Green Energy to Sustainability: Strategies for Global Industries

Alain A. Vertes, Nasib Qureshi, Hans P. Blaschek, Hideaki Yukawa, Alain A. Vertes, Nasib Qureshi, Hans P. Blaschek, Hideaki Yukawa

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119152040
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Chemistry
• Index: Chemistry

Reviews the latest advances in biofuel manufacturing technologies and discusses the deployment of other renewable energy for transportation

Aimed at providing an interface useful to business and scientific managers, this book focuses on the key challenges that still impede the realization of the billion-ton renewable fuels vision. It places great emphasis on a global view of the topic, reviewing deployment and green energy technology in different countries across Africa, Asia, South America, the EU, and the USA. It also integrates scientific, technological, and business development perspectives to highlight the key developments that are necessary for the global replacement of fossil fuels with green energy solutions.

Green Energy to Sustainability: Strategies for Global Industries examines the most recent developments in biofuel manufacturing technologies in light of business, financial, value chain, and supply chain concerns. It also covers the use of other renewable energy sources like solar energy for transportation and proposes a view of the challenges over the next two to five decades, and how these will deeply modify the industrial world in the third millennium. The coming of age of electric vehicles is also looked at, as is the impact of their deployment on the biomass to biofuels value chain.

• Offers extensive updates on the field of green energy for global industries
• Covers the structure of the energy business; chemicals and diesel from biomass; ethanol and butanol; hydrogen and methane; and more
• Provides an expanded focus on the next generation of energy technologies
• Reviews the latest advances in biofuel manufacturing technologies
• Integrates scientific, technological and business perspectives
• Highlights important developments needed for replacing fossil fuels with green energy

Green Energy to Sustainability: Strategies for Global Industries will appeal to academic researchers working on the production of fuels from renewable feedstocks and those working in green and sustainable chemistry, and chemical/process engineering. It is also an excellent textbook for courses in bioprocessing technology, renewable resources, green energy, and sustainable chemistry.

Part I
Structure of the Energy Business

1
Economic Growth and the Global Energy Demand

Jürgen Scheffran¹, Miriam Felkers¹, and Rebecca Froese^1,2

¹Research Group Climate Change and Security, Institute of Geography, Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability, University of Hamburg,, 20144 Hamburg, Germany

²Research Group Landuse Conflicts, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Peace Academy Rhineland Palatinate, University of Koblenz‐Landau,, 76829 Landau, Germany

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CHAPTER MENU

• Historical Context and Relationship Between Energy and Development
• Conceptual Framework for Pathways of Energy Use
• World Population Trends and Prospects
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Economic Growth
• Global Energy Development
• Global Emissions of Greenhouse Gases
• Linkages Between Kaya Factors
• Development of Energy Investment
• Conditions for Energy Transition and Decarbonization
• Perspectives
• Acknowledgments
• References

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1.1 Historical Context and Relationship Between Energy and Development

Energy is the driving force of all natural processes and a condition for the development of life on earth as well as for human society and its economic growth. From its origin, the character of energy is expressed by conceptions rooted in both the natural‐physical world and in the human‐social world. According to the Greek term, energeia (activity, reality) is an ‘effecting force’ that brings about the transition from possibility to reality. Aristotle saw energeia in connection with activity, action, and power. Later, Wilhelm von Humboldt established the relationship between energy and conscious human activity, and Leibniz spoke of the ‘living force’ (vis viva) which is preserved (Mittelstraß 1984).

In the course of the physical confinement of the energy concept and the distinction from the concept of force, energy has been regarded as an observable physical quantity to measure the motion of material bodies and as an acting force to implement the transition from possibility to reality. The theorem on the conservation and conversion of energy formulated in the second half of the nineteenth century proved that it is possible to convert different forms of energy (mechanical, elastic, magnetic, electrical, chemical, heat, gravitational, and nuclear energy). While the total quantity of energy is not lost, but retained in each sequence of conversions, the quality and usability of energy declines with each stage. Following basic laws of thermodynamics, energy flows from a state of higher order to one of lower order where its entropy is increasing. Against this gradient, living organisms can maintain a dynamic equilibrium of flows by a continuous energy supply from the outside as provided by sunlight and food, or by control over other energy sources. Without this influx of energy, the order of living organisms disintegrates, and ultimately, they die.

The physical definition of energy as the ability to perform work offers a direct link into the human world. The potential work contained in natural processes is converted into actual work, affecting human values and shaping human interactions. Work is often associated with planned human activity directed towards goals which can be the satisfaction of needs or the maximization of profit and income. As an essential component of work, energy is becoming a factor of economic production, a measure of society's performance, a prerequisite for prosperity and satisfaction of needs, but also a condition for growth, power, and violence. The term ‘power’ has a wide range of meanings, from physical power to political power, also as an important instrument for empowering people (Scheffran 2002).

For human beings, energy appears in two forms: energy as a driver of the natural metabolism; and energy in the form of technical mechanisms that convert the energy available in nature to make it usable for human needs. Energy production and consumption is ambivalent: on the one hand, it is a prerequisite for human prosperity, on the other it affects the social and natural environment, with sometimes considerable risks for humans and nature. In the course of history, humans have succeeded in accessing ever greater sources of energy for their own usage to serve their own interests and develop societal structures. In long historical perspectives technological waves in agriculture and industrialization have been instrumental in shaping the modern developed world. Four historical periods can be distinguished regarding the forms of energy use (Sieferle 1981):

1. In the solar energy system of hunters and gatherers, people derive as much energy from their ecological niches as these can deliver sustainably, keeping the material cycles closed.
2. The sun was also the only source of energy in the modelled energy system of agrarian societies after the so‐called ‘Neolithic revolution’ 10 000 years ago, when the energy flow was used in a m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• About the Editors
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part I: Structure of the Energy Business
• Part II: Chemicals and Transportation Fuels from Biomass
• Part III: Hydrogen and Methane
• Part IV: Perspectives
• Index
• End User License Agreement