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sources like solar, hydro, wind, etc. But the fact is more
than 70% of energy is generated by non-renewable sources.
The main issue with the non-renewable sources is they are
exhaustible and will be depleted one day. But some major
issues are also related to conventional sources. For
hydroelectric power, they can be generated at limited
places, when the season is favorable and as they are located
far from the industrial or domestic areas, transmission
losses are non-negligible. The intensity of solar energy
produced is very low and hence they require a lot of space
to generate a significant amount of power, also, it cannot be
produced everywhere. The other popular source, which is
the wind energy, encounters similar complications. Wind
turbines also cause major environmental issues near the
wind farm.
Efficiencies of Engines
With all the issues related to current major sources,
researchers are constantly finding new sources. Well
research is not only going on to search new resources, but
also how to use current resources, as a notable part of
energy get wasted even before using it. To understand this
phenomenon, let us study the energy loss in two ways. If
one barrel of crude oil is drilled, a major part of it is refined
into gasoline and diesel, and the other part stays as a low
grade fuel. For this process, there is not much scope as the
low grade fuel cannot be converted into high quality fuel.
Now in the next process, the extracted gasoline or diesel is
converted into energy. In this conversion, the energy is not
totally obtained as some of the energy is lost during the
process. Now in the second process, the scope to save
energy is very high. For example, internal combustion
engine (ICE), the engine on which vehicles are driven loses
about 62 % of the total energy available. This means it uses
about 38-40% of energy from the available reserve. This
ability of engines is also called as their efficiency, and here
the efficiency of ICE is 38%.
Using the Available Resources More Effectively
Now, the prices of gasoline and diesel are increasing every
single day. So if we consider that an average car runs 25
miles per gallon, and considering that one gallons costs 2$,
then in easy words we can state that our car runs 25 miles
per 2$. Now, every one of us is expecting the price of
gasoline to get lowered, so that our car runs 30 miles per
2$. But, just consider what if we maximize the efficiency of
our engine. If we, out of miracles, successfully invent an
engine having 80 % efficiency, then with current gasoline
prices, our car will run 50 miles for every 2$.
Considering the power plants, coal based power plants has
an average efficiency of 35-38%. Natural gas fired power
plants has 32-38% and diesel engines has 35-42% of
efficiency. In the renewable type of generation, wind
turbines has 30-45% and hydro power plants has highest of
them all, 85-90 % efficiency.
After doing a lot of research you will understand that there
are reasonable factors that lower the efficiencies, but if a
part of focus-that is being put in finding new resources-is
dedicated in maximizing the efficiencies, then we may get
an appreciable period to find new resources or to develop
techniques to produce more energy from the renewable
sources.
|NOVEMBER 2016
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