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V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

DOI: 10.1070/RCR4723

Energy resources of the 21st century: problems and forecasts.

Can renewable energy sources replace fossil fuels? {
Vladimir S. Arutyunov,a, b Georgiy V. Lisichkin c

a Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences

ul. Kosygina 4, 119991 Moscow, Russian Federation
b Faculty of Fundamental Physical and Chemical Engineering, Lomonosov Moscow State University

Leninskie Gory 1, stroenie 51, 119991 Moscow, Russian Federation

c Department of Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University

Leninskie Gory 1, stroenie 3, 119991 Moscow, Russian Federation

The state of the art and the major trends of development of world energy engineering are analyzed. It is concluded that
throughout the 21st century the role of alternative sources will remain rather modest. Fossil fuel will still be the major source
of energy until the end of the century. Because of depletion of accessible oil resources, the proportion of crude oil in the world
energy balance will constantly decline, while the proportion of natural gas will grow. It is shown that energy production from
any source, including alternative sources, cannot be environmentally benign if the scale of production is large. In the long
term, humanity has no sources other than fusion energy, but transition to this source would not solve the problem of the
planet's heat balance.
The bibliography includes 70 references.

Contents
I. Introduction 777
II. Current state of energy engineering 779
III. Evaluation criteria for energy sources 781
IV. Types and key features of renewable sources 790
V. Key problems related to the use of renewable energy sources 799
VI. Prediction of the development of renewable energy sources 801
VII. Conclusion 802

range of issues related to energy sources, which is still vitally

I. Introduction important for predicting the possible trends of modern
Energy is one of the few fundamental concepts of the industrial civilization.
surrounding world. This alone justifies the attention paid If we would like that our unique civilization avoids
to the energy-related issues in all spheres of human activity. degradation, we have to constantly increase the energy
However, this review addresses only a relatively narrow consumption (this does not rule out a decrease in the
specific energy consumption for particular industrial proc-
V.S.Arutyunov. Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Professor, Head of the
esses as they are upgraded). How this trend can fit together
Laboratory of Oxidation of Hydrocarbons of the ICP RAS, Professor at with the limited potential of the Earth, which has been
the Faculty of Fundamental Physical and Chemical Engineering, MSU. almost fully explored by people, is the key challenge to our
Telephone: +7(495)939 ± 7287, e-mail: [email protected] society.1
Current research interests: kinetics of gas-phase reactions, oxidative In the light of this global energy problem, it is surprising
conversion of hydrocarbon gases, environmental and resource problems that the major discussions on energy-related issues, espe-
of energy and transport. cially in developed countries (moreover, not only in mass
G.V.Lisichkin. Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Professor, Head of the
media, but also in scientific editions), are concerned with a
Laboratory of Surface Chemistry of the Division of Petroleum Chemistry
much less significant problem of more extensive use of so-
and Organic Catalysis at the Department of Chemistry, MSU.
Telephone: +7(495) 939 ± 4638, e-mail: [email protected] called alternative energy sources. As a result, many people
Current research interests: chemistry of surface compounds, heterogene- have become convinced that the global transition to `renew-
ous catalysis, problems of alternative energy production.

Received 11 January 2017 { The conclusions and numerical calculations made by the authors of this
Translation: Z.P.Svitanko review are debatable and the Editorial is not responsible for their content.

# 2017 Russian Academy of Sciences and Turpion Ltd.

778 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

able', `environmentally benign' and `green' energy sources Natural gas 3% Oil 2%
will solve not only the current, but also all the future energy
and environmental problems of humanity and that this
approach could provide for not only the comfortable living, Nuclear energy
which has been attained by the modern western society, but 13%
also for sustainable development. In turn, this promoted the
appearance of various `green' movements, which are mainly
supported by prosperous amateurs who are sure that
restriction of energy consumption and more stringent envi- Coal 40%
ronmental standards, certainly without decreasing their
convenience and life standards, would preserve the conven- Renewable sources
ience and well-doing not only for them, but also for their 42%
descendants. Typically, the green movements have low
success and support in third-world countries, in which the
quality of life here and now is much more significant for
people than rather hypothetical problems of generations
that have not yet been born.
The idea that renewable sources are able to solve the Figure 1. Distribution of funding for research related to various
global problem of providing people with energy, which is energy sources by the US Federal budget in 2005.1
permanently transmitted by mass media, has got into
people's minds to such an extent that even some scientists
and politicians start to believe in this, although back a half
century ago, top specialists in the world trends and global Total: 95.761015 BTU Total: 961015 BTU
processes 2 ± 5 convincingly demonstrated the incommensur- Solar 1%
ability of the real potential of renewable energy generation Geothermal 2%
with the global energy demand of the modern industrial Wind 13%
society and, all the more, the future post-industrial society. Biowastes 5%
It is evident that the interest in the alternative energy Coal 20%

Biomass 48%
sources is fuelled by difficulties in the supply of conven- Biofuel 21%
tional energy carriers and considerable fluctuations of their
Oil 36% Renewable
prices in the world market. Sometimes this interest sharply
sources 9%
rises, while at other times it somewhat declines, in parallel
Firewood 22%
with the fluctuations of crude oil world prices. The interest
is maintained by green movements and organizations and
by some kind of technological intimidation from crude oil Natural gas 25%
consuming countries, which try to persuade crude oil
producing countries that they can do without their resour- Hydropower 35%
Nuclear
ces. A noticeable role in the specualations on this subject is electric
played by the interest of the agricultural and science lobby energy 8%
of developed countries in subsidies and grants and the
interest of mass media in various `scientific' sensations Figure 2. US energy balance as per 2011.1
generated by informal science and enthusiastic amateurs. The contributions of the sources are rounded to integers; BTU is
As a result, alternative energy has steadily occupied a top British Thermal Unit.
position not only in popular editions but also in scientific
periodicals.6 In any case, the number of publications and
dedicated journals addressing alternative energy is much come to replace it Ð different groups of specialists have
greater than the number of those dealing with real energy different opinions on this subject.7 Unfortunately, analysis
production, which makes a *40-fold higher contribution to of the trends of energy production, which is a purely
the world energy. The same is true for energy-related rational sphere of human activity, has always involved and
research funding. The lack of commensurability of the still involves emotions, everyday experience and even fan-
amounts of funding and the real outcomes of scientific tastic notions, like any other field of public interest. In some
research related to conventional and alternative energy is cases, these emotions and notions, which are sometimes at
clearly illustrated by the relevant data for the United Stated, variance with the common sense and even with the laws of
the largest and the most advanced country in this field, nature, have a considerable effect on the development of
presented in Figs 1 and 2. Certainly, new areas of research particular branches of energy industry as well as related
and development are always more attractive for specialists. areas of science and technology.
However, most of the money is directed towards purely As a major consumer of new scientific achievements
applied works, the practical potential of which is small if at permanently accumulating all advanced and promising
all present, rather than towards fundamental research that technological solutions, energy engineering is still a highly
would discover new horizons of science. conservative branch of technology, because of its large
It is beyond doubt that humanity cannot forever rely on scale. The replacement of basic technologies in energy
fossil hydrocarbon fuel, which has created and maintains production requires, as a rule, several decades. Therefore,
the current existence of the industrial civilization. But how unlike, for example, information technologies, in which new
long the `hydrocarbon civilization' will last and what will ideas and technological solutions can change the market in
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 779

only one or two years, in energy engineering, even the Table 1. Proportions of the main sources in the world production of
results of large technological revolutions are implemented energy in 2014 (http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-eco-
nomics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html) (see a).
on a large scale only several decades later. Owing to this
delay, the predictions concerning energy engineering may be Energy source Percentage in the world energy balance (%)
quite reliable, at least for the next 20 ± 30 years until the
service life of large power production facilities that already Oil 32.6
exist or are under construction is exhausted. This is why in Coal 30.0
this review, we were able to follow the medium-term trends Natural gas 23.7
in the world energy engineering and in the use of basic and Hydropower 6.8
prospective energy resources, considering, first of all, the Nuclear power 4.4
real restrictions imposed by fundamental laws of nature on Other b 2.5
too optimistic predictions.
a The data discussed in the review and included in the Tables and
Despite the presence of a certain gap between chemistry
as a natural science and energy production as a branch of Figures may be moved to the website archive by website owners.
b Including RES.
engineering, we hope that this review will be of interest for
readers of Russian Chemical Reviews, because many topics
of chemistry, chemical engineering and materials science
have been initiated by energy-related problems. feedstock. The production of most of the consumed energy is
While working on the review, we used the largest world provided by fossil resources, the proportion of which in the
databases and updatable energy-related information sour- world energy balance being more than 85% (see Table 1).
ces such as The Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040, As can be seen in Fig. 3, no dramatic changes are
International Energy Outlook, Statistical Review of World expected in the world energy in the next decades. The
Energy, The ITER Organization Homepage and so on, production of energy from all existing sources will increase
which publish materials of reputed international organiza- and the consumption of crude oil, coal and natural gas will
tions such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), US be higher than the current level, although their relative
Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Information Admin- contributions to the world energy will be redistributed. The
istration (EIA), British Petroleum Company (BP), Euro- redistribution will mainly consist in the gradual decrease in
pean Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) and so on. the proportion of oil through increasing proportion of the
The calculations and numerical values presented in the natural gas.
review without references to sources are based on analysis Currently, the major energy problem is decreasing
of published data and our own estimates. This is original accessibility and, hence, decreasing proportion in the
information that is completely our responsibility. world energy balance of liquid hydrocarbons, which are
the most important and most convenient fossil energy
source. The products derived from this source, first of all,
II. Current state of energy engineering engine fuels and polymeric materials, constitute the basis of
Before we make any predictions, we will briefly consider the modern civilization. However, crude oil resources in the
current state and the scale of energy production. The state-of- Earth's crust are limited and the time of oil deficiency is
the-art energy is based on five major primary sources: crude probably not so far off. Actually, the Oil Age has already
oil, coal, natural gas, hydropower and nuclear energy; gone and it is even possible to definitely indicate the starting
recently, these sources were supplemented by renewable energy point of its decline. In 1985, the amount of crude oil
sources (RES) (Table 1, Fig. 3). By renewable sources are produced all over the world exceeded for the first time the
usually meant quite a few natural and biosphere sources of amount of newly discovered oil resources, that is, the
energy that do not require irreversible use of mineral energy available oil resources clearly started to decrease.8 Unfortu-

a b
50
18 RES including biofuel
Oil
Consumption /billion TOE

Consumption (%)

15 Hydroelectric power 40

12 Nuclear energy Coal

Gas 30
9
Gas RES including
20
6 Oil Nuclear energy biofuel
3 Hydroelectric power
10
Coal
0
1965 2000 2035
0
Year 1965 2000 2035
Year

Figure 3. Current and predicted consumption of various sorts of primary energy sources in the world energy balance (TOE are tons of oil
equivalent) (see URL: http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html).
780 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

nately, it was only twenty years later, during the energy of energy generation or greenhouse gas concentration in the
crisis of 2008, that politicians recognized the consequences atmosphere, the control of which is the major concern of
of this event, highly important for world economy. Kyoto Protocol enthusiasts. This exactly is the global
While evaluating the scale of modern energy engineer- problem of the future energy engineering and the cradle of
ing, it is more appropriate not to give the absolute values, the expected energy crisis. However, these issues are beyond
which are hardly a clue for non-specialists, but to make the scope of the medium-term prediction we consider here.
comparisons with natural energy fluxes and expected Currently, the world energy engineering continues to
changes in the world energy consumption. For instance, develop very rapidly. According to EIA data, during the
the energy generated by humanity has currently reached first two decades of the 21st century, the world energy
*0.02% of the solar energy flux that reaches the Earth's consumption is expected to increase by 59%. This increase
surface.4 The population of the world is supplied with would take place despite the expected considerable increase
energy to highly different extents. The major bulk of energy in the efficiency of energy utilization per unit of gross
is consumed in developed countries. The United States, the domestic product (GDP). Half of the increase expected by
population of which is only 4% of the Earth's population, 2020 would refer to developing countries and fossil fuel
use alone 20% of the world raw material and energy would still be the major source of energy.
resources. Meanwhile, according to the IEA data, today In this connection, it is necessary to note that increasing
1.2 billion people still have no access to electric power and the efficiency of energy resource utilization and decreasing
2.7 billion people use mainly biomass (firewood) for heating the specific energy consumption per unit of product are now
and cooking (see http://www.iea.org/topics/energypoverty/). the most advantageous ways of medium-term solution of
These values would barely change in the next 30 years. energy problems and decreasing the climatic impact of
Depending on the economic level of a country, the energy production. For example, in the US with perma-
annual energy consumption (calculated in relation to crude nently growing GDP, the energy consumption has been
oil) can differ by a factor of several tens (Table 2). It can be virtually stabilized in recent years. This was achieved mainly
seen that the consumption is *100-fold lower in the poorest owing to the fact that the specific energy consumption per
countries than in the richest ones.9 According to forecasts, unit of GDP has been almost halved in the last 40 years
by the end of this century, the Earth's population would (Fig. 4).
double to reach 12 ± 13 billion 10 and after that it may Currently, the trend for a considerable decrease in the
stabilize. Since the energy consumption (and hence the growth rate of energy consumption per unit of GDP
living standards) of the vast majority of people lags behind increase is now characteristic of all advanced countries;
the modern consumption standard in the developed coun- this makes it possible to mitigate the dependence of world
tries, even after stabilization of the population, economic economy on the supply of fossil energy resources and
and political stabilization in the world is impossible without decrease the climatic impact of energy production. How-
at least partial decrease in the energy consumption gap ever, this only delays the inevitable depletion of fossil
between the rich and poor countries. resources and gives additional time for the search for global
Due to the necessity of accelerated progress for under- solution of energy problems.
developed countries, in the first half of the current century, The paradoxicality of the existing energy situation is
the world energy consumption is predicted to grow by 1.7% that it is easier to predict its distant future than the near-
per year and by the end of the century, the global energy term prospects. Most of specialists believe that, despite the
consumption is likely to approach 0.1% of the solar energy huge scientific and technological problems, thermonuclear
flux that falls on the Earth. For providing the modern living fusion would become the major energy source by the end of
standards to the whole population, the world energy pro- the 21st century (perhaps, somewhat later). There are no
duction should increase almost 100-fold, i.e., it should
exceed 1% of the solar energy flux hitting the Earth.
Total energy US GDP, trillion dollars;
However, if this happens, the heat balance of the Earth
consumption specific energy consumption
will be disrupted, and to restore the balance, according to /million BTU per $1000 of
/103 trillion BTU
the Stefan ± Boltzmann law, the average surface temper- the GDP
ature (*300 K) with allowance for the Earth albedo should 120 18
also increase by *1%, that is, by 2 ± 3 8C, which will 3 2 16
100
inevitably cause a global climatic disaster. Moreover, the 14
increase in the temperature will occur regardless of the way
80 12

Table 2. Annual energy consumption by various countries.9 10

60
8
Country Consumption (expressed
40 1 6
as barrels of oil per capita)
4
20
United States 65 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Western Europe countries 50
Year
Japan 33
Mexico 10 a
Bangladesh 0.8 Figure 4. Efficiency indicators for the use of energy resources in
Nigeria 0.7 the US (from Ref. 11).
(1) GDP, (2) total energy consumption, (3) specific energy con-
a Worldwide average. sumption.
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 781

other alternative energy sources of an equal size at the products is very extensive. In this respect, neither gas, nor
disposal of people even in the long view. This primary coal, or any other energy source can compare with oil.
source has, in principle, been technologically mastered, but Therefore, it is not surprising that as soon as oil production
still in the uncontrollable mode at a thermonuclear bomb and refining processes were implemented in industry, oil
level. The key laws of this process are understood and, occupied the dominant position in the world energy engi-
although the problem has proved to be much more compli- neering, and in the 1970 ± 1980s, the proportion of oil in the
cated than initially believed, one can hardly doubt that it world energy balance reached *50%. Oil has fairly accept-
will be solved with time. able environmental characteristics and if it was not for the
If controlled thermonuclear fusion is available, human- expected deficiency of this energy resource, the energy
ity will have a virtually inexhaustible energy source for supply problem would hardly be so acute.
thousands of years (however, the problem of disrupting Natural gas holds an intermediate position between oil
Earth's heat balance will persist). The problem of controlled and coal in the consumer properties. This is caused by
thermonuclear fusion is much more sophisticated than any complexity of gas transportation and use in transport and
scientific and technological problem faced by humanity in by high cost of conversion to more convenient liquid energy
the 20th century. Starting-up an international experimental sources and chemicals. The obvious consumer advantages
fusion reactor is planned only for 2025 in France, and of natural gas include highest environmental characteristics
deuterium-tritium plasma experiments in this reactor will among fossil fuels and the convenience of use in household,
be started ten more years later (see http://www.iter.org/). industry and basic heat and electric power generation.
Optimists are hoping that a demonstration fusion power Except for biofuels, almost all other renewable energy
plant would be constructed by the mid-21st century. This sources, in particular, hydro, wind, solar as well as nuclear
means that nuclear fusion energy would be available for power sources generate only electricity; therefore, they
mass-market customers not earlier than by the end of the cannot equally compete with oil in their consumer charac-
21st century. Therefore, a very serious challenge is to find teristics. The difficulties associated with electricity trans-
energy resources that would be able to fill an almost mission over large distances; conversion to other kinds of
hundred-year gap up to the practical implementation of energy; use in transport and in many branches of industry;
nuclear fusion energy. The price of failure in solving this enormous capital investments needed for this; and inevita-
global energy problem is very high Ð inevitable decrease in ble losses substantially decrease the attractiveness of these
the living standards of people and possibly decrease in the sources for many consumers.
world population.
Well, are alternative sources able to replace the depleted III.2. Resource base
fossil energy and provide the necessary amount of energy In view of the enormous and rapidly increasing energy
for the world economy? demand, the potential amount of reserves or annually
supplied amount of energy is a key issue for evaluation of
the potential significance of an energy resource. It is no use
III. Evaluation criteria for energy sources to analyze the global potential of the sources that, in
Before comparing the prospects of using various energy principle, cannot make a contribution higher than 1% to
sources and their ability to satisfy the demands of world the global energy production, although these sources can
economy, it is necessary to define the most important still play an important role in local energy supply and their
comparison criteria. technological development is, beyond doubt, necessary.

III.1. Consumer properties III.2.a. Oil

The most important criteria determining the world demand Today crude oil is a highly important natural resource
for particular energy resources are their consumer proper- determining the state of not only the global energy produc-
ties. The effect of consumer qualities on the prospects of tion but also, to a considerable extent, the geopolitical
using an energy source is vividly illustrated by the change in situation in the world. The oil price is an important
the role of coal in the world energy. Whereas in the early indicator reflecting the current state of the world economy.
20th century, the proportion of coal in the world energy The limited resource base is the key drawback, which
balance was more than 50%, currently it has reduced more does not allow oil to be considered as the most important
than twofold despite the presence of huge coal resources energy source in the world beyond two or three next
almost in all regions. This is caused by particularly the low decades. Although debates between supporters of organic
consumer quality of coal, first of all, the inconvenience of and inorganic theories of oil origin are still continued, most
using a solid fuel in the transport, household and industry. of oil resources being developed are apparently of the
A certain role is played by low environmental character- biogenic origin. Thus, it turns out that the modern global
istics of coal, the complexity and high cost of transportation energy production is based on a sort of `canned energy',
and low cost-effectiveness of its conversion to more con- which was prepared by the biosphere throughout *300
venient kinds of fuel. million years of evolution starting from the Carboniferous
Liquid hydrocarbons (crude oil) are beyond competi- period. The oil reserves are huge, but the oil consumption
tion, among known types of energy feedstock, as regards the rate is million times higher than the rate of its natural
consumer quality. The unique nature of oil as an energy and formation in the Earth's crust. In one year, people spend the
petrochemistry resource consists in that, owing to the liquid resources for the formation of which the Nature had spent
physical state and high specific energy content, oil provides approximately million years. Therefore, the resorces will
higher cost-effectiveness for the production, transportation inevitably be exhausted with time. The peak of oil resource
and utilization than any other fossil energy source. More- discoveries was passed back in the 1970s (Fig. 5). Currently,
over, oil is rather easily processed and the range of oil the major amount of oil is produced from deposits discov-
782 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

via geological exploration, the amount of potentially recov-

26
Proportion in total reserves (%)

erable oil is affected by a number of important factors such

25
as the market oil price and the advances in the production
20 technologies. Even with the use of advanced technologies,
18
less than half of formation oil can be recovered. Therefore,
14 increasing investments to production technology and appli-
15
12
cation of most advanced technological achievements can
10 9 considerably enhance the overall recovery factor of deposits
7 6 and thus contribute to the oil resources accessible for the
5 4 world economy.8, 14
2
<1 <1 <1 <1 <1 1 As regards the particular time of depletion of oil
0
1870 1890 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990 Year resources, the forecasts of specialists are substantially dif-
ferent (Fig. 7). The most realistic estimates predict that the
Figure 5. Proportions of giant oil deposits discovered at different peak of production (including unconventional and difficult-
times in the reserves known to date.12 to-recover oils) will be attained within one or two next
decades with the subsequent smooth decline, which would
slow down with the advent of new technologies that would
ered decades ago (Fig. 6) and we can no longer rely on the enhance the oil recovery. The obvious approach of the
appearance of a large number of new large deposits. world oil production level to its peak is also indicated by a
The maintenance of the world oil production level, very low production growth rate, only *0.5% per year,
which virtually does not increase any longer because of despite the critical need in oil and constant increase in the
depletion of the resources, requires more and more investments.
expenses, i.e., every next produced oil barrel is more Many oil producing countries have already passed the
expensive for the world economy than the previous one. peak of production and in most of the other, the time it will
From 1973 to 2003, the amount of oil produced in the world take to reach the peak is estimated as only several years.
increased by *60%, while the cost of production in fixed According to IEA data, only in the twenty top oil producing
prices increased almost 17-fold.13 In 2013, the global cost of countries, the predicted time of full depletion of resources
oil production reached $700 billion. This is the objective (the ratio of the total amount of resources to the annual
cause for the permanent and inevitable rise of oil and oil production) exceeds 20 years. Certainly, there are huge
product prices in the world market. The age of readily unconventional oil resources mainly consisting of difficult-
accessible and inexpensive oil has already ended. to-recover and heavy hydrocarbons and deep water and
The issue of the total amount of remaining oil resources, Arctic resources. However, the cost of recovery and the
widely discussed in recent years, is rather technological than required energy expenditures are so high that the produc-
geological. Certainly, undiscovered deposits of liquid tion is far from being always economically justified. A
hydrocarbons still exist in the Earth's crust, but their predicted estimate of the technically recoverable shale oil
volume is hardly large. A much more interesting issue is and other unconventional oil types has demonstrated that
the development of the known resources located in deep these reserves are large, but obviously cannot meet the
water areas or represented by various types of heavy or enormous demands that would arise in the near future.
difficult-to-recover oils. Apart from an increase in resources Therefore, while remaining the most convenient and attrac-
tive energy source, oil is still forced to gradually retreat.

9
8
Production /million barrels per day

80
7
Production /million barrels per day

120

4
60
6 90 1 5
5
40 3
4 60

3
20
2 30
2
1
0
1970 1980 1990 2000 Year 0
2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 Year

Figure 6. World oil production from the deposits discovered Figure 7. Actual world oil production (1) and world oil produc-
before 1930 (1) and in the 1930s (2), 1940s (3), 1950s (4), tion predicted in different years (2 ± 5).15
1960s (5), 1970s (6), 1980s (7), 1990s (8), early 21st century Prediction: (2) C.J.Campbell, J.H.Laherrere, 1998 (US); (3)
(9) (http://www.slideshare.net/skurbatov/2012-the-outlook-for- S.Al-Husseini, 2015 (Saudi Arabia); (4) US Department of Energy,
energy-a-view-to-2040). 2009; (5) P.R.Odell, 2004 (the Netherlands).
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 783

III.2.b. Coal natural gas transportation and processing technologies, the

The coal reserves are huge and, according to some forecasts, greater part of the known deposits can serve only to meet
they can cover the world demand of energy for the next local demands.
several decades. As regards the resource base, coal has an The world gas potential (the initial potential resources
obvious advantage over oil, which, however, is substantially of conventional natural gas) is estimated to be between
canceled out by its low consumer and environmental char- 350 ± 420 trillion m3 (conservative estimate) and 500 ± 550
acteristics. An attempt to create an environmentally clean or even up to 1000 trillion m3 (Ref. 18). According to
coal-based energy engineering made *20 years ago in the statistical data, more than 90% of oil and gas pools found
United States, which consumed a lot of money (see Fig. 1), in the world are accumulated at depths of up to 3 km. The
proved to be economically unfeasible. Currently, the pro- degree of exploration of this bed is very high; therefore, in
portion of coal in the world energy balance constantly the future, mainly small pools may be discovered in it.
decreases; throughout the current century it will probably Unfortunately, this was barely taken into account in the
remain at a level of 20% (or slightly higher). The main design of modern technologies for the production, trans-
reasons that account for a decreasing proportion of coal in portation and utilization of hydrocarbon resources, meant
the world economy are associated with the inconvenience of most of all for large deposits.
using solid fuel, difficulty of automation of processing The highest growth rate of conventional natural gas
processes, dangerous mining, and relatively low calorific resources, like that for oil resources, was attained in the
value, which makes coal transportation over large distances 1970s. In the beginning of the 21st century, 15 years later
uneconomical, and environmental problems associated with than in the case of oil, the world production rate of
its application. The problem of cost-effective conversion of conventional natural gas became equal to the rate of
coal to liquid fuel has not yet been solved, despite the discovery of new large deposits. Thus, the production of
almost hundred-year history of such attempts. Virtually all conventional gas also approaches its peak. However, in
drawbacks of coal as an energy resource are also inherent in recent years, considerable attention has been attracted by
other solid fossil fuels, e.g., combustible shales and peat, the huge resources of unconventional natural gas. First of
which are used in energy production only on a local basis. all, this is due to the advent of new technologies for the
extraction of such resources. Thus, the huge unconventional
III.2.c. Natural gas natural gas resources can be considered to be accessible for
Currently, natural gas is considered to be the most abun- the development of energy engineering.
dant and vigorously developing energy resource. Whereas The known mechanisms of formation of methane and
the world oil consumption has virtually reached a peak, the other hydrocarbon gases in the Earth's crust 19 ± 23 provide
consumption of natural gas continues to rapidly grow for their abundance in nature not only as large pools of
(Fig. 8). conventional natural gas in porous and fractured sedimen-
The major geologically proven reserves of conventional tary rocks or in the dissolved form in oil. An enormous
natural gas are concentrated in two regions Ð C.I.S. amount of methane is scattered in sedimentary and igneous
countries and the Middle East. By conventional natural rocks or in the lake, sea and ocean silts. Methane is present
gas resources are meant deposits with at least 0.1 billion m3 in crystalline schists, marbles, gneisses, granites and other
of the gas and the initial well flow rate of 430 thousand m3 rocks, with up to 0.1 m3 of methane being present per 1 m3
per day. The total number of deposits with free natural gas of the rock. Small concentrations of methane are present in
all over the world is more than 17 000, and in more than fresh and sea water. Methane occurs as a part of soil air and
30 000 oil deposits, gas is present as a secondary component Earth's atmosphere. A lot of methane is dissolved in
(petroleum gas or associated gas). Out of 4500 large natural formation water located at a depth of 1.5 ± 5 km. Natural
gas deposits, only several tens (*2% of the total number) gas sources such as coalbed methane, water-dissolved gases
can be classified as large, and they give the major contribu- of subsurface hydrosphere, natural gas hydrates and some
tion to the commercial natural gas supplied for energy other are classified as unconventional resources.
production and for chemical processing.17 With the existing Hard-coal deposits can serve as important sources of
virtually pure methane. Large methane volumes are released
in coal beds during coal metamorphism, which is accom-
2.0 panied by low-temperature thermochemical decay of
Natural gas organic matter. The amount of methane released per tonne
1.8 of the coal material increases from 161 m3 during the brown
Relative growth rate

coal formation to 192 m3 during hard coal formation.24

1.6
Methane is accumulated as a result of adsorption in coalbed
1.4 vertical faults and fractures. During production, one tonne
of coal gives 6 ± 8 m3 of the gas. Since the world resources of
Oil
1.2 coal are *104 billion tonnes, the gas amount in the coal
deposits is comparable with its amount in conventional gas
1.0 deposits. According to different estimates, coal beds of the
0.8
coal basins all over the world contain 85 to 262 trillion m3
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Year of methane. Therefore, even a moderate gas production
from coal beds can make a weighty contribution to the
natural gas supply for humanity.
Figure 8. Relative growth rate of world oil and gas consumption Even now, unconventional coalbed methane occupies a
(the world consumption of 1980 is taken as unity).16 noticeable place in the gas production of some countries. In
the United States, the active production of coalbed methane
784 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

started in the 1950s; currently its annual output is more produced from enormous areas located above the gas-
than 55 billion m3, which amounts to 47% of the total bearing shale rocks.
natural gas production. Coalbed methane is also produced Nevertheless, the shale gas production technology, the
in Canada, Australia, China, India, Indonesia and in other development of which has taken *20 years and billions of
countries. Preliminary degassing of coal beds is a necessary dollars of US companies, is still very sophisticated and
condition for safety of mine workers and a source of expensive. The cost of preparing one well for operation
associated methane. The mines in Russia discharge gradually decreases and is currently estimated as approx-
47.5 billion m3 of methane to the atmosphere every year; imately $5 million; this allows the US producers to bring
however, it is virtually not utilized on an industrial scale. the gas to the internal market at a uniquely low price Ð
One more unconventional energy source is biogas (con- about $120 for 1000 m3. This is approximately two or three
taining mainly methane), which is formed upon bacterial times lower than the gas price in Europe and Japan.
fermentation of organic matter. However, shale gas and gas The most hope for the future of fossil sources comes
hydrates are now considered as the key unconventional from the huge deposits of gas hydrates in the Earth's crust.
sources of gaseous hydrocarbons. The development of an Gas hydrates are non-stochiometric crystalline solids with
industrial process for shale gas production in the early 21st the general formula CnH2n+2 . m H2O, which can also exist
century in the US became a milestone in the world energy at temperatures above zero under elevated pressure. Struc-
engineering. Before this, the shale gas was not even consid- turally, gas hydrates are inclusion compounds (clathrates),
ered as a really recoverable resource. The transformation of which are formed upon insertion of gas molecules into the
the huge reserves of shale gas to accessible energy raw cavities of crystalline structures composed of water mole-
material can be considered as a technological revolution cules. Hydrocarbons with a molecular size greater than that
most prominent in the last 50 years. This increased the of isobutane do not form hydrates, as they do not fit into
world energy resources by a large factor and eliminated, at the cavity formed by water molecules. Upon the formation
least for several decades, the highly acute global energy of the methane hydrate, one volume of water traps 207
deficit. volumes of methane and decomposition of 1 m3 of methane
The major difference of shale gas deposits from conven- hydrate gives off 164.6 m3 of the gas under standard
tional ones is that the former are located at 1.5 ± 2 km conditions.26
depths in low-permeability sedimentary rocks, in which the Methane hydrates look like ice or dense snow. They
gas genesis actually takes place. Because of the deep widely occur in nature and form large deposits. At the ocean
occurrence and low permeability of shale rocks, develop- bottom at even 700 m depth, pressure is sufficient for the
ment of these resources required solution of several techno- formation of gas hydrates even at a temperature of 10 8C.
logical problems. Apart from the development of cost- The gas resources incorporated in gas hydrates on the
effective deep well drilling techniques, it was necessary to continents amount to * 1014 m3. The offshore gas resour-
devise methods for increasing gas influx to a well and ces existing as the hydrates within the continental shelf and
maintenance of a high well flow rate for rather a long time continental slope are *1.561016 m3 (Ref. 26), although
period necessary for economic return on investment for there are also higher estimates. The energy liberated upon
deep drilling. The methods include efficient deep horizontal decomposition of gas hydrates is so high that it can initiate
drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies; a combina- tectono-magmatic processes in the Earth's lithosphere.
tion of these approaches considerably increases the effective The regularities of occurrence of gas hydrate accumu-
area of gas recovery and the velocity of gas diffusion lations and isotope and geochemical compositions of gas
towards the well. For hydraulic fracturing, a mixture of hydrate gases and waters attest to deep origin of hydro-
water, sand and a set of chemicals is injected into the carbon gases incorporated in the hydrates. Hydrogen and
formation under high pressure. As the rock is fractured carbon are the major chemical elements that rise from the
under the action of pressure in the horizontal part of the Earth's interior towards the surface in the course of perma-
well, which is 1.5 ± 2 km long, a large number of cracks is nent degassing of Earth. Hydrogen diffuses from the Earth's
formed and the total gas recovery area increases. The sand rock mass in the atomic or molecular form, while carbon
grains consolidate the cracks, which thus cannot collapse migrates in the chemically bound form, as the CO and CO2
under the formation pressure, while the chemicals, which oxides. At a temperature of 5600 8C, these gases react to
are mainly surfactants, enhance the recovery. give water and methane
After the hydraulic fracturing and injected water recov-
ery, the well can be efficiently operated for several years, CO + 3 H2 H2O + CH4
although the flow rate decreases almost twofold as soon as
in the first year. Generally, cost-effective operation of a Water enters the crystal lattice of hydrosilicates, while
shale gas well continues only for a few years, which is methane is accumulated as gas inclusions, in particular,
several-fold shorter than that in the case of conventional gas hydrates.
gas, which is usually produced from traps in reservoir rocks According to some estimates, the gas hydrate layer of
that are highly permeable for the gas and are covered by pleistocene-age deposits contains at least 11.361018 m3 or
impermeable rocks; in this case, production may last for 8.561015 g of methane carbon; other sources do not give so
several decades. However, whereas the discovery of large high values for hydrate content, the resources being esti-
conventional gas traps, which have been filled with the gas mated as 261016 m3. Nevertheless, according to estimates,
migrating from low-permeability source rocks during mil- more than half of organic carbon in the Earth's crust
lions of years, is a geological good luck, the shale gas is occurs, apparently, as gas hydrates. This resource exceeds
produced over large areas by successive drilling of wells at twice all explored and unexplored oil, coal and gas reserves
particular distances;25 that is, shale gas can be consistently taken together.27 It is especially important that huge meth-
ane accumulations occur in the sediments formed in the last
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 785

five million years, i.e., methane that is present in these Table 3. Annual production, natural gas resources and Earth degass-
accumulations has been evolved during the time period ing as of 2014.1
equal approximately to one thousandths of the Earth
Resources Value /trillion m3
existence time.
There are data on more than 100 known gas hydrate Annual production 3.5
deposits, while the potential gas reserves in the hydrate state Resources
exceed, according to estimates, 1661012 TOE. About 98% proven 209
of gas hydrates are concentrated in the global ocean at undiscovered 280
200 ± 700 m depths and in *400 ± 800 m-thick bottom sedi- Coalbed methane 260
ments and only 2% are in the polar continental areas. Shale gas 400 7 700
However, this resource also deserves attention, because Gas hydrates 20 000
this corresponds to 300 trillion m3 of the gas, which is 1.5 Earth degassing *1
times greater than explored gas reserves in the world. At the
current level of consumption, the gas reserves present as gas
hydrates identified in the US can cover the demands of the natural gas production. However, as the most convenient
country for 104 years. More and more countries including gas fields are being depleted, the prime cost of the conven-
the United States, Canada, India, China and Japan estab- tional gas recovery increases. As in the production of oil, it
lish national programmes for investigation of gas hydrates becomes necessary to develop resources that are more and
and search for their deposits. As a result, huge gas hydrate more difficult and, hence, more and more expensive to
accumulations and gas hydrate provinces were discovered; recover. However, this is not a dramatic stepwise cost
however, the design of technologies that would make increase, but a smooth and, regretfully, inevitable transfer
methane recovery from gas hydrates not merely possible to development of increasingly expensive raw materials.
but cost-effective is still a challenge. The prime cost of the shale gas production in the United
Thus, there are huge resources of natural gas in the States is already lower than the prime cost of the conven-
Earth's crust, which are moreover constantly replenished as tional gas production in Europe; this allows one to predict
a result of continuing Earth degassing. The main problem of the profitability of gas export to Europe. While comparing
the use of this enormous potential is to develop technologies this with the conventional natural gas resources in Russia,
suitable for the recovery of this gas with acceptable finan- one should bear in mind that they are largely represented by
cial and energy costs and engineering efforts. The presence arctic resources, the recovery of which can prove consid-
of various types of natural gas in the Earth's crust is erably more expensive than the shale gas recovery in the
illustrated by Fig. 9. As the `unconventionality' of natural United States or in other countries and their transportation
gas is increased, on the one hand, the amount of such gas in to the European and Asian markets is more expensive than
the Earth's crust increases, but on the other hand, the the transportation of the US gas to the same regions.
recovery technology becomes more complicated and expen- The proportion of unconventional gas (tight reservoir or
sive. coalbed gas) exceeds 15% of the global gas production in
It can be seen that there are enormous natural gas the world and clearly tends to grow, perhaps, up to 40%.
resources at the disposal of humanity (Table 3). Some Currently, the total resource base is evaluated as
kinds of resources have been poorly explored as yet, but *100 years of the current world consumption. According
irrespective of particular estimates, it is obvious that their to estimates, natural gas will be the largest primary source
amount is great and at any rational scenario of the develop- of energy by the 2030s, and this will mean the end of the
ment of our civilization, they are sufficient for tens or even almost 100-year period of oil predominance. Actually, the
hundreds of years. reserves of shale hydrocarbons are primary with respect to
Certainly, the recovery of unconventional gas is more conventional reserves. They are distributed rather evenly
complicated and more expensive than the conventional over the Earth surface, and, therefore, they are generally
accessible. The overall unconventional gas resources exceed
even the prospective needs of humanity, at least, in the time
interval in which they can be predicted. Until recently, the
lack of appropriate technologies for the recovery was the
Volume increase,
1 100 mD only obstacle for their use. However, this obstacle no longer
technology com-
exists in relation to shale gas; probably, it will also be
plication, cost 2 10 mD overcome in the near future for other unconventional
increase `Unconven-
3 0.1 mD resources. This raises the reasonable question of whether
tionality' natural gas will be able to replace oil, which is certainly
4 0.001 mD more convenient, in the world energy production and, what
5 0.0001 mD is more important, in the world economy as a whole,
especially in the key areas such as transport and petrochem-
Volume istry.
As regards transport applications, industrial processes
for the natural gas conversion to liquid hydrocarbons, that
Figure 9. Various types of natural gas in the Earth's crust.
Type: (1) traditional gas, (2) tight reservoir gas, (3) coalbed is, synthetic oil and liquid engine fuels, have been existing
methane, (4) gas hydrates, (5) shale gas. for several decades. The problem of raw material supply for
The numbers stand for the permeability of reservoir rocks for the the modern petrochemistry is not very acute. If the produc-
corresponding gas type /millidarcy. tion of engine fuels is excluded, the other petrochemistry
consumes only *5% of the produced oil; therefore, it is
786 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

easier to cover these needs. In addition, gas chemistry, a III.3. Prime cost of energy production
new branch able to produce the whole great diversity of A very important parameter affecting the decisions about
products manufactured by the modern petrochemistry, has construction of a particular energy production facility is the
vigorously developed in recent years. cost of the generated energy, which in turn depends on the
raw material cost, the power plant equipment and the
III.2.d. Nuclear energy equipment service life. While calculating the prime cost, it
Nuclear energy is also a source that uses fossil natural is necessary to include the expenditures for raw material
resources, namely, 235U isotope. The content of this isotope purchase, construction of all the facilities necessary for
in natural uranium is only 0.6% ± 0.7%. At the modern level energy production and transportation to the consumer,
of development of nuclear energy engineering and econom- operating costs throughout the service life of equipment,
ically reasonable production cost of up to $80 per kg of the cost of disassembly and disposal of equipment after the
U3O8, the time of depletion of the 235U reserves is estimated operation Ð that is, all of the expenditures throughout the
at only *50 years. Even the transition to very expensive full life cycle of the facility.
and sophisticated breeder reactors, which increase the The cost-effectiveness of various sources of electric
degree of utilization of natural uranium 60 ± 80-fold by energy is compared using the value called levelized cost of
converting also the major 238U isotope to nuclear fuel, electricity (LCOE), which is defined as the capital and
does not make it possible to rely on nuclear energy as a operating costs of electric energy generation during the
long-term energy source for humanity. A considerable whole life cycle of the equipment divided by the total
uranium reserve not utilized as yet is sea water in which amount of energy produced during this period. Actually
the average concentration of the uranyl carbonate complex the LCOE value can be considered as the break-even price
is 3.361076 g litre71. for the supply of this sort of energy. This value determines
Currently, the nuclear energy accounts for *4.4% of the cost-effectiveness and consumer appeal of various elec-
the primary energy generated in the world, i.e. , its propor- tric energy sources. The LCOE values for various electric
tion is slightly lower than that of hydropower. Its propor- energy sources are presented in Fig. 10.
tions in the generation of electric energy are much higher:
approximately one-sixth of the world and one-third of the LCOE /euro per kWh
European generation of electric energy falls to nuclear
energy. In some countries (France, Slovakia, Belgium, 0.20
Sweden and Switzerland), nuclear energy predominates in
the electricity production. As of 2014, the total number of
power reactors in the world was 439 and their total capacity 0.16
was 376.8 GW; 67 more reactors were under construction.
The largest number of nuclear stations (104 power units) 0.12
5
are operated in the United States, the second largest number 4
is in France (58 power units), and the third one is Japan (50
power units). In Russia, there are 10 power plants 1
0.08
(33 power units). The world leader in the proportion of 2 8
nuclear energy in the total amount of generated electricity 7
(*77%) is France. 0.04
3
Thus, the fossil resources occurring in the Earth are 6
quite sufficient for meeting the demands of the world energy 0
production at least up to the end of the 21st century, but Source
during this period a real substitute has to be prepared.
Figure 10. Levelized cost of electricity production based on various
III.2.e. Hydropower engineering
sources (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_
The resource base of river hydropower is, unfortunately, source#Cost_factors).
limited. The total amount of energy that can be gained from (1) Solar panels, (2) solar cells, (3) wind energy, (4) offshore wind
this source can be readily estimated from the data on farms, (5) biogas, (6) coal (lignite), (7) hard coal, (8) natural gas,
average altitude of Earth's surface and the average annual steam and gas cycle.
precipitation. According to IEA estimates, the total techni-
cally implementable potential of hydropower in the world is
14 000 TWh per year. Of these *8000 TWh per year are
considered as economically feasible. Currently, *808 GW III.4. Energy return. The EROEI index {
of hydropower is either in operation or under construction, The energy return of the source is one more important
with the estimated annual total amount of produced energy aspect, which is unfortunately rarely discussed by enthusi-
being *7080 TWh. Thus, in view of geographic factors and asts of alternative energy sources. Energy generation from
inevitable loss during energy conversion, the greater part of any source always requires certain expenditures to ensure
the hydropower potential really available on Earth has the energy generation process. It is evident that the energy
already been put into action. Most of the remaining spent for extraction, transportation and processing of the
potential falls within countries of Africa, Asia and Latin raw materials; generation and conversion of the energy; and
America. Owing to this potential, hydropower engineering
may be further developed but its proportion in the world
energy balance cannot substantially increase. { The abbreviation EROEI means Energy Return On Energy Invested and
is often reduced to EROI meaning Energy Return On Invested.
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 787

EROEI EROEI
50 45
1

2
25 30

0 15
Bitumen tar
Coal

Oil and gas

Shale oil

Bioethanol

Biodiesel
1990 2000 2010
Year
sands

Figure 12. Trend of EROEI variation for the world oil and gas
Figure 11. Average EROEI values for various types of fuel. 28 production.28
(1) World values for oil and gas, (2) overall trend for oil and gas.

manufacture and maintenance of the equipment should be

lower than the energy delivered to the consumer. Therefore, damage. If EROEI 51 for some energy resource, this
the ratio of the useful energy to the energy spent for resource is actually an energy consumer and, therefore, it
production can be considered as a sort of efficiency, but cannot be considered as a primary energy source.
for the whole energy chain rather than for a single oper- Economy always tends to utilize, first of all, energy
ation. This chain should include all processes, for example, resources with the highest EROEI values, because they give
for the oil industry, this is the route from oil well to car more energy for less cost. However, as the high-quality non-
wheel. This ratio shows the energy efficiency of this energy renewable resources are depleted, it becomes necessary to
source. The EROEI value should include all expenditures, switch to lower-EROEI resources. For example, when
that is, the costs of manufacture, maintenance during the industrial oil production started, the energy contained in
service life and disposal afterwards for the equipment used one barrel was sufficient, on average, for finding, recovering
for the generation, conversion and transportation of energy; and refining 100 barrels. During the past 100 years, this
restoration and recultivation of environmental objects; value gradually decreased to 20 ± 30 barrels for the conven-
accident management; and compensation for environmental tional oil production and to 3 ± 5 barrels for heavy oil

Source

Hydropower
Coal
World oil production
Oil imports, 1990
Oil and gas, 1970
Oil production
Wind energy
Oil imports, 2005
Oil and gas, 2005
Oil imports, 2007
Nuclear power
Natural gas, 2005
Oil discoveries
Photovoltaics
Shale oil
Sugar cane ethanol
Bitumen tar sands
Flat solar panels
Solar collectors
Corn ethanol
Biodiesel

0 20 40 60 80 100 EROEI

Figure 13. Variation of EROEI for energy sources in the US following the depletion of the most efficient resources
(https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI#CITEREFMurphyHall2010).
788 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

production (Fig. 11). In other words, in the production of energy, which is operated by all alternative sources, that is
heavy oil, *20% ± 30% of energy it contains is spent for the the key obstacle for the industrial use of these sources.
proper production and primary refining of this oil.28
The permanent increase in the energy expenditure for III.6. Stability of energy supply
the production and processing of traditional energy resour- From the standpoint of consumer properties of various
ces leads to rather fast decrease in the EROEI value in the sources, the predictability and stability of energy supply
world energy engineering (Fig. 12). are important factors. This is required for the operation of
Certainly, while comparing various energy sources, modern science-intensive industry. Otherwise, it is necessary
many other parameters must be taken into account apart to develop very expensive energy storage systems, the cost
from the EROEI, such as reliability, accessibility, conven- of which may happen to be considerably higher than the
ience of use, energy saturation and so on. For example, oil is cost of energy sources themselves. The instability and
energy saturated and easily transported, while wind energy unpredictability of energy supply is a basic drawback
is variable and produced locally. In any case, as EROEI of inherent in all alternative sources including hydropower.
major sources decreases, it becomes more difficult to gen- The dependence on natural, weather and climatic factors
erate energy and the relative cost of energy increases. Thus, precludes the prediction of the amount of energy to be
EROEI is very (if not the most) important characteristics produced and, hence, consumers are forced to reserve
for comparison of energy options. Analysis of the EROEI facilities based on conventional energy sources, design
values and their variation with time for different energy storage systems, or often both.
sources (Fig. 13) provides an understanding of why the
prime cost of energy resources and supplied energy con- III.7. Environmental characteristics of energy sources
stantly increases and why fossil fuels rather than solar Apart from the prime cost of the produced energy, a highly
energy, the EROEI of which is only slightly higher than important factor affecting the development of various
unity, are at the base of the world energy production. primary sources is the environmental safety. This factor
The production of energy requires considerable efforts largely determines the trends of energy engineering and
and energy expenditures. As EROEI decreases, generation contributions of various sources to the world energy bal-
of the same amount of neat energy occupies more and more ance. The environmental consequences of traditional energy
higher fraction of the economy; therefore, the permanent production based on fossil sources are among the major
decline of this index as a result of depletion of the most points of criticism. Whereas the local adverse influence of
efficient non-renewable resources is a grave economic prob- the modern heat power industry on the environment can be
lem. According to estimates, the threshold EROEI value at largely overcome owing to gradual transition from coal to
which the humanity development can continue is about 3 natural gas and to more advanced fuel combustion and flue
(the net energy gain is only 200%), which unambiguously gas purification processes, the global effect of hydrocarbon-
excludes biofuel and actually also solar energy, for which based energy on the climate is still the subject of heated
the EROEI is only slightly higher than unity (see Fig. 13), debate. The control of greenhouse gas emission and related
from the list of promising energy sources. man-induced impact on the climatic processes was set as a
national priority in many countries.
III.5. Energy flux density Obviously, the Earth's climate has been changing in
Enthusiasts usually compare the solar radiation that falls on recent years; however, despite the huge amounts of inves-
Earth, the energy transmitted in the Earth's atmosphere by tigations and investments in this area, there is still no
air mass (wind), the tidal energy or the volume of biomass convincing evidence indicating that it is the man-induced
produced every year by the biosphere with the current impact (in particular, hydrocarbon-based energy) that is
consumption of energy by world economy. This comparison responsible for these changes.29, 30 Moreover, there is quite
may give impression that tremendous resources are avail- a substantiated opinion of prominent Russian specialists in
able. However, by far not any energy is utilizable and by far climatic processes 31, 32 that exactly the growing atmos-
not the whole amount of energy can be utilized. One of the pheric emissions of carbon dioxide caused by energy pro-
most important parameters determining the practical duction in the world made it possible to prevent the global
usability of various sources is the density of the transmitted environmental disaster associated with the trend for
energy flux. decreasing atmospheric concentration of CO2, which is
The amount of energy scattered in the surrounding natural for the current geological period, and the conse-
space is indeed enormous. However, how can it be quent threat of global cooling of the Earth's surface down
extracted? The history of physics keeps quite a few cunning to the complete glaciation. From this standpoint, one can
designs for gaining energy from nothing, which broke only regret that the carbon period of the history of
against the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Alternative civilization is too short. In any case, estimates have shown
energy sources do not violate this Law. However, the energy that even the complete utilization of all the hydrocarbon
they provide refers to the class of low-potential energy, that resources of Earth would not raise the temperature of the
is, the specific energy density in the unit of energy carrier Earth's surface above the temperature characteristic of
(energy source) is low. In order to understand what is the warm geological periods that already happened in the
difference between the low-potential (abundantly scattered history and were distinguished by especially favourable
around us) and high-potential (used in conventional energy conditions for the development of biosphere.
engineering) energy, it is sufficient to compare, for example, As regards nuclear energy, currently the possibility and
the energy flux of gentle wind blowing or heat flux from even the necessity of replacing it by alternative sources is
gentle sunlight with the concentrated energy flux in a gas debated in some countries (being actively supported by
turbine combustion chamber or in a nuclear reactor. It is green movements). Meanwhile, nuclear energy is a reliable,
the problem of concentrating scattered low-potential technologically mature and cheap source covering a consid-
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 789

erable part of the basic consumption of electricity; it is material contaminants (greenhouse gases, smoke, aerosols,
almost free from hazardous emissions, including greenhouse ash dumps, spent aqueous solutions, radioactive wastes),
gases, and is perfectly suited for large electric power plants but also electromagnetic and acoustic fields and thermal
operating in the basic mode within large power networks. contamination. Furthermore, the construction of energy
Therefore, the vast majority of experts do not doubt the production facilities requires allocation of large land areas,
necessity of further development of nuclear power engineer- the size of which highly varies depending on the type of
ing and preserving its considerable proportion in the world energy source. It is evident that analysis of the environ-
energy production. mental impact of energy production should include the
In its environmental and economic characteristics, the impact on biotic systems.
modern nuclear power production is superior over virtually For evaluation of consequences of using any energy
all other energy sources. The prime cost of electric energy source, it is insufficient to consider the environmental
production at nuclear power plants (NPPs) is * 1 cent per characteristics of the proper energy production process. It
kWh, which is 3 ± 4 times cheaper than that for coal-fired is also necessary to examine the environmental impact of
thermal power plants. Even the modern combined-cycle gas constructed facilities, machines, devices for the manufacture
electric power plants produce three times more expensive of energy carrier and energy transfer, and industrial pro-
energy. A decrease in the cost per unit of installed capacity duction of the materials and equipment involved.35 ± 37 The
in NPPs to $1.1 per kW would decrease the cost of the industrial use of any sort of energy requires the relevant
standard 1000 MW unit to $1.1 billion. The radioactive industry branches for raw material extraction and process-
contamination level from the usual coal-fired thermal elec- ing and equipment manufacture and later the disposal of
tric power plant is 1000 times higher than that from an NPP outdated or old equipment. This production activity inevi-
of a similar capacity.33, 34 However, the obvious necessity to tably gives rise to some wastes. Complete elimination of
develop this branch and its economic advantages do not pollution and wastes of any industrial process in any branch
eliminate the negative attitude towards nuclear energy in of industry requires infinitely large expenditures (Fig. 14).
some countries. For example, in Sweden where nuclear For specialists, the statement that a completely waste-
energy accounts for more than 40% of electric energy free production process is unrealistic is trivial; nevertheless,
production, there are persistent calls for prohibition of publications often appear that call for manufacturing the
nuclear power. products with no waste at all, like Nature does. Actually, in
Nevertheless, there is no documentary evidence for a Nature, absolute equilibrium does not exist either and
health damage caused by the regular operation of nuclear wastes able to cause disasters of planetary scale are also
plants. A typical 1000 MW nuclear power unit produces gradually accumulated. The most well-known global disas-
*30 tonnes of high-level radioactive waste and 800 tonnes ter was associated with accumulation of oxygen in the
of low- and medium-level waste every year; the volume of Earth's atmosphere as a result of vital activity of the
the wastes can be markedly reduced by concentrating. For primary oxygen-free biosphere. This led to the death of
comparison, a 1000-MW coal-fired electric power plant most representatives of the biosphere * 2 billion years ago.
produces annually 320 000 tonnes of ash containing However, since there are multitudes of species in biotic
400 tonnes of heavy metals and radioactive materials to systems and, hence, numerous feedbacks formed between
say nothing about the wastes formed during coal mining them during millions of years, the Nature can maintain a
and transportation. Considering the whole production nearly equilibrium state for a long time.
chain from raw material extraction to electricity generation, Although in the last decades the scale of technology-
nuclear energy production yields 100 times less CO2 and related human activity has become comparable with the
causes virtually no damage to the environment. Thus, even scales of geological processes, the modern civilization is
now, it is possible to reduce the global CO2 emission by 8% unable even to approach the diversity and abundance of
(*0.6 Gtonnes of carbon per year). Certainly, there are links between the structures existing in Nature. For imple-
some environmental problems associated with the uranium menting the non-waste industry principle, it is necessary to
ore mining: the waste rock retains up to 85% of the uranium
background radiation, the area is contaminated with haz-
ardous heavy metal salts and is covered with dust with a
high content of radioactive elements. The environmental
Expenditures (arb.u.)

damage caused by uranium mining can be markedly

reduced by using in situ leaching.
Despite the ambiguous attitude towards nuclear energy
of the public of some countries, who demand absolute
guarantee of safety, the development of nuclear energy
engineering continues and will, beyond doubt, further con-
tinue. According to some forecasts, during the period from
2000 to 2050, the energy production by this branch is
expected to increase 14-fold. Transition to third-generation
reactors and later to fourth-generation reactors, which are
now being developed, would increase their robustness and 0 25 50 75 100
service life and decrease the specific fuel consumption. The Reduction of pollution (%)
most far-reaching plans in nuclear power production are
developed by China, Russia and India. Figure 14. Relative level of expenditures vs. achieved reduction of
While evaluating a large-scale energy generation, it is pollution.37
necessary to consider the environmental impact of not only
790 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

connect all the production processes on Earth into a single gies and the immense costs of energy infrastructure, it is
whole, like in Nature, and to loop all material flows into very important to conceive the real potentials, technological
one giant material-and-energy system. Actually, this would niches and practical prospects of various energy sources.
require the replacement of the biosphere by an artificial
`technosphere'. However, all estimates show that due to IV.1. Hydropower
incommensurability of the number of technically possible Hydropower is one of the earliest types of energy (suffice it
links between the `technosphere' elements with the number to recall water mills and water drives in the early industrial
of links between the biosphere elements, upon any serious workhouses), which accounts for *6% (see Fig. 3 b) of the
failure, the artificial system will deviate from the equili- energy produced all over the word. The modern hydro-
brium and collapse.3, 4 power engineering accounts for the production of 73.5% of
Thus, the manufacture of any energy production equip- energy from renewable sources and *20% of all electric
ment is an unavoidable additional source of environmental energy in the world, which is equivalent to the use of almost
pollution and the use of even a very clean energy resource is 900 million tonnes of oil per year. Iceland is the absolute
followed by a tail of environmentally problematic processes. leader in the hydropower production per capita. The con-
Any energy source contaminates the environment to one or tribution of hydropower is also high in Norway, where the
another extent and the popular views about environmental proportion of hydroelectric power plants (HPPs) in the
safety of renewable sources and their ability to prevent the electric energy production reaches 98%, and in Canada
observed climatic processes do not reflect the reality. and Sweden. In Paraguay, 100% of electricity produced in
the country comes from hydropower plants.
Since the 2000s, the most active construction of hydro-
IV. Types and key features of renewable sources power plants has been seen in China; water is one of the
The understanding of the necessity of gradual replacement most important energy sources in China, which accommo-
of fossil hydrocarbon sources and the concern about global dates up to a half of small hydroelectric power plants of the
climatic changes associated with the conventional hydro- world and the largest Three Gorges Dam in the river
carbon-based energy stimulate the current interest in alter- Yangtze with installed capacity of 22.5 GW and a hydro-
native renewable energy sources. The possibility of more electric cascade with the highest capacity under construc-
extensive use of these sources in energy production has been tion. Even larger is the Grand Inga hydroelectric dam with a
actively discussed for more than half a century. The most potential of 39 GW, which is planned for construction by
important are hydropower, solar energy, wind energy, tidal an international consortium in the Congo river, Democratic
energy, geothermal energy, energy of biomass (agricultural Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). In Russia, hydro-
products, household wastes, firewood) and some less sig- power, like nuclear power, generates *16% of all electric
nificant sorts. The use of renewable energy sources is often energy. Currently, world hydropower engineering is rapidly
identified with a `new era'; however, in reality, most of these developed, with the capacity being increased by *2% ever
energy generation methods are old and rather well worked year.
out. Large HPPs refer to the most cost-friendly electric
If hydropower is eliminated from the above list, since it energy sources. This is due to the fact that most hydropower
should obviously be considered separately as one of the plants were constructed many year ago and their costs have
earliest and most developed industrial energy sources, been completely amortized. For new large plants, the
recent years have witnessed a vigorous progress in the generation costs are in the range of $0.03 ± 0.04 per kWh.
utilization of renewable sources. The growth rate of energy Approximately 5% of the world hydropower potential is
production from renewable energy sources (RES) was much implemented in low-capacity plants. The technical potential
higher than that from conventional sources, which is not of small hydropower engineering in the world is estimated
surprising in view of low amount of energy produced from as 150 ± 200 GW. The generation cost at small plants
renewable sources so far and low capacity of particular (<10 MW) is estimated at $0.02 ± 0.10 per 1 kWh, with
facilities. In the initial stage of utilization of new techniques, the lowest cost being inherent in the regions with high-
the output can be increased rather easily and rapidly. quality water resources. After the pay-off period for the
Currently, renewable sources have steadily occupied their high initial expenditure, the energy generation in a HPP can
position as low-capacity energy sources, local sources and be even less expensive, because equipment replacement is
as components of large distributed energy networks. not usually required for 50 or more years.
Nevertheless, according to even the most optimistic The concern about environmental and social problems
assessments, the contribution of these sources (without are the key obstacles hampering utilization of the remaining
hydropower) to the global production of primary energy hydropower potential in the world. The increase in water
does not exceed 3% (see Fig. 3 b). The statements that demand for various purposes can restrict the development
alternative and renewable energy sources would replace of hydropower plants and reduce the volume of water
the depleted fossil resources in the near future and would available for the existing plants. When dams are con-
solve the environmental problems of energy engineering, structed, artificial lakes are inevitably formed, large land
which have appeared in mass media in recent years, are, areas are flooded (especially in the case of lowland rivers),
unfortunately, based on the insufficient understanding of and thus the environment irreversibly changes. Fields and
real climatic and geosphere processes. There are also quite a woods are covered with water and people are evicted from
number of publications that are meant to lobby for the long-inhabited places. For example, the artificial lake of the
interests of certain industrial, agricultural and scientific Krasnoyarskaya HPP (6 GW capacity; one of the ten largest
groups and various environmental movements. In view of HPPs in the world; maximum water reservoir volume of
the decisive role of energy production in world economy, 73.3 km3) has flooded 120 000 hectares of agricultural lands
the enormous expenditures needed to design new technolo-
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 791

and 13 750 built structures were moved during the construc- migrating species. For example, according to estimates of
tion.38 biologists, the construction of the dam in the Penzhina bay
The artificial lakes needed for steady operation of HPPs will be detrimental for the Okhotsk Sea herring population.
cause climate changes in adjacent areas over distances of up The dam construction in moderate climate regions may
to hundreds of kilometres and are natural collectors of give rise to areas accumulating hydrogen sulfide, similar to
contaminants. In these lakes, blue-green algae grow and those in the bays and gulfs separated by natural crests. The
eutrophication processes are accelerated, which deteriorates Scandinavian fjords with natural crests represent a classical
water quality. The construction of these water reservoirs example of hydrogen sulfide accumulating areas.
disturbs ecosystems and natural spawning grounds of fish. It is noteworthy that operation of a large (several tens of
The rise of water level upstream of the HPP dam gives rise gigawatt) tidal plant may retard Earth's rotation. This
to swamps, increases soil salinity and changes the adjacent retardation will be very small; however, its environmental
vegetation and microclimate. A vivid illustration of the consequences are unpredictable.
adverse environmental consequences of HPP construction
is the river of Volga, which has turned into a chain of IV.3. Solar energy
slightly flowing shallow lakes. The energy potential of the Solar energy is considered as a very promising (perhaps, the
river has been virtually exhausted and the Russian sturgeon, most promising) alternative energy source. This is the only
which spawned thousand kilometres upstream of the river primary source of renewable energy getting to the Earth
mouth 100 years ago, almost disappeared. that provides energy for all secondary sources, except for
geothermal energy, which does not have a considerable
IV.2. Tidal power plants global potential. This resource is enormous: the solar flux
Tidal power plants (TPPs) can be considered as a specific that hits the upper boundary of the Earth's atmosphere
type of hydropower plants. The operation of TPPs is every year is huge, about 5.661024 J. This value is
regarded as economically feasible for the regions with tidal *5 000 times higher than the annual energy requirements
variation of the water level not less than 4 m. Unfortu- of the humanity. However, *35% of this energy is reflected
nately, such regions are few. The design capacity of a tidal back by the Earth's surface. The rest of energy is spent for
power plant depends on the type of tide in the region of heating the Earth's atmosphere, evaporation ± condensation
construction and the tidal basin volume and area. The cycle in the atmosphere, wave formation in seas and oceans,
major drawback of tidal power plants is that they are air and ocean currents, wind and photosynthesis. During all
constructed only on the sea and ocean shores; furthermore, these processes, high-potential solar energy of the ultra-
the TPP capacity is moderate, and tides occur only two violet and visible ranges is converted to low-potential
times a day. energy of heated Earth's surface (the average Earth's sur-
The experimental Kislogubskaya TPP in the Kola pen- face temperature is *20 8C), which is emitted as infrared
insula constructed in 1968, which is the only one in Russia, radiation back to the outer space.
has been again put in operation after a ten-year idle period. Considerable progress achieved in recent years in the
The capacity of this plant is only 400 kW (the tidal rise can solar energy engineering gives a lot of hope to its followers.
reach 5 m). The construction of new TPPs is planned on the Indeed, together with the wind energy, solar energy engi-
White Sea and Sea of Okhotsk shores. At the Mezenskaya neering is a rapidly developing branch of industry (Fig. 15)
TPP (White Sea), it is planned to design the first in Russia with annual world capital investment of 4$15 billion. The
10 MW pilot unit; the TPP fully put in operation can reach technological development of this branch reached a level at
a 20 GW capacity. The possibility of constructing a TPP in which it is possible to gain 200 ± 600 kWh a year from 1 m2
the Penzhina bay of the Sea of Okhotsk is considered; the of installed solar energy collectors. In 2014, in Europe alone
tidal rise in this bay can reach 13 m, which is the highest (mainly in the southern part) solar energy collectors gen-
value for the Pacific Coast. This allows for the design of an erated almost 100 million MWh, and solar-radiation based
electric station of up to 90 GW capacity; if this project is energy generation all over the world reached 186 mil-
implemented, this will be the world largest tidal plant.
However, there are few such unique locations in the Earth.
Like HPPs, tidal plants are associated with considerable
300
environmental problems. The construction of a dam
increases the tidal amplitude. Even a minor increase in the 1
250
Installed capacity /GW

tidal amplitude leads to considerable changes in the ground- 2

water distribution in the coastal area, increases the flooded 200
area, disrupts the water mass circulation, changes the ice
conditions downstream of the dam and so on. Tidal plants 150
also affect the climate, because they change the power
potential, velocity and migration area of sea water. 100
The construction of a tidal dam can also have serious
biological consequences: it may disturb the normal salt and 50
fresh water exchange and, hence, change the living condi-
tions of sea flora and fauna. In the basin downstream of the 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 Year
dam, the plant operation will affect the littoral zone Ð the
space between the high water mark covered with water
during the tide and the lower mark exposed during the ebb Figure 15. Variation of the installed capacity of solar (1) and wind
tide. The dam can have an adverse effect not only on the (2) power units in the world from 2004 to 2013.40
local communities of fish, animals and birds, but also on
792 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

lion MWh. According to data of the EPIA, which is the

largest industry association, the total capacity of photo-
electric installations reached 179 GW in 2014.39
There are two main routes of using solar radiation for
energy production:
Ð photovoltaics (photoelectric converters, photovoltaic
cells) based on conversion of solar radiation directly to
electricity by means of photoelectric effect;
Ð thermal solar power generation, which uses solar
radiation for heating of a working medium, e.g., water,
which then acts as a source of heat or serves for steam
generation for steam turbine drives.
In recent years, impressive advances were made in solar
energy engineering. Whereas in the late-1960s, the cost of
photoelectric panels was *$100 000 per kW of the peak
(maximum possible) capacity, now they cost 5 $2000 per Figure 16. Solar tower electric power plant (https://yandex.ru/
kW. However, as such a panel is connected to a power grid, images/search?text=ÔÑÎÐÇÚÐÞÇ%20àÎÇÍÕÓÑÔÕÂÐÙËË%20ÍÂÓÕËÐÍË).
approximately the same sum must be spent for additional
equipment Ð fittings, converters and connecting circuits.
The cost of the produced electricity depends on the solar system for following the Sun by some heliostats based on
light intensity. For example, the cost of photoelectric energy the computer-controlled rotation of mirrors. The major
in the Mediterranean region is $0.35 to $0.45 per kWh. In drawback of the solar power towers is high cost and large
the most favourable regions with the use of advanced area they occupy. A 100 MW solar electric plant requires an
technologies and solar concentrators, the cost of electric area of 200 hectares, whereas a 1000 MW nuclear power
energy is in the range of $0.10 ± 0.15 per kWh. A relevant plant occupies only 50 hectares.
long-term task is to decrease the cost of electric energy for The distributed solar power plants are composed of a
systems with solar concentrators down to 5 $0.05 per kWh. large number of separate modules. Each module consists of
In the 1980s, the first thin-film photocell was designed a supporting stand with a mounted parabolic concentrator
on the basis of inexpensive amorphous silicon; this triggered of solar radiation and a receiver located at the concentrator
more intensive research related to solar energy. Thin-film focus and used for heating the working fluid. The heated
silicon cells became leaders in the world market: they working fluid is fed to a thermal engine connected to an
accounted for 80% of the sales volume of solar cells. electric generator. At a moderate capacity, modular type
Owing to cheapening of solar panels, the cost of electric solar electric power plants are more economic than the
energy generation based on photoelectric cells decreased towers. In the modular solar power plants, linear solar
more than 30-fold in 50 years. New ways for decreasing the energy concentrators with the highest concentration ratio
financial expenditures in this field appear every year. In the of *100 are used most often.
period from 2006 to 2008, the consumption of silicon was The advantages of thermal solar power plants include
reduced from 10 to 8.7 g per W of installed capacity due to the possibility of integration into conventional thermal
the use of novel energy-efficient technologies. electric power plants. They can be included, as solar
Switching to heterojunctions (heterostructures) such as furnaces, into conventional thermal cycles together with
gallium and aluminium arsenides and the use of solar the combustion chambers for fossil fuel. However, with the
concentrators with a concentration ratio of 50 ± 100 can cost of energy from modern solar power plants being
increase the efficiency from the current 20% to 35%. In $0.10 ± 0.15 per kWh even under the most favourable con-
1989, a two-layer cell was designed based on two semi- ditions, solar energy is still too expensive to compete with-
conductors, gallium arsenide and antimonide. The first out subsidies in the domestic markets. Therefore, the
transparent layer (gallium arsenide) absorbs visible light research and engineering works carried out today are
and converts it to electricity, while the infrared part of the aimed, first of all, at decreasing the energy cost down to
radiation passes through this layer to be absorbed and $0.05 ± 0.08 per kWh and, in the long view, to a level of
converted to electricity in the second one (gallium antimo- <$0.05 per kWh.
nide). As a result, the efficiency was 37%, which is quite Solar energy can also be converted to direct electrical
comparable with the efficiencies of modern thermal and current by means of solar-cell arrays Ð devices consisting of
nuclear power plants. thin films of silicon or another semiconductor material.
The recent technological innovations have markedly Advantages of photovoltaic converters (PVC) are the
extended the prospects of solar energy and enabled the absence of movable parts and high reliability and stability.
construction of rather large energy facilities corresponding Furthermore, the service life of PVC is rather long. They
to industrial medium-capacity electric power plants. Cur- have low weight, are simple in maintenance and can use
rently, two types of thermal solar electric power plants are both direct and scattered solar radiation. The modular
usually constructed Ð tower plants (Fig. 16) and distrib- design is suitable for installations of almost any capacity,
uted (or modular) plants. which is very convenient for consumers. The drawbacks of
The thermal solar towers use a receiver with a field of PVC are high cost and low efficiency.
mirrors (heliostats), which ensure energy concentration by Solar-cell arrays serve for energy supply in the outer
several thousand times. The sun rays are reflected from a space, while in the Earth they are used mainly for up to
multitude of mirrors and are concentrated in the receiver 1 kW power supply for remote consumers or for radio-
located on the central tower. The installation has a complex positioning and low-duty electronic facilities.
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 793

In the United States, which have a top position in solar

energy production, several large projects are in progress, 27.6 28.1 28.1 Average

Variation of capacity build-up (%)

27.1 27.1
based on both photovoltaic conversion of radiation and over 10 years
thermal effect. The largest project, the Ivanpah electric 22.3 23.6 22.3
power station in the Mojave Desert, was officially put in 20.0
operation in 2014 after a long period of construction,
testing and development. It includes a system of 300 000
controlled flat mirrors located in a *16 km2 area, which
concentrate solar radiation to three identical 140 m high 10.2
towers. In the receivers located in the upper part of the
towers, the heat of solar radiation converts water to steam,
which is directed to the turbine blades producing electric
energy as in usual thermal power plants. According to
estimates, this energy should be sufficient for covering the 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
needs of 140 000 households of California. Each tower has a Year
control centre, while the common centre controls operation
of the whole system. Each mirror can change the angle and Figure 17. Variation of capacity build-up in world wind energy
the tilt direction in response to a command from the centre. production (http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-eco-
Every two weeks the mirrors are washed. The whole system nomics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html).
comprises 22 million parts. The maximum capacity of the
plant is 392 MW and the cost is $2.2 billion, which is
several times more than the cost of thermal plants of the requirements in Denmark, 8.6% in Germany and 1.3% in
same capacity. China. According to the plans for further development of
Solar energy engineering is associated with serious wind energy production, by 2020 the capacity of wind
environmental problems. Thermal solar electric power power units in the EU countries alone would reach
plants markedly increase the temperature of the surround- 180 GW. However, this high rate of growth inherent in the
ing air. For example, more than 300 000 mirrors of the initial stage of exploration of this energy source can hardly
above-mentioned Ivanpah plant heat the air very much (the be maintained in the future. The regions most appropriate
receiver temperature reaches 540 8C), which kills the birds for wind energy units from the geographic and consumer
flying nearby. During operation of large photovoltaic standpoints have already been utilized, which leads to an
plants, the surrounding air temperature can be considerably expected decrease in the rate of development of this type of
lowered, and this may cause water vapour condensation to energy production (Fig. 17).
form mist and, hence, decrease the transparency of the In the near future, a noticeable technological progress is
atmosphere and decrease the efficiency of photoconverters. expected, in particular, development of 45 MW turbines
As noted above, the construction of large solar plants (80% of the world wind energy production uses
requires land areas measuring tens of square kilometres; 1.5 ± 2.5 MW turbines). The wind generator capacity
therefore, such facilities have to be designed only in deserts. depends on the area swept by the blades and the elevation
One more considerable problem of solar energy engineering above the ground. For example, for a 3 MW turbine, the
is unfavourable environmental impact of industrial produc- total height of the wind generator is 115 m: the tower height
tion of the mirrors and especially materials for photovoltaic is 70 m and the rotor diameter is 90 m. A wind generator
cells. The manufacture of silicon and arsenides is associated starts to produce electricity at a wind speed of 3 m s71 and
with hazardous chemical processes, and the problem of switches off at a wind speed of 425 m s71. The produced
disposal of these materials has to be solved in the near energy is proportional to the wind speed cubed; the max-
future. imum power is attained at a wind speed of *15 m s71.
In view of the foregoing, it cannot be ruled out that The most appropriate places for deployment of wind
Ivanpah would become the last electric power plant of this generators are the offshore areas near the coast. However,
type. However, the major problems of solar energy produc- the cost of their construction is 1.5 ± 2 times higher than
tion are huge specific capital investments and the complex- that for onshore construction. The offshore wind power
ity of equipment, which much exceed the same character- plants are usually constructed in the sea at a 10 ± 12 km
istics for other sources, and also variability and unpredict- distance from the shore. The towers are mounted on the
ability of the amount of produced energy. foundations of piles driven to a depth of up to 30 m. The
energy of wind, unlike the fossil fuel energy, is almost
IV.4. Wind electric energy inexhaustible, accessible and more environmentally benign;
Wind power engineering, which appeared back at the end of however, the construction of wind power plants is associ-
the 19th century, has been the most vigorously developing ated with some technical and economic difficulties, which
type of renewable energy industry during the last six years, hamper the propagation of wind energy production. In
with the annual growth rate being almost 30% (see Fig. 15). particular, the variability of wind flows brings about the
By the beginning of 2015, the total installed capacity of all problem of uncertain electricity generation. What is most
wind generators was 369 GW and the proportion of elec- important is that wind energy is one of the most expensive
tricity they generated was 3% of all the produced electric sorts of energy: the average incremental cost of 1 kW of
energy. More than 30% of the installed capacity is in China, installed (peak) power produced by a large modern wind
*18% is in the US and 410% is in Germany. The wind plant is *$1000 ; for an offshore plant this characteristics
plants, which are mainly represented by offshore installa- can be 35% ± 100% higher. The cost does not include the
tions in the coastal area, cover *40% of electric energy potential expenditures for integration with power networks
794 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

and manufacture of energy storage facilities. The prime cost beds with temperatures of 5 100 8C are also located in
of the electric energy produced by the best onshore electric many geologically low-activity regions; therefore geother-
power plants has now decreased to $0.03 ± 0.04 per kWh. As mal energy is widely used in many countries.
the average wind speed decreases, the prime cost of elec- The geothermal energy is classified into two types:
tricity sharply increases. The considerable variations of the petrothermal and hydrothermal energy.
prime cost of electric energy generated by wind in different Petrothermal energy is related to the temperature of the
countries and regions (from $0.03 to $0.20 per kWh) are Earth's interior. The average rate of temperature rise with
caused by different power plant designs, scatter of capital increasing depth is *2.5 8C per every 100 m. At a 5 km
investments and average wind speed. The wind energy is not depth, the temperature is *125 8C, while at a 10 km depth
yet competitive in most markets and only preferential tariffs it is *250 8C. For extracting the energy, two wells are
for this sort of energy mitigate the situation. drilled, and water is injected into one well; then water is
It is noteworthy that the popular view about the heated while migrating to the adjacent well from which is
environmental cleanliness of wind energy production is a comes out as steam. The key problem associated with this
delusion.41, 42 Indeed, a single wind farm is harmless. How- type of energy production is low cost-effectiveness.
ever, on going to large-scale generation of electricity, the The hydrothermal energy production is based on uti-
construction of wind power plants requires considerable lization of the superheated underground water of natural
land areas; for manufacturing of tens of thousands of wind sources located in many volcanic zones, including the
turbines, it is necessary to establish a new branch of Kamchatka area; Kuril, Japanese and Philippine islands;
industry (meanwhile, any industrial production is associ- and vast areas of Cordilleras and Andes. The principal
ated with environmental issues). It is necessary to sharply benefit of the geothermal energy is that it is virtually
increase the manufacturing of aluminium and/or glass inexhaustible and does not absolutely depend on the envi-
reinforced plastics, and these are fairly hazardous produc- ronmental conditions, time of the day or the season. Water
tion processes. In the short term, it will be necessary to solve or a steam/water mixture can be utilized, depending on
the disposal problem for outdated or old equipment. temperature, for hot-water or heat supply, production of
Yet another important problem related to the use of electric energy or simultaneously for both purposes. The
wind generators is the strong vibration of supporting parts, high-temperature heat of volcanic regions and dry rocks is
which is transferred to the ground. A considerable propor- preferably used for electricity generation, the plant design
tion of acoustic energy (a 250 kW wind turbine creates a being dependent on the applied source of geothermal
50 ± 80 dB noise) is in the infrasonic range, and this energy energy.
has an adverse effect on humans and many animals. As Large volumes of underground thermal water are
shown by experience of operation of a large number of wind present in the North and South Caucasus, in the Kam-
power units in the US, this noise is unbearable by birds and chatka area and in some other regions of Russia. By 2006 in
animals, which leave the power plant area, that is, the site of Russia, there were 56 explored thermal water deposits with
a wind power plant and adjacent areas become unsuitable a flow rate of 4300 000 m3 per day. Twenty deposits are
for living. industrially operated; among these are Paratunskoye (Kam-
In some countries, the operation of wind generators chatka), Cherkesskoye and Kazminskoye (Karachay-Cher-
disturbs the TV signal for 1 ± 2 km around the generator, kessia and Stavropol Territory), Kizlyarskoye and
as the blade rotation frequency is close to the frequency of Makhachkalinskoye (Dagestan), Mostovskoye and Vozne-
the TV synchronizing signal. Wind generators are also senskoye (Krasnodar Territory). Currently, geothermal
sources of radio interferences. The installations constructed energy provides for 30% of electricity production in the
in heavy wind regions (mountain ridges, seashores) can Kamchatka (Mutnovskaya, Pauzhetskaya and Verkhne-
interfere with bird and insect migrations: modulation of Mutnovskaya geothermal power plants).
the wind flow by the blades creates a sort of regular An environmental problem arising upon the use of
structures in the air, which hamper the orientation. In underground thermal waters is associated with the necessity
Belgium, it has been found that this disturbs the stability to inject the waste water back to the underground aquifer.
of field ecosystems located in the wind installation area, in Thermal waters contain considerable amounts of salts of
particular, crop yield decreases.43 Unrecoverable conse- various elements (boron, lead, zinc, cadmium, arsenic). The
quences of the large-scale wind energy production are also steam contains hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, phenols and
possible: air streams would be dissipated and weakened, the radon, which causes radioactive contamination of the envi-
wind chart would change, and hence the climatic equili- ronment. The discharge of waste water to rivers leads to
brium and the heat and moisture transfer would be dis- thermal pollution and considerable hazard for hydrobionts.
turbed. At elevated temperature, the dissolved oxygen concentra-
tion decreases and is no longer sufficient for many fishes
IV.5. Geothermal energy (for example, trout lives only in cold water), while mineral
Geothermal energy engineering uses the energy contained in impurities depress aquatic organisms. Therefore, the waste
the Earth's interior to produce electricity. In the volcanic water is injected back into the Earth's interior via specially
areas, water that circulates in subsurface horizons at rela- drilled wells. However, the consequences of this operation
tively small depths is superheated above the boiling point, in the case of large-scale energy production are difficult to
rises to the surface along the cracks and, in some cases, predict.
bursts out as geysers. The subsurface hot water can be The extraction of a steam/water mixture from wells is
accessed by well drilling. accompanied by atmospheric emission of steam and toxic
More frequently encountered are dry high-temperature gases; steam, which expands as it gets to the surface,
rocks, from which energy can be derived by water injection generates a lot of noise. The environmental impact of
and subsequent extraction of superheated water. High rock geothermal power plant operation is easy to follow by
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 795

looking at the Pauzhetskaya power plant. Within two or crops from the foodstuff market directly affects the prices of
three kilometres from the plant, one can see bare stems food for people.
(without bark or leaves) of stone birch, and the roar of The non-edible waste of cultivated crops, grass and
steam coming to the surface can always be heard far away; waste wood are classified as the second generation of bio-
meanwhile, the plant capacity is only 12 MW, which is based feedstock. This feedstock can be obtained for lower
almost five times lower than the capacity of the main cost than the first-generation one. However, the costs of
turbines of the nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika. harvesting, preparation and processing sharply increase.
The potential total capacity of geothermal power plants This feedstock mainly contains cellulose and lignin. They
in the world is lower than the total capacity of most plants can be directly burnt (like firewood), gasified (to obtain
based on some other renewable energy sources. However, in combustible gases) or pyrolyzed to give liquid and gaseous
view of rather high energy density, the geothermal energy products. The key drawbacks of the second generation bio-
production develops in some regions where fossil resources based feedstock are large land resources occupied for its
are either absent or relatively expensive. Unlike the energy production and relatively low output per unit area.
derived from oil and coal, geothermal energy does not need Algae are considered as the third-generation bio-based
to be processed or transported by long distances and comes feedstock; they can be produced without using land resour-
much cheaper. Currently, the geothermal electricity is ces and may provide high concentration and fast reprodu-
generated in 24 countries and the total installed capacity cibility of biomass. However, the use of natural water
of geothermal electric power plants in the world reached bodies may bring about serious environmental problems
10.7 GW in 2010. because of penetration of artificially produced organisms to
The geothermal energy engineering continues to steadily the environment. Along with growing algae in open ponds,
develop, although not so rapidly as solar or wind energy it is possible to grow them in small bioreactors located, for
engineering. Asia-Pacific countries are leaders in this field; example, near electric power plants. The rejected heat of
they produce 47.6% of the geothermal energy generated all thermal electric power plants can cover 470% of the heat
over the world. North America accounts for 42.3%, and requirements for growing algae.
10% are produced in Europe. However, despite the high Currently, the biomass production by cultivation of
and stable rate of development of geothermal energy pro- phytoplankton in artificial water basins constructed at the
duction, which has existed for more than a hundred years, sea coast is considered in some European countries as a
its real potential is too small to make a significant contri- promising trend (fourth-generation feedstock). The subse-
bution to world energy. quent methane fermentation of biomass and hydroxylation
of the resulting methane give methanol as a biofuel. The
IV.6. Biomass energy major reason for the use of microscopic algae is high
The use of biomass energy, together with solar energy, is the productivity of phytoplankton, up to 100 t ha71 per year.
main expectation of people who hope that energy demands Furthermore, there is no need to use fertile soil and fresh-
of humanity can be met by means of renewable sources. In water and no competition with agricultural production.
many developing countries, a considerable part of house- From the energy production standpoint, the use of this
hold energy requirements is met by combustion of biomass, biosystem has substantial economic advantages over other
mainly firewood and agricultural wastes. However, with a ways of solar energy conversion. However, implementation
global deficiency of food products and permanent degrada- of such projects is yet hampered by low oil prices.
tion of agricultural lands, it is unrealistic that the rapidly Biofuels can be solid, liquid or gaseous. Solid biofuels
growing energy demand of people could be met at the include wood such as firewood (often wood processing
expense of green energy (in essence, agriculture).44 Cer- waste) or wood (fuel) pellets; liquid biofuels include alco-
tainly, this does not rule out wider utilization of biomass hols (methanol, ethanol, butanol), ethers, biodiesel and bio
wastes and domestic wastes for energy production. For furnace oil, which are prepared from plant feedstock;
example, a modern urban district with a population of gaseous biofuels are various gas mixtures, which consist of
100 000 people generates *40 000 tonnes of solid combus- methane, carbon oxide, hydrogen and other gases, formed
tible domestic waste every year; combustion of this waste upon thermal decomposition of bio-based feedstock in the
would provide half of the district residents with hot water presence (gasification) or in the absence (pyrolysis) of oxy-
and decrease the natural fuel consumption by 10% ± 15%. gen or upon bacterial fermentation of bio-based feedstock.
The technologies of energy production from bio-based Apart from agricultural products, ligno-cellulose com-
feedstock are quite diverse. If we put aside the purely pounds, which remain after the parts of biological raw
domestic application of wood fuel (firewood or wood materials suitable for food industry have been utilized, can
pellets, which are made of pressed wood processing chips, also serve for the production of biofuels. Beside biological
etc.), then all the plant raw materials actually or potentially fermentation processes, biofuels can be produced by pyrol-
applicable for industrial energy production are commonly ysis, which converts biomass to a liquid; the liquid can be
classified into several generations. The traditional agricul- transported, stored and utilized more easily and less expen-
tural crops with high contents of fats, starch and sugars sively. According to some estimates, with existing technol-
were the first to be used. The plant fats are well converted to ogies, pyrolysis of wastes and waste biomass can cover up to
biodiesel serving as diesel fuel. The plant starches and 20% of the demand of Germany for motor fuels; by 2030
sugars are processed to ethanol, which can be used in with the progress of technologies, this value is expected to
carburetor engines either by itself or as a petrol additive increase to 35%, with the production prime cost being
increasing the octane number. However, apart from the 5 0.80 euros litre71. The liquid products of pyrolysis of
problems associated with intensive agricultural production such wastes as branch timber, stumps and coniferous tree
(soil depletion, high cost of soil treatment, watering, fertil- bark can also be used. The yield of fuel fractions from a
izers and pesticides), withdrawal of even a part of food tonne of waste wood reaches 100 kg.
796 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

One of widely used types of biofuel is biogas, the For many years, Brazil where bioethanol is manufac-
product of fermentation of organic wastes (biomass), tured from sugar cane, has been the world leader in
which is mainly a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide. bioethanol production and use as an automotive fuel. The
Biomass decomposes under the action of methanogenic filling stations in Brazil offer E20 or E25 as a conventional
bacteria. The fermentation of chicken manure, cattle farm petrol (the number shows the content of the ethanol/water
wastes and household garbage may afford biogas, which azeotrope containing 96% EtOH and 4% H2O).
contains 70% ± 80% of methane and can act as a full-scale Apart from biomethanol and bioethanol, biobutanol is
substitute for natural gas. also considered as a prospective biofuel. Biobutanol pro-
In some countries poor in energy resources, for example duction started in the early 20th century by means of the
in India, biogas is widely employed for domestic purposes. bacteria Clostridia acetobutylicum, but later the production
Sweden, Germany and other European countries implement switched to oil feedstock. Butanol is not corrosive and can
projects of conversion of agricultural and wood processing be transported via the existing fuel infrastructure. It is
wastes to biogas followed by production of electricity and readily miscible with conventional oil-based fuels, and the
synthetic motor fuels. Biogas can become a significant calorific value of butanol is close to that of petrol. The
additional source of hydrocarbons, because the annual possible feedstocks for butanol production include sugar
renewable biomass resource in the world is estimated at cane, beetroot, corn, wheat, manioc and, in the future, also
200 billion tonnes. cellulose.
China is the world leader in the use of this sort of fuel. In In Europe, biodiesel based on animal, vegetable and
2008, there were *30 million single biogas production units microbial fats is the most popular biofuel. The possible
in China, which supplied fuel for *22% of rural population feedstocks include rapeseed, soybean, palm and coconut oils
of the country. The volume of the gas obtained in this way or any other raw oil as well as food industry and cooking
was *6.5 billion m3 as of 2005. The significance of this type wastes. Biodiesel production processes based on algae are
of waste processing for developing countries is, first of all, being developed.
in the possibility of gas supply to rural population for In 2010, the world output of liquid biofuels reached
heating of their homes and for cooking. In developed 105 billion litres (*100 million tonnes), which amounted
countries (for example, in Germany), the most part of to 2.7% of the world fuel consumption by road vehicles.
biogas is delivered to electric power plants. In recent years, The bioethanol production output was 86 billion litres and
this type of biogas application has also been characteristic that of biodiesel was 19 billion litres. According to the data
of China. For waste disposal, agricultural holdings con- for 2013, the production output of bioethanol decreased,
struct small thermal electric power plants capable of supply- although it consumed 42% of the total corn crop of the
ing electricity for up to 10 000 flats. United States.45 The proportion of the US and Brazil in the
Finally, some microbes, for example, Botryococcus brau- world ethanol production is *90%. The top five manufac-
nii, accumulate hydrocarbons (mainly isoprenoids) during turers of biofuel are presented in Fig. 18.
the living activity in amount of up to 40% of their total dry Currently, the intensity of research into biomass utiliza-
mass. tion technologies is very high.46 ± 51 The most rapid progress
In 2007, the great interest in biofuel initiated a plan of occurs in the bioethanol production from agricultural
George Bush, the then US President, who proposed that wastes 47 ± 50 and various types of algae.51 More extensive
consumption of petrol in the country should be reduced by utilization of lignin is still an important challenge.52 Atten-
20% in 10 years to be replaced by biofuel. This would lead tion is attracted by the possibility to mitigate the human-
to a 10% decrease in the crude oil consumption in the induced impact on atmospheric processes by means of
United States. The Energy Independence and Security Act increasing use of biomass energy 53 ± 56 and by extending
he signed (EISA, 2007) stipulated the annual production of the range of chemicals produced from bio-based feed-
36 billion gallons (*100 million tonnes) of ethanol by 2022. stock.57
Of these, 16 billion gallons (*45 million tonnes) of ethanol
had to be derived from a non-edible source (cellulose).
During implementation of this Act, more than 200 plants
have already been constructed and are producing *45 mil- Country Percentage in the world production (%)
lion tonnes of bioethanol per year. US 45.4%
The use of bioethanol as a part of automotive petrols is
indeed favourable for decreasing the air pollution caused by
motor vehicles. Owing to the presence of an oxygen atom in Brazil 22.5%
the ethanol molecule, petrol is enriched in oxygen, which
contributes to more complete fuel combustion, decrease in Germany 4.8%
the exhaust gas toxicity and particulate content. Moreover,
the addition of 10% ethanol, which has an octane number Argentina 3.8%
of 108, raises the fuel octane number by 2 ± 3 points.
However, ethanol is a less `energy dense' carrier than petrol; France 3.0%
the fuel mileage of automobiles that run on E85 (a mixture
of 85% ethanol and 15% petrol) is *75% of the standard
fuel mileage. For cars with conventional engines, fuels
containing up to 15% ethanol added to petrol are appli- Figure 18. Shares of top five countries in the production of biofuel
cable, only specially adapted flexible-fuel cars being able to (IEA data, 2013).
run on E85 or pure ethanol.
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 797

Production output /million TOE one of the world largest sources of greenhouse gas emis-
sions.
30 1 One more hazard of using the biomass of technical crops
2 has been noted in the literature: unlike grain crops, poplar,
25 3 willow, eucalyptus and some other fast-growing plants
synthesize pronounced amounts of isoprenoids, which are
20 oxidized by air oxygen to give tropospheric ozone detri-
mental for health.
15
IV.7. Hydrogen energy
10
Among various sorts of alternative energy, so-called hydro-
gen energy arouses the most enthusiasm. It is the subject of
5
thousands of publications both in mass media and in
specialized scientific editions. In some countries, there are
2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 Year generously supported state programmes aimed at organiz-
ing large-scale industrial production of hydrogen and at
forming the infrastructure for its consumption (in this
Figure 19. Biofuel production by top producers (IEA data). connection, the term `hydrogen energy' appeared). This
(1) US, (2) Brazil, (3) EU. large attention is caused by the commonly accepted view
that hydrogen is an efficient and environmentally clean fuel,
since hydrogen combustion yields only water and the
calorific value of hydrogen, 140 MJ kg71, is much higher
The trend of biofuel production by world leaders can be than the calorific values of hydrocarbon fuels (for methane,
evaluated from the data shown in Fig. 19. Like for other this value is *50 MJ kg71).
alternative energy sources, the initial period of vigorous However, in reality, everything is not that simple. First
development is followed by the clear trend of decreasing of all, it is necessary to recall that hydrogen is a secondary
growth rate and even by a decline, which is caused by energy carrier, which is virtually absent in the Earth as a
saturation of the market and, what is more important, by fossil resource } and must be obtained from a more
depletion of the physical possibility for economically sub- abundant and cheap raw material. Currently, hydrogen is
stantiated building-up of the production output. The world produced on an industrial scale by conversion of the same
market of biofuel has already reached quite a substantial fossil hydrocarbons, that is, natural gas, coal and oil. The
level, having exceeded $100 billion. According to the Rus- cost of hydrogen production from other sources, in partic-
sian Federal Service of State Statistics (Rosstat), the Rus- ular, by water electrolysis is several times higher, which
sian export of plant-based fuels (including those made of rules out their industrial application.58 However, the devel-
straw, oilseed residues, wood chips and wood) exceeded opment of hydrogen energy production based on natural
2.7 million tonnes in 2010. Russia is one of the three top gas (and other hydrocarbons) as a hydrogen source for
exporters of fuel pellets to the European market, but only solving global environmental problems is hardly reason-
*20% of the produced biofuel is consumed directly in able, because the hydrogen production processes are accom-
Russia. The potential production output of biogas in Russia panied by evolution of huge amounts of carbon dioxide.
is estimated as 72 billion m3 per year, the possible electricity Since the contribution of industry-induced CO2 emission to
generation from this biofuel may reach 151 200 GWh and the greenhouse effect causes concern even now, large-scale
the possible generation of heat is 169 344 GWh. In switching to hydrogen fuel produced by natural gas reform-
2012 ± 2013, more than 50 small biogas electric power plants ing or water electrolysis, the energy efficiency of which is
with installed capacity from 350 kW to 10 MW and the markedly less than 100%, would considerably increase the
total capacity of 4120 MW were planned to be put in carbon dioxide emission.59 Therefore, considering a global
operation in 27 regions of Russia. environmental effect of hydrogen energy production is of no
The use of biomass on an industrial scale, like the use of sense. Only local benefits can be gained under specific
any other energy source, has adverse environmental con- conditions of densely populated urban areas, and only in
sequences. For example, the desire to increase the area for the case of acceptable cost-effectiveness of hydrogen pro-
planting technical crops resulted in eradication of tropical duction technologies.
rainforests. In Indonesia and Malaysia, expansion of oil Since the electrolysis of water using traditional energy
palm plantations for increasing the production of palm oil sources must be discarded, as this would require consump-
resulted in clearing of most of forests in the 1980s ± 1990s. A tion of much more energy than would be obtained on
similar situation occurs in Brazil where Amazon tropical hydrogen combustion, the application of the energy of
rainforests, which are often called Earth's lungs, are cleared nuclear power plants in the off-peak load periods is consid-
to make sugar cane plantations. ered as an option. However, electrolysis could become a
For intensification of technical crop cultivation, it is global industrial source of hydrogen only after the advent of
necessary to widely use fertilizers and crop-protection nuclear fusion energy.
agents, and this results in soil biodegradation. The habitats Among the methods of economically feasible production
of animals and the microecosystems are destroyed. The of hydrogen from water other than the use of nuclear fusion
practice of bush and peat bog burning for the preparation
of agricultural lands and high consumption of fuel by motor
vehicles for transporting palm oil made Southeastern Asia } Hydrogen is present among volcanic gases and fluids related to Earth
degassing.
798 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

energy, only three methods seem encouraging so far. The Currently, there are no solutions that would meet these
achievements of biotechnology and microbiology imply the requirements even roughly.58, 63
theoretical possibility of creating microbial strains able to The sorbents that take up hydrogen via physical adsorp-
generate hydrogen.60, 61 However, these research and devel- tion cannot meet these requirements because of the nature
opment works are at an early stage and it is difficult to of the phenomenon. Indeed, in this case, a relatively high
predict the result. Furthermore, it is just one more version content of the adsorbate can be attained only at cryogenic
of bioenergy engineering, the prospects and limitations of temperatures (77 K). Conversely, in the case of metal
which have been discussed above. hydrides and intermetallic compounds, with high hydrogen
One more way is to use direct solar electric energy for contents, high temperatures are required for hydrogen
water electrolysis. This is an interesting approach, but it is release and binding.}
associated with considerable difficulties and is unable, in This not only complicates the engineering implementa-
principle, to cover a reasonable part of world energy tion of the idea, but also sharply increases the danger of
consumption (see Section IV.3). system application as a whole. It is necessary to find
Finally, one more approach is the development of materials with a hydrogen binding energy intermediate
photocatalysts that cleave water on exposure to solar light. between the energies of chemical bond in hydrides and van
It can be expected that this approach would be rather der Waals bond in adsorbents. Of interest in this respect are
efficient, although large-scale industrial application of pho- metal-doped cage coordination compounds 64, 65 and com-
tocatalysis would require detailed feasibility study. And posite materials based on covalent light metal hydrides.66, 67
again, this is a type of solar energy engineering that may Finally, one more key problem of hydrogen energy
prove useful for a local, but by no means global energy engineering is the disposal of hydrogen. Almost all special-
production. ists agree that electric energy should be generated by means
The problem of hydrogen transportation from the pro- of fuel cells, the operation principles of which were discov-
duction site (most likely, equatorial deserts) to the con- ered by W.R.Grove back in 1839. Over the last 50 years,
sumption site (middle latitudes) is far from being solved. FCs have been considerably upgraded; they are now
This cannot be done by conventional gas pipelines, as the installed in various devices such as artificial Earth satellites
hydrogen permeation through microscopic leaks is substan- and submarines. The fabrication of FC demonstration
tially higher than that of methane; it is known that hydro- models does not cause serious difficulties. However, the
gen can penetrate even through undamaged metal struc- manufacture of economically available FCs that would
tures. Probably, it would be necessary to use pipes made of withstand performance tests for at least 1000 h remains a
composite materials, the manufacture of which would problem. For several decades past, researchers have been
require large capital investment and a knowingly environ- unable to find a cheap and easily disposable material for
mentally harmful manufacturing process. Furthermore, the bipolar plates. In the case of large-scale production, this
density of gaseous hydrogen is eight times lower than the material must be chemically stable, possess high electrical
density of methane; therefore, the cost of pipeline trans- and thermal conductivities, high strength and so on. In the
portation would be higher by almost an order of magnitude design of such a material, the following principal questions
and the pipes should have a three times larger diameter. One should be answered:
should also take into account embrittlement of the metal Ð how to attach platinum or another metal catalyst to
that is to be used to manufacture compressors and check the plate surface, so that it is not deactivated over the whole
valves (even in the case of polymeric pipes). guaranteed period of operation and not washed away from
The long-distance pipeline transportation of hydrogen the surface during operation;
as a cryogenic liquid has now absolutely no prospects from Ð how to ensure the stability of catalyst operation in
the economic standpoint. The most real liquid sources of the presence of traces of poisons (CO, H2S and so on);
hydrogen for transport applications, for example, for fuel Ð what material should be used to fabricate the proton-
cells (FCs), are methanol and dimethyl ether, which can be conducting membrane, the key requirement to which is
converted to hydrogen directly on board of the vehicle. stability under conditions of hydrogen peroxide formation
G. Olah, laureate of the Nobel Prize in chemistry of 1994, is in the system along with water (recall that H2O2 is currently
very enthusiastic about the use of methanol as a liquid produced by hydrogen oxidation with oxygen in the pres-
hydrogen source.62 He believes that we are on the eve of ence of carbon-supported platinum).
methanol-based rather than hydrogen-based economy age. In the solid oxide fuel cells, hydrogen-containing com-
The main difficulty on this route is to design catalysts for pounds (methanol, methane) can be used as hydrogen
methanol synthesis with a nearly 100% selectivity and high sources, but such FCs operate at very high temperature.
operation stability. However, it cannot be ruled out that particularly these cells
Enormous problems are associated with the storage of may be demanded in the future even for transport applica-
hydrogen. The storage period of hydrogen even as a tions.
cryogenic liquid should not exceed 5 days because of large Good financing of the research into FCs all over the
losses. It is more practicable to store hydrogen as com- world (several billion dollars annually) and recruiting of
pounds. The US Department of Energy formulated the
following key requirements to a hydrogen storage material:
Ð it should contain at least 6.0 mass % of hydrogen at
room temperature;
} This statement does not refer to some intermetallic compounds that
Ð the sorption ± desorption of hydrogen should be readily absorb and release hydrogen close to room temperature (e.g., well-
reversible at temperatures not higher than 120 oC; known LaNi5). Unfortunately, the hydrogen capacity of these materials is
Ð the system should be safe and remain in the operating low (approximately 1.5 mass %). Furthermore, additional energy is
state for at least 5000 charge ± discharge cycles. required for the endothermic process of hydrogen release from hydrides.
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 799

highly skilled specialists for this research give hope that average solar radiation flux through a unit horizontal plane
efficient and inexpensive FCs for motor vehicles would be is at least three times lower due to the alternation of day and
devised in the next decade; in any case, these studies are night and the change of the angle of the sun above the
closer to success than those related to the problems of horizon.4 In the middle latitudes in winter, this value is two
hydrogen production and storage. Currently, FC-based times lower. Thus, even at the equator, using very complex
portable power sources and stationary units for hybrid and expensive equipment and with virtually limiting effi-
electricity, heat and cold generation systems are already ciency of solar energy conversion attainable to date (30%),
commercially available (ENCE GmbH, Switzerland). only 90 MW can be obtained from a 1 km2 area. This
A modern subject of hydrogen energy engineering is to corresponds to a small regional electric power plant and is
switch road vehicles to electricity and/or hydrogen as an 20 times lower than the capacity of a typical industrial
internal combustion engine fuel, which may minimize thermal electric power plant, not to say about the variability
atmospheric pollution in big cities. of produced energy throughout the day and the year and,
To implement large-scale manufacture of electric hence, the necessity to have expensive energy storage
vehicles equipped with FCs and electric motors, it is facilities.
necessary to solve the above-described problems, first of Biofuel-based energy is actually a type of solar radiation
all, to learn how to obtain and transport hydrogen and store energy, which is converted in this case to more convenient
hydrogen on board of the car and also to create explosion- sorts of energy by virtue of photosynthesis in green plants
proof infrastructure for fuelling the vehicles. Although this rather than using engineering equipment; therefore, it is
is in principle possible, considerable time will apparently expedient to evaluate its potential. According to the most
elapse until it is possible to manufacture hydrogen-driven modest estimates, *200 billion tonnes of dry green plant
vehicles. biomass (annual primary biosphere product) is formed on
The application of hydrogen as a fuel for internal Earth every year, which is 20 times more than the total mass
combustion engines, which does not require a high degree of fossil fuels consumed by people. By burning this biomass,
of its purification, unlike the FC application, is complicated it is possible to obtain up to 50061021 J of energy. Mean-
by the absence of extensive infrastructure and difficulty of while, the total amount of biomass on Earth is an order of
hydrogen storage on board of the car. In addition, when magnitude greater: up to 261012 g in relation to dry matter.
hydrogen is used as a fuel, very high temperature develops However, the giant amount of green mass produced by
in the engine cylinders and, hence, the nitrogen oxide the biosphere does not mean that it can be really utilized in
concentration in the exhaust gases increases. the production activity of people. The main parameters
As regards battery-driven vehicles, which are already characterizing the Earth's biosphere have been almost
manufactured by some companies, in this case, the emis- invariable for more than 2 billion years after the formation
sions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants are merely of oxygen atmosphere. This stability is caused by high
translocated from the vehicle operation places to the sites of intensity of biosphere processes in which the material and
electric power plants. Recall that 85% of electric energy is energy fluxes inside the system are several orders of magni-
generated as a result of combustion of organic fuel. More- tude more intense than the inward and outward fluxes.
over, mass production and the subsequent disposal of car According to estimates,4 people do not violate the equili-
batteries are also associated with serious environmental brium of the biosphere until they take up 5 1% of the
consequences. primary biota product. However, even now the consump-
To summarize, it can be stated that the widespread view tion of net primary products of the biosphere produced on
that hydrogen energy is a matter of the near future is too land as food, fodder and fuel has exceeded 10% and
optimistic. Naturally, research and technological, economic continues to grow. Taking account for real losses, even
and organizational problems may be overcome with time; utilization of virtually all available products of the bio-
however, this may require decades. Hence, the expectation sphere cannot cover the short-term energy requirements of
to solve global environmental problems by means of hydro- people. An attempt to implement such a project would
gen energy is unfortunately groundless. destroy natural ecosystems and violate the equilibrium of
global biosphere processes.
V. Key problems related to the use of renewable Thus, the low density of the primary energy flux (solar
radiation on Earth's surface) and low efficiency of conver-
energy sources sion of this energy by green plants (on average, somewhat
As noted above, the most important and the only primary increasing 1%) eliminate any hope for a global role of the
source of renewable energy that gets to Earth is the solar renewable green energy. As shown by the results of
radiation energy. All other renewable resources are secon- simulation of global civilization development processes at
dary with respect to this one; they result from conversion of a current level of energy consumption in developed coun-
only a minor portion of solar energy, and, therefore, they tries, not more than 500 million people can exist on Earth at
are inferior to it in the potential. Is at least this, most the expense of renewable energy sources,3 and this is more
prominent, source able to solve the world energy problem? than 10 times lower than the already existing Earth's
Unfortunately not. And here is the reason why. population.
The total solar radiation energy flux that falls on Earth The key obstacle restricting the possible contribution of
is *1.7461017 W; the energy flux that passes through a the biofuel energy to world economy is the very low density
1 m2 plane arranged perpendicular to the radiation at the of energy flux resulting from the agricultural production of
entry to the Earth's atmosphere is 1367 W m72. This value biofuel (Table 4). In reality, even the presented values are
is called the solar constant. Due to absorption by the too high, the average optimistic estimate being only
Earth's atmosphere, the maximum solar radiation flux at 0.073 W m72, which is *10 000 times lower than the energy
sea level at the equator is only *1000 W m72. The daily of solar rays that fall on the same area.68 For comparison,
800 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

Table 4. Thermal energy flux densities obtained, on average, from unit Table 5. EROEI values for various sources of ethanol and biodiesel.68
area per year for various sources of biofuel.68
Feedstock Most reliable EROEI
Feedstock Formal flux Estimate from value
/W m72 Ref. 68 /W m72
Ethanol
Sugar cane 0.37 ± 0.47 0.30 ± 0.36
Corn-based ethanol 0.141 ± 0.264 7 Sugar cane (Brazil) 5
Palm oil 0.29 ± 0.627 7 Corn (US) 1.25
Soybeans 0.043 ± 0.073 7 Corn (other countries) 0.18 ± 1.48
Biofuel on average 0.155 < 0.15 Biodiesel
Palm oil 3
Rapeseed oil 1.5
the conversion of solar energy by photovoltaic solar power Soybeans 1.43 ± 3.54
plants in Spain corresponds to energy with a flux density of Wheat (China) 1.09
*4.8 W m72, which is *40 times higher than the pre-
sented estimate. However, the fabrication of artificial pho-
toconversion systems with a capacity needed for industrial
energy production is equally unrealistic. This is caused not 2006 in the North America and in Europe, the EROEI of
only by the necessity to withdraw huge areas from economic the wind energy production was *20, which promoted its
operations and natural ecosystems (hundreds of thousand fast development. However, the number of convenient sites
square kilometres, which is comparable with the areas of for installing wind generators decreases, and this is one of
large Western European countries). Also, this would require the factors responsible for decreasing the growth rate of
cosmic capital investments for sophisticated engineering wind energy facilities. For biofuel, the situation is much
equipment and great amounts of structural materials, the worse. Even for the production of ethanol from sugar cane
production of which would exceed the economic potential (the most efficient feedstock for biofuel production),
of the world. EROEI does not exceed 5. In other cases, this character-
If one compares the biofuel-based energy and solar istics is close to unity (Table 5, Figs 11 and 13), i.e., the
energy from the standpoint of the density of solar radiation production of biofuel actually cannot be considered to be
flux to be converted, the efficiency of real photovoltaic energy production Ð this is only redistribution of one sort
converters (*25%) does not differ fundamentally from the of energy to another.
efficiency of solar energy conversion by some agricultural The data presented in Table 5 and in Figs 11 and 13
crops (e.g., corn), which reaches 5% ± 7%. However, the clearly demonstrate why the world energy engineering is
agricultural production is much less expensive, although based on fossil fuels rather than on solar energy with an
because of low density of the primary energy flux taken up EROEI only slightly higher than unity and why biofuels
by plants, agriculture is a subsidized activity in most regions such as bioethanol and biodiesel, the production of which in
of the world. The real solar energy engineering is among the most countries is characterized by EROEI of only 1.2 ± 1.5
most expensive energy sources and, despite the long-lasting (Table 5), would never become a major primary energy
declaratory efforts along this line, it occupies a modest place source for the automotive transport all over the world.
in the energy balances of even developed countries. Suffice The threshold value of EROEI at which the humanity can
it to note that the above-mentioned world largest solar still develop is *3; therefore, the biofuel, as well as solar
electric power plant, Ivanpah, is twice inferior in the energy are unambiguously eliminated from the list of pro-
capacity to only one gas turbine, about a hundred of spective global energy sources.
which are installed every year in the United States alone. We have considered the physical restrictions of principle
Thus, the low density of energy flux is the most impor- that prevent the creation of global alternative energy
tant factor that restricts the potential of all alternative engineering and cannot be overcome by technological
energy sources.{ Therefore, it is not surprising that, despite development. However, there are also economic character-
the long-lasting efforts and many-billion expenditures, the istics that directly determine the attraction and, therefore,
contribution of all alternative energy sources, including the the rate of development of various fields. These factors are
solar, wind and biofuel energy, to the energy production not beneficial for alternative energy sources either. We will
output of even technologically the most advanced countries consider this in relation to solar energy. As a reason in
does not exceed 2% ± 3%. The low density of the primary favour of the future global role of solar energy, the follow-
(solar) energy flux and low efficiency of solar energy ing calculation is often given: the area of large deserts on
conversion by plants eliminates any hope for a global role Earth is *20 million km2 (the area of Sahara alone is
of renewable green energy. It is for this reason that *7 million km2). This area is hit by *561016 kWh of
agricultural production refers to the least cost-effective solar energy every year. With the efficiency of solar energy
(often unprofitable) field of human activity supported by conversion to electricity being 10%, it is sufficient to use
donations from other sources. only 1% of the desert area for deployment of solar power
Now consider one more highly important characteristics plants to cover the current world energy consumption. This
of alternative sources Ð the energy return (EROEI). In looks convincing at the first glance. However, we will
estimate the cost of such project. There is a real example
of the above-mentioned world best and largest solar power
{ This was indicated back 40 years ago by Academician P.L.Kapitsa.5 plant Ivanpah with a peak capacity of 392 MW; the cost of
Unfortunately, even many specialists still did not hear him. its construction was $2.2 billion, or $5612 per kW of
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 801

installed capacity. Since the plant generates energy only in VI. Prediction of the development of renewable
daytime, the real average capacity would be approximately
three times lower, that is, only 123 MW. In other words,
energy sources
specific capital investments would be $17 870 per kW of Currently the research and development related to renew-
installed capacity. This is not just expensive, but fabulously able energy sources are rapidly advanced. The installed
expensive! For example, 1 kW costs $2000 ± 4000 at a capacity of wind generators has reached *370 GW, the
nuclear power plant and $500 ± 1000 at a thermal electric total installed capacity of solar energy is *200 GW, and
power plant operating on natural gas, that is, *18 ± 36 that of geothermal energy is *20 GW. The total contribu-
times lower; moreover, electricity is generated permanently tion of renewable sources to the world energy is *2.5%.
irrespective of the weather conditions. Furthermore, the Together with the hydropower, the proportion of which in
cost of facilities of energy storage and transportation over the word energy generation is *7%, this contribution is
thousands of kilometres from the deserts to industrial *9.5%.
consumption regions has not been taken into account. However, if hydropower, which has a limited potential
And there are also other drawbacks of solar energy. It is for further development and which can rather be classified
commonly accepted that deserts are the location of choice as a conventional energy source, is left aside, the installed
for solar power plants. However, this brings about very capacities of renewable sources, even in developed coun-
serious problems of solar plant operation related to inevi- tries, are incommensurable with the capacity of conven-
table dusting and abrasion damage of solar cells, especially tional energy production. Despite the enormous investment
during the sand storms; solution of these problems would to renewable energy, its proportion in the energy balance is
bring about great expenditures, in particular, for the deliv- still very low. For example, in the energy balance of the US
ery of freshwater needed to wash the panels from dust into where the investments to renewable energy sources reached
these deserts. almost a half of all budget allocations for the research and
Now recall that the installed capacity of all energy development in energy engineering, the proportion of
sources on Earth has already exceeded 3.65 TW. If these renewable sources is only several percent (see Fig. 2).
sources are replaced by solar electric power plants such as Along with the retardation of the growth rate of almost
Ivanpah located in deserts, their construction would cost all sorts of alternative energy engineering observed in recent
$66 trillion, which exceeds the world GDP in 2010. More- years 69 despite the active support by the governments of
over, there is a more serious physical restriction: 1% of the some European countries and the United States, an evident
desert area amounts to 200 thousand km2 (one-third of the decrease in funding for this branch is observed (Fig. 20).
area of France), and the whole this area would have to be Moreover, funding decreases most of all in developed
covered by sophisticated engineering facilities. The econ- countries, which acted as the driving force of the scientific
omy has neither production capacities to manufacture this and engineering development of renewable energy produc-
amount of sophisticated engineering equipment nor feed- tion only a few years ago. Apparently, this is indicative of a
stock to manufacture the appropriate amount of construc- gradual saturation of the economically justified market of
tion materials. We say nothing about the expected doubling these technologies, which cannot be further extended even
of energy consumption by the middle of this century. with the help of large state subsidies or preferences given to
The above reasons demonstrating that there are no this branch.
grounds for hoping for the global role of solar energy in Funding for research and development in the field of
the world energy balance by no means deny its role as an alternative energy sources in the United States started to be
important source of local energy supply. reduced especially sharply after 2008, when the success of
Similar reasoning can be presented for wind energy, the shale gas and shale oil production and the prospects for
major drawbacks of which are the lack of stability of energy
production and high cost of wind generators. The offshore
wind energy generation is one of the most expensive sources
of electricity. The cost of electric energy production at 279
1 249
offshore wind power plants varies from $0.125 to $0.20 per
2 227
kWh, although the equipment manufacturers hope for 215
reducing this value down to 5$120 per MWh by 2020.
One more problem is still a low unit capacity of wind 171 169
generators. To reach an installed capacity of 1000 MW 146
corresponding to a typical thermal electric power plant, 99
660 large wind turbines are required, which occupy an area
of 970 km2. As noted by specialists, even if the wind turbine 65
height is brought to the height of a skyscraper, as few as 40
13 000 of these giants would be needed to cover the require-
ments of New York. The rated capacity of a wind power
plant is the maximum generation value attained if a heavy 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
wind rotates the blades all the time, but since there can also
Year
be calm weather, the actual capacity is not more than 26%
of the rated one. Thus, the presented values should be
multiplied by four. The construction of wind power plants Figure 20. Total investment to renewable energy sources in devel-
pays off, on average, 10 years after commissioning, which is oping (1) and developed (2) countries in the period from 2004 to
economically justified if the annual average wind speed is 2013 (billion dollars).40
4 5 m s71.
802 V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804

1 Table 6. Predicted dynamics of contributions of renewable sources and

coal to world energy and the US and China energy /GW (DOE data,
40 2 1
3 2010).
Funding /billion dollars per year

2 1
4 3 2 Source 2007 2015 2020 2035
30 4 3 4
5
5 6 6 5 Prediction for the US
6
20 7 1 All energy 995 1069 1082 1216
7 1 1
7 2 Coal 313 325 326 337
2 2
8 8 3 5 3 Wind 16 64 64 69
3
10 8 4 8 6 4 54 Sun 1 1 1 1
5
7 8 6 Prediction for China
9 9 9 8 6
9 9 7 9 7 All energy 716 1021 1242 1924
0
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Year Coal 496 625 750 1233
Wind 6 39 63 130
Sun 0 4 6 6
Figure 21. Changes in the funding for particular energy engineering
Prediction for the world
branches in the US after the beginning of large-scale shale gas
production.70 All energy 4428 5005 5740 7009
(1) Advanced technologies for fossil fuel, (2) nuclear power, (3) Coal 1425 1545 1671 2366
electric networks and transport, (4) high-speed railways, (5) electric Wind 93 277 347 486
transport and batteries, (6) energy efficiency, (7) biofuels, (8) Sun 8 45 53 64
multifuel engines, (9) renewable energy.

meeting the energy requirements of the national economy after *20 years, the traditional fossil resources will still
by means of domestic unconventional types of fossil fuel account for at least 3/4 of the energy produced on Earth.
became obvious. The limited role of renewable sources and According to the IEA basic scenario, in 2050, too, the
the decisive role of the fossil sources for global energy proportion of fossil sources will be at least 85%, despite
production have long been understood by leading special- the development of nuclear energy engineering and the use
ists. Therefore, the sharp reduction of federal funding for of renewable sources.
`environmentally clean' technologies (Fig. 21) started in the Unlike the forecasts made in the beginning of the
US almost immediately after the beginning of large-scale current century about the future switching of the world
industrial exploration of shale gas.70 energy production to alternative sources, currently the role
It is predicted that in the near future, the proportion of of these sources is evaluated much more realistically. Even
renewable energy sources in the US energy balance would daring predictions of the development of world energy
either remain constant or decrease. Even in the EU coun- engineering assign a modest role to renewable sources,
tries, slow economic growth and budget deficit brought to namely, a level of only a few percent by 2035. According
the forefront the obvious fact that renewable energy sources to a DOE forecast, their contribution will be *6%
cannot compete with the traditional energy carriers. 69 (Table 6). The BP forecast of 2015 is more optimistic and
assigns a contribution of 8% to renewable sources. Accord-
ing to the latest estimates that take into account the trends
VII. Conclusion of the US internal economic policy, it is assumed that this
According to forecasts of specialists of the most reputed contribution can hardly exceed 3% in the near future.69
energy organizations (see the Introduction), in the medium Thus, at any scenario of the development of world
term (25 ± 30 years), the production of energy on the basis of energy engineering, the role of alternative sources will
all the existing sources will increase. The consumption remain modest up to the end of the current century,
volumes of crude oil, coal and natural gas will be higher although certainly their technological development will
than now, although some redistribution of their contribu- continue and new applications for them will be opened.
tions to the world energy balance will take place The understanding of this fact accounts for the fast change
(see Fig. 3). This will mainly be related to a gradual in the energy priorities in the United States and other
decrease in the proportion of oil with gradual increase in developed countries.
the proportion of natural gas. Without denying in any way the importance and neces-
The total energy consumption, according to IEA fore- sity of the development of all accessible energy sources, we
casts, will increase every year by approximately 1.6%: from have to acknowledge that even the scales of global energy
10 579 million TOE in 2003 to 22 112 million TOE in 2050. problems and the proposed solutions based on alternative
This is much slower than the world energy growth rate in energy sources are incommensurable. The views that renew-
1971 ± 2003, which was on average 2.1% a year. Never- able sources are able to solve global problems of the
theless, by the mid-21st century the energy consumption in humanity and provide for its sustainable development are
the world will be twice that in the beginning of the century. harmful, first of all, as they draw considerable resources and
It is predicted that by 2035, the contributions of the efforts to unrealistic goals. What is more important, this is
three major fossil energy sources will be virtually equal, an irretrievable loss of time needed for solution of strategi-
being *25% for each of them (see Fig. 3); in other words, cally important challenges.
V.S.Arutyunov, G.V.Lisichkin Russ. Chem. Rev., 2017, 86 (8) 777 ± 804 803

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