Marine Sources of Energy (eBook)

Pergamon Policy Studies on Energy and Environment

Jacques Constans (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013 | 1. Auflage
198 Seiten
Elsevier Science (Verlag)
978-1-4831-5418-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Marine Sources of Energy focuses on international research and development activities in the field of marine sources of energy such as waves, tides, currents, winds, and salinity gradients. General and specific recommendations for future research and development programs are presented, along with plans for action to demonstrate and amplify the potential of a number of marine energy sources both in Europe and in developing countries. This book consists of seven chapters and begins with a discussion on offshore coastal wind energy conversion, along with the advantages and limitations of wind energy and its economic aspects. The reader is then introduced to ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), with particular reference to the factors that must be taken into account when selecting sites for an OTEC plant. The following chapters consider the solar pond concept and its possible application to heat production and energy production; and the economic aspects of wave and tidal energy conversion. Other possibilities of marine energy conversion, including marine currents and biomass energy conversion, are evaluated. This monograph will be of interest to government officials and policymakers concerned with marine and other alternative sources of energy.

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Introduction

Assessing energy choices and alternatives for the future may prove to be one of the most important challenges mankind has had to face in all its history.

Fig. I.6 Overall View of the Potential of the Various Energy Resources of the Sea.

Possible scenarios have to be established for alternative sources of energy and exploitation systems identified, selected and demonstrated; but the development of new energy sources – even at a moderate-to-slow rate of expansion – has to overcome serious obstacles. To name a few, any decision in mid- and long-range energy planning has to face the following determinate problems:

– capital shortage having both political and social implications, and

– rising prices reflecting, not only economic and political situations, but also the exhaustion of nonrenewable energy sources, both at domestic and world levels;

– increasing environmental pollution associated with increased low-grade fuel consumption; and

– small – if not negative – net energy balance characterizing some of the technical solutions now being considered.

In such a context and in response to the mounting concern for the European, as well as the world’s, energy future, EUROCEAN, a nonprofit organization specializing in the promotion and implementation of projects related to the sound exploitation of the oceans, organized in March 1976, in Venice, a general information/reflection session on the present and future possibilities of energy production from various marine sources.

Being convinced of the great potentials of a number of marine sources, as well as of their possible industrial development, a group of European companies, all members of EUROCEAN, and representing a wide range of capabilities, have succesfully worked together for a period of more than twelve months to complete an analysis of a specially important and complicated issue for the future. While one subgroup assessed the practicability of sources such as waves, tides, currents, winds and salinity gradients, a second subgroup concentrated on the potentials of natural thermal differences in oceanic water (OTEC), including the possibilities of marine bioconversion. The composition of the two EUROCEAN study groups is given in Appendix A. During that period, not only were the energy requirements of the world of tomorrow reviewed, clarified and analyzed but also a united effort was started to demonstrate whether energy from the sea is a realistic concept, to identify the most promising systems among the various projects proposed, and to assess to what extent such systems could ease or meet the energy demand at local/national, as well as regional/international levels.

The present synthesis report is based on the work of the EUROCEAN marine energy study group and gives a first approach to the technical feasibility and cost analysis of various candidate systems, as well as, for some of them, an evaluation of their capacity to integrate a variety of industrial activities.

Based on the conclusion of the study as well as on the trends emerging from the current activities in this field around the world, this report will also present general and specific recommendations for future research and development programs and plans for action to demonstrate and amplify the potential of a number of marine energy sources both at the European and the developing country levels.

The problem of the gap between energy needs and supplies in the years to come is well known and has been recently brought to mind with force by President Carter as exemplified in Figure I.1.

Fig. I.1 Historic Energy Growth Pattern for the United States from 1958 to 1976 and the Carter Energy Plan. Source: Energy Daily 5 (April 29, 1977).

Many organizations have devoted much time, expertise and funds to the subject. The Ford Foundation, the Workshop on Alternative Energy Sources (WAES), Exxon and Westinghouse have carried out in-depth analyses and many data are available today.

All these studies suggest a minimum yearly growth of the energy consumption of 2.3 percent. Already such a moderate rate leads to extremely difficult problems of energy sources diversification, especially for countries which are heavily dependent on oil imports. Figure I.2 suggests what could be the world energy consumption in 1985 and the year 2000.

Fig. I.2 Scenario of World Energy Consumption for 1985-2000. Source: This figure has been prepared using data extracted from Energy Global Prospects 1985-2000, report of the Workshop on Alternative Energy Strategies, WAES, Carrol L. Wilson, Project Director (New York: McGraw Hill, 1977), 316 pp.

The necessity to find alternative energy sources before the year 2000 appears of vital importance today since, as shown in figure I.3, this date will mark the start of the decrease in oil production and the beginning of an energy gap. In addition, this curve shows that somewhere between 1983 and 1987 the rate of production will start to decrease, and to create an unbalanced situation between demand and production, which may well lead to a sizable price increase over the general price level within the coming years.

Fig. I.3 World Oil: Production, Cumulative Production and Discoveries. Source: Carrol L. Wilson, 1976. (Lecture presented at An International Forum for Increased Energy Economy, Congres – Energia, ‘76, Oslo, May 11-15, 1976.

The development of alternative sources requires time and a considerable industrial effort in order to arrive quickly at economically acceptable and reliable solutions. Nevertheless, the world needs coordinated energy policies that simply do not exist at the present time, largely because not enough is known about the cost effectiveness of the various alternatives, and also because there has been insufficient stress on their environmental advantages, inexhaustibility and the opportunity they provide for conserving precious resources. Oil, gas and even coal are too versatile and valuable for burning.

In such a context, there is no doubt that energy from the sea is a promising and realistic concept because it can effectively complement the existing energy supply at local, national, regional and international levels.

In developing countries many activities will most probably be developed according to the traditional decentralized mode, and will call for a diversification of independent energy sources rather than a centralized system based on the distribution of electrical energy.

Also, in many remote areas of non-oil-producing developing countries, transportation costs render the ton oil equivalent (TOE) on-site several times more expensive than in fully industrialized countries, a fact which may give definite economic advantage to some unconventional sources over more classical, but also sometimes more sophisticated, energy production techniques.

If some basic system components still need to be developed in fully industrialized countries, some alternative sources of energy of the indirect solar family offer a unique opportunity for technology and knowledge transfer through joint demonstration pilot operations and a timely education of the involved local communities, as well as the preparation and implementation of local industrial production programs. More specifically, the concept of demonstration/education/research centers for unconventional energy conversion systems should be fully promoted and developed under the aegis of the United Nations in a number of selected areas of the developing countries. Such centers, closely adapted to the various regional needs, should allow and ease the priming and development of a local research and development current, and provide at the same time a privileged demonstration and promotion ground through a proper involvement of the concerned local communities.

In this respect, regular meetings should be organized whenever possible with the active participation of the competent international and intergovernmental organizations, between representatives of the developing countries and those of the industrial energy sector of developed nations willing to transfer techniques and basic knowledge which may lead to the crèation of the structures for an efficient and quick development of an entire range of agricultural and industrial activities in the Third World.

M. King Hubbert’s well-publicized analysis of the various available sources for energy production and figure I.4, adapted from Hubbert, recall the global energy flow sheet for the earth, the various energy fluxes being expressed in Mw.

Fig. I.4 Global Energy Flow Sheet for the Earth. Source: M.K. Hubbert, “The Energy Resources of the Earth,” Scientific American, 224: 60-84; M.K. Hubbert, “Energy Resources for Power Production,” in Environmental Aspects of Nuclear Power Stations, Proceedings of a Symposium, Vienna, August 1970, 10–14 (Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency, 1971), pp. 13–43.

Every year between 550 and 700 × 1012 Mwh of solar energy reach the surface of the globe...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.9.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► Wirtschaftsrecht
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Elektrotechnik / Energietechnik
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Rechnungswesen / Bilanzen
• Themenwelt: Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Spezielle Betriebswirtschaftslehre ► Immobilienwirtschaft
• ISBN-10: 1-4831-5418-1 / 1483154181
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4831-5418-3 / 9781483154183