Modern societies require an ever-increasing amount of energy resources, adding strain to the world economy and creating technological, as well as socio-political, challenges.

This journal aims to address the issues raised above and thus act as an interdisciplinary forum for researchers and practitioners from around the globe working in a variety of topics related to the future of energy production and management in a changing world.

It covers all aspects of energy research, development and recovery from both primary and renewable sources; power generation, storage and distribution; planning and management.

This journal deals with the comparison of conventional energy sources, particularly hydro-carbons, with a number of alternative ways of producing energy, based on renewable resources such as solar, hydro, wind and geothermal, and by applying new technologies. It also welcomes papers on energy use, including industrial processes, imbedded energy contents of materials, such as those used in the built environment, requirements in transportation, ICT and all other energy related activities.

A key issue is the conversion of new, sustainable sources of energy into useful forms (electricity, heat, fuel), while finding efficient ways of storage and distribution. In many cases, the challenges lie as much in the production of such renewable energy at an acceptable cost – including damage to the environment – as with integration of those resources into the existing infrastructure.

The changes needed to progress from an economy mainly based on hydrocarbons to one taking advantage of sustainable energy resources are massive and require considerable scientific research as well as the development of advanced engineering systems. Such progress demands close collaboration between different disciplines in order to arrive at optimum solutions.

Energy production, distribution and usage entail environmental risks that need to be better understood and reliably assessed. This issue relates to human environmental health as well as ecosystem behaviour and it is an important element of energy economics and management.

It is foreseen that oil and gas will continue to be the key energy sources in the 21st century. Therefore, it is important that oil and gas be produced in a sustainable way during the next decades. This requires technology development to ensure that the environmental impact and pollution from these activities are minimal. The following aspects are being highlighted in this paper:

•  Development of projects with the minimum of impact on the environment and problems for local populations.

• Sustainable drilling without the use of oil-based mud, and collection of all drilling waste during offshore drilling operations in the most environmentally sensitive areas.

• Treatment of produced water, sand and minerals from the well stream to avoid pollution.

• Limitation of flaring to be performed only when required for safety reasons.

• Continuous checking of pipelines to ensure that gas pipelines are run within their actual pressure capacity and that oil pipelines are not leaking into rivers and lakes.

• Provision of sufficient storage capacity for gas to ensure timely delivery of gas during high demand peaks.

• Injection of CO2 into sealed underground formations where large quantities are produced, such as at LNG factories.

•  Optimization of production from existing fields to avoid huge amounts of oil and gas being left in place, following a ‘hit and run’ recovery plan.

Furthermore, all primary energy sources need to be converted into end-user energy services known as mechanical work, electricity, heating and cooling. In the process of conversion, only a portion of the primary energy is transformed into the new form, while the rest remains unaltered and is lost.

The various forms of energy services produced represent different values or qualities, e.g. heat holds an energy quality ranging from 0 and upwards, depending on the temperature difference which is utilized, as defined by the second law of thermodynamics. Energy efficiency in this context may also be defined as the ratio between energy quality output and input.

Practically, all fossil fuels are converted into energy services via combustion and heat, i.e. the con- version efficiency is solely determined by temperatures, meaning that high-energy efficiency can only be obtained at large temperature differences, such as in power generation, while ordinary domestic heating will yield a very low efficiency.

Given that some 30–40 % of all fossil fuels today are used for domestic heating, representing an end-user energy quality of (say) 1/10 of what is obtained in modern power generation, there is a large potential globally for energy efficiency improvements, not to mention the associated emission reduc- tions.

The obvious solution is to pay more attention to the second law of thermodynamics, i.e. to shift from direct combustion heating to thermodynamic principles, e.g. by the use of electrical-driven heat pumps and/or combined heat and power as another alternative.

The objectives of this paper are to highlight how energy production could become more effective, thus leading to a reduction in pollution to land, sea and atmosphere and also to identify how energy production should be carried out to minimize the polluting effects. The goal is to provide a reminder that much can be gained with respect to the reduction of pollution by focusing on cleaner energy production.

The requirement of energy in different human activities is continuously increasing; from the energetic production, chiefly by thermal systems, important and worrying environmental problems are generated: there are concerns about climate change, local air quality worsening, exhaustion of resources and land use change. To limit these negative aspects, policies of reduction in energy use must be first proposed; besides different technological, economic and planning solutions can be considered; their effect must be carefully assessed, as concerns effectiveness and practical implementation. The final political decision must consider the different tools that are at disposal, in order to define the best approach for the satisfaction of necessities with the minimum consequent impact.

This paper summarises the key challenges for the global energy sector to fulfil its essential role in the world with a forward perspective from 2014 to 2040. The paper draws on scenarios and other analyses developed by leading institutions and firms. The global availability of extractive energy resources is not likely constrain global progress on human development in the chosen time perspective, but the supplies of oil and gas can come under strain and produce price shocks from time to time resulting from events affecting the supply system. A more severe challenge arises from the impacts of energy-related emissions on the global climate. Actions are possible on the arenas of technology development, enterprise and political governance, which will significantly reduce such risks while fulfilling the energy sector’s contribution to improve human conditions. Six such issues of technology development are highlighted, and two issues of political governance: appropriate pricing of energy and emissions, and development of energy efficient cities.

Solar is one of the pillars for clean and environment friendly energy. The drawback of the solar is the interruption during the night and cloudy and rainy weather. This paper presents the author’s experience on enhancing the solar thermal systems by integration techniques with either other energy resources or thermal energy storages (TES). The present works includes the hybrid solar drying through integra- tion with thermal backup unit. The experimental results on hybrid drying showed enhancement of 64.1% for Empty Fruit Bunch, and 61.1% for chili pepper, compared with open solar mode drying. Secondly, solar water heating was proved to be sufficient to supply hot water during the day and night time by integration with TES. The experimented system was able to maintain the water hot up to the next morning. On large scale and industrial application, experimental results on modified inclined solar chimney had shown enhancement via integration with wasted flue gas. By this technique, the system was developed to operate 24 hours a day. The efficiency was enhanced by 100% in case of hybrid operation compared with solar mode operation. The research results are demonstrating that the integra- tion techniques can contribute effectively in enhancing the performance of the thermal solar systems.

Energy management has significant impact on planning within local or regional scale. The consequences of the implementation of large-scale renewable energy source involves multifaceted analyses, evaluation of environmental impacts, and the assessment of the scale of limitations or exclusions imposed on potential urbanized structures and arable land. The process of site designation has to acknowledge environmental transformations by inclusion of several key issues, e.g. emissions, hazards for nature and/or inhabitants of urbanized zones, to name the most significant. The parameters of potential development of energy-related infrastructure of facility acquire its local properties – the generic development data require adjustment, which is site specific or area specific. FAST (Fast Simulation Tool) is a simple IT tool aimed at supporting sustainable planning on local or regional level in reference to regional or district scale energy management (among other issues). In its current stage, it is utilized – as a work in progress – in the assessment of wind farm structures located within the area of Poznan agglomeration. This paper discusses the implementation of FAST and its application in two conflicting areas around the agglomeration of Poznan.

In the near future, we will need an internationally based system for worldwide planning of future energy resources and their effect on the world environment. Logically, this should be a responsibility of the United Nations, which already possesses much of the infrastructure needed and is already active in this area. Because different nations have different resources, different problems and different needs, it is reasoned that a flexible and diplomatic approach is also called for. We will need to try to secure support from all nations, and the economies and cultures of many nations differ considerably. This calls for special skills in negotiation. This is complicated by the varied, uncertain and changing technologi- cal facilities, which we have at our disposal. After a brief and comparative review of these facilities, an outline of the structure of the internationally coordinating organisation is suggested, followed by examples of the different types of issues which are likely to be encountered. These are: reintroducing improved technology to a nation, which has suffered grievous environmental harm from inadequate similar technology such as the Fukushima incident; nations with especially difficult transport problems; nations with perceived overpopulation problems; using UN and other expertise for nations still under- going development; applying persuasive pressure by peaceful means. Finally, by outlining a large-scale cooperative venture by several nations, the mode of operation of the suggested U.N coordinating body is outlined. The example used is the choice of thorium-based molten-salt reactor technology using both fast and thermal neutron spectra. This appears to be the only choice we have, as other sustainable systems cannot accommodate the size of our problems. The only exception is using the Desertec solar project, which appears to be disadvantaged by being significantly more expensive. Molten-salt reactors would give a 1000-year energy security for industrialised energy-hungry nations on the Far East/Pacific Rim, which is the example considered. This system would use modern actinide burn-up technology to make nuclear-waste disposal a more acceptable proposition. Thus, nuclear waste can become a low-level and disposable hazard after only about 300 years of storage. After this storage, the waste becomes a valuable resource due to production of rare transmuted elements.

Energy utility companies face trade-offs in navigating through today’s environmental challenges. On the one hand, they face intense political, social and environmental pressures to move toward adopt- ing energy systems that incorporate the use of renewable energy resources. By making this transition, they would contribute to carbon reduction and mitigate climate change. On the other hand, they need to coordinate their resources and become efficient when investing in new plants or upgrading existing production systems. This paper seeks to address the gains that utility companies can make when replacing older fossil-fuel-based plants with efficient combined heat and power (CHP) plants. We discuss the system effects from the changes in production of other units when new plants are constructed. Using one of the largest energy utility companies in Sweden, Fortum, as empirical point of departure, we analyzed the company’s transition from using coal and hydrocarbons to an increased use of renewables and waste incineration CHP. Our analysis was based on comprehensive production data on CO2, SOx and NOx emissions. Our findings suggest that primary energy consumption drops when older, less efficient fossil plants are substituted for new efficient CHP plants; this drop includes the effect on remaining production. The benefits in terms of primary energy savings might even be greater than what is achieved in meeting the goal of climate change abatement through reduced CO2 emissions; NOx and SOx emissions are decreased with new biomass CHPs. Waste incineration CHP increases NOx and SOx emissions, when there is less fossil fuel to replace after the use of biomass is extended. In both cases, economic efficiency increase as costs are reduced.