Rapid expansion of the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry is quickly causing solar to play a growing importance in the energy mix of the world. Over the full life cycle, although to a smaller degree than traditional energy sources, PV also creates solid waste. This paper examines the potential need for PV recycling policies by analyzing existing recycling protocols for the five major types of commercialized PV materials. The amount of recoverable semiconductor material and glass in a 1 m2 area ...
As the Ontario government has recognized that solar photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion is a solution to satisfying society's energy demands while reducing the adverse anthropogenic impacts on the global environment that compromise social welfare, they have begun to generate policy and funding programs to support financial incentives for PV. This paper (publication below) provides a financial analysis for investment in a 1 GW per year turnkey amorphous silicon PV manufacturing plant. The fina...
Alternative energy technologies (AETs) have emerged as a solution to the challenge of simultaneously meeting rising electricity demand while reducing carbon emissions. However, as all AETs are responsible for some greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during their construction, carbon emission “Ponzi Schemes” are currently possible, wherein an AET industry expands so quickly that the GHG emissions prevented by a given technology are negated to fabricate the next wave of AET deployment. In an era...
Nunavut, the youngest Canadian territory, has developed a complete dependence on diesel-generated electricity over the last 50 years, which has led to environmental and economic stress on the territory. However, renewable energy technologies (RETs) could provide substantial electricity to communities, thereby reducing the use of diesel fuel. This study explored the perspectives of government policy-makers, northern energy consultants, and NGOs in order to understand the current status of rene...
While the solar water disinfection (SODIS) method of treating microbiologically contaminated water at the household level has proven to be effective at reducing incidence of diarrhea, its effectiveness is limited to waters of low turbidity. This study investigates the use of table salt (NaCl) to reduce turbidity in water containing dispersed colloidal clay particles as a means of expanding the user base of SODIS. Jar tests were performed on solutions of a low-activity clay, simulating the gen...
ABSTRACT There has been a controversy as to the question whether Islamic law can be classified as customary law in Nigeria. There exists a divide among jurisprudential scholars as to the answer to this question but the prevailing school of thought sees Islamic law as customary law. This position is supported by Nigerian Statues as is made evident by the provision of section 2 of the Native Courts Law 1957 and its succeeding legislations which states that ‘native law and custom includes...
This Article provocatively asserts that lawmakers should weaken patents significantly—by between 25% and 50%. The primary impetus for this conclusion is the underappreciated effects of new and emerging technologies, including three-dimensional printing, synthetic biology, and cloud computing. These and other technologies are rapidly decreasing the costs of each stage of the innovation cycle: from basic research, through inventing and prototyping, to marketing and distribution. The primary e...
There is some consensus between such disparate voices as the Economist on the right and Jeremy Rifkin on the left that 3D printing, a form of additive manufacturing, represents the “next industrial revolution”. 3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing for making a physical object from a three-dimensional digital model, typically by laying down many successive thin layers of a material. It can be used to make everything from expensive scientific and engineering tools to nove...
Anthropogenic global climate change has large and mounting negative economic impacts. Companies and nations responsible for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are thus acquiring considerable potential liabilities. If litigation becomes widespread, renewable energy technologies (RETs) potentially offer emitters reduced liability for climate change. This benefit has been ignored because of the lack of knowledge of potential liabilities. To overcome this information deficit, this paper reviews r...
Poor air quality from coal combustion adversely impacts human health including mortality and morbidity effects on respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, urinary, and digestive systems. However, the continued use of coal are no longer necessary to provide for society's electrical needs because of advances in solar photovoltaic (PV) technology. In order to inform health policy this paper reviews the data for quantifying the lives saved by a replacement of U.S. coal-fired electricity with solar P...
A promising method of enhancing the circular economy is distributed plastic recycling. In this study plastic waste is upcycled into 3-D printing filament with a recyclebot, which is an open source waste plastic extruder. The recyclebot is combined with an open source self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) 3-D printer, to enable post-consumer ABS plastic filament from computer waste to be further upcycled into valuable consumer products pre-designed in the digital commons. The total electr...
Despite the recent drastic reversal of decarbonization effort by the current Presidential administration, the majority of U.S. states continue policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increasing renewable energy technology (RET) deployment. Although electrical power utilities are required and/or encouraged to comply with these policies, their executives lack direct incentives to do so. In this study, a novel incentive mechanism is evaluated for specifically aligning elect...
Because of its environmental damage and now often being the most expensive source for electricity production, coal use is declining throughout the United States. Michigan has no active coal mining and seemingly supportive legislation for distributed generation (DG) and renewable energy (RE) technologies. However, Michigan still derives approximately half of its power production from large centralized coal plants, despite the availability of much lower cost RE DG technologies. To understand th...
ABSTRACT If each resource (petroleum) rich nation was a living cell, the national oil company (NOC) would be the nucleus. NOCs are that important. They are the economic engine rooms of resource dependent nations. Nigeria’s NOC; the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is however yet to fulfill this role in the Nigerian economy. Since its establishment in 1977, a steady stream of reports and reviews have documented NNPC’s dismal legacy of lost revenues, inefficiency and corruption...
Disputes are bound to arise as long as human interaction is concerned. What however differentiates man from other animals is his ability to manage his disputes. Over the years, a very popular method of resolving disputes is through litigation/the court. This presentation briefly juxtaposes litigation and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, carefully showing how ADR fits into the best interest of clients than litigation.