EEE-488

Renewable and Alternate

Energy Systems
Dr. Rabiah Badar
Assistant Professor, Office no. 323,
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department,
COMSATS University Islamabad.
rabiah.badar@comsats.edu.pk
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Sources of Energy
1. Non-renewable sources
2. Renewable sources
3. Secondary sources

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Non-renewable Sources

 Oil and petroleum products

 Hydrocarbon gas liquids
 Natural gas
 Coal
 Nuclear

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Oil and Petroleum Products
 Crude oil → a mixture of hydrocarbons formed from plants and animals that
lived millions of years ago
 Exists in liquid form
 Underground pools and reservoirs
 Tiny spaces within sedimentary rocks
 Near the surface in tar (or oil) sands
 Crude oil from ground sent to refineries to be separated into useable
petroleum products
 Petroleum products → fuels made from crude oil and other hydrocarbons
contained in natural gas
 Can also be made from coal, natural gas, and biomass

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• 1 barrel = 42 gallons
• Numbers represent
gallons in one barrel

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Use of Oil and Petroleum Products

 Gasoline used in cars, boats, small aircrafts, equipment of construction,

farming, forestry, landscaping, portable generators etc.
 Diesel used in transportation, tanks, diesel engine generators etc.
 Heating oil used in residences for space and water heating
 Use declining because of replacement with electric/natural gas heating

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Hydrocarbons Gas Liquids (HGL)
 Hydrocarbons → molecules of carbon and hydrogen in various combinations
 HGL → hydrocarbons that are gases at atmospheric pressure and liquids under
higher pressures
 Can also be liquefied by cooling
 May be described as light or heavy according to number of carbon and
hydrogen atoms in one HGL molecule
 Found in raw natural gas and crude oil
 Categorized as alkanes or paraffins [1] and alkenes or olefins [2]

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Uses of HGL

 Feedstock [1] in petrochemical plants to make chemicals, plastics, and

synthetic rubber
 Fuels for heating, cooking, and drying
 Fuels for transportation
 Additives for motor gasoline production
 Diluent (a diluting or thinning agent) for transportation of heavy crude oil

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Natural Gas
 Fossil energy source that formed deep beneath earth's surface
 Contains many different compounds largest being methane CH4
 Also contains smaller amounts of natural gas liquids NGL (also hydrocarbon gas
liquids HGL) and nonhydrocarbon gases such as CO2 and water vapor
 Types include
 Conventional natural gas – found in large cracks and spaces between layers of
overlying rock
 Shale gas or tight gas – found in tiny pores (spaces) within some formations of
shale, sandstone, and other types of sedimentary rock
 Associated natural gas – found with deposits of crude oil
 Coalbed methane – found in coal deposits

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Liquefied Natural Gas or LNG

 Natural gas that has been cooled to liquid state at about -260 °F for shipping
and storage
 Volume is 600 times smaller than gaseous state
 Applications or benefits include
 Possible transport of natural gas to places pipelines do not reach
 Use natural gas as transportation fuel
 Shipped in special ocean-going ships (tankers) between export terminals
(natural gas → liquefied) and import terminals (LNG → re-gassified)
 Some power plants store LNG and use it to generate electricity when
electricity demand exceeds natural gas pipeline delivery capacity

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Coal
 Combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock with high amount of
carbon and hydrocarbons
 Non-renewable because takes millions of years to form
 Classified as
 Anthracite – contains 86%–97% carbon and highest heating value
 Mainly used by metals industry
 Bituminous – contains 45%–86% carbon
 Used to generate electricity and an important fuel and raw material for making iron and
steel
 Subbituminous – contains 35%–45% carbon
 Lignite – contains 25%–35% carbon and lowest energy content
 Converted to synthetic natural gas

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Uses of Coal

 Power plants make steam by burning coal and steam turns turbines to
generate electricity
 Concrete and paper industries burn large amounts of coal to produce heat
 Steel industry uses coal indirectly to make steel
 Coke [1] made by baking coal in furnaces used by steel industries
 High temperatures created by burning coke give steel the strength and flexibility
needed for bridges, buildings, and automobiles
 Converted into gases or liquids called synfuels which produce lower air
pollutants than coal itself

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Nuclear Energy
 Enormous energy present in bonds that hold the nucleus together
 Released as heat when these bonds are broken via fission [1]
 Used to generate steam and drive steam turbines
 Uranium most widely used as fuel
 Much larger energy released when nuclei combined in fusion reactions (mainly
on stars)
 Difficult control of reaction → not yet commercial

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Nuclear Fuel Cycle – Milling
 Extract uranium from the ore and produce a uranium oxide concentrate
 Ore crushed and ground to fine slurry which is then leached in sulfuric
acid/strong alkaline solution
 To separate uranium from the waste rock
 Recovered from solution and precipitated as uranium oxide (U3O8)
concentrate
 200 tonnes required to keep 1000 MWe plant in operation for 1 year
 After drying (and usually heating) → Packed in 200-liter drums as a
concentrate referred to as yellowcake [1]
 Remaining ore contains most of radioactive material and rocks
 Become tailings disposed carefully in a pit isolated from environment

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Nuclear Fuel Cycle:
Conversion & Enrichment
 Additional processing required on U3O8 before being used in reactor
 0.7% of natural uranium being fissile [1] must be increased to 3.5 – 5%
 Conversion plants convert U3O8 into uranium dioxide for plants which
do not require enriched uranium
 Rest sent for enrichment after conversion into uranium hexafluoride
 Physical process to concentrate one isotope in fuel over others called
enrichment
 Enrichment requires uranium to be in gaseous form
 U3O8 converted into uranium hexafluoride (gas at relatively lower
temperatures)
 Uranium hexafluoride separated into two gaseous streams
 One enriched to required levels known as low-enriched uranium
 Other one progressively depleted in U-235 and called tails or depleted
uranium
 Low-enriched uranium converted to enriched uranium dioxide 24
Fuel Fabrication
Enriched/non-enriched uranium dioxide converted into pellets and encased into
metal tubes to form fuel rods (27 tonnes required for 1000 MWe plant each year)

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Nuclear Fuel Cycle:
Spent Fuel Reprocessing
 Used fuel contains about 96% of its original uranium
 Fissile U-235 content reduced to less than 1%
 3% of used fuel are waste products while remaining 1% is plutonium
 Reprocessing separates uranium and plutonium from waste products
by chopping up fuel rods and dissolving them in acid
 Uranium recovered from reprocessing contains higher concentration of
U-235 than that found in nature
 Can be used after conversion and enrichment

Recommended video link for explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W4v5_ZVQOA
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