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Research Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society | IREES Research

PhD projects

Adaptive logistics in circular economy | Dieu Linh Hoang

Within a Circular Economy, three interdependent cyclic systems emerge around: biological nutrients, technical nutrients, energy capture. Biomass plays a pivotal role as biological nutrient and as nutrient for biogas. Biogas is currently not economically viable in the Netherlands without subsidies. This state of affairs is related to logistics costs. Transport of biomass, of biogas and of digestate is too expensive to warrant a viable circular economy around biogas. >>> read more.

Aligning technological, economic and governmental factors in regional energy transition processes | Aamina Teladia

Despite the serious efforts of many governments and other social actors to accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy system there are difficulties that arise in energy transformation. There are barriers related to governance failures, such as old-fashioned legislation and tariff structures, coordination problems between regional and national governments, and insufficient involvement of local stakeholders >>> read more.

City-Level Carbon Emission for European Cities: Accounting Methodology and Applications | Yuru Guan

Cities are central to climate change mitigation. City-level carbon emissions vary significantly due to differences in resource endowments, energy mix, technologies, and economic structures, and inter-regional trade. Carbon emissions accounting is considered as a fundamental step for analyzing carbon emission characteristics, identifying key emission paths, formulating emission reduction policies, promoting economic transformation >>> read more.

Complex networks and the Maximum Entropy Production Principle | Noam Abadi

Thermodynamics introduced the concept of entropy as a way to quantify how much energy in a system could be transformed into work. This led to the formulation of the second law of thermodynamics which, ultimately, gives a sense of direction in which macroscopic processes occur. The concept was then broadened by the statistical version of thermodynamics – statistical mechanics – in which entropy represents the direction >>> read more.

Decentralized energy infrastructure in the context of long-term energy transition | Gideon Laugs

Driven by the double bind of declining fossil fuel reserves and concern over emissions thereof, the worldwide energy system is facing a transition towards a more sustainable energy supply. The many unknown techno-economical and socio-political variables in that transition are the cause of great uncertainty with regard to the spectrum of possible energy futures. This uncertainty increases the more long-term a time horizon is considered, and extends >>> read more.

Determination of the environmental impacts of ocean energy production on marine biodiversity, under Life Cycle Assessment perspective | Dora Ruiz Mendez

The oceans represent a considerable source of renewable energy with high potential. However, nowadays ocean renewable energy accounts for the smallest contribution of all types of renewable energy worldwide and has not reached their maximum development yet. Overall, ocean energy technologies do not generate greenhouse gases during the operation, providing the potential to significantly contribute to emissions reductions. >>> read more.

Economic and environmental effects of poverty reduction I Yang Wang

Poverty eradication, inequality reduction, and environmental protection, including climate change mitigation, are critical strategic missions worldwide. These issues are complex and interrelated, with far-reaching implications for human wellbeing, economic development, and the sustainability of the planet. To achieve more equitable resource use while addressing environmental challenges, it is crucial to understand the current effectiveness of poverty >>>read more

Emerging Indonesian Emission Trading System and its potential international linkage l Encep Amir

As committed in the latest Indonesian Government’s National Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reduce Green House Gases (GHGs) emissions as much as 31.89 percent of those emitted in the business as usual (BAU) scenario by 2030 (915 Mton CO2e) through domestic actions and - 43.20 percent (1240 Mton CO2e) in support from international parties- all necessary efforts are being deployed. In various magnitudes, the responsibility shared between >>> read more

EPOS: An Environmental Product Optimisation Strategy | Reino Veenstra

Optimising products’ impact on nature requires an interdisciplinary and integral approach. It requires weighing incomparable and incompatible environmental impact effects to a vast complex of product related causes. It requires thinking in product systems in order to look for possibilities to decrease the product bound environmental impact beyond the focal tangible artefact. It also requires balancing the interests of nature, people, and companies >>> read more.

ESTRAC: Integrated Energy System Analysis | Amirhossein Fattahi

GHG emission reduction ambitions of 80-95% in 2050 will require a large transformation of the energy system, with a huge increase in energy sources such as, for example, wind, sun, nuclear and CCS which are largely or fully CO2-free. While it is as yet unknown what part the different technologies will have in the transition path up to 2050 and beyond, it is to be expected that variable and uncertain energy sources such as wind and sun will have a considerable >>> read more.

Evaluating global food systems sustainability from a perspective of agricultural trade | Junjie Yi

Since the beginning of the 21st century, agricultural trade has become a vital regulatory measure to cope with global food security, climate change and scarcity of water and land resources. Behind the international trade, the global food systems are separately studied and managed. To reveal the integration between the agricultural products, the natural resources and environment, to provide a systematic and comprehensive strategy >>> read more.

Evaluation of liquid organic hydrogen carrier as an enabler of sustainable energy infrastructures | Longquan Li

Transformation of the energy system towards renewable energy sources becomes inevitable to counteract the harmful effects of fossil fuels including global temperature rise. Utilizing energy from renewable energy sources bring up challenges including fluctuating power generation and energy transport. Hydrogen arises as an attractive energy carrier option to tackle these problems in a low-carbon energy system. >>> read more.

Exploring options for decarbonizing the Indonesian power sector through market reforms l Herian Atma

Power sector reforms have been implemented in both developed and developing economies in the past. The reasons for reform vary between countries, but typically aim to address issues such as inefficiency, lack of investment, and inadequate access to electricity. Reforms have taken various forms, including the establishment of independent regulatory entities, greater private participation,unbundling of state-owned monopolies>>>read more

Future Water Availability for Food and Hydropower in Basins Dependent on the Himalaya Mountains' Ice Reserves | Rozina Naz

The Himalaya provides freshwater from snow and ice melting to ten of the world largest rivers in South Asia originating in the Himalayan mountains. These rivers provide water to the large population living in the mountains and river basins where water is mainly used for agricultural production. Climate factors e.g., warming trends, variations in precipitation, and increased snow and glacier melting cause shifts in the mountains’ water supply. >>> read more.

High spatial resolution analysis of transgression of freshwater planetary boundary in the context of globalization l Siyu Hou

Water crises have been recognized as the most influential risks in terms of societal and environmental impact. To prevent unacceptable environmental change generated by water crises, planetary boundary for freshwater use (PBW) was proposed as one of the nine planetary boundaries. Planetary boundaries define thresholds for different subsystems of Earth, crossing which would incur potential disastrous catastrophe to human beings >>>read more

Holistic modelling of sustainable development |Teun Kluck

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) by the United Nations are widely used as indicators for sustainability. However, countries are not on track to achieving them. Therefore, we need to know what the consequences are of underachieving the SDGs. To keep a livable planet, we cannot cross the planetary boundaries. Therefore, we use SDG system models to predict the impact on the planetary boundaries of multiple scenarios of (under)achieving SDGs, >>> read more.

IESA-ESTRAC (Integrated Energy System Analysis within the Energy System Transition Center) | Manuel Sanchez Dieguez

It is well known that anthropogenic GHG emissions are threatening earth system’s stability. It is also a well-known fact that renewable energy sources are the alternative that could enable us to decarbonize our economic activities without compromising human welfare. However, most of the subsidies and efforts, at a EU level at least, have been occurring around solar and wind sourced electricity >>> read more.

Innovative financial instruments for sustainable landscapes I Jesper Beverdam

 The project centers around the need for halting biodiversity loss and improving landscape quality. Financial constraints are a large obstacle to achieving these objectives. Where traditional funding methods seem to have fallen short, the aim of this project is to develop and construct innovative financial instruments, namely landscape securities, of which the proceeds can be used to achieve non-financial impacts. These securities can be held by businesses >>> read more

Modelling the carbon emission of supply chain based on enterprise-level data | Zeyu Wang

Over the last decade, the efforts against global warming caused by greenhouse gas emission have become one of main hotspots of international debate. Firms worldwide are currently investigating ways to decarbonize global supply chains as they are increasingly emerging into the largest emission source with emission-intensive activities including exploitation, manufacture, transportation, and products-consumption. Although the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) >>> read more.

Multi-scale material consumption accounts and resource sustainable development in China from a perspective of metabolism | Yanxian Li

Global consumption of natural resources including biomass, fossil fuels and minerals (excluding water and land) has reached more than 90 Gt in 2017 predicted by UNEP to double by 2050 given current trends. With the continuous growth of the global population and the global economy, the global community will face severe resource shortages, and achieving resource sustainability is one of the Sustainable Development Goals >>> read more.

Optimization of micro grids with renewable energy electricity generators | Emilia Come Zebra

In developing countries, most of the population living in remote areas rely on three-stone fires based on traditional biomass (wood and charcoal) for cooking and the lighting is provided by candles or kerosene lamps which are considering high pollutants due to the smoke, therefore access to electricity has been identified as a crucial factor to improve the life conditions. The main goal to be achieved in this research is to understand how access >>> read more.

Philosophical Perspectives on Sustainability Transitions; Studying the Case of Marine Energy| Rien de Bont

My PhD project seeks to make the best of two academic fields in developing ways of acting on today’s sustainability crisis: the interdisciplinary field of Sustainability Transitions Research and the field of New Materialism within contintental philosophy. Sustainability Transitions Research emerged in the early 2000’s its >>> read more.

Reconstruction and Mapping of Fossil Carbon flows as feedstock for Global Production Network | Kaan Hidiroglu

With debates surrounding the ongoing energy transition, many different aspects of fossil-fuel use is being researched. Besides all the efforts to mitigate the use of fossil-carbon resources for energy generation purposes, the utilization of such sources for non-energy generation purposes still hold a prominent share. It was estimated by BP Energy Outlook in 2017 that non-energy use of fossil-carbons would be the largest source of fossil fuel demand growth by 2035 >>> read more.

Regional inversion studies of methane fluxes using CTDAS-WRF | Mengrong Lu

Methane, a major greenhouse gas, is key to climate change mitigation. Accurately measuring urban methane emissions is crucial for crafting effective strategies. Our work focuses on high-resolution regional inversion studies validated by observations to assess emissions and pinpoint sources. We use the CTDAS-WRF system, which integrates the CarbonTracker Data Assimilation Shell (CTDAS), the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) >>> read more.

The feasibility of a Paris-proof European power system | Rebeka Béres

In order to mitigate climate change, Europe has investigated decarbonisation strategies for the most carbon intensive sectors. In 2020, the European commission has set the ambitious target of cutting emissions by 55%, compared to 1990 levels. This would be the first step to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Energy related industries are responsible for 29% of all European greenhouse gas emissions Consequently, decarbonisation of the European>>> read more.

The Water-Energy-Food-Nexus and Sustainable Development in South Africa l Thomas van Huyssteen

In this project we analyse sustainable development in South Africa by utilising the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus approach. This approach looks at the synergies, conflicts, and trade-offs between the water, energy, and food sectors. The project is broken down into four key parts. First, we analyse the present and future sustainability of electricity production in South Africa under various scenarios >>>read more

Unequal health risks of air pollution among different income groups in China | Ruoqi Li

As socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved. Promoting the social equity now becomes a significant political task in China. Equity is of rich connotation in the field of environment. My project will mainly focus on the equity among different populations. The population equity issue is particularly typical when it comes to air pollution health risk. >>> read more.

Unraveling Sustainable Development Goal Interactions: A Systems Perspective on Leveraging Synergies and Mitigating Trade-offs | Anne Warchold

Inspired by Herbert A. Simon (1991) assertion that the whole purpose of science is to find meaningful simplicity in the midst of disorderly complexity,this research delves into the complexity of sustainability through the lens of the 2030 Agenda compromising its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs, as a >>> read more.

Utilizing satellite drones to verify the carbon emissions portion of a company's ESG report | Jinglun Qiang

Greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming, although countries are taking countermeasures. As the goals of modern business have broadened from solely maximizing profits to including societal responsibilities, their own environmental impacts should be disclosed and monitored, and ESG (Environment-Social-Governance) reporting is one means of doing so. While ESG information has become an integral part of investors’ examination >>> read more.


Previous PhD projects

A modeling approach to the energy transition inside the Energy, Water, Food Nexus | Santiago David Vaca Jimenez

Together, population growth, urbanization and climate change, represent an important challenge for human development. The first two will affect the demand on scarce resources as water, energy and food. The latter will likely affect the availability of those resources >>> read more.

Analysis of the implementation and implications of the introduction of state-of-the-art sustainability criteria for biobased products | Nidia Ramirez Contreras

Given the constant growth of the world, it is needed to contribute to the reduction of environmental pollution caused by oil derivatives; this has generated interest in the use of alternative raw materials (bio-based materials) which contribute to sustainability, covering not only environmental issues, >>> read more.

Assessing social sustainability performance among global supply chains|Danyang Zhang

Social sustainability is one of the most important pillars of sustainable development. Many of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) proposed by the united nations e.g. poverty eradication (SDG1), health and wellbeing (SDG 3), quality education (SDG 4), gender equality (SDG 5), and decent work (SDG 8) >>>read more

Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, transport and storage (CCTS), infra-structure, and options of enhanced oil and gas recovery (EOR)/(EGR) for the benefit of the Mozambique region | Felix Paipe

The use of energy in the different activities, such as oil and gas sectors, steel, cement, aluminium smelter, coal mining, power plants, manufacturing, chemical industries, and others, usually cause carbon dioxide (CO2) emission that contributes to the global warming. Global warming damages biodiversity, >>> read more.

China’s future capital development and the associated dynamic impacts on China’s carbon emissions | Quanliang Ye

With significant government and private investment, a variety of capital assets that are built-up in China or imported from abroad have been acquired to enable the country’s fast-growing production activities. The durable feature of capital assets makes today’s built-up capital that can be used for productive purposes over years or even decades.>>> read more.

Community Innovation for Sustainable Energy. Aligning technological and societal innovations | Esther van der Waal

My PhD project is part of the MVI project ‘Community Innovation for Sustainable Energy. Aligning technological and societal innovations’ that is funded by NWO. Besides Groningen University, also the TU Twente, the Hanzehogeschool Groningen, and some private enterprises participate in this project.>>> read more.

Effect evaluation and path optimization of international trade on sustainable development | Jiayu Wang

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development announced 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 targets. The goals and targets will stimulate action over the next 15 years in areas of economy, society, and environment. Although some countries or sectors may show trends towards compliance with SDGs,>>> read more.

Energy input and carbon footprint to supply water for major crops in Pakistan | Abdul Wahab Siyal

For increasing populations, decreasing agricultural land, expanding stress on water and energy resources, and climate unpredictability, south Asia faces the challenges about how to produce more food with the same or less land and water, and increased energy prices, while preserving resources and maintaining environmental>>> read more.

Estimation of bioenergy potential in China | Bingquan Zhang

China has been the world’s largest energy consumer with oil and natural gas dependency rates of approximately 60% and 33%, respectively, since 2011 due to high rate of growth in GDP and rapid increase in population. Since 2007, as the world’s largest carbon emitter, the United States has been overtaken by China>>> read more.

Exploring the relationship between the neighborhood-level urban form and energy metabolism | Miaohan Tang

Along with the rapid urbanization over the past few decades, urban areas have evolved as centers of population living. However, human-driven activities have been subjected to severe metabolic pressure and evoked dramatically irreversible environmental degradation. Understanding the effects of urban form>>> read more.

From natural gas to sustainable heat: integrated scenarios for the energy transition in the built environment | Kathelijne Bouw

To realize the transition to a sustainable energy supply, the consumption of natural gas will have to decrease drastically in the coming years. In particular, the heat supply in the built environment is highly dependent on natural gas. This dependency has led to lock-in of the system, which makes it difficult>>> read more.

Implementation strategy of carbon trading as a subsidy mechanism for new energy vehicles | Qingyun Nie

From a global perspective, the transportation sector has become the second-largest carbon-emitting field after the electricity and heat producer sector, reducing its carbon emissions has become the top priority for sustainable social development. Thus, new energy vehicles with significant energy-saving>>> read more.

Implementing spatial intelligence that provides Delta regions access to ecosystem services | Weier Liu

Deltas support enormous flows of materials and energy though its intricate biophysical processes, which makes them among the most important ecosystems to provide a vast range of ecosystem services (ESs) including supporting services of biodiversity and land formation, provisioning services of biomass, fresh water>>> read more.

Modeling and Application Research on China’s Water-Energy-Food Nexus | Xiangyan Qian

As scarce resources, water, energy and food (WEF) are essential for social production, human well-being and sustainable development. The limited water, energy and food resources are gradually posing major challenges to the sustainable development of all countries. How to reveal the complex relationship among the three resources>>> read more.

Modelling and analysing the Colombian energy system to obtain short, medium and longer term scenario’s for Bio-based Economy for the national energy demand, supply mix and GHG mitigation potential | Ahmed Younis

Bioenergy has for years been considered an important mitigation option for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, a key alternative for oil and an important opportunity to provide income and economic activity to rural regions, especially in developing countries. This has not fundamentally changed, but the recent debate >>> read more.

Modelling the Whole North Sea Energy System |Rafael Martínez Gordón

This Ph.D. project is part of a Marie Curie Training Network called ‘’ENSYSTRA (Energy Systems in Transition)’’. The overall network, with 6 universities around the North Sea region, will put together a study of key energy technologies and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation options in the North Sea region in terms>>> read more.

Offshore Advanced Renewable Energy Technologies, Learning Curves and Roadmaps | Srinivasan Santhakumar

This Ph.D. project is a part of the Marie Curie Training Network called ENSYSTRA – Energy System in Transition (https://ensystra.eu/), and the project will be carried out with strong support from ENSYSTRA network. This network and the combination of its expertise, tools and data will provide>>> read more.

Potential and improvement of LNG liquefaction facility and distribution infrastructure | Jinrui Zhang

With the population growing and economies developing, the power consumption has grown rapidly. To meet this growth, the consumption of gas is expected to grow to a quarter of global energy demand. The gas demand has a dynamic fluctuation in seasonal, while using at residential and commercial.>>> read more.

Quality induced water scarcity and its reginal inequality in China | Dan Wang

Water is essential to sustain life, development and the environment. However, around 80% of the global population is currently threatened by water scarcity, which is mainly caused by water pollution. UNEP estimates that two out of every three people will live in water scarce areas by 2025, and at that time,>>> read more.

Remapping a real energy flow world: virtual and physical | Yannan Zhou

In the era of globalization, not only the visible energy flows and allocates globally, but also energy, as an important basic raw material and production power embedded in the global production network, redistributed globally in the invisible form. In such case, the concept of energy security is redefined.>>> read more.

Shaping Energy Storage Development in the Dutch Electricity Market | Ahmad Mir Mohammadi Kooshknow

According to the Energy Agenda , the Netherlands is seeking for low-carbon energy supply, and 40% and 80-95% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2030 and 2050, respectively. These targets necessitate considerable share of renewable sources in the Dutch energy mix in the coming years. Because of variable nature>>> read more.

Sustainable development potentials and pathways for biobased economy options in Brazil | Tjerk Lap

Within the next decades the world will face major threats like global warming, environmental pollution and resource depletion. Human reliance on fossil resources is seen as one of the major contributors to this global change. To ensure a sustainable future we should shift away from a fossil-based society towards a sustainable society.>>> read more.

Techno-economic prospects and life cycle assessment of biobased industrial processes with CCS (CO2 and storage) | Fan Yang

According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, stabilizing the global temperature rise at 2°C implies a massive reduction of green house gas (GHG) emissions. The abundant use of fossil fuels has become a cause of concern due to their adverse effects on the >>> read more.

The impact of international assistance on the social and ecological status of least developed countries| Yuling Pan

The least developed countries (LDCs) are developing countries listed by the UnitedNations that exhibit the lowest indicators of socioeconomic development. There are 46 LDCs in the world now. LDCs are lagging behind in terms ofeconomy, education, gender equality, employment, health, food, etc.. However, >>>read more

The potential and limitations of decarbonizing the Oil Industry | Edgar Yáñez Angarita

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the greenhouses-gas emissions (GHG) associated with energy production and use accounts for about two-thirds of the global emissions (IEA 2015) . This means a real challenge for deploying pledges on the energy sector that were made at the COP21. >>> read more.

To construct a bio-based evaluation system: The sustainability influence of the biomass development and utilization in Loess Plateau | Yanmei Liu

Biomass as a source for renewable for low carbon energy carriers and materials is one of the key mitigation options to curb global CO2 emissions. However, the production of large amounts of sustainable biomass is a challenge due to large land and water requirements amongst others. >>> read more.

Trading partners, commodity structure, and environmental pollution | Chao Zhong

With the intensification of global pollution and the differences in economic, technological, and policy, the environment has had an unprecedented impact on the entire international economy and trade. China, as the largest trading nation, has long been exporting high-energy and resource-intensive products for other >>> read more.