ENG101: Literature Review on Renewable Energy and Sustainability

This literature review, prepared by a student, explores the multifaceted topic of renewable energy within the framework of sustainable engineering. It begins by defining renewable energy and highlighting its growing importance in meeting global energy demands while addressing climate change concerns. The review examines various renewable energy sources including solar, bioenergy, wind, and hydropower, detailing their generation methods, advantages, and potential. It further investigates the relationship between sustainable development and renewable energy, emphasizing opportunities such as enhanced energy security, economic growth, and environmental benefits. The paper also considers the existing research gaps, such as the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources. The review emphasizes the importance of renewable energy adoption for human development, economic growth, and environmental sustainability, concluding with a call for further research and implementation of these technologies.

ENGINEERING 1
LITERATURE REVIEW
Sustainable Engineering
(Student Details :)
26/12/2019

ENGINEERING 2
‘Different ways to generate renewable energy in sustainable engineering’
Research Questions
1. What are some of the impacts of renewable energy use in sustainable engineering
development and overall climate change?
2. Are the technology used in generating renewable energy are viable in terms of
sustainability?
Renewable Energy Sources
Renewable energy is defined as the energy generated from sources that are replenished or
not- exhaustible with the lifetime of human beings. Preferably, the total amount of energy
produced from renewable energy sources is about 14% of the overall energy demands worldwide
(Kammen and Sunter 2016 p.922). There are different examples of renewable energy sources
and they include biomass, geothermal, hydropower, marine energies, solar as well as wind.
These examples of renewable energy are largely summarized as shown in the table below
Table Showing Renewable Energy Conversion and Usage Option (Asumadu-Sarkodie
and Owusu 2016 p.1134304)
The population of the world is growing on a daily basis, and this has increased both the
need and demand for energy. Due to the increased population, there is the continual use of fossil
fuel energy sources such as oil, coal and gas and thus, resulted in their depletion as time goes-by.

ENGINEERING 3
The increased use of fossil fuel energy has also resulted in major challenges and problems such
as increased greenhouse gases emission, increased fuel price, environmental pollution as well as
military conflict (Yatim et al. 2016 p.1685-1695). The problems have continued to grow and
thus, have the high possibility of creating unsustainable situations for human societies in line
with energy consumption. Preferably, it is important to note that renewable energy sources form
the best alternative for addressing the various energy crisis and challenges resulting from fossil
fuel energy. In essence, the research conducted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration
in 2012, indicated that the supplied energy generated from renewable sources was 22% of the
overall world vitality (Sieminski 2014).
Sustainable Development and Renewable Energy
There are a direct relationship and link between sustainable development and renewable
energy. The relationship is largely deduced in its economic productivity and human
development. In addition to this, there are different opportunities that are fostered by renewable
energy sources in terms of sustainable development (Tiwari and Mishra, 2012). They include
energy security, economic and social development, climate change and environmental reduction
mitigation, energy access as well as health impacts. Therefore, the figure below represents the
various opportunities posed by renewable energy sources in line with sustainable development
(Aanesen, Heck, and Pinner 2017).

ENGINEERING 4
Figure showing opportunities posed by renewable energy sources in line with sustainable
development (Sinha and Shahbaz 2018 p.703)
Energy Security
There is the widespread use of the energy security norm despite the fact that it does not
have a precise and conforming consensus interpretation. The idea of energy security is largely
based on the fact that there is no continuous energy supply for handling different and critical
economy operations. In essence, access to energy, stability is a fundamental issue to political,
monetary and technical (MacDonald et al. 2016 p.526). This is because energy security is a
critical interdependence regarding energy consumption and economic growth. Notably, there is
even distribution of renewable energy sources across the world as compared to fossil fuels;
however, there is less global market trade attached to them. In addition to this, it essential to note
that renewable energy helps in reducing the energy imports while at the same time contributes to
portfolio diversification in terms of supply options (Manwell, McGowan and Rogers 2010).
‘Different Ways to Generate Renewable Energy in Sustainable Engineering’
Direct solar energy

ENGINEERING 5
According to Trainor, McDonald, and Fargione (2016), it is defined as the energy that
has been drawn directly from sunlight. Some common sources of renewable energy technologies
are utilized after drawing such vitality to help in converting its other forms. In most cases, there
is the use of concentrating solar power and photovoltaic solar energy technology in order to
generate electricity. World Energy Council (2013) has reported that the overall energy that one
can draw from the solar radiation annually is about 7500 times more than the primary annual
energy consumption across the world that is estimated at 450 EJ (Denholm et al. 2010).
Bioenergy
This is a renewable energy source that is often generated from the makeable biological
sources. The energy source is largely utilized for different purposes such as electricity
generation, cooking as well as heating. There are different sources from which bioenergy could
be drawn. They include forest-byproducts, agricultural residues as well as sugar cane waste.
Notably, the advantage of the bioenergy sources is that there is energy-based electricity that
could be drawn from the waste products and residues (IEA 2015). Preferably, there is no
competition that could exist between fuel and food. Notably, there is a comparatively low
volume in terms of bioenergy production. Conversely, the annual amount of biodiesel
consumption is estimated at 15 billion liters as per the analysis of 2006. However, the value was
growing and increased significantly from 305 to 50% annually (Potter, Archambault, and
Westrick, 2009, March p. 1).
Wind Energy
The technology of converting wind energy into electricity involves the use of wind
turbines. In essence, the role of the wind turbine is to facilitate the conversion of the moving
wind into the parametric rotational energy. The application used in the wind turbine is mostly

ENGINEERING 6
represented in the schematic diagram below (Panwar, Kaushik and Kothari 2011 p.1513).
Schematic Diagram showing the application used in the wind turbine (Evans, Strezov,
and Evans 2009 p.1082)
Preferably, the wind turbines help to capture the power from the wind and this is carried
out via the use of the aerodynamically designed blades. It often helps in converting rotational
mechanical power. In addition to this, wind turbines assist in converting wind energy to
mechanical power via the use of airfoils. Conversely, in developing countries wind is considered
mainly as the viable electricity source and thus, is harnessed and transmitted to the national grid
(Owusu and Asumadu-Sarkodie 2016 p.1167990).
Hydropower
Electricity energy source from hydropower is widely harnessed using turbines. It involves
the turning of turbines from a higher elevated area to a lower level and this process leads to the
generation of electricity. Most of the hydropower projects used in the production of electricity
include run-of-river, dams as well as in-stream projects (Shenhang et al. 2010 p.104).
Research Gap
According to Forsund (2010), the generation of electricity or power from renewable
sources can be discontinued at a point and this is mostly dictated by the seasons. This is a key

ENGINEERING 7
shortcoming that has not been addressed in this research. However, though the use of technology
both the hardware and software components can be used to address these issues immensely.
Conclusion
In summary, it essential to ascertain that energy is a fundamental requirement for human
development and it can lead to positive economic growth as well as increased productivity.
Renewable energy is a key notch source as it offers green vitality with reduced environmental
impacts. Renewable energy is also cheap and readily available and thus, its adoption and usage
should be encouraged.

ENGINEERING 8
References
Aanesen, K., Heck, S., and Pinner, D., 2017. Solar power: Darkest before dawn.
Asumadu-Sarkodie, S. and Owusu, P.A., 2016. Feasibility of biomass heating system in Middle
East Technical University, Northern Cyprus Campus. Cogent Engineering, 3(1),
p.1134304.
Denholm, P., Ela, E., Kirby, B. and Milligan, M., 2010. Role of energy storage with renewable
electricity generation (No. NREL/TP-6A2-47187). National Renewable Energy Lab.
(NREL), Golden, CO (United States).
Evans, A., Strezov, V. and Evans, T.J., 2009. Assessment of sustainability indicators for
renewable energy technologies. Renewable and sustainable energy reviews, 13(5),
pp.1082-1088.
Forsund, F.R., 2010. Hydropower economics. Resource Economics at the Department of
Economics, University of Oslo.
IEA, O., 2015. Energy and climate change, world energy outlook special report.
Kammen, D.M. and Sunter, D.A., 2016. City-integrated renewable energy for urban
sustainability. Science, 352(6288), pp.922-928.
MacDonald, A.E., Clack, C.T., Alexander, A., Dunbar, A., Wilczak, J. and Xie, Y., 2016. Future
cost-competitive electricity systems and their impact on US CO 2 emissions. Nature
Climate Change, 6(5), p.526.
Manwell, J.F., McGowan, J.G. and Rogers, A.L., 2010. Wind energy explained: theory, design
and application. John Wiley & Sons.
Owusu, P.A. and Asumadu-Sarkodie, S., 2016. A review of renewable energy sources,
sustainability issues and climate change mitigation. Cogent Engineering, 3(1),
p.1167990.

ENGINEERING 9
Panwar, N.L., Kaushik, S.C. and Kothari, S., 2011. Role of renewable energy sources in
environmental protection: A review. Renewable and sustainable energy reviews, 15(3),
pp.1513-1524.
Potter, C.W., Archambault, A. and Westrick, K., 2009, March. Building a smarter smart grid
through better renewable energy information. In 2009 IEEE/PES Power Systems
Conference and Exposition (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Shenhang, Y.U., Ying, S.U.N., Xiaona, N.I.U. and Chuanhui, Z.H.A.O., 2010. Energy Internet
system based on distributed renewable energy generation [J]. Electric Power Automation
Equipment, 5(30), pp.104-108.
Sieminski, A., 2014. International energy outlook. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 18.
Sinha, A. and Shahbaz, M., 2018. Estimation of Environmental Kuznets Curve for CO2
emission: Role of renewable energy generation in India. Renewable energy, 119, pp.703-
711.
Tiwari, G.N. and Mishra, R.K., 2012. Advanced renewable energy sources. Royal Society of
Chemistry.
Trainor, A.M., McDonald, R.I. and Fargione, J., 2016. Energy sprawl is the largest driver of land
use change in United States. PloS one, 11(9), p.e0162269.
Yatim, P., Mamat, M.N., Mohamad-Zailani, S.H. and Ramlee, S., 2016. Energy policy shifts
towards sustainable energy future for Malaysia. Clean Technologies and Environmental
Policy, 18(6), pp.1685-1695.