Planning decentralized urban renewable energy systems using algal cultivation for closed-loop and resilient communities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21247801 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven J Quan (0000-0001-9841-4823, Seoul National University), Soowon Chang (0000-0003-4877-2934, Purdue University West Lafayette), Daniel Castro‐Lacouture (0000-0003-1549-9097, Purdue University West Lafayette), Thomas K Igou (Georgia Institute of Technology), Thomas Igou (0000-0001-9842-2866, Georgia Institute of Technology), Florina Dutt (0000-0002-2484-6831, Georgia Institute of Technology), Jiaqi Ding (0000-0002-0900-6172, Georgia Institute of Technology), Yongsheng Chen (0000-0002-9519-2302, Georgia Institute of Technology), Perry P-J Yang (0000-0003-0809-8922, Georgia Institute of Technology, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1464-1488 |
| Publication date | 2022-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environment and Planning B Urban Analytics and City Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2399-8083 • E-ISSN: 2399-8091 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/23998083221101713 |
| OpenAlex | W4280563150 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 41 |
To tackle climate challenges, communities need to harvest renewable energy and resources on site locally to close the loops for enhancing the resilience of communities facing unpredictable and uncertain future changes. A decentralization planning of urban renewable energy systems is proposed by treating urban waste streams and producing biomass through applying algal biotechnology. When applying algal technology as a renewable and decentralized energy source in urban systems, the overall performance can vary by levels of urban nutrients, solar and CO 2 resources, and the transportation cost when considering its application to different urban densities, urban form, and the spatial scale of urban settings. This research explores three potential impacts on the algal system’s energy performance: (1) urban density, (2) urban form in different contexts, and (3) spatial scale. The research examines the impacts by testing urban settings given in actual contexts in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Four neighborhoods representing the high-density urban, mid-density urban, mixed suburban, and typical suburban areas are investigated. The density-scale–performance relationships are explored through testing different urban forms of neighborhoods in both hypothetical and actual neighborhood settings. A GIS-based model is developed to estimate the overall energy performance of the decentralized renewable energy system in urban environments. Results show that the energy performance is positive mainly for high-density urban neighborhoods with small-to-medium scales, up to 0.36 MJ per ton of municipal solid wastes for actual settings and 0.37 MJ for hypothetical cases. Neighborhoods with higher density have higher energy performance while up scaling has negative effects on the energy performance with a low degree of significance. Optimal scales are found as a 1-km radius in real test beds and 1.3 km in hypothetical settings, in which the results show trade-offs between scaling effects in the system efficiency gain and the transportation cost increase
Cartography · Civil engineering · Economics · Energy planning · Environmental economics · Environmental resource management · Geography · Renewable energy · Renewable resource · Urban climate · Urban density · Urban metabolism · Urban planning · Algal biology and biofuel production · Engineering · Environmental Science · Ecology · Environmental Engineering
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |