Greening Governance: An Evolutionary Approach to Policy Making for a Sustainable Built Environment

After twenty years of sustainable building policies, the issue of environmental impact of buildings and urban environments remains. Policy makers still have difficulties addressing the ambiguous, contested and dynamic goals encapsulated in the term ‘sustainable development’. How to decide between using zinc or PVC gutters, when knowledge and...

The near wake of the VAWT: 2D and 3D views of the VAWT aerodynamics

The analysis, modeling and design of the lift-driven Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) has challenged the wind energy community for many decades; this limited progress in knowledge has severely impaired the development of the VAWT, giving rise to the myth that the VAWT rotor is inherently inefficient (in comparison with the more conventional...

Aircraft technology's: Contribution to sustainable development

Aviation brings many advantages to society, reflected in its huge growth figures. But, aviation is also criticized for its many undesired effects. Sustainable Development as a concept is brought forward by many of the actors in the aviation system as a way in which aviation can develop itself in order to reduce its undesired effects. Some actors...

Towards a hydrogen-driven society? Calculations and neutron scattering on potential hydrogen storage materials

For sustainable development, the resources of the earth need to be maintained and carbon dioxide emission should be avoided. In particular, we need to find an alternative for the use of fossil fuels in vehicles. Since long, hydrogen has been recognised as the fuel of the future because it exhausts only water when used in fuel cells and hardly...

Process system innovation by design: Towards a sustainable petrochemical industry

Sustainable Chemical Processes and Products. New Design Methodology and Design Tools

The current chemical industry is not sustainable, which leads to the fact that innovation of chemical processes and products is too often hazardous for society in general and the environment in particular. It really is a challenge to implement sustainability considerations in the design activities of chemical engineers. Therefore, the main...