Utility of Energy Technology Development in Environmentally Sustainable Development

Energy technology development, adoption, and deployment are featured in the national economic development plans of all countries. The success of such economic development plans has manifestations that go beyond just the provision of goods and services to citizens who increasingly demand an enhanced standard of living. It extends to the survival of political establishments themselves. Furthermore, the international geopolitics of energy systems and its complex web of possibilities, opportunities, and jconstraints drive, and are driven, by technology implementation. Thus, the construction of oil platforms in the North Sea reformatted international alignments on energy issues, and advances in horizontal drilling technologies for oil recovery from continental shelves increased the number of oil-producing countries. Today, basically all countries that border on oceans and large seas are oil-producing. Technology is the link between opportunity/potential and harvest of benefits along the path to sustainable development, a status that must be defined in terms of the optional mix of economic development, environmental quality, and social equity.

Energy as a natural resource is as bountiful as its demands for operational civil/industrial systems. Unfortunately, it is not always available in readily usable forms at locations of high demand. Geospatial factors (climate, terrain, vegetation, and geology), socio-economic factors, and political factors (e.g., international alliances) determine the overall implementability and sustainability of a specific energy technology. The first set of factors merely determines the technical potential along with some associated cost factors, while the second and third set of factors determine the possibility and ease of translation from an acceptable level of technical potential to implementation. On the basis of geospatial factors, high feasibility can be assigned to geothermal energy as the primary energy source in the northwestern United States, solar energy in the tropics, wind energy in the desert and high-altitude terrains, biomass energy in luxuriantly vegetated zones around the world and in regions that produce significant amounts of organic wastes, and nuclear energy in countries endowed with uranium/plutonium. Such perfect matches between energy demand and indigenous energy sources qualify as highly desirable cases of the much sought-after “distributed energy system.” They can also minimize intercontinental and international transfers of energy in terms of electricity and fuel that have caused some costly conflicts. Unfortunately, the potential for such development is currently overridden by socioeconomic and sociopolitical factors, as well as the lack of technological capacity of some regions and countries.

About half the people in the world, mostly within the tropics, still cook their food over open fires that are fueled by firewood, coal, animal dung, and crop residues. These fuels cause a high toll in mortality due to indoor air pollution that causes many acute and chronic pulmonary diseases. As many as 14% of urban households and 49% of rural households in the developing world did not have access to electricity in 2000. Developments in solar energy systems have not reached the stage that could take advantage of the relatively isolated regions where most developing countries are located, in order to produce affordable and efficient solar cells that can meet energy demand. However, recent developments in nanotechnology and fabrication methods are likely to improve the efficiency and affordability of solar energy systems to make them implementable in circumstances beyond high-profile applications. A variety of photovoltaic solar cell devices are at the research stage, although scale-up systems that convert more than 30% of incident sunlight into electricity would still be expensive. Among the promising materials for solar cells are nanometer-sized semiconductor crystals, dye-sensitized solar cells, lead selenide $\left(\mathrm{PbSe}\right)$ nanocrystals, and cadmium selenide $\left(\mathrm{CdSe}\right)$ nanocrystals.

As more activities and instruments are extended to extreme environments such as space, deep sea, deserts, forests, Arctic zones, Antarctic zones, caves, and deep mines, remote-access equipment needs more efficient power sources that need little or no network connections. Improvements in battery and fuel-cell systems are needed. For some functions, such as the use of numerous but isolated sensors to monitor many environmental parameters in remote environments, appropriately-sized and efficient battery and fuel-cell systems are needed. In a bidirectional advance, microsensors, some of which are based on enzymes, are used to develop fuel cells for small devices while larger fuel cells are being developed to support wind energy systems.

An acceleration of technological advances in energy systems is needed to support many sustainable development projects. In order to be sustainable, it is important that policymakers and technology developers seek the optimization of the three pillars of sustainable development (economic development, environmental equity, and social equity) with specification of minimum acceptable levels of each factor rather than seeking to maximize any of the factors to the detriment of others. The principal categories of options that are available for promoting the implementation of promising systems and technologies are engineering, communication/education, regulation, enforcement, market incentives, environmental management systems, and international cooperation.

In this special edition of the Journal of Energy Engineering on the “Design of Sustainable Energy Generation Systems,” papers focus on the technical factors associated with implementation of energy generation systems that are based on wind action, plasma electrolysis, high-temperature reaction, and solar technology. The authors provide the contexts and introduction of recent/ongoing work before presentation of their analyses and conclusions. Also, the logistical help provided by the Editorial Assistants, Life Kaanagbara and Ms. Patricia Espinoza, on the development of this special edition are appreciated. Our expression of gratitude also goes to the authors and reviewers.