Chapter 4.

Energy Resource and Sustainable Energy

After industrial revolution, much work that was once done by human hands is now
done by machine. Manufacturing processes relied on dependable sources of energy.
Technology accelerated in the twentieth century. Between 1900 and 2003, world
energy consumption increased by a factor of about 16 and economic activity increased
by nearly sixtyfold, but population increase only fourfold (See table1)

1. Use of Energy
Energy lies at the heart of human progress. About one-third of all the world's daily
use of energy goes into industry. Almost as much energy is used in homes for
heating, cooling and lighting. Transport accounts for a further 20 per cent. This is
not the case throughout the world, but most of the energy consumption must be
related with buildings.

Figure 1: Energy Use by Sector in Canada

Figure 2 Energy Use by Sector in Hong Kong

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Energy use in buildings may be defined as the non-renewable energy used to heat,
cool, humidify/dehumidify, ventilate, illuminate and operate buildings, and the
equipment and appliances they contain.

Generally, buildings fall under two broad classifications:

 Non-residential buildings - including offices, schools, hospitals, malls, shops,

restaurants, hotels, factory, and recreational facilities; and

 Residential buildings - including single and multi-family, low and high-rise

developments.

Therefore, building design is a way in which we directly impact on the earth’s

resources. Our choice of building products will have an effect not only on today’s
resources but also on those of the future. It is important to consider products that are
‘green’ for the long-term.

Significant emphasis is placed on the embodied energy of building products as it is a

relatively easy number to quantify and comprehend. However, it is far more relevant
to consider the energy associated with a product, not just in manufacture but over its
total life cycle.

2. What is embodied energy and operation Energy?

2.1 Embodied energy

The embodied energy in a building is that energy consumed by the processes

associated with its production, from the acquisition of raw materials to product
delivery including their manufacture into a useable product, transportation at each
stage, and the administrative functions associated with these steps.

2.2 Operating energy

Operating energy is a significant measure of sustainability which enables

straightforward comparisons between alternative building technologies. Buildings
consume energy for heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, equipment and appliances.
Passive energy systems rely on the building enclosure or envelope to take advantage
of natural energy sources such as sunlight, wind, water, and the surrounding soil.
Active energy systems represent mechanical, electrical and/or chemical processes.
Occupants of buildings can also contribute to the heating of buildings by virtue of the
heat produced through metabolic processes. Building energy demands exceeding
those captured and/or supplied by renewable sources must be supplemented by
non-renewable sources.

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3. Conventional Energy
Nowadays, most of our energy is derived from the combustion of fossil fuels such as
coal, gas and oil. This store of energy was formed about 400 million years ago, or
even earlier. When we burn fossil fuels, we are releasing energy that was trapped in
the decayed forests or microscopic sea creatures of those ancient times. It is
impossible to replace these fuels, which means that eventually our store of fossil fuels
will be empty.

Coal is the most plentiful, and there should be enough to last two to three hundred
years. In addition, coal has the advantage that it is found all over the world.

Oil and gas, on the other hand, are found in only certain parts of the world where
geological conditions are right. The large oilfields lie mostly in the Middle East,
Russia, North America and Africa. Most experts believe that, at the present rate of use,
world supplies of oil and gas will run out by the end of the 21st century.

Another alternative to the common fossil fuels is nuclear energy. By the beginning of
the 21st century, the proportion of world electricity which comes from nuclear sources
is likely to double (from about 12 or 15% to around 30%).

4. Ways of reducing energy consumption

Energy demands are almost certain to rise in the future. Improvement in the efficiency
of energy conversion process:

Facts: About 10 to 14 per cent of the energy consumed by petrol engines is actually
used to turn the wheels. Diesel engines are much more efficient, turning 28 to 35 per
cent of the energy in the fuel into a usable form. There is thus great scope for the
improvement of petrol engines. A hybrid vehicle is a vehicle that uses two or more
distinct power sources to move the vehicle. The term most commonly refers to hybrid
electric vehicles (HEVs), which combine an internal combustion engine and one or
more electric motors (see figure 3&4).

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 Figure 3: Series hybrid system Figure 4: Parallel hybrid system

Energy is used in the building, mainly for space heating/cooling (67 per cent), water
heating (25 per cent), lighting (1 per cent), and cooking (7 per cent). The main
possibilities for saving energy are in improving the efficiency of heat production and
preventing the loss of heat by draught-proofing and effective insulation.

Heat pumps have traditionally been used for space conditioning, but are now being
used for water or air heating. A heat pump is a machine or device that moves heat
from one location to another location using mechanical work. It is an efficient type of
heater that extracts heat from the environment to heat water or air. The figure below
illustrates the structure of a typical heat pump water heater. In the operation of the
heat pump water heater, energy is extracted from the air onto the evaporator. Energy is
extracted from the "free source", and only a small amount of electricity is required to
operate the compressor

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Figure 5: A simple stylized diagram of a heat pump cycle: 1) evaporator, 2) compressor, 3) condenser,
4) expansion valve.

Lighting is indispensable to modern cities to support various kinds of activity. The

electricity consumed by lighting in residential and commercial sector in Hong Kong
usually account for 24% and 15% of the total consumption respectively. It is the
second highest electricity consumer following air-conditioning. Therefore, the use of
energy-efficient lighting systems, such as Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL), Light
Emitting Diode (LED) and Self-luminous EXIT sign, are important in order to reduce
resource wastage and enhance the effectiveness of energy use.

Much energy used by industry could be saved, for example, by replacing old
equipment and processes with new and more efficient ones. Cooling process, such as
air conditioning system, is quite energy consumption industrial process. On the other
hands, improving insulation, and by better maintenance of energy-using equipment is
a good practice to improve the energy efficiency.

In 2004, cooling process accounted for 30% of the total electricity consumption. Our
electricity consumption by this process had a growth of about 17% from 35,125
Terajoule (TJ) to 42,246 TJ from 1994 to 2004. We therefore need to take measures to
improve our energy efficiency, in particular, on cooling process.

Displacement ventilation uses a low-velocity stream of fresh cold air supplied near
the floor to slowly "displace" the stale air up toward the ceiling from where it leaves
the room. This stratifies the air in the room, with warm stale air concentrated above
the occupied zone and cool fresher air in the occupied zone. The figure below
illustrates the schematic of the system.

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 Figure 6: Schematic diagram of displacement ventilation

Thermal wheel is a heat transfer device with a rotating wheel, which allows the
sensible heat transfer between the fresh air intake and exhaust air in an AC system.
The air duct connections are arranged so that each of the airstreams flow axially
through approximately one half of the wheel in a counter-flow pattern. The porous
media that is heated from the warm duct air stream, rotates into the cold duct
airstream where sensible heat is released.

Figure 7: Heat recovery wheel

In a water-cooled air conditioning system, heat is rejected from the refrigerant to the
cooling water in the condenser. The impurities in the cooling water circuit are
accumulated, and thus the scales and deposits are built up in the condenser tubes,
creating fouling problems on the condenser heat transfer surfaces. This reduces the
heat transfer efficiency of the condenser and thus increases chiller energy
consumption. The automatic tube cleaning system is usually installed as an integral
part of the condenser. The system cleans the condenser tubes by circulating a number
of soft sponge balls through the tubes at pre-set time interval. Since the balls are soft
and light in nature, they will not cause any damage to the condenser tube surface and

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can be carried easily through the tubes by the flowing of water.

Figure 8: Automatic tube cleaning system

5. Alternatives to fossil fuels (sustainable Energy)

A number of countries are looking at possible alternatives to petrol as fuel. One
promising substance is alcohol produced by fermenting sugar cane and other
vegetable matter, and then distilling off the alcohol. Alcohol can burned directly in
automobile engines adapted to use this fuel, or it ca be mixed with gasoline (up about
20%) to be used in any normal auto-mobile engine. A mixture of gasoline and alcohol
is often called gasohol or biofuel

One method of producing electricity is to harness the energy of fast-flowing and

falling water – the hydroelectric power. However, landscapes have been transformed,
rivers have been dammed to create lakes, and valleys have to be flooded to create a
large head of water with which to drive turbines. This destroys land used for farming
and the habitats of wildlife.

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 Figure 10: Tidal power unit
Figure 9: Hydroelectric dam in cross section

Tidal energy could be harnessed in a few places. Tidal power is non-polluting, but
unfortunately as it can only be used in certain areas, such as estuaries, it is only likely
to produce a small fraction of future power. The construction of barrages necessary
to harness wave power are also expensive.

Another possible way of boosting energy

supplies is to harness geothermal power.
This is the Earth's natural heat trapped as
molten rock under the crust. We could
use the steam and hot water which rise to
the surface naturally in certain parts of the
world. It might also be possible to drill
wells down to certain zones of hot rocks.
Ordinary water injected into these wells

would then turn into steam and drive Figure 11: geothermal power
turbines to produce electricity.

The use of solar energy is another possibility. On a simpler level, water can be heated
by flat, blackened panels orientated towards the sun. There are already many homes
and swimming pools with water systems being heated by the sun, with the aid of these
solar panels. Solar power can be used to supplement the use of precious fossil fuels.

A photovoltaic (PV) system is a system to convert solar light into electricity. The
basic building unit of a PV system is a PV module, which in turn in made up of solar
cells. A solar cell converts the light energy in sunlight into electricity by means of the
photoelectric phenomenon found in certain types of materials such as silicon and
selenium. When sunlight strikes on a solar cell, electrons are "excited" to become

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"free electrons" which can flow through an external circuit, and hence generate an
electric current.

Figure 12: The operation of a PV cell

Solar water heating systems harness the heat in solar radiation to produce hot water.
Domestic solar water heating system usually comprises of solar collectors and a water
tank. The solar collectors absorb the heat in solar radiation to heat up water, either
directly or indirectly. The hot water so produced is stored in the storage tank for
subsequent use. An alternative arrangement is to use a packaged type solar water
heater, with solar collectors and an
insulated storage tank packaged together
in one integrated unit.

Usually a solar water heating system is

designed to fulfill a major part of the hot
water requirements of the premise, with
the rest being made up by electric heating
(or gas heating).

Figure 13: Glass-metal type solar collectors

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 Figure 14: Typical solar hot water system

In flat terrains, or on the coast, there is the possibility of using wind power to produce
electricity. A wind turbine is a device which converts the kinetic energy of the wind
into rotational motion of the turbine rotor to drive an electric generator producing
electricity.

Figure 15: Structure of Wind turbine

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Rather than store and transport energy, another alternative would be to generated it
locally, on demand. Fuel cells are devices that use ongoing electrochemical reactions
to produce an electric current. They are very similar to batteries except that rather than
recharging them with an electrical current. You add more fuel for the chemical
reaction.

Figure 16: Operation of fuel cell

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