Energy Resources
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Energy is usually defined as the capacity to do work. Nature provides us with numerous sources of energy, some difficult to utilize efficiently (e.g., solar radiation and wind energy), others more concentrated or energy dense and therefore easier to utilize (e.g., fossil fuels). Energy sources can be classified also as renewable (solar and non-solar) and nonrenewable.
Renewable energy resources are derived in a number of ways: gravitational forces of the sun and moon, which create the tides; the rotation of the earth combined with solar energy, which generates the currents in the ocean and the winds; the decay of radioactive minerals and the interior heat of the earth, which provide geothermal energy; photosynthetic production of organic matter; and the direct heat of the sun. These energy sources are called renewable because they are either continuously replenished or, for all practical purposes, are inexhaustible.
Nonrenewable energy sources include the fossil fuels (natural gas, petroleum, shale oil, coal, and peat) as well as uranium. Fossil fuels are both energy dense and widespread, and much of the world’s industrial, utility, and transportation sectors rely on the energy contained in them. Concerns over global warming notwithstanding, fossil fuels will remain the dominant fuel form for the near future.
This is so for two reasons:
(1) The development and deployment of new technologies able to utilize renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and biomass are uneconomic at present, in most part owing to the diffuse or intermittent nature of the sources; and
(2) Concerns persist over storage and/or disposal of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear proliferation.
Fossil fuels, therefore, remain the focus of this section; their principal use is in the generation of heat and electricity in the industrial, utility, and commercial sectors, and in the generation of shaft power in transportation. The material in this section deals primarily with the conversion of the chemical energy contained in fossil fuels to heat and electricity. Material from Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook, 6th ed., Sec. 9, has been updated and condensed, and, in addition, new material on electrochemical energy conversion in fuel cells has been introduced. Even though the principles of energy conversion in fuel cells were known before internal combustion, engines were developed, only recent improvements in materials and manufacturing methods have allowed fuel cells to be considered for stationary and transportation power generation.
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