to create highly liveable, economically vibrant, mixed-use and resilient neighbourhoods of the future. It concludes that every development requires a careful optimization process adapted to the conditions of each site.

Building energy evaluation tools available today are only able to effectively analyse individual buildings and usually either they require a high amount of input data or they are too imprecise in energy predictions at a city (district) scale because of too many assumptions made. In this paper, two tools based on 3D models are compared to see whether there is an approach that would probably be able to fit both – the amount of data available and the number of assumptions made. A case study in the German town of Essen was chosen in the framework of the research project WeBest, where six building types representing the most important building periods were analysed. The urban simulation tool SimStadt, an in-house development of HFT Stuttgart, based on 3D urban geometry, is used to calculate the heat demand for both single building scale and city district scale. The individual building typology results are compared with the commercial dynamic building simulation software TRNSYS. The influence of the availability and quality of data input regarding the geometrical building parameters on the accuracy of simulation models are analysed. Different Levels of Details (LoDs) of the 3D building models are tested to prove the scalability of SimStadt from single buildings to city districts without loss of quality and accuracy in larger areas with a short computational time.