This book presents a holistic view on localized energy transition while addressing current challenges associated with the production of biofuels, introducing new materials to produce solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, and digital systems for sustainable energy monitoring on a small scale, carbon capture, and sequestration. Also, each chapter of the book addresses specific aspects of the renewable and sustainable energy space while focusing more on energy improvement and storage technologies that are practical focused. Features: Offers useful information on new forms of renewable energy generation with reference to Industry 4.0. Illustrates practical approaches to energy transition. Provides guidance on renewable energy sources and energy storage systems. Discusses the application of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)-related approaches to emerging energy storage technologies. Includes studies that reveal approaches to realizing productivity, profitability, and increased return on investment (ROI). This book is aimed at graduate students and researchers in mechanical, chemical, and mechatronics engineering and renewable energy systems.

This book presents a holistic view on localized energy transition while addressing current challenges associated with the production of biofuels, introducing new materials to produce solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, and digital systems for sustainable energy monitoring on a small scale, carbon capture, and sequestration. Also, each chapter of the book addresses specific aspects of the renewable and sustainable energy space while focusing more on energy improvement and storage technologies that are practical focused. Features: Offers useful information on new forms of renewable energy generation with reference to Industry 4.0. Illustrates practical approaches to energy transition. Provides guidance on renewable energy sources and energy storage systems. Discusses the application of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)-related approaches to emerging energy storage technologies. Includes studies that reveal approaches to realizing productivity, profitability, and increased return on investment (ROI). This book is aimed at graduate students and researchers in mechanical, chemical, and mechatronics engineering and renewable energy systems.

"This book creates a holistic view about the localized energy transition while addressing current challenges associated with the production of biofuels, introducing new materials to produce solar PV panels, and digital systems for sustainable energy monitoring on a small scale, carbon capture and sequestration. Also, each section of the book addresses specific aspects of the renewable and sustainable energy space while focusing more on energy improvement and storage technologies that are practical focused. Features: Offers useful information on new forms of renewable energy generation with reference to Industry 4.0. Illustrates practical approaches to energy transition. Provides guidance on renewable energy sources and energy storage systems. Discusses application of 4IR-related approaches to emerging energy storage technologies. Includes studies that reveal approaches to realizing productivity, profitability, and increased return on Investment (ROI). This book is aimed at graduate students and researchers in mechanical, chemical, and mechatronics engineering, and renewable energy systems"--

The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world’s main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.

The objective of this textbook is to introduce students and professionals to fundamental principles and techniques and emerging technologies in energy informatics and the digitalization of power markets and systems. The book covers such areas as smart grids and artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledger technology (DLT), with a focus on information and communication technologies (ICT) deployed to modernize the electric energy infrastructure. It also provides an overview of the smart grid and its main components: smart grid applications at transmission, distribution, and customer level, network requirements with communications technologies, and standards and protocols. In addition, the book addresses emerging technologies and trends in next-generation power systems, i.e., energy informatics, such as digital green shift, energy cyber-physical-social systems (E-CPSS), energy IoT, energy blockchain, and advanced optimization. Future aspects of digitalized power markets and systems will be discussed with real-world energy informatics projects. The book is designed to be a core text in upper-undergraduate and graduate courses such as Introduction to Smart Grids, Digitalization of Power Systems, and Advanced Power System Topics in Energy Informatics.

This book delves into diverse local food systems and critically assesses their ecological and societal benefits and trade-offs, their limits and opportunities for improving sustainability of food production, and framework conditions which either hinder or promote their development. More and more people with gradually meat heavier diets will demand growth in food production, whilst our increasingly industrialized and globalized agri-food system has already caused serious sustainability problems in the past. This calls for a change in the way we produce, distribute and consume food. A re-emerging debate on food security and food sovereignty seems to support this quest. But what are the promising alternatives to mainstream developments? Such a discussion regarding sustainability of local food systems requires a sound systemic understanding and thus invites a socio-metabolic reading of local cases by analyzing the nexus between material and energy flows as well as land and time use. This approach is needed to complement the so far mostly qualitatively-based local food studies. Applying socio-metabolic approaches to local food systems fosters a better understanding of promises and pitfalls for sustainable pathways in the future.

This open access collection examines how higher education responds to the demands of the automation economy and the fourth industrial revolution. Considering significant trends in how people are learning, coupled with the ways in which different higher education institutions and education stakeholders are implementing adaptations, it looks at new programs and technological advances that are changing how and why we teach and learn. The book addresses trends in liberal arts integration of STEM innovations, the changing role of libraries in the digital age, global trends in youth mobility, and the development of lifelong learning programs. This is coupled with case study assessments of the various ways China, Singapore, South Africa and Costa Rica are preparing their populations for significant shifts in labour market demands – shifts that are already underway. Offering examples of new frameworks in which collaboration between government, industry, and higher education institutions can prevent lagging behind in this fast changing environment, this book is a key read for anyone wanting to understand how the world should respond to the radical technological shifts underway on the frontline of higher education.