Biomass.

Biomass fuels come from things that once lived: wood products, dried vegetation, crop residues, aquatic plants and even garbage. It is known as'Natural Material'.
Wood is a biomass fuel. It is renewable. As long as we continue to plant new trees to replace those cut down, we will always have wood to burn.
It is such a widely utilized source of energy, probably due to its low cost and indigenous nature, that it accounts for almost 15% of the world's total energy supply and as much as 35% in developing countries, mostly for cooking and heating.

How is biomass converted into energy?

Burning:

This is a very common way of converting organic matter into energy. Burning stuff like wood, waste and other plant matter releases stored chemical energy in the form of heat, which can be used to turn shafts to produce electricity. 
1. Energy from the sun is transferred and stored in plants.
2. This is burned to heat water in a boiler to release heat energy (steam).
3. The energy/power from the steam is directed to turbines with pipes
4. The steam turns a number of blades in the turbine and generators, which are made of coils and magnets.
5. The charged magnetic fields produce electricity, which is sent to homes by cables.


Decomposition: 
Things that can rot, like garbage, human and animal waste, dead animals and the like can be left to rot, releasing a gas called biogas. 
Methane can be captured by a machine called Microturbine and converted into electricity. Sometimes, animal waste can also be converted into methane by a machine called 'Anaerobic Digester'

Fermentation: 
Ethanol can be produced from crops with lots of sugars, like corn and sugarcane. 










Charlie is watching you.

renewable energy

What is renewable energy?

Energy exists freely in nature. Some of them exist infinitely , the rest have finite amounts.

You will notice that water, wind, sun and biomass (vegetation) are all available naturally and were not formed. The others do not exist by themselves, they were formed. Renewable energy resources are always available to be tapped, and will not run out. This is why some people call it Green Energy.

When can energy be called 'Renewable'?

• When its source cannot run out or can easily be replaced.
• When their sources are carbon neutral. This means they do not produce Carbon compounds.
• When they do not pollute the environment.

TIP:

Approximately 20% of electricity produced globally in 2009 came from renewable sources. Out of this, hydro-power accounted for about 16%.

Natural Gas.

Natural Gas is colorless, shapeless, and odorless in its pure form. Unlike other fossil fuels, natural gas is clean burning and emits lower levels of potentially harmful byproducts into the air. It is therefore called "Clean Gas'.
While natural gas is formed primarily of methane, it can also include ethane, propane, butane and pentane.
The main ingredient in natural gas is methane, a gas (or compound) composed of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms.
Natural gas supplies about 23.8 percent of the world's energy. Gas is extracted by drilling wells deep into the ground, through many layers or rock to reach the gas deposits.
Natural gas comes in two main types: 
The first and conventional type is found in permeable sandstone reservoirs. The second, unconventional types are found in other places such as in coal deposits, or shale rock formations.
Similar to other energy types, natural gas is burned to produce pressurized gas that spins the blades of turbines. The spinning causes some metal coils and magnets in a generator to produce electrical current, that is connected to a transformer and further supplied to homes.

Petroleum.

Crude oil is usually found in underground areas called reservoirs. They are composed mainly of hydrocarbons and organic compounds.
Sometimes, petroleum and crude oil are used to mean the same thing, but petroleum itself is a broad range of petroleum products including crude oil itself. 
We use the term 'petroleum products after crude oil is refined in a factory.
Crude oil can exists either deep down in the earth's surface or deep below the ocean beds. Oil drills mounted in the oceans are known as "offshore dills".
The process of generating electricity from crude oil is very similar to that of thermal coal, which we saw in the previous page.

• Oil is burnt in turbines in power stations to produce extreme heat, which is used to create high-pressure steam.
• This steam is used to spin a turbine very fast by pushing against metal blades.
• The blades turn a generator containing wires and magnets and magnetic field produces electricity. 
• The electricity flows to a transformer, which changes it to very high voltage electricity. The transformer also regulates the amount of electricity that is produced and supplied.
• Electricity is sent to homes, factories and other places in the world.

Crude Oil can be used for other things too:

A great chunk of all the total crude oil in the world is processed as gasoline, which we use for our cars.

Because crude oil is liquid in nature, spills from offshore drills and fuel tankers harm the environment a lot, especially marine life.

Uranium.

Nuclear energy is energy in the nucleus of an atom.
It is usually in a form of heavy metal, naturally occurring in most rocks, soil, and even in the ocean! It is found in many places in the world.
Power generated from nuclear reaction is similar to that of fossil fuels because they all use heat to turn blades to generate power.
A nuclear power plant uses uranium as fuel. Uranium pallets are combined into large fuel assemblies and placed in a reactor core. 
In that chamber, uranium atoms can be made to split, or fission, to release heat. 'Fission' is the process of splitting the uranium atom to form smaller atoms.
Uranium was first discovered by a German Scientist called Martin Klaproth in 1789.
It is believed that Uranium was named after the planet Uranus, and it provides the main source of heat inside the earth.
CO2 emissions from nuclear fuel is very low, even lower than hydro-power. Nuclear power plants are very expensive to build.
In 2011, a tsunami struck Japan and caused problems with its nuclear power plant in Fukushima.
There are laws that check that countries with unclear plants comply with safety rules and also do not misuse their plants for developing nuclear weapons.

Hydraulic Facturing

‘Fracking’ is a nickname for hydraulic fracturing.

This is a technology involving the use of slick water, pumped deep down into the earth at high pressure to release gas and oil from shale rock. Slick water is water with some specific amounts of ‘proppant’ a sand-like material and other chemicals that help reduce water friction.

• Natural gas or shale gas molecules and non-traditional oil can be found trapped in very tiny pockets within shale formations very deep down the earth’s surface .
• These tiny fissures can be as small as 1mm in diameter. The process begins with drilling vertically down and then horizontally for many more miles. 
• After this, the slick water is pumped in the wells and tiny cracks and spaces in the shale rock are forced to widen. 
• The sand-like materials hold the widened spaces open for the gas to be released and sucked up to the surface.

Fracking is a newer technology, compared to the traditional oil and gas drilling. It has become very common in the USA, and many of the natural gas plants use this process. The U.S. government estimates that as many as 15 billion barrels of oil could lie within the formation, but most of it is not retrievable without fracking.

Propane

Propane is an energy-rich gas. Its chemical formula is C3H8.

It is one of the liquefied petroleum gases  that are found mixed with natural gas and oil.

LPG provides a convenient means of powering heating, cooking and other processes, regardless of where your home is located.

How does LPG compare with other fuels? 

• LPG produces no harmful or dangerous waste
• LPG, when burned, produces less CO2 than coal and oil
• LPG burns cleanly with no soot and very few SO2 and NOx emissions
• LPG poses no ground and water pollution hazards
• LPG delivers significant fuel cost savings, and is approximately 50% cheaper than diesel
• LPG is a by-product so there is no wastage
• LPG boilers are cheaper to install than oil boilers and less expensive to maintain
• LPG can be used alongside renewable technologies