World Energy Scenario Research Articles

Toward a Global History of the Nuclear Age

The environmental history of the nuclear enterprise has grown increasingly important, not the least because of the strong conviction that an ongoing, and self-proclaimed “renaissance” in nuclear energy must be a major part of world energy scenarios in the battle against global warming and the need to abandon carbon-based energy production. This article suggests a number of ways to take advantage of the recently available primary sources by using a global approach to make sense of nuclear environmental history. It calls for looking at environmental impacts across a variety of ecosystems: desert, Arctic, tropical, limnological and oceanic. It insists on considering the entire nuclear enterprise from mining to enrichment to fission. It suggests focusing on interactions between the atom, nature, and the lives of mammals, fish and birds in the nuclear world. In the end, this analysis shows that the atom is not green, and that the argument that nuclear power is a solution to global warming ignores the troubled relationship between the natural environment and peaceful and military technologies.

Scenario Evaluation of Reversible Solid Oxide Cells Integrated with Local Renewable Energy Sources: Assessment of Different Coupling Applications

Solid Oxide Cells (SOCs) are a technology that is currently considered more and more crucial in the present and future world energy scenarios, mainly thanks to their high efficiencies and flexibility of use. One of their most interesting characteristics is their reversibility: such systems are able to work as fuel cells (thus generate heat and power from a wide variety of fuels) or electrolysers (producing hydrogen or even synthetic fuel, when in co-electrolysis mode) in a single unitized system. In addition, thanks to the high operating temperature, SOCs are able to reach higher efficiencies than conventional electrolysers or fuel cells.Moreover, as mentioned above, the possibility to operate SOCs devices in co-electrolysis mode makes them suitable in possible integration/retrofitting solutions with industrial applications, especially if power is generated by Renewable Energy Sources (RES).This is why SOCs could play a decisive role in decarbonizing the stationary CHP (Combined Heat and Power), residential and industrial sectors, considering their wide power range (from less than 1 kWe up to the order of MWe) and their potential in CO2 capture (production of synthetic fuels in co-electrolysis mode). At the same time, they can provide a higher flexibility of the grid in terms of energy storage, oftentimes an issue because of the fluctuation of the power produced, caused by the nature of RES themselves.This work is focused on the analysis of the integration of reversible SOCs in several end-use application scenarios, all in presence of RES systems.Firstly, a thorough research on RES power generation in Italy has been carried out, whose main objective was to quantify the amount of power produced by RES, such as photovoltaics (PV), Wind, Biogas and Hydropower, with respect to the total energy production, in order to evaluate the penetration of RES in each of the zones Italy has been divided into. The research also includes a temporal distribution analysis of power produced by RES.Secondly, the syngas and hydrogen demands all over the Italian territory were assessed.A performance parameter is assigned to every power production source and to the demand for gas (syngas or hydrogen). Such parameter (a number on a scale from 0 to 10) is an indicator of the production from a specific source (or the demand for a specific gas) in a given area (0 representing no production/demand, 10 representing extremely high production/demand).A matrix for each investigated area has been built. It reports the product of the performance parameter of every RES (reported on the columns of the matrix) and the performance parameter assigned to every gas (on the rows of the matrix). The aim of this approach is to evaluate the most suitable macro-scenarios where SOCs can play a major role.The results of the work were an in-depth analysis of the possible case studies, for which the implementation of reversible SOCs at different scales (order of kW, order of hundreds of kW, order of MW) could be convenient. Consequently, the applications identified are those in which both electrical power and syngas/hydrogen supply are demanded.A preliminary high-level simulation of the reversible SOC systems in these scenarios were carried out: their use as electrolysers or fuel cells is handled in order to respectively avoid RES curtailment (when RES production exceeds demand), and increase the efficiency of the system (when RES production cannot match demand).Applications with high level of thermal integration have been favoured, taking into account CHP solutions. Special attention was dedicated to areas with higher RES curtailment rate, in order to minimize the waste of clean energy production. Figure 1

Some Perspectives for the Gasification Process in the Energy Transition World Scenario

Energy demand has increased over the years due to population growth, industrial, and socio-economic developments, cornerstones of human civilization. Additionally, climate change alarms are placing the energy transition in the top concerns of intergovernmental organizations. Therefore, there are several reasons for concern regarding the need for a new paradigm in the world energy scenario. This perspective article focuses on the contribution that the gasification process may have in the global energy transition scenario. The perspectives for a full world energy transition are that it cannot be accomplished without a transportation fuel transition and an industry transition. Biomass gasification is a sustainable process that allows the production of a large range of commodities such as electricity and heat, biofuels, and chemicals. Meanwhile, some challenges such as tar, impurities, and soot must be overcome or at least limited to an acceptable minimum to promote the economic viability of the gasification plants before they can effectively contribute to the world energy transition. In this regard, further research should be made focused on improving the syngas quality and the economic viability of a biomass gasification plant. This can be achieved by several means including new reactor designs, advanced gasification processes (e.g., plasma gasification and supercritical water gasification), and intensifying the gasification process.

Hydrogen supply chain: Current status and prospects

AbstractIn the current world energy scenario with rising prices and climate emergencies, the renewable energy sources are essential for reducing pollution levels triggered by carbon‐based fuels. Hydrogen rises in the world energy scenario as an important non‐carbon‐based energy able to replace fossil fuels. For this reason, the rapid development of hydrogen‐related technology has been seen in recent years. This review paper covers hydrogen energy systems from fossil fuel‐based hydrogen production, biomass and power from renewable energy sources, to hydrogen storage in compressed gases, liquefied and solid materials, and hydrogen‐based power generation technology. It represents a quiet complete set of references that may be effective in increasing the prospects of hydrogen as a fuel in the coming years. The main conclusions drawn are that natural gas and coal supply nearly all of the current hydrogen. The commercially available technologies for hydrogen production are steam methane reforming, partial oxidation, and alkaline electrolysis. The most economical methods for hydrogen production are partial oxidation, steam methane reforming, coal gasification, and biomass gasification. Metallic cylindrical reservoirs are the most promising alternative to underground storage of compressed hydrogen at large scales. Some metal compounds and composites can store a significant amount of hydrogen while maintaining reasonable adsorption and desorption kinetics. The transportation sector is likely to see widespread use of hydrogen in the future, helping to reduce pollution. Vehicles can be powered by fuel cells, which are much more efficient than internal combustion engines. There are still several obstacles in the way of widespread hydrogen utilization. The first one is that the cost of producing hydrogen from low‐carbon sources is elevated. As the cost of renewable energy declines and hydrogen production is scaled up, it is anticipated that the hydrogen production costs would decrease over the next years. Innovative technologies are expected to increase the interest on thermochemical hydrogen production to massively substitute electrochemical technologies since they are theoretically cost‐effective. More research is needed to fix concerns with some of the thermochemical cycles in order to rise its maturity. Increasing the chemical reaction conversion ratios, which can be resolved utilizing nonequilibrium reactions, is one of them. The transportation sector is likely to see extensive use of hydrogen in the future, helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The power required by vehicles may be supplied by fuel cells, which are more efficient than internal combustion engines.

On the green hydrogen production through gasification processes: A techno-economic approach

Green hydrogen rises in the world energy scenario as one of the most promising non-carbon-based fuels capable of replacing fossil fuels. Biomass gasification is emerging as a cleaner and sustainable process of producing green hydrogen. Green hydrogen can be obtained by resorting to different biomass gasification processes. Moreover, techno-economic studies are essential to determining the viability of these processes and are missing in the literature. The novelty of this study is the identification of the gasification process that produces the highest hydrogen yields and the presentation of the viability conditions for three gasification plants aiming to produce green hydrogen. The methodology followed is based on the development of three models of biomass gasification processes (conventional, plasma, and supercritical water) in Aspen Plus® to estimate maximum hydrogen yields through a parametric study. The economic study was conducted based on economic indicators (net present value and payback) to assess the viability of each gasification process for green hydrogen production. The results suggest that supercritical water gasification is the most suitable process for hydrogen production, with hydrogen yields of 0.844 Nm3/kgbiomass. Hydrogen yields of 0.828 Nm3/kgbiomass, and 0.758 Nm3/kgbiomass were achieved for the conventional gasification and plasma gasification processes, respectively. From the economic assessment, it was concluded that none of the gasification processes are viable under the determined optimal operating conditions. A sensitivity analysis, however, revealed that conventional gasification is viable for steam-to-biomass ratios <3. Process intensification techniques were applied, revealing that supercritical water gasification can be viable for feed concentrations between 15 and 25%. A minimum selling price of 7 €/kg, 10 €/kg, and 13 €/kg were obtained for green hydrogen generated by the conventional, supercritical water, and plasma gasification processes, respectively. The results obtained in this study are of paramount importance for the hydrogen economy. However, this research should be supplemented by further intensifying the gasification processes in order to bring green hydrogen production costs down to a more competitive level.

Prospects for the Use of Hydrogen in the Armed Forces

The energy security landscape that we envisage in 2050 will be different from that of today. Meeting the future energy needs of the armed forces will be a key challenge, not least for military security. The World Energy Council’s World Energy Scenarios forecast that the world’s population will rise to 10 billion by 2050, which will also necessitate an increase in the size of the armed forces. In this context, energy extraction, distribution, and storage become essential to stabilizing the imbalance between production and demand. Among the available solutions, Power to Hydrogen (P2H) is one of the most appealing options. However, despite the potential, many obstacles currently hinder the development of the P2H market. This article aims to identify and analyse existing barriers to the introduction of P2H technologies that use hydrogen. The holistic approach used, which was based on a literature survey, identified obstacles and possible strategies for overcoming them. The research conducted presents an original research contribution at the level of hydrogen strategies considered in leading countries around the world. The research findings identified unresolved regulatory issues and sources of uncertainty in the armed forces. There is a lack of knowledge in the armed forces of some countries about the process of producing hydrogen energy and its benefits, which raises concerns about the consistency of its exploitation. Negative attitudes towards hydrogen fuel energy can be a significant barrier to its deployment in the armed forces. Possible approaches and solutions have also been proposed to eliminate obstacles and to support decision makers in defining and implementing a strategy for hydrogen as a clean energy carrier. There are decisive and unresolved obstacles to its deployment, not only in the armed forces.

Optimal Operation of a Photovoltaic Integrated Captive Cogeneration Plant with a Utility Grid Using Optimization and Machine Learning Prediction Methods

The World Energy Council, in its 2019 World Energy Scenarios Report, advised policymakers to identify innovative opportunities for the integration of renewable energy resources into existing electrical power systems to achieve a fast and affordable solution. However, large-scale industries with cogeneration units are facing problems in handling the higher penetration levels of intermittent renewable energies. This paper addresses large-size photovoltaic power integration problems and their optimal operation. This work considers the case of a chemical industry having both cogeneration power and solar photovoltaics. Here, a modified firefly algorithm and a hybrid power resource optimization solver are proposed. The results of the proposed method are compared with other benchmark techniques, to confirm its advantages. The proposed techniques can be used in industries having cogeneration power plants with photovoltaics for better optimization and to meet the guidelines specified in IEEE 1547. The voltage ramp index is proposed to determine the voltage ramp up and down with intermittent solar irradiance. Additionally, a machine learning technique is used to predict the cogeneration plant efficiency at different loads and the solar irradiance under varying weather conditions. Finally, this paper proposes the effectiveness of the modified heuristic technique and certain guidelines, including solvers for industrial use.

Directly irradiated fluidized bed reactor for thermochemical energy storage and solar fuels production

The path toward a greener economy is leading the world energy scenario to an ever-increasing use of renewable energy sources. Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) systems are typically based on technologies in which solar energy, concentrated by means of optical sun tracking mirrors, is exploited to drive power cycles or sustain chemical processes. Integration of CST technologies with relatively inexpensive energy storage systems decouples the collection of solar radiation from its use, and thus greatly increases the dispatchability of thermal energy production. Huge research efforts are currently devoted to the study of ThermoChemical Energy Storage (TCES) systems, in which solar energy is used to perform endothermal chemical reactions featuring large latent heat, so as to store solar energy in the noble and stable form of chemical bonds and/or produce solar fuels. Since most TCES processes involve gas/solid chemical reactions, multiphase chemical reactors own a key role for the success of the TCES technology. In this study, a novel batch lab-scale fluidized bed reactor for TCES of concentrated solar power and solar fuels production was designed. The reactor targets at maximizing the collection of solar energy, withstanding the highly-concentrated flux typical of high-temperature CST applications and ensuring uniform temperature distribution of the reactive materials. An experimental campaign consisting in hydrodynamical and thermal characterization of the system under inert conditions was performed. Moreover, reactive tests aimed at TCES of solar energy were performed using limestone calcination/carbonation as model reversible reaction. Heating of the system was performed by means of a simulator of concentrated solar energy made of a 7 kWe short-arc Xe lamp coupled with an elliptical reflector. The hydrodynamical characterization disclosed the main features of the reactor and the possibility of establishing different regimes of operation. Thermal characterization revealed that reactor can be safely operated at temperature of over 1000 °C. Reactive tests proved the feasibility and reliability of the designed reactor toward chemical reactions aimed at TCES of concentrated solar energy and encourage future studies toward solar fuels production.

Experimental Study of HFC-32 Split-Type Air Conditioning Systems in Different Indoor Temperatures

Energy management has become one of the main issues in world energy scenario, every energy consumed system should be investigated and developed to increase its performance; especially air-conditioning systems which consumes more than half of the total power required by one air-conditioned building. In agreement with “Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone layer”, HCFC-22 was stopped its production and its refrigerating system must take another refrigerant; HFC-32 as the working fluid. This work presented information about two 12,000 Btu/h HFC-32 split-type air-conditioning systems with the hermetically sealed swing compressor (so called Inverter compressor) and the hermetically sealed rotary compressor. Both systems were placed in two identical rooms where 3,500 Watt heaters were also set in the middle of the rooms and operated under the constant heat flux condition in two different indoor temperatures; 20 and 22 Celsius. From experiment results in both indoor temperatures, the system with the hermetically sealed swing compressor escorted better energy consumptions, Coefficient of Performances (COPs) and Energy efficiency ratios (EERs) than those of another system with the hermetically sealed rotary compressor by 29.70% and 31.86% at 20-and 22-Celsius room temperature, respectively. The performances of both HFC-32 systems in different indoor temperatures were variant. The double pipe heat exchangers (DPHXs) were also investigated in this work, the COPs of the system with the swing compressor and DPHX were higher than those of another system with the rotary compressor and DPHX by 65.17% and 75.88% at 20-and 22-Celsius room temperature, respectively. The information in this work was used in making decision on the A/C system selection, as well as, the A/C energy management to reduce total A/C power consumption in macro views.

Integrating life cycle assessment and energy system modelling: Methodology and application to the world energy scenarios

Today’s energy systems are dominated by finite fossil fuels and related environmental and human health impacts. To strive for the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) related to energy, their transformation must be initiated. Insights on the sustainability of energy system transformation pathways can be gained by combining partial equilibrium energy system modelling and life cycle assessment (LCA) due to their complementary characteristics. The present study aims at demonstrating an approach on how LCA indicators can be quantified for the integration in partial equilibrium energy system models without double-counting of impacts of the energy system and how such analyses can be used to estimate environmental and human health impacts of energy system transformation pathways. The results for the World Energy Scenarios show that the environmental and human health “hotspots” are coal (mining, heat and power generation, ash disposal), oil (freight and passenger transport, industrial motors) and biomass (cultivation, heat generation, ash disposal) technologies. The regional results are found to be more informative than the global results, also because many environmental and human health indicators reflect regional impacts. The transformation pathway with a focus on climate change mitigation policies has co-benefits regarding environmental and human health impacts and thus contributes to several SDGs, while it encounters challenges related to water and land use.

World Energy Council’s Global Energy Scenarios to 2060

Since 1970, global energy consumption has more than doubled. Conventional resources, in particular oil, gas and coal, had a dominant share in supply and covered most of the growth in demand in the past. Even in 2015, these fossil fuels still accounted for more than 80% of global primary energy consumption. The contribution of renewable energies to the total electricity generation was 23% in 2015, the same share as in 1970. Developments in the coming decades will differ substantially, however. Total energy consumption will rise at a much more moderate pace than in the past, e. g. by up to one third by 2060. Electricity consumption will double during this period. But even this is a considerable slowdown in growth compared with the five-fold increase seen between 1970 and 2015. And, unlike in the past, the emerging rise in consumption will essentially be covered by renewable energy sources. This is true especially for the electricity sector. This comparison with developments in the past shows the extent of the global energy transformation that may be expected in future. These developments are reflected in three global scenarios, which were published by the World Energy Council in October 2016. The results of this flagship study World Energy Scenarios to 2060 are mirrored with the main findings of the IEA’s World Energy Outlook and the U.S. EIA’s International Energy Outlook. The most important challenge indicated by the results of the mentioned studies is: the transformation, which is expected in the covered scenarios is not sufficient, in order to achieve the target of limiting the global temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels that was agreed by the international community of states in Paris at the end of 2015. It will be highlighted, which strategies could meet the requirement cost-efficiently—a prerequisite for its success.

Influence of the main gasifier parameters on a real system for hydrogen production from biomass

The production of hydrogen from waste biomass could play an important role in the world energy scenario if efficient and reliable processes will be developed. Via kinetic and thermodynamic simulation and experimental data system, realized during the European project UNIfHY, to produce pure hydrogen from biomass is analysed. The plant is mainly composed of bubbling fluidized bed gasifier with catalytic filter candles, Water Gas Shift and Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA). Focussing on the hydrogen production, a sensitivity study was carried out varying parameters as the steam to biomass ratio and the gasifier operating temperature. The results show that the hydrogen yield increases at increasing temperature and steam to biomass ratio, even if the required energy input increases as well. The global efficiency depends substantially on the PSA unit: the off gas of this unit is composed of residual CO, CH4 and H2, that can be burned in the combustor of the dual fluidized bed gasifier to supply the extra-heat to the gasification process avoiding the input of auxiliary fuel.

EVALUATION OF WORLD ENERGY SCENARIOS

What are the future global systems developments? It remains one the biggest unknown, especially in terms of energy, as it is globally considered as both cause and solution for multiple problems of the humanity. Therefore, nowadays a number of experts are exploring driving forces, critical uncertainties and unknowns that have an influence on future energy systems development. This article aims at providing a brief investigation of existing world energy scenarios that cover the range of plausible outcomes of future global energy system development. Those are represented by International Energy Agency, World Energy Council, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and others. The analysis covers both qualitative and quantitative indicators of the world energy system development that provide for future worldview formation. The article looks into various approaches to energy system development forecasting and scenario building employed by the abovementioned organisations, and discovers the motives for making assumptions as the means of attaining internal targets and the consequences of the distinction of individual attitude to the development trends within the expert community. The current assessment implies grouping of the most advanced of the existing energy system development models, identification their advantages and disadvantages, and shows differences in modeling approaches used in a number of specialized international organisations.

Electrodeposited Thin Film Solar Cells

The global energy demand is predicted to reach 28-30 TW by 20501. Solar energy can meet a sizeable fraction of this demand. To harvest this energy, we propose solar cells with absorber materials that are direct bandgap semiconductors composed of environmentally friendly elements and deposited by wet processes. The p-type absorber layer of a hetero-junction solar cell can be electroplated either as an alloy2, 3 or as a series of thin metallic films4. Different processing approaches have been tried such as electrodeposition of Cu/In/Ga/Se thin films or alloy deposition of binary, ternary or even quarternary alloys such as CuInS2 or CuInGaSe2 (CIGS). All these precursor processing approaches require a subsequent high temperature 530 – 590o C rapid thermal annealing step in a selenium or sulfur atmosphere. A key challenge is to deposit very uniform nanometer scale thin films on meter large resistive substrates. Nucleation and growth phenomena and tailoring of the thin film microstucture is essential for controlling the composition of the final chalcopyrite layer and increasing the efficiency of the final device.4,5 Another challenge is to convert by annealing the uniform metal layers to good quality semiconductor material. For the fabrication of the CuInGa precursor material, surface roughness and thickness control are highly influenced by nucleation and growth of indium and gallium on copper. Electrodeposition of thin films of InGa and Se was demonstrated. The metal stack process was scaled up to a panel size of 30 cm x 60 cm and recently to a panel of 60 cm x 120 cm. A promising candidate for low cost absorber layers is the quarternary compound of Cu2ZnSn(Se,S)4 which is the equivalent of CuInS2 when replacing In with Sn and Zn in a 50/50 ratio. The need to replace indium and gallium stems from the fact that these are two orders of magnitude more expensive than Sn, Zn and Cu. In terms of availability on the planet, indium and gallium are about as available as Cd and Se and one or more orders of magnitude less available than Sn, Cu, Sn and S.With a similar methodology as in CuInS2, we have deposited Cu2ZnSn(Se,S)4 using an electroplated metal stack precursor. 6, 7 The metal precursor was converted to kesterite by annealing for 10-15 min in a sulfur containing atmosphere. The microstructure of the resulting absorber layer, the different phases detected by Raman spectroscopy will be discussed as well as cell efficiencies achieved to-date. Rigid glass and flexible metallic substrates are used in the solar industry. The form factor of substrates for the solar industry varies between 225 cm2 to m.2 Methodologies similar to the one used for the scale-up of electrodeposited CIS can be used for the electrodeposited earth abundant materials. Flexible substrates can be processed continuously in a roll-to-roll process but these require a diffusion barrier to prevent diffusion of metallic impurities into the p-type absorber. A low cost barrier material that can be plated was evaluated for this application8. Acknowledgement The authors are thankful to many colleagues in IBM’s Microelectronics Research and Central Services Scientific Laboratory. REFERENCES 1.“World Energy Scenarios: Composing energy futures to 2050”, report published by the World Energy Council (2013).2. W.N. Shafarman, L.Stolt, Handbook of Photovoltaic Science and Engineering, eds. A. Luque, S. Hegedus, John Wiley & Sons 2003.3. H. Deligianni, S. Ahmed, L.T. Romankiw, Interface, 20(2), 47 (2011).4. Q. Huang, K. B. Reuter, S. Ahmed, H. Deligianni, L.T. Romankiw, S. Jaime, P.-P. Grand, V. Charrier, JECS, 158(2), D57-D61 (2011).5. S. Ahmed, K.B. Reuter, Q. Huang, H. Deligianni, L.T. Romankiw, S. Jaime, P.P. Grand, J. Electrochem. Soc., 159(2), D1-D6 (2012).6. S. Ahmed, K.B. Reuter, O. Gunawan, L. Guo, L.T. Romankiw, H. Deligianni, Advanced Energy Materials, 2, 253 (2012). 7. L. Guo, Y. Zhu, O. Gunawan, T. Gokmen, V.R. Deline, S. Ahmed, L.T. Romankiw, H. Deligianni, Progress in Photovoltaics: Res. and Appl., 22(1), 58-68 (2014). 8. L. Guo, M. Mason, M. Hopstaken, A. Kellock, L.T. Romankiw, H. Deligianni, J. Electrochem. Soc., 160(3), D102-D106, (2013).

Influence of new fac tors on global energy prospects in the medium term: compar ison among the 2010, 2011 and 2012 editions of the IEA's World Energy Outlook reports

Several economic, geopolitical, demographic and environmental factors drive world’s energy scenario; among them, the reduction of greenhouse gases emissions and the consequent development of renewable energy sources, the global financial crisis, the increase in global population and urbanization, the increase of fossil fuels prices have had a particularly strong impact in recent years. Furthermore, exceptional events, such as the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, may occur to complicate World energy scenarios. The most recent reports on world energy markets, especially the WEO - World Energy Outlook, are characterized by the introduction of new prospects and scenarios, as a result of unpredictable events such as Fukushima accident or of emerging factors, such as the increasing share of unconventional resources in the future energy mix (shale gas and shale oil) and the importance of energy efficiency, proposing an Efficient World Scenario. Disappointing signals about the development of renewables are also recorded. The paper focuses on the comparison among the major reports and statistical energy data, especially the 2010, 2011 and 2012 editions of the World Energy Outlook issued by IEA. Mid-term energy scenarios are presented and discussed, with particular emphasis on the increasing importance of energy efficiency, on the new prospects concerning nuclear power and on the role of unconventional fossil fuels.

Exploration and production issues in South Asia

The rapid depletion of the conventional oil resources combined with the regional unrests and skyrocketing crude oil prices have paved way for unconventional oil and gas resources to emerge as the latest game changer in the world energy scenario. Unconventional resources though discovered about a century back never gained momentum due to the complexities of the technologies involved and more primarily due to the readily available conventional sources. The south Asian countries are heavily dependent on their oil imports from the Middle East nations. Due to the increasing instability in the rise of oil prices coupled with regional instability, these nations should invest in production of alternate resources to meet their future energy requirements. In the present day scenario, unconventional resources should be considered as a bridging option between rapidly depleting conventional resources and the nascent upcoming renewable and thorium (nuclear) based energy sources.

PROSPECTS FOR THE SECOND WAVE OF THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL AND ECONOVIC CRISIS

Procedure of an economic and political situation current through the situation at the world oil marketforecasting is offered in the article. The compact mathematical model of cycling market fluctuations is the basis of thetechnique. The model allows splitting changes in market conditions caused by the economic and political reasons.This makes it possible to present the dynamics of the situation as the sum of two components, which are economicallyand politically induced. The model provides a forecast of the market economic components. These componentsforecast are made on the basis of world energy, economic and political situation scenarios. Retrospective analysisof relationship of economic conditions and political processes and how market conditions affect the economic andpolitical situation in the world in the past helps scenarios development. The results of techniques using for time andcharacters of next world crisis are presented in the article.

Hydropower in the Context of Sustainable Energy Supply: A Review of Technologies and Challenges

Hydropower is an important renewable energy resource worldwide. However, its development is accompanied with environmental and social drawbacks. Issues of degradation of the environment and climate change can negatively impact hydropower generation. A sustainable hydropower project is possible, but needs proper planning and careful system design to manage the challenges. Well-planned hydropower projects can contribute to supply sustainable energy. An up-to-date knowledge is necessary for energy planners, investors, and other stakeholders to make informed decisions concerning hydropower projects. This is basically a review paper. Apart from using expert knowledge, the authors have also consulted extensively from journals, conference papers, reports, and some documents to get secondary information on the subject. The paper has reviewed the world energy scenario and how hydropower fits in as the solution to the global sustainable energy challenge. Issues of hydropower resource availability, technology, environment and climate change have been also discussed. Hydropower is sensitive to the state of environment, and climate change. With global climate change, though globally the potential is stated to slightly increase, some countries will experience a decrease in potential with increased risks. Adaptation measures are required to sustainably generate hydropower. These are also discussed in the paper.

Gasification of various types of tertiary coals: A sustainability approach

The utilization of coal to produce a syngas via gasification processes is becoming a sustainability option because of the availability and the economic relevance of this fossil source in the present world energy scenario. Reserves of coal are abundant and more geographically spread over the world than crude oil and natural gas. This paper focuses on sustainability of the process of coal gasification; where the synthesis gas may subsequently be used for the production of electricity, fuels and chemicals. The coal gasifier unit is one of the least efficient step in the whole coal gasification process and sustainability analysis of the coal gasifier alone can substantially contribute to the efficiency improvement of this process. In order to evaluate sustainability of the coal gasification process energy efficiency, exergy based efficiency, exergy destruction factor, environmental destruction factor, sustainability index and improvement potential are proposed in this paper.

Have we run out of oil yet? Oil peaking analysis from an optimist's perspective

This study addresses several questions concerning the peaking of conventional oil production from an optimist's perspective. Is the oil peak imminent? What is the range of uncertainty? What are the key determining factors? Will a transition to unconventional oil undermine or strengthen OPEC's influence over world oil markets? These issues are explored using a model combining alternative world energy scenarios with an accounting of resource depletion and a market-based simulation of transition to unconventional oil resources. No political or environmental constraints are allowed to hinder oil production, geological constraints on the rates at which oil can be produced are not represented, and when USGS resource estimates are used, more than the mean estimate of ultimately recoverable resources is assumed to exist. The issue is framed not as a question of “running out” of conventional oil, but in terms of the timing and rate of transition from conventional to unconventional oil resources. Unconventional oil is chosen because production from Venezuela's heavy-oil fields and Canada's Athabascan oil sands is already underway on a significant scale and unconventional oil is most consistent with the existing infrastructure for producing, refining, distributing and consuming petroleum. However, natural gas or even coal might also prove to be economical sources of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. These results indicate a high probability that production of conventional oil from outside of the Middle East region will peak, or that the rate of increase of production will become highly constrained before 2025. If world consumption of hydrocarbon fuels is to continue growing, massive development of unconventional resources will be required. While there are grounds for pessimism and optimism, it is certainly not too soon for extensive, detailed analysis of transitions to alternative energy sources.