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India, the world’s most populous country, is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Despite employing several energy sources, it still relies heavily on coal, its primary energy source. Given India’s swiftly rising energy demand, this challenges meeting emission reduction targets. In recent years, India has significantly increased investments in renewables like solar and hydrogen. While commendable, these initiatives alone cannot meet the country’s expanding energy demands. In the short term, India must rely on both domestic and imported fossil fuels, with natural gas being the most environmentally friendly option. In this context, this paper attempts to forecast energy consumption, natural gas production, and consumption in India until 2050, using both univariate and multivariate forecasting methods. For multivariate forecasting, we have assumed two alternative possibilities for GDP growth: the business-as-usual and the high-growth scenarios. Each of our forecasts indicates a notable shortfall in the projected production of natural gas compared to the expected demand, implying our results are robust. Our model predicts that nearly 30–50 percent of India’s natural gas consumption will be met by imports, mainly in the form of LNG. Based on these findings, this paper recommends that Indian government policies emphasize increasing domestic natural gas production, importing LNG, and expanding renewable energy resources. Full article

The world is currently grappling with the two critical issues of global warming and climate change, which are primarily caused by the emission of greenhouse gases. The construction industry and buildings significantly contribute to these emissions, accounting for roughly 40% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. In response to this pressing issue, environmental organizations and governments have pushed the construction industry to adopt environmentally friendly practices to reduce their carbon footprint. This has led to a greater emphasis on designing and planning sustainable buildings that are in line with the principles of sustainable development. Hence, it is imperative to evaluate buildings in terms of their greenhouse gas emissions and explore ways to reduce them. This research examines the impact of material selection on the carbon footprint of reinforced concrete buildings, aiming to reduce embodied carbon. For this purpose, two reinforced concrete buildings are designed for their embodied carbon to quantify their environmental impact. The first building employs commonly used materials such as ceramics, clay bricks, stone, and plaster. In contrast, the second building incorporates sustainable materials such as cork, plywood, and rockwool. According to the findings, using sustainable materials in the second building leads to a 41.0% reduction in the carbon footprint of the construction process. Additionally, using sustainable materials can mitigate pollution levels in the three categories of endangerment to human health, ecosystem pollution, and resource consumption by 31.4%, 23.7%, and 33.3%, respectively. Full article

Wind energy is crucial in German energy and climate strategies as it substitutes carbon-intensive fossil fuels and achieves substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. However, wind energy deployment currently faces several problems: low expansion rates, wind turbines at the end of their service life, or the end of remuneration. Repowering is a vital strategy to overcome these problems. This study investigates future annual GHG payback times and emission savings of repowered wind turbines. In total, 96 repowering scenarios covering a broad range of climatological, technical, economic, and political factors affecting wind energy output in 2025–2049 were studied. The results indicate that due to more giant wind turbines and geographical restrictions, the amount of repowerable sites is reduced significantly. Consequently, in most scenarios, emission savings will dramatically diminish compared to current savings. Even in the best-case scenario, the highest emission savings’ growth is at 11%. The most meaningful drivers of GHG payback time and emission savings are wind turbine type, geographical restrictions, and GHG emissions. In contrast, climate change impact on the wind resource is only marginal. Although repowering alone is insufficient for achieving climate targets, it is a substantial part of the wind energy strategy. It could be improved by the synergies of different measures presented in this study. The results emphasize that a massive expansion of wind energy is required to establish it as a cornerstone of the future energy mix. Full article