Introductory Chapter: Green Energy Systems

Abstract

As one of the very crucial elements of life, energy has given huge impacts in forming the domestic and international policies of the country, raising the environmental issues, changing the social dimensions, accelerating the economic growth, etc. The study related to energy has focused mainly on finding and establishing the new and efficient ways to produce (convert), store, transport, and utilize the energy. The conventional energy system, coupled with the huge demand of energy due to industrial activities, has resulted in various social, psychological, and environmental problems. Concretely, conventional combustion of fossil energy sources has accelerated the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), leading to high concern on climatic issues. In order to tackle down the above problems, several research have been developed, especially related to the way to achieve greener energy systems. Dincer and Zamfirescu [1] have proposed the concept of greenization, which refers to the efforts to greenize the energy systems, including the processes and applications with high sustainability. Some academic efforts to clearly analyze the problems also include several theoretical approaches to correlate the theories to their real implications. The intensive correlation of thermodynamics toward sustainable energy systems and environment has been studied by Hammond [2]. In addition, Bejan [3] also used the theory of entropy generation minimization in order to analyze the energy policy. Discussing the energy policy, there is a strong relationship between the exergy destruction and environmental impact. Lower exergy destruction leads to higher energy efficiency of the system; hence, the systems consumes less energy input followed by lower environmental impact, leading to the sustainability of the system.