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2024 | Book

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Energy Scenarios for the Future

Ways to Climate-friendly Mobility, Heating and Industry

Author: Cornel Stan

Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik"

Table of Contents

About this book

Global economy, principles of prosperity such as home heating and mobility are increasingly and often radically sacrificed on the altar of climate salvation in politics and media. Ignoring physics, thermodynamics, and technical diversity, monopolistic, universal solutions are decreed: automobile drives exclusively electric, reverse-running, air-sucking "household refrigerators" as heaters, electricity for the large and small, highly diverse industry solely from wind turbines and solar panels, even though their contribution has remained nearly negligible for decades.

This book demystifies such dangerous climate myths based on understandable principles from physics and thermodynamics. Wind and sun are good, but by far not enough. The book describes diverse, climate-friendly fuels from plant residues, algae, used oils, and fats. It discusses "green" hydrogen as a storage or intermediate storage medium. It also describes surprising, unexpected energy scenarios that arise from the interconnection of conventional thermal machines: a jet engine combined with a steam power plant, a tank with a diesel engine as a mobile heating and power plant?

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Current Energy Scenarios: Decarbonization

Abstract

The USA, Saudi Arabia and Russia produce almost half of the world's oil. Should these countries give up most of their budgets, should Exxon, Aramco, Royal Dutch or BP give up their respective 100 to 1000 billion dollars a year?

On the other hand, there are numerous committees, panels and organizations, from the world scale to the local level: who benefits from so many associations from all over the world to talk and study when the world is burning?

Instead of turning model countries into model regions of greenhouse gas neutrality, these countless organizations should urgently save the many poor countries in Africa, Asia and South America from oil, gas and coal in a coordinated and targeted manner, not through money, but through concrete construction of high-tech plants that produce renewable, climate-neutral or climate-friendly forms and carriers! Centralized, decentralized, simple, complex. Every vote counts.

Cornel Stan

Chapter 2. Battery-powered electric cars versus combustion engines with climate-friendly fuels: complete better than delete

Abstract

One hundred percent electric cars with batteries in Europe in exactly one decade, zero combustion engines, according to European laws, regardless of whether they carbon dioxide-neutral fuels in modern combustion engines can also create something similar. And what is true for Europe is usually generalized for the whole globe. However, there are 1.4 billion cars in the world, 10 million of which are electric cars, i.e., less than one percent.

From 1 to 100%, where should the electricity come from? Also, from the coal-fired power plants in China?

The combustion engine is coming back, but with climate-friendly fuels, not to replace electric cars with batteries, but to complement them. By recycling carbon dioxide in nature, such machines, powered by synthetic or renewable fuels, do not cause climate change and can be found in vehicles, ships, trucks and construction machinery.

Cornel Stan

Chapter 3. Heat pumps: Heat transport against nature requires work

Abstract

From 2024, 500,000 new heat pumps will be installed annually in a developed Country in the European Union, according to several government officials (2023). And further: Heat pumps are to be a climate-friendly heat supply for households - unlike oil and gas. Nevertheless, it is approved according to federal laws: heating network, biomass, hydrogen governor, pellets - but with 65% renewable energies. Funding from federal funds, still in 2023, 75%, then 30%. And according to most suppliers, air source heat pumps are "much cheaper than geothermal and groundwater heat pumps". 500,000 new, essentially winter air-sucking heat pumps for heating houses. The heat pumps, whether with air, earth or wastewater as a warm source, basically have the task of transferring energy as heat from a "cold" to a "warm" environment and this costs, according to the energy balance for the cyclic process in the working medium, a corresponding energy, usually as work. However, with winter air as a heat source with a much lower efficiency than with warm water from sewage pipes.

Cornel Stan

Chapter 4. Photovoltaics for electrical energy and for climate-friendly fuels

Abstract

Photovoltaic solar modules are specified at exactly 43 to 134 W per square meter of panel area, but in practice the value levels are of around 100 W/m2. The electrical output [W] per square meter [m2] is an efficient indicator of how large the panel area must be for a desired output.

However, the real potential of photovoltaics, in addition to direct conversion into electrical energy, is the production of hydrogen, as fuel for industry, heating, for combustion engines and fuel cells in automobiles. Hydrogen as the basis for the formation of hydrogenated vegetable oils, from plant residues but also from frying fat from French fries. Electrolytically generated hydrogen using photovoltaics, packaged in ammonia and vegetable oils, is logistically far cheaper than storing photovoltaic electrical energy in batteries or transporting it to Europe and America via heavy, thousands of kilometers of cables, which is fraught with energy loss.

Cornel Stan

Chapter 5. Wind turbines for electricity and mobility

Abstract

Wind generates energy flows, because of its speed, to the power of three! The nominal output (target size) of all wind turbines in the world sounds enormous at 906 terawatt hours, but that only accounts for 7.6% of global electricity production. Between the nominal output and the actual value, the full-load hour was introduced (annual utilization rate, capacity factor), which remains at an average of only 20%.

Because the wind cannot stop after flowing through a wind turbine, a "power coefficient" is also derived. And this is only 60%, despite optimization of the flow profiles of the blade and its directional flexibility. 30,000 on-shore wind turbines, and 5500 off-shore (offshore) and entire wind farms have already been built, with full-load hours generally increasing. However, a single nuclear power plant can do a hundred times as much as a wind farm! Nevertheless, wind turbines currently produce a fifth of the electrical energy.

Cornel Stan

Chapter 6. Hydropower and hydroelectric power plants

Abstract

Every flowing water generates energy, through its mass flow and through its potential energy, usually represented by the waterfall height, an energy flow that is converted into mechanical energy and further into electrical energy. The height of the fall, in the case of water, sometimes leads to the same speed as that of the air over Patagonia. However, the enormous density significantly changes the orders of magnitude between hydroelectric and wind power plants: The largest wind turbine, GE Cypress in the Netherlands, has a maximum capacity of 5.3 megawatts – the "Three Gorges Hydroelectric Power Plant" in China 22,500 megawatts.

The power in the electrical, wind and water flow has the same roots: an intensity (electric current, mass flow of air and water) and a potential (electric voltage, wind speed, water speed due to the difference in altitude). The diversity of hydroelectric power plants in the world lies in the type of combination between large/low mass flow and flow velocity caused by high or low head.

Cornel Stan

Chapter 7. Nuclear energy for heat and electrical energy: Climate-friendly, adequate, but questionable

Abstract

Around 1950, nuclear energy already had a share of 15-18% in the electricity supply, but this decreased to 10% for reasons of various kinds, such as safety, disposal of nuclear waste, but above all because of the enormous costs during construction. Nevertheless, their share of energy generation remains higher than that of wind and solar energy or photovoltaics, but the energy development is incomparably higher. Almost all nuclear power reactors worldwide are pressurized water reactors, with two separate circuits: In the first circuit, the water in the "bath furnace" is heated to about 300 degrees Celsius with the help of the nuclear reaction. With hot steam in the boiler, a steam turbine can then be put to work, which turns a power generator. Because of the maximum temperature to which the nuclear reactor is limited for safety reasons, the thermal efficiency remains at 33 to 40%, i.e., below that of a modern coal-fired power plant. The disposal of nuclear waste remains an open problem, even though there are numerous, promising approaches.

Cornel Stan

Chapter 8. Jet engine flow instead of nuclear reaction: energy for heat and electricity

Abstract

Instead of heat from the nuclear reaction, at 300° Celsius, heat is used in the case of coupled turbojet from the nozzle of a gas turbine, in which the enormous exhaust gas flow, at up to 1200° C. Flows onto the steam boiler, which almost doubles the thermal efficiency dependent on the maximum temperature of the water vapor!

Generating heat from the nozzle of a turbojet (gas turbine) is possible with a jet engine: such a jet engine is, for example, for a power plant that has an output of 340 [MW]) is 13 meters long, and has a circumference of about 5 meters. The exhaust gas flow of 820 kg/second has an average temperature of 625°.

A climate-friendly, regenerative fuel is used for this purpose: fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). This consists of compounds of a fatty acid with an alcohol (methanol). A mixture of several types of FAME products, consisting of vegetable (rapeseed oil) or animal fats (lard) and alcohol (methanol) is already used as fuel for diesel engines (biodiesel).

Cornel Stan

Chapter 9. Heat and electrical energy from waste and biomass to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Abstract

The remaining energy in the waste (construction waste, waste wood, paper and cardboard) can be converted into heat by combustion, some of which can be used as work. Reduction is not the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions, but it is a significant relief.

In the combined heat and power plant Munich-North in Germany, 800 thousand tons of hard coal but also 650 thousand tons of residual waste are incinerated, which produces 900 megawatts of heat and 411 megawatts of electricity. By comparison, in Bolzano/South Tyrol in Italy, where 52% of the region's waste is recycled, 59 megawatts of heat and 15 megawatts of electrical energy are generated from 130 thousand tons of residual waste. A diesel engine instead of boiler and steam turbine, engine cooling water instead of boiler. By using the Diesel at fixed operating point of load and speed, in this case, as a heat source via cooling water, the thermal efficiency of the diesel engine increases to 80 to 90%.

Cornel Stan

Chapter 10. Alternative fuels for environmentally friendly heating and working machines

Abstract

When carbon is present in the structure of an energy carrier, whether it is fossil or renewable, every energy conversion, through combustion or any other chemical reaction, results in carbon dioxide (heat or electrical energy). However, the difference between fossil and renewable energy sources is the partial recycling of the carbon dioxide produced from renewable energy sources, because carbon dioxide is absorbed from the atmosphere during the photosynthetic plant nutrition cycle. In this context, ethanol from plants and biowaste has considerable potential for the future of combustion in ethanol-based engines for automobiles, construction machinery, tractors and ships. In addition to alcohols such as ethanol, methanol and dimethyl ether, these include biofuels such as fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) or hydrogenated vegetable oils (HVO). Synthetic fuels open up further potential for use in heat engines.

It is not the "combustion engine" that needs to be replaced, but what it has to burn!

Cornel Stan

Backmatter

Title: Energy Scenarios for the Future
Author: Cornel Stan
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-662-69687-3
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-69686-6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-69687-3