Library: Earth and Environmental Sciences

Recent talks have outlined the disadvantages of land based (agro-fuels) as feedstock for biofuels. This final dissertation for the MBA in Energy and Sustainable Development looks at these disadvantages and proposes an alternative scenario, i.e. the potential of aquatic alternatives. Aquatic Biofuels: New Options for Bioenergy looks at the potential of micro-algae and fish waste as feedstock for biofuel. Micro-algae come in different strains; strains differ in their composition some have more lipids/oils, others have more proteins and others yet have more carbohydrates. The chosen strain will ...

Exploratory activities carried out in the Anambra Basin have revealed that the basin has the potential of generating hydrocarbon. Subsurface core samples obtained from Enugu 1325 and 1331 wells within the Anambra Basin were utilized in this study with the aims of characterizing the organic matter as well as determining the maturity in order to deduce the hydrocarbon potential of the basin. The study was also aimed at determining the palaeo-depositional environment as well as highlighting the source input of the organic matter. The analytical procedure for total organic matter and rock eval...

The Niger Delta is a prolific oil province within the West African subcontinent. Exploration activities have been concentrated in the onshore part of this basin, but as the delta becomes better understood, exploration influences are gradually being shifted to the offshore. Although the geology, tectonics and evolution of the Eocene-Pliocene sequence of the Niger Delta are fairly well known, these are expected to increase as new analytical tools and concepts evolve. This work was an integrated structural, seismic facies and stratigraphic study conducted in the Fabi Field, onshore western Niger ...

Surface tension is one of the major issues encountered in the oil industry. This study investigated the laboratory effect of temperature and impurities on surface tension of crude oil samples and water. The aforementioned tests were carried out (in line with industrial standard) on the samples in order to determine the relationship between surface tension, temperature and impurities and also to compare the variation in the measured property due to temperature and impurities. Prediction equations were also built. The results show that surface tension decreases with an increase in temperat...

The environmental reports of 12 Scottish Strategic Environmental Assessments have been subject to critical analysis in order to assess the extent to which they include Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA) as a required component under the SEA directive. The anticipated benefits of assessing Cumulative Effects in a strategic setting are wide-ranging and well researched, yet there appears little documented evidence of this in the Scottish context. The level of Cumulative Effects inclusion in the reports studied was investigated, along with the parameters that appear to limit the success of the la...

Farmer adoption of sustainable agricultural practices is key to sustainable development, as changes at the farm level are essential to ensuring food security and environmental protection. Reasons for converting to sustainable farming have been studied in a number of instances. However, the underlying rationale that motivates this behaviour is not always made clear. The village of Bajwada in Madhya Pradesh is used as a case to investigate farmer perceptions and attitudes regarding sustainable farming. An innovator has been promoting what seems to be a highly productive and lauded method of s...

The efficiency of a probabilistic hydrological forecasting system with weather radar and the Probability distributed hydrological model (PDM) was evaluated at the Brue catchment; south-western England. The ability of the radar to measure gauged precipitation in 2007 (regarded as the ground truth) was evaluated using Normalized Bias (NB) and Normalized Error (NE) statistics as the objective function of evaluation. The radar overestimated precipitation measurements by average gauges with NB value of 0.41 and a considerably low NE of 0.68. Furthermore, the effectiveness of a Deterministic nowcas...

A field experiment was conducted at farmer’s field of Anandapur, Mangalpur VDC-3, Chitwan, Nepal during winter season from September 2006 to February 2007 to study the effects of nitrogen and plant population on maize. Fifteen treatment combinations consisting of five levels of nitrogen: 0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 kg N/ha and three levels of plant population; 55555 plants/ha (60 cm × 30 cm spacing), 66666 plants/ha (60 cm × 25 cm spacing) and 83333 plants/ha (60 cm × 20 cm spacing) were tested in factorial randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 3 replications. “Rampur Composite” variety of ...