1.
Introduction into the current situation
The utilization of fossil fuels will be even extended in future due to the still growing number of humans on the world especially in developing countries like China, India and most of African countries. [1]
This fact is supported by figure
1 which shows the growing of world’s population in future.
Figure 1: World`s growing population (Source: Beyond Six Billion:
Forecasting the World 's
Population)
At present roughly 80% of world’s energy demand is supplied by non-renewables and contributes to atmospheric greenhouse gases and climate change. [1] But another aspect is that fossil resources are finite and are going to run out eventually or are not worth to harvest anymore due to economic issues. Figure 2 is intended to provide an overview how world’s energy demand could be supplied in future by a recently made prediction.
Figure 2: World`s energy supply in future (Source: Yvonne Y. Deng et al., The role of bioenergy in a fully sustainable global energy System)
1
Hence, it is obvious that there is the need of other energy carriers which are able to supply world’s energy demand in future preferably with regard to the environment and safety.
Renewable sources could fulfil these requirements and probably future’s electric energy system will be based on wind and solar power. But there is still a big discussion based on their strong connection to the weather which leads to a hard predictable and fluctuant energy production. This fact could cause a decrease in supply security and grid stability as well. Energy carriers are necessary to compensate the residual power demand and biomass plants could be appropriate to solve this problem. [3] Figure 3 is a example of renewable fluctuant power generation and the resulting gap between supply and demand side.
Figure 3: Fluctuant power generation of renewable energies
(Source: Szarka N, et al.)
The problem of other renewables are also often the
References: supply, Energy (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2012.12.053 http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/de/237454/rwe/innovation/projektetechnologien/energieanwendung/dezentrale-erzeugung/biomassevergasung/