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Sustainability
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Sustainable Development: The Need for Technological Change
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Sustainable Development: The Need for Technological Change

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2023) | Viewed by 3855

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Diego Vergara

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Technology, Instruction and Design in Engineering and Education Research Group (TiDEE.rg), Catholic University of Ávila, C/Canteros s/n, 05005 Ávila, Spain
Interests: technology enhanced learning; virtual learning environments; virtual reality; augmented reality; metallography; material characterization; mechanical properties; mechanical behavior of materials; mechanical testing; materials testing; stress and strain analysis; fracture mechanics; fractography; corrosion science; failure analysis; fatigue; finite element analysis; nuclear energy; energy efficiency
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable development and climate change have gone from being topics to be dealt with superficially at various international summits to real problems on which concrete decisions must be taken in a short period of time. When talking about sustainable development, three fundamental factors are related: (i) the environment; (ii) the economy; and (iii) society. Thus, there must be a balance between these factors so that the system can meet the needs of today's society and those of future generations.

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has significantly accelerated this sustainable transition and the adoption of new and cleaner technologies. At the recent Conference of the Parties (COP26), held in Glasgow at the end of 2021, participating countries set the goal of making the 2020s a decade of climate action and support, committing, among other measures, to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development require us to accelerate the search for solutions aimed at resolving the main challenges facing humanity in terms of sustainable development.

For this reason, it is necessary to conduct further research into the sustainable transition and the different technologies for electricity generation and transportation that will enable the decarbonization of the system while guaranteeing its sustainability. With this in mind, this Special Issue will accept contributions on the following topics:

  1. a) Sustainable transition, social sustainability, environmental protection, and economic growth.
  2. b) Political strategies (international, national, and regional) for the promotion of sustainable transitions.
  3. c) Sustainable electricity generation technologies: photovoltaic, wind, biomass, nuclear, etc.
  4. d) New technologies applicable to transportation.
  5. e) Efficiency of electricity generation or transport systems.
  6. f) Advances in decarbonization technologies.
  7. g) Optimization of energy resource management systems.
  8. h) New trends in energy vectors.
  9. i) Waste processing and utilization.

Dr. Diego Vergara
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • development
  • sustainable
  • energy efficiency
  • technological change
  • sustainable transition

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 5129 KiB  
Article
Assessment of Water Flow Glazing as Building-Integrated Solar Thermal Collector
by Fernando del Ama Gonzalo, Belén Moreno Santamaría and Juan A. Hernández Ramos
Sustainability 2023, 15(1), 644; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su15010644 - 30 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1412
Abstract
In buildings with ambitious energy goals or limited roof areas for on-site energy generation, building-integrated solar thermal collectors are one of the main strategies to provide on-site renewable energy to the built environment. In addition, designing large glazing facades is a challenge to [...] Read more.
In buildings with ambitious energy goals or limited roof areas for on-site energy generation, building-integrated solar thermal collectors are one of the main strategies to provide on-site renewable energy to the built environment. In addition, designing large glazing facades is a challenge to achieving the goal of zero-energy buildings due to the thermal load produced by standard double or triple glazing. This research shows that Water Flow Glazing (WFG) can produce domestic hot water as a building-integrated solar thermal collector by flowing water through the chamber between glass panes and can help reduce thermal loads through facades. In this article, the solar collector’s efficiency was defined according to the UNE-EN 12975-2 standard and then applied to the Water Flow Glazing. As a result, the transparent Water Flow Glazing’s optical efficiency η0 varies from 0.648 to 0.742, whereas the thermal loss coefficient a1 ranges from 9.51 to 4.16. Those values are like those of commercial plate collectors. Afterward, the model to predict the efficiency of WFG was tested in an existing facility by calculating the Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) to assess the deviations between the simulation and measured values. Using building-integrated solar collectors can improve the integration of renewable energies in facades and roofs but also increase the uncertainties that affect their efficiencies, such as internal heat loads and heating, cooling, and ventilation systems. Therefore, testing existing facilities can help understand the impact of these technologies in the Zero Energy Building paradigm. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development: The Need for Technological Change)
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19 pages, 4671 KiB  
Article
Energy Consumption of the Urban Transport Fleet in UNESCO World Heritage Sites: A Case Study of Ávila (Spain)
by Carlos Santos-Iglesia, Pablo Fernández-Arias, Álvaro Antón-Sancho and Diego Vergara
Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 5641; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14095641 - 07 May 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1735
Abstract
Emission reduction and energy efficiency are fundamental objectives for the sustainability of the urban transport (UT) sector. One of the actions to achieve these objectives is to replace the vehicles that make up the fleet of UT buses with more efficient ones, equipped [...] Read more.
Emission reduction and energy efficiency are fundamental objectives for the sustainability of the urban transport (UT) sector. One of the actions to achieve these objectives is to replace the vehicles that make up the fleet of UT buses with more efficient ones, equipped with regenerative braking systems that allow the recovery of part of the energy used in travel. However, sometimes the total replacement of the fleet of UT buses is not feasible and only a partial replacement of the fleet is possible. The present study proposes a mathematical model of easy application to compare different UT routes and to locate the greatest improvement niches. The contributions of the proposed model focus on several aspects: (i) optimizing economic resources; (ii) allocating the most efficient equipment where energy consumption can be most optimized; and (iii) simplifying the task of optimizing passenger transport routes. Thanks to the proposed model, the 6 UT lines of the city of Ávila can be classified in order to maximize efficiency in a possible partial renewal of the fleet. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development: The Need for Technological Change)
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