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The most relevant factors and trends in energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and China, focused on renewable energy sources (RES)
Views:481This paper analyses the good political and legal environments, mutually beneficial strategic policy, along with level of economic development and growth, superior geographical conditions and cultural integration degree of the important effecting factors of the energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and China. By using the main points listed above this article refers to related trade and investment theories, and it’s divided into two aspects: Kazakhstan's export of Chinese energy products with time series data 1998-2014 and China's investment in Kazakhstan's energy sector with time series data 1998-2016 to construct the vector autoregressive model (VAR).We selected relevant variables and data to construct an econometric model from the perspectives of trade and investment to make an empirical analysis on the influencing factors of energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and China. Our results show that China's demand for large-scale market and for opening to the outside world as well as Kazakhstan’s great energy potential are the most important factors their cooperation. It can be stated that in our days Kazakh legislation is suitable for promoting the Chinese energy investments, but in the long run it would be beneficial to mobilize national capital especially in RES investments and research. In the end, we found the most important reserves in competitiveness of electricity and heat (both from fossil and renewable energy sources) are power grid consolidation and waste heat utilization in the short run.
JEL CODE: F14; Q43
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Opportunities for wastewater heat recovery in Hungary and its role in the circular economy
Views:357Most of the energy content of wastewater can be found in wastewater heat, however, its recovery is limited. In this article, the current situation, future opportunities of wastewater heat recovery are presented based on secondary data collection, mentioning the constraints and main influencing factors of sustainable implementation of heat recovery systems in Hungary. Besides, the already existing systems are described. As regards the capacities of treatment plants, 103 of the 574 domestic plants have a capacity of over 20,000 Population Equivalent (PE), of which 25 plants have a capacity of over 100,000 PE. According to our calculations, in big cities/capitals (20.000 – 100.000, and over 100.000 inhabitants), it may be possible to recover wastewater heat sustainably in several places. In small towns (5.000 – 20.000 inhabitants), wastewater heat recovery can be technologically and economically sustainable only in the presence of agricultural or industrial plants with high and continuous wastewater feed into the pipeline system. Taking into account the temperature conditions at each place of use and their estimated fluctuations, it can be said that proper, careful planning, sizing and implementation have a crucial effect on the efficiency of microbiological activity in the treatment plants. In bigger cities, of course, the effect of the temperature drop of one main collector may be minimal, however, in smaller and medium-sized settlements, excessive heat extraction may result in complete inhibition or cessation of nitrification. In Hungarian case studies, the maximum acceptable temperature drop is approx. 2-3 °C. It can be stated that energy recovery from wastewater may be very promising considering the size and temperature limitations. Therefore, the rational recovery of wastewater heat can be an important part of the implementation of circular economy and sustainable energy utilization in wastewater management, resulting in significant energy savings and pollutant reduction.
JEL CODE: Q25
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Economic analysis of some agrotechnical factors in maize production - a Hungarian case study
5-16Views:383This paper focuses on the economic and statistical evaluation of the production technology findings of the polyfactorial maize production experiments carried out between 2015-2017 at the Látókép Experiment Site of the University of Debrecen, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and Environmental Management. The examined agrotechnical factors included irrigation, previous crop, tillage, crop density, hybrid and N nutrient supply, while the effect of different crop years was taken into consideration. In addition to descriptive statistical methods, we used multivariate regression analysis during the statistical evaluation. In the course of the evaluation, we examined three models that differed in terms of tillage methods and the consideration of crop year. In our best fit model, the factors were 71% responsible for the change in yield value. We carried out efficiency and comparative analyses in the course of the economic evaluation.
Averaged over the three examined years, it can be stated that nutrient supply and crop year had an outstanding effect on yield, while irrigation had a minimal effect. However, global warming may justify irrigation in the future, not only from a biological point of view, but also from an economic aspect.
Ideal tillage is also greatly affected by crop year, too. Altogether, of the examined tillage systems, subsoiling proved to be the best from an economic point of view.
Our investigations confirm that it is better to perform intensive farming under more favourable market conditions. The optimum of N fertilisation is probably outside of the range we examined, if the extreme changes in maize and fertiliser prices are ignored.JEL Classification: Q16, Q12, Q13, O32
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Liquid bio-fuels in Hungary: effects and contradictions
89-94Views:126The increase of living standard requires ever more energy, despite energy saving measures. Domestic growth was 100 PJ between 2000 and 2006, and 77% of the total utilization was importe (Hungarian Central Statistical Office, 2008).Sustainability was endangered not only in our energy and commerce policy. Our domestic natural conditions are suitable for plant production; however, the stagnation of the domestic population and decreasing livestock numbers restrict in land marketing. Therefore, significant surpluses from year to year had to be stored and sold abroad, and the fact that the interventional purchase of corn and the expected stringent new EU regulation of the sugar beet sector, make the strategic significance of these branches uncertain. The difficult marketing opportunities make the better utilization of our opportunities in producing liquid bio-fuels possible from marketing aspects, while environmental issues and realizing the EU directions enforce to do so in a longer term. Over the short term, agricultural and competitive aspects will determine its spread, which cause different effects in Europe in comparison with the developing countries. According to Nábrádi-Ficzeréné Nagymihály, 2008, one of the breaking points of Hungarian agriculture lies in the utilization of alternative energy sources. During the past period, many contradictory opinions came forward relating to economies, agricultural effects, food risks as well as the energetic and environmental efficiency of bio-fuels. One thing is certain: these fuels are already used today and their significance has been increasing. Although due to technological development, spread of new products and processes (cellulose-based bioethanol, bioethanol, biogas, hydrogen, biomethane) will obviously have to be expected in the future, at present biodiesel and bioethanol are determent among bio-fuels, thus I deal with these as well as their energetic and agricultural effects in my study.
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The effects of the global economic crisis on the markets for fossil and renewable fuels
131-136Views:121The 2008/2009 world economic crisis had significant impact on oil and fuel markets. This crisis has been developed from the meltdown of the American mortgage and financial market and spread throughout the global economy. As each country reacted differently to the crisis, the changes in the fuel market have also shown significant geographic variation. In our present research, the changes of the US, German and Hungarian fuel markets were analysed, looking for answers to the reasons behind different crisis reactions. We examined the tendency of fuel consumption, the changes of gasoline and diesel price elasticity and the possible effects of the crisis on the regulatory system.
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Tests of differential diesel fuels in engine testing room
59-65Views:142The portion of oil could be estimated 33 % of global primary energy consumption in 2012 (BP, 2012) and its average price – beside the products produced from it as well - significantly increased, unlike the demand for transport which has been reduced. This tendency is expected to remain unchanged in the long run, therefore, there is a great importance for the variety of diesel fuel distributors, in comparison of the ratio value for each of them, and replacing them with biodiesel can be used in the comparison. We executed 3 dynamometer measurements performed to determine three different dealers purchased diesel oil, some economical examinations of the diesel oil retail price, and the use of biodiesel all based on the expected economic studies in the literature studies of extra fuel consumption values. The results of these tests indicate that the differences of consumption between diesel oils can be up to 5 %, the conclusion is that distinctions of diesel oil consumptions are almost the same when we tested the differences between diesel oil and biodiesel. This means we can reach the same result with a high quality biodiesel as with poor quality diesel oil. This also means that– below 20% of mixing ratio we can easily choose by prices alone. Between these prices and products ( D1, D2, D3), we can save 4.8% diesel oil by using D2, 6.2% diesel oil by using D3 compared to D1. There could be a little revolution variance (D2: 2.9-6%, D3: 4.9- 7.1%), but this variance is under 1% so it is negligible.
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The effects of global real economic crisis on the markets for fossil and renewable fuels
51-56Views:129The 2008/2009 world economic crisis had significant impact on the oil and fuel markets. The crisis developed from the meltdown of American and European mortgage and financial markets and rapidly involved the global real economy. As each country reacted differently to the crisis, the changes in the fuel market also showed significant geographic variation. In our present research, the actions of the US, German and Hungarian fuel markets were analysed for the answer to the reasons for the differences in crisis reactions. We examined the tendency of fuel consumption, the changes of price elasticity for gasoline and diesel and the possible effects of the crisis on the regulatory system.
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