Energy Literacy for Climate Action:: Technology, Best Practices, and Insights

By Francis M. Vanek PhD

This book is a vital resource for all those who want to play their part in confronting what has been called “the greatest challenge of our time.” This layperson’s guide will help you understand the technologies and systems needed to achieve true sustainability. It explains how we can reduce greenhouse emissions, improve energy efficiency across the economy, develop a diverse portfolio of carbon-neutral energy sources, and harvest energy from nature (solar, wind, hydro, and other sources) as well as from the waste stream. It also examines innovative new solutions for moving and storing energy in buildings, industry, and transportation. With over 140 helpful figures and tables, this book provides the “energy literacy” needed to participate in this essential transition to sustainability, both as energy consumers and as citizen-participants in the decisions made by society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663259509

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgment

Preface

Note about commercial references

A note to readers about energy units in this book

Chapter 1     Before All Else, the Power of Human Energy

Chapter 2     Dimensions of Energy Literacy

Chapter 3     Fossil Fuels – Starting From Where We Are Now

Chapter 4     Efficiency – The Foundation for Sustainable Energy

Chapter 5     Solar Energy – The Largest Renewable Source

Chapter 6     Wind Energy – The Major Complement to Solar

Chapter 7     A Supporting Role for Other Renewable Sources

Chapter 8     Systems Integration and Transportation Energy

Chapter 9     Other Options – Nuclear and Sequestration

Chapter 10   Conclusion – Delivering Sustainable Energy for All

About the Author

References and Further Reading

LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter 2

Figure 1 Growth in cumulative world solar PV installed capacity, 1990-2003.

Figure 2 Growth in cumulative world solar PV installations for period 1990-2019.

Figure 3 Global average CO2 concentration in parts per million of volume, 1958-2018.

Figure 4 Historic growth of world population, total energy use, and per capita energy use in the industrial age 1850-2020, indexed to a value of 1850 = 1.00. Values in 1800: Population 1.26 billion, energy ~25 quadrillion Btu, energy per capita ~19 million Btu/person.

Figure 5 Years elapsed to grow total energy consumption from 40 to 100 Quads: China and USA.

Figure 6a Allocation of world primary energy supply between fossil and non-fossil resources, 2000. Total: 394 Quads.

Figure 6b Allocation of world primary energy supply between fossil and non-fossil resources, 2000 and 2019. Totals: 394 Quads for 2000, 605 Quads for 2019.

Figure 7 Energy consumption of U.S., European Union, Japan, and BRIC (Brazil/Russia/India/China) countries in Exajoules (EJ), 1992-2017.

Figure 8 CO2 emissions for BRIC countries versus USA, Europe, and Japan, 1992-2017 in million metric tonnes.

Figure 9 Per-capita energy consumption for the U.S., Japan, and BRIC countries, GJ/person, 1992-2017.

Figure 10 Per-capita CO2 emissions in metric tonnes for the U.S., U.K., Japan, and BRIC countries, 1992-2017.

Figure 11 Global oil price in dollars per barrel, 1990-2022

Figure 12 Typical penetration curve for a new product

Figure 13 Market penetration in the U.S. market as a function of years elapsed since launch for electric grid connection, radio, landline telephone, and automobile.

Chapter 3

Figure 1 Breakdown of U.S. primary energy consumption by source in 2019, in Quadrillion Btu.

Figure 2a U.S. Electricity generation mix in 2005. Total generation: 4.03 trillion kWh.

Figure 2b U.S. Electricity generation mix in 2019. Total generation: 4.13 trillion kWh.

Figure 3 Annual output of conventional oil production from all U.S. fields including Alaska, 1900-2008, in million barrels.

Figure 4 Cumulative output of conventional oil production from all U.S. fields including Alaska, 1900-2008, in billion barrels.

Figure 5 Impact of non-conventional oil development on total U.S. oil production 2003-2019.

Figure 6 Projected pathway for U.S. non-conventional oil production using observed production 2006-2019 and under assumption of ultimate recovery of 69 billion barrels.

Figure 7 World oil historical production data 1900-2019 and projections for future pathways based on possible EUR values.

Figure 8 Projected world oil production through 2070, including both conventional and nonconventional sources.

Chapter 4

Figure 1 Load duration curve for electricity demand in a hypothetical region (gigawatts of load).

Figure 2 Streamlined load duration curve with demand as a linear function of hour of the year.

Figure 3 Simplified load duration curve with demand in three constant amounts as a function of hour of the year: high demand (18 GW), midrange demand (11 GW), and low demand (6 GW).

Chapter 5

Figure 1 Growth in world cumulative solar PV capacity in GW, 2005-2020.

Figure 2 Share of capacity of solar PV installed worldwide, 2019.

Figure 3 Variation in PV-Watts predicted monthly output for four representative U.S. cities in kWh per month for a representative 5-kW residential array.

Figure 4 Monthly output from a 2.24-kW solar array in Ithaca, NY, in kWh, 2012-2017.

Figure 5 Comparison of 6-year average output from 2.24-kW array (2012-2017) to predicted value from PV-Watts with due south, 25-degree tilt, 23% loss assumption.

Figure 6 Average annual output from 2.24-kW array in Ithaca, NY, 2006-2021. Statistics: Average = 2,014 kWh, Standard Deviation = 88 kWh, Coefficient of variation = 88 / 2014 = 4.4%.

Figure 7a Solar altitude and pathway, in degrees, for winter solstice, equinoxes, and summer solstice at 5 degrees latitude.

Figure 7b Solar altitude and pathway, in degrees, for winter solstice, equinoxes, and summer solstice at 52 degrees latitude.

Figure 8 Comparison of daily 2.24-kW PV system output and residential load on June 15, 2011, for household with grid-connected array in Ithaca, NY.

Figure 9 Monthly solar PV production, exports to grid, imports from grid, and net consumption for 2.24-kW array in 2017 on a home in Ithaca, NY, in kWh.

Figure 10 Example of seasonal adjustment of solar array angle for winter and summer conditions.

Figure 11 Average cost per installed Watt for solar PV in U.S. across residential, commercial, and utility-scale systems, 2009-2017.

Figure 12 Net present value of 5-kW solar array investment using 5% discount rate or simple payback.

Figure 13 Cross-sectional view of solar hot water heating collectors: flat plate collector (upper) and evacuated glass tube collector (lower).

Figure 14 Monthly average output in kWh from a solar hot-water system installed in Ithaca, NY, USA, for years 2011-2014.

Figure 15 Hourly energy production in kWh for a solar hot water system with 16 evacuated tubes in Ithaca, NY, on June 15, 2011.

Figure 16 Schematic diagram of representative solar oven, showing sealed space with glazing on top and insulation on sides and bottom, and mirrorized reflective surfaces to capture sunlight.

Figure 17 Test-run of a solar cooker on June 15, 2011, in Ithaca, NY, with a 2-pound steel pot containing approximately 10 pounds of liquid and ingredients.

Figure 18 Average number of runs per month for solar cooking operation with two solar ovens in Ithaca, NY, during April-October solar cooking season for years 2012-2014.

Figure 19 Comparison of observed average monthly productivity for solar systems in Ithaca, NY, 42°N latitude.

Chapter 6

Figure 1 Parts of a utility-scale wind turbine, showing blades, nacelle, and turbine tower. Note that scale has been adjusted to show all components within the figure.

Figure 2 Comparison of U.S. annual output from wind and hydropower 2001-2021.

Figure 3 Annual, smoothed annual, and cumulative installed U.S. wind capacity in GW, 1980-2021.

Figure 4 U.S. wind increase in cumulative capacity (MW) and capacity factor (percent), 2004-2017.

Figure 5 Cumulative global installed wind capacity 2005-2020.

Figure 6a Share of installed wind capacity, 2005 (Total = 195 GW).

Figure 6 Share of installed wind capacity, 2005 (Total = 195 GW) and 2020 (Total = 743 GW).

Figure 7 Power and efficiency curves for two representative utility-scale wind turbines for 0 to 25 m/s wind speeds.

Figure 8 Relative value of wind speed and power available in the wind as a function of height for representative site.

Figure 9 Wind rose for wind turbine site feasibility study for Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY.

Figure 10 Distribution of percent of hours of the year by wind-speed bin for observed and modeled curves for a representative wind-turbine site.

Figure 11 Comparison of percent of hours per year in wind speed bins versus percent of annual energy provided by those bins for representative site and 1.7-MW turbine.

Figure 12 Net value of 100-MW, $160M wind farm investment over 20-year lifetime assuming 34% capacity factor and net $0.05/kWh earnings for simple payback to 7% discount rate case.

Figure 13 Example of variation in capacity factor by year for wind farm at Lake Benton, MN, 2000-2010.

Figure 14 Observed and/or predicted capacity factor values for wind farms in representative U.S. states.

Figure 15 Diurnal-nocturnal variation in wind and solar output for a representative location in Ithaca, NY. Wind data shown is for a proposed wind farm site in Enfield, NY. Average values for wind and solar are 132 W/m² and 759 132 W/m², respectively. See text for explanation.

Figure 16 Actual annual installed capacity trajectory of U.S. wind 2006-2021 versus 20-by-30 pathway, with linear trend line fitted to actual installed capacity.

Chapter 7

Figure 1 Cornell 1.2-MW hydropower plant average monthly production 2011-2016 in kWh.

Figure 2 Estimated flow distribution at First Dam, proposed hydropower site on Six Mile Creek in Ithaca, NY, based on historical 2003-2015 USGS stream gage flow data.

Figure 3 Schematic of wastewater, biogas, and energy flows in wastewater energy recovery system from sewage and truck waste.

Figure 4 U.S. annual production of geothermal electricity 2002-2018. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Figure 5 Basic components of a heat pump system, showing winter configuration for moving heat from the low outdoor temperature to the high indoor temperature.

Figure 6 Heat pump system from Fig. 5, adjusted for moving heat from the low indoor temperature to the high outdoor temperature in summer.

Chapter 8

Figure 1 Typical load profile curve for electricity demand in GW for a representative week in the United Kingdom.

Figure 2 U.S. annual pumped storage volume in billion kWh per year, 2004 to 2018.

Figure 3 Cumulative growth in U.S. deployed battery storage capacity 2013-2018.

Figure 4 Elements and energy flow relationships in a representative microgrid.

Figure 5 Energy consumption of U.S. passenger transportation modes in trillion Btu, 1970-2018.

Figure 6 Range per full charge as a function of mass of batteries in the battery system for a representative electric vehicle, considering both lithium-ion (Li) and lead-acid (Pb) batteries.

Figure 7 Cumulative sales of electric vehicles in the U.S., 2011 to 2019.

Figure 8 Schematic of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system, showing relationship between intermittent and dispatchable energy sources, independent system operator, and V2G-enabled vehicles connected at charging facilities.

Figure 9 Comparison of four major categories of 2019 U.S. transportation energy use in Quadrillion Btus.

Figure 10 Freight energy intensity in Btu/ton-mile of U.S. Truck, Rail, and Marine modes 1996-2011.

Figure 11 U.S. aviation average energy intensity in Btu per passenger-mile, 1975 to 2019.

Figure 12 Comparison of biofuel energy content to U.S. transportation energy demand for applications suitable for biofuels in 2016 in trillion Btu.

Figure 13 Components of a hydrogen fuel cell, including hydrogen supply and exhaust system.

Chapter 9

Figure 1 Concept for generating electric power and industrial hydrogen from coal, water, and oxygen, with CO2 diverted to sequestration.

Figure 2 Two options for underground injection of CO2 as part of a CCS system: Hydrodynamic entrapment or dissolution in saline aquifer

Figure 3 Concept for carbon and CO2 cycle with extraction, conversion to energy and fuel, carbon capture from the atmosphere, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) facility, and underground injection.

Chapter 10

Figure 1 Energy generated from fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy, and total energy supplied, for the 2020-2050 transition pathway.

Figure 2 Renewable primary energy generation added in Quads per year during transition pathway in Quads/year, 2021-2050.

Figure 3 Annual global CO2 emissions in million U.S. tons per year during transition pathway 2020-2050.

Figure 4 Cumulative CO2 emissions in energy transition pathway 2020-2050 in billion U.S. tons.

Figure 5 Population versus energy per capita for industrialized (dark grey bar) and emerging (light grey bar) countries, 2012.

Figure 6 Population and energy/person scenario in the year 2050 for industrialized (dark grey bar) and emerging (light grey bar) countries, such that total world energy equals ~800 Quads/year.

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Prefixes used with metric units

Table 2 Comparison of metric and standard units of energy and power

Table 3 Comparison of units for energy/power and distance/speed

Chapter 3

Table 1 Characteristics and applications of major fossil fuel types

Table 2 Comparison of electricity from 1 cubic meter of coal and 1 square meter of solar gain

Table 3 Cost of oil, natural gas, and coal by unit and by unit of energy, in wholesale or raw form.

Table 4 Cost of oil, natural gas, and coal by unit and by unit of energy, as final product sold to individual or residential customer.

Table 5 Relative energy and carbon content of coal, oil, and natural gas.

Table 6 Comparison of U.S. electricity production from natural gas and wind 2007-2017, in billion kWh.

Table 7 Fossil fuel reserves in volume and energy units for select countries and overall world in 2004 and 2014.

Chapter 4

Table 1 Electricity consumption for base and improved cases for 8,000 kWh per year example home.

Table 2 Initial outlay for base and improved cases for example home

Table 3 Payback time in years for investments in efficiency or solar PV.

Table 4 Unit fixed cost, variable cost, and emissions for single- and combined-cycle plants.

Table 5 Cost and emissions in all-single-cycle scenario.

Table 6 Cost and emissions for scenario with mixture of combined-cycle for base and incremental load, and single-cycle for peak load.

Table 7 Comparison of cost impact of $364/tonne CO2 tax on regional production cost.

Chapter 5

Table 1 Examples of solar PV installations in Arizona. Underlying assumptions: Area requirement of 2.09 Watts of nameplate capacity per ft², capacity factor 17.1% (1,500 kWh/kW/year).

Table 2 Estimated output of solar PV panels equivalent to land area of continental U.S., using assumed values for average U.S. panel density per square foot and average productivity per MW of capacity across all parts of the country.

Table 3 Predicted annual output for a 5-kW residential array from PV Watts estimator for representative cities in four regions of U.S., output before and after 15% losses, in kWh/year.

Table 4 Available solar energy intensity and actual energy received by a fixed-angle solar PV array from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 32 degrees north latitude on the summer solstice. Note that values assume solar array is facing due south and raised to a 32-degree angle.

Table 5 Hour-by-hour comparison of benefit of solar production with and without net metering for example, 2.24-kW array on a home in Ithaca, NY.

Table 6 Comparison of tracking options for 1-kW array in Ithaca, NY.

Table 7 Cost breakdown for residential PV system on a 1-Watt and 5-kW array basis.

Table 8 Single annual repayment required for investment of $10,000 at present, discounted over 20 years at different discount rates. The face value of repayments is the sum of all the annual payments, and the ratio is the sum of the payments divided by the initial $10,000.

Table 9 Productivity, repayment per year, and cost per kWh for a 5-kW array with 20-year investment horizon in different regions of the U.S.

Chapter 6

Table 1 Production cost per kWh for $1600/kW turbine with 34% capacity factor for 15- to 25-year lifetime and 3%-7% discount rate.

Chapter 7

Table 1 Illustration of flow and water height scenarios for a 100-MW, 80% efficient hydropower dam.

Table 2 Examples of major world hydropower dams

Table 3 Example calculation of conditions at maximum output for Cornell University Hydropower plant.

Table 4 Summary of contribution to estimated annual output for proposed 256-kW hydropower plant from stages of turbine operation at First Dam, Ithaca, NY.

Table 5 Representative values of energy productivity per acre for bio-energy sources and biofuels from agriculture and forest products.

Table 6 Summary of technical and economic analysis for example 50-MW wood-fired power plant.

Table 7 Average water treated per day and electrical generation capacity for selected U.S. wastewater treatment plants.

Table 8 Summary of technical and economic results for electricity generation at WWTP plant.

Table 9 Summary of technical and economic results for WTE electricity generation at 50-MW plant.

Table 10 Ground-source heat pump example for high-efficiency home requiring 7 million Btu of heating energy during a cold winter month.

Table 11 Summary of energy potential and input compressor electricity required for Effluent Thermal Energy Recovery (ETER) system based on Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Facility flow

Chapter 8

Table 1 List of representative pumped storage facilities in the U.S., including location and maximum power output.

Table 2 Parameters and capacity for a representative 1,000-MW storage system in a mountainous region with available 300-meter head.

Table 3 Summary of technical and economic characteristics of 1.2-MWh utility-scale stationary battery.

Table 4 Comparison of energy consumption and cost per mile for Nissan Versa ICEV and Nissan Leaf EV.

Table 5 Sample of vehicle makes, models, and model years to illustrate electrification of car market.

Table 6 Summary of V2G calculations for a representative EV with annual V2G cost, V2G gross revenue, and net revenue.

Table 7 Representative example of summary calculation of Net Energy Benefit (NEB) and NEB Ratio for biodiesel made from soybeans based on energy input and fuel content per gallon.

Chapter 9

Table 1 Output of nuclear electricity for the world and for selected leading countries in billion kWh along with share of total electricity market, 2006 and 2014.

Table 2 Distribution of world nuclear reactor types by country, 2004 and 2015.

Table 3 Available world uranium reserves by country in 1,000 metric tonnes.

Table 4 Early examples of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in selected countries.

Chapter 10

Table 1 Annual output in PJ and TWh, assumed capacity factor, and installed cost per 1 GW of capacity for solar and wind used in the renewable energy transition scenario. Example of GWh per year calculation: 1 GW of solar PV delivers (8760h/year) x (0.167) x (1 GW) = 1,463 GWh/year.

Table 2 Annual capacity and generation added and annual capital cost during 2030-2050 phase of transition pathway. Conversion: 1 million GWh = ~3.412 Quads of energy.

Table 3 World top eight countries ranked in order of energy consumption, in units of Quadrillion Btu, 1980 and 2012.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

There are many people I would like to thank for their contributions to making this book possible. I would like to thank my partner Catherine Johnson for her ongoing encouragement and for acting as a sounding board along the way. I would also like to thank my parents, for inspiring my interest in renewable energy from the time that I was growing up: my dad Jaroslav Vanek, who passed away in 2017, and my mother Wilda Vanek, who passed away in 2023.

During the production process I received invaluable assistance. Martha Stettinius assisted with editorial review during the manuscript stage and provided many helpful suggestions. Deborah Crowell proofread the manuscript and added many corrections and improvements to the clarity and succinctness of the text. I am grateful to them both. (Disclaimer: while these contributions are warmly acknowledged, responsibility for any and all errors and omissions lies entirely with me.) I also wish to express thanks to Megan Pugh of Blink Digital, who designed the cover. Thanks also to Charissa King-O’Brien of Cornell University for providing the author photograph on the back cover.

The project of writing this book benefitted from work over many years on two textbooks of which I am lead author, Energy Systems Engineering: Evaluation and Implementation (4th edition) and Sustainable Transportation Systems Engineering. I wish to thank my coauthors Louis Albright, Lars Angenent, James Banks, Ricardo Daziano, David Dillard, Mike Ellis, and Mark Turnquist for their interaction and contribution in these projects. In particular, I would like to remember Louis Albright and Mark Turnquist, who are no longer with us.

Other appreciations go out to the many faculty and staff colleagues at Cornell University where I work, as well as colleagues at other colleges and universities, whose interactions have informed this book. Thanks also to the many students I have taught over the years, mostly at Cornell since 2001 but also earlier at the University of Pennsylvania, Heriot-Watt University, and Ithaca College. These conversations and questions have provided direction and also inspiration for the book. Appreciation also goes out to the Ecovillage at Ithaca intentional community where I have lived since 2002 for the many hands-on lessons I have learned related to energy efficiency and renewable energy along the way. Thanks to the members of Ithaca Community Power, our local sustainable energy nonprofit, for the opportunity to pursue together numerous feasibility studies in and around Ithaca. I wish also to give thanks to the yoga community at Cornell and in Ithaca, and the Kripalu Yoga community further afield, who have helped to keep me centered and at peace during this long process. Lastly, to anyone else I might have overlooked, thank you.

PREFACE

I grew up in the midst of the solar energy movement of the 1970s, living in a family and a community of friends who tinkered with devices that could pump water or heat swimming pools. Our family car was a Volkswagen bus, and on the back was a bumper sticker that read TRY THE SOLAR SOLUTION TO NUCLEAR POLLUTION. I took it on faith that nuclear power was the enemy and that solar energy was the answer. (We had no idea that within 30 years, growth of large-scale wind turbines, as yet uninvented, would outstrip that of solar systems in the U.S.) We paid no attention to the coal-fired power plant that operated fifteen miles from my home, on the shores of Cayuga Lake (except that it was an excellent place for lake fishing, since the fish congregated in the warmed water by the power plant outlet). It had been there for decades and would always be there. Our nemesis was further away along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, at a place called Three Mile Island.

Later, I came to question many things about that bumper sticker – and about the renewable energy movement. Did nuclear energy really cause pollution? Was solar the solution? Did solar itself cause pollution? What about all the other types of renewable energy? What was their appeal – and limitations? All I had thought about were the solar contraptions I could see working right in front of me. Even though I had exposure to solar energy through high school and on into college, it never occurred to me to look at the vast quantity of energy delivered by non-renewable and nuclear energy sources, or the numbers of solar devices of any given size it would take to displace this energy supply. At a minimum, it seemed that, in hindsight, we had focused on the wrong source: today it turns out that the burning of fossil fuels, including coal-fired power plants, are the most immediate threat to our global environment, because of their leading role as drivers of climate change. Nuclear power plants continue to function and their risks are still present, but society’s focus has shifted to greenhouse gas emissions.

Not only that, but the role of different fossil fuels has changed in surprising ways. Electricity from burning coal, which once seemed to have an indomitable position in the energy market, gave way to competition from other sources, notably from combustion of natural gas, which not only delivered more power per unit of carbon dioxide emitted from the smokestack, but also avoided certain types of pollution that accompany the burning of coal. Coal-fired power plants that were not able to repower with natural gas lost economic competitiveness and closed. The plant on Cayuga Lake was one of the facilities that shut down. The ubiquitous coal trains that trundled through Ithaca going to and from the plant disappeared.

My life journey from then until now brought me through years of teaching and research on sustainable energy, alternative transportation, and green building, and eventually to becoming lead author on two textbooks, Energy Systems Engineering: Evaluation and Implementation (currently in its 4th edition) and Sustainable Transportation Systems Engineering. Coauthored with colleagues Lou Albright, Lars Angenent, Ricardo Daziano, and Mark Turnquist of Cornell University (where I currently work) and Mike Ellis and Dave Dillard of Virginia Tech, and published by McGraw-Hill, these textbooks provide us as a group of authors with an outlet for sharing teaching materials with other colleges and universities. Moreover, with the current strong desire of the community of nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect global climate, to have sufficient secure energy to support our quality of life, and to expand access to energy in poor countries, energy is a very timely topic.

Naturally, a long engineering textbook tends to be dominated by technical content, such as equations, figures, and tables, which are useful for technical educational purposes. However, for a broader audience, there is interest in the underlying argument for acting on sustainable energy without all the engineering details needed in a textbook. To this end, Energy Literacy for Climate Action draws on the same subject matter as Energy Systems Engineering and Sustainable Transportation Systems Engineering but distills it to the essential information that can be contained in a shorter book. In my day-to-day conversations with friends and acquaintances I would hear questions about energy and climate and think to myself, I can answer that question with content in our textbooks. Naturally, this led me to want to write a different book, based on the same content but with this other type of reader in mind.

In writing this book, I have been inspired by a number of popular books that make the connection between the environment and the economy, and strive to move us in the direction of sustainable development, including Amory Lovins et al’s Natural Capitalism, Hazel Henderson’s The Politics of the Solar Age, Herman Daly’s The Steady-State Economy, E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful, Lester Brown’s Plan B, Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy, Van Jones’s The Green-Collar Economy, and Fred Krupp’s Earth: The Sequel, among others. One of the strongest common elements of these four books is an emphasis on the need to develop sustainable energy resources. My book is of course entirely in agreement with this view, and I aim to complement these other books by focusing on the fundamental characteristics that underpin sustainable energy solutions, based on my long experience teaching about them.

Lastly, the subject of achieving sustainable energy to protect the global climate is a daunting one, so it is important to find ways to maintain hope. Even in the time since the first edition of Energy Systems Engineering came out in 2008, the challenges have become starker. The calls to accelerate the global energy transition have grown louder, and at the same time, annual CO2 emissions have grown faster than the community of nations desired, extreme weather impacts have worsened, and the pathway toward limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C has narrowed. At the same time, new technologies have appeared on the stage at a surprisingly rapid rate. The worldwide growth of solar and wind energy has outpaced predictions from 10 or 20 years ago, and electric vehicles have proven a surprising success. In 2004, I visited the Fenner wind farm near Syracuse, NY, with a class trip from Cornell. Looking to the east from the hilltops of that wind farm, I could just see on the distant horizon the spinning blades of the next wind farm over, the Madison wind farm close to Utica, NY. Two years later, our family was returning from a summer vacation and detoured off the New York State Thruway to drive up into the hills and have a look at Fenner. Looking again to the east, I could still see the Madison farm – and also two new wind farms that had been installed on the hilltops between Fenner and Madison.

NOTE ABOUT COMMERCIAL

REFERENCES

A note about references to enterprises and products mentioned in this book: these references are made solely for the convenience of the reader to be able to easily find examples in the literature and on the internet. No endorsement of any product or enterprise is expressed or implied. No financial contributions were received in exchange for these references.

A NOTE TO READERS ABOUT

ENERGY UNITS IN THIS BOOK

The presentation in the body of this book on energy literacy revolves around quantities of energy large and small. Some readers are already familiar with these units from everyday usage. For others, a refresher on both metric and U.S. standard energy units is provided to make the examples in the book more accessible.

The review of metric energy units begins with the relationship between energy and other units of mass, force, and energy. It is helpful to start with a unit that is tangible and work our way up, so we begin with the kilogram (kg), the metric unit of mass that is equivalent to approximately 2.2 U.S. pounds. The unit of force is the Newton (N). One Newton is the amount of force required to accelerate a mass of 1 kg by 1 meter per second in the time of one second when applied. In other words, suppose a block of some material weighing 1 kg is standing still. After the force of 1 N is applied for 1 second, the block would be moving at a speed of 1 m/s. One way to define energy is that it is equivalent to a force applied over a distance, so that the amount of energy provided is equivalent to the process of force and distance. The unit of energy is the Joule (J), equivalent to 1 Newton multiplied by 1 meter. In this example, if the force of 1 N were applied to the block over a distance of 1 meter, the amount of energy provided would be 1 J. Lastly, power is defined as the amount of energy provided per unit of time. The metric unit of power is the Watt (W), and 1 Watt is equivalent to 1 Joule per second. As an alternative to Joules, metric quantities of energy can also be conveniently expressed by multiplying power (energy per unit of time, in units of, e.g., Kilowatts) by units of time (in units of time) to arrive at units of Kilowatt-hours, or kWh. Since there are 3,600 seconds in an hour, 1 kWh is equivalent to 3,600 kJ, or 3.6 MJ. There follows a handy rule for conversion: To convert from watt-hours to Joules, multiply by 3.6 and increase the metric prefix by one, e.g., kilo- to Mega-, Mega- to Giga-, and so on. Table 1 presents the various metric prefixes from kilo- to Exa-.

Graphic001.jpg

Table 1 Prefixes used with metric units

Some examples of the use of the prefixes in Table 1 are in order. Household electricity customers think of measuring electricity consumption around the house in kilowatt-hours or kWh; large electricity producers think in larger terms than a single house and therefore use the price per megawatt-hour or MWh to consider the buying and selling of electric power. A convenient measure for a householder purchasing natural gas in a European country is a gigajoule or GJ. The maximum output of a large power plant might be given in megawatts or MW, but the total rate of energy consumption of the planet can be measure in terawatts or