To support the fulfillment of Sweden’s targets in term of climate change and economic growth, we need to do a distinct study to show the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) pattern in different sector of the economy, as the GDP allocation, energy intensities, GHG emission, and technological development are different between sectors. This kind of study helps to figure out how the different sectors contribute to climate change and could appoint more particular and effective environment-energy policies. For this aim, we analyzed the existence of the EKC by implementing the ARDL Bound test approach in the whole and individual sectors of Sweden’s economy throughout 1990-2019. Our results indicated the contribution of a particular sector on total GHG emissions per capita. Results of the whole economy confirmed the EEKC hypothesis with a turning point in 1996, in which the AFF sector, unlike industry and service, had increased GHG emissions. Disaggregated sectoral analysis showed various results. The industry sector had efficient energy improvement. Policymakers should pay attention to AFF’s GHG emissions, as different sources of energy consumption had not impressive impact in both the short and long term. Also, effective fossil-related policies are necessary for the service sector due to the main contribution to transportation.

The first future challenge facing human beings is to supply the world's energy needs. However, energy consumption and resource depletion in industrial processes are significantly increasing. Therefore, life cycle assessment can be an excellent tool to quantify resources and energy consumption in different parts of industrial processes. The combination of process simulation and assessment of process life cycle can be resources & energy consumption in different parts is quantified and can be significantly reduced by optimizing the process, energy wastage. The process stimulation is done by HYSIS software, then by collecting output data, energy and materials flow, life cycle assessment is conducted using SIMAPRO software. According to output of the release list, 1709 items are released into the environment, of which 396, 407, 340 items are released into the air, water, soil, respectively and 556 items are extracted from sources. The most appropriate procedure to assess the life cycle of crude oil processing is Cumulative Energy Demand and Cumulative Exergy Demand energy approach. Based on the first-order analysis, the highest consumption of resources and energy is in the crude oil transmission sector; (Road construction with 44.95 petajoules and transmission pipelines with 19.85 petajoules). Also, regarding the second-order analysis, the highest consumption of resources and energy is related to crude oil production processes with 1.65 petajoules per operation and desalination unit, medium voltage electricity consumption with 0.002194 petajoules and exergy of power lines with 0.00087 petajoules.

Recently, making use of emerging fuels such as municipal waste has been proposed as an alternative for conventional fuels and also as a way for municipal waste disposal. This research, while modeling the thermal and electrical profiles of Ilam Industrial Town, examines the possibility of supplying the required fuel from municipal waste by the year 2041. For this purpose, different combined heat and power (CHP) scenarios were implemented in the LEAP software. According to the results, electricity generation will start gradually from the year of operation of the power plants in 2025 and reach more than 4.3 GWh in 2026. The production process will be incremental and is expected to reach 115.9, 119.1, 111.8, 118.4, 123.1, 118.9, 118.4, 118.4 GWh, respectively under the scenarios of gasifier CHP, CHP turbine incinerator, CHP steam incinerator, landfill CHP, syngas CHP, anaerobic digester CHP, combined gasifier and incinerator CHP, and ultimately improve to 118.9 GWh under the scenario of optimized gasifier and incinerator CHP. The required power plant capacity under the above-mentioned scenarios is expected to be approximately 21 MW by the year 2041and modify to 20.5 MW under the optimization scenario. The incinerator, combined-incinerator-and-gasifier, and optimization scenarios meet the supply and demand conditions of the generated waste, and in other scenarios, either the CHP supply share should be lower than 50% or the additional waste should be supplied from the nearby villages and towns.

Land leveling is one of the most important steps in soil preparation and cultivation. Although land leveling with machines requires considerable amount of energy, it delivers a suitable surface slope with minimal soil deterioration as well as damage to plants and other organisms in the soil. Notwithstanding, in recent years researchers have tried to reduce fossil fuel consumption and its deleterious side effects, using new techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Adaptive Neuron-Fuzzy Inference System (Fuzzy shell-clustering algorithm) models that will lead to a noticeable improvement in the environment. The present research investigates the effects of various soil properties such as Embankment Volume, Soil Compressibility Factor, Specific Gravity, Moisture Content, Slope, Sand Percent, and Soil Swelling Index in energy consumption. The study consists of 90 samples, collected from three different regions. The grid size has been set on 20 m * 20 m from a farmland in Karaj Province, Iran. The aim is to determine the best linear model, using ANNs and ANFIS model to predict environmental indicatorsand find the best model for land leveling in terms of its output (i.e. Labor Energy, Fuel energy, Total Machinery Cost, and Total Machinery Energy). Results show that ANFIS can successfully predict labor energy, fuel energy, total machinery cost, and total machinery energy. All ANFIS-based models have R2 values above 0.995 and MSE values below 0.002 with higher accuracy in prediction, given their higher R2 value and lower RMSE value.

Garden pruning waste is becoming a problem that intensifies the garbage siege. It is of great significance to purify polluted water using biochar prepared from garden pruning waste. Herein, the interaction mechanism between BPS and oriental plane tree biochar (TBC) with different surface functional groups was investigated by adsorption experiments, spectroscopic analysis and theoretical calculations. Adsorption kinetics and isotherm of BPS on TBC can be satisfactorily fitted into pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir models, respectively. A rapid adsorption kinetic toward BPS was achieved by TBC in 15 min. As compared with TBC prepared at low temperature (300 °C) (LTBC), the maximum adsorption capacity of TBC prepared at high temperature (600 °C) (HTBC) can be significantly improved from 46.7 mg g⁻¹ to 72.9 mg g⁻¹. Besides, the microstructure and surface functional groups of HTBC were characterized using SEM, BET-N₂, and XPS analysis. According to density functional theory (DFT) theoretical calculations, the higher adsorption energy of HTBC for BPS was mainly attributed to π-π interaction rather than hydrogen bonding, which was further supported by the analysis of FTIR and Raman spectra as well as the adsorption thermodynamic parameters. These findings suggested that by improving π-π interaction through high pyrolysis temperature, BPS could be removed and adsorbed by biochar with high efficacy, cost-efficiency, easy availability, and carbon-negative in nature, contributing to global carbon neutrality.

Global warming both reduces global temperature variance and increases the frequency of extreme weather events. In response to these ambient perturbations, animals may be subject to trans- or intra-generational phenotype modifications that help to maintain homeostasis and fitness. Here, we show how temperature-associated transgenerational plasticity in tilapia affects metabolic trade-offs during developmental stages under a global warming scenario. Tropical tilapia reared at a stable temperature of 27 °C for a decade were divided into two temperature-experience groups for four generations of breeding. Each generation of one group was exposed to a single 15 °C cold-shock experience during its lifetime (cold-experienced CE group), and the other group was kept stably at 27 °C throughout their lifetimes (cold-naïve CN group). The offspring at early life stages from the CE and CN tilapia were then assessed by metabolomics-based profiling, and the results implied that parental cold-experience might affect energy provision during reproduction. Furthermore, at early life stages, progeny may be endowed with metabolic traits that help the animals cope with ambient temperature perturbations. This study also applied the feature rescaling and Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) to visualize metabolic dynamics, and the result could effectively decompose the complex omic-based datasets to represent the energy trade-off variability. For example, the carbohydrate to free amino acid conversion and enhanced compensatory features appeared to be hypothermic-responsive traits. These multigenerational metabolic effects suggest that the tropical ectothermic tilapia may exhibit transgenerational phenotype plasticity, which could optimize energy allocation under ambient temperature challenges. Knowledge about such metabolism-related transgenerational plasticity effects in ectothermic aquatic species may allow us to better predict how adaptive mechanisms will affect fish populations in a climate with narrow temperature variation and frequent extreme weather events.

The waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerator plant located in the Turin area (Italy) started to recover energy from the combustion of municipal solid waste in 2013. A health surveillance program was implemented to evaluate the potential health effects on the population living near the plant. This program included a longitudinal biomonitoring to evaluate temporal changes of some environmental pollutants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), in residents living in areas near the Turin incinerator (exposed group, E) compared to those observed in subjects living far from the plant (not exposed group, NE). Ten monohydroxy-PAHs (OH-PAHs), consisting in the principal metabolites of naphthalene, fluorine, phenanthrene, and pyrene, were analyzed in urines collected from the E and NE subjects after one (T₁) and three years (T₂) of plant activity and compared with those determined in the same cohort established before the plant start-up (T₀). Spearman correlation analysis was undertaken to explore possible associations between OH-PAHs and personal characteristics, lifestyle variables, and dietary habits. A linear mixed model (LMM) approach was applied to determine temporal trends of OH-PAHs observed in the E and NE subjects and to evaluate possible differences in trend between the two groups. Temporal trends of OH-PAHs determined by LMM analysis demonstrated that, at all times, the E group had concentrations lower than those assessed in the NE group, all other conditions being equal. Moreover, no increase in OH-PAH concentrations was observed at T₁ and T₂ either in E or in NE group. Significant positive correlations were found between all OH-PAHs and smoking habits. Regarding variables associated to outdoor PAH exposure, residence near high traffic roads and daily time in traffic road was positively correlated with 1-hydroxynaphthalene and 1-hydroxypyrene, respectively. In conclusion, no impact of the WTE plant on exposure to PAHs was observed on the population living near the plant.

Distribution in ice is regarded as one of important transport modes for pollutants in seasonal freeze-up waters in cold regions. However, the distribution characteristics and mechanisms of fluorinated antibiotics as emerging contaminants during the water freezing process remain unclear. Here, florfenicol and norfloxacin were selected as model fluorinated antibiotics to investigate their ice-water distribution. Effects of antibiotic molecular structure on the distribution were explored through comparative studies with their non-fluorinated structural analogs. Results showed that phase changes during the ice growth process redistributed the antibiotics, with antibiotic concentrations in water 3.0–6.4 times higher than those in ice. The solute-rich boundary layer with a concentration gradient was presented at the ice-water interface and controlled by constitutional supercooling during the freezing process. The ice-water distribution coefficient (KIW) values of antibiotics increased by 34.8%–38.0% with a doubling of the cooling area. The solute distribution coefficient (Kbₛ) values of antibiotics at −20 °C were 65.6%–70.3% higher than at −10 °C. The KIW and Kbₛ values of all antibiotics were negatively correlated with their water solubilities. The fluorine substituents influenced the binding energies between antibiotics and ice, resulting in a 1.1-fold increase in the binding energy of norfloxacin on the ice surface relative to its structural analog pipemidic acid. The results provide a new insight into the transport behaviors of fluorinated pharmaceuticals in ice-water systems.

Energy is vital to human society but significantly contributes to the deterioration of environmental quality and the global issue of climate change. Biomass and fossil fuels are important energy sources but have distinct pollutant emission characteristics during the burning process. This study aimed at attributing radiative forcing of climate forcers, including greenhouse gases but also short-lived climate pollutants, from the burning of fossil and biomass fuels, and the spatiotemporal characteristics. We found that air pollutant emissions from the burning process of biofuel and fossil fuels induced RFs of 68.2 ± 36.8 mW m⁻² and 840 ± 225 mW m⁻², respectively. The relatively contribution of biomass burning emissions was 7.6% of that from both fossil and biofuel combustion processes, while its contribution in energy supply was 11%. These relative contributions varied obviously across different regions. The per unit energy consumption of biomass fuel in the developed regions, such as North America (0.57 ± 0.33 mW m⁻²/10⁷TJ) and Western Europe (0.98 ± 0.79 mW m⁻²/10⁷TJ), had higher impacts of combustion emission related RFs compared to that of developing regions, like China (0.40 ± 0.26 mW m⁻²/10⁷TJ), and South and South-East Asia (0.31 ± 0.71 mW m⁻²/10⁷TJ) where low efficiency biomass burning in residential sector produced significant amounts of organic matter that had a cooling effect. Note that the study only evaluated fuel combustion emission related RFs, and those associated with the production of fuels and land use change should be studied later in promoting a comprehensive understanding on the climate impacts of biomass utilization.

Bacteria play crucial roles in the biogeochemical cycle of arsenic (As) and selenium (Se) as these elements are metabolized via detoxification, energy generation (anaerobic respiration) and biosynthesis (e.g. selenocysteine) strategies. To date, arsenic and selenium biomineralization in bacteria were studied separately. In this study, the anaerobic metabolism of As and Se in Shewanella sp. O23S was investigated separately and mixed, with an emphasis put on the biomineralization products of this process. Multiple analytical techniques including ICP-MS, TEM-EDS, XRD, Micro-Raman, spectrophotometry and surface charge (zeta potential) were employed. Shewanella sp. O23S is capable of reducing selenate (SeO₄²⁻) and selenite (SeO₃²⁻) to red Se(-S)⁰, and arsenate (AsO₄³⁻) to arsenite (AsO₃³⁻). The release of H₂S from cysteine led to the precipitation of AsS minerals: nanorod AsS and granular As₂S₃. When As and Se oxyanions were mixed, both As–S and Se(-S)⁰ biominerals were synthesized. All biominerals were extracellular, amorphous and presented a negative surface charge (−24 to −38 mV). Kinetic analysis indicated the following reduction yields: SeO₃²⁻ (90%), AsO₄³⁻ (60%), and SeO₄²⁻ (<10%). The mix of SeO₃²⁻ with AsO₄³⁻ led to a decrease in As removal to 30%, while Se reduction yield was unaffected (88%). Interestingly, SeO₄²⁻ incubated with AsO₄³⁻ boosted the Se removal (71%). The exclusive extracellular formation of As and Se biominerals might indicate an extracellular respiratory process characteristic of various Shewanella species and strains. This is the first study documenting a complex interplay between As and Se oxyanions: selenite decreased arsenate reduction, whereas arsenate stimulated selenate reduction. Further investigation needs to clarify whether Shewanella sp. O23S employs multi-substrate respiratory enzymes or separate, high affinity enzymes for As and Se oxyanion respiration.