Our Climate and the Energy Problem: How our Energy Needs can be Covered in a Climate-Friendly Way

65 Pages·2023·2.199 MB·English

by  Klaus Stierstadt

Klaus Stierstadt
Our Climate
and the Energy
Problem
How our Energy Needs can be
Covered in a Climate-Friendly Way
essentials
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Klaus Stierstadt
Our Climate and the
Energy Problem
How our Energy Needs can
be Covered in a Climate-Friendly Way
Klaus Stierstadt
Faculty of Physics
University of Munich
Munich, Germany
ISSN 2197-6708 ISSN 2197-6716 (electronic)
essentials
ISBN 978-3-658-38312-1 ISBN 978-3-658-38313-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38313-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Fachmedien
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Preface
Last year, two important conferences organised by the UN took place, dealing with
the future of humanity and our environment: The 6th World Population Conference
in Nairobi with 6000 participants from 160 countries and the 25th World Climate
Change Conference in Madrid with 25,000 participants from 200 countries. At
these conferences, the problems of overpopulation and climate change were dis-
cussed in detail. But, unfortunately, at neither of them were concrete decisions
taken or binding measures adopted that could positively control the developments
that threaten us.
This essential discusses the causes that have led to climate change. It is closely
related to humanity’s energy needs. It is true that the sun constantly provides us
with more energy than we require. However, we don’t have enough of the form of
energy we need, and we don’t have it at all times, in all places, at a price we can
bear. And that is precisely the problem. The reasons are largely economic.
In the first chapter, we discuss the present situation; in the second, the climate
and how it comes about; in the third, the carbon dioxide problem; in the fourth, the
energy requirements of a constantly growing human race; in the fifth, the proper-
ties of solar energy; and in the sixth chapter, the functions of technical energy
converters necessary today. In the seventh chapter, we take a look at some non-
solar or utopian energy sources.
Climate change is first and foremost an energy supply problem, and this is
partly a consequence of population growth. In industrialised countries, there is
generally enough energy. In the developing and emerging countries with strong
population growth, however, there is too little.
München, Germany Klaus Stierstadt
v
What You Can Find in This essential
• You will gain an insight into the causes and consequences of climate change as
well as an overview of the possible uses of solar energy.
• You will learn how the current global warming is caused by the production of
carbon dioxide. And you will gain an insight into the problem of electricity
generation from fossil fuels.
• You will learn about the properties of the sun and the devices used to convert its
radiation in the form of light and wind power into electricity.
• You will learn how the growing energy demand of the increasing human popu-
lation can be satisfied by using solar energy.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 The Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3 The Carbon Dioxide CO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
2
4 The Energy Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
5 The Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
6 The Solar Energy Converters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
6.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
6.2 Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
6.3 Solar cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
6.4 Biomass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
6.5 Solar Collectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
6.6 Solar Power Plants (Solar Ovens) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
6.7 Wind Turbines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38
6.8 Efficiencies and Potentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
6.9 The Space Requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
6.10 Storing Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
6.11 Summary of the Energy Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
7 Non-solar Energy Converters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
7.1 Tidal Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
7.2 Geothermal Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
ix
x Contents
7.3 Nuclear Energy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
7.4 Breeder Reactor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
7.5 Nuclear Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Epilogue: Afterword – How Can We Go On? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61
Introduction 1
Every day we hear and read in our media the words “climate change” and “renew-
able energy”. Obviously, there are issues, and they are somehow related. The issues
in question are indeed hotly debated by experts. But if you ask them where exactly
the problem lies and how it could be solved, you sometimes get very contradictory
answers. The layman wonders and does not know what to believe. There are in fact
two quite different opinions among the experts.
The small group of climate optimists say that there is nothing wrong with our
weather. The fact that it is constantly getting warmer here is a completely natural
process. We are in a transition from the last ice age about 20,000 years ago to the
next warm period in perhaps 80,000 years. And in the process, the temperature on
Earth may rise by a total of 10°. This is caused by the changing tilt of the Earth’s
axis relative to its orbit around the Sun. This has been known for a long time. The
temperature rises by only about one ten-thousandth of a degree per year because of
this process. And the sea level rises accordingly by a tenth of a millimetre. For mil-
lions of years, living nature has been accustomed to this periodic alternation of cold
and warm periods and has always behaved accordingly. In the cold season, life,
plants and animals, orient themselves towards the equator, when the high latitudes
of the earth are largely iced over. And in the warm period, these are then repopu-
lated. – So much for the climate optimists. Unfortunately, they fail to mention that
the current rise in temperature and sea level is occurring at least a thousand times
faster than can be expected on the basis of the Earth’s axis movement. So this can-
not be responsible for it.
The climate realists are of a completely different opinion. These experts – and
they are by far in the majority [5, 6] – are convinced that the current global warm-
ing of about 1° on average over the last 150 years is of human origin. It is mainly
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien 1
Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022
K. Stierstadt, Our Climate and the Energy Problem, essentials,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38313-8_1