Special Issue

Sustainability Perspectives on the Global Energy Transition

Manuscript Submission Deadline: June 30, 2022

Guest Editors

George Papadakis

Professor of Renewable Energy, Department of Natural Resources and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens (AUA), Iera Odos 75, Athens 11855, Greece

Research Interests: Energy; energy technologies; renewable energy; renewable energy technologies; solar energy; technologies for solar thermal energy production (solar thermal collectors); technologies for solar electricity (photovoltaics); concentrated solar power; bio-energy; energy efficiency technologies
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Vasilis M. Fthenakis

Director of Center for Life Cycle Analysis, Professor, Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

Research Interests: life cycle analysis and grid integration of energy generation and storage technologies; solar enabled water desalination; flexible, solar enabled hydrogen production; photovoltaics LCA and recyclin
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Prasad Kaparaju

Associate Professor, School of Engineering and Built Environment - Civil and Environmental Engineering, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

Research Interests: biomass to biofeul conversion technologies; bioenergy; biomass characterisation; biofuels; biohydrogen; biogas; biomethane; biogas upgrading; greenhouse gas emissions; climate change; biodiesel; bioethanol; pyrolysis; hydrothermal liquefaction; biomass pretreatment; hydrothermal carbonisation; enzymatic hydrolysis; microplastics; wastewater treatment; solid waste management; organic waste management; biofertilizer; bioeconomy; biorefinery
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Introduction

Human practices have caused many environmental disasters and climate change, increased adverse weather conditions, caused major problems in the production and distribution of food and other industrial products, biodiversity loss, social inequalities, and geopolitical instability. Humanity today is struggling to cope with the environmental crisis and environmental and socially sustainable practices have become a vital issue for the survival of mankind. Sustainability requires significant changes in the production and use of products. All forms of energy production have an impact on the environment, and we cannot continue harming the environment we live in in order to meet the ever-increasing energy needs. The positive role of renewable energy sources has been recognized internationally by the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as in the Sustainable Development Goals.

It is extremely important that, as humanity embarks on a necessary energy transition from clearly unsustainable sources, it does so while examining both positive and potentially negative impacts of alternative scenarios. Careful, level-headed thought on the implications of this transition is in order; the Renewable Energy research community has conducted numerous studies over the last decades addressing such implications and proposed solutions. Many debates are still going on towards defining optimum scenarios for the necessary energy transition and achieving rapid decarbonization (or rather, "defossilization", i.e., freedom from the dependence on fossil carbon resources).

The objective of the present special issue of GES is to attract perspective studies from energy, material, resource and environmental experts for a sustainable energy transition challenges sustainability and disseminate these studies to the scientific community and to the relevant stakeholders. The special issue is dedicated to reviewing the state-of-the-art of global energy transition, while looking to its future by publishing a collection of perspective articles covering a spectrum of cost, resource and environmental sustainability topics, including but not limited to: life cycle costing of major and 100% RE scenarios, primary and secondary resource availability, comparative environmental, health and safety risks, comparative environmental impact, reliability and security risks, energy return on energy investment, solar and wind system end-of-life management.

Manuscript Submission Information

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor been under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings). All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a single-blinded peer-review process. A guide for manuscript submission is available at Submission Instructions.

Invited Papers

Title: The progress of biogas development and research in China

Author: DONG Renjie

Affiliation: National Center for International Research of BioEnergy Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology (iBEST) Room 764, College of Engineering, East Campus of China Agricultural University (CAU), China

Special Issue

George Papadakis

Vasilis M. Fthenakis

Prasad Kaparaju