Authors ​ : CONSTANTIN Maria-Stefania and DINU Bianca-Georgiana UPB, FILS Scientific Supervisor ​ : Assoc Prof YOLANDA-MIRELA CATELLY, PHD, Director… [602193]

Renewable Energy

Authors ​ : CONSTANTIN Maria-Stefania and DINU Bianca-Georgiana
UPB, FILS
Scientific Supervisor ​ : Assoc Prof YOLANDA-MIRELA CATELLY, PHD, Director of
Department of Communication in Modern Languages- Faculty of Engineering in Foreign
Languages, UPB – ROMANIA

Abstract

This paper’s purpose is to analyse the newest renewable energy sources that can
dominate the entire industry in the near future by presenting the processes which
describe the evolution of the organic materials that are used in creating this type of
energy and recent studies made by qualified researchers. We collected data from a
case study which we have conducted with the help of engineering students. The
collected data helped in establishing whether this technology is going to be accepted as
easier as we firstly thought.

Keywords: engineering, organic materials, energy, future

Introduction

Most of our electricity comes from the excessive usage of fossil fuels that affects the
planet by producing greenhouse gas. This gas is causing the Earth’s atmosphere to
warm and, as a long-term effect, it contributes to the degradation of the planet in the
form of climate change. The extreme weather can spread the diseases and threaten the
habitat of all living creatures, finally leading to extinction. We consider coal, oil and gas
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as non-renewable sources of energy because they are not unlimited and we cannot
re-use them and this is the reason why the non-renewable energy sources are called
“dirty”.
Nowadays, the science is focused on materials and resources that do not harm the
environment or the living creatures in order to maintain the planet’s condition as
flourishing as possible. Renewable energy and biogas plants are developping as a
consequence of the necessity of reducing the environmental impact. Some of the most
popular ways of “clean” energy amongst the society are the sun, wind,waves and
water. The contemporain challenge is to find new and efficient ways to reduce the
greenhouse emissions when “dirty” energy sources are used in making power. The
gouvernment is investigating numerous possibilities of solving this problem, such as
making companies which pollute to pay for their harm or promoting important projects
that may involve tree plantation or encouraging people to use less energy.
This paper is going to present some of the most inovative ideas and sources of energy
for future usage.

The importance of renewable energy

The most important source of energy used to be consisted of wood which supplied over
90% of the world’s energy needs. As the technology evolved and means of transport
developped, the usage of wood decreased significantly and it was replaced by the
consumption of coal, petroleum and natural gas. Nowadays, since the leading nations
admit that we are dependent on oil consumption and because biodiversity and
ecosystems are deeply affected by the massive pollution as a consquence of the
climate change caused by the greenhouse effect, more and more nations and
companies are trying to invest in alternative sources of energy. It is a clever idea to
pour more resources into the domain of evolution of alternatives to fossil fuels. Even
though fossil fuel-dependent industries disagree with this initiative and cry foul of such
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suggestions, gouvernments poured a substantial part of their budget into the
development of alternative sources.
In 2015, almost 12% of total U.S. energy consumption was supplied by renewable
energy sources and the figures are growing significantly.
The usage of biofuels more than doubled from 2000 to 2015, mainly because of the
gouvernment initiative. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that are
focusing on renewable energy will continue to develop through 2040.

Types of renewable energy and methods to implement them

There are many forms of renewable energy and most of these depend in one way or
another on sunlight. Some of them are the direct result of differential heating of the
Earth’s surface which leads to air moving and precipitation formin as the air is lifted –
wind and hydroelectric power. The transformation of the sunlight by using solar panels
or collectors is knows as “solar energy”. Biomass energy is represented by stored
sunlight which is contained in plants and biogas energy solves two of the world’s
problems : the need of renewable energy and the general food waste.
Solar energy relies on the nuclear fusion power from the Sun. There are different ways
in which this type of energy can be collected and converted ,varying from solar water
heating with help of solar collectors to complex technologies of converting directly the
sunlight to electrical energy by using mirrors and boilers or photovoltaic cells.
Unfortunately, these methods are currently insufficient to cover the entire need of
energy of our modern society.
Wind power is defined and produced by the movement of the atmosphere which is
driven by differences of temperature at the Earth’s surface when it is lit by the sunlight.
It can be used to generate electricity or to pump water,but for producing significant
amounts of energy there are needed higher areal coverage.
Hydroelectric energy is a form of energy that makes use of the gravitational potential of
elevated water. It is not strictly renewable since all the reservoirs eventually fill up and it
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may require some expensive researches and excavation for them to become useful
again. Nowadays most of the reservoirs are used in order to develop the industry of
renewable energy.
Biomass is another interesting source of energy that does not harm the environment
and results from the natural sources. It is the term that defines the energy from plants,
anything that is made of living or recently dead natural material. Biomass fuels cand
have different shapes or sizes. These kind of fuels are called biofuels and they are
divided into two categories: intentionally created and spontaneous sources of fuels.
There are specially grown crops that are used as biofuels (intentionally created source)
and different things that people normally categorise as waste (spontaneous sources) ,
such as dead trees, tree branches, wood, bark, lawn clippings, animal faeces and
sawdust from timber mills. Instead of this sort of waste being burried in rubish or
dumps, it is considered to have a good use and is transformed into energy for electricity.
The process of valuing this energy source works by putting the so called ‘waste’ into a
furnace and burning it. The heat is used in order to boil water and to create steam. The
steam spins turbines within power generators and in this way the electricity is created.
When biomass is burried at a rubbish dump, it decomposes and releases methane, a
potential Green House Gas. In some cases special pipes are put into rubbish dumps
and they collect methane gas from the rotting waste underground. It is used in making
electricity. A similar thing can be achieved with animals’ faeces. As our hunger for
products that contain meat increases significantly from one year to another one, we can
take advantage of the methane gas which is produced in farms from animals’ faeces
and use it to produce electricity. As example, there are several piggeries especially in
Australia that are now producing their own energy with the method that is presented
upwards. The surplus in sold back into the grid.
One problem with the biofuels is that, for growing crops in particular, a lot of land and
water are required. Also, they are weather-dependent sources of energy and they may
have some unpredicted bad seasons that can affect the economy of the producer.
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Another disadvantage is the fact that some farmers can be attracted by the higher
prices and they may choose to swap their food crops for fuel crops. This can be a
contributing cause to food shortage in some parts of the world.
Biomass is mainly used in Australia because of its low cost heating. Australia currently
has more than 65 sites that use landfill gas to generate electricity and some are already
operating away from landfill dumps.
Hydrogen and fuel cells are not strictly renewable energyresources, but they are very
low in pollution when utilized .Hydrogen can be considered a fuel and burned especially
in a vehicle, with water as combustion product. This clean burning fuel can reduce
significantly the pollution in the most dense cities in the world . Another use for
hydrogen can be the fuel cells which are particularly similar to batteries and power an
electric motor. Unfortunately, production of hydrogen requires abundent power . The
need of producing energy for the hydrogen gas reallocates the pollution from the cities
to the power plants. Methods to produce hydrogen : solar power.
In conclusion, there are different types of renewable energy sources, each of them with
its own advantages and drawbacks. They are for sure an interesting and eco-friendly
alternative for the nowadays sources of energy and their progress is going to contribute
to the Earth’s condition and development.

Case study in UPB context

​ The survey was conducted on a sample of 100 students from the University of
Politehnica Bucharest, from different specializations. The majority have shown interest
in renewable energy and some of them even seemed willing enough to invest in this
area.
Of the 100 respondents, 54% were girls
and the rest (46) boys, which convinced
us that the girls were generally more
open to this topic.
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The subjects were asked if they
knew about renewable energy.
Around 3 quarters of them
responded affirmatively. Among
those, some were even able to
provide some information about
it.

Regarding the difference
between renewable and
non-renewable energy, most of
the respondents knew what the
difference was between them.
We noticed that their percentage
is the same as those who have
affirmatively answered to the
previous question (the ones that
heard about renewable energy).

The subjects were asked about
the difficulties they would
encounter when resorting to the
use of one form of such energy.
The most common responses
were choosing a trustworthy
provider, costs or the risk of
becoming obsolete after a while.

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Another question was about the
disadvantages of using a renewable
source of energy compare to a
traditional one. Most respondents (40)
felt that there was no disadvantage. A
smaller number of 26 responded that
the costs would be a disadvantage
and 20 of the participants chose
efficiency. A small fraction (10)
considered reliability as a
disadvantage and the rest had other
options.

The next question was what types of
renewable energy would be most
considered. Most participants, 80,
chose solar energy and 40 of them
wind power and hydroelectric energy.
33% chose biomass and 26 hydrogen
and fuel cells. We can observe that
solar energy is not only the most
known one but also most used in our
country.

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The subjects were asked about the
benefits of using a renewable energy
source. The majority, 64 of them, felt
that they could protect the
environment. An equal number of
participants chose the advantage of
lowering the energy and gas bill and
reliability. A relatively small number,
7, chose as a possible advantage the
income from selling the excess
energy produced.

Regarding the perspective of the use
of renewable energy again most of
the subjects chose solar energy
(60%).

Asked about the shortest time frame in
which they would implement such a
system based on renewable energy in
their own homes, the biggest part of
the students was reluctant and chose a
5-year period. Some of the
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respondents also mentioned 1 year intervals and respectively 6 months. 6 participants
opted for a 1 month period.

Open onclusions

The questionnaire suggests that ¾ of the respondents have heard about renewable
energy. This is a relatively new area in our country, compared to EU countries.
Although many of the people we talked to would like to use renewable energy or even
develop a business in this area, our impression is that there is not enough information
about the topic. Nearly a quarter of the subjects did not hear about the renewable
energy at all and the ones who did, knew quite a bit. The subject has been treated
ideally, each of them believing that they can help protect the planet. Our impression was
that, for them, that was more important than the scientific content or the many benefits
that renewable energy could bring. In support of this argument comes the fact that most
of them have chosen that the period of implementing such a system should be around 5
years.
Renewable energy can be used in various forms, but most of those asked chose solar
energy as the main option. However, this is not so easy to access under any
circumstances.
We believe that there is a need to raise awareness, to put our collective effort in this
matter and to promote more successful experiments in this field.

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References

1. Renewable energy- brief description

Home

2. U.S. Energy Information Administration https://www.eia.gov
3.https://www.coolaustralia.org
4.Robert Ferry , Elizabeth Monoian, ​ A field guide to renewable energy technologies,
online, http://www.landartgenerator.org/LAGI-FieldGuideRenewableEnergy-ed1.pdf

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