Clean Energy Technologies: A Preliminary Inventory of the Potential for Electricity Generation
The nation's power system is facing a diverse and broad set of challenges. These range from restructuring and increased competitiveness in power production to the need for additional production and distribution capacity to meet demand growth, and demands for increased quality and reliability of power and power supply. In addition, there are growing concerns about emissions from fossil fuel powered generation units and generators are seeking methods to reduce the CO{sub 2} emission intensity of power generation. Although these challenges may create uncertainty within the financial and electricity supply markets, they also offer the potential to explore new opportunities to support the accelerated deployment of cleaner and cost-effective technologies to meet such challenges. The federal government and various state governments, for example, support the development of a sustainable electricity infrastructure. As part of this policy, there are a variety of programs to support the development of ''cleaner'' technologies such as combined heat and power (CHP, or cogeneration) and renewable energy technologies. Energy from renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, hydro, and biomass, are considered carbon-neutral energy technologies. The production of renewable energy creates no incremental increase in fossil fuel consumption and CO{sub 2} emissions. Electricity and thermal energy production from all renewable resources, except biomass, produces no incremental increase in air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, particulate matter, and carbon monoxide. There are many more opportunities for the development of cleaner electricity and thermal energy technologies called ''recycled'' energy. A process using fossil fuels to produce an energy service may have residual energy waste streams that may be recycled into useful energy services. Recycled energy methods would capture energy from sources that would otherwise be unused and convert it to electricity or useful thermal energy. Recycled energy produces no or little increase in fossil fuel consumption and pollutant emissions. Examples of energy recycling methods include industrial gasification technologies to increase energy recovery, as well as less traditional CHP technologies, and the use of energy that is typically discarded from pressure release vents or from the burning and flaring of waste streams. These energy recovery technologies have the ability to reduce costs for power generation. This report is a preliminary study of the potential contribution of this ''new'' generation of clean recycled energy supply technologies to the power supply of the United States. For each of the technologies this report provides a short technical description, as well as an estimate of the potential for application in the U.S., estimated investment and operation costs, as well as impact on air pollutant emission reductions. The report summarizes the potential magnitude of the benefits of these new technologies. The report does not yet provide a robust cost-benefit analysis. It is stressed that the report provides a preliminary assessment to help focus future efforts by the federal government to further investigate the opportunities offered by new clean power generation technologies, as well as initiate policies to support further development and uptake of clean power generation technologies.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE. Office of Management Budget and Evaluation; Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Atmospheric Programs
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00098
- OSTI ID:
- 843010
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-57451; R&D Project: E23713; TRN: US200516%%1233
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
POLICY AND ECONOMY
09 BIOMASS FUELS
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
BIOMASS
CARBON MONOXIDE
COGENERATION
ELECTRICITY
ENERGY RECOVERY
FOSSIL FUELS
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
NITROGEN OXIDES
PARTICULATES
POWER GENERATION
POWER SYSTEMS
PRESSURE RELEASE
RECYCLING
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
STATE GOVERNMENT
SULFUR OXIDES
Clean energy technologies Electricity generation