Our Energy Situation

How we got to where we are, and now that were here, how do we get to where we want to go?

by Eric Coupal-Sikes May 2, 2010

Over the course of human evolution we have relied upon various different energy sources. All of which can fit into a few different categories: biomass, wind, coal, crude oil, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, solar, geothermal, or ocean energy. Depending on what was available, we would the most convenient sources that were available. It is noticeable that there are different consequences associated with each type of energy source. As we continue to grow as a species, and become more and more of a dominating force on this planet, we will need to become very conscious in the way we get our energy.

It is now clear that human activities have a measurable and dominating effect on the composition of the atmosphere. By looking at atmospheric levels of CO2, Methane, and NOx over the past couple hundred-thousand years, it is clear that there is a spike in the all of the data towards the beginning of the industrial revolution where we began to exponentially increase the amount of energy we consume.

As a species, we are growing at astonishing rates. The United Nations estimate that we will have a population of 9.2 billion in 2050. That is an increase of 2.5 billion from our current 6.7 billion. The increase of 2.5 billion is equivalent to adding the human population in the 1950’s (2). With this increase of population it is also evident that the additional people will need some amount of energy to survive. The higher quality of life that they want, the more clean water, food, transportation, heating and air conditioning, TV’s, and other gadgets, the more energy we are going to need. In 2005, each person in the United States used 12 times more energy than a person in China, and 28 times more than a person in India (4). While China’s population is over 1 billion more than ours, and India’s 800,000 more, it is reasonable to assume that they are going to reach for a higher quality of life and, in the process, require more energy.

Knowing that our actions have measurable results on our host planet, we have the responsibility to minimize the negative consequences of our actions. The majority of our pollution comes from the quest of acquiring useable energy and the process in which we use that energy. By analyzing all possible energy sources individually for their potential use, we will be able to better decide which direction we want to go into the future.

We have for the most part in the past two centuries been consuming fossil fuels. Fossil fuels get the term ‘Fossil’ because they are millions of years old. The vast majority of our fossil fuels came from the Carboniferous period, which took place between 360-286 million years ago. The planet was covered in plant life. When the plants die, they would decay and after about 50 million years of sediment, rock, and more dead plant falling on top, we end up with coal. After being submerged under pressure and heat for long periods of time, around 200 million years, the coal turns into oil. In 2007, the United States consumed 101.6 Quadrillion BTU, 86.25 Quadrillion of them were from fossil fuels. 1 Btu is the amount of energy needed to heat 1 lb of water 1 degree Fahrenheit (6). The rate at which we are consuming fossil fuels will yield a lack of these fuels within hundreds of years while the rate at which the environment produces fossil fuels takes hundreds of millions of years.

Natural gas is a simple hydrocarbon chain in gas form. It is a mixture consisting mostly of methane CH4, but also some propane C2H6. Natural gas is normally found on the top oil reservoirs buried in underground caverns. Most of the energy that goes into our residential sector is natural gas because it is one of the more efficient methods for providing heat. About 23 % of the United States energy consumption comes from natural gas. The combustion of natural gas is one of the more efficient and cleaner combustion reactions; natural gas cars fall under the category ‘ULEV’, Ultra Low Emission Vehicles. The United States produces about 80% of our natural gas consumption.

Coal is an integral part of the energy conversation. We get about 23% of our energy from coal. Coal has been used for a long time as it previously was the prime fuel for railroad trains. The majority of power plants are powered by coal because of its reliability and energy output. There are large amounts of coal reserves around the world. Some reserves are not in the most usable form and may have low efficiencies for extracting the energy. The United States produces the vast majority of its coal consumption.

An even bigger part of our fossil fuel consumption is petroleum which accounts for about 40% of our energy consumption. We domestically produce about 20% of our consumption, therefore we rely heavily on importing petroleum so that our transportation and business sector can thrive. We use a lot of the petroleum to refine other products, such as plastics and other oils. Some argue, with valid points, that we are addicted to petroleum. With that, there are also hidden costs not apparent until further down the road.

For a long time, we have used plant matter, or biomass, to provide ourselves with energy. We consume plants for food, and burn wood for heat. It is possible to turn plant matter into liquid fuels that could then be used for transportation and in other sectors. The total process efficiency is about .3%. If we are going to meet our energy demand in 2050, we will need to cover over 31% of the total land area on the planet with usable crop (3). In recent events, speculators in the food and energy market changed market prices by assuming a mass transition to biofuels such as ethanol.

Wind energy has been a popular topic recently. There has been a considerable amount of funding that has led to developing new projects. Famous oil figures, such as T. Boone Pickens have proposed plans to utilize the fast winds going north-south in the middle of America. Currently the United States is utilizing 25 GW of wind energy (5). It is proposed that by 2050 it will be possible for the world to generate somewhere between 2-4TW of energy from wind power, about 1/6th of what our estimated energy demand will be.

Ever since Nikola Tesla invented the A/C generator and proposed and built a turbine for it under Niagara Falls, we have been building hydroelectric dams everywhere that we can. We have pretty much capped out on the number of places that we can build them. Some environmental groups argue that the dams cause damage to ecosystems. We are currently getting over .6 TW of energy from them, and we have an “economically feasible potential of .9 TW” (3) globally. There is not much room for growth. Iceland is about 80% reliant upon hydro power (9). There is always the possibility of building more nuclear reactors. Current reactors are using uranium, a non-renewable resource, fission methods having radioactive byproducts. Uranium is limited in its abundance. There are teams of scientist working on various methods to get new types of nuclear reactions working, mostly methods where they combine atoms to form bigger atoms, fusion, with no radioactive byproducts. If such methods come to exist, then we will have a break through. However, let’s not plan on it occurring in the time frame needed to solve our problem.

Some have looked towards geothermal energy sources to solve the problem. Countries like Iceland utilize the temperature differences between the earth and the atmosphere to generate significant amounts of energy. Iceland gets about 20% of its energy through geothermal means, thus making it fossil fuel independent. Theoretically there is 11.6 TW of potential geothermal energy on all of the continents, and 30 TW of oceanic geothermal energy potential.

The only source not mentioned yet is the sun. If we could dream of a source that could provide ourselves with more energy than we could ever need, be safe, indestructible, and relatively limitless, we wouldn’t be able to dream of something better than the sun. The sun is a nuclear fusion reactor burning over 1 billion kg of mass every second and it is over a hundred million miles away. More sun light energy hits the earth in one hour than all humanity uses in a year. Out of all of the sources, this seems to be the only source that we are able to rely on as a practical solution.

After carful observation, it can be seen that all but two of the previously mentioned energy sources come from the sun. Fossil fuels are aged plants, those plants grew from the sun and stored their energy as they grew. After they died and decomposed, they still retained that initial solar energy. Even the movement of wind is caused by the sun. Certain parts of the ground will heat up and cause the air to heat up and rise. This will cause a void and surrounding cold air will go in to fill it. Hydroelectric is also indirect solar energy. The water once received solar energy and then evaporated and rose to a higher level. Once the water was at the higher level, we can extract its gravitational potential energy on the way down. The movement of the oceans is caused by different regions becoming hotter than others, from the suns energy, and convection occurs. Nuclear and geothermal are the only two sources that we get energy from that do not come directly or in-directly from the sun. Instead of using the suns energy indirectly, after the inefficiencies, why don’t we just use it directly to power our needs?

The most cost effective way to harvest the suns energy would be to minimize the number of conversion processes in-between the photons and the usable electrons that we want when we want them. We have all been kids playing with a magnifying glass, and have been in awe at the amazing power the sun can have when focused to a single point. It could instantly cause leaves to combust. Taking this idea a step further, it is possible to cover a large area of land with mirrors and have those mirrors focus the suns energetic photons to a single collector.

At this collector it is possible to have various different types of conversion processes to get electrical energy or chemical storage of energy. Most, if not all, of our current power plants use various fuels to generate heat for the purpose of creating steam to run a steam generator. This type of process has been going on for a very long time, ever since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Steam generators have been optimized over their long existence and have comparatively high efficiencies. The problem with this method is that you are not able to generate electricity when the sun is not shining, or for transportable energy.

To solve the issue of transportable fuel, energy storage in chemical means is agreed to be the most efficient and has the highest energy density. The possibility of having a methanol economy has been suggested, as methanol has a high energy density and is one of the prime ingredients found in biofuels. Methanol can be made from the combination of CO2 + H2O +high intensity sun light.

We are currently in a 'perfect storm' to solve our energy problems. We are lucky to have political leaders not only acknowledging that we have an energy crisis, but also they are sparking discussion about what we can do as a country to try and overcome this challenge. We need to continue to provide assistance to business that want to start projects that help our long term goals. By providing funding to this new market it will not only immediately create new jobs for the working and middle class, but it will start to kick our detrimental addiction to oil which has driven us to various battle fronts and the degradation of our planet earth.

Author Biography

Eric is a junior at USC’s Vitebi School of Engineering set to graduate with a B.S. is Electrical Engineering in May 2010. After graduation he plans to go into a doctoral program researching ways to provide usable energy.