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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2021) | Viewed by 21282

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Prof. Dr. Toshiyuki Sueyoshi

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Guest Editor

1. The Center for Economic Research, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
2. School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Tech World Research Hub Initiative, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 3-3-6 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023, Japan
Interests: management science, risk and policy analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Mika Goto

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Guest Editor

School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 108-0023, Japan
Interests: energy economics; energy policy; technolgy development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This journal Energies, listed in SCI and Q1/Q2 in SCImago Journal Rank, is publishing a Special Issue on “New Changes in Energy and Environment”. We are now facing different types of industrial pollution (e.g., air, water, soil, and others) and serious environmental problems (e.g., global warming and climate change), along with their industrial development and economic growth in the world. It is easily envisioned that energy markets will be drastically changed in near future. This special issue looks forward to embracing business and policy efforts for energy and environmental protection along with recent deregulation on energy outputs (e.g., electricity). Deregulation is a global trend in energy sectors and important for sustainable development. In contrast, environmental regulation is important in preventing various pollutions. We would like to see applications that measure how new technology assessment and development (e.g., smart city design/development, clean coal technology and shale oil/gas) can enhance energy efficiency, resource utilization, energy policy and other concerns on sustainable development (e.g., global warming and climate change). We also welcome new methodological developments in computer science (e.g., AI: artificial intelligence) and management science (e.g., DEA: data envelopment analysis) that discuss the energy and environmental challenges.

Prof. Dr. Toshiyuki Sueyoshi
Prof. Dr. Mika Goto
Guest Editors

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Keywords

energy
environment
sustainability

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 1203 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Assessment of Japanese Electricity and Gas Companies during 2002–2018: Three DEA Approaches

by Toshiyuki Sueyoshi and Mika Goto

Energies 2021, 14(6), 1705; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14061705 - 18 Mar 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1842

Abstract

This study has compared Japan’s major electricity and gas companies in terms of their corporate performance measures from 2002 to 2018 using three types of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approaches. We develop a new type of efficiency measures and indexes for DEA and then compare the performance of major electric power companies and city gas companies by examining a recent data set that include years after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. The data set incorporates the number of patents as an output that represents companies’ capability for technology innovation to investigate intertemporal changes of efficiency through index measures. The results provide us with two important findings. First, the electricity industry has experienced long-term difficulty due to the nuclear plant disaster; while the gas industry experienced less difficulty from the accident. Second, both industries have been gradually improving performance measures in recent years. However, the gas industry has outperformed the electricity industry. From the results, this study discusses important policy implications for Japan’s energy utility industry and academic research on the industry. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Energy and Environment)

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23 pages, 2221 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Environmental Assessment and Sustainable Development in the United States

by Toshiyuki Sueyoshi and Youngbok Ryu

Energies 2021, 14(4), 1180; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14041180 - 23 Feb 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2099

Abstract

This study aims to overview the U.S. sustainable development by measuring the environmental performance of 50 states over the period of 2009–2018. To attain the objective, we employ data envelopment analysis for environmental assessment where we prioritize the minimization of CO₂ emissions first and the maximization of gross state product later under the concept of managerial disposability (i.e., an environment-based performance measure). Then, we examine how the state-level environmental performance measures are associated with their political and spatial contexts. For the purpose, we conduct the Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test across groups of states characterized by their political transitions in the presidential and gubernatorial elections and defined by the regions of the U.S. Economic Development Administration and Environmental Protection Agency. Based on our empirical results, we find that (a) overall environmental performance has gradually enhanced over time, (b) there are statistically significant differences in the environmental performance measures along with the political transitions, and (c) states on both coasts have outperformed those of the middle in the measurement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Energy and Environment)

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30 pages, 2735 KiB

Open AccessArticle

COVID-19 Response and Prospects of Clean/Sustainable Energy Transition in Industrial Nations: New Environmental Assessment

by Toshiyuki Sueyoshi, Youngbok Ryu and Ji-Young Yun

Energies 2021, 14(4), 1174; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14041174 - 22 Feb 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2949

Abstract

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) became a pandemic around the world and has huge impacts on our economic and social systems, particularly on the healthcare system and the transportation and energy sectors. To examine a relationship between healthcare and energy sectors in the COVID-19 era, we propose a holistic application of Data Envelopment Analysis for Environmental Assessment (DEA-EA) to assess the COVID-19 response performance of 33 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations and investigate whether health insurance systems contribute to the performance. We also associate the performance with mobility, which is an energy consumption measure, to test the relationship through statistical analyses. In the DEA-EA, particularly, this study incorporates undesirable outputs (i.e., the number of confirmed cases and that of deaths) as well as desirable outputs (i.e., the number of total recovered people and that of total tested people) during April 2020 as the initial stage of COVID-19. While the former outputs need to be maximized, the latter ones need to be minimized in the assessment of healthcare system performance. This study finds that (a) the COVID-19 response performance of countries is varying and those with higher public health coverage have outperformed others with lower public coverage in terms of combating the COVID-19 outbreak, and (b) the healthcare system performance is significantly associated with mobility. Particularly, the second finding indicates that outperforming nations in the healthcare system are returning to the normal (with less volatility) while underperforming ones are still stagnating in terms of mobility. It implies that outperforming countries need to prepare for continuous commitment to clean/sustainable energy transition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Energy and Environment)

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15 pages, 5099 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effect of Coupling Solar Thermal System and Geothermal Heat Pump Systems in Areas with Unbalanced Heating and Cooling Demand

by Jihyun Hwang, Doosam Song and Taewon Lee

Energies 2021, 14(1), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14010031 - 23 Dec 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2420

Abstract

Geothermal source heat pump (GSHP) systems as renewable energy systems are being more frequently installed as part of the zero-energy building drive. However, in South Korea, where a large amount of heating load can be required, maintaining high system performance by using only a GSHP is difficult owing to the gradual degradation of its thermal performance. The performance of a solar-assisted GSHP system was therefore experimentally analyzed and compared with a GSHP-only system. The results showed that the heating coefficient of performance of the GSHP-only operation was 5.4, while that of the solar-assisted GSHP operation was 7.0. In the case of the GSHP-only system, the maximum temperature of the heat pump water supply on the heat source side was initially 13.1 °C, but this rapidly decreased to 11.4 °C during operation. For the solar-assisted GSHP system, the temperature of the water supply to the heat source side of the heat pump was controlled at 15–20.9 °C, and the power consumption for system operation was reduced by about 20% compared with that for the GSHP-only system. Much higher temperatures could be supplied when solar heat is used instead of ground heat, as solar heat contributes to the performance improvement of the heat pump system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Energy and Environment)

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32 pages, 16586 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Suitability Pre-Assessment of in-Sewer Heat Recovery Sites Combining Energy and Wastewater Perspectives

by Franz Huber, Georg Neugebauer, Thomas Ertl and Florian Kretschmer

Energies 2020, 13(24), 6680; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13246680 - 17 Dec 2020

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2016

Abstract

In many countries around the world heating (and cooling) has been and will remain the biggest energy sector, but it is still widely dominated by fossil energy sources today. Wastewater as a source of renewable energy contains large amounts of heat and due to its place-bound localization in urban sewer systems it is usually also situated in very close distance to potential heat consumers. However, one has to keep in mind that heat extraction from wastewater might have undesired impacts on temperature-sensitive treatment processes in the related wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). To assess the potential impact of in-sewer heat recovery on inflow temperature, two different approaches are available today: a simple (but less significant) alligation alternate, or very accurate (but less practical) mathematical models. To close the gap between practicability and significance this article introduces a novel approach to pre-assess the suitability of in-sewer heat recovery sites based on little and easily available data considering energy- and wastewater-related perspectives. A case study application demonstrates the informative value and general usability of the approach. Consequently, the proposed procedure can provide guidance and a template for related investigations at any place in a conventional (combined or separated) sewer system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Energy and Environment)

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24 pages, 959 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Assessment of the Semiconductor Industry: Measured by DEA Environmental Assessment

by Toshiyuki Sueyoshi and Youngbok Ryu

Energies 2020, 13(22), 5998; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13225998 - 17 Nov 2020

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 5024

Abstract

This study measures the unified (i.e., operational and environmental) performance of semiconductor firms in the world by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) environmental assessment. With its promising and expanding electronic applications, many industrial nations have supported the semiconductor industry under their strategic plans, and numerous firms are involved in the global value chain. Drawing on the proposed DEA-based environmental (sustainability) assessment, which uses two disposability criteria (i.e., natural and managerial), this study first compute the unified efficiency scores of semiconductor firms. Then, this study explores how corporate age, business model, and location influence the efficiency scores by employing Tobit regressions and t-tests. The empirical implications obtained from this research indicate that overall, the semiconductor firms look for their economic achievements but are not paying enough attention to environmental sustainability. Corporate age and business model are statistically related with their operational performance measures whereas corporate location is related with their environmental ones. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Energy and Environment)

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23 pages, 2184 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Operational Performance of Electric Power Firms: Comparison between Japan and South Korea by Non-Radial Measures

by Toshiyuki Sueyoshi, Youngbok Ryu and Mika Goto

Energies 2020, 13(15), 3968; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13153968 - 2 Aug 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4007

Abstract

This study compares the electric power sectors between Japan and South (S) Korea. Both nations have been under a global trend of deregulation. To assess their progress due to industrial change and technology development, we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as an assessment tool that enables us to evaluate the level of simultaneous achievements on economic and technological measures, so assessing the degree of holistic development. DEA has been widely applied for performance assessment in the past decades. In this study, the method compares electric power firms by their operational efficiencies. To compare their achievements, it is necessary to develop a new type of DEA application for performance measurement. The proposed approach adds two analytical capabilities. First, the approach needs to handle “zero” in a data set and then restrict multipliers (i.e., weights among inputs and outputs) without any prior information to increase our empirical reliability. No study has simultaneously explored the two capabilities in DEA. Using the proposed method, our empirical study identifies two findings. One of the two is that the electric power industry of S. Korea outperformed that of the Japanese industry in the observed periods (2014–2018) because the Japanese power sector still suffered from an occurrence of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster which occurred on 1 March 2011. However, the difference has been gradually diminishing because the Japanese electricity industry has been gradually recovering from the huge disaster. The other is that the S. Korean power industry has been in a descending trend because the nation has shown technical regress as a result of inconsistent technology development (e.g., shifting its R&D: Research and Development) focus from electrical engineering to chemistry). The former R&D area is essential in maintaining the technical level of S. Korea′s electric power industry. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Energy and Environment)

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