Analysis and design of energy systems

Abstract

The 1980's saw a growing public awareness of environmental issues. Events such as an unusually hot and dry summer in parts of the world, contamination of community drinking water supplies by leakage from abandoned waste disposal sites, and the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer in the upper stratosphere over Antarctica made headlines in the popular press. The long range impact of these events on the environment or on human health is still being debated by the scientific and technical community. In the interim, however, it is prudent to mitigate any possible environmental problems by continuing to develop high-efficiency energy utilization systems that are also cost effective and environmentally sound. High-efficiency fossil energy systems have a number of environmental benefits: carbon dioxide production is minimized; residual waste production is minimized; fuel consumption is reduced and this, in turn, reduces the potential environmental insult which may occur during resource extraction or shipping. Thermodynamic analysis coupled with economic analysis is a useful tool to identify practical, high-efficiency systems. The Symposium on the Analysis and Design of Energy Systems is intended to provide a forum to present both advances in analytical techniques for this type of system and case studies applyingmore » these techniques.« less