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In order to verify the feasibility of different techniques, this chapter further studies the adaptability of two massive straw biomass applications in rural areas in China.

The methods of assessing biomass power generation project with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), survey and field test of one biogas station, and game-theoretic analysis are adopted.

The following conclusions can be drawn: The air pollution costs account for more than 60% of the total environmental cost, followed by depreciation expense and maintenance fee of 18%, compared to that of biomass power generation at 0.01711 CNY/kWh. The adopted greenhouse sunlight technology of Solar Biogas Plant in Xuzhou, China, raises the inside average temperature by 11.0 °C higher than outside and keeps the pool temperature above 16 °C in winter, ensuring a gas productivity of biogas project in winter up to 0.5–0.7 m³/m³ by volume. This chapter also analyzes the information cost incurred by asymmetric information in biomass power generation via game theory method and illustrates the information structure with game results. It provides not only a foundation for the policy research in promoting straw power generation but also theoretical framework to solve the problem of straw collection.

These studies will propose solutions to relevant problems arisen in the running process.

These studies are all based on real cases, field research, and appropriate theoretical analyses, so, they can reduce the relevant costs and promote the application of relevant technologies.

This chapter presents an evaluation of the literature on the effect of the pandemic on mental health. It draws mainly on the existing economics literature and presents the state of the art of the COVID-19 effect on mental health. While paying particular attention to how the deterioration of mental health evolved over time and across countries, this chapter also considers variation of mental health across individual demographic characteristics as well as different circumstances through which mental health has been affected. Moreover, it provides a general assessment of the methodological aspects of various studies, by discussing the sample and data used, measures of mental health as well as causality issues. Overall, researchers for various countries around the world adopting different measures of mental health, often non-comparable samples and different methodologies document consistently that the level of mental health has been deteriorated during the pandemic, with the negative effect of the lockdown on mental health being evident in the early stage of the pandemic and on the whole population. Findings point out to a high degree of heterogeneity within demographic groups.

The aim of this study is to examine the significant factors to improve the green nuclear energy investments in the emerging economies. For this purpose, balanced scorecard-based criteria are weighted with DEMATEL methodology. The findings demonstrate that technological improvement and financial issues are the most important issues for the improvement of the green nuclear energy investments in these countries. Nuclear energy working with thorium can also be obtained with proton accelerator technology that is currently quite expensive. Because of this problem, the investors are not willing to make investments for green nuclear energy projects. Hence, emerging countries should make the necessary technological investments to have proton accelerator technologies. With the help of this condition, it will be possible to reduce the cost of green nuclear energy projects which attracts the attention of the investors. This situation has a powerful contribution for the sustainable economic development of these countries.

Adsorption parameters (e.g. Langmuir constant, mass transfer coefficient and Thomas rate constant) are involved in the design of aqueous-media adsorption treatment units. However, the classic approach to estimating such parameters is perceived to be imprecise. Herein, the essential features and performances of the ant colony, bee colony and elephant herd optimisation approaches are introduced to the experimental chemist and chemical engineer engaged in adsorption research for aqueous systems. Key research and development directions, believed to harness these algorithms for real-scale water treatment (which falls within the wide-ranging coverage of the Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) ‘Clean Water and Sanitation for All’), are also proposed. The ant colony, bee colony and elephant herd optimisations have higher precision and accuracy, and are particularly efficient in finding the global optimum solution. It is hoped that the discussions can stimulate both the experimental chemist and chemical engineer to delineate the progress achieved so far and collaborate further to devise strategies for integrating these intelligent optimisations in the design and operation of real multicomponent multi-complexity adsorption systems for water purification.

With the increase in population, the energy needs of countries are also increasing. These countries have difficulties in meeting these increasing needs. Countries that cannot meet this need have to import energy from abroad. This situation adversely affects the current account balance of countries. Nuclear energy investments allow countries to obtain their own energy, although there are some criticisms. In this framework, while some countries in the world increase their nuclear energy investments, some countries do not have any nuclear power plants (NPP). There are 32 such countries where nuclear energy projects are running till date. Therefore, it is very important to determine the socio-economic variables of countries that have nuclear energy investments. In this context, a detailed literature analysis will be made first to determine socio-economic criteria. Then, the importance weights of these factors will be calculated using the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method. The profiles of the countries that make nuclear energy investments demonstrate that education level is the most essential socio-economic factor for the improvement of nuclear energy investments. Also, income inequality is another important variable in this regard. However, consumption behaviour and saving behaviour have the lowest weights.