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Slide 1: ==== ==== Hello, please look at my site, thank you. http://ichingmax.com/ ==== ==== The future of the oil industry remains to be determined. On one hand there's an ever growing energy demand by large expanding economies such a China and India. On the other hand there has never been more investments into alternative energy precisely because we now know that peak oil is inevitable. Global estimates of oil reserves are currently set at 1253 billion barrels of oil and our maximum daily production capacity is 80-85 million barrels. In early 2009, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that demand would exceed supply sometime between 2010 and 2012, revising Shell's estimate of 2015. However one thing is certain, with demand soon expected exceeding supply, the price of oil will undoubtedly rise.The rise in oil prices would be a devastating blow to the major world economies which some have just barely started to recover from the credit crunch. Meanwhile the major oil companies can rejoice for they profits are expect to soar together with higher oil prices. Environmental scientists are ringing the alarm on climate change and the need for cleaner fuel sources. They are urging nations to reduce their emissions and environmental impact. Population expansion expected to reach 7 billion in 2011 and 10 billion in 2050 will no doubt add more pressure on demand. Never before have we faced such challenges all at once. The dream solution would be a massive, clean, renewable and cheap source of energy. Is it really a dream though? Maybe not for too long. What is the energy of the future? Biofuels may sound like an intermediate alternative, however their production means they could compete with food production or other alternative uses of the resources (1st generation biofuels). 2nd Generation biofuels refers to production from waste products which is limited by man-made wastes. Generally speaking when you talk of biofuels you refer to ethanol, methane, vegetable oil... etc from sources such as landfill gas, soybean, maize, sugarcane...etc. Experts point out that the most probable source of biofuel will come from algae - Algae oil makes up to 60% of the organism's mass and since it thrives in water, it is less likely to have to compete with food production. Let's take a look at the not-so-distant future: Eventually we will have to move towards other sources of energy as our civilization keeps on evolving. (This would be when we have reached the Type I Civilization on the Kardashev Scale - experts like Michio Kaku put this sometime within the next 100 years. Presently we rank an estimated 0.7 on the scale) Perhaps the greatest source of energy available to earth is the sun. It is the Sun that heats up the earth, causes waves, winds, storms The Earth receives 174 Petawatts (174 X 10^15 Watts) of energy from the Sun and this generates currents, climates... Compare this to the world's current energy consumption which is about 15
Slide 2: Terawatts (16 X 10^12Watts). To put this into perspective, Dr Gerhard Knies from the TransMediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) estimates that within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes within a year. So how come we still haven't managed to harness it? Well the reality is that converting sunlight into electricity is much harder than you think. Pick up a solar powered calculator and take a closer look at it. The dark panels are called Photo-Voltaic Cells or PV cells for short. They are usually made of silicon based plates, oppositely charged such that when sunlight (photons in particular) hit these plates, it releases electrons and electricity is produced. The brilliant science behinds this unfortunately only enables us to achieve an efficiency of 10% on average. Experimental cells have reached an incredible record high of over 42% but they are not commercially viable yet. So most of the solar energy harnessed comes from giant mirrors and parabolic shaped mirrors which reflect and concentrate solar power to superheat water to steam (some to 800 degrees Celsius) which then turns the turbines and you know the rest. They are called Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Plants and exist in the U.S and in Spain - The largest plant capacity being around 354 megawatts (MW). Some coastal desert power plants have another advantage - The residual steam from the electricity generation could be used to boil sea water and produce freshwater in those desert regions where freshwater is desperately needed. However with the Stirling engine re-emerging as a more efficient production method than Concentrated Solar Power, plants up to 850MW in capacity have been announced. Perhaps the greatest drawback of solar power is its storage; we cannot at present store sunlight so to speak and that means solar power plants can only be operational during the day. Thermal storage of solar power has been shown to be possible through the use of molten salts (up to 400 degrees Celsius) and it's so efficient that it can retain its heat for over a week (99% efficiency). Thus as an illustration, a large tank with a capacity of over 14000 cubic meters can power a 50 MW plant throughout the night. But again, as so often is the case when it comes to solar technology, this thermal storage technology is prohibitively expensive. Research is now gearing towards concrete thermal storage, which can be scaled to the Gigawatt (GW) scale and costs much less since concrete is relatively much cheaper. I personally think that solar energy holds great potential, which we current are unable to harness fully. The solution for the time being, to go green no doubt comes from an optimal mix of renewable energy sources including hydro, wave, wind and geothermal. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Amish_Poonyth