Materials-Based Solutions to Advanced Energy Systems

Abstract

Energy is one of the critical issues that directly impact the economy, the environment, and the security of human beings. All energy technologies require materials; therefore, the types and amounts of materials consumed vary widely. While materials science and engineering are only one aspect of the response to the energy challenges, it primarily has a crucial part to play in creating the advanced energy systems. In the past, it has contributed significantly to advances in the safe, reliable, and efficient use of energy and available natural resources. Now materials research is being performed from structural materials, functional materials to high photon energies, which can offer promising solutions to achieve accessible, renewable, and sustainable energy pathways for the future. Particularly, the growing importance of environmental issues is such that energy generation, conservation, storage, and security of supply will continue to be major drivers for materials technology. Sustainable energy production and use are needed while at the same time meeting socioeconomic and environmental targets: The high priority of energy makes it important to sustain research, development, and modeling of materials for energy applications; the knowledge-base of high-integrity structural and functional materials should be recovered, captured, and developed for future power generation; transferable material solutions and methods across the complete energy portfolio should be examined to attain maximum efficiency and competitive advantages. With the advent of nanomaterials and innovative multifunctional materials, materials science and engineering is expected to play an increasing role in sustainable technologies for energy generation, storage, and distribution, as well as efficient utilization of future energy. Principal areas of advanced materials development include but not limited to sustainable structural and functional materials for fossil power, solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, biofuels, ocean energy and hydropower, nuclear power, as well as advanced energy-harvesting technologies. This chapter will introduce fundamentals and basic design guidelines of advanced energy systems with accompany of materials solutions and environmental compliance of energy materials.

Exercises

1.1.1 Part 1: General Questions

• 1.1 How do you define the energy? What’s the general classification of energy forms?

• 1.2 Describe the possible solution to increase energy efficiency.

• 1.3 What’s the relationship between four laws of thermodynamics?

• 1.4 What are the advantages and disadvantages of using coal?

• 1.5 Does an electric car reduce the use of fossil fuels?

• 1.6 Is a fuel oil heater or an electric resistance heater the best for the environment?

• 1.7 Is a natural gas heater or a geothermal heating system the best for the house?

• 1.8 Why is electrical energy so useful? What is the best energy source to convert to electricity?

• 1.9 How can the energy in the wind be used? How can wind power help conserve oil supplies? How might using wind energy help reduce the air pollution?

• 1.10 Do the white-colored roof tiles keep houses cool?

• 1.11 How can energy from the sun be used to heat water?

• 1.12 How can using solar energy help reduce pollution in the atmosphere and help conserve oil supplies?

• 1.13 Why is the process of photosynthesis so valuable?

• 1.14 Why are battery-powered vehicles considered to be the transport of the future? Do you have different opinions?

• 1.15 Why is chemical energy useful? What other forms of energy can be produced from chemical energy? Name three examples of other fuels that contain chemical energy.

• 1.16 A car’s daily traveling distance is about 80 km/day. A car has a city mileage of 20 km/kg. If the car is replaced with a new car with a city mileage of 30 km/kg and the average cost of gasoline is $4.50/kg, estimate (a) the amount of fuel, energy, and money conserved with the new car per year, (b) reduction in CO₂ emission.

• 1.17 A car consumes about 6 gallons a day, and the capacity of a full tank is about 15 gallons. The density of gasoline ranges from 0.72 to 0.78 kg/l. The lower heating value of gasoline is about 44,000 kJ/kg. Assume that the average density of gasoline is 0.75 kg/l. If the car was able to use 0.2 kg of nuclear fuel of uranium-235, estimate the time in years for refueling.

• 1.18 When a hydrocarbon fuel is burned, almost all of the carbon in the fuel burns completely to form CO₂ (carbon dioxide), which is the principle gas causing the greenhouse effect and thus global climate change. On average, 0.59 kg of CO₂ is produced for each kWh of electricity generated from a power plant that burns natural gas. A typical new household uses about 7000 kWh of electricity per year. Determine the amount of CO₂ production that is due to the refrigerators in a city with 100,000 households.

• 1.19 A large public computer lab operates Monday through Saturday. There the computers are either being used constantly or remain on until the next user comes. Each computer needs around 240 W. If the computer lab contains 53 computers and each is on for 12 h a day, during the course of the year how much CO₂ will the local coal power plant have to release to the atmosphere in gram moles to keep these computers running?

• 1.20 How can you control your carbon footprint?

• 1.21 A 150-W electric light bulb is used on average 10 h per day. A new bulb costs $2.0 and lasts about 5000 h. If electricity cost is $0.15/kWh, estimate the yearly cost of the bulb.

• 1.22 A 20-hp electric motor is used to pump ground water into a storage tank 4 h every day. Estimate the work done by the pump in kW every year and the cost of electricity every year. Assume that the electricity unit cost is $0.1/kWh.

• 1.23 Describe the process of how natural gas goes from its natural state to the market?

• 1.24 Some people like to have background noise when they are falling asleep. Many choose to listen to their television. The television will usually run on about 340 W and will run during the 8 h that you are asleep. With electricity costing $0.20/kWh, calculate how much this will cost you if you do this for five days a week for an entire year.

• 1.25 What are the advantages and disadvantages of electrical energy in an alternating current? What are the advantages and disadvantages of electrical energy flowing in direct current?

• 1.26 In the search for new sources of energy that are renewable and emit less greenhouse gases, carbon-based biofuels are of major interest. These fuels are still carbon-based and must undergo combustion to release the chemical energy. Why is this process being looked at as a reasonable energy source?

• 1.27 The mass contained between an insulated piston and an insulated cylinder decreases in internal energy by 50 Btu. How much work is involved, and what is the sign of the work term? What does the sign indicate?

• 1.28 Derive an equation for the pressure drop for a loss-free incompressible flow in a varying-area duct as a function of area ratio.

• 1.29 Two units of work are required to transfer 10 units of heat from a refrigerator to the environment. What is the COP of the refrigerator? Suppose that the same amount of heat transfer instead is by a heat pump into a house. What is the heat pump COP?

• 1.30 A steam turbine has an efficiency of 90% and a theoretical isentropic power of 100 kW. What is the actual power output?

• 1.31 Discuss the role of materials and process development acceleration tools for enabling advanced energy systems. What’s the major difference between conventional materials development approaches and advanced computational design methodology?

• 1.32 List the energy systems that need breakthrough structural materials?

• 1.33 What’s the current major focus on development of functional materials for energy conversion?

• 1.34 List the current major critical materials in USA to enable clean energy technologies. How is a material’s criticality determined?

• 1.35 Describe your understanding about new paradigm materials manufacturing processes. What are their major differences with traditional manufacturing processes?

1.1.2 Part 2: Thought-Provoking Questions

• 1.36 Describe the major aspects dealt with advanced energy technologies. Which area would you like to specialize in?

• 1.37 Discuss the effect of energy supply and end-use technologies on the global climate change. There are some arguments regarding the reasons that cause the global climate changes, such as, does CO₂ causes global warming? What’s your opinion?

• 1.38 How many materials-based solutions can you find for enabling various energy technologies to achieve accessible, renewable, and sustainable energy pathways for the future?

• 1.39 Discuss the major challenges to successfully integrate the renewable energy generation into current large power systems. What’s the current progress have you seen?

• 1.40 Describe your understanding about the five grand challenges for basic energy sciences. Do you have different opinions or thoughts?

• 1.41 What’s the clean electric power technology? Briefly describe the current status and future trends of advancing systems and technologies to produce cleaner fuels.

• 1.42 With the clear advantages of nuclear power, why is it not more commonly used? Is it possible to develop nuclear power batteries in the future?

• 1.43 What are your prospections of future energy systems?