Muhaimin Iqbal
Author

Regenerative Energy, How It Grows

Advanced Renewable

Wed , 28 Feb 2024 17:56 WIB

Regenerative is the characteristic of being able to grow or grow again, when we attach this word to something - then that something will have the characteristic of growing. It is easy for us to understand how humans, animals and plants all grow and reproduce, filling this earth with these regenerative properties. So how does Regenerative Energy (RE) grow? Where does the extra energy come from?

The same as humans, we grow because the cells in our bodies duplicate, when we give birth to offspring - this repeats itself very quickly, from one cell growing into children whose bodies are even bigger than us. How can we grow? because there is food and drink intake into our bodies.

So it is the same with RE, to be able to grow continuously to meet human needs which are also growing, energy to grow needs to be supplied. What is the intake? the cheapest and easiest is the intake that we have been disposing of - both what we have thrown into the earth's atmosphere in the form of CO2 emissions, and what we have thrown away in the form of rubbish and waste - the majority of which is also carbon.

In the graph below, we can see how the CO2 that we react with Carbon (C) immediately becomes new energy. Initially it becomes CO gas which can be directly used as fuel, or processed further. What we can show in the graph is if we use CO to produce hydrogen.

With whatever route the 'initial intake' is in the form of CO2 and C, when it is used for energy it will result in CO2 being released again. It can be done through post-combustion, for example we burn CO - the result is heat and CO2. It can also be done without combustion or pre-combustion, for example when we react CO with water, the result is hydrogen and CO2.

Because there are 2 C, namely from CO2 and from Carbon C, no matter how it is processed, there will be 2 CO2 waste, and this is what has been accumulating in the earth's atmosphere and causing global warming, climate change, extreme weather, etc. However, when we capture the 2 CO2, it can become new energy again, where originally we had 1 CO2 and 1 C, when we have used the energy either as syngas or H2, the waste consists of 2 CO2, this is what becomes the raw material for the next new energy next.

How to utilize this new 2 CO2? We can repeat the same process by adding 2 C and so on. Or we can do it another way, we add not 2 C but 6 H2 for example, What will happen? It will become liquid fuel from the oxygenates group - containing oxygen, or hydrocarbon fuel - when the O is separated.

The reaction of CO2 with H2 to become hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline, diesel, LPG etc., can now be done economically because the H2 can be produced cheaply using the electrolysis of water with electricity, which again electricity is produced regeneratively from CO2 and C as mentioned above.