Renewable Energies in 2007

A Critical Review of
Future Energy Supplies
by
Ernst Bucher
Prof. em. University of Konstanz
Academic Advisor and Consultant
Table of Contents:
1. Foreword 1
2. Introduction 3
3. Solar thermal energy 8
4. Solar electricity 11
5. Biomass 23
6. Other forms of primary renewable energies: 26
Wind, hydroelectric power, geothermal power
7. Energy conservation 29
8. Chile’s potential of renewable energies 31
9. The freshwater problem 34
10. Conclusions 37
11. Figures 38
12. References 97

1. Foreword
This paper represents a summary of several lectures presented at the
University of
Santiago de Chile in March 2007 and also on the level of two Chilean
Government
Commissions (CORFO, NCE). A detailed analysis of Chile’s energy situation
will
therefore be included in this study (chapter 8), resulting from recent energy
supply
cuts (oil, gas) by Argentina. It will be demonstrated that taking appropriate
action,
Chile could become quickly and completely independent from imports of
fossil
fuels, including an expected annual growth rate in energy production of 500
MW
per year, without an increase of energy costs. The implications of this
unusually
favourable situation for Chile will be pointed out. A special chapter (chapter
8) will
be dedicated to this point, which however is also relevant to several other
nations.
An abundant, cheap, clean and secure energy supply is a prerequisite for
decent human living conditions and a healthy economy. The soaring gas and
oil
price during the recent years is of considerable concern to society and
economy.
The prices have increased more than five fold since 1998; i.e. an average
annual
increase of 23 % over the past 8 years. There are three reasons to this:
• The oil companies did not discover new large oil fields during the last
decades and therefore did not invest in new oil fields and refineries.
• Some of the big oil suppliers are politically unstable countries.
• South East Asia (China, India, South Korea e.g.) with more than 1/3 of the
world population is in a state of enormous economic growth with an
increasing energy demand.
All these factors are responsible for the dramatic increase of energy costs,
but on
the other hand also for the unusual demand and growth of alternative energy
development and production. The wealthy industrialized nations are
becoming
increasingly aware of this situation and also of the climatic consequences of
their
excessive fossil fuel burning resulting in a faster than expected global
warming and
an increased catastrophic weather pattern.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports of the U.N.
released in Paris in March and April 2007 sent an alarming message to all
nations
about the negative side effects of accelerated CO2 production: droughts,
increase
in number and intensity of hurricanes, floods, increase of sea level and loss of
habitats for at least 200 million people.
These facts are also realized by less wealthy nations, often becoming the
most
affected victims of climatic disasters, though their energy consumption is 1-2
orders
of magnitude lower than that of industrialized nations. In fact the wealthy ¼
of the
world population is responsible for 88 % of the world energy consumption,
and
therefore for the consequences of it. A few nations are fully aware of this
situation
and have developed a constructive legislation to promote alternative
energies.
Germany and Japan are the world leaders in promoting the development of
alternative energies. Germany’s “Einspeisegesetz1” (EEG) put into effect in
1991
for wind energy and later expanded to other alternative energies like solar
thermal,
geothermal, photovoltaic, biomass etc. demonstrated its success and has
now
been adopted by over 40 nations worldwide.
1 engl: legislation about production and reimbursement of energy fed into the grid
1
The purpose of this paper is 4-fold:
• To present a general review of all renewable energies and to supply
information about yield (harvest factors) efficiencies and realistic costs.
• To explore the potential of all types of renewable energies worldwide as
well
as for two special cases: Germany and Chile.
• To point out the economic, social and environmental benefits of renewable
energies: how nations will become quickly self sufficient and independent of
energy imports (gas, oil, coal, uranium) thus avoiding conflicts about energy
resources, and all this without an increase of energy costs.
• To point out the ramification of the energy crisis to other serious problems
like freshwater supply, hunger, pollution, illiteracy, etc. Because freshwater
production needs energy, it will also be briefly mentioned at the end of this
paper (chapter 9).
This paper is intended to be readable and understandable for non experts of
science and engineering (e.g. lawyers, economists, experts in social science
and
politics). Therefore it will not cover complex scientific and technical details.
2

2. Introduction
The world energy consumption in 2005 was evaluated to
135˙000 billion kWh
with an increase of 2.7 % in 2005 (4.3 % in 2004) slightly higher than the
average
2.25 % during the preceding three decades. The spectrum of the world
energy
production 2004 is shown in Fig. 1. About 88.5 % of the energy is produced
from
non-renewable sources (oil, gas, coal, uranium) resulting in 39 billion tons of
waste
dumped annually into the biosphere. The oil equivalent of our annual energy
consumption is a cube of size of 2.382 km (1 ℓ oil = 10 kWh). Fig. 2 shows the
population growth, energy consumption and CO2 concentration in our
atmosphere
between 1800 (beginning of industrialization) and now. The population is
expected
to reach 6.7 billion people in 2007 with a growth rate of 1.2 % per year. The
increase of energy consumption and the corresponding increase of CO2
production
however is mainly the result of industrialization. In 2007 we have a CO2 level
of
390 ppm which means an increase of 39 % compared to a level of 280 ppm
in the
pre-industrial era. This is the highest level ever detected during the past
700˙000
years. It is interesting to compare the energy consumption and its CO2
production
per capita of several nations:
Nation Population
in 2005
(in millions)
Energy
consumption
(in 103 kWh/y)
CO2
production
(in tons per capita)
Percentage of
annual energy
consumption
USA 297 112 20 25
Germany 83 55 10 3.0
Chile 16.0 18 3.8 0.21
China (PR) 1310 10 3.7 10.0
India 1084 5.0 0.8 4.8
Africa (except
South Africa) 849 4.8 0.6 3.0
Bangladesh 145 1.6 0.21 0.17
Average 21 3.8
USA and Germany (as relevant of most industrialized European nations) are
often
referred to as a 12 or 6 kW society respectively, i.e. every person is
considered as
an engine running 7 days a week all year round and permanently consuming
a
power of 12 or 6 kW respectively. The Chilean population can thus be
considered
to be a 2 kW society, a goal which is often postulated by environmentally
concerned European scientists and politicians. The energy consumption per
capita
is evidently correlated with the wealth and lifestyle of a nation (see first
statement
in chapter 1 and the table above).
In Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, the spectrum of the energy consumption of Germany and
Chile is displayed. They both show the strong dominance of non-renewable
energies. However Chile does not have a nuclear part and Germany exhibits
a
noticeable fraction of renewable energy of 4.2 % with a strong annual
increase.
Germany has set an ambitious goal to increase this fraction to 25 % by 2020
to
reduce the nearly 100 % imports of gas and oil. In 2006 11.8 % were reached
surpassing the goal for 2006. In addition 130˙000 jobs were created. This it
to be
3
considered as a very wise decision in view of the fact that dependence on
energy
supplying countries can lead to political blackmail and even war as we have
all
witnessed in recent years.
It is expected that oil and gas wells will dry up in the foreseeable future.
Assuming that we have burned all our fossil fuels on our planet, we are faced
to
the question: What will be our energy sources?
We will have 2 global sources:
• Solar energy with all its variants such as solar thermal and solar electric
energy, wind energy, energy from biomass, hydroelectric energy etc.
• Nuclear energy from current 235U fission reactors2, fast breeders using 238U,
239Pu and 232Th and nuclear fusion
Some singular local sources like geothermal energy, tidal power or ocean
currents
cannot be considered as a global solution.
In the public it is often recommended that we should turn our attention to
hydrogen as a solution for the post fossil fuel era. This point will be discussed
later.
It is often argued that we have enough fossil energy for the next 2-3 decades
and
therefore we should let future generations decide. This argument however is
unacceptable for several reasons:
• The change from a fossil era to a new energy technology takes time. We
cannot change it over a time span of a few years. This change involves new
inventions, starting with laboratory experiments of universities and
industries. The time period between a basic invention and a commercial
product is at least 20-30 years as demonstrated by numerous examples in
Fig. 5. With energy shortages occurring even now, scientists and politicians
must do every effort to secure an abundant, cheap and clean energy supply
to avoid economic collapse and social unrest.
• Fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal are precious primary energies and should
not be wasted to generate low temperature heat for warm water and
heating. In most northern countries, warm water and heating contributes
about 20-30 % of the countries’ energy consumption. We should conserve
fossil fuels immediately for the petrochemical industry.
• The recent IPCC report predicts a gloomy picture of our planet’s future:
droughts, increased hurricane activity, floods, mudslides, changes of sea
currents, melting of ice caps, shortage of freshwater, famines etc. Most
experts predict that it is already too late to avoid all these problems. We are
heading towards a strong global warming whereas we should expect an
astronomical cooling off period. A significant reduction in the consumption of
fossil fuels can only alleviate but not prevent all the predicted disasters
which we are beginning to witness.
What is the best solution then for the post fossil fuel era? We can exclude
geothermal, tidal power etc. as a global solution though it is important in
certain
countries located at hot spots of our planet, mostly countries with volcanic
activity
2 Uranium ore mainly exhibits 3 isotopes with about 99.28 % 238U, 0.71 % 235U and 0.0005 %
234U. Current
fission reactors use 235U and require an enrichment of 235U up to a level of 4-5 %. Fast
breeders use 238U
which is converted to 239Pu by fast neutron bombardment and afterwards 239Pu is used for
fission.
4
(geothermal energy) or countries where large differences exist between low
and
high tide (up to 13 m) suitable for tidal electric power. Studies have shown
however
that the use of all possible tidal power worldwide could contribute at best 0.3
% of
the current world power consumption and thus tidal power must be ruled out
as a
global solution just as geothermal power.
At this point we must discuss honestly the possibility of nuclear energy and
compare its advantages and disadvantages with all forms of solar energy.
Presently (in 2007) we have worldwide 434 nuclear plants operating. These
are
fission reactors using the isotope 235U which makes up 0.71 % of the uranium
reserves. Proven uranium ore reserves, which are considered worth to be
mined,
will last about 40-70 years for the presently existing reactors. Additional
reactors
are currently planned in the USA, the Russian federation, China, India, Japan,
France and Finland. Taking about 180 estimated new reactors into account
the
uranium ore reserves are thought to last about 50 years comparable to fossil
fuel
like oil and gas. The shortage of 235U is also drastically reflected by the rapid
increase of the uranium (U3O8) price:
Price in USD per lb of U3O8
2001 7
early 2007 95
expected by end of 2007 125
expected in 2008 255
It is clear that the present nuclear 235U fission technology can never be
considered
as a sustainable solution. Even if the uranium reserves would not be the main
obstacle, we would need a number of about 30˙000 new nuclear power
plants of
1 Gigawatt size at 100 % duty cycle and an expected energy consumption of
270˙000 billion kWh per year (twice the quantity consumed in 2005) in about
30
years. Neither the money (> 1014 USD) nor the capacity to build 30˙000
nuclear
power plants are available. Even with the present 434 nuclear power plants,
the
problem of radioactive waste disposal remains unsolved in most countries
after half
a century! We would pollute our planet with enormous amounts of
radioactive
waste for millions of years, a decision most people consider unethical and
irresponsible towards future generations. We lack experience with long term
behaviour of such radioactive deposits.
The above arguments are countered by the nuclear lobby:
a) Search and mining of less concentrated uranium ores
b) Development of fast breeder technology
c) Development of new breeding cycles
The answers to these arguments are:
to a) The present energy payback time for a nuclear power plant is about 6-7
years. The invested energy to mine less concentrated uranium ores will
rapidly move this payback time towards the lifetime of nuclear power
plants and thus will make nuclear power absurd.
5
to b) Two attempts to build a fast breeder costing multi billion USD each (in
Japan and in France) have badly failed3. This technology is not matured
yet and highly vulnerable. Who would like to see tons of high risk materials
be transported on our highways and railroads (e.g. the lethal dose for
plutonium is about 6 μg) under the present wave of terrorism? And the
problem of radioactive waste disposal (plutonium’s decay half time is
about 23600 years) remains still unsolved.
to c) Alternatively to the (238U, 239Pu) breeding cycle requiring high energy
(‘fast’) neutrons, a new breeding cycle has recently been proposed for
neutrons of any energy:
Th + n→ Th⎯⎯→ Pa + e− ⎯⎯→233U + e−
92
233
91
233
90
232
90
It is argued that this cycle generates less radioactive wastes and of shorter
lifetimes. In addition, the thorium reserves are estimated to be 4 times
higher than for uranium which would guarantee nuclear fuel for at least
10˙000 to 20˙000 years. Thorium rich ores are found e.g. in India, Brazil
and Madagascar. Nevertheless, the risk of accidents and the pollution with
radioactive waste still exists considering the large number of nuclear
power plants that would be required.
Finally, the possibility for a successful fusion reactor is extremely small. The
experimental reactor to be built in Cadarache4 (France) costs about 20 billion
USD
and will not feed energy into the grid. The fusion reactors may perhaps be
considered commercial at best after 2048 but even then the construction of
such a
reactor requires several years. We need clean cheap energy now.
In addition, the apparently low cost of nuclear energy is incorrect, leaving
aside
the enormous risk factor (no insurance company will insure a nuclear power
plant),
the costs for waste disposal and the enormous budgets for nuclear energy of
most
industrialized countries are not taken into account. These factors lead to a
totally
distorted market as compared with solar energy (see Fig. 32).
In contrast to nuclear energy, solar energy is offering multiple solutions with
risk
free, proven technologies, no waste problems and even a more favourable
CO2
balance (except biomass which is more or less neutral) than nuclear energy.
It is
far less vulnerable to terrorism and prevents widespread blackouts due to
more
decentralized power production. The often reported higher costs for solar
energy
can easily be refuted, if all the hidden costs of fossil fuels (environmental,
health,
corrosion) and nuclear energy would be taken into account. The truth is that,
including all the hidden costs, the present price per kWh would have to be
tripled
[2] and indeed would even considerably exceed the costs for wind and solar
thermal heat and electricity.
3 280 MW fast breeder ‘Monju’ in Fukui, Japan built in 1994 was switched off in 1995 and
1200 MW fast
breeder ‘Superphenix’ in Creys-Malville, France built in 1986 was switched off in 1996 both
due to technical
problems with the liquid sodium cooling system.
4 ITER = International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is expected to generate 500 MW.
The project is
supported by the European Union, Japan, Russia, PR China, Southern Korea, India and USA.
6
The facts presented here are also reflected in polls taken worldwide: e.g. in
Argentina: Their weighted priorities given to various primary energy sources
are
listed below:
Renewable energy Nuclear energy Hydroelectricity Fossil fuels
100 9 6 3
Polls taken in other countries e.g. Germany are very similar. Scientists and
politicians should be aware of these results and respect them in their
planning,
accordingly.
Hydrogen
Finally, some comments are important regarding the often postulated
hydrogen
solution as substitute for fossil and nuclear energy. From the environmental
point
of view, this would be indeed a most desirable solution. Furthermore tests
have
been completed successfully to use hydrogen as a fuel for cars, airplanes,
cooking,
fuel-cells, heating, energy carrier etc. However the arguments for hydrogen
contain
serious flaws which must be pointed out:
• Hydrogen is an energy carrier. It is NOT a primary energy. Its production
requires energy from primary energy sources like fossil fuels, nuclear energy
or electricity in general.
• The cascade of producing gaseous hydrogen, compression, liquefaction,
transportation and use leads to a very low total efficiency. As primary energy
source, solar electricity is the most desirable one in order to curb CO2
production. Bossel [1] has presented convincing numbers:
Process step Efficiency
(in %)
Electrolysis (1 atm) 57 (High pressure electrolysis:
85-90 %)
Compression to 400 bars 91
Liquefaction (1 ton per hour) 68
Transport of liq. H2 (200 km) 98
Use (heating or fuel cells) 60
Total efficiency 21 (~50 % without liquefaction
and transport)
If solar electricity is used as primary energy, the efficiency of a 17 % solar
cell
would be reduced to 3.6-8 %. Solar hydrogen is the most expensive hydrogen
among all the possibilities of its production. Furthermore its transportation
through
pipelines can lead to hydrogen embrittlement of certain steel pipes. The lack
of
hydrogen infrastructure represents another obstacle: an investment barrier.
If the
use of fossil fuels will be curbed, we will shift more towards electricity rather
than
hydrogen as an energy carrier as wind energy, photovoltaic and solar thermal
energy power stations (and also part of biomass systems) produce electricity
compatible with existing infrastructure (electrical network). Further research
will not
solve these problems as the losses have fundamental physical reasons.
Therefore
we must conclude that hydrogen will not solve our impending energy crisis.
7

3. Solar thermal energy

Solar energy has many aspects shown below:
Harvest Tools Applications End use
warm water
heating
air conditioning
low temp heat heat
(50-100°C)
flat collectors
vac. tube collectors
hot air collectors
thermoelectric
generators
electricity
parabolic
concentrators
(~85 suns)
solar farms
high temp. heat electricity
mirrors (heliostats,
103-104 suns)
solar tower electricity
solar fuels (H2)
electricity solar cells grid remote el. power
electricity fed into
grid
DC and AC
electricity
In this chapter the salient features of harvesting low temperature heat will be
discussed whereas chapter 4 will deal with the subject of solar electricity.
In Fig. 6 some basic numbers about solar irradiation are listed. Its abundance,
compared to our energy need is most remarkable. The problem however is
the low
energy density as compared to other power plants (hydroelectric, fossil fuel,
nuclear). For practical purposes of applications, the average annual
irradiation in a
place is a key figure. Chile is in a privileged situation with respect to solar
irradiation with peak values up to 2300 kWh/m² per year in the Atacama
Desert
area with sunshine 83 % of the year, and the country’s average is 1540
kWh/m²
per year exceeding Germany’s average by 56 %. Even the changeable
weather
pattern in the south of Chile is close to Germany’s best area. As will be
pointed out
later, Chile’s potential for renewable energies is one of the best in the world:
solar,
wind, biomass (wood, organic waste), hydroelectric and geothermal
electricity
could amply supply Chile’s energy needs and thus make it totally self-
sufficient
including its increase of 500 MW per year (~1.6 %). Chile could even export
high
quality renewable energies and benefit by selling CO2 bonus values in the
multi
million USD range.
Solar thermal collectors were first mass-produced soon after the energy crisis
in
winter 1973/74, following a jump of the oil barrel price from 2 to 60 USD. It
became
obvious that at this price level, solar thermal energy would be cheaper than
burning
gas or oil to produce low temperature heat. Although the oil price dropped to
10
USD per barrel in 1998, it newly reached a value of 80 USD in August 2006.
The
installation of solar thermal collectors on buildings guarantees a stability of
heat
supply and also reduces the dependence on oil and gas, and thus also is
expected
to stabilize the oil and gas prices.
8
Fig. 7 shows the basic diagram of a solar thermal collector system to
generate
warm water for households, industrial applications and heating of buildings.
In
northern areas where the temperature can drop below the freezing point, we
have
two separate circuits:
a) A heating circuit of the collector system with an antifreeze agent. The
warm water is produced in a tank via a heat exchanger sitting on the
bottom of the tank.
b) A user circuit taking water from the top (because of the density
difference between hot and cold water >4°C)
The two basic elements of a solar thermal unit are the collector and the
water tank
which must be matched. In Central Europe we consider a storage volume of
70-120 ℓ per m² of collector area. The collector area must be chosen
accordingly to
the amount of heat used. We can design a collector according to its
purposes:
• Warm water for household or industrial application
• Warm water AND heating (or air conditioning during the hot season)
Some numbers for typical cases will be presented below.
As we see in the bottom diagram of Fig. 7, we have a heat surplus in the
summer
and a deficit in winter. Water is an excellent storage medium for low
temperature
heat. With collector areas and tank volumes large enough, we can generate
warm
water from the sun for the whole year. However, since heating of buildings
takes
about 80 % of our heating budget, it is recommendable to use part of the
collected
heat for heating during winter time (see below).
There exist two types of thermal collectors for buildings shown in Fig. 8
(bottom):
• Flat plate collectors with an efficiency of 45-50 %
• Vacuum tube collectors with efficiencies in excess of 75 %, which are more
expensive
The performance of these two collector types is compared in Fig. 9.
Efficiencies
depend strongly on season and irradiation spectra. The solar radiation has
two
components:
• Direct radiation (only present during sunshine)
• Diffuse radiation (always present)
In Fig. 10, the diffuse and direct part is given for three places: Berlin, Lisbon
and
the desert. For flat plate collectors the direct radiation is the only important
part. It
consists of a layer of a so called selective absorber, a material which absorbs
well
within the solar spectrum to achieve maximum collection efficiency.
Absorption of
solar radiation will heat up the absorber until it begins to emit in the infrared,
but its
emission is far below a black body emitter due to a very low emissivity.
Typical
materials are TINOX, whose characteristics are shown in Fig. 8 (top) or
cermets
like Cr-Cr2O3, Ni-NiS, AMA coating [thin layer sequences of (Al2O3/Mo)n or
(Al2O3/Pt)n].
9
In contrast, vacuum tube collectors are based on tubes coated with selective
absorbers, mounted in the focal line of parabolic troughs and operated under
high
vacuum in order to avoid convection losses. Due to this construction, they
can also
absorb a part of the diffuse radiation. This can be seen in Fig 9 (top) where
the
efficiency is considerably higher than flat plate collectors during the cold
season
with low sunshine and a ratio of direct to diffuse radiation smaller than one
as
shown in Fig. 10. It is important at this point to emphasize, that solar cells
also
convert all the diffuse spectral part with photon energies exceeding the
specific
band gap whereas for flat plate collectors it is practically useless. For more
details
see reference [3].
For homeowners or industrialists, the question arises about the amortisation
time of solar thermal collectors for warm water production5 and/or heating
This
amortisation time depends on the solar irradiation (insolation), oil price and
its
annual increase (17.5 % average increase over the past 10 years and 8-10 %
further increase are estimated for the coming decade) and also on the
investment
costs of a solar collector system including storage system and labour. Based
on
these data it is a simple matter to demonstrate that the amortisation time in
Central
Europe for a solar thermal collector system is about eleven years without
subsidies
and only slightly higher (~12 years) for a solar heating system. The
amortisation
times are considerably reduced in Southern Europe to about 5-8 years. To
become
fully self sustainable, a tank volume of about 50˙000 ℓ would be needed. The
energy payback time of a solar thermal heating system is about 1-2 years. Of
course by super insulation of walls and windows, the heating energy could be
drastically reduced to about one third, but that would also need an additional
investment.
Solar cooling or solar air conditioning
In countries with hot summers and cool/cold winters, a more appropriate
solution
would be a solar air conditioner rather than a solar heating system. Air
conditioners
need a lot of electrical power generating frequent blackouts due to
overloading of
the grid. Using solar thermal air conditioners is an ideal solution to cut back
electricity consumption. They do not need large storage tanks and work best
during
the most intensive sunshine. There is definitively a lack of good models of
solar
thermal air conditioners on the market. By granting subsidies, the buildup of
the
market for solar air conditioners could greatly be accelerated and CO2
emission
reduced.
5A household typically requires about 3000-4000 kWh per year based on a daily
consumption of
160 ℓ of 60°C water.
10

4. Solar Electricity
There exist three ways to generate electrical power from solar energy which
will be
discussed in the following subchapters:
Chapter 4.1: Solar thermal electric power stations
The heat is used to drive a steam turbine which generates electricity. There
are
three types of such systems called:
• Solar farms, operating at temperatures < 400°C
• Solar tower systems operating in the high temperature range of 1200-
2000°C
• Dish-Sterling systems with a heat engine in the focus of a parabolic mirror.
Chapter 4.2: Photovoltaic systems
Solar cells, converting radiation directly into electrical power
Chapter 4.3: Thermoelectric generators
Heat from black absorbers is directly converted into electrical power by
means of
the Seebeck-effect which is particularly large for semiconductors.
The advantages of solar power over all other forms of power are remarkable:
• The potential of solar energy is largest among all renewable energies (see
Fig. 11)
• 3 % of the world’s desert area is sufficient to satisfy the world’s energy
need
in 2007
• The solar energy resources are more evenly distributed than all other
renewable energy sources
• Solar energy can easily be integrated into conventional steam turbine
systems generating electricity and therefore into our electrical grid system.
This is also true for photovoltaic power using DC to AC inverters.
• Together with thermal storage and hybrid operation with biomass (gaseous,
liquid fuels, solids e.g. wood pellets) a continuous energy production is
possible
4.1 Solar thermal electric power stations
Solar heat was used more than 2000 years ago when in 212 B.C. Archimedes
set
the Roman fleet of Claudius Marcellus in Syracuse (Sicily) on fire by
concentrating
solar light with mirrors on the wooden ships. In 1746 Lavoisier built the first
parabolic concentrator and about one century later Augustin Mouchot built
the first
solar heat system using glass lenses at the world’s fair in Paris in 1861. Felix
Trombe became another French pioneer building solar furnaces in the
Pyrenees in
1951 and 1970 reflecting solar light by Heliostats into a parabolic mirror. The
solar
furnace built in 1970 reached temperatures exceeding 4000°C with
concentration
ratios of up to 20˙000.
11
Due to the finite distance and the diameter of the sun, the maximum
concentration
c2,max is given in a biaxial system as:
4 46'400
2,max 2 = =
D
c
α
(Biaxial system)
where αD is the divergence of the solar light defined by:
= 2⋅ = 0.532° = 31.92'
SE
S
D D
αR
with the solar radius RS = 696˙350 km and the distance between sun and
earth DSE
(average 150 million km). For monoaxial tracking the maximum
concentration lies
significantly lower
2 215
1,max 2,max = = =
D
cc
α
Technically, concentration c ≤ 10 can be achieved in a simple way, for higher
concentration (10 < c < 100) we need parabolic trough like mirrors or Fresnel
lenses. Concentrations above 100 can be achieved by biaxial tracking of
mirrors
(=heliostats) and reflection onto a solar tower, a parabolic mirror or into the
focal
point of a parabolic mirror. Fig. 12 presents a schematic view of these
possibilities.
Fig. 13 shows a picture of the 1970’s solar furnace of Odeillo along with some
characteristic data.
4.1.1 Solar thermal electric power stations: Solar farms
The first commercial production of solar thermal electric power stations
began in
1984 when the first of nine SEGS (Solar Electricity Generating System, LUZ
Engineering Corp.) plants went into operation in the Mojave Desert
(California,
USA). By 1990 the 9th plant featuring an output of 80 MW brought the totally
installed power to 354 MW. Operating details of SEGS 9 are given below and
Fig. 14 presents a partial view of a SEGS plant (around noon time). The 8 m
long
parabolic mirrors are provided with a silicon sensor as a sun tracking element
to
guarantee an optimum collection efficiency. Chlorinated high temperature oil
is
pumped through the blackened tube surrounded by a Pyrex glass tube under
high
vacuum to avoid convection losses. The typical feature of the 3rd generation
SEGS
plants (typically for SEGS 9) can be summarized as follows:
These types of power plants are called solar farms or DCS systems
(Distributed
Collector System)
Typical net capacity: 50-80 MW
Specific capacity per km² 50 MW per km²
Specific annual energy harvest (per kW) 3˙200 kWh per kW
Specific annual energy harvest (per km²) 1.6·108 kWh per km²
Efficiency (el. Output to solar energy input ratio) 14-15 %
Operating temperature 350-390°C (limit: 500°C)
Absorber type SS tube, oxide buffer, Mo,
Al2O3 antireflection coating,
Pyrex vacuum tube
Solar field aperture of used area 29 %
Costs per kW investment 2˙800-3˙300 USD per kW
Costs per kWh 0.105 USD per kWh
12
The efficiency of 14-15 % is slightly lower than the best photovoltaic panels.
It can
be broken off into three basic parts:
Efficiency of concentrator 64 %
Efficiency of receiver 72 %
Efficiency of steam turbine 35 %
Miscellaneous 89 %
Total efficiency 14.3 %
Efforts are being made to avoid the chlorinated oil and the heat exchanger
and to
use the DISS system (Direct Solar Steam System), developed at the ZSW in
Stuttgart/Ulm (Germany), which represents a challenging engineering
problem of a
two fluid convection system, leading possibly to higher efficiencies and lower
costs.
During the past 17 years, no new solar farms have been built due to long
term
problems emerging at the 9 SEGS plants. The recent shortage of oil and gas
supply however led to a new, 4th generation solar farm type now under
construction
in various places: Spain, Italy, North Africa, South Africa, Near & Middle East,
India, Mexico, USA, Australia etc. with a total of 2250 MW (already under
construction or in the planning phase). The first 4th generation type is under
construction west of Granada, on the Plateau of Guadix: Four units with a
total
electrical power output of ~200 MW and a 7.5 tons full load molten salt
storage
system, an annual net electrical production of 4 · 180·106 kWh per year and
an
investment cost of 4 · 250 million €. These systems are now commercially
available
in units of 50 MW. It is expected that with increased production the cost per
kWh
will drop from 0.12 € to 0.04 € in 2020. An annual electricity production of 36
billion
kWh is expected by the mid century, corresponding to an installed power of
11.3 GW. The current construction capacity is about 4 units per year (=200
MW per
year). However this would still be only 0.03 % of the present annual global
energy
consumption. On a national scale however it would be a considerably higher
percentage of clean cheap energy.
One of the basic fundamental problems of solar power stations is their
intermittent power production. In order to generate power 24 hours a day,
they
must be built as hybrid systems with a conventional source like gas, oil, wood
or
possibly biomass. The hybrid fuel consumption could be considerably
reduced by
adding a heat storage system (e.g. molten salt) with a high storage capacity.
This
in turn would need additional capacity to fill the storage system daily which
could
serve as bridging system until the conventional system has reached full
capacity.
The general layout diagram of a new 4th generation solar farm is shown in
Fig. 15.
13
4.1.2 Solar thermal electric power stations: Solar towers
A second type of solar thermal electric power station has been developed:
solar
towers. Fig. 16 shows a picture of a solar tower (also known as CRS, Central
Receiver System) system, built in Daggett (California, USA) capable of a 10
MW
electrical energy production. Similar tower systems have been built on the
Plataforma Solar de Almeria (PSA, South-Eastern Spain). Solar tower systems
have achieved efficiencies of 14-15 % (comparable to solar farms) and these
systems are also operated with heat storage systems (e.g. a hot rock tank) to
bridge interruptions of sunshine up to a few hours. Solar towers are still in a
state
of pilot plants and not yet commercially available. From our present
experience,
they are more difficult to operate, in particular the start and shut down
phases.
Some models used liquid metal (e.g. sodium), others use hot air from a black
wire
system. The potential for much higher efficiencies is much bigger for solar
tower
systems than for solar farms, but leads also to a higher complexity due to
material
problems. We will therefore not present more details of solar tower systems
as they
are still in a state of development.
4.1.3 Solar thermal electric power stations: Dish-Sterling systems
A 3rd version of solar thermal electric systems has been developed over the
last 25
years: Dish-Sterling systems. Fig. 17 presents a series of Dish-Sterling
systems in
the test field PSA. Their advantage is a higher efficiency, a better flexibility
for size,
stand-alone operation and smaller applications of the order 10-50 kW of
electrical
power production. They consist of a parabolic reflector with a heat engine in
its
focal point and, to make use of the full potential, sun tracking is necessary.
These
systems are still in a test and demo status. For periods without sunshine,
backup
operation by heat storage and fossil fuels is under investigation.
As the IPCC report is focussing its attention mainly on the CO2 emission,
Fig. 18 presents a view of various CO2 emission rates of power stations.
Several
countries like China, USA or Australia raise objections against CO2 reducing
technologies for economic reasons. Therefore Fig. 19 summarizes various
cost
factors of fossil fuels and some future technologies like “liquid coal”, shale
oil,
compared with solar thermal electric power generation. Fig. 19 might be
used as a
rough guideline for all those involved in the decision making process. Four
important remarks however must be added:
• The fossil fuel energy costs in Fig. 19 are current estimates. These numbers
could also be considerably higher in case of future energy shortages due to
wars or political unrest in oil producing nations
• The cost picture in Fig. 19 presents a distorted view about costs. The true
costs are those including all the environmental damage (e.g. acid rain, dying
of forests, pollution of lakes and rivers (loss of fish habitat) droughts,
destruction by storms, floods, mudslides and their death tolls, health costs,
corrosion etc.) from fossil fuels. The true costs of fossil fuel energy are
estimated to be three times higher [2] than the present cost thus making
solar energy more attractive and even competitive.
• The risk of energy shortage in the fossil fuel area is considerable. Supply
security should be taken into account, too, upgrading the value of an
independent, renewable energy supply. Shortage of fossil fuel supply could
result in considerable losses of industrial and agricultural production.
14
• It is well known that renewable energies are generators of new jobs.
Producing energy in the own country instead of importing it, will improve the
trade balance and generate new jobs, reducing the jobless rate and
therefore lower social costs, besides making life more meaningful and
human through income by a job.
All these arguments are strongly in favor of accelerating the support and
production of renewable energies and tipping the balance towards renewable
energies even now.
4.2 Photovoltaic systems: Solar cells
In contrast to solar thermal power stations, solar cells can convert solar
radiation
directly into electrical power at room temperature. To understand the details
of this
process requires basic knowledge of solid state, semiconductor and device
physics. It cannot be discussed here. For those interested, I refer to the
excellent
books of M.A. Green [4]. Instead, some general results will be given for non
experts in this field.
The first solar cell based on silicon was investigated in 1954 by Chapin, Fuller
and
Pearson at the Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill. It had a conversion efficiency
of
5.6 %. Many other semiconductors were subsequently investigated and their
performance optimized.
The structure of a solar cell is shown in Fig. 20. Into a p-type doped wafer
(typically boron is used as p-type dopant for silicon) a thin n-type doped layer
(typically doped with phosphorus and about 500 Ǻ thick) is created at the
surface
which is later on exposed to the sun. At the p/n transition the internal
electrical field
separates electron-hole pairs generated by absorbed photons. An
antireflection
coating is located on top of a solar cell to reduce the reflection and thus
improve
performance. A metal grid penetrating this antireflection coating contacts the
silicon
and reduces the internal resistance.
One of the most important semiconductor parameter is the so called band
gap
Eg. It is the energy required to excite a bound electron in an atom of the solid
and
to make it itinerant. For silicon this energy is 1.12 eV at room temperature.
For
gallium arsenide (GaAs) it is 1.43 eV. The optimum performance of a solar
cell
depends strongly on this value Eg. Fig. 21 shows this dependence also known
as
Shockley-Loferski-Queisser curve.
From Fig. 21 we can see that the optimum band gap Eg is around 1.5 eV. The
band gap of silicon is with 1.12 eV below this optimal value, however due to
its well
developed technology, its abundance and low cost, more than 98 % of all
solar
cells are made from silicon. A few other important properties can be derived
from
Fig. 21:
• The efficiency drops with increasing temperature. For silicon this effect is
considerable: 0.48 % (relative) per °C. E.g. the efficiency of a silicon solar
cell drops from 16 % at 20°C to about 12.9 % at 60°C, a temperature which
is easily reached under full illumination and hot outdoor temperatures (e.g.
in the desert)
• The temperature dependence decreases with increasing band gap Eg
• Concentration increases the efficiency of solar cells, provided the
temperature is kept constant which necessitates cooling of the solar cell.
15
• A photovoltaic panel could achieve a much higher efficiency if solar thermal
collection would be taken into account. E.g. 16 % electrical efficiency and
50 % thermal efficiency would result in an overall efficiency of 66 %.
Research and development of such hybrid collectors have recently been
started worldwide.
Next we will review the amount of electrical energy that can be harvested by
a
solar cell or a panel. This is summarized in Fig. 22. We compare Germany
with
Chile, a country with one of the largest solar irradiation in particular in the
desert
area in the north. These numbers will be important when comparing its
potential
with other renewable energies and their costs. It is a simple matter to
calculate that
at current solar panel costs, the amortisation time of a photovoltaic system is
of the
order 25 years without subsidies. Photovoltaic energy generation is still the
most
expensive one among the alternative energies. Therefore photovoltaic
energy
needs a legislation to make it pay off faster. Germany has developed a so
called
feed-in law (not only for photovoltaic energy but also for other renewable
energies),
which has been taken over by more than forty other nations to promote a
faster
development of renewable energies. It can easily be calculated from Fig. 22
and an
annual harvest of 360 kWh/m² that a desert area of 390˙000 km² (i.e. a
square with
side length of 624 km) would completely satisfy our planets annual need for
energy
(about 140˙000 billion kWh). This calculation is engendering the question
about
resources. Among all photovoltaic materials only silicon can satisfy the
demands of
such immense resources. In Fig. 23 a status report of all currently known
commercial solar cells is presented.
As can be seen from Fig. 23, 98.2 % of all solar cells produced in 2005 are
made from silicon: 93.5 % are based on crystalline (wafer) silicon technology
and
4.7 % use amorphous silicon technology (thin film cells). CdTe and
Cu(In1-xGax)Se2-ySy cannot compete with silicon simply for reasons of their
limited
resources. Silicon is the only high efficiency solar cell technology with
unlimited
resources that could supply a noticeable fraction of our energy need. There is
however a market for light weight thin film cells with a value of 200-300 W
per kg
compared to 10-20 W per kg for wafer based silicon cells6. Only 3 cell types
exist
with efficiencies higher than 20 %: silicon, GaAs and InP (indium phosphide).
So
far multicrystalline cells of GaAs and InP have not achieved good enough
efficiencies for mass production, because of their unfavourable grain
boundary
problems. Higher efficiencies can be achieved with tandem cells with
optimized
band gaps and geometry. Maximum efficiencies for tandem cells are shown
in
Fig. 24. For reasons of their technical complexity, only double tandem cells
have
been developed (except amorphous silicon). Concentration can also lead to
higher
efficiency. In both cases, cooling is necessary. Fig. 25 summarizes the results
with
tandem cells achieved so far. The highest efficiency of a dual cell is 34 % for
one
sun and 37 % for 500 suns. Concentrator cells need a special design of the
metal
grid. The first panels with Fresnel concentration lenses and small cells have
been
built by ISE, Freiburg as shown in Fig. 26.
6Most crystalline silicon solar cells are based on 200-300 μm thick silicon discs called wafers
as shown in
Fig. 20. These cells may generate about 100 W per kg, but due to their fragility, the cells
must be protected by
a glass cover and aluminum back resulting in a lower specific power generation of 10-20 W
per kg. In
contrast, thin film technology is based on a 10-20μm silicon layer deposited on a (possibly
bendable)
substrate. Layers of this thickness are less fragile and therefore thin film cell panels do not
need heavy weight
protection components. This technique allows a better specific power generation of about
200-300 W per kg.
16
It is a widespread error that many people believe producing solar cells
involves
more energy than ever harvested during its lifetime. Some energy payback
times of
solar cells are given below:
Material Energy payback time
in years
(η = 16 %, 1 kWh/Wp per year)
CO2 savings per kW and year
in tons
(η = 16 %, 1 kWh/Wp per year)
mono Si 5±1 0.5
multi Si 3.5±1 0.6
amorphous Si 1.5±0.5 0.63
Cu(In1-xGax)Se2-ySy 1.4±0.5 0.63
CdTe 1.0±0.3 0.64
Windmill (70 % duty
0.4±0.1 4.1
cycle of full power, 1 MW)
Suppliers give warrantees of 25-30 years for photovoltaic systems. Therefore
the
saving factor is given by the ratio lifetime to energy payback time which is at
least
6-9 for crystalline silicon and 20-30 for thin film cells. Here again, we notice
the
superior, favourable data for wind energy compared to photovoltaic energy
generation in addition to its much lower costs.
In relation to Fig. 22, we compare the harvest factors of other renewable
energies in Fig. 27. For solar towers, farms and photovoltaic systems they are
all
comparable. Strikingly large values can be found for wind generators,
hydroelectric
power plants and of course oil, gas and coal as primary energy sources. A
striking
fact are the low harvesting factors of biomass. It has to do with the low
efficiency of
the photosynthesis process. We have to come back to this point in chapter 5.
One of the basic problems with photovoltaic power is its high cost, the
highest
among all alternative energies. Solar cell production involves many high
technology steps. The costs can be broken up into several parts as shown in
Fig. 28. The basic problem is to invent cheaper process technologies and at
the
same time improve efficiencies. Mass production is expected to reduce costs
as is
well known from Moore’s empirical law. The costs have indeed decreased
during
the last 25 years since the production for terrestrial applications started (see
Fig. 29). The costs for thin film cells are about half, however their efficiencies
are
lower and therefore the net energy costs are only about 30 % lower (see Fig.
27).
It is predicted however that mass production of Cu(In1-xGax)Se2-ySy modules
will
lead to a sharp reduction of costs. in contrast to Fig. 29, the module prices of
silicon have increased due to an unexpected silicon shortage on the market
in turn
due to a decade long growth of the solar cell market between 35 % and up to
62 %
in 2003 leading to an expected totally installed photovoltaic power of about
9.5 GW
by the end of 2007. The world capacity of solar cell production in 2007 is
about
2.75 GWp. With nearly 50 % of its capacity, Germany is the leader in cell and
module production. Some details of raw silicon and cell production are given
in
Fig. 30. As we can notice from this table, many new silicon producing
companies
will emerge in 2008 and 2009 to satisfy the needs of the solar cell market. It
is
expected that this will lead again to a continuous reduction of the panel costs
and
cost per kWh as shown in Fig. 29.
17
It is interesting to compare the various investment costs for renewable
electric
energies:
Solar thermal systems
(towers and farms)
Photovoltaic
systems Biomass Wind
2800 USD 6500 USD 2200 USD 1400 USD per kW
2300 USD (offshore)
Although photovoltaic power is considered the most expensive one among
renewable energies, it is interesting to demonstrate that the price per kWh is
competitive over long periods of time. The reason for incorrectly calculated
high
energy costs is the unrealistic short pay-off period set by investors or
bankers,
mostly 5 years, whereas these power plants operate for many decades. As an
example we choose a recently (3/29/07) completed photovoltaic power plant
in
Serpa (south eastern Portugal). We will analyze its cost and performance and
compare the results with a wind park.
The symbols have the following meaning:
I0 Investment costs (e.g. a bank loan for a power station)
z Number of years for linear pay-off (I0/z per year over z years)
p interest rate (currently about 6 % by world bank)
A0 Annual maintenance and service costs averaged over z years
H Harvest in kWh/Wp per year
P0 Peak power in W
η percentage of full power operation annually
The average cost c per kWh is given by:
[
Pz
IpzzA
c
⋅⋅⋅
+++⋅
=
0
00
8.76
( 1)]
2
1
η
(in USD per kWh)
during the period of z years of pay-off time.
We now apply this formula to the recently (3/29/07) completed photovoltaic
power
plant in Serpa mentioned earlier:
I0 61 million € ≈ 80 million USD
z 20-40 years
p 6 % as currenly used by world bank
A0 1 % of I0 per year
(photovoltaic systems exhibit low maintenance cost)
H 3.0 kWh/Wp per year
(sunshine 3300 hours per year, monoaxial tracking)
P0 11 MW
η 25.3 % (6.09 hours per day)
18
The resulting costs are as follows for variable pay-off time and interest rate
Costs
(in USD per kWh)
Pay-off time
(in years)
Interest rate
(in %)
Lifetime of system
(in years)
0.22 20 6 20
0.12 20 0 20
0.18 30 6 30
0.16 40 6 40
0.14 20 6 30
0.12 20 6 40
It is interesting to compare the energy costs of the most expensive
renewable
energy above with the cheapest one under the same conditions: wind energy
provided that wind conditions are sufficient:
For a wind mill of 5 MW size we have the following values:
I0 2.4 million USD on land, 3.25 million USD offshore
z 10-20 years
p 6 % as currently used by world bank
A0 5 % of I0 per year
H 3.5 kWh/Wp per year
P0 5 MW
η 40 %
Costs
(in USD per kWh)
Pay-off time
(in years)
Interest rate
(in %)
Placement
0.018 20 6 land
0.024 20 6 offshore
0.025 10 6 land
0.033 10 6 offshore
From this example, we can draw several important conclusions:
• Wherever we have good wind conditions, wind power is the best economic
choice as long as it does not interfere with a quality of life of people and the
environment in general. The wind electricity costs are considerably lower
than any other energy source. Due to its short energy payback time it is the
best weapon against the increasing CO2 level.
• In general wind parks have higher maintenance costs than photovoltaic
power plants
• One of the drawbacks of wind energy is the intermittent unpredictable
energy production, whereas for photovoltaic power plants in desert areas it
is much more predictable. For energy production around the clock, we need
a combination of different renewable energies or hybrid systems: wind,
photovoltaic, stored energy, together with biomass (biogas, bio fuels and
solids like wood or wood pellets). Alternatively if biomass is not available, it
could be hydroelectric power or fossil fuels. Its consumption could be
considerably reduced up to 50 % or more-
19
• Though photovoltaic power is the most expensive one among the
renewable
energies, it is nevertheless competitive over long periods of time. The safety
and predictable energy production, the more decentralized power production
(reduced risk of terrorism) and the independence of fossil fuel shortage
make it attractive. In addition the present excessive use of fossil fuels
generates high additional costs [2] (health, environmental damage,
corrosion in particular) and they are expected to increase considerably.
• Economists and politicians must be convinced that short term solutions
(over periods of election terms) will no longer work and that breaking
investment barriers for renewable energies will pay off in long term.
The true energy costs have been evaluated for the whole spectrum of
primary
energy sources and are presented in Fig. 31 [12]. The value for photovoltaic
power
(MaxNet Costs) is however considerably overestimated.
In 2nd or 3rd world countries it is often considered too expensive to build solar
cell factories. However their beneficial factors must not be overlooked: They
generate new high quality jobs and secure electricity production. For remote
applications in dry hot countries, photovoltaic power is particularly suitable
as will
be shown later in this chapter. The costs of long power lines can be avoided.
In 3rd
world countries, in areas more distant than about 4 km, it is cheaper to install
photovoltaic systems than a connection to the grid (in Europe this distance is
an
order of magnitude shorter). In Fig. 32 the costs to build a 60 MW silicon solar
cell
factory are given. Compared to the enormous costs to plan and build a
nuclear
power plant, an investment of about 60-70 million USD with annual
production
costs of about 150-200 USD is comparably low compared to an equivalent
nuclear
power plant, with all the risks and its complexity involved. A note is also in
order to
all those groups considering to set up research groups of new materials for
photovoltaic systems. Referring to Fig. 5, a time span of 20-25 years has to
be
considered between the discovery of a new material and mass production. In
order
to contribute a significant portion to our energy consumption, it is suggested
that
only elements with sufficient abundance on this planet should be considered
for
further basic research: Na, Mg, Al, K, Ca, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Zn, Ga, B, C, N, O,
P,
S, Se. Fig. 33 shows the general five stages of solar panel production. The
only
mass produced cell types are crystalline silicon, amorphous silicon, CdTe and
Cu(InGa)(SeS)2, the latter three being all thin film cell types.
Applications of photovoltaic power
Applications of photovoltaic power in the range of 1 W-1 MW are numerous in
industrial countries and in remote areas for:
• Educational programs via remote TV courses
• Telecommunication (private + central, phone, FAX, computers)
• Water desalination and pumping stations
• Irrigation and reforestation for food and biomass production
• Water sanitation (by UV radiation and ozone)
• Lighting (private and public)
20
• Households (cooking, washmachines etc.)
• Refrigeration (food storage)
• Solar air conditioners
• Medical care
• Power supplies for agricultural tools
• Charging units for batteries
• Waste disposal
• Solar electric vehicles (bikes, cars, wheelchairs, boats, buses, trains,
planes)
• Solar cloths for powering low power applications (bikes, wheel chairs)
• Solar fuels produced by biomass combined with photovoltaic energy
(Methanol CH3OH, Ethanol C2H5OH, hydrogen H2, methane CH4, carbon
monoxide CO)
• Photovoltaic and solar thermal hybrid panels generating heat and
electricity
•…
Some examples for less known applications are given in Fig. 34-38:
Fig. 34: The first transparent cell producing electricity. Transmittance 5-
25 %suitable for public buildings like train stations, airports, winter gardens
or storage rooms manufactured by the company “sunways” (Konstanz,
Germany) only.
Fig. 35: 100 kWp photovoltaic panel serving as noise protection in the valley
of the
Rhine built in 1989 by “TCN consulting”. The system exhibits an energy
harvest of about 110˙000 kWh per year.
Fig. 36: Pictures from solar bike race 1999 across Australia. The bikes,
developed
by the Swiss engineer Prof. Andrea Vezzini at the Technical University of
Biel (Switzerland), achieved a maximum speed of 90 km/h and an average
speed of 66 km/h.
Fig. 37: Solar dress, possibility to power bikes by solar clothes. The switch
from
800 million cars to bikes would cut back fuel consumption, reduce pollution
and noise, ease traffic and avoid further highway construction. Application
of photovoltaic power to mass produced goods for daily use like bikes are
particularly effective and useful.
Fig. 38: (top) First photovoltaic powered train built in Italy. (bottom) Picture of
a
solar airplane designed by the engineers André Borschberg and Bertrand
Piccard powered by the sun only and expected to fly around the world in
2009.
The advantages of photovoltaic power are numerous:
• Virtually no maintenance (mainly DC to AC converters for grid connection)
• Long lifetime (more than 30 years), large harvest factors
• Zero energy costs (no “fuel” has to be bought)
21
• Quiet (no movable parts)
• No pollution, CO2 level reduction
• Independence of energy market and shortages
• Safe and secure
• Cheap for long term applications
• Off-grid applications
4.3 Thermoelectricity: Direct heat to electricity conversion
For reasons of completeness, the direct conversion of heat to electricity
should
also be mentioned. It can be achieved through the high thermopower of semi
conductors and certain metals (e.g. Heavy Fermion type metals). Applications
are
considered in the 1 μW to 1 kW range. Their conversion efficiencies are lower
than
for photovoltaic conversion within the temperature range of applications. We
will
not discuss this aspect further as it will not play a significant role to
contribute to
the world’s energy problem. For those interested I refer to the excellent book
of
I. Goldsmid [6].
4.4 Solar fuels
Together with bio fuels, solar fuels are also now and then considered as a
substitute for fossil fuels. By solar fuels we mean the direct conversion of
solar
energy to fuels, e.g. hydrogen, or the synthesis of methanol (CH3OH) or
ethanol
(C2H5OH) from CO2 and water via solar energy. This is not yet a commercially
available process but it would be desirable for its CO2 neutrality. In particular,
the
high concentration of CO2 from fossil fuel burning power stations (oil, gas,
coal,
biomass) could be recycled instead of being released into the atmosphere.
This
process is still in a state of laboratory experiments and considered too
expensive
as it needs high temperature (> 250°C) and high pressure (> 50 bars) to
enforce
one of the endothermic chemical reaction:
H CO CH OH
H CO CH OH H O
23
2232
2
3
+ ⎯⎯→
+ ⎯⎯→ +
Using carbon monoxide (CO) as raw material provides virtually water free
methanol
and therefore requires no further refinery in contrast to the reaction based on
carbon dioxide (CO2). Both reactions require hydrogen (H2) and thus a
production
facility with access to (solar) hydrogen would be favourable (see below).
Another solar thermal cycle system has recently been tested at the Paul-
Scherrer
Institute (Villigen, Switzerland) with a pilot production plant being built in
Israel. It is
a high temperature cycle requiring the structure of a solar tower plant with
temperatures of 1200°C. The thermochemical cycle involves only non-toxic
elements and can yield either metallic Zink for electricity production of a
Zn/Air
battery or solar hydrogen (H2) from a Zn/H2O reaction. However, as desirable
as
hydrogen might be as energy carrier for environmental reasons, it suffers
from
serious disadvantages as outlined at the end of chapter 2. In case where
solar
hydrogen can be used directly for chemical reactions, such applications may
some
day become reality. The details of this process are outlined in Fig. 39.
22

5. Biomass
Biomass as a base for energy production can mean many different things:
• Organic waste from farming, gardening and households, sewage, liquid
manure, animal waste from slaughterhouses etc.
• Crops as corn, sugar beets, sugar cane, wheat, rapeseed, miscanthus,
arundo donax, millet, cotton, soybean, castor, switch grass, grass
• Trees as kienaf, eucalyptus, oil palms, coconut, palms, birch tree, asp tree,
ash tree, poplar, willow, elm tree, fir tree etc.
The products of biomass can be biogas, wood or wood pellets, methanol,
ethanol,
bio diesel, heat and electricity. In dealing with biomass we have to answer
three
fundamental questions:
1. Energy harvest in kWh per area (km²) and year
2. Net energy gain
energy input
NEG = energy output
3. Cost per kWh of every form of bio energy (e.g. biogas, bio fuel)
The general use of biomass and its conversion to other conventional forms of
energy is given in Fig. 40. Organic waste containing predominantly a lot of
water
can only be converted effectively to biogas by a liquid fermentation process
as
described under “methods”. Burning of organic waste with a concentration of
water
higher than 85 % is endothermic and should be avoided. Biogas obtained
from
liquid fermentation is a dirty fuel and must be refined for use as a
commercial fuel.
It contains too many toxic impurities (see bottom of Fig. 40). The conversion
from
solid fuels (wood, residues from biogas and bio fuel production) to liquid fuels
is
still a challenging problem needing more research and development. Unlike
“coal
liquefaction” it is not yet a fully commercialized process.
The question of whether we could produce enough energy just from the
photosynthesis process on this planet is answered in principle in Fig. 41. The
calculation of this global calculation could also serve for individual countries
(see
also Fig. 46, biomass potential in Germany). It is possible to produce enough
biomass just from 13.5 % of our forest area. This is of course a theoretical
result as
not all our forest area is easily accessible to harvesting biomass. Some of it
could
also be grown in desert like areas. In this case however, we would need a lot
of
fresh water and that also costs energy. As shown on the bottom, the
efficiency of
biomass growth and energy harvest is low due to the low efficiency of the
photosynthesis process, which is about an order of magnitude lower than a
solar
cell or a wind mill. Among biomass we have many different forms. The
absolute
energy value of different biomass species is listed in Fig. 42, in order to
compare
them and convert them correctly.
23
Bio ethanol
A major advantage of biomass is its compatibility with the present energy
infrastructure. The composition of refined biogas is close to natural gas and
thus
can be used as a substitute. Bio fuels as ethanol or bio diesel can be used
and
stored in the same way as conventional gasoline and petroleum diesel. They
can
be mixed with conventional fuels and cars can be easily tuned to biogas or
bio
fuels. In Fig. 43 some characteristics for plants, shrubs and trees useful for
the
production of bio ethanol are summarized. Bio ethanol is produced from
starch or
sugar containing plants whereas bio diesel is produced from oil containing
plants,
shrubs and trees (see Fig. 44). There is a considerable controversy about
some
plants to produce bio ethanol.
• Some experts have figured out a negative energy balance for several
species. In particular for corn and in particular if grown in dry areas. To
produce 1 ℓ of bio ethanol (= 5.9 kWh) from corn, a minimum of 4.6 m³ of
water is needed [7]. This groundwater can be regarded as about 20-25 % of
its energy. To these irrigation costs further energy costs for growth
improving products (like fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides), harvesting,
fermentation and refining have to be added. In particular the use of
chemicals is expensive (energy wise). Using desalinated freshwater instead
of groundwater would need nearly three times more energy than gained
from 1 ℓ of bio ethanol. Therefore biomass can never be produced efficiently
in areas where desalinated water is needed.
• The production of bio fuel from plants that need a lot of water will
accelerate
the growing freshwater crisis further (see chapter 9) and make it even worse
than the energy crisis.
• The use of corn to produce ethanol has increased its price from 128 USD
per ton to 335 USD per ton (i.e. a factor of 2.7!). Thus car drivers are
subsidized on cost of the poorest people of the world for whom corn is a
basic daily food.
Similar conclusions about a negative balance for bio ethanol made from corn
have
been reached by Pimentel (see Fig. 44, bottom). The negative conclusions
have
been countered by five independent study groups. However their conclusions
of an
energy gain of 34 % is meagre and possibly doubtful. In practice this means
that
corn as a source of bio fuel generates more problems than it is expected to
solve.
Among the plants used for producing bio ethanol, sugar cane is the only
undisputed one. It has the highest energy harvest factor of 8.3 (ratio of
energy
output to input) close to the maximum of 10.2. The CO2 saving benefit is 85-
90 %.
The annual production is around 18 billion ℓ supplying a noticeable fraction of
about
50 % of Brazil’s need for fuelling its car fleet. Worldwide however bio fuel
production is only about 3.4 % of the world’s need for fuel for its 800 million
cars
running on our streets.
24
Biodiesel
In Fig. 44, the most common plants and trees used for the production of bio
diesel
are listed. For bio diesel, similar to bio ethanol, the cultivation of those
species
used for bio diesel is problematic:
• The destruction of tropical rainforests for the cultivation of oil palms,
coconut
palms or soybeans is even counterproductive for the CO2 balance,
destroying the habitat of the tropical fauna, flora and even primitive people.
It only helps non fossil fuel countries to secure fuel supply on cost of the
environment.
• Though the use of bio diesel appears to have a beneficial effect on the
lifetime of diesel engines, it was recently reported that exhaust products of
bio diesel generates a far higher health risk to people than petroleum diesel.
E.g. the cancer risk is up to a factor of 30 higher than for petroleum diesel.
• The excessive production of bio diesel will lead to higher prices for products
made from oil and will dramatically worsen the freshwater shortage. It will
also reduce the production of food, like cereals.
In Fig. 45, the chemistry of bio diesel and the exponential growth of the use
of bio
diesel in Germany mostly produced from rapeseed are described. The use of
bio
diesel in 2005 was 180˙000 tons (+71.4 % compared to 2004). The capacity
in
2006 for bio diesel production in Germany is 3.4 million tons. One of the basic
reasons was the passed legislation of tax exemption for bio fuels. From the
cultivated farming area in Germany of 110˙000 km² in 2006, 12.4 % were
used for
biomass production (in 1996 it was a negligible 0.3 %). In Fig. 46, Germany’s
biomass potential is evaluated to 21 % of its total energy consumption in
2005.
In conclusion, we should consider bio waste as an energy source and use it
effectively instead of dumping it. Absolute priority must be given to food
production
to keep its price at current levels. Biomass production should only be allowed
in
non used agricultural areas or semi arid areas. Tropical forest areas must be
protected against greedy bio fuel companies. The production of bio fuels
must be
carefully analyzed for their energy balance and possible environmental and
social
damage.
25

6. Wind and hydroelectric power

6.1 Wind power
Wind power is (besides hydroelectric power) the biggest contributor to
electricity
production among the renewable energies. Fig. 47 shows the exponential
growth,
starting from zero in the early 90’s to 130 GW expected in 2010. In Germany
where
the booming wind industry started to take off following the legislation in
favour of
the feed-in law (the so called EEG - “Energie Einspeise Gesetz”) in 1991,
electricity
production from wind energy has surpassed hydroelectric energy production
in
2006. For Germany we have for 2006 the following statistical data (from
DEW,
Deutsches Windenergie Institut).
Totally installed power 20.62 GW
Number of wind generators 18˙685
Annual energy production 30.5 billion kWh
(=5.7 % of electricity consumption)
(=0.74 % of total energy used)
Annual CO2 saving 26.1 million tons
Number of created jobs 73˙800
(of 130˙000 in renewable energies)
Guaranteed price per kWh 5.5 ct (on land)
6.19 ct (offshore) 2 % degression
Starting with wind energy, the EEG made Germany the world’s leader with
11.8 %
of renewable energy production in 2006.
As shown previously (chapter 4), wind power is the cheapest among
renewable
energies, with costs of 2-5 cts per kWh, short energy payback time and large
harvest factors of 2.5-4 kWh/Wp per year with a theoretical maximum of
8.76 kWh/Wp per year. Under certain excellent wind conditions, up to 6
kWh/Wp
per year can be expected (e.g. Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia) which would
even
reduce the above costs by nearly a factor of two, if used where the energy is
produced.
Though the intermittent energy production presents a problem, it can be
reduced if wind mills are distributed over a wide area. With current DC high
voltage
transmitting power lines in the million volt range, losses over distances to
1000-
2000 km can be substantially reduced and make even remote wind parks
economic. The most ideal solution of wind parks is a hybrid power station in
combination with biomass (biogas, bio fuels or solid biomass) or fossil fuels in
the
worst case.
Wind mills are currently on the market between 1 kW to about 6 MW, just to
power electrical applications in homes or mobile homes up to larger cities. As
a
guideline a 1 MW wind mill can supply electrical power to 600 households
(4 persons each) or 100 % power to 150 households (Western Europe’s “6 kW
society”).
The specific energy harvest per km² and year of wind mills and wind parks is
given in Fig. 27. The reason for lower values of wind parks compared to wind
mills
is the rule of thumb to keep a distance between wind mills about five times
the
diameter of the rotor blades. For a 5 MW wind mill, the rotor blades have a
diameter of 126 m. Shorter distances could reduce the power output of
individual
26
wind mills of a wind park, under average wind conditions. In areas of
excellent wind
conditions, encountered e.g. on the south tip of South America or Scotland,
these
numbers could be up to 60 MW/km² or more and an annual energy harvest of
up to
500 million kWh/km², i.e. an order of magnitude larger than photovoltaic
power
stations. In areas with excellent wind conditions, power is also produced at
night,
which is impossible for photovoltaic systems. Wherever possible, wind energy
is
the first choice. Fig. 48 shows the characteristic output versus wind speed. In
general full power is achieved at wind speeds of 40-50 km/h levelling off at
higher
speed. At low speeds (v), the power output varies as v³. The currently used
wind
power is only a small fraction of 0.5 % of the immediately feasible possibility
of 53
million GWh per year corresponding to nearly 40 % of the world’s energy
consumption and a theoretical maximum of about 120 % of it (see Fig. 49).
Together with all other renewable energies, 240 % of the current energy
need
could be generated.
Over the past three decades three generations of wind mills have been
developed as shown in Fig. 50. The conventional wind mills using gears have
reached a maximum power of 5-6 MW (3rd generation) with increasing costs.
A
new gearless type has been developed (4th generation) with higher efficiency,
lower cost, lower maintenance and longer lifetime. Two generators are
mounted on
the top of the wind towers, which is built by extrusion technique of concrete
or
concrete & epoxy. This technology offers a lot of savings as no high rise
cranes will
be needed. Fig. 51 and Fig. 52 display specific performance data for
“starwind”
type wind mills, confirming the low costs of wind electric power.
6.2 Updraft wind power
In desert areas, a new and different type of thermal wind generators for
electricity
production has been invented and is under construction in Manzanares
(South
Spain): Updraft wind towers. A large area around a tall tower, about 1000 m
high is
covered with slightly tilted concentric collectors. Underneath the collectors,
the air
is heated and streaming up the wind tower. The area under the collector can
still
be used for agricultural purposes. Some characteristics are given in Fig. 53,
along
with the picture. The expected costs of its generated electrical power are
estimated
between 13-15 cts/kWh, considerably higher than conventional electrical
wind
power. The first prototype has been designed by W. Schleich and partners in
Stuttgart (Germany). Another disadvantage is shared with photovoltaic power
stations, that it does not generate power at night, in contrast to conventional
wind
mills.
6.3 New hydroelectric power sources
• Besides conventional hydroelectric plants, which we will not discuss here,
new ideas of hydroelectric power generation are discussed. The worlds first
tidal electrical power plant was built on the northeast coast of France at the
mouth of the Rance river. In contrast to conventional hydroelectric power
stations, a tidal power plant generates power only during the flow of low and
high tides, i.e. 50 % of the time. This is reflected in a much lower annual
energy harvest of about 2.5 kWh/Wp comparable to the harvest of a good
photovoltaic power station. The prerequisite of large differences between
low and high tide is met in many other places. The total contribution is
evaluated to 170 GW and an annual energy harvest of 360 billion kWh, i.e. a
contribution of 0.27 % to the present world’s energy consumption.
27
• In certain areas of the sea we have strong ocean currents (e.g. San
Francisco Bay area, Strait of Gibraltar). They could serve to generate a
considerable amount of electricity by submarine turbines (see Fig. 55). Their
power generating capacity could be increased by combining them with wind
generators mounted on the pedestals.
• Recently, it was argued [9] that hydroelectric power could be expanded by
exploiting also smaller rivers without the construction of dams. Turbines
could be suspended from bridges or from rafts tied to the banks of the rivers.
Power stations between 10 kW to 1 MW size could double the presently
generated hydroelectric power worldwide.
• Vast thermal energy resources are stored in the ocean. Pilot plants of 50
kW
size have been built in the warm South Pacific Ocean exploiting the
temperature difference of 25°C on the surface and 4°C in deep water. This
temperature difference leads to a maximum Carnot efficiency of 7.0 %, too
low for large scale energy production. Furthermore the energy must be
transported from the open sea to the land.
6.4 Geothermal energy
Geothermal energy has two components:
• Surface heat stored from the sun
• Deep geothermal energy flowing from the hot centre of the earth to its
surface with a steady heat current of 0.063 W/m², leading to an increase of
temperature of about 3°C every 100 m. In hot spot (volcanic) areas this can
be much larger. Geothermal heat is used in general by electrically driven
heat pumps from a depth between 2 and 100 m to heat buildings. In
volcanic areas geothermal heat generates high pressure steam driving
turbines to produce electricity. Iceland e.g. is covering 75 % of its energy
need by geothermal electric power. Recently some projects have been
started to produce energy from deep drilling (5000 m) and injecting water
into several hundred °C hot, deep rocky area. Unexpectedly this process
provoked several earthquakes of magnitude 4-4.5 on the Richter-scale.
These events led to a discontinuation of this project in Basel (Switzerland).
Hot spots are often located in areas of geological instabilities. Therefore it is
advisable to pursue such projects in lesser populated areas than Basel.
28

7. Energy conservation
The possibility to alleviate our energy crisis by energy conservation is
frequently
neglected. Its advantages are:
• It is the cheapest “energy source”
• It saves money
• It conserves non renewable energy sources like oil and reduces its market
value and price
• It enhances the percentage of renewable energies
• It improves the environment
• It improves the quality of life
Energy can be conserved in many ways:
• Recycling: Paper, bottles, cans,
(Fig. 56) clothes, used goods
• Households: Use high efficiency appliances
(Fig. 57) Lower thermostats in winter and raise it in summer
Use organic wastes as energy source
Proper food selection
Reduce “throw away” mentality (example: 1 computer is
equivalent to 80˙000 kWh (same as a car) and replacing it
every year is a big waste of energy!)
• Traffic: Use public transportation (if possible)
(Fig. 57 + 58)Car pooling
Avoid short distance flights
Use bikes for short distances
Use energy conserving cars
• Industry: Use solar collectors on large buildings for heating or air
conditioning
Car pools for employees
Develop energy saving industrial processes and equipment
In Fig. 56, the benefits of recycling are listed quantitatively. The “spectral”
energy
consumption in a household is analyzed in detail to suggest possibilities of
energy
conservation. Households are responsible for 28 % of Germany’s energy
budget.
The reduction of energy consumption by a factor of 2, which is possible
without
reducing quality of life, would reduce Germany’s energy consumption by 574
billion
kWh annually, i.e. by more than the presently generated renewable energy
(about
500 billion kWh annually). Saving 50 % of household energy would increase
the
relative percentage of renewable energies from 11.8 % to 13.7 %.
Fig. 57 lists the possibilities of energy (and money!) savings in households. In
particular heating presents a big potential which amounts to about 30 % our
energy
budget. A remark about our eating habits is also in order. Red meat takes ten
times
the energy to produce the same number calories. Importing red meat via
airplane
29
increases this ratio another 1-2 orders of magnitude. We list below a few
products
to give consumers an idea:
Product Energy ratio (imported
versus domestic products)
Producing country and
transportation
Meat, Apples 400-600
South Africa, Argentina,
New Zealand, Chile:
(air cargo)
Tomatoes 11 Spain (via truck)
Strawberries 25 Israel (air cargo)
More than 1/3 of the western population is suffering seriously from obesity
(=overeating, mostly energy intensive food), generating additional health
costs and
e.g. leads to buy a fitness bike (which in turn also costs a lot of money and
energy)
to reduce weight. .Consuming local seasonal food, stop overeating and
avoiding
imported products from far away countries would improve health, save
money and
help our local farmers for a better income. These few facts should be added
to
Fig. 57 to demonstrate the irrationalities of our energy wasting, globalization-
crazy
society and how each individual shares responsibility to the serious global
warming, pollution and all its adverse effects.
Traffic is another very sensitive area, where a lot of energy could be saved. It
accounts for about another 1/3 of our total energy budget. 18.5 % account for
our
car fleet (Germany). 73 % of the 760 billion annually driven kilometres are
driven
by the driver alone. 25 % of these 760 billion kilometres are rides shorter
than 1 km
for which a brisk walk or bike ride would not only be more economic but also
more
beneficial to health. Fig. 58 presents a diagram of the costs of our mobility-
crazy
society. It shows how energy efficient a bike is and how energy wasting short
distance flights (of 200-1000 km) and cars are. The discussion about the
contribution of these energy inefficient means of transportation and its
contribution
to our environmental problems is widely a taboo, but must be brought to the
attention of responsible politicians by scientists.
Fortunately, some new hope is visible on the horizon, arising from progress in
new electricity storage by light weight batteries suitable for electric cars (see
Fig. 59). For a range of 50-100 km the change from combustion engines to
electrical vehicles (cars, motos and solar bikes) would cut fuel consumption,
pollution and noise considerably and improve our quality of life. The basic
model
for future suburban traffic would be to park electric vehicles of workers at the
working place and to recharge them during the working hours by solar
electricity or
wind energy. The development of light weight batteries (super caps) with
weight
about 3-4 kg/kWh (compared to 30 kg/kWh for a lead acid battery) would
have a
tremendous synergetic effect on the use of solar electricity (mainly
photovoltaic
energy). Therefore research and development should be strongly encouraged
also
in the area of electrical energy storage.
30

8. The potential of renewable energies in Chile

Chile is one of the more favourable countries for the development of
renewable
energies. The only major part is currently hydroelectric power which amounts
to
about 14 % for the total energy consumption and 52 % for the electricity
production
(see Fig. 4). In Fig. 60, some realistic but conservative estimates are
presented for
the development of all possible renewable energy sources. It can easily be
concluded that Chile has a most realistic possibility to be energy self-
sufficient and
cover all its energy needs by a combination of all its existing renewable
sources,
without increasing the energy costs.
8.1 Solar electricity
Solar electricity in the northern desert area, where large amounts of
electricity are
used by the mining industry, losses and cost of transportation would be
minimal.
The main problem is to generate power continuously. This can be achieved
by
hybrid systems together with huge thermal energy storage tanks (molten
salt)
bridging power production for up to 6-7 hours and biomass from southern
areas or
wind energy from the near coastal area.
8.2 Wind energy
The southern tip of Chile (Tierra del Fuego) exhibits one of the most
favourable
wind conditions of the world with harvest values 2-3 times higher than
elsewhere. It
has a low population density (0.8-1.2 capita per km²) and there would be
rarely
opposition to build large wind parks. There are many unpopulated islands,
which
would be more economic than offshore parks (costing about twice as much
as on
land wind parks). The wind parks could be distributed over large areas
reducing
the fluctuations of power generation. The southern part is particularly suited
for
renewable energies as the problem of intermittent and fluctuating energy
production of solar- and wind power could be smoothed out by abundant
biomass
(e.g. fast growing pines and fir trees). Furthermore the southern areas have
many
unpopulated valleys that could produce additional hydroelectric power and
even
geothermal power in hot spot areas. The excess power from the south would
have
to be transported to the north via high voltage DC power lines over distances
as
long as 2000 km in order to alleviate the power problem in the metropolitan
Santiago area or some of the larger cities in the area. Assuming an oil price
of
70 USD per barrel (=159 ℓ =1590 kWh) means a price of electricity from oil of
at
least 10 cts/kWh whereas a 4th generation wind mill would produce electricity
for 2
cts/kWh, i.e. 5 times cheaper and avoiding dependence on the fluctuating
fossil
fuel market, which is expected to go up beyond 100 USD per barrel over the
next
year, besides the independence and security of energy supply.
8.3 Biomass
Organic waste from farms, households and wineries could produce about 8 %
of
the country’s energy need. Organic waste should be considered as valuable
energy source for biogas or bio fuels instead of being dumped into pits where
toxic
and climate detrimental methane is released into the atmosphere by open
fermentation. The southern part benefits from the existence of fast growing
pines
31
and firs and some other trees that could be considered as a valuable source
for
biomass: wood pellets or bio fuels made from wood which could serve as
hybrid
systems for solar and wind power plants. Wood could contribute as much as
20 %
of Chile’s energy need. From Chile’s 136˙000 km² forest area (18 % of total
area)
only about 30 % of the photosynthetic biomass production is currently used,
mostly
in the south.
8.4 Geothermal energy
Chile has also a considerable geothermal power potential and due to active
volcanoes and hot spot areas near the surface, 8-10 % of the energy need
could
be covered by relatively easy to build surface power stations down to a few
hundred meters. There exist many experienced companies e.g. in Iceland or
the
USA. However, in an area where earthquakes are to be expected, there is no
experience how to build earthquake-proof large power stations exceeding the
50-
100 MW size.
8.5 Hydroelectric power
The potential for hydroelectric power is not fully exploited. There exist many
valleys
in the south, where dams could be built, or smaller hydroelectric plants as
mentioned previously in smaller rivers could be exploited without damage to
the
countryside. The fraction of 52 % of electricity production could easily be
increased
to 70-80 %, oil and gas imports be curbed and energy supply secured.
However
the planning and construction of hydroelectric power plants takes many
years,
whereas several 100 MW solar energy power plants could be built over a
period of
a year allowing for a fast improvement of the energy situation.
8.6 Recycling
Recycling can save energy as outlined in chapter 7. Recycling in Chile could
be
considerably intensified and lead to substantial energy savings. In particular,
energy contributes to about 50 % of the costs of aluminum cans. In Germany
recycling adds 4 % of the energy savings. In Chile with only 1/3 of the energy
consumption per capita, the savings from recycling would be much higher,
probably around 10 %.
8.7 Conclusions
• Chile has a very large unexploited potential of a variety of renewable
energies: solar thermal, solar electricity, wind, biomass, geothermal,
hydroelectricity and energy saving from recycling.
• Chile could not only be self-sufficient, but could even export clean
renewable energy. The evaluation given in Fig. 60 is to be considered very
conservative and amounts to 150 % of the present annual energy
consumption. In Fig. 60, only large power plants bigger than 1 MW were
considered. Taking power generation by individual homes, public buildings
and industrial companies into account, at least another 10 % would be
possible. Self-sufficiency is peace politics and helps to avoid conflicts.
32
• The use of renewable energies (sun power, wind and biomass) could
alleviate Chile’s energy shortage on a very short term basis, within 1-
2 years, whereas hydroelectric or geothermal power would take 5-10 years.
• Chile does not need nuclear power. It would not help solving Chile’s energy
problem before 2020, far too late. It would generate serious risks and a
radioactive waste problem, in addition to a foreseeable uranium shortage
• By installing large scale CO2 neutral, renewable energy plants, Chile could
generate millions of income by selling CO2 certificates. It could reinvest this
money in generating a sustainable regenerative energy industry, which
could create between 10˙000 to 100˙000 jobs (about 5-8 jobs per MW of
renewable energy like wind, biomass and solar power).
• The security and stability of energy supply by using renewable energies
could be considerably increased and the disadvantage from high oil and gas
price strongly reduced. Brazil with its 50 % bio ethanol production is a
convincing example.
• Cutting back fossil fuel imports would strongly improve the foreign trade
balance, the environment and quality of life.
• Though the gradual change to renewable energies and self-sufficiency is
coupled to large investment costs, they will pay off soon. The costs must
also be seen on the scale of the overall state budget. Creating new jobs will
reduce the expenses for social aid and generate new tax income, besides
making life more human by reducing the unemployment percentage.
There is no doubt that the future for a healthy economy lies
predominantly in large investments in renewable energies.
33

9. The freshwater problem

The freshwater problem is best characterized by the following facts:
• 1.7 billion people (about 25 % of world population) suffer from inadequate
drinking water supply
• 2.7 billion people (about 40 % of world population) do not have sanitary
equipment
• 8 million people die every year from contaminated water, 35 million die
every year from hunger
• The situation is getting worse year after year
• By 2025, 3.5 billion people (about 50 % of the world population) will not
have adequate water supply
• All these people live in the tropical or subtropical area
A solution is available: Solar or wind power seawater desalination
The worsening situation has a number of reasons:
• Depleted ground water reserves
• Dumping of toxic wastes, mostly by industrial nations and contaminating
groundwater resources
• Climate change with global warming, less rainfall and drought periods
• Overuse of water resources by industrial companies
• Irrigation for agricultural purposes
• Population growth
• Biomass production will sharply increase freshwater consumption. 1 ℓ of bio
fuel needs approximately 1000-5000 times more water
The following table lists some (extreme) examples for freshwater
consumption per
capita and day:
Dubai (UAE): 1000 ℓ per day (overall Dubai: 700˙000 m³ per day)
Switzerland 480 ℓ per day (total)
270 ℓ per day (households only)
Africa 3-5 ℓ per day (desert areas)
In Dubai and the Gulf States in general, freshwater is produced by
desalination
using cheap oil. This is impossible in poor nations. The only way is using their
natural energy source: solar or wind power.
34
In 2006 the world’s daily freshwater production was 35 million m³ per day
which is
0.21 % of the total freshwater consumption. The biggest freshwater
production
plant in Ashkalon (Israel) started its operation in 2005 producing 275˙000 m³
per
day. The production of freshwater costs enormous amounts of energy
compared to
regular freshwater like rivers or lakes:
Regular freshwater 0.25 kWh/m³
Desalinated seawater 3.5-4.5 kWh/m³
The world’s freshwater use in 2006 was about 6000 km³ = 895˙000 ℓ per
capita.
However the consumption for households accounts for only 14 % of it, i.e. an
average of about 340 ℓ per day for each household (cooking, drinking,
washing,
showers, irrigation of lawn and garden, etc.). The two extreme values in 2006
are:
USA 1861 m³ per capita (highest)
Africa 245 m³ per capita (lowest)
The expected increasing demand for freshwater can only be met by seawater
desalination on the basis of renewable energies, i.e. solar thermal, solar
electric or
by wind power.
Currently two methods of desalination are used, as outlined below:
Thermal methods: Distillation
Multistage flash evaporation (MSF)
Membrane methods: Multistage ultra filtration (MSU)
Reverse Osmosis (RO)
Electrical Dialysis (ED)
The costs of seawater desalination are two fold: energy cost and money
Method Temperature
(in °C)
Energy costs
(in kWh/m³)
Costs
(in USD/m³)
Solar distillation 65 700 1.2
Multistage flash
evaporation 70-115 75±5 1.0
Wind power 65 50±5 0.8
Reverse Osmosis ambient 4±0.5 0.4±0.1
Electrical Dialysis ambient 3.5±0.5 0.6
Minimum needed for
salt elimination ambient 0.7
Most recent developments [10] have demonstrated the overall advantages of
the
Reverse Osmosis method, first developed by Loeb and Selover at UCLA in the
1960’s and 70’s. Seawater with a salt concentration of 3.5 % exhibits an
osmotic
pressure of 25 bars against freshwater separated by a semi permeable
membrane
(permeable to water molecules but impermeable to salt ions). Applying
higher
pressure to the salt water side (~50 bars) is pressing freshwater from the
salty side
to the freshwater side (see Fig. 61, in agreement with Le Châtelier’s
principle). The
process of Reverse Osmosis is possible at ambient temperature and avoids
high
thermal energy costs. Only mechanical pressure is needed. The most delicate
part
35
is the membrane with a lifetime of 5 years at best. To be used as freshwater,
the
salt concentration is not supposed to exceed 500 ppm. For short term use,
1000 ppm are acceptable. But in the long term the soil may turn salty and
will
reduce the agricultural yield. On the other hand too well purified water is
physiologically toxic, too. In this case, the proper amount of minerals must be
added to be used for drinking purposes. Fig. 61 and 62 present schemes of
the
Reverse Osmosis and a solar desalination process using solar thermal and
photovoltaic power.
How much would it cost money- and energy wise to supply all people with
sufficient freshwater? We assume a daily need of 50 ℓ per capita which
corresponds to the current average amount of freshwater per capita. The
need for
the current 1.5 billion people suffering from freshwater shortage would be:
Need in 2007 Water Energy costs Investment costs
Wind (~25 GW):
37 billion USD
75 billion ℓ
per day
50 ℓ daily per capita
and overall
1.5 billion people
27.4 km³ per year
=0.46 % of annual
water consumption,
twice the freshwater
production in 2006
96 billion kWh
per year Photovoltaic (~50 GW):
200 billion USD
A reasonable evaluation is probably an average of 50 % wind and 50 %
photovoltaic power which would be approximately 120 billion USD. This
would be
only 0.38 % of the world’s annual budget for warfare industry (spending
about a
million USD per second). The situation is expected to escalate by 2020 to
2025,
when 3.5 billion people are expected to suffer from freshwater shortage. The
danger of erupting wars to secure water resources are as big as over fossil
fuel
reserves. One of the advantages of water desalination is the simple storage
problem. The transportation of desalinated water has not been considered
here.
Transportation via pipelines over about 500 km will exceed the costs for a
new
desalination station.
36

10. Conclusions
The insight we have gained from chapters 1-9 calls for a number of important
conclusions:
1. There is no energy shortage. Primary renewable energies are abundant to
satisfy our needs, even at current growth rates.
2. Economic stability and growth of states without fossil fuel reserves can
only
be guaranteed by investment in renewable energies. This will also
guarantee self-sufficiency and avoid conflicts with energy supplying nations.
It is therefore also a peace-promoting political decision. It is cheaper to
invest in renewable energies than fighting wars over resources.
3. The spectrum of alternative energy production varies from country to
country
and area to area. It is expected to be a balanced mix of various sources. To
optimize this mix is often a delicate problem.
4. The future of the energy supplying structure will be more decentralized. It
will be less vulnerable to terrorism and large scale power failures.
5. Legislation will be needed to encourage the use of renewable energies, as
shown by the German model, taken over by as many as 40 nations,
demonstrating similar success.
6. Energy saving strategies help to make renewable energies more efficient,
improve quality of life and lead to a healthier environment.
7. We do not need nuclear energy, with all its risk problems and nuclear
proliferation, terrorism, worldwide unsolved radioactive waste disposal even
after half a century, uranium shortage, etc.
8. Elect farsighted honest politicians who are aware of our energy- and
environmental problems.
9. The academic community should play a more active role in the historical
transition to a post fossil fuel era and take over the leadership.
37

11. Figures
38
World energy production 2004
Average increase:
2.25 % since 1970
4.3 % in 2004
2.7 % in 2005
Oil, gas and wood: 86.3 %
Renewable energies:
Wind: 0.1 %
PV: 0.04 %
Solar thermal 0.46 %
Bio fuel: 0.3 %
Bio heat: 0.8 %
Fig. 1: The spectrum of the world’s primary energy consumption in 2004
with
a detailed analysis of its renewable part.
Fig. 2: World energy consumption, CO2 concentration in our atmosphere and
world population since 1800, the beginning of industrialization.
39
Fig. 3: (left) The spectrum of Germany’ primary energy consumption and
(right) details of its renewable energies part in 2005.
Chile’s primary energy sources Chile’ electricity sources
Annual consumption: 285 billion kWh
(74% for mining)
Fig. 4: The spectrum of Chile’s primary energy consumption and the
spectrum of its electricity sources.
40
The Timefactor in Research & Development
Discovery Year 1st Product Time (year)
Faraday’s law 1831 1856 25
Steam engine 1765 1785 20
Airplane 1889 1919 30
Semiconductor (Ge) 1910 1942 32
Nuclear fission (235U) 1939 1965 26
Fast breeder 1950 1985 35
Nuclear fusion 1948 >2048 >100
Integrated Circuit 1959 1973 14
Glass fibre 1968 1988 20
Solar cell (Si) 1954 1980 26
Solar cell (CdTe) 1968 2000 32
Solar cell (CuInSe2) 1973 2000 27
Fig. 5: The time factor from laboratory research and development to a
commercial product.
41
Fundamentals of Solar Energy
Energy Production of the Sun: 1.2 · 1034 J per year = 3.85 · 1023 kW
Energy received by Earth: 7.1 · 1017 kWh per year = 8.1 · 1013 kW
Annual energy consumption: 1.4 · 1014 kWh per year = 1.6 · 1010 kW
Conclusion: Within 1.7 hours, the sun irradiates the equivalent of the
current
annual energy consumption of the planet earth, i.e. the earth receives
7000 times the energy from the sun than it consumes.
Solar constant: 1.367 kW/m² AM 0 (Air Mass Zero: sun irradiation
without atmosphere)
1.0 kW/m² AM 1 (Air Mass 1: sun irradiation
on surface with sun in zenith)
Annual solar irradiation:
Germany (south) 1300 kWh/m²
(north) 850 kWh/m²
(average) 990 kWh/m²
Chile (north, desert) 2300 kWh/m²
(south) 1270 kWh/m²
(average) 1550 kWh/m²
Eastern Sahara 2800 kWh/m² (highest value worldwide)
Fig. 6: Some solar energy fundamentals and comparison of solar irradiation
in
Germany and Chile
42
Fig. 7: Outline of a solar heating system and annual irradiation diagram
in Germany
43
Fig. 8a: Solar radiation spectrum and characteristics of a selective absorber
(TINOX = TiN + TiO + TiO2)
Fig. 8b: Picture of a flatplate and a vacuum tube collector
44

Comparison: Flatplate versus tube collectors

Example: of firm AMK, CH-9475 Sevelen, Switzerland
Annual mean efficiency: 75.2 %
Fig. 9: Comparison of seasonal collection characteristics of flatplate
with vacuum tube collectors.
45

Solar thermal energy: Fundamentals I

Diffuse irradiation, non focusable
Global irradiation:
Direct irradiation, focusable
Examples:
Annual: 587 kWh/m² diffuse
1022 kWh/m² 435 kWh/m² direct
June 2.86 kWh/m² diffuse
(daily) 2.58 kWh/m² direct
0.35 kWh/m² diffuse
Berlin
December
(daily) 0.10 kWh/m² direct
Lisbon Annual: 606 kWh/m² diffuse
1727 kWh/m² 1121 kWh/m² direct
Desert Annual: ~350 kWh/m² diffuse
2350 kWh/m² 2000 kWh/m² direct
Jan Feb Mar Apr May June Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
0
50
100
150
200
250
direct
diffuse
global
Insolation [kWh]
Month
Fig. 10: Solar thermal energy fundamentals 1: Comparison of diffuse and
direct
radiation parts in Berlin, Lisbon and desert areas.
46
The potential of renewable energies
Source:
DLR/ZSW/WI (2005) Enquete commission of
EWI Prognosis (2005) Deutscher Bundestag
Wuppertal Institut/DLR
Fig. 11: The potential of various renewable energies
47
Fig. 12: Comparison of the 3 major solar thermal concentration systems
48

1000 kW solar furnace of Odeillo

Site: Font Romeu in the Pyrenees
The parabolic reflector Technical details about the heliostat
• Paraboloid, vertical axis facing north • Number: 63 placed on 8 terraces
• Focal length 18 m, height 40 m, width 54 m • Surface: 45 m²
• Horizontal focal axis at 13 m from the ground • Dimensions: 7.5 m x 6.0 m (widthxheight)
• Optical aperature f/D = 0.3 • Weight: 5000 kg with 800 kg of mirrors
• Area 1830 m² • Number of mirrors by heliostat: 180 (50x50)
• 9130 mirrors (average dimension 48.5x48.5) • Type of mirror: polished, rear face silver
coated
• Tempered glass, silver coated on the rear face • Dispersion: 1-2 angle minutes
• Reflectivity 0.79 • Reflectivity: 0.79
• Mirrors mechanically blended • Adjustment by auto collimation with theodolite
• Possible individual adjustment of each mirror • 2 axis movements
• Control command by calculated coordinates
The “focal” tower • Precision: 1/60 degree
• Total reflective area: 2835 m²
• T shape tower, 20 m high • Horizontal reflected beam, North-South,
• Shadow: 5 % of the paraboloid area height 40 m, width 54 m
• Control room at the 5th floor north side
• Focal room at the 5th floor south side
Fig. 13: 1 MW solar furnace of Odeillo built in 1970 with technical details
49
Fig. 14: View of the first commercial solar farms in the Mojave Desert
(California, USA) built by LUZ Engineering Co.
50
Fig. 15: Outline of the 4th generation solar farm under construction west of
Granáda (Guadix, Spain)
51
Fig. 16: View of 10 MW solar tower plant in Daggett (California, USA)
52
Fig. 17: View of a Solar Dish-Sterling power system (10-50 kW) at Plata
forma Solar de Almeriá (PSA, south-east Spain)
53
Fig. 18: CO2 emission characteristics of various thermal power plants.
54
Fig. 19: Cost characteristics of various primary energy sources versus oil
price.
55
Fig. 20: Outline of a silicon solar cell structure.
Fig. 21: Shockley-Loferski-Queisser curve: Maximum theoretical efficiency
versus
forbidden energy gap for various semiconductor materials.
56
Fundamentals of Photovoltaic Energy Conversion
Germany Chile (desert) Chile (average)
Solar irradiation
(in kWh/m² per year)
990 2300 1550
Energy harvest using
no tracking
(in kWh/Wp per year)
1.0 2.3 1.5
Energy harvest using
monoaxial tracking
(in kWh/Wp per year)
1.35 3.1 2.0
Energy harvest using
biaxial tracking
(in kWh/Wp per year)
1.60 3.7 2.4
Energy harvest of 1 m²
with η=17%, 20°C
(in kWh per year)
150 360 240
Annual electricity
consumption per
household (4 persons)
in 2004
(in kWh per year)
3630 1950
Area needed
(in m²)
24 8
Costs 2007
(in USD)
16000 5800
Fig. 22: Fundamentals of photovoltaic energy conversion for Germany and
Chile.
57
Commercial Solar Cells
Material Share of cell
production in
2005
Efficiency
lab, small
Efficiency
cell, prod.
Efficiency
comm.
module
Mono c-Si 38.3 % 24.7 17 – 21 16 – 20
Multi c-Si 52.3 % 21.5 11 – 16.5 10 – 16
a-Si 4.7 % 14.6 10 – 11 8 – 9
Ribbon Si 2.9 % 18.2 15 – 17 14 – 16
CdTe 1.6 % 16.8 10 – 11 7 – 9
Cu(InGa)Se2 0.2 % 19.5 14 – 16.6 13 – 15
CuInS2 - 12.1 9 – 10 8 – 9
GaAs - 25.1 21 - 24 21 - 23
Celltypes exceeding 20 % efficiency
Material Efficiency at 1 sun
(in %)
Efficiency under
concentration
(in % and conc.)
c-Si 24.7 26.8 (96 suns)
GaAs 25.1 27.6 (255 suns)
InP 21.9 24.3 (99 suns)
Rule of thumb: 0.1 % (absolute) efficiency improvement is worth 1
million
USD for a production plant capable of 50 MW per year
Fig. 23: Characteristics of commercially available solar cells.
58
Fig. 24: Maximum efficiencies of tandem solar cells at 1 sun and 1000 suns
59
The Best Solar Cells
Material
Voc
[mV]
Conc.
[suns]
η
[%]
Area
[cm²]
Ref
Concentrator cells
p/n Si (point contact) 96 26.8 1.6 Sunpower
p/n GaAs 255 27.6 0.126 Spire
p/n GaInAsP 171 27.5 0.075 NREL
p/n InP 99 24.3 0.075 NREL
Tandem cells
p/n GaAs +
p/n GaSb
1585 1 34 0.053
Sandia
Varian
p/n GaAs +
p/n GaSb
500 37 0.053 Boeing
p/n InP/GaInAs 50 31.8 0.063
NREL
(monol. 3 terminal)
p/n GaAs +
p/n GaInAsP
40 30.2 0.053
NREL
(stack 4 terminal)
p/n GaAs +
p/n Si
1935 347 31 0.32 Varian/Sandia
a-Si/a-Si-Ge 2357 1
14.6
init. Value
0.25
Guha,
USS Troy
2297 1
13.0
stable
0.25
Fig. 25: The best single and tandem solar cells under concentration.
60
Fig. 26: Outline of Fresnel lens concentrator module, as developed at ISE
Freiburg (Germany)
61

Specific Energy Harvest Factors

Energy source
Areal el. power
generation
(MW/km²)
Annual el.
energy yield
(106 kWh/km² per year)
Solar tower 30 ± 10 85 ± 25
Solar farm 30 ± 5 85 ± 15
25 ± 10 25 ± 10 fixed position Germany
Photovoltaic 55 ± 10 55 ± 10 fixed position desert
(c-Si)
90 ± 10 90 ± 10 max: biaxial tracking
Photovoltaic
(a-Si) 12 ± 5 12 ± 5
Wind
Single generator 3000 ± 1000 9000 ± 3000
Wind park 30 ± 10 260 ± 90
Biomass
(Bio diesel) 0.4-2.3 Rapeseed: 0.46
(η = 50 %)
Biomass
(Bio ethanol) 0.9 – 2.7 Sugarcane: 1.6
(η = 50 %)
Wood 3.5 – 9 (η = 45 %)
Hydroelectric
storage basin 350 ± 150 1200 ± 500
Coal
+ Steam turbine 1000 4500
Oil
+ Steam turbine 1600 ± 100 7500 ± 500
Gas
+ Steam turbine 2300 ± 200 10500 ± 1000
Fig. 27: Comparison of specific energy/area production factors for various
primary
energy sources
62
Fig. 28: Production cost analysis for silicon solar cell panels 2006
63

Cost degression
Fig. 29: Cost degression versus sales quantities in the period 1976-2010.
The
deviation after 2000 is due to a silicon shortage on the market, which is
expected to end in 2008.
64
Fig. 30: Silicon companies worldwide and data of silicon and solar cell
production capacities
65
Fig. 31: Estimated true energy costs of various primary energy sources. The
photovoltaic (PV) power is overestimated; its maximum net cost is only
half of the indicated value.
66

Data for a 60 MW Silicon Solar Cell Factory

Costs: Cell production, investment 27˙000˙000 USD
Module production, investment 16˙000˙000 USD
Power: Cell production: 12 MW 7˙900˙000 kWh per year
Module production: 0.4 MW 2˙600˙000 kWh per year
Water: Cell production 32500 m³
Module production 40 m³
Area: Cell production 4000 m²
Module production 5400 m²
Labour: Cell production: 150 men 3˙400˙000 USD
(European
salaries) Module
production: 160 men 4˙000˙000 USD
Wafers: Cell manufacturing costs 2.22 USD/Wp
+ module manufacturing costs 3.25 USD/Wp
Fig. 32: Data for a 60 MW silicon solar cell factory in Europe with net
production costs.
67
Fig. 33: The 5 stages of solar cell development
68

The “Power”-solar cell concept

Aesthetic in the 3rd dimension
The “POWER” solar cell with a transparency of 20 % features
optical properties for the use as shadowing element in
glasses.
Fig. 34: View of a transparent power cell worldwide production licensed by
the firm
“sunways” (Konstanz, Germany)
69
Fig. 35: 100 kW photovoltaic panel along highway A13 in Eastern
Switzerland, built in 1989 by TCN consulting (Switzerland)
70
Fig. 36: Pictures from Solar bike race 1999 in Australia. Bikes developed by
Prof. Andrea Vezzini, Tech. Univ. Bienne
(Switzerland).
71
Fig. 37: Model with solar dress
72
Fig. 38: (top) First photovoltaic train (Italian train company)
(bottom) Model of Solar Airplane, expected to fly around the planet in 2009
only powered by solar energy and their constructors Bertrand Piccard and
André Borschberg.
73
Fig. 39: Outline of a solar reactor, developed by PSI (Paul-Scherrer-Institute)
in
Villigen, Switzerland. The reactor produces solar hydrogen or alternatively
metallic Zn for Zn/air batteries.
74

Biomass fundamentals 1
natural gas
Biogas heat
electricity
methanol CH3OH
organic material liquid biofuels ethanol CH3CH2OH
biodiesel
(methylester, ethylester)
liquid fuel
solid fuels heat
(wood pellets) electricity
Methods
• 2 stage fermentation (10-20 days)
liquid fermentation 1 (>50% H2O) biogas
anaerobic, 25°-38°C, mesophyllic condition + solid residue
liquid fermentation 2 biogas
anaerobic, 38°-55°C + solid residue
• anaerobic heating biogas SNG (60%)
(solid waste, wood) charcoal
850°C residues: tar oil, acids,…
H2
, H2O, N2
biogas = 50 – 65% methane (CH4) + 35 – 50% CO, CO2
H2
S, NH3, PH3
natural gas (97% methane)
1 t waste → 25 – 150 m³ biogas
Fig. 40: Biomass fundamentals 1
350°-450°C
Catalytic
methanisation
75

Biomass fundamentals 2
World agricultural area: 10 million km²
Forest: 40 million km²
Desert & desertlike area: 50 million km²
Photosynthesis /year (dry
mat.):
220 billion t/y
Forest (77%): 170 billion t/y
World energy consumption
/year:
11.5 billion t/y
(oil equivalent)
Dry biomass needed:
(2 t dry biomass = 1 t oil)
23 billion t/y
=13.5% of forest
=5.4 million km²
Energy harvest dry mass
(t/km²,y) η (%)
Trees: kienaf, eucalyptus,
birch,asp,… 1500 – 4000 0.78 – 2.08
Wheat 1200 – 1800 0.62 – 0.94
Corn, sugarcane, reed,… 2000 – 3000 0.80 – 1.20
Solar thermal el. power stations
(40-50 MW/km²) 7 – 9
Photovoltaic power 5 – 10
Wind
(20 MW/km²=0.09 TWh/km²,y) 9 – 20
Fig. 41: (top) Biomass fundamentals 2
(bottom) Comparison of areal efficiencies with other renewable energies.
76

Biomass fundamentals 3
1 m³ biogas = 0.5 - 0.65 ℓ fuel = 5.3 – 6.9 kWh = 1.6 – 2.1 kWh electricity
1 m³ natural gas = 10.4 kWh
1 t dry biomass = 210 ℓ ethanol + 314 kg protein concentrate (animal food)
1 km² ≥ 1000 t dry biomass ≥ 210˙000 ℓ ethanol + 314 t animal food
1 t dry biomass = 583 m³ biogas = 3710 kWh = 1113 kWh electricity
1 ℓ bio diesel = 9.4 kWh (= 0.92 ℓ regular diesel)
1 ℓ methanol = 5.0 kWh
1 ℓ ethanol = 5.9 kWh (= 0.66 ℓ gasoline)
1 ℓ gasoline = 9.0 kWh
1 kg dry wood = 4.5 – 5.8 kWh
1 ℓ oil = 10 kWh
1 kg coal = 8-9.5 kWh
Fig. 42: Biomass fundamentals 3: Conversion factors
77

Bioethanol
Plant Crop yield
(ℓ/km²)
Energy yield
(output/input)
Switchgrass (USA) 1˙075˙000 0.67†, 4
Sugar beet (France, Germany) 665˙000 1.9
Sugarcane (Brazil) 620˙000 8
Cassava (Nigeria) 385˙000
Potatoes (Germany) 355˙000
Corn (grain) (USA) 352˙000
Sweet sorghum (India) 350˙000
Corn (USA) 330˙000 0.7† – 1.34‡
Wheat (France) 275˙000
Wood 250˙000 0.64†
Gasoline 1.805†
Petroleum diesel 1.843
Fig. 43: Harvest characteristics of plants for bio ethanol production
78

Biodiesel
Plant Crop yield
(ℓ/km²)
Energy yield
(output/input)
Oil palm 475˙000
Coconut 215˙000
Castor 125˙000
Rapeseed 97˙000 3 – 4
Peanut 84˙000 0.85†
Sunflower 77˙000 0.79†
Soybean 52˙000 0.64†
Flaxseed 44˙000
Linseed 41˙000
Average 3.2‡
Gasoline 1.805‡
Petroleum diesel 1.843
† D. Pimentel and T.W. Platzek
Natural Resources Research 14 (1), p.65-76, Springer 2005
‡ Sheehan et al.
An overview of biodiesel and petroleum diesel lifecycles
NRL, DOE and USDA Study 1998
Fig. 44: Harvest characteristics of plants for bio diesel production
79
Fig. 45: Chemistry of bio diesel production and statistics of bio diesel
production and bio diesel supplying gas stations in Germany.
80

Germany’s biomass potential

Total energy consumption in Germany 2005: 4100 billion kWh
Biomass potential:
Present waste from manure, farming,
bioindustry, gardening, households,
slaughter industry:
250 million t/y
= 10.2 billion m³
biogas
65 billion kWh/y
(=1.6%)
Energy farming:
Total agricultural area: 170000 km²
For energy farming (13%): 20000 km²
Used in 2006: 5500 km²
Conversion to bio diesel & ethanol 115 billion kWh/y
(=2.8%)
Dry bioproducts: 1700 t/km² 130 billion kWh/y
(=3.2%)
Forest:
Total forest area: 105000 km²
Unused forest area (30%) 32000 km²
2000 t/km² of 70% forest: 74000 km² 550 billion kWh/y
(13.4%)
Total biomass potential 860 billion kWh/y
(21.0%)
Fig. 46: Biomass potential of Germany
81

Worldwide installed wind power

Fig. 47: Worldwide installed wind power 1990-2010
82
Fig. 48: Power characteristics of wind turbine, hydro turbine and
photovoltaic panel
83
Energy Option Immediately Feasable
(in PWh per year)
Theoretical Potential
(in PWh per year)
Bio Energy 50 78
Hydropower 8 14
Geothermal Electricity
(conventional) 2
Geothermal electricity (Hot
Dry Rock) 20
Geothermal Heat 4
388
Wind Power 53 160
Solar Power from
Photovoltaics 6
Solar Thermal Power 40
Solar Active Heat 20
Solar Passive Heat 10
435
Ocean Energy 15 202
Heat Pumps 10 50
Muscle Energy 1 10
Novel Energy Technologies
(Research and Development) 100 200
Total potential 339 1537
2.4x world energy
consumption 2005
11x world energy
consumption 2005
Fig. 49: Immediately and long term availability of various renewable energy
options [12]
84
Fig. 50: Energy costs of 2nd - 4th generation wind turbines versus turbine
power.
Fig. 51: Details of “Starwind” turbine
85
Fig. 52: Data sheet of 2x1.6 MW “Starwind” turbine
86
Fig. 53: View of first up-draft wind tower in Manzanares (SE Spain)
with characteristics
87

Tidal power plant of St. Malo

(at the mouth of the Rance river)
Peak power 240 MW
Energy harvest 600 million kWh
Turbines: 24
Construction costs 650 million USD
Time 1963-1966
Dam 750 m
Area 22 km²
Tide difference 8 m (max. 13.5)
Power costs 0.18 €/kWh
(nuclear: 0.25 /kWh)
Fig. 54: View of world’s first tidal power plant of St. Malo, at the mouth of
the
Rance river with technical and economic details
88
Fig. 55: View of hypothetical ocean drift power stations
89

Recycling (in Germany)

Paper: saves 8 kWh/€ of paper
Glass: saves 25% of production energy
Aluminum: saves 40% of energy
100% recycling can save 4% of annual energy consumption
Households (4 persons) responsible for 28% of the total energy
consumption
Consumed
energy
(kWh/y)
Relative
fraction
(%)
Total
fraction
(%)
Heating 17˙000 20 5.60
Electricity 4˙500 5.5 1.54
Food
(‘gray energy’) 19˙000 22.5 6.30 2 kWh/€
Clothing 9˙500 11 3.08 2.8 kWh/€
Car (15000 km/y) 15˙000 18 5.04 1 kWh/km
Expendables 20˙000 23 6.44
Total 85˙000 100 28.00
Fig. 56: Savings characteristics of recycling and “spectral” distribution of
energy
consumption of German households
90

Saving energy in households

Heating: • lowering temperature by 1°C saves 7% of energy
• shower instead of bathtub saves 80% of warm water
• better thermal insulation of buildings: 75%
• boiler setting to 55 – 60°C
� possible saving: up to 70% 3.9% total
� household waste to biogas 1.0% total
Food: • red meat takes 10 times more energy than grains,
vegetables and fruit
• fight overeating and obesity
� possible saving: 2.0% total
Car: • carpools, usage of bikes and public transportation
� possible saving: 3.5% total
Electricity: • usage of energy efficient models
� possible saving: 0.5% total
Expendables: 2.1% total
Total possible savings in households: 13% total
(of 28%)
Traffic: 18.5% total (cars: 760 billion km driven in 2004)
Production of 1 car costs 80˙000 kWh
Driving 1 km costs 0.9 kWh (mostly (73%) driven by 1 person)
Usage: 45% business + 55% leisure
� Possible savings in traffic: 9% total
Savings in household and traffic: 22% total
Saving per person (6 cts/kWh): 660 €/y
Fig. 57: Saving potentials in households (in Germany)
91

Energy costs of mobility

Fig. 58: Energy costs of mobility
Conversion:
1 g oil = 11.6 Wh
= 41760 Joule
92
Fig. 59: Efficiency of various storage systems for future use for electric
traction
93

The potential of Renewable Energies in Chile

Population (2006): 16.2 million
Energy consumption (2006): 3.1 · 1011 kWh per year
(0.22 % of world’s consumption)
Energy consumption per capita: 19˙000 kWh
1/6 of USA, 1/3 of Europe
Renewable Energies Yield el. Power
(109 kWh per year)
Percentage
of 2006
consumption
Costs
(in USD per kWh)
1. Solar thermal electricity
(1000 km² desert area, 0.57 % of
Atacama desert)
85 (27 %) ≤ 0.10
2. Photovoltaic
(1000 km² desert area)
100 (32 %) ≤ 0.14 – 0.18
3. Wind
(1000 km², 25 GW total power)
100 (32 %) ≤ 0.03
4. Biomass
(sewage, manure, agric. waste of
wineries, farms and households)
30 (10 %) ≤ 0.10
5. Wood 60 (20 %) ≤ 0.10
6. Geothermal electricity
(≥ 3 · 109 MW)
≥ 25
≤ 65
(≥ 8 %)
(≤ 21 %)
≤ 0.10
7. Hydroelectric
(present)
≥ 60 (≥ 19 %) ≤ 0.08
Total > 465 > 150 %
Fig. 60: The potential of renewable energies in Chile and their estimated
real costs.
94
Fig. 61: The principle of Reverse Osmosis for mechanical desalination of
saltwater
95

Scheme of a combined solar thermal

and photovoltaic desalination system
Fig. 62: Diagram of a combined solar thermal/photovoltaic desalination
system (commercially available for small remote applications in
the range of 1-10 m³ freshwater per day.
96

12. References
1) Ulf Bossel: TATuP Forschung und Publikationen 15/1, p. 27-33, April 2006
U. Bossel, B. Eliasson, G. Taylor:
The future of the Hydrogen economy: Bright or Bleak?
Final Report 4/15/2003
See also http://www.efcf.com
2) H.M. Hubbert:
The real costs of energy
Scientific American 264/4, p. 36, 1991
3) Volker Quaschning:
Understanding renewable energy systems
Earthscan 2005, ISBN 1-84407-128-6 (PB) or ISBN 1-84407-136-7 (HC)
Regenerative Energien
Hansen 2006, ISBN 3-446-40569-0
4) M.A. Green:
Solar Cells
Prentice Hall ISBN 0-13-822270-3
High efficiency silicon solar cells
Trans. Tech. Publications ISBN 0-87849-537-1
Third generation photovoltaics
Springer ISBN 3-540-40137-7
5) Gustav R. Grob
ICEC Holding, CH-6315 Oberägeri, Switzerland
Private communication
6) H.J. Goldschmid:
Electronic Refrigeration
Pion Ltd., London, ISBN 0-85086-118-5
7) Peter Brabeck, CEO of Nestlé, bluewin news, 4/28/2007
8) Dieter Bockey, UFOP, Technikfolgeabschätzung 15/1, p. 10-15, 2006
9) Jens M. Hoppe
P.E.A.C.E.-GmbH, Bingen/DE
New hopes for planet earth and humanity
Proc.Int.natl.Kong. Bregenz, Sep 9-11, 2005, p. 39
10) Proc. Int.natl.Cong. on Clean Energy Power: Seawater desalination,
ICC Berlin, Jan 24-25/2007, redaction@energie-server.de
11) Sylvain David, Elisabeth Huffer and Hervé Nifencker
Europhysics News 38/2, p. 24-27, 2007
12) Gustav R. Grob
ICEC Holding, CH-6315 Oberägeri, Switzerland
Private communication
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Contact: Prof. em. Dr. Ernst Bucher
Academic Advisor and Consultant
ISC Konstanz
Rudolf Dieselstr. 15
D-78467 Konstanz
Germany
Phone: +49 7531 361 83 0
Fax: +49 7531 361 83 11
e-mail: bucher.isc@bluewin.ch
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