ENERGY

Energy is one of the most important world’s natural resources. We need energy to provide light, cooking
and to drive machinery for transport and industry. We are fortunate that our environment provides us
with abundant energy sources.

Types of energy sources

Renewable energy

It is form energy collected from resources which can naturally be replaced on a human time scale such
as sunlight, wind, rain, water and geothermal heat. They are sustainable they can be used over and over
again. They are often referred to as alternative energies.

Examples

1. Hydro – electricity

Hydroelectric power plants have a dam of water usually built on a river and a gate-valve to control
how much water flows out of the dam. Water gains gravitational potential energy just before it spills
over the top of the dam. The GPE is converted into kinetic energy as the water flows downstream.
The water is used to turn the blades of a turbine which are connected to generator to produce
electric current which is distributed to homes and factories for use.

Advantage of hydropower

- Hydro-electric power plants provide employment to people

- The dam can help to control floods
- The dam can be used for irrigation and water supply.
- It can be used as a tourist attraction area

Disadvantages
- It is costly to build the dams
- It is dependent on precipitation levels
- Breaking of dam may lead to flooding
- Construction of dams leads to disruption of aquatic life
2. Wind energy

In this type of energy source. Wind is used to generate electricity. The wind is trapped by blades that
are connected to turbines. The turbines rotate and convert the kinetic energy in the wind into
mechanical power. The turbines are connected to a generator that converts the mechanical power
into electricity to power homes and factories. The mechanical power can be used directly to pump
water for irrigation.

Advantages

It is a non-polluting form of energy production no green-house gases are produced

It can be built on existing farms

It can a minimal effect on the ecosystems

It creates jobs

Disadvantages

- Noise pollution
- Birds and bats are killed by the blades
- Unreliability since it requires heavy blow of wind to produce electricity
- Wind power plants are costly and mostly located in remote areas where wind blows freely so
transmitting the electricity to the settlements is costly.

3. Geothermal energy

Geothermal is the heat within the earth. Water on the earth’s surface is directed into hot rocks
inside the earth’s surface which produces steam which is directed to turbines that are connected to
 generators to produce electricity. Sometimes the water may be found inside the earth’s surface
heated naturally and steam is produced directed to the turbines connected to generators to
produce electricity.

Advantages

1. It is non-polluting and environmentally friendly

2. It is not dependent on weather conditions
3. Production requires small piece of land
4. Capable of providing large quantity of power

Disadvantages

1. Found in few locations there by limiting its usage, common in volcanic areas
2. It is expensive to produce.
3. Possibility of depletion of geothermal sources
4. Construction of geothermal power plants can affect stability of the land
4. Wave and tidal power

It is another form of hydro power that uses large amount of energy within the ocean tides or waves
to generate electricity. The waves and tides are harnessed to move the turbines connected to
generators to produce electricity.
 Advantages

- It is clean as no wastes are produced

- It has the potential to produce large amount of free and green energy
- High predictability as tides and waves occur frequently in the oceans
- No damage to the land, it harnessed the energy in a safe and clean way deep in the oceans

Disadvantages

- Danger to fish and other aquatic life as they get stuck in the barrage
- Built up of silt and sediments within the tidal barrage reduces its efficiency
- High power transmission costs
- They are a source of disturbance to vessels

- Expensive to construct and maintain.

5.Solar power

The sun is the primary source of energy. This method involves the conversion of energy from
sunlight energy into electricity. the most common form uses solar panel that have photovoltaic cells
that convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic effect. The electric current is then
transferred through the panels for various uses e,g cooking, lighting homes.

Advantages

1. Pollution free and causes no greenhouse gases

 2. Renewable energy that is available every day of the year
3. No bills are available after installation and has very low maintenance costs
4. They can be installed anywhere
5. Energy can be stored using batteries

Disadvantages

1. High initial installation costs

2. Need a lot of space to improve efficiency
3. Not efficient at night and in bad weather

6. Bioenergy
It is the energy derived from biomass. It includes plants or animal waste. It is considered as a
carbon neutral process as the carbon dioxide released in the generation of the energy balances
that absorbed by the plants during their growth
Biofuel –
It is a form of bioenergy used in its liquid state. Ethanol is an example of biofuel that is used to
drive engines or as fuel for vehicles and is cheaper than petrol. It is produced from sugarcane or
maize corns through the process of fermentation.

Advantages –
- they are environmental friendly, they pollute no greenhouse gases
- Cost of production is cheaper.
- They can be produced from wide range of sources such as, corn, soybeans, sugarcane
Disadvantages
 - They require more land to grow the crops
- They can affect food supply and prices as they can encourage monoculture to support its
production

Biogas – is a form of bioenergy used in gas form when the animal dung is put in a digester and
fermented to produce methane gas that is collected and can be used for cooking or electricity in the
homes.

Advantages of biogas

- Biogas generation produces organic fertilizer

- It is cheap and easy to set up and needs little investment when done on small scale
- Health cooking alternative for developing areas- it saves women and children from walking long
distance for firewood collection
- It is eco -friendly- it does not produce green-house gases

Disadvantages

- Systems used in biogas are less efficient. There are no new technologies to simplify the process
and make it abundant.
- It is affected by weather. The optimal temperature bacteria need to digest waste is around 37’c.
when temperatures are cold the production is low
- More suitable is rural areas where animal dung is available in large quantities than in urban
areas

Importance of renewable energy sources

 Generates energy that produces no greenhouse gas emissions and reduces some forms of
air pollution making them cleanest, most viable solution to prevent environmental
degradation
 Diversifying energy supply and reducing dependence on imported fuels
  Readily available in almost everywhere and it is always under replenishment e,g wind,
sunlight
 The costs of production are lower than those involved in fossil fuels.
 Creates economic development through infrastructure and creation of jobs in the
generation plants.
 Helps to promote sustainable development as it involves the use of resources that can be
replaced naturally nature, such as water, wind and plants (biofuels)

Disadvantages of renewable energy sources

 Intermittency – though they are reliable most of them of them are not available 24/7. E,g solar
power is less efficient in bad weather. HEP less efficient when there is
 Geographical limitations – e,g geothermal power cannot be produced anywhere but only those
places with hot underground rocks
 Storage- most of the renewable energy cannot be stored while there are storage technologies
available today, most of them are very expensive for large scale renewable energy plants
 It is difficult to generate large quantities of electricity
 Some forms of renewable energy require large e,g solar power
Countries are eager to harness renewable energy sources in order to;
- Lower the costs in energy production thereby reducing reliance on costly fossil fuel imports
- Improve their energy security with higher domestic energy production
- Reduce green-house gas emission for a cleaner environment
- Reduce their reliance on limited fossil fuel resources.

Non renewable energy sources

These resources are finite, once used they cannot be replaced. They were formed millions of years ago
by decomposition of prehistoric plants and organisms. These plants and animals had energy in them,
when they died and were compacted together under the surface or oceans they formed fossils fuels
such as coal or oil due to heat and pressure in absence of oxygen.

Examples

Coal –
it is a black brownish rock. It is extracted through mining from the ground. Initially it was used for driving
trains. Now it is commonly used to produce electricity through thermal power. It is burnt to heat water
that produces steam to drive turbine connected to generator that produces electricity.

Advantages of coal

• It has high energy content

• well distributed globally

• improved technology has improved the output

• by products of coal are used to make plastics, cement, roads.

Disadvantages of coal.

- Coal mining pollutes air by releasing carbon dioxide with dust that also causes cancer.
- Heavy and bulky to transport
- Open cast mining destroys the land
- High production costs
- Most easily accessible deposits have been used up

Petroleum or oil

• It is formed by decaying plants and animal matter trapped in rocks usually under the oceans. It is
drilled and refined through fractional distillation where chemical elements of the petroleum are
separated by their differences in boiling points to produce petrol, kerosene and other petroleum
liquids.

• The by-product of this process is used to make candles and bitumen is used for making paints
and for roads construction. Petrol and diesel are used to drive the machinery and cars.
Advantages of petroleum

• It is a reliable source of energy for driving machinery

• Has many uses

• Less harmful to the environment than coal

• Easy to transport

Disadvantages of petroleum

• expensive to extract.

• The drilling pollutes air causing global warming and acidic rain

• Unevenly distributed

• Many reserves found in politically unstable countries

Fractional distillation
 Natural gas

• It is often found in close proximity to petroleum fields as a mixture of gases trapped in cap rock

• It is commonly extracted by drilling vertically into the source. It is then transported to

processing plants that separates natural gas from other components such as oil, water, natural
gas liquids such as propane, butane which is used for producing plastics and ethane used in
 refrigerators then the natural gas can be transmitted to home and industries for heating and
cooking.

Advantages of natural gas

- High energy source

- Cleaner source than burning of coal
- Easy to transport
Disadvantages of natural gas
- Many reserves are found in politically unstable countries
- Causes air pollution
- Extraction may cause earthquakes.

Nuclear energy – it is the harvesting of powerful energy in the nucleus of an atom. U-235 URANIUM is
used in most nuclear power plants. Uranium rods are put in the nuclear reactor and are heated to
produce radiation and heat. The heat is used to heat drums of water which produces steam that is
directed to turbines connected to generators to produce energy.
Advantages of nuclear power

 Zero emission of green-house gases

 Nuclear power is not as vulnerable to fuel price fluctuations as oil and gas
 More efficient as there are more advanced technologies of producing it
 Nuclear brought great innovations in fields of medicine (e,g the treatment of cancer that uses
radiation.
 It has contributed to reduced reliance on imported fossil fuels.
 Small amount of raw materials is used to produce large amount of energy
 It is easy to transport
 Provide employment opportunities

Disadvantages

 Power plant accidents – could release radiation into air, land and sea which can cause diseases
like skin cancer
 Radioactive waste storage/disposal –It can cause deaths to people exposed to it.
 Terrorists use of nuclear fuel for weapons, as the number of countries with nuclear technology
increases such concerns are likely to increase
 High construction and decommissioning costs

Fuel wood

• Although more trees can be planted, it is still a non-renewable form because the rate at which
the trees are being cut does not match with the rate at which the trees are being planted. Fuel
wood is one of the main sources of energy in developing countries.
 Advantages of fuelwood

• Cheap and free in rural areas

• Easily accessible where forest and woodlands is available

• Make people independent, not dependent on energy companies

Disadvantages of fuelwood

• It produces smoke that pollutes the air

• It can destroy forests and homes through accidental fires

• Over exploitation of forests has serious environmental effects such as destruction of ecosystem
and accelerated soil erosion

Importance of non-renewable fossils

1. Non-renewable resources are high in energy.

2. Non- renewable resources are job creating.
3. Most of the non-renewable resources are easy to store.
4. Consumers can find some non- renewable sources less costly these include natural gas
5. Huge profits can be generated

Disadvantages of fossil fuels

1. They produce green-house gases which cause climate change

2. They are expensive to produce.
3. They are limited they can once they are used they cannot be replaced

 DIFFERENCE IN ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF COUNTRIES AT DIFFERENT LEVELS DEVELOPMENT

There is a huge gap in energy consumption between the rich and the poor countries. Wealth is the main
factor explaining the energy gap. Most developed countries use a wide range of energy sources as they
are able to invest in domestic energy and to buy energy from abroad.

Although, recently the consumption of energy in developed countries has begun to slow down due to
industrial decline and environmental concerns. Developed world with only 17% of the world’s
population yet consumes 53% of world’s total energy.
In poor countries fuel wood is an important source of energy where communities have no access to
electricity. Most developing countries use a few sources of energy especially those sources that are less
costly.

Recently there is a conflict of interest between the two groups of countries as the developed countries
are slowing down their energy consumption due to the environmental concerns developing countries
are increasing their consumption in order to develop regardless of the environmental concerns.

Decision by countries as to which source of energy to use may depend upon;

- Availability and sustainability of the resource

- Cost of harnessing and transporting the resource
- Level of demand of energy in the countries. Developing countries need energy mainly for
domestic use while developed countries need energy for domestic and industrial
- Environmental concerns caused by harnessing energy from that source
- Political decisions

ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT

Energy is fundamental to development. Energy allows people to make greater use of the resources
they have. Energy can play an important role in improving the living conditions of people. It may
provide light and heat for homes and power industries that create jobs and generate wealth.
Therefore, availability of reliable, affordable and accessible energy supplies the more the country
can develop through various economic activities that depend on energy such as industries.

Case study
Summary. China produces more electricity as the demand for energy in highly increasing in china due to increase
in the industries. It produced more energy than USA through renewable and non-renewable sources. China has
managed to balance its energy production and reduction of the environmental impacts in order to conserve the
environment through using different types of energy, environmental protection diversified energy development,
mutually beneficially international cooperation, placing a strong emphasis on domestic resources and energy
conservation measures.

On the use of non-renewable energy china has managed to remove carbon dioxide from some of its coal plants
and this carbon is used for production of beverages. The construction of three gorges dam on the Yangtze river
allows production of 22500 MW through HEP. The river is also used for irrigation, navigation and provides water
for irrigation to the surrounding communities. The HEP plant has also provided employment to people.

EXERCISE