Abstract
To facilitate sustainable energy development, one has to understand the limited availability of nonrenewable energy resources, and the ability of the earth to renew or recover. Emergy is an instrument that measures environmental loading, ecological economics, and regional sustainable development. In this study, emergy indicators are calculated to investigate the sustainability of solar updraft tower (SUT). SUT produces energy from the hot air, utilizing a combination of a solar collector, central tower, and air turbines. The results demonstrate that the sustainability of SUT grew as the size of the plant increased. Further, emergetic ternary diagrams are drawn to facilitate the comparison between SUT and various technologies. The resources-use efficiency of wind energy and SUT, 200 MW is found to be the lowest among all energy technologies presented in this research. Scenario analysis is performed to explore the future optimization directions. The results demonstrate that the development direction of SUT systems should mainly focus on reducing the materials demanded by the manufacturing and construction of its solar collectors. This study aims to demonstrate the value of emergy as a powerful instrument for drawing long-term sustainable strategies in energy markets for a greener tomorrow.
Highlights
The World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987 developed the official definition of the sustainable development concept for the first time, describing it as “the development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [1,2]
Materials, land loss, and human labor and services expressed in their common units (J, kg, m3, $, etc.) were converted to emergy flows by means of appropriate emergy transformation coefficients
The total emergy of the Solar updraft tower (SUT) system accounts for all environmental contributions, energies, and human services used directly and indirectly to produce and maintain the power plant
Summary
The World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987 developed the official definition of the sustainable development concept for the first time, describing it as “the development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [1,2]. The realization of such development necessitates awareness of the limited availability of nonrenewable resources, and the ability of the earth to renew or recover [3]. Clean energy infrastructure is essential economically, politically, environmentally, and socially for a greener tomorrow
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