Publications related to Obstacles in energy planning at the urban scale

Quartiers rhodaniens en transition

Over the course of history, the relationship between cities and their waters has shown different gradients of interweaving, marked by cycles of bonding and distancing. Following a period of complete neglect of urban watercourses, the versatile, multifacete ...

EPFL2024

Vers un projet territorial du vivant L'outil des réseaux écologiques comme projet urbanistique de revitalisation du paysage agricole

Marine Françoise Jeannine Villaret

The aim of my thesis is to provide urban architects and planners with working theoretical elements territorial project of the living. The living and the socio-ecological transition are key concepts in the nature and people paradigm, which asserts a human-n ...

EPFL2024

Fusing Pre-existing Knowledge and Machine Learning for Enhanced Building Thermal Modeling and Control

Loris Di Natale

Buildings play a pivotal role in the ongoing worldwide energy transition, accounting for 30% of the global energy consumption. With traditional engineering solutions reaching their limits to tackle such large-scale problems, data-driven methods and Machine ...

EPFL2024

Renewable energy integration and waste heat valorization in aluminum remelting for co-producing kerosene and methanol

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos, Réginald Germanier

The aluminium sector relies on natural gas for the conversion of recycled scrap into new feedstock, which results in substantial atmospheric emissions. Hydric resources are also impacted, as they serve as heat sinks for the waste heat generated during the ...

Associazione Italiana Di Ingegneria Chimica2024

Planning urban proximities: An empirical analysis of how residential preferences conflict with the urban morphologies and residential practices

Vincent Kaufmann, Luca Giovanni Pattaroni, Marc-Edouard Baptiste Grégoire Schultheiss

Urban proximity planning is foreseen as a solution to foster a “sustainable” city, including economic viability, environmental soundness and social inclusivity. This paper focuses on the inclusivity aspects by questioning the adoption of urban proximities: ...

2024

Urban boundary-layer flows in complex terrain: Dynamic interactions during a hot and dry summer season in Phoenix, Arizona

Aldo Brandi

Anthropogenic modification of natural landscapes to urban environments impacts land-atmosphere interactions in the boundary layer. Ample research has demonstrated the effect of such landscape transitions on development of the urban heat island (UHI), but c ...

Wiley2024

Electrical and Optical Manifestations of Flat Band Physics in Van der Waals Materials

Gabriele Pasquale

The scientific progress is significantly transforming contemporary society with the introduction and widespread application of technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Despite their profound impact, these technologies necessitate en ...

EPFL2024

Absolute energy levels of liquid water from many-body perturbation theory with effective vertex corrections

Alfredo Pasquarello, Thomas Bischoff, Aleksei Tal

We demonstrate the importance of addressing the F vertex and thus going beyond the GW approximation for achieving the energy levels of liquid water in manybody perturbation theory. In particular, we consider an effective vertex function in both the polariz ...

National Academy of Sciences2024

Using automated design appraisal to model building-specific devaluation risk due to land-use change

Adam Robert Swietek

Uncertainty of spillover effects – including property devaluation - from proposed land-use change elicits opposition to local development. This hinders cities’ ability to implement land-use policy aimed at housing affordability and environmental sustainabi ...

2024

Solar-assisted clean steam generator, a cleaner production approach for sustainable healthcare facilities

Fernando Porté Agel, Ahmad Arabkoohsar, Mohammad Jamshidmofid

Healthcare sector buildings, particularly hospitals, significantly contribute to global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Hospitals require a substantial amount of steam, including the essential hygienic or " clean steam, " that is currently ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2024

Advanced control strategies to exploit the hydropower potential enhancing ancillary services provision to the power system

Francesco Gerini

The European Union's Green Deal aims for a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. To reach this goal, a massive integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) into the power grid is necessary. As RES become a large part of the electricity genera ...

EPFL2024

Green hydrogen production using Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 bioanode and cuprous oxide-based photocathode

Michele Morgante

In recent years, many efforts have been made to find alternative renewable energy sources that can ideally replace the use of fossil fuels in all aspects. One of the new emerging energy technologies is the bioelectrochemical system, of which two types are ...

EPFL2024

Tailoring nanocatalysts and reaction interfaces for water- and CO2-electrolysis

Thi Ha My Pham

Renewable energy sources offer a promising solution for mitigating sustainability and CO2 emissions-related issues due to their vast energy generation capacity. They enable hydrogen production via water electrolysis, as well as carbon capture and utilizati ...

EPFL2024

Spatial Modeling for Building Design Evaluation: from Visual Landscape Quality Assessment to Devaluation Risk Estimation

Adam Robert Swietek

Zoning reform is a crucial tool for cities to adapt to contemporary challenges. However, its implementation remains challenging. Property owners, with a vested interest in the value of their neighborhoods, are sensitive to local developments and the potent ...

EPFL2024

An explorative method to support design decisions based on carbon constraints and daylight sufficiency needs

Nazanin Rezaei Oghazi

The global construction industry contributes to 37% of carbon emissions associated to both building operations and construction. To help achieve the net-zero targets set by 2050, it is mandated to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. As we ...

EPFL2024

Decarbonizing the fertilizers sector: an alternative pathway for urea and nitric acid production

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

In order to alleviate the environmental impact that nitrogen fertilizers production is responsible for, several efforts have been addressed to incentivize the partial or total decarbonization of the supply chains of ammonia and its derivatives. The decarbo ...

2024

DBFS: Dynamic Bitwidth-Frequency Scaling for Efficient Software-defined SIMD

Giovanni Ansaloni, Alexandre Sébastien Julien Levisse, Flavio Ponzina, Pengbo Yu

Machine learning algorithms such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are characterized by high robustness towards quantization, supporting small-bitwidth fixed-point arithmetic at inference time with little to no degradation in accuracy. In turn, small ...

IEEE2024

Towards edible robots and robotic food

Dario Floreano, Jun Shintake, Bokeon Kwak, Markéta Pankhurst

Edible robots and robotic food — edible systems that perceive, process and act upon stimulation — could open a new range of opportunities in health care, environmental management and the promotion of healthier eating habits. For example, they could enable ...

2024

Self-catalysed frontal polymerisation enables fast and low-energy processing of fibre reinforced polymer composites

Véronique Michaud, Baris Çaglar, Jacobus Gerardus Rudolph Staal

Frontal polymerisation has the potential to bring unprecedented reductions in energy demand and process time to produce fibre reinforced polymer composites. Production of epoxy-based fibre reinforced polymer parts with high fibre volume content, commonly e ...

2024

Multiscale Spatiotemporal Characterization of Embodied Environmental Performance of Building Structures in Geneva from 1850 to 2018

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Catherine Elvire L. De Wolf, Serena Vanbutsele

Load-bearing systems in buildings, significant in material use and embodied greenhouse gas emissions (EGHGE), have lacked detailed analysis on their environmental and functional relationships over time and space. This study evaluates the environmental impa ...

2024