Alternative sources of energy

For countries like Nigeria, Russia, or Saudi Arabia, where the majority of their national revenue currently derives from selling petroleum products, the idea of doing away with petroleum could obviously be very terrifying. On the other hand, there are good reasons to entertain such a proposition. Last week, I touched on the issue when I […]

For countries like Nigeria, Russia, or Saudi Arabia, where the majority of their national revenue currently derives from selling petroleum products, the idea of doing away with petroleum could obviously be very terrifying. On the other hand, there are good reasons to entertain such a proposition. Last week, I touched on the issue when I wrote about hydrogen cars or Fuel Cell (FC) Electric Vehicles. In today’s article, I will give you more examples of alternative energy sources, which refer to energy sources that have no undesirable consequences as do energy from fossil fuels (coal and petroleum products) or nuclear energy. Alternative energy sources are renewable, and have lower carbon emissions compared to conventional energy sources.
Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs): With petroleum (gasoline, diesel) as the fuel in the internal combustion engine (ICE) of your car, the by-products of combustion, other than heat and water, include carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen, all of which are very hazardous to human health and/or the ozone layer in the atmosphere. The FCEV concept involves an electrical means of moving your vehicle, similar to battery-powered vehicles. (With the appropriate means, energy can always be converted from one form to another.) The by-products of the hydrogen decomposition process in FCEV are water and heat. Thus, FCEVs do not have tailpipe emissions as do your standard cars. FC vehicles are considered zero-emission vehicles.
In its current state, hydrogen cars will not compete with regular petrol-fuel-powered cars, the issues being that producing hydrogen itself generates as much emission of carbon as does today’s gasoline cars, and the total energy loss in the process is high. Also, hydrogen infrastructure (refueling stations) is scarce, and presently FC cars are twice as expensive as standard cars with comparable features.
Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles (HICEVs): This type of hydrogen vehicle is not electrical, unlike an FCEV, but one that uses hydrogen as the fuel in ICEs. Unlike the hydro-carbon-based petroleum products, using hydrogen in ICEs does not produce carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, which are harmful. Moreover, the option of using pure oxygen- as opposed to air – is there, obviating the need to deal with the dangerous oxides of nitrogen that are by-products of combustion with air. This technology shares some of the shortcomings of the FC technology.
Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs): In this technology, your vehicle is electrically-driven with the use of batteries, such as the lithium batteries. This is low carbon technology and is therefore safer to humans and the environment. It also has an advantage over FC because of the inefficiency of the entire hydrogen fueling process in FC, as alluded to above. Also, in BEV, you can get electricity to be at least 75% cheaper than in hydrogen systems. Moreover, there are forecasts that lithium-ion costs could fall to $180 by 2020. BEV is not yet a viable replacement for conventional cars because of the short driving range, cost and recharging time.
Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs): These kinds of vehicles can be operated as BEVs or as ICEs using standard petrol-based fuel. This technology reduces the reliance on ICE and the associated human health or environmental problems.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs): The PHEV concept involves HEVs that can be plugged into the electric grid to recharge the batteries. A PHEV contains an electric motor and an ICE using standard petrol-based fuel. The efficiency loss in going from grid to car transmission is only 7%. Converting from grid’s AC supply to the DC in PHEV comes with only a 2% loss, while the energy loss in charging the battery is between 10 and 20% for Lithium iron phosphate battery. Note that the batteries also need to be cooled.
Solar Energy (SE): Here, the energy of the sun is captured and converted to other forms, including heat, electricity, or mechanical motion. (Of course, the conversion may not be direct.) A 1.5 kilowatt PV (photovoltaic) system will provide the same energy as burning 60,000 pounds of coal. With solar, there’s no acid rain, no urban smog, no pollution of any kind. Solar energy is very costly in its current state, and efficiency and storage remain as issues.
Wind Turbine Energy (WTE): The energy in the wind that blows freely in air is captured and made to rotate a turbine, whose energy is in turn converted to electricity. This follows the same principle as that in hydroelectricity, or the generation of electricity using the mechanical energy of flowing water in dams. In the latter case, water current plays the role of the wind in driving a turbine. Efficiency and storage of wind energy are issues.
Wave Energy (WE): Just like wind energy, the energy of tidal waves in the ocean can also be harnessed for other uses.
Geothermal Energy (GE): This refers to the heat from the Earth, which is sustainable, and is believed to be clean. You can obtain this heat close to the surface of the earth, in hot water and hot rocks found a few miles beneath the Earth’s surface, as well as in the extremely high temperatures of molten rock (magma) that is found many miles beneath the Earth’s surface.
Note that biomass, which is a renewable energy source, is obtained when you burn organic matter such as wood, crop waste, or garbage. It exists because plants, when green, absorb energy from the sun via the process of photosynthesis. This stored energy is retrieved in the form of heat when you burn the plant. Fifty percent of the renewable energy in the U.S. comes from biomass. Steam power plants can generate electricity by burning biomass. However, the by-products of biomass energy production contain harmful carbon products!