Preface

**Section 3 Environmental Impact 111**

**VI** Contents

**Soil Resources 113** Daniel G. Neary

**Waste Streams 127**

Fatma Deniz Öztürk

**Treatment Plants 163**

**Northern Norway 183**

Chapter 10 **Reused Lithium-Ion Battery Applied in Water**

Yi-Hsien Chiang and Wu-Yang Sean

**Section 4 Waste Management and Energy Recovery 181**

Swapan Suman and Shalini Gautam

Chapter 11 **A Value Chain Analysis for Bioenergy Production from Biomass**

**and Biodegradable Waste: A Case Study in**

Hao Yu, Elisabeth Román and Wei Deng Solvang

Chapter 12 **Biochar Derived from Agricultural Waste Biomass Act as a**

**Clean and Alternative Energy Source of Fossil Fuel Inputs 207**

Chapter 9 **Reverse Flotation 143**

Chapter 7 **Impacts of Bio-Based Energy Generation Fuels on Water and**

María Isabel San-Martín, Daniel David Leicester, Elizabeth Susan Heidrich, Raúl Marcos Alonso, Raúl Mateos and Adrián Escapa

Chapter 8 **Bioelectrochemical Systems for Energy Valorization of**

Our contemporary society is an energy consumer. We need energy to enhance, maintain, and improve our quality of life locally and globally, as well as literally and philosophically. We consume energy and resources at an exponential rate. At the same time, our society is really dependent on the sustainability of both energy and resources. Thus, it is of paramount importance for our wellbeing and long-term prosperity to balance our consumption and production as far as energy and vital resources such as water and air are concerned. This simple consideration brings us to the key idea of this book—to explore relationships be‐ tween energy systems and our environment.

We need energy for our safety and security. To provide needed energy resources, we need energy sources and power plants to take advantage of them and to use them for our needs. This book looks at environmental aspects of energy technologies, from common traditional sources in use, new sources, and emerging sources and technologies.

We do not have all the answers and solutions but with this book we would like to support our quest for answers to questions such as: Do we have enough energy? What will future energy sources look like? Are we energy and environmentally sustainable if our energy de‐ mands are to be met? and many other key energy and resource questions.

The objective of this book is to serve as a one-stop comprehensive information resource on energy and environment topics, from energy science to energy engineering to energy poli‐ tics. Starting with science and technology topics we link them to economics and politics showcasing interconnections between energy sources, energy utilization, energy conversion, and sustainability under the common theme of energy and environment.

The chapters of this book cover all energy sources and technologies, their current and future status, and discuss challenges, opportunities, and expectations from use and environmental points of view. The book achieves its objective by offering and integrating deeply technical and socioeconomics papers together on energy and environment topics.

The authors and the editor hope to facilitate the research into environmentally sustainable energy technology accounting for use and impact. Readers will find stimulating thought-pro‐ voking information on energy and environment that does not favor any one source of energy but supports our quest for energy while making sure our planet is capable of sustaining us.

Do you think we will always have enough energy to sustain the Earth? The chapters of this book will engage you in discussions contributed by authors with a wide variety of views.

#### XII Preface

Finally, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the InTech team who made this book possible. Especially, our thanks go to Ms. Anita Condic, Author Service Manager, for her guidance and all the help in the process.

> **Pavel Tsvetkov** Nuclear Engineering Texas A&M University United States of America

**Energy Resources**

**Section 1**

**Section 1**

**Energy Resources**

Finally, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the InTech team who made this book possible. Especially, our thanks go to Ms. Anita Condic, Author Service Manager, for

> **Pavel Tsvetkov** Nuclear Engineering Texas A&M University United States of America

her guidance and all the help in the process.

VIII Preface

**Chapter 1**

**Provisional chapter**

**Diversifying Electricity Customer Choice: REVing Up the**

Electric utility business models are changing to integrate new technologies and distributed energy resources (DER). Diversifying energy mix and customer choices are both novel and useful in understanding key drivers of this transformation, including distribution system planning and customer-service options. Practical implementation of these solutions, however, shows that without proper planning, energy diversification could come at very high social and economic costs. For example, regulators have been slow in implementing policy, regulatory, and business model constructs that promote customer choice to animate high levels of grid reliability and resiliency. Equally important is how viable existing utility business models are to navigating transformation processes, including strategic resource management, revenue model, customer interface, and value propositions. This chapter discusses our use of the Hamel business model to offer strategic analysis of Reforming the Energy Vision (REV), which is aimed at decarbonizing New York's energy sector and increasing customer choice and control. Specifically, we build from existing literature to argue that implementing distribution management systems (DMS) in which customer choice and DERs are prominent requires a shared or 'polycentric,' networked businessmodel innovations that build on competitive and comparative advantages of existing institutions to meet the growing demand for electricity services and utility strategic goals. **Keywords:** reforming the energy vision, distributed energy resources, business model,

polycentric innovation, utility choice management, Hamel framework

**the New York Energy Vision for Polycentric Innovation**

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The electric utility landscape is experiencing rapid and unprecedented transformation. A powerful confluence of structural, technological, and socio-economic factors is driving

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.76023

**New York Energy Vision for Polycentric Innovation**

**Diversifying Electricity Customer Choice: REVing Up** 

Joseph Nyangon and John Byrne

Joseph Nyangon and John Byrne

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76023

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

#### **Diversifying Electricity Customer Choice: REVing Up the New York Energy Vision for Polycentric Innovation Diversifying Electricity Customer Choice: REVing Up the New York Energy Vision for Polycentric Innovation**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.76023

Joseph Nyangon and John Byrne Joseph Nyangon and John Byrne

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76023

#### **Abstract**

Electric utility business models are changing to integrate new technologies and distributed energy resources (DER). Diversifying energy mix and customer choices are both novel and useful in understanding key drivers of this transformation, including distribution system planning and customer-service options. Practical implementation of these solutions, however, shows that without proper planning, energy diversification could come at very high social and economic costs. For example, regulators have been slow in implementing policy, regulatory, and business model constructs that promote customer choice to animate high levels of grid reliability and resiliency. Equally important is how viable existing utility business models are to navigating transformation processes, including strategic resource management, revenue model, customer interface, and value propositions. This chapter discusses our use of the Hamel business model to offer strategic analysis of Reforming the Energy Vision (REV), which is aimed at decarbonizing New York's energy sector and increasing customer choice and control. Specifically, we build from existing literature to argue that implementing distribution management systems (DMS) in which customer choice and DERs are prominent requires a shared or 'polycentric,' networked businessmodel innovations that build on competitive and comparative advantages of existing institutions to meet the growing demand for electricity services and utility strategic goals.

**Keywords:** reforming the energy vision, distributed energy resources, business model, polycentric innovation, utility choice management, Hamel framework
