Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns as it is a significant source of CO2 emissions and other airborne pollutants, and it is almost totally based on oil as its energy source. An important aspect of future changes in transportation depends on what happens to the available oil resources, production and prices. At present, 95% of all energy for transportation comes from oil. (more…)
Under both former President Bush and new President Obama, the U.S. government has vowed to reduce reliance on imported oil. The ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next ...
From prehistory until the Industrial Revolution, most energy sources used by humans were localized (i.e., available within 5–10 mil ...
Do we have the resources? Rudolf Diesel developed the diesel engine which ran on biodiesel vegetable oil in the late 1800s. At the ...
One study that does address the peak-oil scenario directly is a 2005 report conducted for the National Energy Technology Labora ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next 50 years. However, we expect to see significant differences between the last 50 years and the next. The past increase was stimulated by relatively “cheap” fossil fuels and increased rates of industrialization in North America, Europe, and Japan; yet while energy consumption in these countries continues to increase, additional factors are making the picture for the next 50 years more complex. These additional complicating factors include the very rapid increase fuel economy in energy use in China and India (countries representing about a third of the world’s population); the expected depletion of oil resources in the not-too-distant future; and the effect of human activities on global climate change. (more…)
The relationship of gross national product per capita to energy consumption per capita for most countries of the world correlat ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term proje ...
Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns ...
The development of the ‘‘new’’ wind and solar technologies is of great importance for the future contribution of RESs to energy sup ...
To determine the effects of past climate trends on global energy consumption, the econometric equations providing the degree day el ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term projection puts forward three scenarios for the next 30 years with GDP growth rates of roughly 2.5, 1.5 and 0.5% p.a. The highest value corresponds to slightly less than the 1948 - 72 average, the central value is close to the long-run average over the last 80 years, and the lowest figure is similar to the performance during the current recession since 1973. (more…)
Following the recent completion of three nuclear power plants, there is now some 9.6 GW of nuclear capacity in the United Kingd ...
Global energy consumption in the last half century has increased very rapidly and is expected to continue to grow over the next ...
Most major oil and gas firms engage in both upstream (i.e., hydrocarbon exploration and production) and downstream (i.e., hydro ...
Energy is consumed by various segments of the economy, including households, commercial establishments, manufacturing enterpris ...
World energy use has increased steadily over the past several decades. Much of the growth in world energy consumption has been ...
Following the recent completion of three nuclear power plants, there is now some 9.6 GW of nuclear capacity in the United Kingdom. The nuclear share of electrical output, which has stood at around 13% for many years, should rise to around 20% when this capacity is in full operation. A further two reactors are currently under construction which will increase the British nuclear capacity to more than 12 GW by the late 1980s, which could bring the nuclear share of electrical output to around 25%. (more…)
Geographers researching the development of nuclear power have shifted emphasis from commercialization, cost, risk, public acceptanc ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term proje ...
Nuclear fission and fusion Research and Development continues to account for nearly half of the total spending by IEA countries, al ...
Sir Arthur Eddington’s general address on subatomic energy at the 1930 World Power Conference in Berlin stirred the imagination of ...
For years it was out of desperation that observers have advised and viewed of American energy policy and geopolitical risks regardi ...
Certain materials, generally metal oxides, can sustain the unassisted photo-electrolysis of water into H2 and O2. The energy contained in the photons that are absorbed by these materials can in many cases be efficiently converted into energy stored into the chemical fuels produced by the photo-electrolysis system. However, these materials have optical absorption thresholds (band gaps) that are too large to permit effective absorption of the visible and infrared portions of the solar spectrum, thereby wasting a large fraction of the incident solar energy and yielding overall energy conversion efficiencies of o 1%. Modification of metal oxide materials has been claimed to be much more promising, with a modified TiO 2 photo-anode yielding 8% efficiency in the photo-assisted splitting of water into H2 and O2 . (more…)
Several molecular systems have been constructed that mimic various aspects of photosynthesis. Two of these utilize molecular system ...
The basic processes that occur in such a system are well understood. The semiconductor electrode efficiently absorbs light, produci ...
The issues of hydrogen storage run through the hydrogen production, hydrogen transport, supply and demand for end use of hydrog ...
Hydrogen has many applications when it comes to fuel. It can be used both in internal combustion engines and hydrogen fuel cells. ...
All of today’s hydrogen conversion products, demonstration models, and prototypes possess some deficiencies; they cannot yet pr ...
One of the most important aerodynamic effects on energy consumption required to keep a body moving through a fluid is the aerodynamic drag force. The drag must be overcome by the thrust of a propulsion mechanism, which in turn is consuming energy. Everything else being equal, the higher the drag, the more energy is consumed. Therefore, for energy efficiency, bodies moving through a fluid should be low drag bodies. To understand how to obtain low drag, we have to first understand the nature of drag, and what really causes it. (more…)
The next time you hear an airplane flying overhead, look up, and pause for a moment. What you see is a machine that is heavier than ...
Plate tectonics is conceptually simple. It treats Earth’s outer shell as made up of approximately 15 rigid plates, about 100 km thi ...
The most fundamental process from an energy systems standpoint is heat transfer to (or from) a working fluid. This unit operation t ...
Mixing is a process where two or more liquids or gas phase components are brought together and combined to form a uniform compositi ...
Hydraulic turbines have two main classifications: impulse and reaction. The impulse turbine generally uses the velocity of the wate ...
The next time you hear an airplane flying overhead, look up, and pause for a moment. What you see is a machine that is heavier than air, but which is somehow being sustained in the air. This is due to the airflow over the airplane. This airflow exerts a lift force which counteracts the weight of the airplane and sustains it in the air—a good thing. The airflow also exerts a aerodynamic drag force on the airplane which retards its motion—a bad thing. The drag must be counteracted by the thrust of the engine in order to keep the airplane going. The production of thrust by the engine consumes energy. Hence, the energy efficiency of the airplane is intimately related to aerodynamic drag. This is just one of many examples where the disciplines of aerodynamics and energy interact. (more…)
One of the most important aerodynamic effects on energy consumption required to keep a body moving through a fluid is the aerodynam ...
If water is put on the floor on a cleaning operation, it tends to dry rapidly after a short time. In this position, we say that ...
In contrast to electromagnetic suspension systems, electrodynamic suspension systems can provide stable suspension without a feedba ...
The comfort heating system in a building brings itself to the concept of complete heating operating unit. In order to work prop ...
Oceanic heat flow data show a clear variation with the age of the lithosphere. Values greater than 100 mW m –2 occur near the r ...
The basic processes that occur in such a system are well understood. The semiconductor electrode efficiently absorbs light, producing an excited electronic state. In this excited state, the electron and the electron vacancy (the ‘‘hole’’) are both more energetic than they were in their respective ground states. The photo-excited electrons and holes are generally not tightly bound to an individual atom or set of atoms in the solid. (more…)
Several molecular systems have been constructed that mimic various aspects of photosynthesis. Two of these utilize molecular system ...
Today, photovoltaic cells only contribute a small proportion (approximately 0.04 percent) of total electricity in the United St ...
Certain materials, generally metal oxides, can sustain the unassisted photo-electrolysis of water into H2 and O2. The energy co ...
The fuel cell can trace its roots back to the 1800s when a Welsh-born, Oxford-educated barrister, Sir William Robert Grove, realize ...
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen with oxygen to generate electricity, heat and water to produce. ...
Several molecular systems have been constructed that mimic various aspects of photosynthesis. Two of these utilize molecular systems that are derived from natural photosynthesis but that incorporate chemically based modifications to produce artificial photosynthetic devices. These devices use artificial photosynthetic pigments to drive chemical reactions across lipid bilayers or use noble metal catalysts to change the function of the photosynthetic process to produce hydrogen and oxygen instead of sugars ethanol and oxygen. Neither of these systems are sufficiently robust to be operated for extended periods of time as energy unit conversion devices, but they have shown that it is possible to produce artificial photosynthetic assemblies that function well in a laboratory setting. (more…)
The basic processes that occur in such a system are well understood. The semiconductor electrode efficiently absorbs light, produci ...
Certain materials, generally metal oxides, can sustain the unassisted photo-electrolysis of water into H2 and O2. The energy co ...
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen with oxygen to generate electricity, heat and water to produce. ...
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that directly converts a fuel to electricity by means of reactions on the surfaces of ...
The fuel cell can trace its roots back to the 1800s when a Welsh-born, Oxford-educated barrister, Sir William Robert Grove, realize ...
Indoor air quality (IAQ) research deals with the presence, levels, health effects, and control of physical, chemical, and biological factors in indoor environments, including homes, workplaces, and vehicles. IAQ research in industrialized countries has examined hundreds of specific factors (e.g., temperature, various chemicals, and mold), sources of pollution environment (e.g., environmental tobacco smoke, occupational factors, consumer cleaning products, and moisture), and control technologies (e.g., ventilation). (more…)
Important research over the past few decades has illustrated that indoor air pollution and indoor smoke from solid fuel poses i ...
In terms of aggregate health effects, household solid fuel use is currently the most important source of indoor air pollution i ...
Exposure to air pollutants and air pollution problem are very high in indoor environments in developing countries. Smith has es ...
Reducing exposure to indoor air pollution from household energy use can be achieved through interventions in of the following a ...
Exposure to indoor air pollution from the combustion of solid fuels has been implicated, with varying degrees of evidence, as a ...