Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.5
3.2
Journals
Energies
Special Issues
COVID-19 Crisis Implications on the Energy Sector and on the...
energies-logo
Submit to Energies Review for Energies Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

► Journal Menu

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser
share announcement

COVID-19 Crisis Implications on the Energy Sector and on the Environment

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "B: Energy and Environment".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2021) | Viewed by 13024

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Ali Elkamel

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada
Interests: energy and environmental engineering systems; air pollution modeling, simulation anenergy and environmental engineering systems; air pollution modeling; planning and optimization; sustainable development of the petrochemical industry
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will provide an opportunity for researchers to present articles on the implications of the COVID-19 crisis on the energy sector and the environment. The COVID-19 crisis has caused a severe drop in travel and a significant commercial and industrial downturn that has contributed to low oil prices. On the positive side, this has (and at least temporarily) lead to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. However, it is believed that such low oil prices will have a direct impact on progress in the renewable energy sector. Clean energy technologies were expanding their reach and developing supply chains covering several continents. Cheap oil prices are believed to weaken global investments in clean energy, sustainable infrastructure, and energy efficiency. At the same time, another argument is that such low oil prices might accelerate the transition to renewable energy since the average returns from oil and gas projects are now comparable to renewable projects and might be lower.

Industries have been spending billions on research and development activities in electric vehicles and other cleaner options for transportation. The COVID-19 and low oil prices will represent big setbacks to these efforts. Furthermore, as countries undertake drastic measures to combat the COVID-19 effect (including payments of wages and business loan schemes) more limited funds and less political motivation will be available to invest in decarbonization and renewable energy infrastructure.

The crises will seriously impact shale oil producers, can cause a decrease in demand on oil commodities, and will result in low revenues for oil companies, which will lead to a serious contraction of oil supply in the long run. Countries might also take advantage of the low prices and invest in building or expanding strategic petroleum reserves.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Clean energy technologies
  • Impact of low oil prices on US shale producers
  • Renewable energy tax credits
  • Increasing crude oil reserves
  • Strategic crude oil storage
  • Demand-side management
  • Renewable energy supply chains
  • Energy mix
  • Energy scenarios as the global economy recovers
  • Policy issues during and after the current crisis
  • Integrated upstream and downstream

Prof. Dr. Ali Elkamel
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • energy planning
  • mathematical programming
  • stochastic optimization
  • machine learning
  • carbon capture and storage (CCS)
  • fossil fuels
  • renewable energy
  • dynamic modeling
  • scheduling
  • environmental impacts
  • electricity generation
  • cycles
  • energy mix
  • government policy and regulation
  • crisis management
  • long-term economic improvement
  • economic impacts and globalization
  • investment decisions
  • energy policy

Published Papers (4 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

13 pages, 469 KiB  
Article
Balancing Health, Economy and Climate Risk in a Multi-Crisis
by Jatin Nathwani, Niels Lind, Ortwin Renn and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
Energies 2021, 14(14), 4067; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14144067 - 06 Jul 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3234
Abstract
In the presence of a global pandemic (COVID-19), the relentless pressure on global decision-makers is to ensure a balancing of health (reduce mortality impacts), economic goals (income for livelihood sustenance), and environmental sustainability (stabilize GHG emissions long term). The global energy supply system [...] Read more.
In the presence of a global pandemic (COVID-19), the relentless pressure on global decision-makers is to ensure a balancing of health (reduce mortality impacts), economic goals (income for livelihood sustenance), and environmental sustainability (stabilize GHG emissions long term). The global energy supply system is a dominant contributor to the GHG burden and deeply embedded in the economy with its current share of 85%, use of fossil fuels has remained unchanged over 3 decades. A unique approach is presented to harmonizing the goals of human safety, economic development, and climate risk, respectively, through an operational tool that provides clear guidance to decision-makers in support of policy interventions for decarbonization. Improving climate change performance as an integral part of meeting human development goals allows the achievement of a country’s environmental, social, and economic well-being to be tracked and monitored. A primary contribution of this paper is to allow a transparent accounting of national performance highlighting the goals of enhancing human safety in concert with mitigation of climate risks. A measure of a country’s overall performance, combined as the Development and Climate Change Performance Index (DCI), is derived from two standardized indexes, the development index H and the Climate Change Performance Index CCPI. Data are analyzed for 55 countries comprising 65 percent of the world’s population. Through active management and monitoring, the proposed DCI can illustrate national performance to highlight a country’s current standing, rates of improvement over time, and a historical profile of progress of nations by bringing climate risk mitigation and economic well-being into better alignment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID-19 Crisis Implications on the Energy Sector and on the Environment)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

25 pages, 3949 KiB  
Article
Investigating the Effects of the United States’ Economic Slowdown Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic on Energy Consumption in Other Countries—A Global Vector Autoregressive Model
by Sailan Hu and Rongrong Li
Energies 2021, 14(11), 2984; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14112984 - 21 May 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1866
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a drop-in economic activity and energy consumption of the United States. This work aims to investigate the spillover effects of the United States’ COVID-19 economic recession on economic growth and energy consumption in other nations using a global [...] Read more.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a drop-in economic activity and energy consumption of the United States. This work aims to investigate the spillover effects of the United States’ COVID-19 economic recession on economic growth and energy consumption in other nations using a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) approach and quarterly data between 1990 and 2013 from 41 major countries/regions. On the one hand, the simulation results indicate that the US COVID-19 recession has a negative impact on other countries’ economic growth through trade ties, reducing the economic growth of other countries, especially for countries which have a close trade relationship with the US. In addition, the spillover effects of the US economic recession have different impacts on other countries’ energy consumption. Countries with the closest trade ties to the US are most affected, such as Japan and China. In addition, the impact of the US’ economic shock on energy consumption in developing countries is significant in the short term, while its impact on developed countries is significant in the long term. On the other hand, the simulation results of energy spillover effects indicate a reduction in US energy consumption slightly reduces economic growth in other nations. In addition, a reduction in energy consumption in the US does not have a significant negative impact on energy consumption in other developed countries. Furthermore, the spillover effect of declining energy consumption in the US on energy consumption in developing countries is significant in the short term. However, the spillover effects of falling energy consumption in the US on developing countries are different. The spillover effect of the decline in energy consumption in the US causes a slight decline in energy consumption in China and Brazil, whereas the spillover effect of the decline in energy consumption in the US does not cause a decline in energy consumption in India and Brazil. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID-19 Crisis Implications on the Energy Sector and on the Environment)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

22 pages, 28366 KiB  
Article
Energy and GHG Emissions Aspects of the COVID Impact in Greece
by Dimitri Lalas, Nikolaos Gakis, Sebastian Mirasgedis, Elena Georgopoulou, Yannis Sarafidis and Haris Doukas
Energies 2021, 14(7), 1955; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14071955 - 01 Apr 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2281
Abstract
The effects of COVID-19 have had devasting effects on both health and economies in 2020. At the same time, the lockdown and the downturn of economic activity resulted in a decrease in energy consumption and an accompanying reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. In [...] Read more.
The effects of COVID-19 have had devasting effects on both health and economies in 2020. At the same time, the lockdown and the downturn of economic activity resulted in a decrease in energy consumption and an accompanying reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. In this article, a comparison with the temperature adjustment of energy use is presented for the main carriers of electricity, natural gas, and oil products in the residential, tertiary, industry, and transport (road transport, domestic aviation, and navigation) sectors in 2020 against the previous two years in Greece, along with the corresponding emissions. As the comparison covers the entire year, both COVID peaks in the March–April and November–December periods and the corresponding lockdown effects as well as seasonal variations are included. The analysis shows a reduction, adjusted for temperature, of 3528 GWh in electricity and 10,286 GWh in transport, and an increase of 1916 GWh in heating and other final uses for a net 11,898 GWh decrease and a resulting emissions reduction of 3.48 MtCO2eq (1.29 MtCO2eq in electricity, 2.69 MtCO2eq in transport, and an increase of 0.54 MtCO2eq in heating), or 4.1%, from total national emissions in 2019. The effect is, to a considerable extent, the result of drastic tourist activity contraction, which is starkly evident in the electricity consumption in the Aegean islands. The comparison between the two lockdown periods brings out clear differences, with the reduction in the second one being considerably smaller as the population reverted, to a large extent, to pre-COVID behavior, which implies that no permanent gains from the COVID long-term impact toward decarbonization should be expected. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID-19 Crisis Implications on the Energy Sector and on the Environment)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 738 KiB  
Article
On Reduced Consumption of Fossil Fuels in 2020 and Its Consequences in Global Environment and Exergy Demand
by A. Rashedi, Taslima Khanam and Mirjam Jonkman
Energies 2020, 13(22), 6048; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13226048 - 19 Nov 2020
Cited by 29 | Viewed by 4037
Abstract
As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a sudden and abrupt change in global energy landscape. Traditional fossil fuels that serve as the linchpin of modern civilization have found their consumption has rapidly fallen across most categories due to [...] Read more.
As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a sudden and abrupt change in global energy landscape. Traditional fossil fuels that serve as the linchpin of modern civilization have found their consumption has rapidly fallen across most categories due to strict lockdown and stringent measures that have been adopted to suppress the disease. These changes consequently steered various environmental benefits across the world in recent time. The present article is an attempt to investigate these environmental benefits and reversals that have been materialized in this unfolding situation due to reduced consumption of fossil fuels. The life cycle assessment tool was used hereby to evaluate nine environmental impacts and one energy based impact. These impacts include ozone formation (terrestrial ecosystems), terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, terrestrial ecotoxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity, marine ecotoxicity, land use, mineral resources scarcity, and cumulative exergy demand. Outcomes from the study demonstrate that COVID-19 has delivered impressive changes in global environment and life cycle exergy demand, with about 11–25% curtailment in all the above-mentioned impacts in 2020 in comparison to their corresponding readings in 2019. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID-19 Crisis Implications on the Energy Sector and on the Environment)
►▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-4
Back to TopTop