Energy Resources and their Impact on Modern Economy - Essay Example

ENERGY RESOURCES AND THEIR IMPACT ON ECONOMY MODERN ECONOMY: Energy based economy In today's economy energy plays an important role. Today's economy virtually runs on energy. Sources of energy find widespread usage today in the form of coal in thermal power plants or uranium in nuclear reactor power houses or petrol in automobiles or petroleum products in various industries. Any fluctuation in the prices or availability of these sources has a wide spread impact on the world economy as seen from very recent events like The Gulf wars. Energy sources that are widely used today are coal, petroleum and nuclear power. Other sources of energy like geothermal energy, tidal energy, waterpower and solar energy are also being used in some places but their usage is neither widespread nor does is it have any significant impact on the economy. The reason behind this is that the utilization of these forms of energy is heavily technologically dependent and these technologies are still in the stages of infancy. There are many difficulties in implementing these technologies, some of them being their higher costs and sophistication of usage procedures to the common layman. COAL RESOURCES: Coal is a fossil fuel that is formed in the earth's crust from slow metamorphosis of organic matter under high temperature and pressure conditions. The rate at which coal is formed is very slow and it takes millions of years for the formation of coal. Coal originally formed from ancient plants that after death were decomposed and somehow buried under layers of sedimentary rocks. With the passage of time more and more layers of sediments formed on this decomposed plant matter. This exerted high pressure and resulted in increase of temperature. Over millions of years these physical conditions caused coal to form from the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and mineral compounds that were present in the plant matter. Coal formation began during the carboniferous period known as the first coal age which spanned 360 to 290 million years before the present day. Coal deposits are found almost in all the countries of the world, but most of these deposits are small and commercially insignificant. Commercially important deposits are found in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. There exists a hairline difference between the terms "reserves" and "resources". Reserves are coal deposits that be extracted profitably with the application of technology where as resources are an estimate of the world's total coal deposits. All the resources may not be reserves because some of them are not commercially accessible. Total recoverable reserves of coal around the world are estimated at 1,001 billion tons-enough to last approximately 190 years at current consumption levels. Historically, estimates of world recoverable coal reserves, although relatively stable, have declined gradually from 1,167 billion tons at the beginning of 1990 to 1,083 billion tons in 2000 and 1,001 billion tons in 2003. The most recent assessment of world coal reserves includes a substantial downward adjustment for Germany, from 73 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves to 7 billion tons. (International Energy Outlook 2005) The coal reserves are geographically distributed as follows: Europe, including all of Russia and other countries that made up Soviet Union, 44 percent; North America, 28 percent; Asia, 17 percent; Australia, 5 percent; Africa, 5 percent; and South America, 1 percent. (Speight 2003) A substantial quantity of coal consumed is burned in electric power stations to produce electricity. When coal is burned energy is obtained in the form of heat. In a power station that uses coal as the fuel, this heat converts water into super heated steam at high pressure which is made to rotate a turbine connected to a dynamo to produce electricity. The steel industry uses coke. Coke is a hard substance consisting of nearly pure carbon and is obtained by heating coal in absence of air. The coke is combined with iron ore (hematite) and lime stone and then the mixture is heated in a blast furnace to obtain iron. Other industries use different coal gases that are emitted during the process of coke formation to make useful substances like fertilizers, industrial solvents, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other products. PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS: Petroleum is also a fossil fuel. It is a bituminous liquid composed of various organic chemicals. Petroleum is formed under the earth's crust by the decomposition of ancient marine organisms. The dead remains of organisms settle down to the ocean floor gradually. With the passage of time sediments get deposited over them. Such deposits are rich in organic materials and become the source rocks for the generation of petroleum oil. With the passage of time the sediments become thicker and sink to the ocean floor under their own weight. With the thickening of sediments the pressure and temperature increase tremendously. Under these conditions mud and sand get transformed into sandstone; carbonate precipitates and shells form limestone; and the remains of dead organisms are converted into crude oil and natural gas. After the formation of petroleum it flows upward in the earth's crust because oil floats on water. The rising material encounters impermeable shale or dense layers of rock that prevent further migration and gets trapped to form a reservoir of petroleum. The world's technically recoverable reserves of crude oil amount to about 1000 billion barrels. (Doscher 2003) Technically recoverable reserve is the amount of the oil that can be extracted by implementing technology. Reserves in range of 73 billion barrels are located in North America. Of the known oil reserves more than half are located in the Middle Eastern countries particularly in the Gulf Countries alone. Petroleum is refined to obtain many individual constituents like petrol, naphtha, kerosene, lubricants, fuel oils, waxes and asphalt. Gasoline boils at 38-205 Celsius and is distilled off at this temperature. It is used chiefly as a fuel in internal combustion engines. Naphtha is a mixture of several volatile and flammable liquids. It is used as a solvent for fats, gums and resins. It is also used in manufacture of varnishes and waxes and in dry cleaning of textiles. Kerosene is used as a fuel for engines, heaters and lamps and also finds application as an industrial solvent. Kerosene is an excellent solvent of many compounds. It dissolves camphor, iodine, phosphorus, resins, sulphur and waxes. Hence it is used as a thinner for paints and other materials. Lubricants enable machinery to function continuously by preventing abrasion of metal parts caused by heat expansion. Usually greases are obtained from petroleum distillation. Fuel oils are used as fuel in ships and furnaces of factories. Fuel oils have comparatively lower calorific value and higher viscosity than petrol. Waxes are used in the manufacture of rust preventives, rubber antioxidants, electrical insulators, paper coatings, printing inks, textile finishes, leather dressings and waxed containers for food. Asphalt is black cement like material. It is used in surfacing roads, in lining the walls of water retaining structures such as reservoirs and swimming pools and in manufacturing floor tiles and roofing materials. It is also used in manufacturing paints and lacquers. Due to new developments in petroleum extraction technology, the petrochemical industry began to take shape. The petrochemical industry has a world wide importance as it manufactures a wide variety of commercially important substances like alcohols, detergents, synthetic rubber, glycerin, fertilizers, sulfur, solvents, and the feedstocks for the manufacture of drugs, nylon, plastics, paints, polyesters, food additives and supplements, explosives, dyes, and insulating materials. Coal and petroleum are exhaustible resources. They will be depleted in the very near future. The reason behind this is that the current rate at which these are being extracted from the earth's crust is many times the rate of their formation. It takes millions of years for formation of these fossil fuels. On the contrary half of the world's coal and petroleum reserves have already been extracted in a short span of the fifty years. It is estimated that the coal reserves will last for only the next 200 years at the present rate of consumption. Petroleum reserves of the world would be completely depleted in the next 36 years. Due to the non-renewable nature of fossil fuels, emphasis is being laid on sources of energy that are non-exhaustible and renewable. NUCLEAR ENERGY: Nuclear energy is the energy that is released during splitting or fusing of nuclei. The atom consists of a small, massive and positively charged core called the nucleus which is surrounded by electrons. The nucleus is composed of protons and neutrons that are bound together by means of strong forces of attraction. The nucleus contains most of the mass of the atom. The binding energy of a nucleus is a measure of how tightly its protons and neutrons are held together by nuclear forces. When the nucleus splits some of this binding energy is manifested as heat. Energy obtained from this process is many times higher than that obtained by burning coal or petroleum. Nuclear energy is converted into electricity in nuclear power plants. In these installations the core is made up of the nuclear reactor. In the nuclear reactor rods of uranium or other fissionable materials like plutonium or thorium are made to disintegrate under controlled conditions. This process releases a lot of heat. This heat is made to boil water in a boiler by means of coolants like molten sodium metal or carbon dioxide under high pressure. Steam so produced is made to drive a turbine connected to a dynamo. This produces electricity. Harnessing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is relatively a new phenomenon. U.S president Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the U.S Atoms for peace program in 1953. It was perceived as offering a future of cheap, plentiful energy. The utility industry hoped that nuclear power would replace increasingly scarce fossil fuels and lower the cost of electricity. Groups concerned with conserving natural resources foresaw a reduction in air pollution and strip mining. (Nuclear energy 2003) The major fuels used in nuclear reactors are uranium and thorium. Uranium ores are widely distributed throughout the world. Deposits of pitchblende, the richest uranium ore are found chiefly in Canada, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the United States. (Seaborg 2003) Thorium is extracted from an ore called monazite. Monazite is found in association with the older crystalline rocks, mainly in gravel deposits of Brazil, India, and Malaysia; in the United States it is found in Idaho, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Though nuclear energy is very much beneficial there are growing concerns regarding the environmental pollution that is caused during the disposal of radioactive wastes that are obtained from the reactors. Whipple (2003) quotes that "Thirty thousand metric tons of spent fuel rods from power reactors and another 380,000 cubic meters of high level radioactive waste have been produced since the beginning of the nuclear age. Presently, these fuel rods are stored at the nuclear reactors in water filled basins and accumulate at the rate of six tons per day." As the population increases, so does the demand for electricity. If we continue relying on nuclear power to provide our electricity, we will continue producing more and more nuclear waste. Greater use of nuclear power and volumes of waste mean a greater chance of accidental release of radiation into the environment. (Cited from Nuclear Waste Disposal by Hoover 1997) Another disadvantage of nuclear energy is that construction of nuclear reactors is a costly process. Maintenance of the installations is a technologically intensive and requires highly skilled workers. This scenario is bound to change very soon. In the very near future there would be prospect for energy derived from nuclear fusion. The fuel used in fusion is an isotope of hydrogen called deuterium. Deuterium is found in abundance in sea water. Though the technology is still in infancy, it could one day supply unlimited energy at very cheap rates. GOTHERMAL ENERGY: Geothermal energy is the energy contained in the intense heat that continually flows outward from deep within the earth's interior. This heat has its origin in the earth's core. The crust of the earth insulates the surface from the hot interior which is at a temperature of 4000-7000 Celsius. In some places where there are cracks that extend deep into the earth, this energy is concentrated and can be utilized as a source of energy. In certain regions water seeping down through cracks and fissures in the crust comes into contact with hot rock and is heated to a very high temperatures. Some of this heated water circulates to the earth's surface and appears as hot springs and geysers. If the surface rock is not permeable the hot water may remain in the underground in a capsule, forming geothermal reservoirs. Geothermal reservoirs often reach temperatures of more than 350 Celsius and can be tapped as a powerful source of energy. Geothermal reservoirs are accessed by drilling a well. The hot water or steam from these wells is used to turn turbine generators to generate electricity. Apart from generating electricity, geothermal water is used directly to heat greenhouses and to speed up the growth of fish and prawns. The heat from geothermal water is used for industrial processes and for space heating in homes. Industrially heat from geothermal water is used in manufacturing paper, pasteurizing milk, and drying timber and other agricultural products. Geothermal waters are used in mining to speed up the extraction of gold and silver from the ores and also circulated under footpaths and roads to prevent their icing under sub-zero temperatures. On domestic scale it is used for heating individual buildings or groups of buildings. A typical heating system consists of a pump that circulates water from a geothermal reservoir to a tank called the heat exchanger. In the heat exchanger fresh water is heated with the help of the geothermal water and pumped to homes for heating. The exhausted geothermal water is then injected back into the reservoir so that it gets reheated and can be used again. Geothermal energy has many prospects for the future. The resource base of geothermal energy is larger than the resource base of coal, petroleum, natural gas and uranium combined. Production from individual geothermal reservoirs can be sustained for decades and perhaps even for centuries. Even then geothermal energy is not being utilized to its outmost potential. The main reason behind this is that geothermal reservoirs are not found in all geographic locations. Also the technology involved is very costly and needs expertise to implement. According to the article "Geothermal Energy Clean sustainable energy for the Benefit of Humanity and the Environment" (University 0f Utah 2001), drilling the geothermal wells for the power plants is more costly than petroleum drilling. Drilling accounts for 30 - 50 % of the project's total financial costs. (Cited from Energy field trips: The Pennsylvania State University 2004) SOLAR ENERGY: Solar energy is the energy radiated by the sun in the form of light and heat radiation. Solar energy is produced in the sun's core from nuclear fusion reactions between various isotopes of hydrogen. Solar energy is the most abundant from of energy and would last as long as the sun for about four billion years from now. In fact all other forms of energy like wood, coal, petroleum and geothermal energy are derived from solar energy. Solar energy has long been used to dry clothes, crops and fodder, etc. Only in recent years it is being used for producing electric power. For domestic purposes solar energy can be used to cook food and heat water. Solar cooker is the device that uses solar energy for cooking. It works by tapping solar rays in a black painted box by means of a glass pane. Inside the box the temperature rises to 100-180 Celsius which is enough to cook food. Nowadays solar energy is also being used to produce electricity by means of photovoltaic cells. Photovoltaic cells are made up of semiconductors. When light falls on them, an electric current is obtained as the output. In some places solar energy is concentrated by means of mirrors on a boiler. The water in the boiler boils and produces steam. This steam is used to drive turbines connected to electric generators to produce electricity. Industrially solar energy is used to smelt metals in solar furnaces. Solar furnaces use parabolic mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy. Doing so produces very high temperatures in the range of thousands of degrees. This temperature is utilized to smelt metals in the metallurgical processes. Solar energy has its restrictions in unavailability in all seasons and all times of the day. Very diffuse source means low energy production--large numbers of solar panels (and thus large land areas) are required to produce useful amounts of heat or electricity Only areas of the world with lots of sunlight are suitable for solar power generation (Energy matters: Solar power. Advantages and disadvantages 1998) Automobiles that have been developed to run on solar energy have not been so far successful because of these reasons. WATER POWER: Water power is the power that is possessed by flowing water. Flowing water has kinetic energy by virtue of its motion. This kinetic energy is utilized for producing electric power. In fact water power is directly derived from solar energy. Historically water power was used for grinding flour in some eastern countries. Some centuries later it found use I cottage level industries that were situated close to rivers. Production of electricity from water power is a recent development. In a water power station, water flowing in a river is stored behind a massive dam. As the water builds up, its potential energy is also built up. This water is made to fall on the blades of a turbine from a height. The kinetic energy of the falling water is transferred to the turbine blades, which causes them to move. The turbine is connected to an electric generator and thus electricity is produced. Water potential has a very vast potential. Water power is very much advantageous as it produces electricity at absolutely no cost. Also it does not cause pollution to the environment. It will last for many years to come. On the other hand the disadvantages are the huge initial investments and technological expertise. Another added disadvantage is that water power cannot be utilized in earthquake prone regions as building dams in such regions is not so safe. Also there are growing concerns regarding the disturbance of the ecological balance in the course of the river. Dams disrupt the ecological balance of rivers by depleting them of oxygen and nutrients, and affecting the migration and reproduction of fish and other freshwater species. For example, China - the country with the most number of dams planned or under construction in the world - may lose endangered species such as the Yangtze River Dolphin and many water birds if indiscriminate dam-building continues to destroy their habitats. (WWF: Dam problems 2005) WIND POWER: Wind power refers to the energy carried by the flowing air. Wind power is a direct derivative of solar power. The sun's rays heat the surface air of the earth differentially. This causes changes in pressure and results in wind. Wind power also comes under kinetic energy as it is due to motion of air particles. Wind power is in utilization since many centuries. The wind mills of the Netherlands are an indication to this fact. In olden days wind power was used to grind flour, to pump water and in powering ships in the seas. Today it is being used in producing electricity. A wind mill consists of huge fan blades. When the wind blows, these blades move and rotate the turbine. The turbine is connected to a generator and electricity is produced. The cost of installation and maintenance has dramatically decreased in recent years. Future technology ensures only a continual decrease in the prices. No fuel to purchase and low operating costs. As a result, the lifetime investment is much lower than most fossil-fuel systems. (Wind power: A clean renewable form of energy. No date) The disadvantage in utilizing wind power lies in the huge initial investment that is required. The area need to be surveyed for its viability of annual winds. All the places do not get a constant wind and also the winds are seasonal. Hence it cannot be implemented in all geographic locations. One of the primary disadvantages to wind power is the natural variability of wind in any given locale. Indeed there are certain areas with extremely high average wind speeds, but in most places, wind exposure is quite variable. Wind energy can only be stored with a battery, otherwise it is not. In the latter case, not all energy demands can be met through the natural timing of winds. For these reasons, it may not be a viable option for some. (Wind power: A clean renewable form of energy. No date) In the very near future, coal and petroleum would be exhausted. Thus the need for implementing the use of renewable sources is being felt. The fact that renewable sources are ecologically safe is an added advantage taking into consideration the degradation of the environment that has already been caused by the industrialization. BIBLIOGRAPHY: "Nuclear Energy" Microsoft Encarta Reference Library. CD-ROM. Seattle: Microsoft, 2003. Dam problems. 2005. World wild fund (WWF). 25 Nov. 2005 Doscher, T. M. 2003. "Petroleum" Microsoft Encarta Reference Library. CD-ROM. Seattle: Microsoft, 2003. Energy matters: Solar power. Advantages and disadvantages 1998. ThinkQuest. 25 Nov. 2005. Hoover, L. Nuclear Waste Disposal. 10 Nov. 1997. Goshen College. 25 Nov. 2005< http://www.goshen.edu/bio/Biol410/Biol410SrSemPapers97/Hoover.html> International Energy Outlook. 2005. Energy Information Administration. July 2005. Renewable energy field trips. 2004. The Pennsylvania State University. 25 Nov. 2005 Seaborg, G. T. 2003. "Uranium" Microsoft Encarta Reference Library. CD-ROM. Seattle: Microsoft, 2003. Speight, J. 2003. "Coal." Microsoft Encarta Reference Library. CD-ROM. Seattle: Microsoft, 2003. Wind power: A clean renewable form of energy. No date. 25 Nov. 2005 Read More