The aim with this thesis is to make a comparison between forcing tulips in a hydroponic system and the forcing off tulips that have been planted in soil. The results are mostly based on interviews with six Dutch and one Swedish tulip forcer and the managing director at the Horticultural Research Centre, Proeftuin Zwaagdijke, in the Netherlands. There are benefits and disadvantages with both methods. Tulip bulbs planted in soil seem to get a brighter colour after forcing, compared with those forced ?in water?.

In connection with the property crises in many countries, caused by the financial crises, people are now more aware of the risks involved in poor property-investments. The unusually cold winters along with extreme prices of electricity in Sweden in recent years has also contributed to increased interest in energy-efficient buildings.The process of developing a modern family home in Kiruna, Sweden is presented the first part of this paper. The house has been designed to withstand very high stresses from snow, low energy consumption as well as a high standard of living comfort. Aspects of the house covered here involves everything from construction, heating and ventilation to sanitation. Each of these areas is presented based on their underlying, scientific methods or theories.

The heating of companies premises is today functional with electrical heating and heating offossil fuel. The energy cost for these kinds of heating in buildings has heavily increased duringthe last years and the influence on the environment has become more visual. This leads to thatenterprises today become more anxious to render energy more effective and find alternativesolutions to their ancient heating systems. This is something that Skandinaviska kraftprodukterAB in Halmstad has become aware of.The purpose with this examination is to find the most cost-efficient and environmental measuresfor the office and workshop premises of SKP AB. Where one of the bigger things is to find agood alternative for their current oil furnace, which was heating the workshop.

This thesis has identified and studied measures to allow for reduced use of electricity in a waste incineration plant in western Sweden. The energy extracted from the waste at the powerplant is utilized and sold in form of electricity and heat. Technical and environmentally the combined heat and power plant is by today's standards among the leading waste incineration plants in the world. The owners are constantly striving to improve the efficiency of the waste incineration plant. They have seen the opportunities for savings in reducing internal usage of electricity.

In this report a study is carried out with the aim to identify added values of EPC projects implemented in schools in order to increase the interest of EPC projects on the market. The report examines how the planned maintenance, supervision, maintenance and corrective maintenance is affected, how insurance premiums and terms are affected, the indoor environment and how the tasks of the operating staff is changing. A literature study of energy savings, energy use in schools, maintenance and insurance as well as how energy efficiency improvements are related to the Swedish environmental objectives has been made. Visits were carried out in Ludvika, interviews were also carried out with operation technicians and local strategists in Ludvika as well as employees of insurance companies.Schools often have neglected maintenance and problems with ventilation and indoor environment. Schools also have a large energy saving potential due to their low utilization, mainly because they are empty parts of the year.

We have the tradition in Sweden to build villas and houses with a wooden framework. It has become natural for us because we have so much forest in our country. Building with wood has advantages, it is easy to process, but also disadvantages, as it is sensitive to moisture.Finland has long made use of the thermal blocks to build villas. It is a type of bricks that are a bit like a sandwich element, with a core of EPS and concrete on both sides of the core material. The concrete is hollow, so that after the walls has been bricked up you pour concrete into the hollow bricks.The issue of this report is to find out if concrete can be an alternative to wood as framework material in villas.

A district heating plant has the advantage that it can take advantage of the waste heat from industries and use of cheap fuels to produce heat. But for the long term is competitive requires that energy is also saved in district heating plants. One way to save energy in a district heating system is to increasing cooling to the return temperature. This leads to less power needed to drive the distribution pumps,  and that more energy could be extracted from the same amount of fuel by an improved flue gas condensation.In Karlskoga the return temperature into the district heating plant is high. They would therefore reduce the return temperature in order to extract more energy from the flue gases.

In this report presents a thesis by Frida Altskog performed in collaboration with Askersunds Kakelmakeri. The project?s goal has been to produce a ceramic ledge after the company?s specifications. The company?s desire and production facilities have been in focus.

High heels ? a fashion that has not gone out of style after hundreds of years. Despite their esthetic advantages, high heels become uncomfortable and harmful after repetitive and long term use. With this as a starting point, Huyen Nguyen ? a student at the Innovation Engineering Program at the University of Halmstad ? decided to make a final thesis project. The project goal has been to combine the esthetic advantages of high heels and bring a comfortable solution to the equation.

Protecting the environment has with time grown to take a more central role in the society. Agriculture plays an important role in the society since this sector produces our food. More thorough research on how agriculture affects the environment is therefore motivated. This research can be used to improve the agricultural practice from an environmental point of view. This is something that both the farmers and the consumers can profit from. This study aims to form the basis for creating environmental indicators for use of nitrogen and energy on dairy farms. Twenty-three farmers in western Sweden have been interviewed about their farms, both organic and conventional. They produce milk with different intensity, defined as the amount of milk delivered (sold) per hectare of arable land.

The swedish national board of housing, Building and Planning,recommends that all stakeholders in the construction industryperform a moisture control design to make sure that the buildingachieves good moisture resistance. Since June 1, 2006 there are nospecific requirements or quantitative values for air leakage.Although the swedish national board of housing does presentrequirement that the building envelope must be sealed so that theclient?s requirements for specific energy consumption and installedelectric power for heating purposes are met. Despite this, studiesfrom SP shows that few buildings meet the client?s requirements inspecific energy, which increases the risk of occurrence ofcondensation-related moisture damage.This study aims to evaluate curtain walls connections from airsecurity and moisture safety.

With gas prices persistently rising, electric and hybrid vehicles are getting more and more common and in recent years several new electric cars have evolved on the market. Although the energy consumption and low emissions are a huge benefit of the electric cars, they inevitably suffer from high prices, short range and time consuming recharging periods. To be able to withstand the competition it is important that electric vehicles not only can withstand general were and tare, but also the harsh conditions that ordinary cars is exposed to in daily usage. The purpose of this project is to develop a test methodology which replicate situations that could appear in daily usage of electric or hybrid cars and to understand the problems related to usage of electric cars in winter conditions. This paper also discusses the major differences between hybrid cars and electric cars.

The purpose of the study isto,based on network theory, systems theory and development ecological systems theory,understand parent?sexperiences of having children with autismspectrum, as well as understand the importance of social networksfor the parents. All of the intervieweeswere mothers. The results showed that it is important to parentsto have contact with other parents who are in the same situation as them. Many of the interviewees had a small social network.

Two elementary schools are now being built in Gråbo (in the municipality of Lerum),Röselidsskolan and Ljungviksskolan, which are both designed with solar thermalcollectors for the schools domestic water heating. During the summer while thelargest amount of solar heat can be generated, the activity hence the domestic wateruse in the schools are heavily reduced. Both schools are connected to the local districtheating system which makes it possible to use the solar collectors to deliver heat tothe district heating.The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the two systems mentioned above and todetermine which system is more suitable to apply on a school. The building whichconditions were used for this evaluation is Röselidsskolan.A solar heating plant of each system type was dimensioned from the expected andknown conditions of the building. The purpose with the dimensioning was to makethe solar plants replace the ordinary energy source as much as possible.

Two elementary schools are now being built in Gråbo (in the municipality of Lerum),Röselidsskolan and Ljungviksskolan, which are both designed with solar thermalcollectors for the schools domestic water heating. During the summer while thelargest amount of solar heat can be generated, the activity hence the domestic wateruse in the schools are heavily reduced. Both schools are connected to the local districtheating system which makes it possible to use the solar collectors to deliver heat tothe district heating.The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the two systems mentioned above and todetermine which system is more suitable to apply on a school. The building whichconditions were used for this evaluation is Röselidsskolan.A solar heating plant of each system type was dimensioned from the expected andknown conditions of the building. The purpose with the dimensioning was to makethe solar plants replace the ordinary energy source as much as possible.