Future energy development

Energy development is the ongoing effort to provide abundant and accessible energy, through knowledge, skills and constructions. When harnessing energy from primary energy sources and converting them into ever more convenient secondary energy forms, such as electrical energy and cleaner fuels, both quantity (harnessing more primary energy) and quality (more efficient conversion to secondary energy) are important.

Future energy development faces great challenges due to an increasing world population, demands for higher standards of living, demands for less pollution and a much-discussed end to fossil fuels. Without energy, the world's entire industrialized infrastructure would collapse; agriculture, transportation, waste collection, information technology, communications and much of the prerequisites that a developed nation takes for granted. A shortage of the accessible energy needed to sustain this infrastructure could lead to a Malthusian catastrophe (although of course it is slightly paradoxical to speak of a shortage of energy, as energy itself can neither be created nor destroyed, see conservation of energy). Energy, however can change forms from potential to kinetic energy. In saying that energy can't be created or destroyed, it means within the bounds of the universe, but it is possible for less overall energy to remain on earth as a result of entropy; the energy would simply just be allocated to a different area of the universe. A more accurate statement would be that a shortage of the fossil fuels on which we currently rely could prove extremely disruptive or even fatal to many populations in northerly latitudes.

Earth by night. Many "less developed" parts of the world will demand more energy as their economies develop.

General considerations

All the energy we consume is generated by using the four fundamental interactions of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force to create work. Fission energy is generated by the splitting of a nucleus, into two or more lighter parts. Fusion energy is generated by fusing two nuclei into one or more products whose total mass is less than the original nuclei, due to the strength of the strong nuclear force between the nuclear constituents. The resulting difference in mass is converted to energy by Einstein's equation E=mc².

Most forms of terrestrial energy can be traced back to fusion reaction inside the sun, with the exception of gravitational tidal power, geothermal energy and nuclear power, the latter two uses resulting from terrestrial sources of radioactivity, as geothermal energy is believed to be generated primarily by radioactive decay inside the Earth. Radioactive decay energy is generated by both the weak nuclear force and electromagnetic force (although most heavy elements which undergo such decay were created by supernovas, see supernova nucleosynthesis). Tidal energy comes from the gravitational potential energy of the Earth/Moon system.

Most human energy sources today use energy from sunlight, either directly like solar cells or in stored forms like fossil fuels. Once the stored forms are used up (assuming no contribution from the three previous energy sources and no energy from space exploration) then the long-term energy usage of humanity is limited to that from the sunlight falling on Earth. The total energy consumption of humanity today is equivalent to about 0.1-0.01% of that. But humanity cannot exploit most of this energy since it also provides the energy for almost all other lifeforms and drives the weather cycle.

U.S. energy consumption by sectors.

World energy production by source: Oil 40%, natural gas 22.5%, coal 23.3%, hydroelectric 7.0%, nuclear 6.5%, biomass and other 0.7%. In the U.S., transportation accounted for 28% of all energy use and 70% of petroleum use in 2001; 97% of transportation fuel was petroleum.

The United Nations projects that world population will stabilize in 2075 at nine billion due to the demographic transition. Birth rates are now falling in most developing nations and the population would decrease in several developed nations if there was no immigration. Still, economic growth will require a continued increase in energy consumption. Since 1970, each 1% increase in the Gross world product has yielded a 0.64% increase in energy consumption.

In geology, resources refer to the amount of a specific substance that may be present in a deposit. This definition does not take into account the economic feasibility of exploitation or the fact that resources may not be recoverable using current or future technology. Reserves constitute those resources that are recoverable using current technology. They can be recovered economically under current market conditions. This definition takes into account current mining technology and the economics of recovery, including mining and transport costs, government royalties and current market prices. Reserves decrease when prices are too low for some of the substance to be recovered economically, and increase when higher prices make more of the substance economically recoverable. Neither of these terms consider the energy required for exploitation (except as reflected in economic costs) or whether there is a net energy gain or loss.

Energy production usually requires an energy investment. Drilling for oil or building a wind power plant requires energy. The fossil fuel resources (see above) that are left are often increasingly difficult to extract and convert. They may thus require increasingly higher energy investments. If the investment is greater than the energy produced, then the fossil resource is no longer an energy source. This means that a large part of the fossil fuel resources and especially the non-conventional ones cannot be used for energy production today. Such resources may still be exploited economically in order to produce raw materials for plastics, fertilizers or even transportation fuel but now more energy is consumed than produced. (They then become similar to ordinary mining reserves, economically recoverable but not net positive energy sources.) New technology may ameliorate this problem if it can lower the energy investment required to extract and convert the resources, although ultimately basic physics sets limits that cannot be exceeded.

The classification of energy sources into renewables and non-renewables is not without problems. Geothermal power and hydroelectric power are classified as renewable energy but geothermal sites eventually cool down and hydroelectric dams gradually become filled with silt which may be very expensive to remove. Although it can be argued that while a specific location may be depleted, the total amount of potential geothermal and hydroelectric power is not and a new power plant may sometimes be built on a different location. Nuclear power is not classified as a renewable but the amount of uranium in the seas may continue to be replenished by rivers through erosion of underground resources for as long as the remaining life of the Sun. Fossil fuels are finite but hydrocarbon fuel may be produced in several ways as described below.

Many of the current or potential future power production numbers given below do not subtract the energy consumed due to loss of energy from constructing the power facilities and distribution network, energy distribution itself, maintenance, inevitable replacement of old power production facilities and distribution network, backup capacity due to intermittent output, and energy required to reverse damage to the environment and other externalities. Net power production using life cycle analysis is more correct but more difficult and has many new uncertain factors.

File:WEC Scenario A3.jpg

The World Energy Council in 1993 projected several possible scenarios for energy production during the 21st century. This is scenario A3, in which economic growth occurs, energy consumption increases and energy efficiency improvements are strong. The roles of natural gas, new renewables and nuclear are increased in order to avert serious problems from emissions (GLOBAL ENERGY SCENARIOS TO 2050 AND BEYOND).

History of predictions about future energy development

Ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the question of the future of energy supplies has occupied economists.

• 1865 - William Stanley Jevons published The Coal Question in which he claimed that reserves of coal would soon be exhausted and that there was no prospect of oil being an effective replacement.
• 1885 - US Geological Survey: Little or no chance of oil in California.
• 1891 - US Geological Survey: Little or no chance of oil in Kansas or Texas.
• 1914 - US Bureau of Mines: Total future production of 5.7 billion barrels.
• 1939 - US Department of the Interior: Reserves to last only 13 years.
• 1951 - US Department of the Interior, Oil and Gas Division: Reserves to last 13 years.

(Data from Kahn et al. (1976) pp.94-5 infra)

• 1956 - Geophysicist M. King Hubbert predicts US Oil production will peak between 1965 and 1970 (Peaked in 1970). Also predicts World Oil production will peak at approximately 2000 based on 1956 growth predictions.
• 1989 - Predicted peak by Colin Campbell (“Oil Price Leap in the Early Nineties,” Noroil, December 1989, pages 35-38.)
• 2004 - OPEC estimates it will nearly double oil output by 2025 (Opec Oil Outlook to 2025 Table 4, Page 12)

The history of perpetual motion machines is a long list of failed and sometimes fraudulent inventions of machines which produce useful energy "from nowhere" - that is, without requiring additional energy input.

Fossil fuels

Fossil fuels supply most of the energy consumed today. They are relatively concentrated and pure energy sources and technically easy to exploit, and provide cheap energy if the costs of pollution and subsidies are ignored. Petroleum products provide almost all of the world's transportation fuel.

Pollution is a large problem. Fossil fuels contribute to global warming and acid rains. The use of fossil fuels, mainly coal, causes tens of thousands of deaths each year in the US alone from ailments like respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Both derivatives from the hydrocarbon fuel itself like carbon dioxide and impurities like heavy metals, sulfur, and uranium contribute to the pollution. Natural gas is generally considered the least polluting of the fossil fuels with coal being the most polluting. Some of the non-conventional forms like oil shale may be significantly more polluting than the conventional ones. These problems may be lessened by new ways of burning the fuels and cleaning up the exhaust. The storage of the ashes and the pollutants recovered from the cleaning processes may also be a problem. Carbon dioxide is also implicated as a major factor in global warming. To ameliorate the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, various techniques have been proposed for carbon sequestration. Such proposed solutions may increase the price of using fossil fuels.

Governments usually provide various services which can be seen as subsidies artificially lowering the price of fossil fuels: A variety of oil- and transportation-related infrastructures and services such as providing roads and highway police for vehicles almost exclusively using fossil fuels; government agencies doing research on all aspects of fossil fuel technology; various tax breaks; and huge militaries and even wars to protect access to foreign fossil fuel reserves.

Fossil fuels are also finite. See Hubbert peak for a discussion about the projected production peak of oil and other fossil fuels. A minority view among Russian geologists that has recently received some professional interest in Western nations, the abiogenic petroleum origin theory, could lead to dramatically different projections.

New technology can affect the date of the peaks for fossil fuels and how much energy each unit of fossil fuel produces: exploration may become less expensive and more accurate; the costs of drilling and mining may decrease; resources deeper in the ground may become recoverable; the percentage of fossil fuel recovered from a field may be significantly increased; improved monitoring systems may reduce production costs and extend the life of marginal wells; storage and transportation losses and costs may be reduced; and refining and power plants may become more efficient..

Oil

File:ASPO 2004.png

The organization ASPO predicts that conventional oil production will peak in 2007.

Conventional oil

Main article: Hubbert peak

Conservative predictions are that conventional oil production will peak in 2007. There are many other predictions, one example is that the world conventional oil production will peak somewhere between 2020 and 2050, but that the output is likely to increase at a substantially slower rate after 2020 (Greene, 2003). Another recent study predicts the peak to somewhere between 2004 and 2037. Both the IEA and the EIA project that conventional oil production will continue to increase until at least 2025-2030.

Non-conventional oil

Main article: Non-conventional oil

Non-conventional types of production include: tar sands, oil shale and bitumen. These resources are estimated to contain three times as much oil as the remaining conventional oil resources but few are economically recoverable with current technology although this may change. Recovery of oil from tar sands is now economically feasible, with billions of dollars being invested in new oil recovery plants. The Karrick process which has been used to extract oil from coal, with an estimated break-even point of $35, also looks increasingly attractive.

Natural gas

Conventional natural gas

The turning point for conventional natural gas will probably be somewhat later than for oil. Some predict a peak for conventional gas production between 2010 and 2020.

Non-conventional natural gas

There are large unconventional gas resources, like methane hydrate or geopressurized zones, that could increase the amount of gas by a factor of ten or more, if recoverable.

Vast quantities of methane hydrate are inferred from the actual finds. Methane hydrate is a clathrate; a crystalline form in which methane molecules are trapped. The form is stable at low temperature and high pressure, conditions that exist at ocean depth of 500 meters or more, or under permafrost. Inferred quantities of methane hydrates exceed those of all other fossil fuels combined, including oil, conventional natural gas and coal.Technology for extracting methane gas from the hydrate deposits in commercial quantities has not yet been developed. A research and development project in Japan is targeting commercial-scale technology by 2016.

There are several companies developing the Fischer-Tropsch process to enable practical exploitation of so-called stranded gas reserves.

Coal

There are large but finite coal reserves which may increasingly be used as an energy source during oil depletion. There are today 200 years of economically exploitable reserves at the current rate of consumption. Reserves have increased by over 50% in the last 22 years and are expected to continue to increase. Coal resources are estimated to be 10 times larger. Large amounts of coal waste that has been produced during coal mining and stored near the mines could become exploitable with new technology.

Historical and projected world energy production by energy source, 1970-2025, Source: International Energy Outlook 2004, EIA. IEA makes a similar projection.

Nuclear power

Main article: Nuclear power

There are presently over 400 nuclear reactors in the world, including several advanced designs (such as the ABWR) and a few breeder reactors. Almost all of these have been built with extensive government subsidies in some form or another, and do not include the costs for decommissioning radioactive sites once they can no longer be used, nor for the disposal of radioactive waste which remains an ongoing problem.

At the present rate of use, there are 50 years left of known low-cost uranium reserves. However, given that the cost of fuel is a minor cost factor for fission power, lower-grade or more expensive sources of uranium could be used in the future (for example: extraction from seawater or from granite), although these sources of uranium can become an energy sink. Opponents of the nuclear industry claim that these figures do not include "embedded costs" in terms of fossil fuels, used in the mining, processing, construction and disposal of nuclear wastes, which are rarely included in such calculations. Another possible future alternative would be to use thorium as fission fuel since it is three times more abundant in the Earth crust than uranium, and much more of the thorium can be used (or, more precisely, converted into uranium-233 and then used). Having large thorium reserves, India is committed to developing this technology.

Current light water reactors burn the nuclear fuel inefficiently, leading to energy waste. Nuclear reprocessing or burning the fuel better using different reactor designs would reduce the amount of waste material generated and allow better use of the available resources, but remains a highly controversial technology. As opposed to current light water reactors which use Uranium-235 (0.7% of all natural uranium), fast breeder reactors convert the more abundant Uranium-238 (99.3% of all natural uranium) into plutonium which can be used as fuel. It has been estimated that there is anywhere from 10,000 to five billion years worth of Uranium-238 for use in these power plants using breeders. Breeder technology has been used in several reactors, but have caused problems. The breeder reactor at Dounraey in Scotland, Monju in Japan and the Superphenix at Creys-Malville in France, in particular, have all had difficulties and have been decommissioned. China intends to build breeders.

Nuclear proliferation is the spread from nation to nation of nuclear weapons, resulting from nuclear technologies. New technology like SSTAR ("small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor") and pebble bed reactors may lessen the risk of proliferation posed by power reactors, which is already low for some existing types. On the other hand, it is widely believed that the adoption of fast breeder reactors would greatly increase the quantities of plutonium in transit and in use throughout the world, possibly including weapon grades, which could have adverse affects on world security, although there have been reactor designs which address these security issues (see Integral Fast Reactor). It is known that a number of terrorist organisations have been active in trying to access nuclear material and recent concerns about the spread of nuclear technologies to North Korea and Iran highlight the security issues of nuclear proliferation.

The long-term radioactive waste storage problems of nuclear power have not been solved. Several countries are constructing controversial underground repositories. The half-life of nuclear wastes require storage for many times the length of human life on earth, but proponents of the nuclear industry argue that nuclear waste takes up little space compared to wastes from the chemical industry which remain toxic indefinitely. Spent fuel rods are now stored in concrete casks close to the nuclear reactors, but space is limited. The amounts of waste can be reduced in several ways. Both nuclear reprocessing and fast breeder reactors can reduce the amounts of waste, but have currently unsolved problems of their own. It is argued that Subcritical reactors or fusion reactors could greatly reduce the time the waste has to be stored. It is also argued that subcritical reactors may also be able to do the same to already existing waste, but they have yet to be developed.

The possibility of reactor accidents, like the Three Mile Island meltdown and the uncontained Chernobyl accident have generated great public concern. Research is being done to lessen the known problems of current reactor technology by developing automated and passively safe reactors. Proponents of the nuclear industry argue that historically, however, coal and hydropower power generation have both been the cause of far more deaths per energy unit produced than nuclear power generation. This, however, does not take into account improved safety standards in modern coal or hydropower industries operating today. There are also concerns that various kinds of energy infrastructure might be attacked by terrorists, including nuclear power plants, hydropower plants, refineries and liquified natural gas tankers, requiring increased policing and security expenditures.

Advocates of nuclear power argue that nuclear power is a cost-competitive and environmentally friendly way to produce energy versus fossil fuels when taking into account externalities associated with both forms of energy production. Also, nuclear power has a high energy return on energy investment (EROEI). Using life cycle analysis, it takes 4-5 months of energy production from the nuclear plant to fully pay back the initial energy investment.. Advocates also claim that it is possible to relatively rapidly increase the number of plants. Typical new reactor designs have a construction time of three to four years.. 43 plants were being built in 1983, before an unexpected fall in fossil fuel prices, and continuing high uranium prices stopped most new construction. All were located in developing countries, like India and China which are rapidly increasing their nuclear energy use, in construction programs heavily subsidised by their respective governments.

Fusion power, if feasible, may not have the traditional drawbacks associated with fission power (the technology mentioned above) but, despite fusion research having started in the 1950s, no commercial fusion reactor is expected before 2050 in the international ITER project.. Other fusion technologies like inertial confinement fusion may have a different timetable. Many technical problems remain unsolved. Proposed fusion reactors commonly use deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, as fuel and in most current designs also lithium. Assuming a fusion energy output equal to the current global output and that this does not increase in the future, then the known current lithium reserves would last 3000 years, lithium from sea water would last 60 million years, and a more complicated fusion process using only deuterium from sea water would have fuel for 150 billion years. The Sun, our current source of fusion power, is expected to last about 5 billion years, and provides many times the amount of energy currently available from all other known sources.

File:HDI & Electricity per capita.png

Higher electricity use per capita correlates with a higher score on the Human Development Index(1997). Developing nations score much lower on these variables than developed nations. The continued rapid economic growth and increase in living standards in developing nations with large populations, like China and India, is dependent on a rapid and large expansion of energy production capacity.

Developing nations also use less total energy per capita. FSU/EE stands for Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Source: EIA.

Developing nations use their energy less efficiently than developed nations, getting less GDP for the same amount of energy. One important cause is old technology. Notable is the very low energy efficiency in the former communist states. Source: EIA.

An increasing share of world energy consumption is predicted to be used by developing nations. Source: EIA.

Renewable energy

Main article: Renewable energy

Another possible solution to an energy shortage or predicted future shortage would be to use some of the world's remaining fossil fuel reserves as an investment in renewable energy. Before the industrial revolution, they were the only energy source used by humanity. Solid biofuel like wood is still the main power source for many poor people in developing countries, where overuse may lead to deforestation and desertification.

Hydroelectricity is the only renewable energy in use today making a large contribution to world energy production. The long-term technical potential is believed to be 9 to 12 times current hydropower production, but increasingly, environmental concerns block new dams. There is a growing interest in mini-hydro projects which avoid many of the problems of the larger dams.

Solar cells can convert around 15% of the energy of incident sunlight to electrical energy. If built out as solar collectors, 1% of the land today used for crops and pasture could supply the world's total energy consumption. A similar area is used today for hydropower, as the electricity yield per unit area of a solar collector is 50-100 times that of an average hydro scheme. Solar cells can also be placed on top of existing urban infrastructure and does then not require re-purposing of cropland or parkland. The German government currently has a huge photovoltaic energy initiative, which is being watched with interest by other countries. Researchers have estimated that algae farms could convert 10% into biodiesel energy. Solar thermal collectors can capture 70-80% of insolation as usable heat. Passive solar and Solar chimneys can heat and cool residences and other buildings. A Solar updraft tower is another concept.

Wind power is one of the most cost competitive renewables today. Its long-term technical potential is believed 5 times current global energy consumption or 40 times current electricity demand. This would require ~13% of all land area, or that land area with Class 3 or greater potential at a height of 80 meters. It assumes a placement of 6 large wind turbines per square kilometer on land. Offshore resources experience mean wind speeds ~90% greater than that of land, so offshore resources could contribute substantially more energy.. This number could also increase with higher altitude ground based or airborne wind turbines. Global climate impacts might occur if energy were extracted from wind power on a very large scale. The energy, externality, and economic payback period of a wind turbine lies between four and six months, depending on the energy yield. Energy payback ratio (ratio of energy produced compared to energy expended in construction and operation) for wind turbines is between 17 and 39 (i.e. over it's life-time a wind turbine produces 17-39 times as much energy as is needed for its manufacture, construction, operation and decommissioning). (This is to be compared with 11 for coal power plants and 16 for nuclear power plants.)

Geothermal power and tidal power are the only renewables not dependent on the sun but are today limited to special locations. All available tidal energy is equivalent to 1/4 of total human energy consumption today. Geothermal power has a very large potential if considering all the heat existing inside Earth, although the heat flow from the interior to the surface is only 1/20,000 as great as the energy received from the Sun or about 2-3 times that from tidal power. At the moment Iceland and New Zealand are two of the greatest users of geothermal energy, although many others also have potential. Countries are also researching hot-dry-rock geothermal technologies which have some possibilities.

Ocean thermal energy conversion and wave power are other renewables with large potential. Several other variations of utilizing energy from the sun also exist, see renewable energy.

Biomass (burning biological materials to generate heat), Biofuels (fermenting biological materials to generate ethanol), and Biogas (fermenting biological waste to generate methane) are other renewables.

Most renewable sources are diffuse and require large land areas and great quantities of construction material for significant energy production. There is some doubt that they can be built out rapidly enough to replace fossil fuels. The large and sometimes remote areas may also increase energy loss and cost from distribution. On the other hand, some forms allow small-scale production and may be placed very close to or directly at consumer households, businesses, and industries which reduces or eliminates distribution problems.

The large areas affected also means that renewables may have a negative environmental impact, although populated suburbs have already been impacted by human development. Hydroelectric dams, like the Aswan Dam, have adverse consequences both upstream and downstream. The flooded areas also contain decaying organic material that release gases contributing to global warming. The mining and refining of large amounts of construction material may also affect the environment.

Aside from hydropower and geothermal power, which are site-specific, renewable supplies generally have higher costs than fossil fuels if the externalized costs of pollution are ignored, as is common. However many forms of renewables are cost effective in remote, underdeveloped, and/or low population density areas that are off the grid. The cost of a grid connection is high, as is the cost of transporting diesel fuel. Transmission of electricity through large grids remote from conventional energy sources is also high, and embedding small renewable projects in such locations can cut energy losses significantly. The fact that small diesel generators are not hugely efficient and the fact that they consume fuel and make noise even when offload also makes renewables seem more desirable in this situation.

In developed urban locations, solar thermal is already cost effective for water heating, particularly swimming pools. Grid connected solar cells can be cost effective because they generate electricity during peak usage periods when electricity is most costly and because they produce electricity at the point of use thereby avoiding transmission costs.

It is widely expected that renewable energy sources will continue to drop in costs as additional investments are made in R&D and as increased mass production improves the economies of scale. Nuclear power has been subsidized by 0.5-1 trillion dollars since the 1950s. No comparable investment has yet been made in renewable energy. Even so, the technology is improving rapidly. For example, solar cells are a hundred times less expensive today than the 1970s and development continues. Solar breeder technologies, where the energy used to make solar cells is itself solar energy, is also being investigated .

Renewable sources currently make most sense in less developed areas of the world, where the population density cannot economically support the construction of an electrical grid or petroleum supply network, fossil fuel energy sources do not enjoy large economies of scale, and distributed, small-scale electrical generation from renewables is often cheaper.

Increased efficiency in current energy use

New technology may make better use of already available energy through improved efficiency, such as more efficient fluorescent lamps, engines, and insulation. Using heat exchangers, it is possible to recover some of the energy in waste warm water and air, for example to preheat incoming fresh water. Hydrocarbon fuel production from pyrolysis could also be in this category, allowing recovery of some of the energy in hydrocarbon waste. Meat production is energy inefficient compared to the production of protein sources like soybean or Quorn. Already existing power plants often can and usually are made more efficient with minor modifications due to new technology. New power plants may become more efficient with technology like cogeneration. New designs for buildings may incorporate techniques like passive solar. Light-emitting diodes are gradually replacing the remaining uses of light bulbs. Note that none of these methods allows perpetual motion, as some energy is always lost to heat.

Mass transportation increases energy efficiency compared to widespread conventional automobile use while air travel is regarded as inefficient. Conventional combustion engine automobiles have continually improved their efficiency and may continue to do so in the future, for example by reducing weight with new materials. Hybrid vehicles can save energy by allowing the engine to run more efficiently, regaining energy from braking, turning off the motor when idling in traffic, etc. More efficient ceramic or diesel engines can improve mileage. Electric vehicles such as Maglev, trolleybuses, personal BEVs or PHEVs are more efficient during use (but maybe not if doing a life cycle analysis) than similar current combustion based vehicles, reducing their energy consumption during use by 1/2 to 1/4. Microcars or motorcycles may replace automobiles carrying only one or two people. Transportation efficiency may also be improved by in other ways, see automated highway system.

Electricity distribution may change in the future. New small scale energy sources may be placed closer to the consumers so that less energy is lost during electricity distribution. New technology like superconductivity or improved power factor correction may also decrease the energy lost. Distributed generation permits electricity "consumers", who are generating electricity for their own needs, to send their surplus electrical power back into the power grid.

Various market-based mechanisms have been proposed as means of increasing efficiency, such as deregulation of electricity markets, Negawatt power, and trading of emission rights.

Energy storage and transportation fuel

There is a widely held misconception that hydrogen is an alternative energy source. There are no uncombined hydrogen reserves on Earth that could provide energy like fossil fuels or uranium. Uncombined hydrogen is instead produced with the help of other energy sources. It may play an important role in a future hydrogen economy as a general energy storage system, used both to smooth power output by intermittent power sources, like solar power, and as transportation fuel for vehicles and aircraft. However, the idea is currently impractical: hydrogen is inefficient to produce and expensive to store, transport, and convert back to electricity. New technology may change this, although the development of technological solutions may take several decades, and hydrogen may never be the most viable solution to most energy needs.

Many renewable energy systems produce intermittent power. Other generators on the grid can be throttled to match varying production from renewable sources, but most of this throttling capacity is already committed to handling variations in load. Further development of intermittent renewable power will require simultaneous development of storage systems such as hydrogen. See grid energy storage for other alternatives. Intermittent energy sources may be limited to at most 20-30% of the electricity produced for the grid without such storage systems. Some energy will be lost when converting to and from storage and the storage systems will also add to the cost of the intermittent energy sources requiring them. If electricity distribution loss and costs could be greatly reduced, then intermittent power production from many different sources could be averaged into smooth output. Renewables that are not intermittent include hydroelectric power, geothermal power, Energy Tower, ocean thermal energy conversion, high altitude airborne wind turbines, biofuel, and solar power satellites. Solar photovoltaics, although technically intermittent, produces electricity during peak periods, and hence does reduce the need for capacity to handle variations in load. Demand response programs, which send market pricing signals to consumers, can be a very effective way of using electricity when it is produced; for example, municipal water can be pressurized when the electricity is being produced.

There are also other alternatives for transportation fuel. Various chemical processes can convert the carbon and hydrogen in coal, natural gas, plant and animal biomass, and organic wastes into short hydrocarbons suitable as transportation fuels. Examples of such fuels are Fischer-Tropsch diesel, methanol, dimethyl ether, or syngas. Such diesel was used extensively in World War II by the Germans, who had limited access to crude oil supplies. Today South Africa produces most of country's diesel from coal.. A long term oil price above 35 USD may make such liquid fuels economical on a large scale (See coal). Some of the energy in the original source will be lost in the conversion process. Compressed natural gas can itself be used as a transportation fuel. Also coal itself can be used as transportation fuel, historically coal has been used directly for transportation purposes in vehicles and boats using steam engines.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be converted to hydrocarbon fuel with the help of energy from another source. The energy can come from sunlight using natural photosynthesis which can produce various biofuels such as biodiesel, alcohol fuels, or biomass which can be broken down into the fuels mentioned above. The energy could also come from sunlight using future artificial photosynthesis technology. Another alternative for the energy is electricity or heat from renewables or nuclear power. Compared to hydrogen, many hydrocarbons fuels have the advantage of reusing existing engine technology and existing fuel distribution infrastructure.

Electric vehicles and electric boats using batteries or non-hydrogen fuel cells are other alternatives. Electricity may be the only power source or combined with other fuels in hybrid vehicles. Nuclear power has been used in large ships. High technology sails could provide some of the power for ships. Several companies are proposing vehicles using compressed air for power.. Airships require less onboard fuel than a traditional aircraft and combining airship technology with glider technology may eliminate onboard fuel completely. Personal rapid transit and some mass transportation systems, like trolleybus, metro or magnetic levitation trains, can use electricity directly from the grid and do not need a liquid fuel or battery.

Boron, silicon, and zinc have also been proposed as energy storage solutions.

Speculative

In the long-term future space exploration could yield a number of energy sources, though they are unlikely to be relevant in tackling humanity's current difficulties with energy sources.

The nearest-term possibility is solar power satellites, where solar cells are placed on orbiting platforms in 24-hour sunlight; the energy is then beamed to earth as microwaves received by arrays of receiving antennas. A fundamental development in space launch technology (such as a space elevator) and/or massive industrial developments beyond Earth orbit will be required to make such a scheme economically competitive with terrestrial sources.

Fissionable materials could theoretically be obtained from asteroid mining; however, the technical barriers to asteroid mining are probably considerably higher than those of breeder reactors, which remove any practical supply constraints on fission power. Another interesting long-term possibility is the mining of helium-3 from the Moon for use in aneutronic fusion reactors, which have several advantages over the fusion reactor designs currently being experimented with. Helium-3 is unavailable in quantity on Earth. However, even "conventional" fusion power reactors are decades away from commercialization. Another suggestion is electrodynamic tethers.

In the very distant future, a spacefaring humanity has a number of options for very large-scale power generation; as well as fusion and very large-scale solar power (of which the ultimate such is the Dyson sphere) there has been speculation as to how an extremely advanced society might exploit the mass-energy conversion capabilities of black holes. Such technologies are obviously far, far, beyond our present capabilities, and are at this stage essentially thought experiments for engineers and science fiction writers.

See also

• Action on climate change
• Carbon sequestration
• Earth's energy budget
• Energy crisis
• Environmental concerns with electricity generation
• Fusion power
• Hydrogen economy
• The Hype about Hydrogen
• Kardashev scale
• Liquid nitrogen economy
• Lithium economy
• Nuclear power phase-out
• Mitigation of global warming
• Renewable energy
• Synthetic Liquid Fuels Program
• Thermal depolymerization
• Tribrid vehicle
• Wind farm
• Wind power
• Zinc economy

External links

Organizations

• IEA Energy Information Centre
  • World Energy Outlook series, free before 2003, different focus each year
  • Free publications from IEA
• WEC Survey of Energy Resources
  • Online publications from WEC
  • Links to a broad range of international governmental and non-governmental organisations
• U.S. Energy Information Agency
  • International energy outlook 2004
  • Related Energy Links
• U.S. The Alternative Fuels Data Center
• U.S. Office of Fossil Energy
• Rocky Mountain Institute articles on energy
• Electricity Storage Association on articles on energy storage
• Information Network on the Technology of Utilisation and Sustainability of Energy Resources
• ASPO Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas
• Energy and Climate publications from the Tellus Institute
• OPEC, Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries
  • Open Oil Outlook to 2025

Articles

• Recent Developments In Better Energy Development & Storage
• Order of Magnitude Morality
• Do we need nuclear power?
• Progress and its sustainability
• Nine Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy
• World energy beyond 2050
• Critical Hour: Three Mile Island, The Nuclear Legacy, And National Security Online book by Albert J. Fritsch, Arthur H. Purcell, and Mary Byrd Davis (2005)

Blogs

• Alternative energy blog
• Marshall Brain's "AltEng" blog
• Energy outlook
• Futurepundit
• Green car congress
• LOCE Wind and Wave Energy Weblog
• Monkeysign
• NEI Nuclear Notes
• Peak oil Optimist
• Peak Oil Anarchy
• The Ergosphere
• Climate Change Action
• Alternative Energy News Daily news about renewable energy technologies
• Peak Oil News The latest news about the peak oil theory and world oil production
• The Peakist Peak Oil weblog and news aggregator
• Energyorbit :: Towards Sustainable Power and Renewable Energy
• Green Bloggers Bloggers dedicated to a sustainable future
• Alternative Energy Bloggers

References

• Greene, D.L. & J.L. Hopson. (2003). Running Out of and Into Oil: Analyzing Global Depletion and Transition Through 2050 ORNL/TM-2003/259, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Octobe
• Kahn, H. et al. (1976) The Next 200 Years: A Scenario for America and the World ISBN 0349120714
• Rodenbeck, Christopher T. and Chang, Kai, "A Limitation on the Small-Scale Demonstration of Retrodirective Microwave Power Transmission from the Solar Power Satellite", IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, August 2005, pp. 67–72.
• The above sites Solar Power Satellites Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress, OTA-E-144, Aug. 1981.