Suchergebnisse

Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is widely recognized as a viable solution for large-scale grid integrated renewable energy systems in terms of load levelling to solve/minimize the intermittency effect of renewable energy systems especially with increased penetration of renewables to the grid. This study assesses the economic value of adding compressed air energy storage (CAES) plant to a renewable energy system and how this impacts the overall financial appeal of the system at hand, taking Egyptian grid as a case in point. Numerical modelling using MATLAB was performed to analyse the benefits of adding a CAES system to planned wind farms in Egypt by 2020 for both load-levelling as well as optimizing economic benefit. The results show that the addition of a CAES system would increase the profitability for the new Tariff for wind systems set by the Egyptian government with a NPV of $306m compared to a NPV of $207m of a stand-alone wind system at the end of 25 years of operation. Also, the economic benefits increase if the government provides subsidies for new installations of renewable energy systems, or by lowering the interest rates.

Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is widely recognized as a viable solution for large-scale grid integrated renewable energy systems in terms of load levelling to solve/minimize the intermittency effect of renewable energy systems especially with increased penetration of renewables to the grid. This study assesses the economic value of adding compressed air energy storage (CAES) plant to a renewable energy system and how this impacts the overall financial appeal of the system at hand, taking Egyptian grid as a case in point. Numerical modelling using MATLAB was performed to analyse the benefits of adding a CAES system to planned wind farms in Egypt by 2020 for both load-levelling as well as optimizing economic benefit. The results show that the addition of a CAES system would increase the profitability for the new Tariff for wind systems set by the Egyptian government with a NPV of $306m compared to a NPV of $207m of a stand-alone wind system at the end of 25 years of operation. Also, the economic benefits increase if the government provides subsidies for new installations of renewable energy systems, or by lowering the interest rates.

The global policy debate on just transitions is concerned with how to achieve a socially just and acceptable transition toward a climate-neutral and climate-resilient global economy. At the core of this debate is the assumption that efforts to combat environmental threats will not succeed unless combined with measures to reduce poverty and inequality. Our research explores the potential of carbon fiscal reforms, combining a carbon tax of levels deemed appropriate to achieve climate targets and the transfer of the revenues raised to vulnerable households. The current energy and cost-of-living crisis shows the importance of protecting the poorest and most vulnerable households from price increases. It also shows the difficulty of achieving short- and long-term policy priorities. Despite the current spikes in energy prices, carbon fiscal reforms can achieve both social and environmental goals through simultaneously decreasing emissions and reducing poverty and inequality. They should act as an effective enabler of just transitions. Carbon fiscal reform can avoid some environmental impacts by incentivising reductions in emissions. Carbon pricing has been increasingly advocated and is now at the centre of policy debates, including the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) and the recent German presidency of the world's leading industrial nations (G7). But carbon fiscal reforms can also be used to raise revenue from carbon pricing instruments to offset the negative effects of higher prices on poorer households as well as further reaching distributional targets and poverty alleviation. Climate targets are negotiated every year, including at COP, hence it is critical to re-evaluate and improve estimates of the distributional impacts of climate policies such as carbon pricing. Public acceptability of climate policies is key to their implementation, but it depends to a large extent on the perceived fairness of such policies. Recycling revenues from carbon taxes directly back to vulnerable households is likely to gain the approval of a large number of people, especially in low-income countries where the high proportion of the population involved in the informal economy means that lowering income tax does not benefit the poorest and most vulnerable sections of society. But the targeting of these direct transfers needs careful consideration. Here, we assess the impact on poverty and inequality of a global carbon tax and national redistribution of revenues to vulnerable households. We look at different options for such redistribution, including a lump sum payment, the use of current social assistance programmes, and an expansion of social assistance following COVID-19. We find that a carbon tax of US$50/tCO2 without revenue redistribution could increase global extreme poverty, but the redistribution of revenue from such a carbon tax could substantially reduce poverty by between 16% and 27% (110 to 190 million people), and reduce inequality (the average Gini coefficient would decline by between 4% and 8%), depending on the scenario. This shows that the way in which revenue from a carbon tax is redistributed greatly affects its impact, underlining the importance of policy design and targeting mechanisms. The recycling of revenues should also take into account the specific political economy of a country and consider international transfers. These findings provide policy makers with a strong basis for informing discussions, starting off with those at COP27, in which ambitious climate targets and just transition should both remain central goals in the context of the ongoing international energy crisis.

Abstract
Understanding the impact of climate fiscal policies on vulnerable groups is a prerequisite for equitable climate mitigation. However, there has been a lack of attention to the impacts of such policies on the elderly, especially the low-income elderly, in existing climate policy literature. Here, we quantify and compare the distributional impacts of carbon pricing on different age–income groups in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan and then on different age groups in other 28 developed countries. We find that the elderly are more vulnerable to carbon pricing than younger groups in the same income group. In particular, the low-income elderly and elderly in less wealthy countries face greater challenges because carbon pricing lead to both higher rate of increase in living cost among low-income elderly and greater income inequality within the same age group. In addition, the low-income elderly would benefit less than the younger groups within the same income group in the commonly proposed carbon revenues recycling schemes. The high vulnerability of the low-income elderly to carbon pricing calls for targeted social protection along with climate mitigation polices toward an aging world.

Chengming Jia,1,2,* Hui Chen,3,* Mengying Wei,2,* Xiangjie Chen,4 Yajun Zhang,5 Liang Cao,1 Ping Yuan,1 Fangyuan Wang,1 Guodong Yang,2 Jing Ma1 1Department of Chinese Medicine, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China; 2Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China; 3Department of Plastic Surgery, Tangdu Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China; 4Department of Mathematics, Southeast University, Nanjing, China; 5Department of Ultrasound Diagnosis, Tangdu Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Diabetic cardiomyopathy is a common disease in postmenopausal women, in whom the estrogen deficiency aggravates the pathology. In this study, we have found that estrogen deficiency due to ovariectomy aggravates the inflammation in the hearts of diabetic mice, as depicted by excessive proinflammatory type 1 macrophages (M1) over anti-inflammatory type 2 macrophages (M2). Accordingly, an additional increase of reactive oxygen species, cell apoptosis, cardiac hypertrophy, and fibrosis was observed in the hearts of ovariectomized diabetic mice, in comparison with the diabetes-only group. Significantly, miR155, a potent promoter of M1 polarization, was found to be additionally enhanced in the macrophages and hearts by ovariectomy. Tail vein injection of miR155-AuNP, in which thiol-modified antago-miR155 was covalently conjugated with gold nanoparticle (AuNP), preferentially delivered the nucleic acids into the macrophages via phagocytosis. Together with the increased M2 ratio and reduced inflammation, in vivo delivery of antago-miR155 reduced cell apoptosis and restored the cardiac function. The restoration efficacy of miR155-AuNP was much better than general macrophage depletion by clodrosome. In summary, we revealed that M1/M2 imbalance contributes to the aggravated cardiomyopathy in ovariectomized diabetic mice, and therapeutically reducing miR155 in macrophages by AuNP serves as a promising strategy in improving cardiac function. Keywords: gold nanoparticle, miR155, cardiac function, macrophage, ovariectomized diabetic mouse model, targeted delivery