Principles of Sustainable Energy Systems, Third Edition

Charles F. Kutscher, Jana B. Milford

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429939167
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Energy

PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY SYSTEMS, Third Edition, surveys the range of sustainable energy sources and the tools that engineers, scientists, managers, and policy makers use to analyze energy generation, usage, and future trends. The text provides complete and up-to-date coverage of all renewable technologies, including solar and wind power, biofuels, hydroelectric, nuclear, ocean power, and geothermal energy. The economics of energy are introduced, with the SAM software package integrated so students can explore the dynamics of energy usage and prediction. Climate and environmental factors in energy use are integrated to give a complete picture of sustainable energy analysis and planning.

1

Introduction to Sustainable Energy

It is evident that the fortunes of the world’s human population, for better or for worse, are inextricably interrelated with the use that is made of energy resources.

M. King Hubbert (1969)

The development of human society and our quality of life are inextricably linked to our use of energy. The emergence of coal in the eighteenth century made possible the Industrial Revolution, and widespread electrification in the twentieth century brought with it all manner of labor-saving devices from washing machines to clothes driers to refrigerators. Similarly, the advent of internal combustion engine vehicles in the early 1900s, followed by the airplane, turned us into a highly mobile society. All of this was made possible by fossil fuels. But after a century of growth and technological advances powered by these fuels, we have come to realize that we humans had made a large-scale Faustian bargain.

In exchange for the wonders of these fossil fuels, we are now coming to grips with their serious side effects. Air pollution from the burning of coal and oil has led to a wide range of health problems from childhood asthma to other life-threatening lung diseases. Acid rain has contaminated lakes, and mercury emissions have poisoned fish and so compromised our food supply. And, most importantly, as we have learned over the last several decades, the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions emanating from power plant smokestacks and vehicle tailpipes are increasing the infrared radiation-absorbing blanket in our atmosphere, which is heating the Earth and causing it to rapidly depart from the 10,000-year period of steady temperature that allowed human civilization to develop. We are already seeing the effects of global warming, which includes the melting of ice sheets (see Figure 1.1), rising sea level, and an increase in extreme weather events.

Figure 1.1

People in front of a melting glacier, Kangerlussuaq, Greenland.

Although measures have been taken to reduce air pollution by cleaning up stack emissions from power plants and capturing tailpipe emissions from cars, these have only been temporary solutions to an energy system that has a fundamental flaw. The burning of fossil fuels is not sustainable. Fossil fuels are the result of millions of years of nature sequestering atmospheric CO2 in the ground, and we are releasing all that carbon in a timescale of decades. Although it is technically feasible to capture the carbon in fossil fuels and sequester it in the ground again, the fundamental solution to these issues is to convert our unsustainable, carbon-emitting energy sources to sustainable, carbon-free ones. To accomplish that transition, we need to simultaneously reduce our energy needs by using energy much more efficiently and produce the energy from noncarbon sources. This book introduces the knowledge and tools energy professionals and informed citizens will need to lead this twenty-first-century energy transition.

The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of the principles of sustainability in the context of energy engineering. Section 1.1 gives a historical review of sustainability principles. Section 1.2 presents the critical issues for sustainability: population, water, food and growth, and the relationships between these systems and energy use. Section 1.3 presents some context for the complex nature of sustainable energy by looking at the world energy system of the past, present, and future and the urgent challenge of addressing climate change. Section 1.4 explains some of the most important considerations you must understand to effectively deal with sustainability in engineering, including energy return on energy invested (EROI) and the costs of energy. Section 1.5 explains the most cost-effective of all sustainable energy strategies—reducing energy demand by improving efficiency. Section 1.6 gives an overview of conventional fossil and nuclear energy. Section 1.7 reviews the technology, history, current status, and future prospects for renewable resources including geothermal, hydro, wind, solar, biomass, and the ocean. Section 1.8 discusses the issues involved in the concept of a hydrogen economy.

A unique feature of this book is that it makes use of energy design tools developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). In particular, this book includes numerous detailed examples of the design of renewable energy systems using the freely available System Advisor Model (SAM). An introduction to SAM is presented in Section 1.9, whereas NREL building energy modeling tools are utilized in Chapter 4, “Energy Use and Efficiency in Buildings and Industry.”

1.1Sustainability Principles

This book focuses mostly on the engineering challenges confronting our efforts to achieve sustainability, but it is important to keep in mind that the development of energy sustainability is taking place in an era when other relevant forces impinge on one another. The energy challenge also involves societal issues such as population growth, resource depletion, and environmental degradation. As shown in Figure 1.2, all of these issues impinge upon the engineering design and economics of a sustainable energy future.

Figure 1.2

The interrelated nature of engineering, social, and environmental issues. (From Alliance for Water Efficiency and American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, May 2011. Addressing the energy-water nexus: A blueprint for action and policy agenda; ASME, ETP. Energy–water nexus—Cross-cutting impacts. [1])

Although this book does not directly cover these other issues, it is important to keep them in mind because, unless the political and social systems support the road map toward a sustainable energy future, social obstacles can impede the implementation of long-term solutions that are technically reasonable as well as economically acceptable. For the reader interested in these social issues, several books in the supplemental reading list at the end of the chapter will provide further background information.

The energy choices made today are among the most important of any choices in human history. Although energy development questions may appear to be mostly technical and economic, there are broader considerations. S...