Future Energy Generation Scenario

Course: Management Information System

Instructor: Dr. Prithwis Mukerjee

Submitted by-

Manoj Kumar Singh – 10BM60046

MBA, Class of 2012

VGSoM, IIT Kharagpur

Abstract- With climate change posing a threat to earth's survival Green energy production is the
way forward. This paper will discuss future scenario of energy production. It will throw light on some of
green energy production methods that will be relevant in future such as orbiting solar arrays,
enhanced geothermal systems, carbon capture and storage, energy from waste, offshore wind farms
etc. As the world is gearing to brace green energy generation technologies, this paper discusses
these technologies from their financial perspective and future scope.

1. Introduction
Rapid industrialization in last century has come at the cost of deterioration of the environment. Since
mid 20th century the average temperature of earth is constantly rising. As per a report by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), earth’s temperature increased
0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the 20th century. This increase in average temperature of earth has been
caused by increasing concentration of greenhouse gases(GHG) such as Carbon dioxide, Methane,
Ozone, CFCs etc., which result from human activity such as burning of fossil fuels and deforestation
etc., in the atmosphere. As per latest IPCC report, the global surface temperature is likely to rise a
further 1.1 to 6.4 °C during the 21st century. This has resulted in serious climate change issues and
posed a big question mark on the survival of future generations.

To mitigate the challenges of global warming and other climate change issues, most countries
have agreed to reduce their GHG emissions by different levels. Under the Kyoto Protocol, 39
industrialized countries and the European Union(called "Annex I countries") committed to reduce four

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GHG (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases
(hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) produced by them, and all member countries gave general
commitments. Annex I countries agreed to reduce their combined greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2%
from the 1991 level. As per World resource Institute various activities that produce the most GHGs in
2000 are Electricity production (industrial and domestic) 32%, Forest destruction and land use change
24%, Transport (trains, cars, planes, ships) 17%, Manufacturing, industrial processes, and
construction 16%, other activities 11%. Thus electricity Production (industrial or domestic) contributes
32% of total GHGs by human activity.

Thus to reduce GHS all countries need to reduce the GHS produced in energy production.
But as the countries are developing the energy requirement is bound to increase. To meet the
growing demand of energy and at the same time the need to reduce to GHS emissions requires the
use of green energy. Green energy is the energy that does not require or require a minimal GHGs
emission during the production. Solar energy, wind energy, wind energy, hydro energy, biomass,
biofuel, geothermal etc are some examples of green energy. The production of these energies
requires a minimal GHS emission. So the future energy generation scenario will revolve around these
Green energies. With the rapid erosion of oil reserves and more and more countries setting target for
GHGs emission reduction, green energy development is bound to be the way forward.

This paper will discuss some of the energy generation/(GHG emission reduction)
technologies such as orbiting solar arrays, enhanced geothermal systems, carbon capture and
storage, energy from waste, offshore wind farms, nuclear energy etc that will assume significance in
future.

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 2. Orbiting Solar Arrays

Researchers are currently investigating the feasibility of this source of renewable energy. In this
technology theory an array of solar panels would be constructed outside of the Earth's atmosphere
and placed into orbit. These panels would then send the solar power back down to a receptor through
microwave or laser where it could be converted into electricity.

The main feature of this technology is its ability to tap into a very vast energy source several
orders of magnitude beyond all other known sources combined. In space, collection of the Sun's
energy is not affected by the various hurdles that reduce efficiency of the earth surface solar power
collection. Building the array and direct it to orbit of the earth means that there would be no
interruption of the flow of solar energy to the arrays due to any reason such as adverse weather
conditions or in night.

Image: Model for Orbiting Solar arrayi

2.1 Current developments

Solaren, a company in Manhattan Beach, California is working with the San Francisco-based
public utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company on plans to put a solar energy generator in
geosynchronous orbit. The aim is to finally direct the power collected on unfolded solar panels down

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to the California energy grid via microwaves. Expected to be completed by 2016, the space solar
project would deliver up to 200 megawatts of power, with 850 gigawatt hours generated during the 1st
year of operation. The company believes that potential, significant benefits to the customers from a
successful space solar installation will outweigh the challenges associated with a new and unproved
technology. JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have plans to have the orbiting space
solar system operational in the 2030. Japanese companies have announced this plan to build a solar-
power generator in space by using solar panels. The $21 billion project, which would not be running
till 2030 years, would have the capacity to supply the power needs of 500,000 Tokyo homes. The
project, to be undertaken by a research group from 16 companies including Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries Ltd, aims to spend next four years for developing the technology required to beam
the electricity produced to earth. The planned solar station will produce around 1 Gigawatt of
electricity from its 4 km2 array of solar panels, which is enough to power just under 500,000 Tokyo
homes, at the present consumption levels. Since the array will be in a geostationary orbit 36,000 km
above the surface of earth, it will not be affected by the weather conditions and will be able to
generate power constantly.

Image: JAXA’s model for beaming electricity to earth ii

U.S. space agency NASA has also been investigating the possibilities of a space-based solar system
for several years and has spent around $80 million on the R&D. NASA and other government
agencies have estimated the cost of electricity supplied from this orbiting solar array around $1 billion
per megawatt, which is quite expensive to be commercially viable.

2.2 Pros and Cons of Solar Powered Energy Systems

As far as Pros are concerned the solar power from the sun is a renewable source of power
and a clean, natural fuel source. Once the solar panels are installed and operational there is not very
significant cost. Solar power unlimited and its silent compared to other alternative energy sources,
such as wind power. Utility bills can be reduced by as much as 80%.
For cons, solar heating systems are quite expensive. Solar energy production depends on the
weather, which is unpredictable and also not feasible for all locations. Batteries for storage add a lot of
cost and maintenance to the solar panel systems. Batteries have to be maintained and replaced after
a particular time. The electricity produced by solar system is DC (direct current), while the kind that

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every appliance a household uses is AC (alternating current). So it requires an inverter. Solar power
requires lot of space to be set up for the best results.

2.3 Financial Aspects and future challenges

Besides meeting normal energy demands this technology can have some potential customers
such as Commercial telecommunications and remote sensing spacecraft, space manufacturing
facilities, governmental research and defense satellites, as well as space travel and tourism industries
could draw energy from such a station. There is a potentially large market that might benefit from this.

Another advantage of a space-based power station is leaving heavy solar panels back on
Earth. Less massive spacecraft will be cheaper to send to geostationary orbit. The ownership and
financing of these power stations can be handled as a commercial venture, perhaps in partnership
with government during starting phase and then becoming a commercial venture. Once such power
station will be fully deployed, the private sector will then be a far more efficient operator of the power
plug in space. The profitability and viability of these projects, however, will depend on a number of
factors such as the cost of launching such satellites into Earth’s orbit. The cost of launches may come
down with the advance of private launch vehicle builders but it is not sure whether the costs will come
down enough to make such ambitious projects profitable. Other factors include public fears that
technology which beams energy from space can be transformed into a weapon or used for other
destructive pursuits. There can be other benefits as well such as the idea of using space-based power
to alter weather elements, including hurricanes. Supporters say it offers more benefits – such as less
dependence on foreign oil from unstable nations, less pollution and greenhouse gases. If the cost
comes down, which is expected with the ongoing R&D in the field, this technology will play a major
role in future.

3. Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are an entirely new form of geothermal systems which do not
require natural convective hydrothermal resources. Till now, geothermal power systems have only
utilised resources where naturally occurring water and rock porosity is sufficient to transfer heat to the
earth’s surface. However, the huge number of geothermal energy within drilling reach is in dry and
non-porous rock. EGS technologies enhance or create geothermal resources in this hot dry rock
(HDR) through hydraulic stimulation.

The overall objective of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) is to utilise the heat naturally
generated by the Earth to generate electricity. For doing this, wells are drilled into the high
temperature basement rocks that are naturally fractured. The fractured network is enhanced to create
a reservoir into which additional wells are drilled. Cold water is then pumped into the fracture network,
via the wells, absorbing the heat of the rock as soon as it goes through. As it reaches in the
connected wells, the heat is captured and converted into electricity using steam turbines and the
water is released back into the fracture network to be reheated and process is continued.  HDR / EGS
are feasible throughout the world, depending on the economic limits of drilling depth. Good locations
are where the deep granite covered by a thick layer of insulating sediments which slow heat

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loss. HDR well generally have a useful life of 20-30 years before the outflow temperature drops about
10 degrees Celsius and the well becomes unproductive. Then if the well is left for 50 to 300 years the
temperature recovers. This source of electricity is almost entirely free of greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions. EGS can easily replace the carbon-intensive coal-fired power plants without very
significant emissions.

Image: Enhanced geothermal system1:Reservoir 2:Pump house 3:Heat exchanger 4:Turbine hall

5:Production well 6:Injection well 7:Hot water to district heating 8:Porous sediments
9:Observation well 10:Crystalline bedrockiii

3.1 Current developments

Recent Successes in EGS projects such as Cooper Basin in Australia, where a third to a half
flow capacity was achieved after drilling into 250°C rock four kilometres below ground, have been
encouraging. EGS is a base-load resource, that gives it the ability to produce power for 24 hours in a
day. It is also economically cheaper as it costs much less to set up an EGS operation than to set up a
new clean coal burning power plant. With almost zero carbon emissions, this technology will certainly
help in the overall CO2 emissions reduction. After identifying the potential of enhanced geothermal
systems more intensive research has been started in countries around the world such as Germany,
France, Switzerland and the US. According to the IEA, geothermal power plants have grown
worldwide at a broadly constant rate of about 200 MW/year from the year 1980 to 2005. In 2007 the
total capacity reached almost 10 GW, generating 56TWh/year of electricity. According to experts at
MIT, EGS will reach an installed capacity of around 100,000 MW by 2050—almost a third of today’s
installed coal capacity.

3.2 Financial Aspects and future challenges

As per initial estimates, with current technology the capital costs of an EGS plant would be
almost twice that of a traditional geothermal plant. Unlike a traditional coal or natural gas plant, EGS
facilities do not require purchasing fuel to generate electricity. This help in generating low cost
electricity in long term and quite financially viable. EGS received a boost from both the FY 2009 US
budget and the 2009 stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). The stimulus package
passed by Federal government in U.S. in 2008 included $80 million for the research and development
of EGS technologies. This will help expand the U.S. Department of Energy’s existing EGS grant

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program that hopes to achieve technological readiness for EGS power plants by 2015. Despite all
this, commercially viable EGS power plants still remain a long-term goal.

Obstacles to further development are many. The lack of RD&D constrains the deployment of
EGS power plants. Most technologies that are used in EGS, such as drilling and geologic imagery
techniques, are not yet adapted for their specific use in EGS development. The combination of high
risk and high capital costs can make financing geothermal projects difficult and expensive. Research
and Development in the geological characteristics of natural geothermal resources is essential for
adapting stimulation and drilling techniques in a way that will drive down the costs of EGS
development. The most promising EGS sites often occur at long distances from centres of large
electricity consumption, or the load centres. This need to install adequate transmission capacity can
hamper the investment in geothermal projects.

To overcome these challenges a policy overhaul is needed. A price on carbon would increase
both the use of mature low-carbon technologies and the R&D investments in less mature
technologies, funding of further research and development in the form of pilot plants and basic
research in geology, drilling techniques and other associated EGS technologies. Improving the speed
of siting, leasing and permitting decisions will certainly help make already risky EGS projects more
attractive to investors. Lastly improving transmission corridors to areas with geothermal reservoirs
would facilitate investment in geothermal energy.

4. Carbon capture and storage

Carbon capture and storage (CCS), alternatively called as Carbon capture and sequestration, is a
method of reducing the contribution of fossil fuel emissions to global warming, by capturing carbon
dioxide (CO2) from big sources such as fossil fuel power plants, and storing it deep in such a way that
it does not enter the earth’s atmosphere. It can also be described as the scrubbing of CO2 from
ambient air as a geoengineering technique. According to the International Energy Authority, CCS
could account for around a third of the total CO2 reductions needed by 2050. All the Coal burning
plants which utilise this technology separate carbon dioxide during the electricity generation process
and then bury it deep underground. The long term storage of CO2 is a relatively quite new concept
and can be exploited by countries to meet their GHGs emission reduction targets. The first
commercial example is Weyburn, an integrated pilot-scale CCS power plant that has started
operations in September 2008 in the eastern German power plant Schwarze Pumpe in order to
answer the questions about technological feasibility and economic efficiency of CCS.

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 Image: Conceptual plan for CCS iv

4.1 Current Scenario

Till 2007, four industrial storage projects are in operational. Sleipner is the oldest project, started in
1996, and located in Norway. Since 1996, Sleipner has stored about one million tonnes of CO2 a
year. Second project in the Snohvit gas field in the Barents Sea stores 700,000 tonnes per year. Third
project, Weyburn-Midale, is world’s largest carbon capture and storage project. It was started in 2000
and is located in Canada. At Weyburn, the CO2 is used for enhanced oil recovery with an injection
rate of almost 1.5 million tonnes per year. The first phase was finished in 2004, and demonstrated that
CO2 can be stored underground at the site safely and indefinitely. The second phase, lasted till 2009,
investigated how the technology can be expanded on a larger scale. The fourth site is in Salah, which
is a natural gas reservoir like Sleipner and Snohvit and is located in Salah, Algeria. Countries such as
Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, United States, UK, China, Germany and Australia are
heavily investing in such projects.

4.2 Financial perspective and future prospect

CCS applied to a modern conventional power plant can reduce CO2 emissions to the
atmosphere by almost 80 to 90% in comparison to a plant without CCS. The IPCC estimates that the
economic potential of this technology can be between 10% and 55% of the total carbon mitigation
effort until year 2100 (Section 8.3.3 of IPCC report). Capturing and compressing CO2 requires much
more energy and this would eventually increase the fuel needs of a coal-powered plant with CCS by
some 25 to 40%. This extra cost is estimated to increase the cost of energy from a new coal-fired
power plant with CCS by almost 21 to 91%. These estimates apply to the plants near a storage
location while applying this technology to preexisting plants or plants far from a storage location will
be much more expensive. However, on a positive side, recent industry reports suggest that with
successful research, development and deployment (RD&D), sequestered coal-based electricity
generation in 2025 will cost less than unsequestered coal-based electricity generation today.

Though the processes involved in CCS have been demonstrated in various other industrial
applications, but no commercial scale projects which can integrate these processes exist till now,
therefore the costs are somewhat uncertain. However, some recent estimates indicate that a carbon

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price of US$60/US-ton is required to make capture and storage competitive, corresponding to an
increase in electricity prices of about US 6c/kWh. This would double the typical US industrial
electricity price (which now hovers at around 6c/kWh) and increase the typical retail residential
electricity price by about 50% (assuming that 100% of power is from coal, which is not the case, as
this varies from state to state). However, similar price increases would likely be expected in heavily
coal dependent countries such as Australia, because the capture technology and chemistry, transport
and injection costs from such type of power plants would not, in a broad sense, vary significantly from
country to country.

The reasons that CCS will cause such power price increases are many. Firstly, the enhanced
energy requirements of capturing and compressing CO2 significantly raise the total operating costs of
CCS-equipped power plants. In addition there is some added investment and capital costs. This
process will increase the fuel requirements of a plant with CCS by about 25% for a coal-fired plant
and about 15% for a gas-fired plant. The cost of this extra fuel, as well as storage and other system
costs are estimated to enhance the costs of energy from a power plant with CCS by 30-60%,
depending on the specific circumstances. Pre-commercial CCS demonstration projects are expected
to be more expensive than mature CCS technology, the total additional costs of an initial large scale
CCS demonstration project are estimated to be $0.7 to $1.6 billion/project over the project lifetime.
The cost of CCS depends on the cost of capture and storage which may vary according to the method
considered. Geological storage in the saline formations or the depleted oil or gas fields generally cost
US$0.50 to $8.00/tonne of CO2 injected, and additional US$0.10 to $0.30 for monitoring costs.
However, when storage is combined with enhanced oil recovery to extract extra oil from an oil field,
the storage may yield net benefits of US$10 to $16 per tonne of CO2 injected. This would likely
negate the effects of the carbon capture when the oil was used as fuel.

Storage of the CO2 is ideated either in deep geological formations, in deep ocean masses, or
in the form of mineral carbonates. In the first case of deep ocean storage, there is always a risk of
greatly enhancing the problem of ocean acidification, a problem that also arises from the excess of
carbon dioxide already present in the atmosphere and oceans. Geological formations are currently
thought of as the most promising sequestration sites. The National Energy Technology Laboratory
reported that America has enough storage capacity at its current rate of production for more than 900
years worth of carbon dioxide. A more general problem is the long term predictions about submarine
or underground storage security are very tough and uncertain and CO2 may leak from the storage
into the atmosphere.

5. Energy from waste

Whether energy from the waste is a good alternative source of energy or not is a debate which has
been ongoing for many years now. The main arguments against this technology are the potential risk
to health from the fumes produced during the conversion process and that the production of waste
undermines the recycling initiatives. But it’s a fact that the waste will always be produced, even when
recycling meets all the government targets. So the question arises “Is it not a better idea to use the
waste for energy production than let it lie in landfills?” As far as the risks to the health are concerned,
there is no scientific evidence yet to prove that burning rubbish leads to health problems. So in future
we should also use this mean to generate energy to meet out energy requirements. Waste-to-energy
(WtE) is a process of producing the energy in the form of electricity or heat from the incineration of
waste source. WtE is a kind of energy recovery. Most of WtE processes generate electricity directly
through combustion, or produce a combustible fuel commodity, such as methane, synthetic fuel
methanol, ethanol etc.

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 Image: Waste-to-Energy Modelv

5.1 Current developments

The evidence of how green and cost efficient this energy source can be has been
demonstrated by the UK's first waste gasification plant built on the Isle of Wight. This small,
community sized plant is expected to be able to generate 2.3MW of energy from almost 30,000
tonnes of residual waste which is not recycled. This is believed be sufficient to provide around 3,000
homes with electricity. Energos, the Norwegian company building this plant, has used a technology
designed to minimise the emissions while converting the waste residue into steam, making it
environmentally friendly while also addressing the costly landfill problem. Clearly this demonstrates
that we should still be reducing, reusing and recycling, but where there is waste there is also an
opportunity to produce clean energy and minimise the landfill. During 2001to 2007 period, the WtE
capacity world over has increased by about four million metric tons/annum. Japan and China has built
several plants that are based on direct smelting or on fluid bed combustion of solid waste.
In China there are about 50 WtE plants. Japan is the largest user of thermal treatment of Municipal
Solid Waste in the world with 40 million tons. Countries such as Austria, Sweden, Canada, England,
India etc are coming up with such projects.

5.2 Financial Aspects and future challenges

In developed countries, almost half of the investment is put in control systems to reduce toxic
emissions such as mercury, cadmium, lead, dioxins, furans, volatile organic compounds etc. For
example a 2000 MT per day incinerator can cost some $500 million in Europe, half of the total cost
being put into emission control. Another problem arises in case of the developing countries because
the average calorific value of garbage in such countries is about 800cal / kg. For combustion
technologies to be successful they require about 2000 to 3000 cal / kg, otherwise additional fuel has
to be added. This makes the process more costly and polluting than it currently is. In thermal WtE
technologies, almost all of the carbon content in the waste is emitted as carbon dioxide(CO2) to the
atmosphere.

Municipal solid waste (MSW) contain around the same mass fraction of carbon as CO2 itself
(27%), so treatment of 1 metric ton of MSW produce approximately 1 metric ton of CO2. In the event

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that the waste was landfilled, 1 metric ton of MSW would produce approximately 62 cubic metres
methane via the anaerobic decomposition of the biodegradable part of the waste. This amount of
methane has more than twice the global warming potential than the 1 metric ton of CO2, which would
have been produced by combustion. In some countries, large amounts of landfill gas are collected,
but still the global warming potential of the landfill gas emitted to atmosphere for example in U.S. in
1999 it was approximately 32 % higher than the amount of CO2 that would have been emitted by
combustion. In addition to that, nearly all biodegradable waste is biomass. It means it has biological
origin. This material has been formed by plants using atmospheric CO2 generally within the latest
growing season. If these plants are regrown, the CO2 emitted from their combustion will be taken out
from the atmosphere once more. Such considerations are main reason why several countries
administrate WtE of the biomass part of waste as renewable energy. It should be further increased by
policy formation to include private sector.

6. Offshore wind farms
A wind farm is generally a group of wind turbines in the same location used for generation of
electricity. Individual turbines are interconnected with medium voltage power collection system and a
supporting communications network. At the substation, the voltage of this medium-voltage electrical
current is increased by a transformer for connection to the high voltage transmission system. A large
wind farm generally consist of a few dozen to several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an
extended area of hundreds of square miles, and at the same time the land between the turbines can
be used for agricultural and other purposes. A wind farm can be located off-shore to take the
advantage of strong winds blowing over the surface of an ocean or a lake. Traditionally same design
and technology used on land has been used in offshore wind turbines, however, these designs were
not sufficiently durable for the harsh conditions and atmosphere of the sea. This used to result in high
maintenance costs and an expensive alternative energy source. But recently Areva, a French energy
company, announced that they were about to launch what is perceived to be the toughest wind
turbine ever built. Designed specially to be deployed in remote offshore wind farms where harsh
climatic conditions are prevalent, Areva claim that the operational costs will be significantly reduced
as the simplified design of the turbine means that they are easier to install and require much less
maintenance cost. These large wind turbines will stand some 90 metres above the water and will have
blade diameter of approximately 120 metres. They should prove to be highly efficient. Each of the
5MW turbines is supposed to be able to generate enough electricity to supply for 5,000 homes.

6.1 Current scenario

Countries such as Denmark have many such offshore wind farms. The United Kingdom has target to
use offshore wind turbines to generate enough electricity to light every home in the U.K. by 2020. The
province of Ontario in Canada is pursuing several proposed projects near shore locations in the Great
Lakes, including Trillium Power Wind which is approximately 20 km from shore and more than 400
MW in size. Other Canadian projects include one at the Pacific west coast. As of 2008, Europe has
the largest development of fixed-bottom offshore wind power, because of strong wind resources and
shallow water in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, and limitations on favourable locations on land due
to dense populations and existing developments. Denmark installed the first offshore wind farms, and
was the world for years leader in offshore wind power until the United Kingdom gained the lead in
October, 2008, with 590 MW of nameplate capacity installed. The United Kingdom has plans to build
much more costly offshore wind farms by 2020.

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 Image: Wind Facility, Sweden. © GE Energyvi

6.2 Financial Aspects and future challenges

Construction and accessibility are the major cost drivers for any wind facility, and these costs
are much higher at offshore wind farm. Major costs in an offshore wind farm are incurred in the facility
components, which includes the foundation and support structure, equipment installation, and
transmission and very high maintenance (due to frequent replacement). Economic feasibility of
offshore wind farms depend on whether the costs can be offset by high-quality wind resources and
high efficiency. In last two decades, the costs of creating energy from wind have come down
significantly. Offshore wind farms energy costs today are generally between $0.08 and $0.15/kWh ⎯
almost double of that of an onshore facility. Till now, most of offshore wind farms have been
developed with governmental support. But U.S. Department of Energy estimates that by 2012 and
beyond, 5-MW and larger offshore machines will generate power for $0.05/kWh. Also, developments
are ongoing for 5 MW-offshore turbines that are expected to generate electricity for costs of about
$0.05/kWh. Prices are expected to reduce with technological improvements and experience.

Major advantages of wind energy are that there is no fuel cost, no GHG emissions and a
significant amount of renewable energy is produced. Wind energy has the potential to provide
900,000 MW, which is close to the total currently installed U.S. electrical capacity. To use the greater
wind resource potentials that exist in the far offshore areas, technological advances will be needed to
reduce the weight of turbines and to develop safe and cost-effective platforms to harness the wind
that is available over deeper waters. Toughest turbines developed by Areva are the way forward. It
will significantly reduce the maintenance cost due to turbine replacements. But further research and
developments are need to reduce the weight of the turbines. For offshore applications to be
commercially competitive there is a need to overcome current depth limits, improve accessibility and
reliability, develop design methods, establish safety standards, and demonstrate the technology at a
commercial scale.

7.Summary
As stricter environmental norms will come into force, all countries will have to reduce their GHG
emissions. In that scenario more economical option to produce energy will be to produce by non GHG

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emitting methods. Also with the reduction in the output of oil reserves and other fossil fuels over next
decades, the focus will be to produce energy by renewable and sustainable sources. Oil and coal
based power plants will be out of production few decades down the line. And environmental friendly
technologies will only be used in power generation.

References-

http://www.ipcc.ch/

http://www.physorg.com/news172224356.html

http://www.usef.or.jp/english/f3_project/ssps/f3_ssps.html

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/solar_power_sats_011017-2.html

http://pinktentacle.com/2008/02/jaxa-testing-space-solar-power-system/

http://www.suite101.com/content/solar-power-from-space-a154044

www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/pdfs/future_geo_energy.pdf

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/EGeotherm%2010%2009(2).pdf

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/enhanced-geothermal-systems-awared-431-million-dollars-
by-department-of-energy.php

http://ec.europa.eu/research/energy/eu/research/geothermal/index_en.htm

http://infochangeindia.org/200606055654/Agenda/Energy-vs-Environment/Waste-to-energy-or-waste-
to-pollution.html

http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/documents/docs/OCS_EIS_WhitePaper_Wind.pdf

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i
National Space Society
ii
JAXA’s $21b model to beam electricity to earth
iii
http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/EGeotherm%2010%2009(2).pdf
iv
http://www.co2storage.org.uk/
v
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/garbage-energy/

vi
http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/guide/wind/index.cfm