The demand for environmental assessments on buildings and energy consumption is increasing as well as the energy performance requirements for buildings. At the same time it is increasingly common with self-producers of heat and electricity generation.The main purpose with this master thesis is to investigate how time resolution affects the environmental assessment of energy consumption in office buildings connected to district heating (DH). Environmental assessments were done with both attributional LCA and consequential LCA with system expansion.Fortum´s DH system in Stockholm was analyzed and district heating production was simulated in a Matlab-model. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the production were calculated. The heat demand of the office Gångaren 16 in Stockholm was simulated in IDA ICE.

The main aim of this study was to investigate and compare different methods for the extraction of forest fuel from environments close to an archipelago. The study was based on relevant literature and published reports as well as personal communications. Forestry has traditionally been characterized by intense efforts to rationalize and mechanize the cutting technique used for timber and pulpwood. In line with the increasing importance of forestry, more concentrated efforts can be expected in the area of techniques and methods, especially for the above-mentioned product lines. In Sweden, forestry is of major importance and the Swedish economy and standard of living have mainly been created based on the revenues generated from it. Thus, it is vital that Swedish forests are harvested in an efficient and responsible manner. The demand for biofuel is growing and today accounts for 15% of total Swedish energy production, a share that will probably increase. This study is based on three research questions, which are described under the heading of Aim. The results reveal that the most profitable method for handling forest fuel is the traditional one, which is also the most commonly used method in southern Sweden, namely the stockpiling of logs in a clearing by means of forwarders followed by splintering at the place from where they will be distributed. Today, the high cost of barge transport required for the extraction of forest fuel in an archipelago environment renders such operations unprofitable.

Cost allocation ? a study of how Swedish energy companies allocate costs between electricity and district heating in a combined heat and power plant District heating is today the most utilized alternative for heating in Sweden. In a combined heat and power plant (CHP) electricity and heat are cogenerated. The environmental and economic advantages with this kind of production are high. A problem in a CHP-plant is to allocate costs between electricity and heat since both products are generated in the same process.

This project investigated the current market regarding wireless net and the communication between the tools used for diagnostics/maintenance and an embedded system. Based on documentation obtained through interviews a demo system was created based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication between an embedded system and an Android device.This report intends to describe the tools and methods used in the design of the demo system and the result of an analysis of the BLE communication.Bluetooth Low Energy is an exciting protocol with wide applicability within the industrial field. This project investigated the communicational possibilities between a Smartphone and a Raspberry Pi and based on the results that emerged the conclusion can be drawn that BLE is a protocol with many beneficial applications within industrial IT..

The Swedish pulp and paper industry meets higher demand for energy efficiencyi mprovements with increasing energy prices and changes in the Swedish renewable energy certificate system. One action of energy efficiency improvement is by using secondary heat, that otherwise would have been treated as waste heat, for use in a system with lower temperature demands. The aim of this Master´s thesis is to identify possible secondary heat sources in a typical Swedish pulp and paper mill and to investigate what economic benefits the secondary heat will provide when being used for pre heating of wood chips to a kraft digester.The Master´s thesis focuses on three secondary heat sources; dry warm air, warm water and moisture saturated warm air located inside the pulp or paper mill. Two types of kraft digesters are simulated within this study, a typical Scandinavian digester and a modern twin vessel steam phase digester.Due to quality aspects and low temperature level drying is the drying technology with dry warm air rejected. Using warm water in direct contact with wood chips increases the quantity of water to the evaporation plant and thus reduced pulp or paper production and is therefore also rejected.

In the production of pulp, paper and cardboard, a large amount of water is used daily. The water has to be purified in the internal purifying plant before it reaches the receiving body of water. In the biological purifying stage at the Stora Enso Skoghall mill, an aerated basin is used where the microorganisms, using oxygen, oxidize the organic material to carbon dioxide. The air is pumped from the bottom of the basin and the oxygen can then be transported from the air bubbles to the water through diffusion. The problem with aeration of waste water from the forest industry is that wood residues, such as fatty acids, are making the transport of oxygen in water more difficult.

The prevailing food and energy crisis of the world, due to the declining reserves of fossil energy and a never ending rise of consumption, forces us to look into new fields to supply our energy demand. The boom of bio energy is criticized, as food crops are used to provide biodiesel and ethanol and the volumes are ridiculously small to supply world demand. Algae are one of the world?s oldest life forms and exist in many different phyla, providing a great variety to choose from, for different purposes. Cultivating microalgae offer a way to produce energy at great volumes without competing with food production and at the same time the algae offer a way to use our expensive nutrients in a more efficient way, besides this the algae are carbon dioxide neutral since their carbon source can be supplied by the atmosphere and the additional energy required can be supplied by algal oil or other renewable sources.

The power consumption has grown rapidlyin the last decade. Fossil fuels and theneed for alternative energy sources aregreat. Ocean waves are a renewable andsustainable source of energy that hasbeen relatively untapped. At UppsalaUniversity research and development havebeen done for several years. Severaltypes of wave energy converters (WEC)have been created.

The importance of energy- and environmental issues has increased, and the work towards reducing carbon dioxide emissions plays a major part. The European Union has set up goals for the membership countries to work towards this to happen. The carbon dioxide emissions in Sweden have been reduced the last few years, but there is still a lot to do. About 30 per cent of Sweden?s carbon dioxide emissions generate from energy usage related to housing, this is why the housing sector is of interest to examine.

With the climate change issues growing in importance on the social agenda, the field of urban masterplanning is of no exception when it comes to minimizing the carbon footprint in a variety of projects. The aim of this thesis has been to prepare the Carbon Critical Masterplanning tool, a software plugin for carbon dioxide emissions assessment developed by Atkins, to be used in Swedish conditions. The main targets were to improve the areas of the tool associated with energy conversion and renewable energy sources, and to test the tool in a real case. A planned construction of a new campus in Albano, Stockholm was chosen for the pilot study. A 3D model was built in the tool and the carbon footprint was calculated for a variety of combinations for energy supply to the future area.

In this thesis, the Swedish venture capital market and its profitability is analyzed. Venture capital is defined as capital that is invested in the early stages of a company's life cycle, in the two investment stages seed/start-up and expansion.A common view is that the profitability of Swedish venture capital has not been, is not and will probably not become high either. With this in mind, we try to answer to the following questions in this thesis:? What has the profitability of Swedish venture capital actually been historically?? Which reasons could be found in order to explain the historical returns for Swedish venture capital, and which factors has been identified in international comparative studies between venture capital markets?In order to answer these questions, data showing historical returns for the Swedish, European and American venture capital market has been gathered, an extensive literature study has been performed, and three interviews with participants from the Swedish venture capital market has been conducted.We conclude that the historical returns of Swedish venture capital is in line with the general view that they have been low. We also see a trend where Swedish venture capital funds that are not specialized in one investment stage generate lower returns than more specialized funds.

Australia is one of the largest producers and consumers of fossil fuels in the world. In a society where the effects of fossil fuels on global warming are constantly discussed, the nation?s production and consumption are subject to debate. Problems arise when negative aspects of consumption, such as emissions of greenhouse gases, are put in relation to an increased need of energy and economic growth. However, it is important to distinguish between different types of fossil fuels when it comes to their individual impact on the environment and to analyze the possibilities to increase the more environmental friendly ones.

Several scenarios point toward a future where we are far more people on Earth than today, where most of those people will live in cities and where oil no longer dominates in the transport systems and in agriculture as an energy source and where less energy will be available to us. The report investigates what areas in traditional ecological knowledge that can contribute to the transition that follows a future with less energy and establishes three areas with the potential of becoming important: areaspecific biological knowledge in societies that are more dependent upon its surrounding environment and its natural prerequisitesthe local management of these biological resources, which often means a fair sharing and sustainable handling of the resources and which has been observed in Nobel price awarded Elinor Ostrom?s researchthe world views that lie behind how the environment is considered and managed, world views that can inspire and point toward how we in the future should formulate world views that do not give the destructive modern management of the environment It is also noted that the magnitude of the city living in the future is a historical news and that very little research has been done in how traditional knowledge can be transferred into this kind of living..

Today, about 15 to 20 percent of Sweden?s total emission of carbon dioxide can be traced to the household sector. By examining apartment blocks in a life cycle perspective, the origin of the carbon dioxide emission has been charted and analyzed. This information has been used to create a computational model that calculates the total emission of carbon dioxide from a specific apartment block. The results from the analyzed apartment blocks indicate that both the use of energy and the emission of carbon dioxide have been reduced since the 1960s. Through the examination of building materials, it is possible to lower the emission of carbon dioxide that origins from the construction phase of an apartment block.

In January 2005 the emission allowance system was introduced within the European Union and the first period ends at the end of 2007. The system was introduced in order to decrease the wastes of carbon dioxide and the system is a part of ratifying the Kyoto ?protocol which first period runs between 2008-2012.The idea of the system is to reduce the wastes of carbon dioxide where it costs less to do so and the expenses for the society therefore are as diminutive as possible. Different theories explain that companies can benefit from environment legislation and can depending on the company?s attitude gain competitive advantages improve its productivity and thereby increase its profitability.With this in mind, the study aims at examining how the introduction of the emission trade system has influenced Swedish smaller companies in the distant heating industry, with focus on the factors attitude, innovation, competition and profitability.