According to previsions, natural gas could be the main energy source worldwide, inducing relevant geopolitical changes. Most likely, such problems will be solved with the development of a gas transportation mode alternative to traditional pipelines: liquefied natural gas (LNG). The global LNG trade has increased rapidly during recent years. A significant amount of energy is consumed to produce low‐temperature LNG, which has plenty of cryogenic exergy/energy. Therefore, the effective utilization of the cryogenic energy associated with LNG vaporization is very important. Sicily, with more than five million inhabitants, is the second biggest region of Italy and in this region will be realized two of the 11 gasification plants planned in Italy according to the regional energy master‐plan. This paper shows some interesting applications for the cold produced in gasification plants, e.g. for seawater desalination and for fresh and frozen food production and conservation. These applications seem very interesting for Sicilian situation and also can contribute to energy saving and greenhouse gases reduction to match Kyoto Protocol targets. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Electrical and thermal consumption related to buildings, whether civil, commercial, public, or of any other kind, is very much in focus today. With today’s targets for energy savings, reduction of consumption, and environmental impact, it is necessary to carry out energy retrofits to modernize installations and their management. The realization of an effective improvement requires a careful analysis of the case study because each category of building has different requirements such as different load profiles and different installations and needs. This was carried out by studying the electrical and thermal load profiles. A good initial energy audit can provide the retrofit solutions capable of achieving the reduction of energy consumption and the emission of climate-changing gases into the atmosphere. A case study, carried out by the Department of Engineering of Palermo, showed how it is possible to perform an energy retrofit to modernize the energy system of the student dormitory at the University of Palermo. The paper presented a study carried out by programming a series of interlinked calculations in Microsoft Excel. In order to quantify the energy savings of the structure under examination, it is necessary to enter some input data, thanks to which all the formulas implemented in the calculation software were automatically completed. The programming of the calculations makes it possible to carry out an energy retrofit with interventions on the building envelope and the installations. The desire to program an automated calculation by modifying only the input data is intended to replicate a study on other buildings with the same peculiarities. In this way, it is possible to verify which retrofit hypotheses would be useful to upgrade old public administration buildings. In the analyzed case study, 65% of electrical energy and 33% of thermal energy could be saved by replacing generation systems, installing a co-generator, replacing windows, and replacing lamps with LED ones.

The European Union is moving towards a sustainable, decarbonized, and circular economy. It has identified seven key value chains in which to intervene, with the battery and vehicle value chain being one of them. Thus, actions and strategies for the sustainability of batteries need to be developed. Since Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a strategic tool for evaluating environmental sustainability, this paper investigates its application to two configurations of a sodium–nickel chloride cell (planar and tubular), focusing on the active material and the anode, with the purpose of identifying the configuration characterized by the lowest environmental impacts. The results, based on a “from cradle to gate” approach, showed that the tubular cell performs better for all environmental impact categories measured except for particulate matter, acidification, and resource depletion. With nickel being the main contributor to these impact categories, future sustainable strategies need to be oriented towards the reduction/recovery of this material or the use of nickel coming from a more sustainable supply chain. The original contribution of the paper is twofold: (1) It enriches the number of case studies of LCAs applied to sodium/nickel chloride cells, adding to the few studies on these types of cells that can be found in the existing scientific literature. (2) The results identify the environmental hot spots (cell configuration and materials used) for improving the environmental footprint of batteries made from sodium/nickel chloride cells.