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Advances in Energy Systems
book

Advances in Energy Systems

by Peter D. Lund, John A. Byrne, Reinhard Haas, Damian Flynn
April 2019
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
568 pages
27h 45m
English
Wiley
Content preview from Advances in Energy Systems

7Nuclear and Renewables: Compatible or Contradicting?

Lutz Mez

Freie Universität Berlin, Environmental Policy Research Centre, Berlin, Germany

Since the report of the Club of Rome, “The Limits to Growth,” the exhaustion of fossil energy sources has been under discussion. Coal, oil, and gas – and energy technologies relying on them – will be exhausted in the future. High expectations for nuclear energy have given way to the insight that nuclear fission is at best a bridging technology. The risks of this technology became apparent by nuclear catastrophes such as Chernobyl and Fukushima, and uranium resources are limited. Furthermore, fast breeder technology has failed and fourth‐generation reactors are still pure fiction. Before the Industrial Revolution, nearly all energy demands were supplied by renewable energy worldwide. From the beginning of the nineteenth century, fossil fuel was used in a steadily increasing amount for heating, lighting, transport, and other energy purposes. Electricity as a scientific form of energy played an important role in the transformation of agricultural to industrial societies. Electricity systems are the basic infrastructure of modern societies, influencing the industrial organization, the degree of automation, the communication system, and the industrial future. Today the electrical power industry is at a crossroads, last but not least for environmental reasons. Beside the large cathedrals of electricity generation, other types of generation technologies, ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781119508281Purchase book