Conventional and Alternative Power Generation

8Alternative Energy and Power Plants

8.1 Overview

Global warming is one of the most serious challenges facing humanity today. It has come about partly due to the consumption of electricity, partly due to the burning of fuel for heating and transport and partly due to the increase in global human and livestock populations. Its impacts adversely affect all aspects of the natural world. To protect the health and economic well‐being of current and future generations, we must reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases by using the technology, know‐how and practical solutions already at our disposal. In particular, it has been proposed that the world's electrical power demands from coal must fall and be replaced by a renewable fuel such as solar, wind, bioenergy or hydropower.

There is a unified international agreement to limit the use of fossil fuels and to adopt renewables to cover some of our demands for power and heating. For example, in Europe, the EU20‐20 accord is an attempt to source 20% of energy consumption from renewables by the year 2020.

The recent and projected growth for global electrical energy generation (1990 to 2040), as predicted by the US Energy Information Administration, is shown in Figure 8.1.

Figure 8.1 World electricity generation 1990–2040. Data courtesy of EIA 2013 report.

This chapter describes some of the alternative, non‐fossil‐fuel energy technologies, including ...