Storifying Samsø’s Renewable Energy Transition

Through a joint community effort Denmark’s Renewable Energy Island Samsø became self-sufficient with renewable energy over a period of 10 years from 1997 to 2007. Today, the story about Samsø’s successful energy transition has become a global export and a widely known model of community building, public participation and shared ownership in renewable energy technologies and transition processes. What has allowed the Samsø narrative to travel so widely has been the effective ‘transition story’ created about the islanders’ efforts. This transition story, however, has become fixed with the years and has assumed an ideal-typical character. Meanwhile, the challenges and costs inherent in the complicated socio-material process of transition are underestimated and largely forgotten. While such transition stories are indeed inspiring, the ideal-typical narrative may stand in the way of the development of further local energy transitions, as challenging elements of the process are downplayed to strengthen the narrative power of the story. Ethnographic stories about Samsø complicate the island’s transition narrative and add nuance to the Samsø story, highlighting its discrepancies and problematizing the effects of such well-crafted transition narratives. This tendency toward the ‘storification’ of transition processes is not restricted to Samsø; it is employed as a tactics by environmental organizations operating globally.     

A Decision Support System for Prioritizing Investments in an Energy Efficiency Program in Favelas in the City of Rio de Janeiro

This study proposes an integrated qualitative and quantitative assessment of expert opinions aiming at ranking a set of five shantytowns (favelas) located in the city of Rio de Janeiro. These communities are candidates for investments in an energy efficiency program implemented by the local electric utility company. The city, state, and federal governments want to eliminate domination of these areas by organized criminal gangs and present the city as a peaceful metropolis while hosting two big sports events: the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. In recent years, some favelas were chosen to be prototypes for an ambitious project to reshape Rio de Janeiro. This involves first sending in special tactics police to drive drug gangs out, then installing the Pacifying Police Unit in the favela. Once security has been established, it is possible to improve general living conditions in these areas, including by providing public services such as health clinics, formal electricity connections and cable television. The core of the energy efficiency program was to convert informal customers to formal ones, because such communities were responsible for approximately 40% of the commercial losses (stolen energy) in the city. The model specification presented in this paper was set up with ten relevant criteria for decision making, identified through an in‐depth interview with the decision maker. The relative importance of the criteria and the performance of each favela regarding each criterion were measured by the Simos method. The preferences resulting from this method were translated into a nine‐point scale. The imprecision of subjective judgment was partially compensated by using a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process. Some criteria were ordinal, such as ‘Fair Relationship with the Community’ and ‘Complexity to Rebuild the Distribution Lines’, whereas other were cardinal, like ‘Percentage of Clients in Default’ and ‘Commercial Loss Due to Energy Theft’. At the end, the model was efficient in ranking the five favelas, therefore contributing to a rational and transparent approach for capital investment in social projects. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new orthorhombic approximant of the icosahedral Al–Cu–Fe quasicrystal

We report on the formation of a new crystalline approximant phase of the icosahedral (i-)Al–Cu–Fe quasicrystal. This phase is formed during sintering of Al-based composites reinforced with i-AlCuFeB quasicrystalline particles. The structure of this phase has been characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM). TEM revealed that it is a B-centred orthorhombic phase with lattice parameters a = 1.166 nm, b = 1.195 nm and c = 3.44 nm. Its chemical composition, as determined by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), is close to Al_76.9Cu_2.7Fe_20.4, with an average number of valence electrons per atom e/a of 1.92, similar to the value in all other approximants of the i-phase discovered thus far. Initial results on local atomic arrangements along one of its pseudo-5-fold axes are also presented.     

Structure of Al–Co–Ni pentagonal quasicrystal studied by HAADF-STEM and ab initio calculations

Using a combination of atomic-resolution high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) Z-contrast imaging and ab initio calculations, atomic models of clusters 2 nm in diameter and 0.8 nm in height are proposed for the Al–Co–Ni pentagonal quasicrystal. This quasicrystal has 5-fold symmetry (the so-called 5f state) without superstructures, and is one of numerous modifications of the Al–Co–Ni decagonal quasicrystal. HAADF results reveal that the two-dimensional quasi-periodic lattice contains mainly Penrose pentagonal tiling. The centres within the decorated pentagonal tiles, i.e. the so-called pentagonal super-clusters, show structural characteristics having both a satellite-orbit shape and a pentagon-symmetry shape. The proposed atomic models, based directly on the HAADF images, are subjected to ab initio total energy calculations. After relaxation, the calculations demonstrate that the models with 5-fold symmetry are energetically more favourable than those with 10-fold symmetry.     

Relaxation of electrons following trapping in the space-charge-limited conduction regime of n + -i-n + hydrogenated amorphous silicon structures

The relaxation of a space charge due to trapped electrons in an n + -i-n + hydrogenated amorphous silicon structure has been modelled by Solomon. Here we extend the model by obtaining analytical expressions for the current at the beginning of the relaxation as well as for long times when retrapping of electrons is taken into account. Our expression for the current at long times differs considerably from that given previously. Consequences for the derived values of the capture cross-sections of the gap states near the Fermi level are examined and discussed.     

Effect of lithium-ion irradiation on the crystallization kinetics of glassy Se98In2

Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) has been used to study the crystallization kinetics of glassy Se₉₈In₂ both before and after irradiation of the alloy with high-energy (50 MeV) lithium ions. After the ion-irradiation, significant changes in the kinetic parameters of crystallization of the glass were observed. The results are explained in terms of a model involving irradiation-induced defects.     

Dielectric and thermodynamic behaviour of binary mixtures of anisole with o-chlorophenol and with o-cresol

The molecular interactions in binary mixtures of anisole with o-chlorophenol and o-cresol have been studied at three different temperatures using dielectric measurements. The static permittivity and the permittivity at optical frequency have also been determined and used to obtain the Kirkwood correlation factors, the Bruggeman parameter, the excess permittivity and the excess free energy for different concentrations of two binary mixtures, namely (1) anisole + o-chlorophenol and (2) anisole + o-cresol. Using the effective Kirkwood correlation factor, parallel and anti-parallel alignments among the dipoles are identified. The corrective Kirkwood correlation factor, the excess permittivity and the Bruggeman parameter are used to explain the interaction between unlike molecules. The temperature dependences of the above parameters are also reported. The investigation shows systematic changes in the dielectric behaviour with variations in concentration and temperature.     

Equivalent strain-hardening work theorem

A new physical concept, termed ‘equivalent strain-hardening work’, is proposed. The physical concept can be used to redefine the commonly used effective stress and effective strain theory as applied in constructing the constitutive relations of stress and strain, especially when related to an anisotropic strain-hardening material. The concept concerns that part of plastic work which emphasizes the action due to the strain-hardening behaviour of a material. Based on this concept, any one of the strain-hardening stress–strain curves obtained through common experiments on anisotropic materials can be selected as a nominally effective stress and an associated effective strain, and the rest of the strain-hardening relations can all be then transformed to be functions of variables of the nominally effective strain. Thus, any kind of loading path can be characterized by a single relation between effective stress and effective strain. When applied to the isotropic materials, the equivalent strain-hardening work concept is identical with the work-equivalent deformation concept but is more general.     

Phenomenological model of variant change during magnetization of martensite

The present study deals with the straining of ferromagnetic martensite in a magnetizing field. A phenomenological model of the movement of the interface between martensitic variants is developed for calculation of the strength of the magnetic field required for a variant change. The effect of uniaxial stress on interface movement is also examined. The results are applied to the martensite phases of NiMnGa and FePd ferromagnetic shape-memory alloys.