Energy Science & Engineering

Unit I
 Unit I contents
• Introduction to Energy Science and System
• Scientific principles
• Historical interpretation
 Societal
 Environmental
 Climate issues
• An energy system is made up of an energy supply sector and
energy end-use technologies. The object of the energy system
is to deliver to consumers the benefits that energy offers.

• The term energy services is used to describe these benefits,

which in households include illumination, cooked food,
comfortable indoor temperatures, refrigeration, and
transportation.
• Energy services = technologies + infrastructure (capital) +
labour + materials + primary energy.
• Influence of Energy Prices:
 Energy prices influence consumer choices and behaviour and
can affect economic development and growth.

 High energy prices can lead to increasing import bills, with adverse
consequences for business, employment, and social welfare.

• High energy prices can also stimulate exploration and development of

additional resources, create a pull for innovation
 Historical Context
• In Agenda 21 the United Nations and its member states have strongly endorsed
the goal of sustainable development, which implies meeting the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
needs (WCED, 1987, p. 8).

• As noted in Agenda 21, “Much of the world’s energy…is currently produced and
consumed in ways that could not be sustained if technology were to remain
constant and if overall quantities were to increase substantially” (UN,1992,
chapter 9.9)

• The importance of energy as a tool for meeting this goal was acknowledged at
every major United Nations conference in the 1990s, starting with the Rio Earth
Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development) in 1992.
• Energy’s link to global warming through greenhouse gas emissions (most of
which are produced by fossil fuel consumption) was addressed by the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in 1992.

• In 1997 a United Nations General Assembly Special Session identified energy and
transport issues as being central to achieving a sustainable future.

• The conclusions and recommendations of the 17th Congress of the World Energy
Council discuss the need to provide commercial energy to those without it, and
to address energy-linked environmental impacts at all levels (WEC,1998)
 Energy and Social Issues
• Energy use is closely linked to a range of social issues, including poverty
alleviation, population growth, urbanisation, and a lack of opportunities for
women.

• World-wide, 2 billion people are without access to electricity and an equal number
continue to use traditional solid fuels for cooking. Cooking with poorly vented
stoves has significant health impacts. Limited income may force households to use
traditional fuels and inefficient technologies.

• Millions of people—mainly women and children—spend several hours a day in the

drudgery of gathering firewood and carrying water.

• Hence women and children often miss out on opportunities for education and
other productive activities.

• Lack of electricity usually means inadequate illumination and few labour-saving

appliances, as well as limited telecommunications.
• Because convenient, affordable energy can contribute to a household’s productivity and
income-generating potential, its availability can become a lever for breaking out of a cycle of
poverty.

• An acceleration of the demographic transition to low mortality and low fertility depends on
crucial developmental tasks, including improving the local environment, educating women,
and ameliorating the extreme poverty that may make child labour a necessity.

• The growing concentration of people in urban areas is another key demographic issue linked
to energy. Providing more options to rural residents through energy interventions could
potentially slow migration and reduce pressure on rapidly growing cities.

• In industrialized countries adequate access to affordable energy is problematic only for

a minority, and thus more amenable to social policy solutions.
• Energy Security
• Energy security means the availability of energy at all times in various forms, in
sufficient quantities, and at affordable prices. These conditions must prevail over
the long term if energy is to contribute to sustainable development.
• The energy supply could become more vulnerable over the near term due to the
growing global reliance on imported oil.

• Options to enhance energy security include:

 Avoiding excessive dependence on imports by increasing end-use efficiency and
encouraging greater reliance on local resources.
 Fostering greater political stability through international cooperation
 Encouraging technology transfers
 Increasing national and regional strategic reserves of crude oil
• What happens in lack of energy security?

Ans: Where markets do not flourish, the security of supply and services depends
almost solely on government action and multinational companies, which may not
serve the best interests of consumers.
 Energy and Environment
• The environmental impacts of energy use are not new. Even in the early stages of
industrialization, local air, water, and land pollution reached high levels. What is relatively
new is an acknowledgement of energy linkages to regional and global environmental
problems.

• The environment-energy linkage is illustrated in terms of the human disruption index, which
is the ratio of the human-generated flow of a given pollutant.

• At the household level, solid fuel use for cooking and heat has significant health impacts.
Poor air quality—at the household, local, and regional levels—is associated with increased
sickness and premature death.

• In the course of the past 100 years, during which the world’s population more than tripled,
human environmental insults grew from local perturbations to global disruptions.
• Fossil fuel combustion is problematic on several levels. The main pollutants emitted in the
combustion of fossil fuels are sulphur and nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and
suspended particulate matter

• Such pollutants cause acidification of air and sometimes even contribute to Acid rain, which
cause significant damage to natural systems, crops, fisheries, farmlands and human made
structures.

• Large hydropower projects often raise environmental issues related to flooding, whereas in
the case of nuclear power, issues such as waste disposal raise concern due to radiation.

• By definition, sustainable energy systems must be continuous form of energy (renewable)

and also support both human and ecosystem health over the long term.
• Renewable energy sources supply 14 percent of the total world energy demand. The supply is
dominated by traditional biomass used for cooking and heating, especially in rural areas of
developing countries. Large-scale hydropower supplies 20 percent of global electricity.

• Biomass can be economically produced with minimal or even positive environmental impacts
through perennial crops.

• Unlike hydropower and conventional thermal power sources, wind and solar thermal or
electric sources are intermittent.

• Coal gasification by partial oxidation with oxygen to produce syngas (mainly carbon monoxide
and hydrogen) makes it possible to provide electricity through integrated gasifier combined
cycle (IGCC) plants with air pollutant emissions nearly as low as for natural gas combined
cycles.
• In natural-gas-poor, coal-rich regions, polygeneration based on coal gasification is promising.
Such systems might include production of extra syngas (CO+H2) for distribution by pipelines
to smallscale cogeneration systems in factories and buildings—making possible clean and
efficient use of coal at small as well as large scales.

• World-wide, nuclear energy accounts for 6 percent of energy and 16 percent of electricity.
Although nuclear energy dominates electricity generation in some countries, its initial
promise has not been widely realized.

• But because nuclear power can provide energy without emitting conventional air pollutants
and greenhouse gases, it is worth exploring if advanced technologies could offer
simultaneously lower costs, boost public confidence in the safety of nuclear reactors,
 Projection into Future

• Energy Scenarios:
• Energy scenarios provide a framework for exploring future energy perspectives, including
various combinations of technology options and their implications.

• Projections can be divided into 3 cases subdivided altogether into 6 Energy Scenarios.
• Case A: Highly Advanced Energy Technologies depending on
A1: Ample oil and gas
A2: Coal
A3: Non-fossils
• Both scenarios A1 and A2 lead to higher dependence on carbon-intensive fossil fuels,
resulting in high energy-related emissions. Consequently, they are unsustainable from an
environmental point of view although highly efficient.
• Scenario A3 achieves some goals of sustainable development primarily through energy
technologies which involve dedicated decarbonization of the energy system which again
contributes to environmental sustainability, however without any ecological sentiment, e.g
clean fossil/non-fossil, renewable like clean biomass, nuclear energy.
• Case B:
It includes one scenario and is based on the general direction in which the world is now headed. This
scenario assumes the continuation of an intermediate level of economic growth and modest
technological improvement, and it leads to adverse environmental impacts, including regional
acidification and climate change.

• Case C:
A third case (C) includes two scenarios and is both High technologically and ecologically driven, with
high growth in developing countries with ecologically driven sentiments of rich and ‘green’ without
compromising each other.
C1: new renewables (assumes a global phase-out of nuclear energy by 2100)
• C2: new renewables and new nuclear

• Of the three cases considered, case C is the most compatible with the aims of sustainable
development. In scenario C1 this occurs through a diminishing contribution of coal and oil to the
primary energy mix, with a large increase in the share of solar and biomass energy by 2100. Scenario
C2, in which nuclear energy could play a large role if the problems associated with it (cost, safety, waste
disposal and weapons proliferation) can be adequately resolved.
However scenario A3 is also sustainable due to high technologically driven energy technologies
subjected to decarbonization of energy systems.