Читать книгу Synthesis Gas - James Speight G., James G. Speight - Страница 17

All fossil fuels are non-renewable, and as such they will get eventually depleted. Since they are based on finite resources and their distributions are heavily localized in certain areas of the world, they will become expensive. Further, energy generation from fossil fuels requires combustion, thus damaging the environment with pollutants and greenhouse gas emission (Speight and Lee, 2000). In order to sustain the future of the world with clean environment and non-depletive energy, renewable energy is a right choice. Renewable energy sources include solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, biomass, and hydrogen. Most renewable energy except geothermal energy comes directly or indirectly from sun. Benefits of renewable energy are numerous and they include: (i) environmental cleanness without pollutant emission, (ii) non-depletive nature, (iii) availability throughout the world, (iv) no cause for global warming, (v) waste reduction, (vi) stabilization of energy cost, and (vii) creation of jobs.

Alternate fuels produced from sources other than crude oil are making some headway into the fuel demand. For example, diesel from plant sources (biodiesel) is similar in performance to diesel from crude oil and has the added advantage of a higher cetane rating than crude oil-derived diesel. However, the production of liquid fuels from sources other than crude oil has a checkered history. The on-again-off-again efforts that are the result of the inability of the political decision-makers to formulate meaningful policies has caused the production of non-conventional fuels to move slowly, if at all (Yergin, 1991; Bower, 2009; Wihbey, 2009; Speight, 2011a, 2011b, Yergin, 2011; Speight, 2014a).

Non-fossil fuels are alternative sources of energy that do not rely on continued consumption of the limited supplies of crude oil, coal, and natural gas. Examples of the non-fossil fuel energy sources include: (i) biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, nuclear, and hydrogen sources (Nersesian, 2007; Speight, 2008, 2011c). Such resources are considered to be extremely important to the future of energy generation because they are renewable energy sources that could be exploited continuously and not suffer depletion. In addition, energy production using non-fossil-based sources is claimed to generate much less pollution than the fossil fuel energy sources. This is considered crucial by many governments who are looking for ways to reduce the amount of pollution produced by their countries. The advantages of fossil fuel resources are often considered to include the know-how and ease of production, many opponents of fossil fuel use cite the adverse effects on the environment (Speight, 2008, 2013a, 2013b, 2014a) and consider non-fossil fuels as a much better way to generate energy.

While there are now methods of burning gas and similar products very efficiently, as clean fossil fuels, a certain amount of pollution is still generated. Accordingly, various initiatives now exist, especially in Western countries, to encourage corporations and energy companies to invest in methods of producing energy from renewable (non-fossil fuel).