Investors are overlooking the long-term risks climate change poses to oil and gas infrastructure firms, which face tens of billion of dollars worth of stranded assets as the world transitions to greener energy, according ...
Environment
May 07, 2019
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55
An EPFL researcher has developed a mathematical model for optimizing heat transfer in factories and dramatically reducing water and energy consumption. The model could, in theory, cut water use by 60 percent at a Canadian ...
Energy & Green Tech
Apr 29, 2019
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30
Drawing design inspiration from the skin of stealthy sea creatures, engineers at the University of California, Irvine have developed a next-generation, adaptive space blanket that gives users the ability to control their ...
Materials Science
Apr 29, 2019
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693
As a licensed architect concerned about the environment, Doris Sung became fed up catering to clients wanting steel and glass buildings with no regard to how such designs draw boatloads of energy, exacerbating global climate ...
Energy & Green Tech
Apr 22, 2019
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34
Nuclear energy is clean, powerful, affordable, and zero-emission. A new study uses the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to help ensure that waste from nuclear power plants remains safe and secure ...
Environment
Apr 10, 2019
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4
Electricity harvested from the sun or wind can be used interchangeably with power from coal or petroleum sources. Or sustainably produced electricity can be turned into something physical and useful. Researchers in Arts & ...
Biochemistry
Apr 10, 2019
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10
The biggest source of global energy consumption is the industrial manufacturing of products such as plastics, iron, and steel. Not only does manufacturing these materials require huge amounts of energy, but many of the reactions ...
Materials Science
Apr 09, 2019
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93
The great advantage of fossil fuels over renewable energy is that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow and these "intermittent" sources of energy may not be reliable enough to power our economy. This ...
Energy & Green Tech
Apr 08, 2019
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15
The UN headquarters in New York, the pyramids of Egypt and Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue were among top world monuments plunged into darkness for an hour Saturday to put the spotlight on climate change and its impact on ...
Environment
Mar 31, 2019
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14
Our future depends on a transition away from fossil fuels. To map out a path, we need to get to grips with how, and why, the use of coal, gas and oil has risen to unsustainable levels.
Energy & Green Tech
Mar 27, 2019
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15
In 2005, total worldwide energy consumption was 500 Exajoules (= 5 x 1020 J) with 80-90% derived from the combustion of fossil fuels. This is equivalent to an average energy consumption rate of 16 TW (= 1.585 x 1013 W). Not all of the world's economies track their energy consumption with the same rigor, and the exact energy content of a barrel of oil or a ton of coal will vary with quality.
Most of the world's energy resources are from the sun's rays hitting earth - some of that energy has been preserved as fossil energy, some is directly or indirectly usable e.g. via wind, hydro or wave power. The term solar constant is the amount of incoming solar electromagnetic radiation per unit area, measured on the outer surface of Earth's atmosphere, in a plane perpendicular to the rays. The solar constant includes all types of solar radiation, not just visible light. It is measured by satellite to be roughly 1366 watts per square meter, though it fluctuates by about 6.9% during a year - from 1412 W/m2 in early January to 1321 W/m2 in early July, due to the Earth's varying distance from the sun, and by a few parts per thousand from day to day. For the whole Earth, with a cross section of 127,400,000 km², the total energy rate is 1.740×1017 W, plus or minus 3.5%. This 174 PW is the total rate of solar energy received by the planet; about half, 89 PW, reaches the Earth's surface.
The estimates of remaining worldwide energy resources vary, with the remaining fossil fuels totaling an estimated 0.4 YJ (1 YJ = 1024J) and the available nuclear fuel such as uranium exceeding 2.5 YJ. Fossil fuels range from 0.6-3 YJ if estimates of reserves of methane clathrates are accurate and become technically extractable. Mostly thanks to the Sun, the world also has a renewable usable energy flux that exceeds 120 PW (8,000 times 2004 total usage), or 3.8 YJ/yr, dwarfing all non-renewable resources.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
