Energy development

Types of energy

Colloquially, and in non-scientific literature, the terms power, fuels, and energy can be used as synonyms, but in the field of energy technology they possess different distinct meanings that are associated with them. An energy source is usually in the form of a closed system, the element that provides the energy by conversion from another energy form; However, the energy can be quantitative, the balance sheet is capable of containing open system energy transfers. Illustrative of this can be the emanations from the sun, which with its nuclear fusion is the most important energy source for the Earth and which provides its energy in the form of radiation.

The natural elements of the material world exist in forms that can be converted into usable energy and are resources from which society can obtain energy to produce heat, light, and motion (among the many uses). According to their nature, the power plants can be classified into:

Classified according to the energy reserves of the energy source used and the regeneration capacity with:

So, for example, shale gas is secondary non-renewable. Wind is a primary renewable.

The principle stated by Antoine Lavoisier on the conservation of matter applies to energy development: "nothing is created." Thus any energy "production" is actually a recovery transformation of the forms of energy whose origin is that of the universe.

For example, a bicycle dynamo turns in part from the kinetic energy (speed energy) of the movement of the cyclist and converting it into electrical energy will transfer in particular to its lights producing light, that is to say light energy, via the heating of the filament of the bulb and therefore heat (thermal energy). But the kinetic energy of the rider is itself biochemical energy (the ATP muscle cells) derived from the chemical energy of sugars synthesized by plants who use light energy from the sun, which runs from the nuclear energy produced by fusion of atoms of hydrogen. This material itself constitutes a form of energy, called "mass energy."

Fossil fuels

Fossil fuel (primary non-renewable fossil) sources burn coal or hydrocarbon fuels, which are the remains of the decomposition of plants and animals. There are three main types of fossil fuels: coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Another fossil fuel, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), is principally derived from the production of natural gas. Heat from burning fossil fuel is used either directly for space heating and process heating, or converted to mechanical energy for vehicles, industrial processes, or electrical power generation.

Fossil energy is from recovered fossils (like brown coal, hard coal, peat, natural gas and crude oil) and are originated in degradated products of dead plants and animals. These fossil fuels are based on the carbon cycle and thus allow stored (historic solar) energy to be recycled today. In 2005, 81% were of the world's energy needs met from fossil sources. Biomass is also derived from wood and other organic wastes and modern remains. The technical development of fossil fuels in the 18th and 19th Century set the stage for the Industrial Revolution.

Fossil fuels make up the bulk of the world's current primary energy sources. The technology and infrastructure already exist for the use of fossil fuels. Petroleum energy density in terms of volume (cubic space) and mass (weight) ranks currently above that of alternative energy sources (or energy storage devices, like a battery). Fossil fuels are currently economical, and suitable for decentralised energy use.

Dependence on fossil fuels from regions or countries creates energy security risks for dependent countries. Oil dependence in particular has led to war, funding of radicals, monopolization, and socio-political instability. Fossil fuels are non-renewable, un-sustainable resources, which will eventually decline in production and become exhausted, with consequences to societies that remain dependent on them. Fossil fuels are actually slowly forming continuously, but are being consumed quicker than are formed. Extracting fuels becomes increasingly extreme as society consumes the most accessible fuel deposits. Extraction in fuel mines get intensive and oil rigs drill deeper (going further out to sea). Extraction of fossil fuels results in environmental degradation, such as the strip mining and mountaintop removal of coal.

Fuel efficiency is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the efficiency of a process that converts chemical potential energy contained in a carrier fuel into kinetic energy or work. The fuel economy is the energy efficiency of a particular vehicle, is given as a ratio of distance travelled per unit of fuel consumed. Weight-specific efficiency (efficiency per unit weight) may be stated for freight, and passenger-specific efficiency (vehicle efficiency per passenger). The inefficient atmospheric combustion (burning) of fossil fuels in vehicles, buildings, and power plants contributes to urban heat islands.

Conventional production of oil has peaked, conservatively, between 2007 and 2010. In 2010, it was estimated that an investment in non-renewable resources of $8 trillion would be required to maintain current levels of production for 25 years. In 2010, governments subsidized fossil fuels by an estimated $500 billion a year. Fossil fuels are also a source of greenhouse gas emissions, leading to concerns about global warming if consumption is not reduced.

The combustion of fossil fuels leads to the release of pollution into the atmosphere. The fossil fuels are mainly based on organic carbon compounds. They are according to the IPCC the causes of the global warming. During the combustion with oxygen in the form of heat energy, carbon dioxide released. Depending on the composition and purity of the fossil fuel also results in other chemical compounds such as nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and soot and other fine particulates alternativey. Greenhouse gas emissions result from fossil fuel-based electricity generation. A typical coal plant generates billions of kilowatt hours per year. Emissions from such fossil fuel power station include carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, small particulates, nitrogen oxides, smog with high levels of ozone, carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC), mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, other heavy metals, and traces of uranium.

Fission

Nuclear power, or nuclear energy, is the use of exothermic nuclear processes, to generate useful heat and electricity. The term includes nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion. Presently the nuclear fission of elements in the actinide series of the periodic table produce the vast majority of nuclear energy in the direct service of humankind, with nuclear decay processes, primarily in the form of geothermal energy, and radioisotope thermoelectric generators, in niche uses making up the rest. Nuclear (fission) power stations, excluding the contribution from naval nuclear fission reactors, provided about 5.7% of the world's energy and 13% of the world's electricity in 2012. In 2013, the IAEA report that there are 437 operational nuclear power reactors, in 31 countries, although not every reactor is producing electricity. In addition, there are approximately 140 naval vessels using nuclear propulsion in operation, powered by some 180 reactors. As of 2013, attaining a net energy gain from sustained nuclear fusion reactions, excluding natural fusion power sources such as the Sun, remains an ongoing area of international physics and engineering research. More than 60 years after the first attempts, commercial fusion power production remains unlikely before 2050.

There is an ongoing debate about nuclear power. Proponents, such as the World Nuclear Association, the IAEA and Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy contend that nuclear power is a safe, sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions. Opponents, such as Greenpeace International and NIRS, contend that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment.

Nuclear power plant accidents include the Chernobyl disaster (1986), Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011), and the Three Mile Island accident (1979). There have also been some nuclear submarine accidents. In terms of lives lost per unit of energy generated, analysis has determined that nuclear power has caused less fatalities per unit of energy generated than the other major sources of energy generation. Energy production from coal, petroleum, natural gas and hydropower has caused a greater number of fatalities per unit of energy generated due to air pollution and energy accident effects. However, the economic costs of nuclear power accidents is high, and meltdowns can take decades to clean up. The human costs of evacuations of affected populations and lost livelihoods is also significant.

In 2016, strengthening the case of nuclear fission being regarded as a renewable energy, the global effort focused on techniques to economically extract the naturally replenishing uranium found in seawater took a step forward and will prevent "peak uranium", as the quantity of uranium now becoming economically recoverable with the field tested absorbent polymer ropes, is practically inexhaustible.

Along with other sustainable energy sources, nuclear power is a low carbon power generation method of producing electricity, with an analysis of the literature on its total life cycle emission intensity finding that it is similar to other renewable sources in a comparison of greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions per unit of energy generated. With this translating into, from the beginning of nuclear power station commercialization in the 1970s, having prevented the emission of approximately 64 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent(GtCO2-eq) greenhouse gases, gases that would have otherwise resulted from the burning of oil, coal or natural gas in fossil-fuel power stations.

As of 2012, according to the IAEA, worldwide there were 68 civil nuclear power reactors under construction in 15 countries, approximately 28 of which in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), with the most recent nuclear power reactor, as of May 2013, to be connected to the electrical grid, occurring on February 17, 2013 in Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Plant in the PRC. In the United States, two new Generation III reactors are under construction at Vogtle. U.S. nuclear industry officials expect five new reactors to enter service by 2020, all at existing plants. In 2013, four aging, uncompetitive, reactors were permanently closed.

Japan's 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, which occurred in a reactor design from the 1960s, prompted a rethink of nuclear safety and nuclear energy policy in many countries. Germany decided to close all its reactors by 2022, and Italy has banned nuclear power. Following Fukushima, in 2011 the International Energy Agency halved its estimate of additional nuclear generating capacity to be built by 2035.

Fission economics

The economics of new nuclear power plants is a controversial subject, since there are diverging views on this topic, and multibillion-dollar investments ride on the choice of an energy source. Nuclear power plants typically have high capital costs for building the plant, but low direct fuel costs.

In recent years there has been a slowdown of electricity demand growth and financing has become more difficult, which affects large projects such as nuclear reactors, with very large upfront costs and long project cycles which carry a large variety of risks. In Eastern Europe, a number of long-established projects are struggling to find finance, notably Belene in Bulgaria and the additional reactors at Cernavoda in Romania, and some potential backers have pulled out. Where cheap gas is available and its future supply relatively secure, this also poses a major problem for nuclear projects.

Analysis of the economics of nuclear power must take into account who bears the risks of future uncertainties. To date all operating nuclear power plants were developed by state-owned or regulated utility monopolies where many of the risks associated with construction costs, operating performance, fuel price, and other factors were borne by consumers rather than suppliers. Many countries have now liberalized the electricity market where these risks, and the risk of cheaper competitors emerging before capital costs are recovered, are borne by plant suppliers and operators rather than consumers, which leads to a significantly different evaluation of the economics of new nuclear power plants.

Two of the four EPRs under construction (in Finland and France) are significantly behind schedule and substantially over cost. Following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, costs are likely to go up for currently operating and new nuclear power plants, due to increased requirements for on-site spent fuel management and elevated design basis threats. While first of their kind designs, such as the EPRs under construction are behind schedule and over-budget, of the seven South Korean APR-1400s presently under construction worldwide, two are in S.Korea at the Hanul Nuclear Power Plant and four are at the largest nuclear station construction project in the world as of 2016, in the United Arab Emirates at the planned Barakah nuclear power plant. The first reactor, Barakah-1 is 85% completed and on schedule for grid-connection during 2017.

Increased energy efficiency

Although increasing the efficiency of energy use is not energy development per se, it may be considered under the topic of energy development since it makes existing energy sources available to do work.

Efficient energy use, simply called energy efficiency, is the goal of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a comfortable temperature. Installing fluorescent lamps or natural skylights reduces the amount of energy required to attain the same level of illumination compared to using traditional incandescent light bulbs. Compact fluorescent lights use two-thirds less energy and may last 6 to 10 times longer than incandescent lights. Improvements in energy efficiency are most often achieved by adopting an efficient technology or production process.

There are various motivations to improve energy efficiency. Reducing energy use reduces energy costs and may result in a financial cost saving to consumers if the energy savings offset any additional costs of implementing an energy efficient technology. Reducing energy use is also seen as a key solution to the problem of reducing emissions. According to the International Energy Agency, improved energy efficiency in buildings, industrial processes and transportation could reduce the world's energy needs in 2050 by one third, and help control global emissions of greenhouse gases.

Energy efficiency and renewable energy are said to be the twin pillars of sustainable energy policy. In many countries energy efficiency is also seen to have a national security benefit because it can be used to reduce the level of energy imports from foreign countries and may slow down the rate at which domestic energy resources are depleted.

Transmission

While new sources of energy are only rarely discovered or made possible by new technology, distribution technology continually evolves. The use of fuel cells in cars, for example, is an anticipated delivery technology. This section presents the various delivery technologies that have been important to historic energy development. They all rely in way on the energy sources listed in the previous section.

Shipping and pipelines

Shipping is a flexible delivery technology that is used in the whole range of energy development regimes from primitive to highly advanced. Currently, coal, petroleum and their derivatives are delivered by shipping via boat, rail, or road. Petroleum and natural gas may also be delivered via pipeline and coal via a Slurry pipeline. Refined hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline and LPG may also be delivered via aircraft. Natural gas pipelines must maintain a certain minimum pressure to function correctly. Ethanol's corrosive properties make it harder to build ethanol pipelines. The higher costs of ethanol transportation and storage are often prohibitive. Geomagnetically induced currents, seen as interfering with the normal operation of long buried pipeline systems, are a manifestation at ground level of space weather that occur due to time-varying ionospheric source fields and the conductivity of the Earth.

Wired energy transfer

Electricity grids are the networks used to transmit and distribute power from production source to end user, when the two may be hundreds of kilometres away. Sources include electrical generation plants such as a nuclear reactor, coal burning power plant, etc. A combination of sub-stations, transformers, towers, cables, and piping are used to maintain a constant flow of electricity. Grids may suffer from transient blackouts and brownouts, often due to weather damage. During certain extreme space weather events solar wind can interfere with transmissions. Grids also have a predefined carrying capacity or load that cannot safely be exceeded. When power requirements exceed what's available, failures are inevitable. To prevent problems, power is then rationed.

Industrialised countries such as Canada, the US, and Australia are among the highest per capita consumers of electricity in the world, which is possible thanks to a widespread electrical distribution network. The US grid is one of the most advanced, although infrastructure maintenance is becoming a problem. CurrentEnergy provides a realtime overview of the electricity supply and demand for California, Texas, and the Northeast of the US. African countries with small scale electrical grids have a correspondingly low annual per capita usage of electricity. One of the most powerful power grids in the world supplies power to the state of Queensland, Australia.

Wireless energy transfer

Wireless energy transfer is a process whereby electrical energy is transmitted from a power source to an electrical load that does not have a built-in power source, without the use of interconnecting wires.

Storage

Energy storage is accomplished by devices or physical media that store energy to perform useful operation at a later time. A device that stores energy is sometimes called an accumulator.

All forms of energy are either potential energy (e.g. Chemical, gravitational, electrical energy, temperature differential, latent heat, etc.) or kinetic energy (e.g. momentum). Some technologies provide only short-term energy storage, and others can be very long-term such as power to gas using hydrogen or methane and the storage of heat or cold between opposing seasons in deep aquifers or bedrock. A wind-up clock stores potential energy (in this case mechanical, in the spring tension), a battery stores readily convertible chemical energy to operate a mobile phone, and a hydroelectric dam stores energy in a reservoir as gravitational potential energy. Ice storage tanks store ice (thermal energy in the form of latent heat) at night to meet peak demand for cooling. Fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline store ancient energy derived from sunlight by organisms that later died, became buried and over time were then converted into these fuels. Even food (which is made by the same process as fossil fuels) is a form of energy stored in chemical form.

History of energy development

Since prehistory, when humanity discovered fire to warm up and roast food, through the Middle Ages in which populations built windmills to grind the wheat, until the modern era in which nations can get electricity splitting the atom. Man has sought endlessly for energy sources from which to draw profit, which have been the fossil fuels, on one hand the coal to fuel the steam engines run industrial rails as well as maintain households, and secondly, the oil and its derivatives in the industry and transportation (primarily automotive), although have lived with smaller-scale exploitation of wind power, hydro and biomass. This model of development, however, is based on the depletion of fossil resources from periods of millions years without possibility for replacement as would be required to maintain. The search for energy sources that are inexhaustible and utilization by industrialized countries to strengthen their national economies by reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, has led to the adoption of nuclear energy and those with sufficient water resources, the intensive hydraulic use of their waterways.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the question of the future of energy supplies has been of interest. In 1865, William Stanley Jevons published The Coal Question in which he saw that the reserves of coal were being depleted and that oil was an ineffective replacement. In 1914, U.S. Bureau of Mines stated that the total production was 5.7 billion barrels (910,000,000 m³). In 1956, Geophysicist M. King Hubbert deduces that U.S. oil production will peak between 1965 and 1970 (peaked in 1971) and that oil production will peak "within half a century" on the basis of 1956 data. In 1989, predicted peak by Colin Campbell In 2004, OPEC estimated, with substantial investments, it would nearly double oil output by 2025

Sustainability

The environmental movement has emphasized sustainability of energy use and development. Renewable energy is sustainable in its production; the available supply will not be diminished for the foreseeable future - millions or billions of years. "Sustainability" also refers to the ability of the environment to cope with waste products, especially air pollution. Sources which have no direct waste products (such as wind, solar, and hydropower) are brought up on this point. With global demand for energy growing, the need to adopt various energy sources is growing. Energy conservation is an alternative or complementary process to energy development. It reduces the demand for energy by using it efficiently.

Resilience

Some observers contend that idea of "energy independence" is an unrealistic and opaque concept. The alternative offer of "energy resilience" is a goal aligned with economic, security, and energy realities. The notion of resilience in energy was detailed in the 1982 book Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security. The authors argued that simply switching to domestic energy would not be secure inherently because the true weakness is the interdependent and vulnerable energy infrastructure of the United States. Key aspects such as gas lines and the electrical power grid are centralized and easily susceptible to disruption. They conclude that a "resilient energy supply" is necessary for both national security and the environment. They recommend a focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy that is decentralized.

In 2008, former Intel Corporation Chairman and CEO Andrew Grove looked to energy resilience, arguing that complete independence is unfeasible given the global market for energy. He describes energy resilience as the ability to adjust to interruptions in the supply of energy. To that end, he suggests the U.S. make greater use of electricity. Electricity can be produced from a variety of sources. A diverse energy supply will be less affected by the disruption in supply of any one source. He reasons that another feature of electrification is that electricity is "sticky" – meaning the electricity produced in the U.S. is to stay there because it cannot be transported overseas. According to Grove, a key aspect of advancing electrification and energy resilience will be converting the U.S. automotive fleet from gasoline-powered to electric-powered. This, in turn, will require the modernization and expansion of the electrical power grid. As organizations such as The Reform Institute have pointed out, advancements associated with the developing smart grid would facilitate the ability of the grid to absorb vehicles en masse connecting to it to charge their batteries.

Present and future

Extrapolations from current knowledge to the future offer a choice of energy futures. Predictions parallel the Malthusian catastrophe hypothesis. Numerous are complex models based scenarios as pioneered by Limits to Growth. Modeling approaches offer ways to analyze diverse strategies, and hopefully find a road to rapid and sustainable development of humanity. Short term energy crises are also a concern of energy development. Extrapolations lack plausibility, particularly when they predict a continual increase in oil consumption.

Energy production usually requires an energy investment. Drilling for oil or building a wind power plant requires energy. The fossil fuel resources (see above) that are left are often increasingly difficult to extract and convert. They may thus require increasingly higher energy investments. If investment is greater than the energy produced by the resource, it is no longer an effective energy source. This means that resources, the wasteful ones, are not used effectively for energy production. Such resources can be exploited economically in order to produce raw materials; They then become ordinary mining reserves, economically recoverable are not a positive energy sources. New technology may ameliorate this problem if it can lower the energy investment required to extract and convert the resources, although ultimately basic physics sets limits that cannot be exceeded.

Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation. The peaking of world hydrocarbon production (peak oil) may lead to significant changes, and require sustainable methods of production. One vision of a sustainable energy future involves all human structures on the earth's surface (i.e., buildings, vehicles and roads) doing artificial photosynthesis (using sunlight to split water as a source of hydrogen and absorbing carbon dioxide to make fertilizer) efficiently than plants.

With contemporary space industry's economic activity and the related private spaceflight, with the manufacturing industries, that go into Earth's orbit or beyond, delivering them to those regions will require further energy development. Commercialization of space includes satellite navigation systems, satellite television and satellite radio; investments estimated to be $50.8 billion. Researchers have contemplated space-based solar power for collecting solar power in space for use on Earth. Space-based solar power only differ from solar and other similar radiant energy collection methods in that the means used to collect energy would reside on an orbiting satellite instead of on Earth's surface. Some projected benefits of such a system are a higher collection rate and a longer collection period due to the lack of a diffusing and refracting atmosphere and nighttime in space.

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