Energy development Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Energy development is the field concerned with providing abundant and accessible energy to all humans.
Dependence of humanity on external energy sources
Humans depend fully on external energy sources to live and thrive. The food we eat is almost totally produced courtesy of an energy infusion from the sun. The clean water we drink is brought to us largely courtesy of a hydrologic cycle driven by the sun. All the following more advanced activities require additional external energy sources:
- Cooking
- Lighting
- Traveling by other than human power
- Firearms
- Machinery including manufacturing and computers
- Electronic communications
Brief science of energy development
Electricity grids are the networks that used to distribute high voltage power from production source to end user, who may be hundreds of kilometres away. Sources include electrical generation plants such as a nuclear reactor, coal burning power plant, etc. A combination of sub-stations, transformers, towers, cables, and piping are used to maintain a constant flow of electricity.
Many electrical grids face regular periods of limited supply, due to lack of supply, eg. under conditions of rapid economic growth. Grids have a predefined carrying capacity or load that cannot be exceeded. At peak times off use there may be rationing. These disturbances can be caused by interruptions at the production source or when part of the network is attacked or fails.
Grids may suffer from transient blackouts and brownouts. Often the cause is damage from a severe storm. During certain extreme space weather events solar wind can interfere with transmissions.
Industrialised countries such as Canada, the US, and Australia are among the highest per capita consumers of electricity in the world. A widespread electrical distribution network is undoubtably responsible for this ample supply. However these system are far from perfectly reliable for what many consider a vital necessity.
In the week of August 3rd 2003, the US set an all-time national record for electricity use of 90,000 gigawatts. CurrentEnergy provides a realtime overview of the electricity supply and demand for California, Texas, and the Northeast of the US. African countries with few electrical grids have a correspondingly low annual per capita usage of electricity. One of the largest grids in the world supplies power to the state of Queensland, Australia. This network's service provision and its administration is an ongoing issues for that states politicans.
Other examples are the counter-weights on elevators and the motion of a roller coaster.
This is an Article on Energy development. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Energy development Historic energy development schemes
Human societies have relied and currently rely on various energy development schemes. Schemes that are most powerful are considered in the energy development field to be more advanced in that they contribute better to human comfort and freedom. As humans and societies move from more primitive energy development schemes to more advanced ones, it is typically said from an energy development point of view that they are advancing because the energy limits on comfort and freedom are shrinking. Sources and technologies in this section are presented in order of increasing energy development.Sources
Energy sources are substances or processes with concentrations of energy at a high enough potential to be feasibly encouraged to convert to lower energy forms under human control for human benefit. Except for nuclear fuels, all energy sources that have been developed for humanity are solar. And ultimately, solar energy itself is nuclear.
Animals (biomass solar)
Animals are energy sources as food to humans (see also animals as energy deliviery technology below).
Plants (biomass solar)
Plants are energy sources as food to humans or as combustion materials.
Wind (hydrologic solar)
Wind is an exploitable kinetic energy carrying part of the hydrologic cycle driven by the sun.
Water mills (hydrologic solar)
Water mills have been an important source of energy both anciently and in modern times.
Fossil fuels (prehistoric solar)
Fossil fuels are ancient plant or animal fuels that
Nuclear reactions (atomic)
Controlled nuclear reactions provide energy as one chemical element (atom) changes into a different one.
Photovoltaic cells (solar electric)
Photovoltaic cells harness arriving solar light to excite electrons and produce usable electrical current.Delivery technologies
While new sources of energy are only rarely made available by significant discoveries and technological advances, energy delivery schemes are only limited by creativity and economic feasibility. The anticipated use of fuel cells in cars, for example, is a delivery technology. This section presents some of the more common delivery technologies that have been important to historic energy development.External combustion
Open fires and flames for heat and light are examples of external combustion, a primitive energy delivery technology. Many people still cook and boil water for drinking over fires. In some undeveloped countries, burning is used as a land clearing method, typically in order to grow crops. External combustion is generally powered by solar plant biomass or fossil fuels.Animal domestication
Animal domestication is a primitive means of delivering energy for human use. Domesticated animals have been used to do work. Animals are of course powered directly or indirectly by solar plant biomass.Shipping
Shipping is a flexible delivery technology that is used in in the whole range of energy development regimes from primitive to highly advanced. Currently, coal and crude oil and their derivatives are delivered by shipping via boat, rail, or road.Machinery
Sometimes energy is delivered or transported, usually across short distances, by mechanical means. Saw mills are examples of this kind of delivery; a system of belts or gears delivers hydroelectric energy to saws and other shop tools near a stream of water.Pipeline networks
Pipeline networks are used to transport crude petroleum oil and its derivatives from wells to locations where they are refined, used, or further distributed by shipping.Electric grids
Storage technologies and infrastructure
Energy may be stored in many forms and free energy may be converted between these various forms. A method of energy storage may be chosen based on stability, ease of transport, ease of energy release, or ease of converting free energy from the natural form to the stable form.Chemical
Some natural forms of free energy are found in stable chemical compounds such as fossil fuels. Most coinsurances of chemical energy storage result from biological activity, since biological systems store energy in the form of chemical bonds. Man-made forms of chemical energy storage include hydrogen fuel and batteries.Gravitational
The construction of dams is a method for storing energy in a gravitational field. Hydroelectric power is currently a small, but important part of the world's energy supply, contributing less than 5% of the world's total energy supply, but one-fifth of the world's electricity [1]. Authorities are able to take very large projects such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme and the Three Gorges Dam to generate large qualities of electricity. The scale of these projects may severely impact local ecosystems.Electrical
Electrical energy may be stored in capacitors. These are often used to produce high intensity releases of energy (such as a camera's flash)Current state and goals of energy development
Challenges
Fossil fuels--oil, coal and methane--are the main energy sources currently used by humans. They have the advantages of storing well and being relatively easy to extract. Because they are not generally viewed as ideal sources due to limited supply and polluting characteristics, thousands of papers have been written and experiments done on alternative energy sources. A few of these alternatives are already supplementing fossil fuel. A goal of energy development is to develop one or several alternative energy sources to a level capable of replacing the fossil fuels, which are being consumed at a rate far exceeding the rate at which nature is replacing them. A major worry of industrial societies today is that our supplies may become more difficult and costly to extract(as in the Peak Oil theory) before our alternatives have sufficiently developed, causing anything from a long-term economic recession to a Malthusian catastrophe. A measurement of our progress towards efficent or advanced energy development as a reflection of our technological state as a civilization can been seen using the Kardashev scale.Nuclear fission as a solution
Fifty years ago it appeared that nuclear fission would provide cheap electricity without pollution. Several thousand years supply of uranium is in known reserves if we can design safe breeder reactors. But several disappointments have limited fission to about 17 percent of the world's electric production.
Wind harvesting as a solution
Large scale commercial wind farms in optimal locations are currently able to produce electric energy at a cost within 50% of wholesale grid electricity. But optimal wind harvesting locations are not easy to find, and the unsteady and unpredictable characteristics of wind energy make it necessarily only a supplemental energy source.Photovoltaic energy as a solution
Photovoltaic energy is a utopian solution; one that would be ideal if it were feasible. But photovoltaic solar energy costs 5 times typical wholesale grid electricity.Nuclear fusion as a solution
Electric production by fusion may still be 20 years or more in our future. Some are optimistic that helium-3 which can be scraped from the surface of some of the planets, moons, and asteroids in our solar system will soon make electric generation by fusion practical.