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Scientists in India have proposed a new classification of energy sources that is aimed at the adoption and definition of emerging technologies, which they said conventional taxonomies fail to achieve.
Researchers at Indias Vellore Institute of Technology have proposed a new classification of energy sources that aims to go beyond the usual dichotomy between renewable and non-renewable, or conventional, sources.
“The drawback of conventional taxonomies is that they do not embrace and define emerging technologies, which is solved by this new classification,” lead author of the research Ramkumar Alajingi told pv magazine . “What we call renewables are sources whose origin is the Earth/gravitational force. While for bioheat, for example, the origin is ourselves. Our classification of energy sources allows adequate knowledge of the behavior of each energy source”.
In the study " Novel classification of energy sources, with implications for carbon emissions," published in Energy Strategy Reviews , Alajingi and colleagues described the proposed classification as a taxonomy of 3 levels based on the characteristics of each source with respect to the environment.
“Selecting low carbon emissions as a criteria for promotion will effectively counter the hidden strategies of individual nation/organization energy policies for their own economic growth,” they specified, stating that current taxonomies are subjective and based on personal definitions. attributed to each source.
The new proposed classification includes three categories: Renewable Energy Sources, which include solar, wind, hydroelectric and biomass energy, as well as wave and tidal energy; Reserve Energies, including coal, gas, oil, nuclear, geothermal, and hydrogen produced by electrolysis; and Capture of Energy Sources, which cover heat losses from turbines and engineering processes, the movement of the air mass due to the passage of automobiles and trains, the heat released by the human body, and the vibration generated due to pressure change.
“Energy sources never categorized are added to the recently coined term Energy Source Capture,” the researchers explained, referring to the third category, noting that the older classification uses the term nonrenewable for most brown energy, such as coal, gas and oil. . “All the actions carried out by man as primary causes to produce energy are grouped in this classification. Energy comes in any form like heat, light, pressure and friction etc. but unlike traditional methods, collecting these sources requires modern techniques.”
This category is further divided into discharged energy sources and evolved energy sources. The latter includes all energy from man-made or engineering actions and the former comprises all forms of energy discharged from a process as waste or by-product.
Referring to the first of the three main categories, the Indian group said these sources are low-carbon, location-dependent, and proven cost-effective power conversion solutions. "These sources never run out of the earth," they stressed. “It should be noted that solar, wind, tidal, and wave energies are in the nature of immediate dispersal in the atmosphere if not captured.”
As for the second category, which includes conventional sources, the team said it also includes geothermal and electrolysis of hydrogen in water, as these sources rely on the nature of reserve sources in the environment and avoid the space for conflicts.
“It is stressed that the nature of the availability and the current use are vital parameters to ensure the reliability of the sources for an uninterrupted supply”, the academics concluded. “The terms replenish energy, reserve energy, and capture energy sources have replaced the conventional two-tier classification of renewable and nonrenewable energy sources.” |
