In the over 150 years of hydrocarbon history, the year 2017 will be one of the many similar. However, it will be a breakthrough year for liquefied natural gas. In Asia, China grew to become the leader of import growth, becoming the second world importer, overtaking even South Korea and chasing Japan. The Panama Canal for LNG trade and the “Northern Passage” was opened, so that Russian LNG supplies appeared in Europe. The year 2017 was marked by a dramatic shortening of the length of long-term concluded contracts, their shorter tenure and reduction of volumes – that is, it was another period of market commoditization of this energy resource. The article describes the current state of LNG production and trade till 2018. It focuses on natural gas production in the United States, Qatar, Australia, Russia as countries that can produce and supply LNG to the European Union. The issue of prices and the contracts terms in 2017 was analyzed in detail. The authors stress that the market is currently characterized by an oversupply and will last at least until mid–2020. Novatek, Total – Yamal-LNG project leaders have put the condensing facility at 5.5 million tons into operation. The Christophe de Margerie oil tanker was the first commercial unit to cross the route to Norway and then further to the UK without icebreakers and set a new record on the North Sea Road. In 2017, the Russian company increased its share in the European gas market from 33.1 to 34.7%. In 2017, Russia and Norway exported record volumes of „tubular” – classic natural gas to Europe (and Turkey), 194 and 122 billion m3 respectively, which is 15 and 9 billion m3 more natural gas than in 2016. The thesis was put forward that Russia would not easily give up its sphere of influence and would do everything and use various mechanisms, not only on the market, that it would simply be more expensive and economically unprofitable than natural gas. It was also emphasized that the pressure of the technically possible and economically viable redirection to European terminals of methane carriers landed in the American LNG, results in Gazprom not having a choice but to adjust its prices. The Americans, but also any other supplier (Australia?) can simply do the same and this awareness alone is enough for Russian gas to be present in Europe at a good price.
In spite of technological, logistic and economic difficulties, interest in renewable energy sources in the world is consistently increasing. This trend is also observed in Poland, mainly due to the urgent need to tackle the problem of climate change, which is caused by the increasing concentration of gaseous pollutants in the atmosphere. The paper presents a short script of the issue of estimating renewable energy resources in Poland in the context of creating local low carbon economy plans at the level of municipalities/counties where RES sources should be taken into account. The author proposed an individual approach to estimate the potential of RES, taking the local conditions and the short characteristics of the small and medium companies sector in Poland into account. These companies have a great application potential to increase the share of renewable energies and to improve energy efficiency in their business. The actions, which are taken by the Ministry of Energy in the field of civil energy development, enhancing local energy security and the sustainable development of renewable energy resources support the development of energy clusters covering one district or five municipalities. In the article, the author presents data on the number of companies possessing a concession for generating electricity in RES installations in the power range from 40 kW to 200 kW. These companies can largely be the nucleus for creating a local cluster in which microgrids will be a key element.
The national total expenditure of a country is precipitated on several factors of which revenue generated could be one and very significant. This paper therefore examines the contribution of some selected sources of Nigerian government revenue to total national expenditure. Statistical and econometric techniques used for the data analysis are unit root test, cointegration test, combined estimators’ analysis, the error correction model (ECM) and the feasible generalized linear (FGLS) estimators. Results showed that the variables are non stationary but are stationary at first difference. The long-run relationship of total expenditure on oil revenue, non-oil revenue, federation account and federal retained revenue revealed that the variables are co-integrated and required the use of combined estimators. The effect of non-oil revenue and federal retained revenue is very significant. Investigations on the short-run modeling necessitated the use of FGLS estimators. The effect of ECM and federal retained revenue is very significant. Consequently, other sources of revenue apart from federal retained revenue need to be enhanced and tailored towards improving economic growth and development through national expenditure.
Modern supercritical power plants operate at very high temperatures and pressures. Thus the construction elements are subjected to both high thermal and mechanical loads. As a result high stresses in those components are created. In order to operate safely, it is important to monitor stresses, especially during start-up and shut-down processes. The maximum stresses in the construction elements should not exceed the allowable stresses that are defined according to boiler regulations. It is important to find optimum operating parameters, that can assure safe heating and cooling processes. The optimum parameters define temperature and pressure histories that can keep the highest stresses within allowable limit and reduce operation time as much as possible. In this paper a new numerical method for determining optimum working fluid parameters is presented. In this method, properties of steel can be assumed as constant or temperature dependent. The constant value is taken usually at the average temperature of the operation cycle. For both cases optimal parameters are determined. Based on these parameters start-up operations for both cases are conducted. During entire processes stresses in the heated element are monitored. The results obtained are compared with German boiler regulations - Technische Regeln fur Dampfkessel 301.
This study examined whether differences in reverberation time (RT) between typical sound field test rooms used in audiology clinics have an effect on speech recognition in multi-talker environments. Separate groups of participants listened to target speech sentences presented simultaneously with 0-to-3 competing sentences through four spatially-separated loudspeakers in two sound field test rooms having RT = 0:6 sec (Site 1: N = 16) and RT = 0:4 sec (Site 2: N = 12). Speech recognition scores (SRSs) for the Synchronized Sentence Set (S3) test and subjective estimates of perceived task difficulty were recorded. Obtained results indicate that the change in room RT from 0.4 to 0.6 sec did not significantly influence SRSs in quiet or in the presence of one competing sentence. However, this small change in RT affected SRSs when 2 and 3 competing sentences were present, resulting in mean SRSs that were about 8-10% better in the room with RT = 0:4 sec. Perceived task difficulty ratings increased as the complexity of the task increased, with average ratings similar across test sites for each level of sentence competition. These results suggest that site-specific normative data must be collected for sound field rooms if clinicians would like to use two or more directional speech maskers during routine sound field testing.
The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.
Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.
Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.
The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.
Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.
Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.
O magazynowaniu energii, medycynie estetycznej prowadzącej do nieśmiertelności i czasie, który pochłania nauka, mówi dr inż. Krzysztof Fic z Politechniki Poznańskiej.
O docenianiu i niedocenianiu kobiet, znaczeniu otwarcia i tolerancji oraz cechach terrorystów mówi prof. dr hab. Małgorzata Kossowska z Instytutu Psychologii Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Istnieje czułość metafizyczna – postawa radosnego przyzwolenia na wszelkie przejawy procesu życia, który toczy się po obu stronach naszej skóry. I to ona, być może bardziej niż majątek, sława czy pochodzenie, decyduje o radości z życia.
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