EXCESSIVE USE OF FOSSIL FUELS

FUTURE OF FOSSIL FUELS

Fossil Fuels are a major part of the world today.They are a valuable source of energy, but if they are to be used in the future, better ways will have to be found to reduce the pollution they cause.
The main topic in the research paper is what can be done in the future to make more efficicent ways of using fossil fuels.
The purpose of this paper is to make accurate conclusions on ways in which fossil fuels can be conserved.The paper discusses the good and bad sides of fossil suels and explains what can be done in the future to make the fossil fuels last longer. It investigates the objects that five out lots of pollution and what the better option is to save the environment. Cutting down on fossil fuel use will save the fossil fuels as well as the environment.

Could Denmark Be Fossil Fuel Free by 2050?

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Denmark could become one of the first countries in the world to completely stop using oil, gas and coal by 2050 if it boosts wind production by as much as six times and hikes taxes onfossil fuels tenfold, a government-appointed commission said.

Denmark should increase its wind powercapacity to between 10,000 and 18,500 megawatts in 2050 -- most of it by installing offshore turbines -- from the current capacity of slightly more than 3,000 megawatts, the Danish Commission on Climate Change Policy said in its report. At the same time, the country should impose a tax on fossil fuels that would rise from 5 Danish crowns per gigajoule next year to 50 crowns by 2030.

"My government will study the recommendations very closely and will present a road map setting a date for freeing ourselves from fossil fuels," Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said at a conference this week in Copenhagen. "It will be one of the first road maps in the world on how to become fully independent of fossil fuels. A plan for a transition like this will touch every part of society and every corner of politics. We are facing tough choices."

The commission, established in 2008 by the government, was composed of 10 independent experts from universities and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It was tasked with researching how Denmark could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent by 2050 and its consumption of fossil fuels from 80 percent of current energy demand to zero.

The commission said renouncing fossil fuels requires "a total conversion of the Danish energy system." That means the change must be gradual, but needs to begin now so that new infrastructure investments can be made as old infrastructure wears out, thus minimizing costs. The commission said 2050 was a realistic target year because most of the necessary technology is already known today and the current powerplants will in any case become too old and need to be replaced by then.

The commission said going fossil fuel-free would reduce Denmark's greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent compared with 1990 levels. To achieve a reduction of 80 percent or more would require additional efforts, mainly cutting emissions in agriculture.

Concerns about jobs and debt
"It is possible to achieve, but we must balance a number of priorities such as employment and the debt," the prime minister said at the World Climate Solutions conference. "This can't be achieved today or tomorrow, but I know that we need to get started. We already have one of the most energy-efficient economies in the world. Growth and prosperity are possible without increasing energy consumption. We want to expand the use of green energy on a massive scale, making it the cornerstone of a green economy."

Between 40 and 70 percent of Denmark's energy consumption will need to be met by electricity in 2050, compared with 20 percent today, the commission said. Fluctuating power because of the prevalence of offshore wind means the country will need to install intelligent electricity meters, time-controlled recharging ports for electric cars and heat pumps that would supplement heat storage systems.

International interconnectors will have to be expanded so electricity can be exported easily when the wind blows too much in Denmark and imported when it doesn't. The country already does that now using water reservoirs from hydro power plants in Sweden and Norway as virtual batteries to store excess wind electricity, but will need to do much more of it.

"The challenge is to making these technologies work together to get the energy when it's needed and where it's needed," said Katherine Richardson, the commission's chairwoman.

A network of electric cars powered by batteries that can be easily replaced could also serve as storage for fluctuating wind power. DONG Energy, Denmark's biggest utility and also its biggest carbon dioxide polluter, is working on a pilot program with Better Place to test the concept. By next fall, the first cars and battery replacement stations will operate in Denmark and Israel.

"The report is very much in line with what DONG has decided a couple of years back as our company strategy -- turning away from coal and using wind, biomass and gas," the company's CEO, Anders Eldrup, told the conference. "We share the view that more of society will become electrified."

Renault is building the cars for the Better Place program in Turkey. They will be tested in Israel and Denmark to see how the battery operates in hot and cold climates.

"In the beginning, it will be rather limited numbers," Eldrup said. "The plant can produce 100,000 cars a year, but that won't be the case in the first couple of years. We don't know how many people are going to like the car, so there's a risk. The consumer will decide."

A proposed ban on oil furnaces
DONG is also the world's largest operator of offshore wind turbines, currently building a 400-megawatt farm in Denmark and the 1,000-megawatt London Array behemoth in the United Kingdom with partners E.ON and Masdar. According to Eldrup, Denmark could lift its wind power consumption from 20 percent currently to 50 percent by 2050, as envisioned by the climate change policy commission.

"If we build 200 megawatts each year, that's not impossible to handle," he said. "It's nice to have a target for 2050, but it's not enough. We will have to have short-term milestones. And it will be costly in the short term, but in the long term, fossil fuel is only going to get more and more expensive."

But no amount of wind power will wean Denmark off fossil fuels if energy consumption in homes, offices, transportation and industry doesn't get more efficient, the commission said. Houses with have to be heated to the same temperature using only half the energy used today. Overall, the country must cut energy consumption by 25 percent through efficiency measures.

"We need to use our energy more effectively," Richardson said. "We use over 40 percent more energy that we need."

The report says switching to electric cars would by itself be a huge leap in energy efficiency, but notes that electric vehicles and especially their batteries are still insufficiently developed and cannot yet serve as a valid replacement for gasoline and diesel vehicles.

Some of the efficiency gains will have to be forced on citizens by the government. The commission proposed that the installation of new oil furnaces be banned from 2015. Property owners would be required to pay into an "energy savings account" an amount determined by the size of the building and its energy standard, with buildings receiving the top rating exempt. The money could be used later to help finance renovations.

Taxes on fossil fuels and incentives for biomass
Biomass will become hugely important, both to make biofuels for transportation and to be used in power plants as a backup for wind turbines, the commission said. Biomass and waste incineration could supply as little as 30 percent or as much as 70 percent of Denmark's energy, depending on how prices develop.

"A number of power plants can already use biomass," the report says. "Biomass also has the advantage that it can be stored. This makes biomass a valuable energy source which is likely to be increasingly utilized."

Yet Denmark will not be able to produce all the biomass it will need in 2050.

"Even if most Danish farmland was converted to production of biofuels, it would be far from sufficient to meet the future energy demand in Denmark," the report says. "An energy system based extensively on biomass would become dependent both on considerable imports and on trends in the price of biomass."

To discourage the use of fossil fuels, the commission proposed phasing in a tax that would start at 5 Danish crowns per gigajoule next year. Increasing it to 20 crowns per gigajoule in 2020 would lead to the demise of coal-fired power plants and prompt consumers to replace oil-fired heating furnaces with heat pumps, it said.

Predictably, the business lobby had reservations about new taxes in a country that already has the highest income taxes in the OECD.

"We don't need new taxes that don't create investments," said Ole Krog, vice president at the Confederation of Danish Industry. "The parliament needs to find the right balance between green energy and economic responsibility."

First higher prices, then savings and growth
The commission acknowledged that businesses exposed to international competition could face a serious challenge because of the tax but said that phasing it in would ameliorate the problem. In fact, the authors argued that the tax should rise even higher, to 50 Danish crowns per gigajoule by 2030.

It also recommended a review of current tax breaks given to biomass used in heating and a reconsideration of car taxes and road tolls. The tax break for electric cars should not run out in 2015 as currently planned, but should be limited to 100,000 cars, it said.

How much will all this cost?

Phasing out coal, oil and gas won't cost that much in the long term, but only if the process is begun soon, the commission said. Increased demand for energy will anyway make fossil fuels more expensive just as advances in technology will make renewable energy cheaper. If Denmark doesn't take a long-term approach to eliminating fossil fuels, then when the country finally does have to live up to an international target to reduce CO₂ by 80 to 95 percent, it will have to pay dearly for allowances and credits from other countries, the authors said.

At first, Danes will see higher prices on electricity, heating and transportation because of the new taxes and investments. The new taxes would by themselves increase the gasoline price by 8 percent in Denmark in 2020, for example. But gradually higher prices will be offset by savings from efficiency improvements, the authors argued.

"There will be economic growth," Richardson said. "The difference between doing it with or without fossil fuels is about 0.5 percent of gross national product in 2050. That's the cost of insurance to keep money in this country, creating jobs here instead of sending it to a few countries somewhere else in the world to get oil and gas."

The commission said it didn't consider the use of nuclear power because "there is no indication that nuclear power will be economically competitive compared with offshore wind turbines, especially if the cost of storage of waste and decommissioning are included." In addition, nuclear is not well-suited for a system that has other fluctuating energy supplies, as is expected in a system with a large proportion of wind energy, and it would require imports of technology and know-how, as Denmark has no experience operating nuclear plants.

Carbon capture and storage could be applied if it becomes more competitive or if new coal-fired power plants are built before 2050. It could also be used at biomass installations as a supplement if it's decided that even more greenhouse gas reductions are needed, the commission said.

10 Ways to Change the Use of Fossil Fuels

1. While there are many potentially revolutionary technologies that eventually could help the global society begin to seriously reduce and even eliminate its use of fossil fuels, the current situation is one where there are few alternatives capable of meeting our energy needs today. Even if the entire world decided tomorrow to completely switch to wind, solar, hydro and even nuclear power, the transformation process itself may take decades to complete. Yet even confronted with that stark reality, we can make a few changes in the way we employ fossil fuels that could significantly reduce their negative effects on the environment as well as allow us to continue using energy at current levels.

Boost Efficiency

2. The first and more important thing we can do is increase efficiency in the way we currently use fossil fuels. Four actions that fall under this heading include:
   --Increase fuel economy for vehicles through the use of advanced computer systems and hybrid technology.
   --Insulate homes, office buildings and other structures to cut down on heating and cooling demands. It is estimated that this alone could save homeowners in the U.S at least 20 percent in heating costs, which are mostly associated with fossil fuel use.
   --Use energy efficient electronics and appliances to cut down on energy consumption.
   --Create better insulation for electrical lines to avoid loss of power, and develop better ways of storing energy. Unfortunately, much of the electricity produced is lost through the grid system, and in many areas there is an energy surplus that goes to waste.

Reductions by Industry.

3. By cutting down on the use of fossil fuels for the production of industrial materials such as plastic, future stores of oil can be preserved. This can be done through the following three actions:
   --Promote the use of alternatives to plastic such as paper or reusable bags at the grocery story, or wooden spoons instead of plastic ones for cooking.
   --Increase recycling of existing plastic materials.
   --Explore alternatives that are renewable such as a new process that can create plastic food containers from corn.

Decreasing Agricultural Use

4. Up to 20 percent of all fossil fuel use in the United States goes toward the production, packaging and shipping of agricultural products. The key to reduce this consumption level is to promote smaller scale, localized farming. This can be accomplished through the following measures:
   --Eliminate subsidies that encourage hording an excessive exportation of food. This will lead to growing less and thus consuming less energy.
   --Break up large agribusinesses that promote inefficient energy use.
   --Promote local competition and local suppliers of seasonal produce by eliminating excessive bureaucratic regulations that benefit large producers with lower transactional costs for paperwork and licenses.

Solar tower project in Australia could represent the future of clean energy

The time is right for alternative energy sources. With the price of fossil fuels climbing to prohibitive levels and pollution causing severe global consequences, more and more people and businesses are looking for alternative sources of clean power. One company in Australia is looking to provide an answer to these energy questions with its ambitious Solar Mission Project.
The Solar Mission Project's focus is a solar tower powered by physics. Originally based on a concept called the solar chimney -- a name that was abandoned because of the negative environmental connotations of a "chimney" -- the hollow tower would be 1 kilometer tall, making it the tallest manmade construct in the world (a title currently ascribed to Canada's CN Tower, but claims made to that title by any modern building are sketchy at best, and this site explains why:tallestbuildingintheworld.com).
The tower would be surrounded by a 25,000-acre, transparent circular skirt of greenhouse panels, which would warm the air trapped underneath to about 95 degrees Fahrenheit above the ambient temperature. The cool air at the top of the 400-feet-in-diameter tower would then draw the hot air up from ground level at a speed of roughly 35 miles per hour, which in turn would drive the 32 turbines around the bottom half of the tower. The turbines provide around 200 megawatts of electricity.
The tower's energy output is approximately equivalent to a smallnuclear powerstation, and couldpowerup to 200,000 average homes, as well as eliminate the production of up to 900,000 metric tonnes (830,000 U.S. tons) ofgreenhouse gasses. If this project takes off as successfully as EnviroMission hopes, they plan to build more towers in order to power larger populations.
These facts make it a highly attractive alternative power source, to the point that the Australian federalgovernmentawarded the Solar Mission Project "Major Project Facilitation Status," which means the government considers theprojectto be of major public interest and has given it moral backing, and it will likely be fast-tracked by any government agencies it must meet the approval of.
The Solar Mission Project is an attractive alternative power source proposition because it can achieve the same goal as a windmill farm without depending on the wind to generate power. Ostensibly, the tower can run 24 hours a day using stored heat. The same major drawback of windmill farms -- the clamor of locals who say the power sources will be an eyesore to whatever region they are proposed to be built in -- is shared by the solar tower on a somewhat larger scale. The kilometer-tall construct would be able to be seen from up to 80 miles away at ground level, and would even be visible from space. However, EnviroMission has picked a fairly remote location that has great exposure to sunlight: The Buronga district of the Wentworth Shire in New South Wales,Australia. The company does not seem to expect much resistance from the local populace.
EnviroMission owns the license to the solar tower design, originally developed by German structural engineering company Schlaich Bergermann and Partner (SBP) -- specifically by Professor Jörg Schlaich, who successfully utilized a solar tower on a smaller scale than EnviroMission is proposing near Manzanares, Spain for seven years. That 656-foot tower provided five megawatts of power for the surrounding region from 1982 to 1989, and the data from it is currently being used as the basis for the 200-megawatt version proposed by EnviroMission; the nature of the tower's operation means the power output increases exponentially with its size.
Despite the project's potential to shatter world records for its height, many people are going to be most concerned with cost. Some projections put that number anywhere from $500 million to $750 million U.S. dollars, but in aWired.cominterview, EnviroMission Chairman Roger Davey declined to give a specific cost estimate. He did, however, mention that EnviroMission is looking at two new engineering innovations that should help reduce the cost of constructing the tower.
EnviroMission Limited is currently working on the "Final Feasibility" phase of its solar tower project, which, according to the company's website,enviromission.com.au, "involves collaboration and project partnering to validate the economics of the project." One of the obvious obstacles to the company was also covered in theWired.comarticle, in that investors may have to wait 10 years or more to see a return on their investment, meaning the project is likely to need government funds before it can begin construction.
On Sept. 20, the company announced that it would build a 50-megawatt version in the interim, much like the Schlaich Bergermann version in Spain. A press release (PDF format)on the EnviroMission website states that significant improvements have been made to existing technology, thereby improving the potential energy yield of a smaller tower, but the information makes it unclear whether this 50-megawatt version will replace the proposed 200-megawatt version, and a request for clarification went unanswered at press time.
However, in all likelihood, the future of this technology as a whole is more dependent on the success of the 200-megawatt version. The sheer scope of the project and the power it could generate means the data from its construction and operation would likely be the example by which all such future projects are judged. It has already seen one setback -- presumably from difficulties proving the project's feasibility and results -- as construction on the tower was supposed to have begun in 2003, but current projections put the start date at sometime in 2006.
The solar tower is not the only solar conversion technology being explored right now -- along with traditional solar panels, solar trough design and solar dish/Stirling design are being researched -- but as with any solar power technology, they tend to lose the majority of the energy they collect during its conversion into power. For example, the average solar panel has a conversionefficiencyof about 12 percent.
Examples of solar trough design (also known as a parabolic trough) have been built with solar efficiency of up to 20 percent. It is built as a long parabolic mirror, usually constructed along a north/south axis and able to rotate to track the movement of the sun, which reflects concentrated sunlight onto a Dewar tube (kind of like a long, open-ended Dewar flask). Heat-transfer liquid (usually oil) runs through the Dewar tube, and transfers heat to a standard steam turbine. Some of these plants have been built with anenergy efficiencyapproaching 20 percent.
The solar technology with the highest energy efficiency is the solar dish/Stirling system, which has a conversion efficiency of about 30 percent. A solar dish -- built of concave mirrors that reflect the sun's energy into a receiver -- utilizes a sun-tracking system to keep the dish pointed toward the sun. The energy absorbed by the receiver heats working gas (gas that is continually recycled and not consumed), making it expand, and then the gas is allowed to cool. The rising and falling pressure drives an engine's piston, and this motion is converted into mechanical power.
The solar tower actually has the lowest conversion efficiency at less than 2 percent. The reason the tower is still a viable choice as a source of solar power is that its sheer scale and undeniable simplicity means itseconomicefficiency could be equal to the more energy-efficient methods, or even greater.
With the ability to replace a small nuclear power plant (and, obviously, multiple towers could replace a large nuclear power plant), 24 hours of power and zero emissions, the solar tower seems like an almost perfect solution to the problem of gathering large amounts ofrenewable energy, without dumping toxic waste into theenvironment. Even the tower's low efficiency and high cost seem like small obstacles next to what the world stands to gain in the way ofclean energy. The only real obstacle is, of course, money. With any luck, the current energy stresses being felt the world over will serve as inspiration to those with deep pockets to fund the Solar Mission Project, or something like it.

Biofuels worse for the environment than fossil fuels, study warns

(NaturalNews) Far from being a solution to the global ecological crisis induced by fossil fuels, biofuels may "offer a cure that is worse than the disease they seek to cure," a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has concluded.

"When acidification, fertilizer use, biodiversity loss and toxicity of agricultural pesticides are taken into account, the overall environmental impacts of ethanol and biodiesel can very easily exceed those of petrol and mineral diesel," the report read.

A biofuel is any fuel made directly from a biological source (as opposed to fossilfuels, which are made from long-since-deceased organisms that have undergone radical chemical changes), including sugars, oilseeds or grains.

The OECD warned that beyond their ecological costs,biofuels force food production to compete with fuel production over the world's dwindling and limited supply of arable land. For all these reasons, the report said that "the current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits."

The report speculated that the European Union and the United States may be offering market incentives for biofuel production less out of ecological concern and more as "an easy way to support domestic agriculture against the backdrop of international negotiations to liberalize agricultural trade" by eliminating subsidies.

Instead of supporting biofuels expansion, the OECD report urged governments to "cease to create new mandates for biofuels and investigate ways to phase them out." It encouraged a focus on decreasing use of fossil fuels rather than replacing them with "alternative" fuels.

"A liter of gasoline or diesel conserved because a person walks, rides a bicycles, carpools or tunes up his or her vehicle's engine more often is a full liter of gasoline or diesel saved at a much lower cost to the economy than subsidizing inefficient new sources of supply," the report said.

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/022112_fuel_biofuels_fossil_fuels.html#ixzz17FKWl18F