Future Energy

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia/Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Skudai, Malaysia

AbstractThis paper presents a discussion on the energy

crisis problem and types of possible future energy to
implement in near future. This includes ongoing projects
and research which are yet to be successful.

I.

INTRODUCTION

With the rapid increase of the worlds population and

breakthrough of developing countries, indubitably the
demand of energy will increase. Statically, the worlds
population growth is increasing where it was 3 billion in
1960, 6 billion in 2000, 7 billion in 2010, and is expected
to reach between 9 billion and 10 billion in 2050.
Subsequently, the expected growth rate in energy demand
over the next 20 years will much greater than the growth
rate of the population. This is also largely due to increase
electricity production by developing nations. The
electricity generation is expected to increase from 20x10 15
W.h in 2010 to 31.2x1015W.h in 2030, which is more than
a 5% increase. Therefore, additional and alternative
energy supply must be established and preferably in the
form of renewable energy.
The present world energy supply is dominated by fossil
fuel which is unfortunately is not sustainable for long
period of time. Furthermore, combustion of fossil fuel is a
global issue of air pollution. Undoubtedly, fossil fuel is
not a safe form of energy. The current usage rate of fossil
fuel will lead to an energy crisis. In order to survive the
energy crisis, many society and companies in the energy
industry will be forced to research and invent alternative
energy from renewable energy sources. While the rate of
development is slow, mainstream awareness and
government pressures are growing.

II.

B. Benefits of Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy has the lowest impact on the
environment especially in relation to MW produced
because it does not burn anything fuel to produce
electricity. Therefore, nuclear power plants do not emit
harmful gases. Nuclear power plants produce no harmful
gases such as nitrogen oxide or sulfur oxide that could
threaten our atmosphere by causing ground-level ozone
formation, smog and acid rain. Nor does it produce any
carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases to cause global
warming. This emission-free energy source also provides
water quality and aquatic life conservation. Water
discharged from a nuclear power plant contains no
harmful pollutants and meets regulatory standards for
temperature designed to protect aquatic life.
Nuclear power plants provide land and habitat
preservation. As nuclear power plants produce a large
amount of electricity in a relatively small space, they
require significantly less land for operation compared to
other energy sources. For instance, solar and wind farms
must occupy substantially wide land and must be sited in
geographically unpopulated areas far from energy
demand. To build the equivalent of a 1,000-megawatt
nuclear plant, a solar park would have to be larger than
35,000 acres, and a wind farm would have to be 150,000
acres or larger. By contrast, the Millstone Units 2 and 3
nuclear power plants in Connecticut have an installed
capacity of over 1,900 megawatts of power on a 500-acre
site designed for three nuclear plants. Also, uranium is a
concentrated, low-volume fuel source requiring few
incursions into the land for extraction or transport.

TRANSITION PERIOD

A. Before Ending of Fossil Energy

Evolution from fossil energy generation to renewable
energy generation requires thorough planning and effort.
The renewable energy can only produce small amount of
energy in terms of ratio between generation footprint to
volume of MW energy produced. In short, the usage
percentage of renewable energy in the world is still
relatively small. US Energy Information Administration
(EIA) estimates only about 10% of world marketed energy
consumption is from renewable energy sources such as
hydropower, biomass, biofuels, wind, geothermal and
solar. As for now, the only solution to satisfy the world
90% energy demands is nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is
the only type of energy which able to able to produce
sufficient enough energy to overtake fossil energy
generation while waiting for new renewable energy plant
to be setup.

Figure 1: 1000MW Solar Farm

III.

THE FUTURE

A. Introduction to Future Energy

The main principle of future energy is renewable,
meaning it will not suffer from depletion can be last for a
long period of time without obsoletion. In other words, it
must be sustainable. Ideally, this source of energy must
have minimum impact to the environment and safe to live
along with human mankind.
Figure 2: 1900MW Nuclear Plant

C. Depletion of Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy is not a type renewable energy source
because it uses uranium fuel to produce energy. Uranium
is as common as tin or zinc, in contrast to oil, natural
uranium is broadly distributed in the world, with large
deposits in developed countries such as Canada(25%),
Australia(19%), Kazakhstan(13%). Regrettably, it will
deplete same as other hydrocarbon fuels.
Globally, around 66,500 tonnes of uranium is used per
year in nuclear power plants to produce electricity. Based
on the world resources of uranium recoverable todate, it is
sufficient to last for some 70 years in the current
consumption rate.
With the enhancement of technology to produce better
efficiency of energy generation, the nuclear industry
researchers believe that there will be plenty of uranium
discoverable in years to come. This is also a reason
nuclear energy should be preferred in the transition to
other renewable energy.
One of the good ways of moving from nuclear energy
to renewable energy is by using hybrid nuclear with
hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most attractive and ideal future
energy, but extraction of pure hydrogen requires a great
deal of energy. Hybrid nuclear is a technique to perform
this hydrogen extraction and it will be further discussed in
later section.

B. Wind Energy
Winds are large-scale movements of air masses in the
atmosphere. These movements of air are created on a
global scale primarily by differential solar heating of the
Earths atmosphere. Therefore wind power is known as a
indirect form of solar energy. It is also clear that the wind
resource will vary with regions and climate.

Figure 4: Wind turbine Size Over Time

The growth in turbine size reflects the growth of

technology deployment. Figure 5 shows the new capacity
in megawatts installed globally from 1996 to 2012. Most
of this capacity is in a limited number of countries: in
2009 the United States had the largest total installed
capacity at 35GW, China had 26GW and Germany and
Spain had 26 and 19GW, respectively.

Figure 5: Wind Turbine Technology

Figure 3: Model of Hybrid Nuclear

Renewable sources like wind are attractive as it has

very low life cycle emissions of greenhouse gases. The
other environmental impact is only visual impact on the
landscape. This is highly subjective but nevertheless
important and is one of the reasons for growing interest in
offshore wind.
In conclusion, the prospects for wind as alternative
future renewable energy source are excellent. It is one of
the fastest growing of new renewable sources and is

economically competitive with other forms of electricity

generation.
C. Tidal Current Energy
Since the 20th century, a range of tidal barrage plants
were considered around the world. However, the huge
civil engineering costs of the dam construction and the
presence of other cheaper energy alternatives rendered
almost all of them uneconomic. Today, only La Rance
barrage, on the north coast of France, stands to prove not
only is a tidal barrage is possible, but also the
environmental impacts is not as disastrous as many have
feared.
Tidal currents are generally driven by two connected
bodies of water equalizing their level differences, resulting
in a flow of water from an area of high pressure head to an
area of low pressure head. If the pressure head differences
exist at opposite ends of a channel or similar restriction,
then substantial flow speeds frequently result through
relatively small cross-sectional areas and it is the highspeed flow that makes tidal currents attractive for power
generation.
Not all tidal currents occur at the connections between
large bodies of water, many currents exists as a result of
the filling and emptying of basins and estuaries, the
resonant dimensions of which can affect the flow
behavior.

Figure 6: 1994 Loch Lihne rotor

In partnership with Scottish Power Renewables, the

Andritz Hydro Hammerfest device is expected to be
installed in the Sound of Islay off the west coast of
Scotland. Installation has been delayed for some tome due
to scaling difficulties moving from the very successful
300KW device to 1MW. The 1MW horizontal axis device
was powering homes in Eday in 2012.

Figure 7: Artists Impression of SeaGen

For the commercial generation of power, tidal current

devices need to be simple and cost-effective to install,
requiring minimal maintenance and able to resist the
build-up of biofouling for long periods of time. The
exploitation of tidal current energy is too attractive to
ignore, but a much more coherent effort is required to
make it realistically possible.
D. Wave Energy
The idea of generating energy from ocean waves is not
new. For centuries, mankind has looked out to sea and
wondered at its awesome power and contemplated how to
harness it. The first known attempt was filed in Paris by
two Frenchmen in 1799 and was a shoreline device
intended to pump fresh water to a nearby village.
Due to planning obstruction for onshore wind and
limited suitable sites for both offshore wind and tidal
stream, the interest has again been ignited in the wave
energy possibility. Although, the global economic
downturn in recent years has slowed it progress, but it has
also consolidated the sector and made it to focus on
economic energy returns.
There are many types of waves found in the ocean both
on the surface and below. These waves transition energy
from their sources. These are excited by various forces
ranging from gravitational forces through earthquakes and
floating body interactions. The focus of the wave energy
sector though is the conversion of ocean wind waves.
There are two types of waves that the wave energy
converter is interested in, swell waves and local wind seas.
Swell waves are generated from distant storms whereas
local wind seas are generated much closer to the point of
interest. As the waves grow their speed increases and
eventually this will exceed the speed of the storm and so
swell waves will arrive at a coastline before the storm
arrives. This means that there can be significant wave
energy at a location when the wind is zero and in simple
terms the ocean becomes a transmission line for
concentrated wind energy.

Figure 8: Marine Powered Transformer on Islay, Scotland.

The drivers and context for energy are now diversity of

generation and security of supply. Once wave energy
devices can prove its commercial potential, its integration
into the mainstream energy market will follow swiftly.
This potential is being demonstrated at full-scale test sites
like EMEC centre in Orkney and a quarter-scale test site
in Galway Bay, Ireland.
E. Photovoltaic Energy
Photovoltaic (PV) energy is a direct application of the
photoelectric effect discovered by Edmund Becquerel in
1839, whereby sunlight energy excites electrons present in
metals. PV devices are able to convert sunlight directly
into electricity. As such, PV energy is often referred to as
solar electric energy to distinguish it from solar thermal
energy that uses sunlight energy in the form of heat to
produce electricity indirectly.
Given current energy usage and world population,
enough solar radiation falls on the Earths surface at any
given time to provide an average 20GW of power to every
person. In other words, given 15% conversion efficiency
of purely dispatchable energy, we would only need to
cover 1.4% of the state of Arizona with PV modules to
meet the equal annual needs of the entire United Stated.
The upmost challenge for the PV industry is determining
how to efficiently and economically convert solar energy
into usable electricity.

Figure 9: Innovative Sunslates installation by Solar Century

Historically, the cost of PV energy has been a large

barrier to high penetration. The industry has now matured
to a point where solar is becoming cost-effective. On
average, for every doubling of PV production capacity
worldwide, the cost of solar has reduced 20%. The cost of
PV systems is no longer dominated by the cost of
modules. Now, the cost of modules is only 15% of the
total PV system cost.
The industry now recognizes the need to improve
accompanying power electronics, more thoroughly train
installers, and streamline the permitting process in order to
decrease cost further. Within the next few decades, the
industry expects to provide energy at a cost less than fossil
fuels without government subsidies or incentives.

F.

Solar Thermal Energy

Concentrating solar power (CSP) systems use high
temperature heat from concentrating solar collectors to
generate power in a conventional power cycle. Only direct
radiation can be concentrated in optical systems. In order
to achieve significant concentration, factor such as suntracking is required during the day, thus involving a
certain amount of maintenance. Therefore, the concept is
most suitable for centralized power production, where
maintenance can be performed efficiently, and in areas
with high direct solar radiation levels.
The concentration of sunlight is achieved by mirrors
directing the sunlight onto a heat exchanger where the
absorbed energy is transferred to a heat transfer fluid. Due
to their high reflectivity, low cost and excellent outdoor
durability glass mirrors have become widely accepted in
practice as concentrating collectors. A variety of CSP
concepts exist in which the heat transfer fluid is either
used directly in the power cycle or circulated in an
intermediate secondary cycle, in which case an additional
heat transfer to the power cycle is required. CSP systems
can also be distinguished by the arrangement of their
concentrator mirrors: line focusing systems like parabolic
troughs or linear Fresnel systems only require single-axis
tracking in order to concentrate the solar radiation onto an
absorber tube.

In practice, concentration factors of up to 100 can be

achieved. Point focusing systems like parabolic dish
concentrate the solar radiation onto a receiver located on
the top of a central tower can achieve concentration
factors of several thousand at the expense of two-axis
tracking.

Figure 10: Technologies for Concentrating Solar Radiation

Although
hydrogen
is
considered
as
an
environmentally clean source of energy, it is a secondary
energy source. Which means other energy sources must be
used for its production. The use of friendly methods such
as solar and wind are recommended. In 2010, the US
department of Energy estimated that the costs of
producing hydrogen from wind farms and electrolysis had
become competitive with gasoline.
Hydrogen is high in energy, yet an engine that burns
pure hydrogen produces almost no pollution. NASA has
used liquid hydrogen since the 1970s to propel the space
shuttle and other rockets into orbit. Hydrogen fuel cells
power the shuttle's electrical systems, producing a clean
byproduct - pure water, which the crew drinks.
A fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce
electricity, heat, and water. Fuel cells are often compared
to batteries. Both convert the energy produced by a
chemical reaction into usable electric power. However, the
fuel cell will produce electricity as long as fuel (hydrogen)
is supplied, never losing its charge.
Fuel cells are a promising technology for use as a
source of heat and electricity for buildings, and as an
electrical power source for electric motors propelling
vehicles. Fuel cells operate best on pure hydrogen. But
fuels like natural gas, methanol, or even gasoline can be
reformed to produce the hydrogen required for fuel cells.
Some fuel cells even can be fueled directly with methanol,
without using a reformer.

Concentrating solar technologies and in particular

point focusing systems offer the benefit of producing high
temperature process heat that could be used in reactors to
run endothermic chemical reactions. A promising example
is the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen through
high temperature thermochemical cycles. In contrast to the
alternative option of using solar electricity in combination
with an electrolyser, the high temperature thermochemical
approach requires fewer conversion steps, thus offering
higher efficiencies and less equipment.
G. Hydrogen Energy
In spite of being a tiny simple molecule, hydrogen has
received much attention over the past two decades in the
international community. Hydrogen is included along with
other future renewable energy solution such as wind,
waves and tidal, solar, nuclear, but unlike the others, it is
not intermittent in that it can be stored and made available
upon demand.
The hydrogen atom is the simplest and lightest of all
the elements. The molecule is an odorless and colorless
gas with a density one-fourteenth that of air. In order to
condense the molecule to a denser liquid, the temperature
must be reduced to 20.3K. When hydrogen is released, it
disperses rapidly. Relative to other fuels, hydrogen has the
highest combustion energy per unit mass, which means it
is more efficient than other fuels currently used.
Technical difficulties still present hurdles to the
everyday use of hydrogen. These are being confronted and
dealt with by researchers and developers around the
world. Among other things, hydrogen is flammable and
increases its safety risk. Hydrogen molecule is also
smaller than natural gas and gasoline molecules, thus
causing it more difficult to contain. Volumetrically,
hydrogen contains less usable energy than other fuels.
Also, hydrogen can embrittle steel, hence causing
potential design problems for pipelines, storage vessels,
delivery containers, compressor, etc.

Figure 11: Hydrogen Fuel Cell

IV.

CONCLUSION

The transition to future energy systems will have to

eradicate poverty and stabilize climate change within
politically and economically acceptable limits. At this
moment, these two big challenges are for society to solve,
less so for technology development; the technologies
either already exist or will evolve over time. The crux is
the application and widespread adaption of these
sustainable energy technologies. To achieve this, societal
change is needed, both in developed and developing
nations. Political will is required to lead a transition
towards sustainable, affordable and clean energy for all.

V.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author would like to thank Universiti Teknologi

Malaysia for offering this subject and course in Penang
and given the author the opportunity to expose to this new
era of technology. The author also grateful to the lecturer:
Prof Ir. Dr. Wazir Mustafa for his knowledge and guidance
in the entire courses.
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