Overview of Global Energy Challenges and the Importance of Sustainable Energy, and the Possible Solutions Available Today
摘要
Since the beginning of early civilisation until the start of the industrial revolution in the year 1760, the entire population across the globe used biomass to meet all energy needs, a practice, which does not contribute any extra CO2 gas to the atmosphere as it is formed out of the atmospheric CO2 gas. With the utilisation of fossil fuels after the industrial revolution began, particularly after the invention of the steam engine and the discovery of the electromagnetic induction principle, the world has witnessed widespread industrialisation and a four-fold increase of the population, accompanied by a steep increase in the CO2 gas concentration in the atmosphere, which is causing the severe global warming and climate change problems of today. To make energy, the environment, the economy, and life sustainable on our only habitable planet Earth, it is our responsibility to find alternative, renewable, sustainable, and carbon-neutral energy vectors that can be employed in the presently existing energy distribution infrastructure (i.e., in internal combustion (IC) engines) in place of gasoline and diesel, and to integrate them in a way that can avoid severe economic consequences while transforming from fossil fuel energy dependency to non-fossil fuel, renewable, and solar energy dependency. This chapter presents and discusses up-to-date and complete information relevant to developing suitable methods and techniques for solar energy harvesting, which can meet all the energy needs of society without any back-up from fossil fuels by using CO2 and water as energy storing materials.