Assignment on

New Energy Sources and their

Potential use in Energy Security and
Emission Reduction

Course Code: MRET-105

Submitted by-
Ali Ahmad
Roll: 02
Session: 2017-18
MRET

Submitted to-
Professor Dr. Saiful Huque
Director, Institute of Energy,
University of Dhaka
Flammable Ice:
The catchy phrase describes a frozen mixture of water and gas.

"It looks like ice crystals but if you zoom in to a molecular level, you see that the methane
molecules are caged in by the water molecules, According to " Associate Professor Praveen
Linga from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National
University of Singapore”.

Officially known as methane clathrates or hydrates, they are formed at very low temperatures
and under high pressure. They can be found in sediments under the ocean floor as well as
underneath permafrost on land.

Despite the low temperature, these hydrates are flammable. If you hold a lighter to them, the gas
encapsulated in the ice will catch fire. Hence, they are also known as "fire ice" or "flammable
ice".

By lowering the pressure or raising the temperature, the hydrates break down into water and
methane - a lot of methane. One cubic metre of the compound releases about 160 cubic metres of
gas, making it a highly energy-intensive fuel.
The crux, though, is that extracting the gas is extremely difficult and energy consuming.

Methane hydrates were discovered in Russia's north in the 1960s, but research into how to
extract gas from them from maritime sediment only began in the last 10 to 15 years.

Japan has been a pioneer in the field. As a country lacking any natural energy resources, other
leading countries are India or South Korea - who also don't have their own oil reserves.

While the US and Canada are also active in the field, they have been focusing on hydrates under
permafrost in the far north of Alaska and Canada.

Potential Use:
Methane hydrates are thought to have the potential to be a revolutionary energy source that could
be key to future energy needs - likely the world's last great source of carbon-based fuel.

Vast deposits exist basically underneath all oceans around the globe, especially on the edge of
continental shelves. Countries are scrambling for a way to make the extraction safe and
profitable.

It's thought that there is as much as 10 times the amount of gas in methane hydrates than in shale
for instance. "And that's by conservative estimates," according to Prof Linga. In that sense it is
indeed a major step towards making gas extraction from methane hydrates viable." China
discovered flammable ice in the South China Sea in 2007.

Nestled between between China, Vietnam and the Philippines, the South China Sea has in recent
years been an increasingly contentious issue, with Beijing claiming sole sovereignty over it - and
hence rights to all natural reserves hidden under its surface.

Piezoelectricity:
One of the most widely used smart materials is piezoelectric materials because of their wide
band width, fast electro mechanical response, relatively low power requirements and high
generative forces. Energy harvesting applications for piezoelectric devices is less than 10%
however it can change dramatically if the importance of piezoelectric materials is recognised for
alternative energy from nature with zero carbon foot print.

Piezoelectric effect exists in two domains; namely, direct piezoelectric effect and converse
piezoelectric effect. Direct piezoelectric effect describes the ability to convert mechanical energy
to electrical energy which is also known as generator or transducer effect while the converse
piezoelectric effect describes the ability of transforming electrical energy to mechanical energy
which is also known as motor/actuator effect. The electrical energy generated by direct
piezoelectric effect can be stored to power electronic devices and it is known as “energy/power
harvesting”.

Piezoelectric materials are member of ferroelectrics so that the molecular structure is oriented
such that the material exhibits a local charge separation, known as electric dipole. Electric
dipoles in the artificial piezoelectric materials composition are randomly oriented, so the material
does not exhibit the piezoelectric effect. However, the electric dipoles reorient themselves when
a strong electrical field is applied as shown in Figure 2.

Potential Use:
The term “global warming” has been highlighted more and more every day since it is considered
as one of the biggest dangers to life on earth. It is a fact that one of the factors which cause
global warming is high carbon emission. Growing population and the increasing technology
consumerism contribute to the enhanced usage of energy from coal, oil, electricity etc. However,
sooner or later the mankind is anticipated to run out of the coal and oil reserves since they are
finite and are not renewable. Energy harvesting properties of both piezoelectric and photovoltaic
materials have been known for a long period of time however recently more attention has been
paid to produce usable materials for energy generation in the form of electricity to decrease
carbon foot print.

Piezoelectric materials can convert almost any kind of mechanical energy to electrical energy.
The most suitable piezoelectric material is chosen for a particular application depending on the
properties needed. Thus, the maximum energy output, with minimum carbon emission, can be
provided to power an electronic device on-line or to be stored.

In recent years, several attempts at the macro-scale application of the piezoelectric technology
have emerged to harvest kinetic energy from walking pedestrians. The piezoelectric floors have
been trialed since the beginning of 2007 in two Japanese train stations, Tokyo and Shibuya
stations. The electricity generated from the foot traffic is used to provide all the electricity
needed to run the automatic ticket gates and electronic display systems. In London, a famous
nightclub exploited the piezoelectric technology in its dance floor. Parts of the lighting and
sound systems in the club can be powered by the energy harvesting tiles. However, the
piezoelectric tile deployed on the ground usually harvests energy from low frequency strikes
provided by the foot traffic. This working condition may eventually lead to low power
generation efficiency.

In this case, locating high traffic areas is critical for optimization of the energy harvesting
efficiency, as well as the orientation of the tile pavement significantly affects the total amount of
the harvested energy. A density flow evaluation is recommended to qualitatively evaluate the
piezoelectric power harvesting potential of the considered area based on the number of
pedestrian crossings per unit time. In X. Li's study, the potential application of a commercial
piezoelectric energy harvester in a central hub building at Macquarie University in Sydney,
Australia is examined and discussed. Optimization of the piezoelectric tile deployment is
presented according to the frequency of pedestrian mobility and a model is developed where
3.1% of the total floor area with the highest pedestrian mobility is paved with piezoelectric tiles.
The modeling results indicate that the total annual energy harvesting potential for the proposed
optimized tile pavement model is estimated at 1.1 MW h/year, which would be sufficient to meet
close to 0.5% of the annual energy needs of the building. In Israel, there is a company which has
installed piezoelectric materials under a busy highway. The energy generated is adequate and
powers street lights, billboards and signs.

Solar Hydrogen:
Hydrogen has been touted as the basis of a new and powerful energy economy not reliant on
fossil fuels. While hydrogen can be generated using different technologies, only some of them
are environmentally friendly. It is argued that hydrogen generated from water using solar energy,
solar-hydrogen, is a leading candidate for a renewable and environmentally safe energy carrier
due to the following reasons:

1. Solar-hydrogen technology is relatively simple and, therefore, the cost of such a fuel is
expected to be substantially less than that of the present price of gasoline.
 2. The only raw material for the production of solar-hydrogen is water, which is a
renewable resource.
3. Large areas of the globe have ready access to solar energy which is the only required
energy source for solar-hydrogen generation.

The development of solar-hydrogen technology requires new photo-sensitive materials serving as

photo-electrodes in electrochemical devices that convert solar energy into chemical energy
(hydrogen).

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) recaptured the record for highest efficiency in solar hydrogen production via a
photoelectrochemical (PEC) water-splitting process.

The new solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency record is 16.2 percent, topping a reported 14
percent efficiency in 2015 by an international team made up of researchers from Helmholtz-
Zentrum Berlin, TU Ilmenau, Fraunhofer ISE and the California Institute of Technology.

Before the PEC technology can be commercially viable, the cost of hydrogen production needs
to come down to meet DOE’s target of less than $2 per kilogram of hydrogen. Continued
improvements in cell efficiency and lifetime are needed to meet this target. Further enhanced
efficiency would increase the hydrogen production rate per unit area, which decreases hydrogen
cost by reducing balance-of-system expenditures. In conjunction with efficiency improvements,
durability of the current cell configuration needs to be significantly extended beyond its several
hours of operational life to dramatically bring down costs. NREL researchers are actively
pursuing methods of increasing the lifespan of the PEC device in addition to further efficiency
gains.

Potential Use:
Hydrogen has potential to be a clean, sustainable fuel. It does not occur naturally, so it needs to
be created and then stored as a fuel, which can be converted to energy via hydrogen fuel cells. It
is possible to create hydrogen from renewable resources, and the environmental impact is low to
negligible. However, a variety of obstacles must be overcome for this to be realized.

Current technologies seek to generate hydrogen in fuel cells via electrolysis of a renewable
material such as water or biomaterial. Nonetheless, the electrode design, catalysts and electrolyte
materials used in fuel cells pose technical problems that limit power and longevity.

Some 14% of global greenhouse emissions come from the transport sector. In the developing
world, this proportion is growing rapidly. Hydrogen fuel could allow transport growth to have
minimal effect on the atmosphere. Furthermore, the volatile price of oil has helped ensure that
the push for alternative transportation technologies is well funded and has international support.
Hydrogen fuel has clear potential to be a clean and sustainable fuel source. Presently, several
issues still must be overcome. However, technologies are advancing swiftly enough to encourage
corporations and governments to invest heavily. The result not only could have environmental
benefits, but it also may create significant employment opportunities.

Other Technologies:
1. Energy crystals at plasma state
2. Mass water evaporation energy harvesting device using biological agents
3. Freshwater-Saltwater junction energy at large water bodies
4. Biomass to hydrogen device

All these technologies are still in inchoate state and require effort for sustainable implementation.
But as long as renewable sources are utilized, these new sources offer great possibilities in terms
of energy security and greenhouse emission reduction.