The talk with present the key results of the IPCC Working Group III 5th assessment report. Concluding four years of intense scientific collaboration by hundreds of authors from around the world, the report responds to the request of the world's governments for a comprehensive, objective and policy neutral assessment of the current scientific knowledge on mitigating climate change. The report has been extensively reviewed by experts and governments to ensure quality and comprehensiveness.

Climate change 2014 - Mitigation of climate change

This chapter discusses leading problems linked to energy that the world is now confronting and to propose some ideas concerning possible solutions. Oil deserves special attention among all energy sources. Since the beginning of 1981, it has merely been continuing and enhancing the downward movement in consumption and prices caused by excessive rises, especially for light crudes such as those from Africa, and the slowing down of worldwide economic growth. Densely-populated oil-producing countries need to produce to live, to pay for their food and their equipment. If the economic growth of the industrialized countries were to be 4%, even if investment in the rational use of energy were pushed to the limit and the development of nonpetroleum energy sources were also pursued actively, it would be extremely difficult to prevent a sharp rise in prices. It is evident that it is absolutely necessary to pursue actively the development of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power if a physical shortage of energy is not to block economic growth.

World energy outlook

An introduction to heat transfer

Boundary-layer flow of a nanofluid past a stretching sheet

Nanofluids, the fluid suspensions of nanomaterials, have shown many interesting properties, and the distinctive features offer unprecedented potential for many applications. This paper summarizes the recent progress on the study of nanofluids, such as the preparation methods, the evaluation methods for the stability of nanofluids, and the ways to enhance the stability for nanofluids, the stability mechanisms of nanofluids, and presents the broad range of current and future applications in various fields including energy and mechanical and biomedical fields. At last, the paper identifies the opportunities for future research.

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A review on nanofluids: preparation, stability mechanisms, and applications

The use of light water at supercritical pressures as the coolant in a nuclear reactor offers the potential for considerable plant simplification and consequent capital and O&M cost reduction compared with current light water reactor (LWR) designs. Also, given the thermodynamic conditions of the coolant at the core outlet (i.e. temperature and pressure beyond the water critical point), very high thermal efficiencies of the power conversion cycle are possible (i.e. up to about 45%). Because no change of phase occurs in the core, the need for steam separators and dryers as well as for BWR-type re-circulation pumps is eliminated, which, for a given reactor power, results in a substantially shorter reactor vessel and smaller containment building than the current BWRs. Furthermore, in a direct cycle the steam generators are not needed.

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Feasibility Study of Supercritical Light Water Cooled Fast Reactors for Actinide Burning and Electric Power Production Progress Report for Year 1, Quarter 2 (January - March 2002)

Nanofluids are being considered for heat transfer applications. However, their thermo-physical properties are poorly known. Here we focus on nanofluid specific heat capacity. Currently, there exist two models to predict a nanofluid’s specific heat capacity as a function of nanoparticle concentration and material. Model I is a straight volume-weighted average; Model II is based on the assumption of thermal equilibrium between the particles and the surrounding fluid. These two models give significantly different predictions for a given system. Using differential scanning calorimetry, the specific heat capacities of water based silica, alumina, and copper oxide nanofluids were measured. Nanoparticle concentrations were varied between 5wt% and 50wt%. Test results were found to be in excellent agreement with Model II, while the predictions of Model I deviate very significantly from the data.

Jacopo Buongiorno

Papers

Feasibility Study of Supercritical Light Water Cooled Fast Reactors for Actinide Burning and Electric Power Production Progress Report for Year 1, Quarter 2 (January - March 2002)

Measurement and Model Correlation of Specific Heat Capacity of Water-Based Nanofluids With Silica, Alumina and Copper Oxide Nanoparticles

Energy and water, no carbon: integrated nuclear power and large-scale desalination at diablo canyon

Insights in the safety analysis of an early microreactor design

Experimental Study on Local Subcooled Flow Boiling Heat Transfer in a Vertical Mini-Gap Channel