Energiesources of these days and the future

Solar energy

Solar energy is already a frequently used energy source and it would be more used in the future, because fossil energy sources will fade away and we need a source that can be trusted such as solar energy.
People expect that within a couple of years there will be vehicles working on solar energy (these days there are vehicles like this too, à World Solar Challenge) but, those vehicles are very heavy and that’s why they aren’t used these days yet.
Solar Energy is now used mostly on Satelites and at special houses where electricity comes from the solar panels on the roof.
In contrast to other forms of solar energy, solar cells supply energy directly. Solar cells exist out of 2 layers of Silicium an a little amount of an other material for example Germanium. Sunlight makes these 2 layers provide electric tension.
But only 15% of this sunlight becomes electricity, the other 85% does nothing. The components for solar cells are extremely expensive because the silicium has to be bright. When bright silicium can be ‘made’ in a cheap way, solar energy would be a good alternative for the future.

Wind energy

Wind energy is not really used in the Netherlands yet, because there is not always wind and when the wind is blowing… it’s usually too low to let the windmills and wind turbines work. There are some windturbine parks in the Netherlands.. but they provide only a couple % of the total energy source and provide just enough for a couple towns. Also some farmers have windturbines to pomp water for their cattle.
And also this form of energy is very good for the future when the fossil energy sources are ‘dead’.
To gain electricity with a windturbine the rotation of the sails will accelerate by cogwheels. With this speed a generator is switched on which provides electricity.

Water Power / Hydro Power

Water power is most used of the durable energy sources such as solar energy and wind energy. This because it’s relativly easy to gain electricity from water. Only one disadvantage of hydroelectric power stations is that there always has to be somebody to watch the dam.

A dam has to be really solid and that’s why it’s often built of concrete except when there is no money for it or when it is difficult to transport.
If the water comes to high on one side of the lake the gutters let it pour to the other side of the lake. On the bottom of the dam there is a big valve that makes sure that the water doesn’t always pours through. When the water has to pour through the valve opens and the water pours. The water pours through a tube against a turbine who spins because of the water.
The tubine makes sure that the generator starts to work. This all happends in the hydroelectric power station.

Nuclear power

Its not sure if nuclear power is a durable energysource or not. Because it doesn’t use the old supplies of energy that are stored in the earth for centuries, but the waste stays radioactive for a long time.

In a nuclear power station there is always a reactor. In the reactor the atom nucleus are being separated. With that separation neutrons are released (this is a part of an atom nucleus) and come in touch with atom nucleus. The neutrons go through the atom nucleus, with this process the atom nucleus divides in 2 and again new neutrons are released. This happends..again and again..and again. With the dividing of these atom nucleus is a lot of heat released. This heat is put into water with a heat changer and converted into power. With this power a turbine is started and the turbine starts a generator. The generator converts the power into electricity.

Crude oil

Millions and millions of years ago when organic remains (remains of died plants and animals) which were covered by layers of sand as a consequence of the earthquakes and.. crude oil was ‘born’.
On great depth this organic layer reached a temperature of 120°C and started to simmer because of the temperature and became a liquid: crude oil. At some places, really deep into the earth appeared layers of oil which we call oilfields. After heating is crude oil usefull for:

^ fuel for vehicles
^ kerosine for airplanes
^ diesel for dieselengines
^ fuel oil for ships, heating..
^ asphalt for roads
^ it’s the foundation for synthetic (plastic, clothes…)

Global warming

With the use of crude oil, natural gas and coal, gasses are released such as CO2. Those gasses are like a blanket over the atmosphere. These gasses stop the warmth and because of this effect the earth temperature raises every year with about 0,5°C.

Natural gas

Also natural gas is one of the most import energy sources. Natural gas has a bit the same history as crude oil, it also started millions and millions of years ago.. but in this process the remains of plants deep in the earth turned into coal and between all that warmth natural gas was formed.
Nowadays they try to let people use natural gas as fuel for their cars instead of diesel and gasoline.

Bio energy

Bio Energy means life energy, its been made of plants material called biomass. Bio energy is a source which we already use for hundreds of years and in the third world it’s the most important energy source there is. Bio energy won’t fade away like fossil energy sources do and it even might help to solve the global warming. Bio energy is divided as biogas and biofuel. Biogas is for example formed out of declayed organic waste and biofuel is formed by biomass, sugar and ferment.

To make things clear

The future and energy

Almost everybody knows that something has to change. We can’t go one like this. We have to search for alternatives. But what kind of energy do we use now? And what kind of energy will we use in the future?

We always used fossil fuel in the past. But what is fossil fuel?
Oil and are the fuels we have used the last 200 years. These fuels have
The disadvantages of using fossil fuel:

1. If you used them once, you can’t use them again. So if you have used all the fossil fuel, there isn’t anything left.
2. It is really bad for the environment

Till now fossil fuel has always been enough. We could warm our houses, keep the
traffic moving and let the fabrics work. But in 30 years or something, due the great use of benzine, there won’t be any oil left. The other fossil fuels will also be gone very quickly, the ask for more . But there are so many new energy sources that we could use, it could be quite difficult to use them all.

Articles:

We were searching the web for some articles. The first two articles are from a company who works with hydrogen. Maybe a good alternative in the future. They have their own newspaper. These articles might seem too long and too comprehensive, but it’s important to show other opinions and companies that are important for the developing of new energy sources or companies which need it.

*1
The topical quotation
"I am no enemy to the eco-tax, we can live with it. […] Very high fuel costs can be a source of innovation."
Werner Pollmann, Environmental plenipotentiary of DaimlerChrysler, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of June 13, 2000; translation: LBST
Journalists drive Opel’s HydroGen1 fuel cell car
HyWeb, 00-06-19: In an event organized for international journalists in Brussels, Opel presented HydroGen1, its fuel cell car based on the Zafira with on-board liquid hydrogen storage. The vehicle, which was presented for the first time on the Geneva Motor Show in March (HyWeb, 00-03-01), but was not running at that time, was driven and tested by the journalists.
The vehicle displayed very good driving performances, and the drivers generally appreciated it. Refueling with liquid hydrogen was carried out manually using a transportable system consisting of a liquid hydrogen tank and a filling system with tubes, connectors, valves etc. The hydrogen was delivered from Germany.

Opel announced that HydroGen1 would be the pacecar of the Olympic marathon in Sydney this summer.
Dr. Erhard Schubert, co-director of the Global Alternative Propulsion Center (GAPC) of GM and Opel, underlined the following five key statements:
· Hydrogen is the fuel of the future, the fuel cell is the propulsion concept of the future.
· The key challenge in the development of the fuel cell
· vehicle is the development of a suitable hydrogen fuel tank for the vehicle.
· There is no hydrogen infrastructure in place. This is why GM and Opel are collaborating with car and mineral oil companies on this issue.
· GM and Opel see gasoline reforming on-board the vehicle as the bridging solution to a hydrogen economy as long as there is no hydrogen refueling infrastructure in place to support fuel cell vehicles.
· Public information, education and training are of prime importance. This relates both to hydrogen and fuel cells.

* 2
Market prospects for molten carbonate cells
DWV, 00-06-19: Five students from a "Technology Marketing" course at the Fachhochschule Ravensburg-Weingarten have investigated which market prospects the molten carbonate fuel cell according to the "Hot Module" principle investigated by MTU would have with companies of the south-western region of Germany. The results are promising. The spectrum of potential customers ranges from gardeners over hospitals, wood industry and pharmaceutical companies to breweries and other food industry companies. "If the technology were available on a serial basis, I would use it at once", said the owner of a gardening company. While with the heat he could heat his greenhouses during the winter, he could sell the electricity to the grid and get money for it under the new German legislation for the promotion of renewable energy. The local utility of Friedrichshafen sees good chances to use the cell for the city hospital. Most important for the potential "Hot Module" customers are the investment costs, says the study. "Future serial production will make them competitive", says MTU specialist Peter Berger.
(Suedkurier, Konstanz, 11. June 2000)

*3
SACRAMENTO, CA. - Maybe you've been driving down the road, minding your own business, when all of a sudden the car next to you catches your eye. It looks almost like a normal car, but there's something not quite normal about it. It is sleek, and looks rather futuristic. You say to yourself, "Hey, that must be one of those new vehicles they've come out with...a hybrid or something." You gaze at it for a moment until you realize you're supposed to be concentrating on the road ahead of you, and you drive on, wondering, "is that what everyone's going to be driving in the future?"
The car you most likely saw is one of two relatively new hybrid vehicles, either Toyota's "Prius" or the Honda "Insight." These cars are commercially produced and cost the average consumer around $20,000. They use hybrid technology to power themselves, which means that they are run both electrically and with a regular internal combustion engine. As can be read at Toyota's website (www.prius.toyota.com), "A highly efficient gas engine combined with an advanced electric motor deliver the power to drive Prius." We read at Honda's site (www.honda.com) "The heart of the hybrid system is Honda's innovative Integrated Motor Assist (IMA™), which couples an all-new 1.0 liter, 3-cylinder engine with an ultra-thin electric motor for outstanding performance and efficiency." Hybrids are just one type of energy-saving car that automobile manufacturers are currently researching as energy-saving "cars of the future". The world's increased attention on finding lower emission to zero emission vehicles (ZEV) has fueled a vast amount of research in designing energy-saving cars. So we ask again, which direction is the automobile market heading and what are we really going to see on the roads in the next 2-10 years?
Some of the energy-saving vehicles that have been developed by today's top researchers are all electric vehicles, which are low maintenance, short range cars, hybrid vehicles, which use both electricity and gas or diesel and can go longer distances, and fuel cell vehicles, some of which are virtually zero emission and are still in the stages of being designed and tested.
I interviewed representatives from three automobile companies and asked them a little bit about their current projects and which cars they believe we'll be seeing on the roads in the next few years. I talked to Mr. John Wallace, Executive Director, Th!nk Group of Ford Motor Company, first. He states that Ford focuses on "4 main areas of automobile development. First, Ford is always working on improving the efficiency of today's mainstream vehicles. Second, they have developed 2 electric vehicles for community use. Third, they have developed the "Escape" SUV hybrid which we should see in about 2003. Lastly, they are working on the development of fuel cell vehicles, of which they have several protoypes, including a fuel cell version of the Ford Focus, which is "the most popular car in the world." Mr. Wallace believes that in the next few years, the cars we will be seeing on the road will be the same kind we have now, meaning internal combustion engines, but they will be improved. He states that the US will still be using a majority of gasoline powered vehicles while in Europe the diesel engine will probably remain popular. He believes the number of hybrid cars will definitely increase, but it may take decades before we start to see hydrogen fuel cell vehicles become mainstream, mostly because hydrogen fuel cell technology is still in early stages of development. Mr. Wallace also commented on the fact that environmental regulations and the desire to reduce emissions all over the world, especially in California, is a great motivator for the research and development of cutting edge, energy saving cars. He hopes that the cars of the near future will be modern diesels and hybrid electrics.
My next interview was with Mr. Wolfgang Weiss, the General Manager of the Fuel Cell project for DaimlerChrysler. I met Mr. Weiss at the California Fuel Cell Partnership in West Sacramento, California. Some of DaimlerChrysler's projects include the NECAR 4, which is a hydrogen powered electric vehicle, the Jeep Commander, a luxury SUV which uses fuel cells and runs on methanol, and the NECAR 5, which is also a methanol fuel cell vehicle. The main focus of the DaimlerChrysler fuel cell project is developing fuel cell vehicles for the future. The DaimlerChrysler fuel cell project is part of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, and Mr. Weiss states that the several automobile companies in the partnership "are working closely together to try to set some standards for fuel cell research and development." Mr. Weiss hopes that the hydrogen fuel cell car will be the car of the near future, yet he says we must realize that hydrogen fuel cell technology is still a "newborn" and it will be many years, perhaps a decade before they can really be implemented into the mainstream. After our interview, Mr. Weiss was generous enough to show me the NECAR 4 at the DaimlerChrysler facility, and I was only too glad to see such an extraordinary piece of technology. The car looked like it would be fun to ride in. Mr. Weiss says that the engineers test drive it around Sacramento and even up into the mountains. I was also able to view the hydrogen storage tank that the fuel cell partnership uses to store its hydrogen fuel for its prototype hydrogen fuel cell cars.
My third interview was with Mr. Lyn Cowgill, the Vice President of Marketing at ANUVU, Inc., which is a company specialized in the research and production of fuel cells and fuel cell vehicles. Mr. Cowgill expressed to me the goals and determination of his company in bringing their unique fuel cell cars to the market. Mr. Cowgill says that ANUVU, Inc. "embarked on a project to bring fuel cell technology into commercial production, with a higher level of performance, and to create a solid source of fuel cells." They also have a fuel cell vehicle program and several concept prototypes, including a fuel cell golf cart, and neighborhood electric vehicles that use a fuel cell system. The hydrogen fuel cell car they have designed has many advantages. It is lightweight, made of high energy absorbing carbon fiber, and Mr. Cowgill states that "a great advantage of their car is that the vehicle is designed from the ground up so that the elements are fully integrated with one another which optimizes efficiency. Thus the entire interior of the car is integrated as well as the fuel cell." ANUVU, Inc. is also a great advocate of personalized hydrogen refueling stations, which will help bring hydrogen fuel cell cars onto the market faster, rather than waiting for commercial infrastructure to be designed and built. The personalized refueling stations would be added into the cost of the car. Thus ANUVU, Inc. believes that it can bring hydrogen fuel cell vehicles onto the market sooner rather than later, although Mr. Cowgill believes that in the next few years there will still be mostly gasoline powered engines. He states 2004 will be a critical year in which fuel cell vehicles will hopefully be available to consumers , and 2006 he hopes the fuel cell will be available in all vehicle classes. He also speculates that between 2006-2008 the fuel cell vehicle should rise to worldwide popularity and usage.
In addition to the three car company representatives, I also interviewed Mr. Joe Irvin, Communications Manager of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, in order to find out his thoughts on the direction of the automobile market. He states that in the near term, "the internal combustion engine will still remain the dominant power source, however consumers will begin to see more choices." He states that fuel cells are not expected to be available until 8 to 10 years from now. He says California is on the leading edge of technology because of many of its emission regulations, but the cost of gas really drives the car market, and as long as it is cheap in the US, people will continue to drive gasoline cars, especially SUVs. He hopes hybrid technolgy will take hold soon because it helps to pave the way for consumer awareness and the electric drive train.
There seems to be an agreement amongst these executives that the cars we see on the road probably won't change too much in the next few years, although they will probably be more efficient and less polluting. Within the next decade, we'll see more hybrid vehicles and the introduction of fuel cell vehicles, hopefully with the ultimate aim of achieving the zero emission hydrogen fuel cell vehicle by 2010.

Opinion

When we began with this subject most of us didn’t have a clue how urgent this matter is. In a few years there won’t be any fossil fuel left! It is very important that a lot of people realise how rare that kind of energy will become and will try to reduce the consumption of it as much is possible. Luckely some people are already working on this matter. An example: the Opel’s HydroGen1 fuel cell car. It doesn’t work on petrol, but on hydrogen; a known fossil fuel. A good thing. We should work on the alternatives of petrol, if we won’t the prises of petrol will rise extremely. It will be an issue that starts great conflicts between countries. At all costs we must prevent this! It would be good if the media would spend a lot of time on this subject. There are some articles on this matter as you can see in our paper. But it’s not enough. We didn’t realise it, probable a lot of people also still don’t realise it. It’s maybe a good idea to bring up this subject on schools. Because we are the next generation and we must deal with this problem.
We would choose for solar and wind energy. It’s the cleanest way to collect energy. Nuclear energy has a lot of disadvantages:
there are some dangers bound to it. You have a lot of nuclear waste and it’s definitely a point of conflicts.
Nuclear waste caused a lot of trouble in the past. For example the dumping of drums filled with nuclear waste in the sea with the possibility that this waste will in time pollute the sea when the drums have rusted away. Now, in the present we have to deal with this problem. We’ve learned from this problem. In the future the people will definitely be wiser. But who says what a poor country in the future will do, even if it knows the dangers? The economy is more important for most people than the environment. And what is cheaper than just dumping some drums in the sea? We think we should just never take this risk and use solar or windenergy.
It’s not that expensive, clean and you can’t run out of it. Maybe it’s not that nice for the view to see everywhere windmills. But we were used to mills in the past, so we’re sure we can get used to windmills also.

About our paper: It was a little bit hard to work out our paper in Sicily. In the beginning there were not enough computers with internet and after that problem was solved not enough time. But we managed, with some of our spare time, to make a paper from good quality. We’re happy with the result.