Beyond the Molecular Frontier Challenges for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (2003) / Chapter Skim
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10 Energy: Providing for the Future
10 Energy: Providing for the Future
Pages 160-170
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From page 160... ...
10 Energy: Providing for the Future 1As part of the overall project on Challenges for the Chemical Sciences in the 21st Century, a workshop on Energy and Transportation will lead to a separate report. The reader is urged to consult that report for further information.
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From page 161... ...
Currently about 85% of the world's energy is obtained by burning fossil fuels petroleum, natural gas, and coal but this must change soon. Affordable supplies will become scarcer, and burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide that contributes to the greenhouse effect by which solar energy is trapped within the atmosphere and warms the planet.
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From page 162... ...
In any event, development of more expensive fossil fuel sources such as oil shale, tar sands, methane hydrates that are found at the high pressure of the deep sea, and coal, oil, and gas that current extraction technology leaves behind will also be required. Chemists and chemical engineers have developed processes for the gasification of coal, converting it by chemical transformation into syngas, a cleaner, more convenient energy source.
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From page 163... ...
When whale oil was a significant fuel it was only a little more indirectthe whales ate plant material that was also produced by sunlight, and then converted that food energy into the energy in their oil. Petroleum, natural gas, and coal are also just stored forms of solar energy, from plants and animals that lived and were buried long ago, while hydroelectric and wind power are derived from more contemporary solar-driven oceanic evaporation and atmospheric pressure gradients.
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From page 164... ...
, but one of the problems is nuclear waste. A typical nuclear energy plant produces 20 metric tons of radioactive waste each year.
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From page 165... ...
Of course, a special problem with nuclear energy is the hazard if the plant is run carelessly, and it is possible that the operation of a nuclear power plant could be diverted to develop material for nuclear weapons or the radioactive by-products could be used in terrorist attacks. However, it is important to solve these problems so that the currently negative public perception of nuclear energy undergoes a change, and permits nuclear energy to make its full possible contribution to the world, particularly after we have stopped burning fossil fuels.
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From page 166... ...
As a consequence of electricity deregulation, various heat and power cogeneration and distributed power generation schemes with micro turbines or fuel cells are also being explored. Again, contributions by chemists and chemical engineers will be critical, especially in the development of high-temperature and other advanced materials.
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From page 167... ...
The station would return the zinc oxide to a factory where electricity would be used to convert it back to zinc metal. Fuel Cells Electrochemical cells in which both reactants are continuously supplied from outside the cell, particularly those in which the reactants are oxygen and an otherwise combustible fuel, are generally referred to as fuel cells.
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From page 168... ...
This approach avoids carbon monoxide degradation of the fuel cell performance, but it still produces carbon dioxide. Although there is still much to do to make fuel cells widely practical, experimental automobiles have recently been exhibited that are powered by fuel cells.
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From page 169... ...
Thus there is great interest among chemical scientists in developing practical superconducting materials for power distribution. Superconductors pass electricity with no resistive loss, but so far they operate only at extremely low temperatures, and are impractical for power distribution.
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From page 170... ...
WHY ALL THIS IS IMPORTANT The challenges and opportunities in the field of energy are critical for a world in which inexpensive, readily available fossil fuels will eventually be exhausted. Unless we learn how to generate and store energy, not just burn up the fuels formed in earlier times, we will be unable to continue to advance the human condition or even maintain it at its current level.
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