Demand for electricity in Saudi Arabia is growing at a significant annual rate of nearly 8%. It is expected that, by 2030, the demand will increase to about 120 GW per year, approximately three times the 2010 load. Sa...Demand for electricity in Saudi Arabia is growing at a significant annual rate of nearly 8%. It is expected that, by 2030, the demand will increase to about 120 GW per year, approximately three times the 2010 load. Satisfying this demand will require a significant investment in the power grid at an estimated cost, over the next 10 years, ofSAR （Saudi Arabia Riyal） 500 billion. Existing power plants rely on oil and natural gas, it is anticipated that meeting the demand in 2030 will consume 3 million barrels ofoil each day, which significantly impacting the economy by reducing the country＇s income from oil exports, which is a hot button for Saudi decision makers. This paper reviews the responses of various countries in meeting their loads, and therefore, draws recommendations for some resources that should, and should not, be considered best-candidate options for Saudi Arabia economically, technically and environmentally. The discussion primarily examines renewable and nuclear resources.展开更多
The emergence of complex society is a milestone in the history of human society evolution. China is one of the few regions in the world where the earliest complex society appeared; however, its driving mechanisms rema...The emergence of complex society is a milestone in the history of human society evolution. China is one of the few regions in the world where the earliest complex society appeared; however, its driving mechanisms remain unresolved. On the base of available evidence from both archaeology and Holocene climate, in combination with agency theory, this study attempts to address the driving mechanisms for the simultaneous emergence of complex societies in multiple areas of China around 5.5 cal ka BP. It is hypothesized that three factors, including climate change, population growth, and circumscription, jointly act and cause regional population-resource imbalance and trigger inter-group conflicts and wars. Such competitions provide the opportunity for some power-pursuing agents to break the restriction of social leveling mechanism and to become the centralized decision-making leaders, which further lead to the emergence of incipient large-scale complex societies. Increase in extreme climate events during 6.0–5.0 cal ka BP cooling period causes frequent occurrence of resource stress and increase in the frequency of inter-group competitions, which creates conditions for the legitimation, institutionalization, and persistence of centralized leadership, and finally leads to the formation of persistent institutionalized inequity. Our research result can explain not only the process and mechanism of complex society formation, but also two phenomena which cannot be reasonably explained by previous theories, that are, why the earliest complex societies in China emerge around 5.5 cal ka BP, and why they appear simultaneously in multiple regions.展开更多
Seed-mediated growth is the most general way to controllably synthesize bimetal nano-heterostructures. Despite successful instances through trial and error were reported, the way for second metal depositing on the see...Seed-mediated growth is the most general way to controllably synthesize bimetal nano-heterostructures. Despite successful instances through trial and error were reported, the way for second metal depositing on the seed. namely whether the symmetry of resulted nano-heterostructure follows the original crystal symmetry of seed metal, remains an unpredictable issue to date. In this work, we propose that the ther- modynamic factor, i.e., the difference of equilibrium electrochemical potentials （corresponding to their Fermi levels） of two metals in the growth solution, plays a key role for the symmetry breaking of bimetal nano-heterostructures during the seed-mediated growth. As a proof-of-principle experiment, by revers- ing the relative position of Fermi levels of the Pd nanocube seeds and the second metal Au with changing the concentration of reductant （L-ascorbic acid） in the growth solution, the structure of as-prepared prod- ucts successfully evolved from centrosymmetric Pd@Au core-shell trisoctabedra to asymmetric Pd-Au hetero-dimers. The idea was further demonstrated by the growth of Ag on the Pd seeds. The present work intends to reveal the origin of symmetry breaking in the seed-mediated growth of nano-heterostructures from the viewpoint of thermodynamics, and these new insights will in turn help to achieve rational con- struction of bimetal nano-heterostructures with soecific functions.展开更多
文摘Demand for electricity in Saudi Arabia is growing at a significant annual rate of nearly 8%. It is expected that, by 2030, the demand will increase to about 120 GW per year, approximately three times the 2010 load. Satisfying this demand will require a significant investment in the power grid at an estimated cost, over the next 10 years, ofSAR （Saudi Arabia Riyal） 500 billion. Existing power plants rely on oil and natural gas, it is anticipated that meeting the demand in 2030 will consume 3 million barrels ofoil each day, which significantly impacting the economy by reducing the country＇s income from oil exports, which is a hot button for Saudi decision makers. This paper reviews the responses of various countries in meeting their loads, and therefore, draws recommendations for some resources that should, and should not, be considered best-candidate options for Saudi Arabia economically, technically and environmentally. The discussion primarily examines renewable and nuclear resources.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41672176)the State Key Basic Research and Development Program (Grant No. 2015CB953802)
文摘The emergence of complex society is a milestone in the history of human society evolution. China is one of the few regions in the world where the earliest complex society appeared; however, its driving mechanisms remain unresolved. On the base of available evidence from both archaeology and Holocene climate, in combination with agency theory, this study attempts to address the driving mechanisms for the simultaneous emergence of complex societies in multiple areas of China around 5.5 cal ka BP. It is hypothesized that three factors, including climate change, population growth, and circumscription, jointly act and cause regional population-resource imbalance and trigger inter-group conflicts and wars. Such competitions provide the opportunity for some power-pursuing agents to break the restriction of social leveling mechanism and to become the centralized decision-making leaders, which further lead to the emergence of incipient large-scale complex societies. Increase in extreme climate events during 6.0–5.0 cal ka BP cooling period causes frequent occurrence of resource stress and increase in the frequency of inter-group competitions, which creates conditions for the legitimation, institutionalization, and persistence of centralized leadership, and finally leads to the formation of persistent institutionalized inequity. Our research result can explain not only the process and mechanism of complex society formation, but also two phenomena which cannot be reasonably explained by previous theories, that are, why the earliest complex societies in China emerge around 5.5 cal ka BP, and why they appear simultaneously in multiple regions.
基金supported by the National Basic Research Program of China(2015CB93230)the National Key Research and Development Program of China(2017YFA0206801)+1 种基金the National Natural Science Foundation of China(21333008,21671163,21721001,and 21773190)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(20720160026)
文摘Seed-mediated growth is the most general way to controllably synthesize bimetal nano-heterostructures. Despite successful instances through trial and error were reported, the way for second metal depositing on the seed. namely whether the symmetry of resulted nano-heterostructure follows the original crystal symmetry of seed metal, remains an unpredictable issue to date. In this work, we propose that the ther- modynamic factor, i.e., the difference of equilibrium electrochemical potentials （corresponding to their Fermi levels） of two metals in the growth solution, plays a key role for the symmetry breaking of bimetal nano-heterostructures during the seed-mediated growth. As a proof-of-principle experiment, by revers- ing the relative position of Fermi levels of the Pd nanocube seeds and the second metal Au with changing the concentration of reductant （L-ascorbic acid） in the growth solution, the structure of as-prepared prod- ucts successfully evolved from centrosymmetric Pd@Au core-shell trisoctabedra to asymmetric Pd-Au hetero-dimers. The idea was further demonstrated by the growth of Ag on the Pd seeds. The present work intends to reveal the origin of symmetry breaking in the seed-mediated growth of nano-heterostructures from the viewpoint of thermodynamics, and these new insights will in turn help to achieve rational con- struction of bimetal nano-heterostructures with soecific functions.
