Engines versus electrons: The future of power production

2000 ◽  
Vol 214 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
D E Winterbone
Keyword(s):  
Power Generation ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Heat Engine ◽  
Power Production ◽  
The United States ◽  
Total Energy Consumption ◽  
Heat Engines ◽  
Low Load ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Capita

The demands for energy are increasing as countries become richer, and if all mankind achieved the per capita energy consumption of the United States then the total energy consumption of the world would rise by a factor of about 4.5. This would make a large demand on fuel supplies and probably increase pollution beyond a sustainable level. This paper examines the limits to the theoretical efficiency of power generation, including both heat engines and fuel cells, and demonstrates that thermal efficiencies of above 60 per cent are achievable in each case if combined plants are used. It is shown that the fuel cell has benefits over the heat engine when the plant operates for a significant time at low load.

scholarly journals Are Shorter Work Hours Good for the Environment? A Comparison of U.S. and European Energy Consumption

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rosnick ◽  
Mark Weisbrot
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
The United States ◽  
Work Hours ◽  
Total Energy Consumption ◽  
European Model ◽  
The World ◽  
The Eu

European employees work fewer hours per year, and use less energy per person, than their American counterparts. This article compares the European and U.S. models of labor productivity, supply, and energy consumption. It finds that if employees in the EU-15 worked as many hours as those in the United States, they would consume at least 15 percent more energy. This aspect of the debate over Europe's economic model reaches globally. Over the coming decades, developing countries will decide how to make use of their increasing productivity. If, by 2050, the world works as do Americans, total energy consumption could be 15 to 30 percent higher than it would be if following a more European model. Translated directly into higher carbon emissions, this could mean an additional 1 to 2 degrees Celsius in global warming.

scholarly journals Energy Consumption and CO2 Emission in Bangladesh: Trends and Policy Implications

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Sujahangir Kabir Sarkar ◽  
Sumaiya Sadeka ◽  
Md. Mehedi Hasan Sikdar ◽  
Badiuzzaman
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Total Energy ◽  
Co2 Emission ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Total Energy Consumption ◽  
Average Growth ◽  
Yearly Average ◽  
The World ◽  
Increasing Trend ◽  
Per Capita

Energy consumption is increasing due to the expansion of economic activity and population size which results higher GHG emission worldwide. The study has examined the trends of energy consumption and CO2 emission in Bangladesh using the secondary data extracted from the World Development Indicators of the World Bank database. The results found that there is an increasing trend of total energy consumption and per capita energy consumption in Bangladesh from 1991 to 2012 where the total energy consumption has been increased nearly three times from 12.55 mtoe (million tonne oil equivalent) in 1991 to 33.17 mtoe in 2012. The total CO2 emission was estimated by 57.07 mtoe in 2011 which was increased by 140.67% compared to the 1991 emission of 15.94 mtoe. Thus, the CO2 emission and per capita emission has also provided increasing trend over the period of 1991 to 2011.It has revealed that the growth of CO2 emission found to be higher than the growth of GDP and energy consumption in Bangladesh. The yearly average growth of CO2 emission has estimated by 6.7% which is higher that the annual average growth of GDP and energy consumption as of 5.25% and 4.77% respectively. This situation calls for serious attention of the country for reducing CO2 emission. Therefore, government needs to develop a national mitigation plan/policy and promote the use and development of green technology, renewable energy and green growth for sustainable energy and environment in Bangladesh.

scholarly journals Energy Consumption Analysis and Characterization of Healthcare Facilities in the United States

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 3775 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khaled Bawaneh ◽  
Farnaz Ghazi Nezami ◽  
Md. Rasheduzzaman ◽  
Brad Deken
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Intensity ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Total Energy Consumption ◽  
Healthcare Facilities ◽  
Energy Consumption Analysis ◽  
Consumption Data ◽  
End Use

Healthcare facilities in the United States account for 4.8% of the total area in the commercial sector and are responsible for 10.3% of total energy consumption in this sector. The number of healthcare facilities increased by 22% since 2003, leading to a 21% rise in energy consumption and an 8% reduction in energy intensity per unit of area (544.8 kWh/m2). This study provides an analytical overview of the end-use energy consumption data in healthcare systems for hospitals in the United States. The energy intensity of the U.S. hospitals ranges from 640.7 kWh/m2 in Zone 5 (very hot) to 781.1 kWh/m2 in Zone 1 (very cold), with an average of 738.5 kWh/m2. This is approximately 2.6 times higher than that of other commercial buildings. High energy intensity in the healthcare facilities, particularly in hospitals, along with energy costs and associated environmental concerns make energy analysis crucial for this type of facility. The proposed analysis shows that U.S. healthcare facilities have higher energy intensity than those of most other countries, especially the European ones. This necessitates the adoption of more energy-efficient approaches to the infrastructure and the management of healthcare facilities in the United States.

Brain Drain from Israel and Skill-Biased Global Immigration Policy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assaf Razin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
University Graduates ◽  
Skill Bias ◽  
Skilled Immigrants ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Generous Welfare

A more generous welfare state (particularly with an aging population) has financing needs that immigrants could fill. With high-skilled immigrants more likely to pay in rather than draw on the welfare state, more generous welfare states are more inclined to try to attract high skilled. Israel ranks third in the world in the number of university graduates per capita, after the United States and the Netherlands. It possesses the highest per capita number of scientists in the world, with 135 for every 10,000 citizens (compared to 85 per 10,000 in the United States). Israelis took full advantage of the immigration skill bias. When examining the index for educated émigrés, i.e., those with a college degree, the average index is 12.41 and Israel's index is more than three times higher, 41.45. Using this index, Israel is higher than Portugal and the gap between Israel and Ireland (49.09) narrows considerably.

scholarly journals Energy Use Efficiency Past-to-Future Evaluation: An International Comparison

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 3804 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chia-Nan Wang ◽  
Thi-Duong Nguyen ◽  
Min-Chun Yu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Total Energy Consumption ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
Energy Efficiency Evaluation

Despite the many benefits that energy consumption brings to the economy, consuming energy also leads nations to expend more resources on environmental pollution. Therefore, energy efficiency has been proposed as a solution to improve national economic competitiveness and sustainability. However, the growth in energy demand is accelerating while policy efforts to boost energy efficiency are slowing. To solve this problem, the efficiency gains in countries where energy consumption efficiency is of the greatest concern such as China, India, the United States, and Europe, especially, emerging economies, is central. Additionally, governments must take greater policy actions. Therefore, this paper studied 25 countries from Asia, the Americas, and Europe to develop a method combining the grey method (GM) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) slack-based measure model (SMB) to measure and forecast the energy efficiency, so that detailed energy efficiency evaluation can be made from the past to the future; moreover, this method can be extended to more countries around the world. The results of this study reveal that European countries have a higher energy efficiency than countries in Americas (except the United States) and Asian countries. Our findings also show that an excess of total energy consumption is the main reason causing the energy inefficiency in most countries. This study contributes to policymaking and strategy makers by sharing the understanding of the status of energy efficiency and providing insights for the future.

Thermo-Mechanical Modeling of a Shape Memory Alloy Heat Engine

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher B. Churchill ◽  
John Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Shape Memory Alloy ◽  
Shape Memory ◽  
Heat Engine ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thermodynamic Efficiency ◽  
Low Grade ◽  
Heat Engines ◽  
Deformation Mechanics ◽  
Sma Spring

Two thirds of the energy generated in the United States is currently lost as waste heat, representing a potentially vast source of green energy. Low Carnot efficiency is an inherent limitation of extracting energy from low-grade thermal sources (temperature gradients near or below 100C), and SMA heat engines could be useful for those applications where low weight and packaging are overriding considerations. Although many shape memory alloy (SMA) heat engines have been proposed to harvest this energy, and a few have been built and demonstrated in past decades, they have not been commercially successful. Some of the barriers to commercialization include their perceived low thermodynamic efficiency, high material cost, low material durability, complexities when using fluid baths, and the lack of robust constitutive models and design tools. Recent advances, however, in SMA longevity, reductions in materials costs (as production volumes have increased), and a better understanding of SMA behavior have stimulated new research on SMA heat engines. The Lightweight Thermal Energy Recovery System (LighTERS) is an ongoing ARPA-E funded collaboration between General Motors, HRL Laboratories, Dynalloy, Inc., and the University of Michigan. In the LighTERS engine (a refinement of the Dr. Johnson engine), a closed loop SMA spring element generates mechanical power by pulling itself between alternating hot and cold air regions. The first known thermo-mechanical model for this type of heat engine was developed in three stages. First, the constitutive and heat transfer relationships of an SMA spring form were characterized experimentally. Second, those relationships were used as inputs in a steady-state model of the heat engine, including both convective heat transfer and large-deformation mechanics. Finally, the model was validated successfully against measurements of a experimental heat engine built at HRL Labs.

scholarly journals COVID-19 – A Tale of Two Cities: Seattle and Vancouver

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Ben Yuk Fai Fong ◽  
Vincent T. S. Law
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Educational Levels ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Precautionary Measures ◽  
The Sacrifice

The coronavirus pandemic has been affecting many countries in the world over the past six months. Nowhere sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Precautionary measures, lockdown, as well as control of crowd gathering and movement have been implemented by all governments, with the sacrifice of economic activities. It is interesting to review how things were happening in North America where the United States has been hard hit by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), scoring over two million confirmed cases and about 120 thousand deaths at the top of the list of the world. Canada ranked eighteenth with about 100 thousand cases and just about 8 thousand deaths. Both the cases and deaths per capita are lower in Canada, which shares the same border and similar culture with the United States. Seattle and Vancouver have some of the highest incomes and educational levels in both countries. These two West coast cities are only 200 kilometres apart and are near the U.S.-Canada border. They are selected for this review to study the different approaches in managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals Feasible Distributed Energy Supply Options for Household Energy Use in China from a Carbon Neutral Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (24) ◽  
pp. 12992
Author(s):  
Yingxin Zhang ◽  
Sainan Wang ◽  
Wei Shao ◽  
Junhong Hao
Keyword(s):  
Power Generation ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Human Development Index ◽  
Energy Supply ◽  
Distributed Energy ◽  
Household Energy ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Supply Systems ◽  
Energy Supply Systems

This contribution firstly proposed the concept of annual average power generation hours and analyzed per capita energy consumption, carbon emission, and the human development index from a macro perspective. On this basis, we compared the average household electrical energy consumption of urban and rural residents based on the data from CGSS-2015 from a micro perspective. The results show the positive correlation between carbon emissions per capita and the human development index and China’s regional imbalance characteristics between household electricity consumption and renewable energy distribution. Therefore, the distributed energy supply system is proposed as an effective complement to centralized power generation systems and is the key to synergizing human development and carbon emissions in China. Moreover, we analyzed the characteristics of distributed energy supply systems in the context of existing energy supply systems, pointing out the need to fully use solar energy and natural gas. Finally, two types of typical distributed energy supply systems are proposed for satisfying the household energy requirements in remote or rural areas of western and the eastern or coastal areas of China, respectively. Two typical distributed energy systems integrate high-efficiency energy conversion, storage, and transfer devices such as electric heat pumps, photovoltaic thermal, heat and electricity storage, and fuel cells.

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