Most renewable energy sources depend on the sun and so vary with time and ambient conditions. Hence a consistent supply of renewable energy requires energy storage. The main approaches to storing renewable energy are described and quantified. Pumped hydro, compressed air and flywheels are discussed. Storing heat in the fabric of buildings and hot water using sensible heat are described. The increasing importance of phase change materials to store energy through latent heat is recognized. Battery technology is developing very fast; the principles of lithium-ion batteries are explained, together with their advantages and disadvantages. The various materials currently used for the positive electrode are listed. The electrochemistry of various battery technologies is summarized as well as how a large number of cells are connected to form are a useful store of energy. The principle of flow batteries is demonstrated and approaches to the estimation of the lifetime of a lithium-ion battery discussed. The chapter is supported by 10 examples, 16 questions with answers and full solutions in the accompanying online material. Further reading and online resources are identified.

Chapter 6 takes as its focus the remains of two aboveground granaries that once stood in the agora of Morgantina, one of the cities that recognized Hieron’s authority as king. After a brief discussion of the buildings’ architectural form and function, the chapter explores where the Morgantina granaries fit within the corpus of known Hellenistic granary buildings and goes on to argue they played a central role in the projection of Hieron’s royal authority at the western edges of his kingdom.

Cryobanking is a major component of today’s assisted reproductive technologies (ART). As Reproductive Biologists and Cryogenic Specialists, we are not only burdened with the accurate labelling, witnessing and use of cryopreserved specimens (the subject of other chapters in this text), we must ensure their safe and secure long-term storage. Based on a heightened awareness of actual and experimental tank failures, we will outline and discuss the critical components of effective quality management for cryostorage.

Cryopreservation of human spermatozoa offers male patients the option to preserve fertility prior to initiating cancer therapy, vasectomy or assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment. Human sperm can be easily cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen and stored for years. A number of cryopreservation techniques and cryoprotectants have been investigated. To date, however, vapour-phase or programmed slow cooling using a glycerol/egg yolk buffer cryoprotectant has been the most widely applied sperm cryopreservation protocol. Sperm cryosurvival rates of 40% to 60% are generally achievable. However, in patients having low motility or low sperm number at the outset, cryopreservation and recovery of viable sperm can be more challenging. In such cases, freezing of single sperm or small numbers of sperm is emerging as a valuable tool. With this technique, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) can be performed even in cases with only a few frozen spermatozoa.

Improvement in the success of cryopreservation has increased the use of human embryos produced from ovarian hyper-stimulation and in vitro fertilization (IVF)/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). High survival and implantation rates of frozen–thawed embryos have allowed for a decrease in the number of embryos transferred and even made way for a modern ‘freeze all’ approach, where all embryos derived from a fresh cycle are frozen and transferred in a subsequent frozen embryo transfer cycle. In recent years, cryopreservation has evolved to include vitrification, with many laboratories preferring this sometimes faster method, which also requires less complex equipment. However, slow freezing can often be more successful, cost-effective and faster than vitrification, particularly in zygotes and cleavage-stage embryos. For most vitrification approaches, the process is the same, independent of the embryo’s stage of development. Blastocyst vitrification can be applied for cleavage-stage embryos, and this chapter will focus on slow freezing of pre-compaction embryos.

German excavations carried out between 1980 and 1995 in Tall Bi’a (Raqqa, Syria) uncovered the remains of a unique Syrian orthodox monastery on the top of the central hill above the Bronze Age city of Tuttul. The building complex is unique in that, although it is of inexpensive mudbrick, three of the rooms are decorated with carefully executed mosaic floors with figural decoration. Two of these mosaics have Syriac inscriptions that date the construction of the building (509 AD) and the renovation of parts of it (595 AD). The complex can be identified as the monastery of Mar Zakkai. This chapter focuses on the economic life of the monastery and describes it as a household unit. The starting point is the well-preserved refectory, the large kitchen, and the storerooms. The refectory is equipped with circular benches, unique in Syria, parallels of which are known only from Egypt.

The global push for economy-wide decarbonization is fueling intense interest in the potential of hydrogen as a zero-carbon resource. Long coveted as a fuel of the future, hydrogen already is being used in a variety of applications to cut carbon emissions across the globe. This chapter details a case study from Mitsubishi Power in use of hydrogen in gas turbines to produce electricity. Currently, Mitsubishi Power’s largest and most advanced gas turbines make use of a dry low-NOx (DLN) combustion system that allows operation with up to 30% hydrogen in baseline configuration. Going forward, increasing the use of hydrogen as a percentage of a power station’s fuel mix – from a mixture of around 30% hydrogen all the way up to 100% hydrogen as an energy source – requires the need for innovative equipment modifications, such as a multi-cluster combustor.

The global push for economy-wide decarbonization is fueling intense interest in the potential of hydrogen as a zero-carbon resource. Long coveted as a fuel of the future, hydrogen already is being used in a variety of applications to cut carbon emissions across the globe. This chapter details a case study from Mitsubishi Power in use of hydrogen in gas turbines to produce electricity. Currently, Mitsubishi Power’s largest and most advanced gas turbines make use of a dry low-NOx (DLN) combustion system that allows operation with up to 30% hydrogen in baseline configuration. Going forward, increasing the use of hydrogen as a percentage of a power station’s fuel mix – from a mixture of around 30% hydrogen all the way up to 100% hydrogen as an energy source – requires the need for innovative equipment modifications, such as a multi-cluster combustor.

The centuries after the so-called collapse of the Mycenaean palace administration from the twelfth to the eighth centuries BCE saw several transformations of social and economic structures. These had an impact on the economic performance in the period. It is also significant that during this period there was no attempt to restore palatial administration, but instead Early Iron Age communities built new social and economic relationships on household units that could be understood as adaptable social-political organisations with fluid boundaries. Moreover, the Early Iron Age should not be seen as a period of stagnation but one characterised by adaptive and resilient features. These led to the well-documented visibility of the archaeological record of the eighth century BCE.

The turn from the 7th to the 6th millennium cal BC is a period not very well known in the northern Levant. Even the recent increase in archaeological data for the Late Neolithic period does not yet allow for a thorough understanding of this time span. However, the data gathered at the site of Shir near Hama document a complex occupation history covering almost the entire 7th millennium cal BC The latest occupational levels date to the last third of the 7th millennium cal BC and are characterized by a great variety of dwellings, among which a large storage building and a separate burial ground are of special interest. This occupation came to an end, without any obvious cause, around 6200/6100 cal BC and, for a long time, did not have any successor site in the immediate surrounding area. For the time being it is not clear whether the desertion of the settlement is the beginning of a general hiatus in the region, whether a new settlement was founded elsewhere, or whether increasingly mobile ways of life began to develop. But in general, the low number of archaeological sites dating to the first half of 6th millennium cal BC might be an indication for changing settlement conditions around 6000 cal BC.

The suggested shift in policy perspective from groundwater to aquifers challenges the traditional approach to groundwater as a public resource issue. The legal issues involving aquifers are a complex combination of public rights and private property. Groundwater is traditionally a publicly held resource, yet the aquifer’s storage space appears to be considered private property. Although these resources are interconnected, courts have taken different approaches to addressing conflicts that involve indirect effects of groundwater extraction, like subsidence and subterranean trespass. Some states and courts treat pore spaces akin to a mineral right and protect private uses, like carbon sequestration. In other cases, courts have treated pore spaces as a public resource and refused claims of trespass and nuisance when adjacent aquifer uses interfered with private property rights. There is no clear consensus as to the ownership of aquifer pore spaces.

Understanding diapause is vital for the development of sound insect pest management practices, including population modeling as well as the implementation of effective cultural measures. Tools for breaking or promoting diapause on demand have utility for managing domesticated species, for mass rearing of insects for sterile insect release, and for stockpiling valuable genetic lines or parasitoids used in the biological control industry. A wide range of chemical and physical manipulators of diapause are known, many of which are species-specific. Insect conservation can be promoted by first knowing where insects overwinter and then protecting such sites. Diapause has implications for transmission of human disease, as noted in mosquitoes that harbor viruses while in diapause, thus enabling the disease to become re-established the following summer. Diapause also offers rich potential as a model for exploring issues of human health, such as aging, obesity, and ischemia, as well as providing a rich resource for pharmacological prospecting.

Renewable energy, including wind and solar, has won the support of state governments by offering cost-competitive electricity, revenue to rural landowners and job opportunities. Utility companies and private companies are shifting to renewable energy that is already cheaper than coal and natural gas generation in many locations, while retaining their systems’ reliability and resilience. The Trump administration’s attempts to counter market forces that favored cheaper wind and solar largely failed to impede the progress of renewable energy. The United States, as documented in several studies, can achieve 80 percent renewable energy in its electric grid by 2035, up from 20 percent in 2020, using existing technologies, but that transition calls for a variety of supportive policies. Strategies that share the benefits from renewable energy adoption with communities that host renewable energy projects and transmission lines can help accelerate that transition, while securing broad political support. These strategies include assistance to rural electricity cooperatives to shift out of coal, developers’ benefit-sharing agreements with local communities and strategies to enhance project ownership by local communities. Likewise, targeting renewable energy projects at communities hosting fossil fuel power plants and fossil fuel generation can help achieve a more equitable energy transition.

This chapter presents a game-theoretic solution to several challenges in electricity markets, e.g., intermittent generation; high levels of average prices; price volatility; and fundamental aspects concerning the environment, reliability, and affordability. It proposes a stochastic bi-level optimization model to find the optimal nodal storage capacities required to achieve a certain price volatility level in a highly volatile energy-only electricity market. The decision on storage capacities is made in the upper-level problem and the operation of strategic/regulated generation, storage, and transmission players is modeled in the lower-level problem using an extended stochastic (Bayesian) Cournot-based game.