Development Of New Energy Technologies Research Articles

Environmental safety of power plants using renewable sources of energy

The question arises: How should we determine penalties for the use of natural resources at the preliminary stages of designing power plants involving different types of technology in the use of sources of energy. Functioning as a limiting factor in traditional power engineering, environmental penalties actually promote the development of new energy technologies that make use of renewable sources of energy. Since these technologies do not introduce natural resources from the outside, the problem of compound or thermal pollution does not arise. These power plants still may have undesirable effects on the environment, and it is therefore important to develop universal criteria for use in estimation of the environmental safety of energy that would allow us to predict early enough and prevent the occurrence of events which could have negative effects on nature. This article examines a number of factors in a effort to develop these criteria.

A practical plan for stabilizing Norway's energy consumption

Norway is rich in energy, exporting more energy than used internally, supplying more than 50% of its energy from hydroelectricity and being a country without a single commercial fossil fuelled power plant. Yet, nearly all political parties are going for stabilization of energy use in the 1990s, some favouring permanent stabilization and others stabilization until environment problems from energy use are solved. Stable energy consumption may be achieved through speeding up development of new energy technology (houses developed at home), modifying existing technology, developing less energy intensive industries, and, as a last resort, reducing man-hours per year as productivity increases.

Efficiency and the role of government in energy policy

It is well established that the presence of a monopolist producer removes efficiency from the world oil market. Efficiency in energy resource utilization can nevertheless be the proclaimed objective of an energy policy by an oil-importing nation if imported oil is considered a non-produced resource available at a given price. This article presents an example of such a policy which consists of the institution of price guarantees for energy alternatives and of government subsidies for the development of new energy technologies. We illustrate how this policy will attain efficiency, and the ratio of benefits to the costs associated with its adoption are calculated.

Modelling UK energy demand to 2000

Fears about future petroleum scarcity and the need to establish priorities for the development of new energy technologies have extended the time horizons of energy policy and demand forecasts. One recent long-term demand forecast for the UK is that by Chesshire and Surrey. Although they adopted a sectoral approach their study leaves some questions unanswered. Do they succeed in their aim of making all their assumptions fully explicit? How sensitive are their estimates to changes in assumptions and policies? Are important problems and ‘turning points’ fully identified in the period up to and immediately beyond their time horizon of 2000? The author addresses these questions by using a computer model based on the study by Chesshire and Surrey.