- Written by ANOOP V PILLAI
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A PATH TO SUSTAINABLE ENERGY SOURCE BY 2030
We all know that we are running out of time, the decline of our mighty home have started. Researches have been done and proved that our earth is in the path of decline, and now its now our turn to react and help our big home. The major reason that can be pointed out for this decline is the effect of GLOBAL WARMING. According to a study conducted by Stanford university in 2009,it have been found out that the major reason for this global warming is the use of fossil fuels.
Now is there any way to replace these fossil fuels in an effective way so that it doesn’t cost any hindrance in the efficiency that we are enjoying with fossil fuels. This article tell us all about a new way by which we could effectively and efficiently replace fossil fuels with renewable sources such as wind, water and solar(abbreviated as WWS).
Now more than a need it had become a want, so have a read.
TECHNOLOGIES CHOOSEN
Renewable energy comes from enticing sources:wind,which also produces waves; water ,which includes hydroelectric, tidal and geothermal energy(water heated by hot underground rock);and sun, which includes photovoltaic and solar power plants that focus sunlight to heat a fluid that drives a turbine to generate electricity. This plan includes only technologies that work or are close to working today on a large scale, rather than those that may exist 20 or 30 years from now.
Here technologies that have near-zero emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants over their entire life cycle, including construction, operation and decommissioning are only choosen.Similarly, we consider only technologies that do not present significant waste disposal or terrorism risks.
WWS will supply electric power for heating and transportation-industries that will have to revamp if the world has any hope of slowing climate change. According to this project it is assumed that all the fossil fuel heating can be replaced by electric systems and that most fossil-fuel transportation can be replaced by battery and fuel cell vehicles.
REQUIREMENT OF ENERGY BY 2030
At present it is been estimated that we are using 12.5 TW (trillion watts) of energy for a moment. also the calculations show that it could go up to 16.5TW by the start of 2030.This stats is telling as the case if we are using the fossilfuels.But if we are going to replace this fossil fuels with WWS, the 16.5TW could be cutted down to 11.5TW .This is possible only because the efficiency that WWS is providing is far more better than conventional fossil fuels.
Out of this 11.5TW, wind will be providing 5.8TW, water 1.1TW and solar will be providing 4.6TW.also we are too much lucky that we have a plenty of potentials untapped. It is estimated that we have a potential of 2TW of water, 40-85TW of wind and 580TW of solar available. This much potential is enough even if our demand rise up to 16.5TW by 2030.at present we are only tapping 0.02TW of wind power and 0.008TW of solar power and this have to be improved to meet our requirements.
INSTALLATIONS REQUIRED WORLDWIDE
For reaching our goal we are in need of some installations worldwide. These installations include tidal turbines, geo thermal plants, hydroelectric plants, wind turbines, wave converters and so on.
In case of water, we are in need of about 490,000 tidal turbines of each of power 1MW, 5350 geo thermal plants of power 100MW and 900 hydroelectric plants of power 1300MW.
In case of wind, we need 3,800,000 wind turbines each of power 5MW and 720,000 wave converters each of power 0.75MW.
In case of solar, we need roof top photovoltaic systems (0.003MW), concentrated solar power plants (300MW) and photovoltaic power plants (300MW).
HURDLES TO FACE
The main hurdle that we are facing is the availability of some rare earth metals which are very much in need for the installations. The metals like silver, neodymium, lithium, indium, and tellurium, platinum are some of those rare earth metals. The only solution to this problem is the efficient recycling of these metals. Also some of them can be replaced with some other metals which are available in plenty.
POSSIBLE QUESTION “?”
There must be a possible question arisen in your mind while reading through this article.
Does the sun will shine for 24 hrs and does the wind will blow always?
No is the answer, but this project have got a solution for this problem, according to this project we could have a smart mix for reliability .Which says that we could have a base supply of geothermal or tidal(since both of them can provide a continuous supply) along with solar during day time and wind during night time. The hydroelectric plant can be used in such a way that it can be switched on and off. It can be switched on to meet our peek time demands and switched off when it is of no use. This only adds to the efficiency of WWS.
CONCLUSION
So it is the future of energy resources, which we have to depend upon. Not only the future of energy but also the future of humanity also depends on WWS.TIME AND TIDE NEVER WAITS FOR ANYONE so lets not waste any more time.
SOURCE
This article has been written with reference to research done by Mr. Mark z.jacobson (professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University) and Mr. Mark A.Delucchi (research scientist at the institute of transportation studies at the University of California, Davis).Also in reference with scientific American journal.
