Fill It Up, Please!

By Roberto Parato

The book introduces and describes traditional and renewable energy sources (oil, coal, sun, wind, battery systems ...) and their impact on the planet.

It compares fossil fuels and renewable energies and describes their economic and energetic convenience and efficiency through some numerical parameters.

It includes a part on possible developments and energy scenarios for the future. The text tries to investigate the issues concerning the development of the society and its sustainability.

In the future, what energy sources will we use and how much energy will we need?

Will the sources we use now suffice?

Will their environmental impact be sustainable in the long term?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9780244842161

Book preview

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Life on Earth is possible thanks to solar radiation. The atmosphere is crossed every day by an amount of energy equal to about 1,400 Watts per square meter of surface.

The radiation that arrives on the earth's crust evaporates the water from the soil and from the tissues of the plants. The vapor condenses at high altitudes in clouds, which cause the water to fall back to the ground, generating rivers, lakes, seas and glaciers.

The difference in heat between the various points of the earth's crust generates air flows that give rise to the winds, which circulate the evaporated water all over the globe.

Solar radiation maintains temperatures suitable for life throughout the planet and is the basis for chlorophyll photosynthesis, which allows plants to generate oxygen in the atmosphere.

These phenomena are unchanged since the dawn of life on earth and allow us to exist thanks to a quantity of basic and limited resources, but constant over time.

We have always tried to collect and use the resources available in nature to make our species survive and expand. The search for resources and their use represents the continuous need for energy to nourish the vital processes and to support the activities that allow us to develop our civilization.

For millennia we have collected and used something to burn to keep warm, have light and defend our outposts in the belly of merciless nature.

Giving fire to a fuel and using the heat that this physical transformation produces for our purposes is what we are doing right now, exactly in this moment. But, at some point in our history, we started looking for something that not only burned well, but also was abundant and consumed itself as slowly as possible, so we did not have to go continuously looking for stuff to burn.

The transition from a life and an economy of subsistence to a more complex society, to satisfy more than the primary needs, began with the increase of our efficiency in transforming and using energy.

The need for energy has increased hand in hand with the ability to exploit available resources. Over time we have tried and tested the use of the most disparate fuels, such as wood, animal and vegetable fats, coal, oil, gas.

"But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? How planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country?

Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles…"

…A sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There's hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the play! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand. !...¹

These excerpts from Melville's Moby Dick - The White Whale recall the importance of some specific economy (whaling in this case) in our recent past. Whole cities grew and thrived on the trade in whale oil and all its derivatives. Crafts and professions were born and the appearance of cities and territories changed.

Moreover, the production of oil through whaling has had an impact on the size of the world population of whales, modifying the ecosystem and its spontaneous balance.

This example represents how the search for resources and specifically fuel sources with a good quality / price ratio has had a strong impact in shaping and modifying our habits, our customs and the environment and has always influenced and modified the planet on which we live.

Energy supply is fundamental for every living being. In a complex and structured community like the human one, this need has assumed different forms and gradations, determined by the technological and social evolution that mankind has lived through the centuries, and which has undergone a drastic acceleration during the industrial revolution, from the second half of the 18th century onwards.

Physics defines a closed system as a system that does not exchange any matter but can exchange energy with its surroundings.

We can consider Earth as a closed system, because it does not exchange matter with its surroundings and exchanges energy with its most intense and close to us source, the Sun.

Solar radiation allows the presence of life on Earth and it is closely linked to the life cycle of plants.

Thanks to the energy provided by solar radiation, plants use the elements of the surrounding environment like water, oxygen and carbon to synthesize organic molecules that are their nourishment.

The transformation from inert elements present in the biosphere into organic molecules is possible with the chemical reaction of the chlorophyll photosynthesis that occurs inside the plants:

6CO2 + 6H2O → C6H12O6 + 6O2

Six molecules of carbon dioxide are combined with six molecules of water, to obtain an organic molecule based on carbon (glucose) and six of oxygen that are released into the atmosphere.

Figure 1: Illustration of chlorophyll photosynthesis

Photosynthesis harnesses energy from the sun into the bonds of organic molecules that make up plants. = (Photosynthesis is used by plants to harness solar energy)

When we burn wood or its derivatives, combustion generates two effects:

Figure 2: Combustion process

Modern man behaves like his prehistoric ancestor: he looks for something that can keep him warm and for a long time, that is easy to transport and requires little space.

How can we translate this elementary concept in universal and more scientific terms? The definition of calorific value of a fuel, expressed below, can help us:

Below is a table, taken from the ENEA website (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development), which shows the calorific powers of the most common fuels.

The thousands of calories that are released when burning one kg of fuel are indicated.

Table 1: Calorific values (1)