Energia, Ambiente e Innovazione no. 4/2014 is available on-line

The editorial takes stock of the magazine’s last year, which has given birth to many novel initiatives: each article has been assigned a DOI Code (Digital Object Identifier) , thus including EAI in one of the international circuits along with many outstanding technology and science magazines; each issue is now available in both pdf and epub formats so that it can be displayed on PCs and e-readers; the magazine has been subjected to a stricter peer-reviewing; two monothematic issues have been published, introducing a new format to be reproduced in the future.

Two additional elements have been introduced in this issue anew: the Patent portfolio section, where all ENEA patents are presented in the attempt to emphasize their innovative scope and industrial or daily spin-offs; the first of a series of articles aimed at letting the readers approach the scientific community, published in the ‘Open Space’ section under the Scientific Curiosities label . The article reports the extraordinary mechanism of the human vision and the analysis of the difference between vision and perception, two concepts often confused in the daily usage.

The issue contains other very interesting articles, from the one in the Close-up section, reviewing the international and universal expositions, with a special focus on those held in Italy, and the important spin-offs they generated also on the urban plans of the cities which they took place in.

The Open Space section hosts four more articles: the first is on family farming as an instrument capable of helping to reduce hunger and poverty, to protect the environment and to better manage natural resources and biodiversity; the second article describes how to use a heat pump for the pasteurization and cold storage of ice-cream mixes; the third one reports an empirical analysis of the index measuring the regional penetration of energy efficiency policies in Italy; the fourth and last article proposes the evaluation of the biomass energy potential on a municipal scale as a first hypothesis of possible energy planning.

Finally, the Research & development, section contains an article analyzing the current and future development of renewable energy sources in Italy as well as the consequences on both energy generation from conventional sources, which will have to be more flexible, and the network structure and management in terms of transmission and distribution, with special focus on the increasing importance of energy storage.