energy conversion

▪ technology

Introduction

      the transformation of energy from forms provided by nature to forms that can be used by humans.

      Over the centuries a wide array of devices and systems has been developed for this purpose. Some of these energy converters are quite simple. The early windmills, for example, transformed the kinetic energy of wind into mechanical energy for pumping water and grinding grain. Other energy-conversion systems are decidedly more complex, particularly those that take raw energy from fossil fuels and nuclear fuels to generate electrical power. Systems of this kind require multiple steps or processes in which energy undergoes a whole series of transformations through various intermediate forms.

      Many of the energy converters widely used today involve the transformation of thermal energy into electrical energy. The efficiency of such systems is, however, subject to fundamental limitations, as dictated by the laws of thermodynamics and other scientific principles. In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to certain direct energy-conversion devices, notably solar cells and fuel cells, that bypass the intermediate step of conversion to heat energy in electrical power generation.

      This article traces the development of energy-conversion technology, highlighting not only conventional systems but also alternative and experimental converters with considerable potential. It delineates their distinctive features, basic principles of operation, major types, and key applications. For a discussion of the laws of thermodynamics and their impact on system design and performance, see thermodynamics.

General considerations

      Energy is usually and most simply defined as the equivalent of or capacity for doing work. The word itself is derived from the Greek energeia: en, “in”; ergon, “work.” Energy can either be associated with a material body, as in a coiled spring or a moving object, or it can be independent of matter, as light and other electromagnetic radiation traversing a vacuum. The energy in a system may be only partly available for use. The dimensions of energy are those of work, which, in classical mechanics, is defined formally as the product of mass (m) and the square of the ratio of length (l ) to time (t): ml²/t². This means that the greater the mass or the distance through which it is moved or the less the time taken to move the mass, the greater will be the work done, or the greater the energy expended.

Development of the concept of energy

      The term energy was not applied as a measure of the ability to do work until rather late in the development of the science of mechanics. Indeed, the development of classical mechanics may be carried out without recourse to the concept of energy. The idea of energy, however, goes back at least to Galileo in the 17th century. He recognized that, when a weight is lifted with a pulley system, the force applied multiplied by the distance through which that force must be applied (a product called, by definition, the work) remains constant even though either factor may vary. The concept of vis viva, or living force, a quantity directly proportional to the product of the mass and the square of the velocity, was introduced in the 17th century. In the 19th century the term energy was applied to the concept of the vis viva.

      Isaac Newton's first law of motion recognizes force as being associated with the acceleration of a mass. It is almost inevitable that the integrated effect of the force acting on the mass would then be of interest. Of course, there are two kinds of integral of the effect of the force acting on the mass that can be defined. One is the integral of the force acting along the line of action of the force, or the spatial integral of the force; the other is the integral of the force over the time of its action on the mass, or the temporal integral.

      Evaluation of the spatial integral leads to a quantity that is now taken to represent the change in kinetic energy of the mass resulting from the action of the force and is just one-half the vis viva. On the other hand, the temporal integration leads to the evaluation of the change in momentum of the mass resulting from the action of the force. For some time there was debate as to which integration led to the proper measure of force, the German philosopher-scientist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz arguing for the spatial integral as the only true measure, while earlier the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes had defended the temporal integral. Eventually, in the 18th century, the physicist Jean d'Alembert of France showed the legitimacy of both approaches to measuring the effect of a force acting on a mass and that the controversy was one of nomenclature only.

      To recapitulate, force is associated with the acceleration of a mass; kinetic energy, or energy resulting from motion, is the result of the spatial integration of a force acting on a mass; momentum is the result of the temporal integration of the force acting on a mass; and energy is a measure of the capacity to do work. It might be added that power is defined as the time rate at which energy is transferred (to a mass as a force acts on it, or through transmission lines from the electrical generator to the consumer).

      Conservation of energy (see below) was independently recognized by many scientists in the first half of the 19th century. The conservation of energy as kinetic, potential, and elastic energy in a closed system under the assumption of no friction has proved to be a valid and useful tool. Further, upon closer inspection, the friction, which serves as the limitation on classical mechanics, is found to express itself in the generation of heat, whether at the contact surfaces of a block sliding on a plane or in the bulk of a fluid in which a paddle is turning or any of the other expressions of “friction.” Heat was identified as a form of energy by Hermann von Helmholtz of Germany and James Prescott Joule (Joule, James Prescott) of England during the 1840s. Joule also proved experimentally the relationship between mechanical and heat energy at this time. As more detailed descriptions of the various processes in nature became necessary, the approach was to seek rational theories or models for the processes that allow a quantitative measure of the energy change in the process and then to include it and its attendant energy balance within the system of interest, subject to the overall need for the conservation of energy. This approach has worked for the chemical energy in the molecules of fuel and oxidizer liberated by their burning in an engine to produce heat energy that subsequently is converted to mechanical energy to run a machine; it has also worked for the conversion of nuclear mass into energy in the nuclear fusion and nuclear fission processes.

Energy conservation and transformation

The concept of energy conservation

      A fundamental law that has been observed to hold for all natural phenomena requires the conservation of energy—i.e., that the total energy does not change in all the many changes that occur in nature. The conservation of energy is not a description of any process going on in nature, but rather it is a statement that the quantity called energy remains constant regardless of when it is evaluated or what processes—possibly including transformations of energy from one form into another—go on between successive evaluations.

      The law of conservation of energy (energy, conservation of) is applied not only to nature as a whole but to closed or isolated systems within nature as well. Thus, if the boundaries of a system can be defined in such a way that no energy is either added to or removed from the system, then energy must be conserved within that system regardless of the details of the processes going on inside the system boundaries. A corollary of this closed-system statement is that whenever the energy of a system as determined in two successive evaluations is not the same, the difference is a measure of the quantity of energy that has been either added to or removed from the system in the time interval elapsing between the two evaluations.

      Energy can exist in many forms within a system and may be converted from one form to another within the constraint of the conservation law. These different forms include gravitational, kinetic, thermal, elastic, electrical, chemical, radiant, nuclear, and mass energy. It is the universal applicability of the concept of energy, as well as the completeness of the law of its conservation within different forms, that makes it so attractive and useful.

Transformation of energy

An ideal system

      A simple example of a system in which energy is being converted from one form to another is provided in the tossing of a ball with mass m into the air. When the ball is thrown vertically from the ground, its speed and thus its kinetic energy decreases steadily until it comes to rest momentarily at its highest point. It then reverses itself, and its speed and kinetic energy increase steadily as it returns to the ground. The kinetic energy E_kof the ball at the instant it left the ground (point 1) was half the product of the mass and the square of the velocity, or ¹/₂mv₁², and decreased steadily to zero at the highest point (point 2). As the ball rose in the air, it gained gravitational potential energy E_p. Potential in this sense does not mean that the energy is not real but rather that it is stored in some latent form and can be drawn upon to do work. Gravitational potential energy is energy that is stored in a body by virtue of its position in the gravitational field. Gravitational potential energy of a mass m is observed to be given by the product of the mass, the height h attained relative to some reference height, and the acceleration g of a body resulting from the Earth's gravity pulling on it, or mgh. At the instant the ball left the ground at height h₁ its potential energy E_p1 is mgh₁. At its highest point, its potential energy E_p2 is mgh₂. Applying the law of conservation of energy and assuming no friction in the air, these add up to form the following equations:

      In this idealized example the kinetic energy of the ball at ground level is converted into work in raising the ball to h₂ where its gravitational potential energy has been increased by mg (h₂ - h₁). As the ball falls back to the ground level h₁, this gravitational potential energy is converted back into kinetic energy and its total energy at h₁ again is ¹/₂mv₁² + mgh₁. In this chain of events the kinetic energy of the ball is unchanged at h₁; thus the work done on the ball by the force of gravity acting on it in this cycle of events is zero. This system is said to be a conservative one.

Varying degrees of conversion in real systems

      Although the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains unchanged, there may be a great difference in the quality of different forms of energy. Many forms of energy, in theory, can be transformed completely into work or into other forms of energy. This is true for mechanical energy and electrical energy. The random motions of constituent parts of a material associated with thermal energy, however, represent energy that is not available completely for conversion into directed energy.

      The French engineer Sadi Carnot (Carnot, Sadi) described (in 1824) a theoretical power cycle of maximum efficiency for converting thermal into mechanical energy. He demonstrated that this efficiency is determined by the magnitude of the temperatures at which heat energy is added and waste heat is given off during the cycle. A practical engine operating on the Carnot cycle has never been devised, but the Carnot cycle determines the maximum efficiency of thermal energy conversion into any form of directed energy. The Carnot criterion renders 100 percent efficiency impossible for all heat engines. In effect, it constitutes the basis for what is now the second law of thermodynamics.

Robert L. Seale Charles R. Russell Ed.

History of energy-conversion technology

Early attempts to harness natural forms of energy

      Early humans first made controlled use of an external, nonanimal energy source when they discovered how to use fire. Burning dried plant matter (primarily wood) and animal waste, they employed the energy from this biomass for heating and cooking. The generation of mechanical energy to supplant human or animal power came very much later—only about 2,000 years ago—with the development of simple devices to harness the energy of flowing water and of wind.

Waterwheels (waterwheel)

 The earliest machines were waterwheels, first used for grinding grain. They were subsequently adopted to drive sawmills and pumps, to provide the bellows action for furnaces and forges, to drive tilt hammers or trip-hammers for forging iron, and to provide direct mechanical power for textile mills. Until the development of steam power during the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th century, waterwheels were the primary means of mechanical power production, rivaled only occasionally by windmills. Thus, many industrial towns, especially in early America, sprang up at locations where water flow could be assured all year.

      The oldest reference to a water mill dates to about 85 BC, appearing in a poem by an early Greek writer celebrating the liberation from toil of the young women who operated the querns (quern) (primitive hand mills) for grinding corn. According to the Greek geographer Strabo, King Mithradates VI of Pontus in Asia used a hydraulic machine, presumably a water mill, by about 65 BC.

      Early vertical-shaft water mills drove querns where the wheel, containing radial vanes or paddles and rotating in a horizontal plane, could be lowered into the stream. The vertical shaft was connected through a hole in the stationary grindstone to the upper, or rotating, stone. The device spread rapidly from Greece to other parts of the world, because it was easy to build and maintain and could operate in any fast-flowing stream. It was known in China by the 1st century AD, was used throughout Europe by the end of the 3rd century, and had reached Japan by the year 610. Users learned early that performance could be improved with a millrace and a chute that would direct the water to one side of the wheel.

      A horizontal-shaft water mill was first described by the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius about 27 BC. It consisted of an undershot waterwheel in which water enters below the centre of the wheel and is guided by a millrace and chute. The waterwheel was coupled with a right-angle gear drive to a vertical-shaft grinding wheel. This type of mill became popular throughout the Roman Empire (ancient Rome), notably in Gaul, after the advent of Christianity led to the freeing of slaves and the resultant need for an alternative source of power. Early large waterwheels, which measured about 1.8 metres (six feet) in diameter, are estimated to have produced about three horsepower, the largest amount of power produced by any machine of the time. The Roman mills were adopted throughout much of medieval Europe, and waterwheels of increasing size, made almost entirely of wood, were built until the 18th century.

      In addition to flowing stream water, ocean tides were used to drive waterwheels. Tidal (tidal power) water was allowed to flow into large millponds, controlled initially through lock-type gates and later through flap valves. Once the tide ebbed, water was let out through sluice gates and directed onto the wheel. Sometimes the tidal flow was assisted by building a dam across the estuary of a small river. Although limited in operation to ebbing tide conditions, tidal mills were widely used by the 12th century. The earliest recorded reference to tidal mills is found in the Domesday Book (1086), which also records more than 5,000 water mills in England south of the Severn and Trent rivers. (Tidal mills also were built along the Atlantic coast in Europe and centuries later on the eastern seaboard of the United States and in Guyana, where they powered sugarcane-crushing mills.)

      The first analysis of the performance of waterwheels was published in 1759 by John Smeaton (Smeaton, John), an English engineer. Smeaton built a test apparatus with a small wheel (its diameter was only 0.61 metre) to measure the effects of water velocity, as well as head and wheel speed. He found that the maximum efficiency (work produced divided by potential energy in the water) he could obtain was 22 percent for an undershot wheel and 63 percent for an overshot wheel (i.e., one in which water enters the wheel above its centre). In 1776 Smeaton became the first to use a cast-iron (cast iron) wheel, and two years later he introduced cast-iron gearing, thereby bringing to an end the all-wood construction that had prevailed since Roman times. Based on his model tests, Smeaton built an undershot wheel for the London Bridge waterworks that measured 4.6 metres wide and that had a diameter of 9.75 metres. The results of Smeaton's experimental work came to be widely used throughout Europe for designing new wheels.

      During the mid-1700s a reaction waterwheel for generating small amounts of power became popular in the rural areas of England. In this type of device, commonly known as a Barker's mill, water flowed into a rotating vertical tube before being discharged through nozzles at the end of two horizontal arms. These directed the water out tangentially, much in the way that a modern rotary lawn sprinkler does. A rope or belt wound around the vertical tube provided the power takeoff.

      Early in the 19th century Jean-Victor Poncelet (Poncelet, Jean-Victor), a French mathematician and engineer, designed curved paddles for undershot wheels to allow the water to enter smoothly. His design was based on the idea that water would run up the surface of the curved vanes, come to rest at the inner diameter, and then fall away with practically no velocity. This design increased the efficiency of undershot wheels to 65 percent. At about the same time, William Fairbairn (Fairbairn, Sir William, 1st Baronet), a Scottish engineer, showed that breast wheels (i.e., those in which water enters at the 10- or two-o'clock position) were more efficient than overshot wheels and less vulnerable to flood damage. He used curved buckets and provided a close-fitting masonry wall to keep the water from flowing out sideways. In 1828 Fairbairn introduced ventilated buckets in which gaps at the bottom of each bucket allowed trapped air to escape. Other improvements included a governor to control the sluice gates and spur gearing for the power takeoff.

      During the course of the 19th century, waterwheels were slowly supplanted by water turbines. Water turbines were more efficient; design improvements eventually made it possible to regulate the speed of the turbines and to run them fast enough to drive electric generators. This fact notwithstanding, waterwheels gave way slowly, and it was not until the early 20th century that they became largely obsolescent. Yet, even today some waterwheels still survive; in the early 1970s there were more than 1,000 grain mills in use in Portugal alone. Equipped with submerged bearings, these modern waterwheels certainly are more sophisticated than their predecessors, though they bear a remarkable likeness to them.

Windmills (windmill)

      Windmills, like waterwheels, were among the original prime movers that replaced animal muscle as a source of power. They were used for centuries in various parts of the world, converting the energy of the wind into mechanical energy for grinding grain, pumping water, and draining lowland areas.

      The first known wind device was described by Hero of Alexandria (c. 1st century AD). It was modeled on a water-driven paddle wheel and was used to drive a piston pump that forced air through a wind organ to produce sound. The earliest known references to wind-driven grain mills, found in Arabic writings of the 9th century AD, refer to a Persian millwright of AD 644, although windmills may actually have been used earlier. These mills, erected near what is now the Iran–Afghanistan border, had a vertical shaft with paddlelike sails radiating outward and were located in a building with diametrically opposed openings for the inlet and outlet of the wind. Each mill drove a single set of stones without gearing. The first mills were built with the millstones (millstone) above the sails, patterned after the early waterwheels from which they were derived. Similar mills were known in China by the 13th century.

      Windmills with vertical sails on horizontal shafts reached Europe through contact with the Arabs. Adopting the ideas from contemporary waterwheels, builders began to use fabric-covered, wood-framed sails located above the millstone, instead of a waterwheel below, to drive the grindstone through a set of gears. The whole mill with all its machinery was supported on a fixed post so that it could be rotated and faced into the wind. The millworks were initially covered by a boxlike wooden frame structure and later often by a “round-house,” which also provided storage. A brake wheel on the shaft allowed the mill to be stopped by a rim brake. A heavy lever then had to be raised to release the brake, an early example of a fail-safe device. Mills of this sort first appeared in France in 1180, in areas of Syria under the control of the crusaders in 1190, and in England in 1191. The earliest known illustration is from the Windmill Psalter made in Canterbury, Eng., in the second half of the 13th century.

      The large effort required to turn a post-mill into the wind probably was responsible for the development of the so-called tower mill in France by the early 14th century. Here, the millstone and the gearing were placed in a massive fixed tower, often circular in section and built of stone or brick. Only an upper cap, normally made of wood and bearing the sails on its shaft, had to be rotated. Such improved mills spread rapidly throughout Europe and later became popular with early American settlers.

      The Low Countries of Europe, which had no suitable streams for waterpower, saw the greatest development of windmills. Dutch (Netherlands, The) hollow post-mills, invented in the early 15th century, used a two-step gear drive for drainage pumps. An upright shaft that had gears on the top and bottom passed through the hollow post to drive a paddle-wheel-like scoop to raise water. The first wind-driven sawmill, built in 1592 in the Netherlands by Cornelis Cornelisz, was mounted on a raft to permit easy turning into the wind.

      At first both post-mills and the caps of tower mills were turned manually into the wind. Later small posts were placed around the mill to allow winching of the mill with a chain. Eventually winches were placed into the caps of tower mills, engaged with geared racks and operated from inside or from the ground by a chain passing over a wheel. Tower mills had their sail-supporting or tail pole normally inclined at between 5° and 15° to the horizontal. This aided the distribution of the huge sail weight on the tail bearing and also provided greater clearance between the sails and the support structure. Windmills became progressively larger, with sails from about 17 to 24 metres in diameter already common in the 16th century. The material of construction, including all gearing, was wood, although eventually brass or gunmetal came into use for the main bearings. Cast-iron (cast iron) drives were first introduced in 1754 by John Smeaton (Smeaton, John), the aforementioned English engineer. Little is known about the actual power produced by these mills. In all likelihood only from 10 to 15 horsepower was developed at the grinding wheels. A 50-horsepower mill was not built until the 19th century. The maximum efficiency of large Dutch mills is estimated to have been about 20 percent.

      In 1745 Edmund Lee of England invented the fantail, a ring of five to eight vanes mounted behind the sails at right angles to them. These were connected by gears to wheels running on a track around the cap of the mill. As the wind changed direction, it struck the sides of the fantail vanes, realigning them and thereby turning the main sails again squarely into the wind. Fabric-on-wood-frame sails were sometimes replaced by all-wood sails with removable sections. Early sails had a constant angle of twist; variable twist sails resembling a modern airplane propeller were developed much later.

      A major problem with all windmills was the need to feather the sails or reduce sail area so that if the wind suddenly increased during a storm the sails would not be ripped apart. In 1772 Andrew Meikle (Meikle, Andrew), a Scottish millwright, invented the spring sail, a shutter arrangement similar to a venetian blind in which the sails were controlled by a spring. When the wind pressure exceeded a preset amount, the shutters opened to let some of the wind pass through. In 1789 Stephen Hooper of England introduced roller blinds that could all be simultaneously adjusted with a manual chain from the ground while the mill was working. This was improved upon in 1807 by Sir William Cubitt, who combined Meikle's shutters with Hooper's remote control by hanging varying weights on the adjustment chain, thus making the control automatic. These so-called patent sails, however, found acceptance only in England and northern Europe.

      Even though further improvements were made, especially in speed control, the importance of windmills as a major power producer began to decline after 1784, when the first flour mill in England successfully substituted a steam engine for wind power. Yet, the demise of windmills was slow; at one time in the 19th century there were as many as 900 corn (maize) and industrial windmills in the Zaan district of the Netherlands, the highest concentration known. Windmills persisted throughout the 19th century in newly settled or less-industrialized areas, such as the central and western United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They also were built by the hundreds in the West Indies to crush sugarcane.

      The primary exception to the steady abandonment of windmills was resurgence in their use in rural areas for pumping water from wells. The first wind pump was introduced in the United States by David Hallay in 1854. After another American, Stewart Perry, began constructing wind pumps made of steel and equipped with metal vanes in 1883, this new and simple device spread around the world.

      Wind-driven pumps remain important today in many rural parts of the world. They continued to be used in large numbers, even in the United States, well into the 20th century until low-cost electric power became readily available in rural areas. Although rather inefficient, they are rugged and reliable, need little attention, and remain a prime source for pumping small amounts of water wherever electricity is not economically available.

Rex Wailes Fred Landis

Developments of the Industrial Revolution

Steam engines (steam engine)

      The rapid growth of industry in Britain from about the mid-18th century (and somewhat later in various other countries) created a need for new sources of motive power, particularly those independent of geographic location and weather conditions. This situation, together with certain other factors, set the stage for the development and widespread use of the steam engine, the first practical device for converting thermal energy to mechanical energy.

      The foundations for the use of steam power are often traced to the experimental work of the French physicist Denis Papin (Papin, Denis). In 1679 Papin invented a type of pressure cooker, a closed vessel with a tightly fitting lid that confined steam until high pressure was generated. Observing that the steam in the vessel raised the lid, he conceived the idea of using steam to power a piston and cylinder engine.

      Thomas Savery (Savery, Thomas), an English inventor and military engineer, studied Papin's work and built a steam-driven suction machine for removing water from coal mines. Savery's machine (patented in 1698) consisted of a boiler, a closed, water-filled reservoir, and a series of valves (valve). Steam was introduced into the reservoir, and the pressure of the steam forced the water out through a one-way outlet valve until the vessel was empty. Water was then sprayed over the surface of the vessel to condense the steam and create a vacuum capable of drawing up more water through a valve below. Unfortunately the vacuum created was not perfect, and so water could only be lifted to a limited height.

Newcomen engine

      Some years later another English engineer, Thomas Newcomen (Newcomen, Thomas), developed a more efficient steam pump consisting of a cylinder fitted with a piston—a design inspired by Papin's aforementioned idea. When the cylinder was filled with steam, a counterweighted pump plunger moved the piston to the extreme upper end of the stroke. With the admission of cooling water, the steam condensed, creating a vacuum. The atmospheric pressure in the mine acted on the piston and caused it to move down in the cylinder, and the pump plunger was lifted by the resulting force.

      Because Savery had obtained a broad patent for his steam device, Newcomen could not patent his engine. He thus entered into a partnership with Savery, and together they built, in 1712, the first piston-operated steam pump. Several years later Smeaton improved the Newcomen engine, almost doubling its efficiency. Although engines of this kind converted only about 1 percent of the thermal energy in the steam to mechanical energy, they remained unrivaled for more than 50 years.

Watt's engine

      In 1765 James Watt (Watt, James), a Scottish instrument maker and inventor, modified a Newcomen engine by adding a separate condenser to make it unnecessary to heat and cool the cylinder with each stroke. Because the cylinder and piston remained at steam temperature while the engine was operating, fuel costs dropped by about 75 percent.

      Watt entered into a partnership with Matthew Boulton (Boulton, Matthew), who owned a factory in Soho, near Birmingham, Eng. At Boulton's insistence he set out to develop a new kind of engine that rotated a shaft instead of providing simple up-and-down motion. He found a way to obtain an inflexible connection between piston and rod (beam) and invented special gear arrangements to convert the up-and-down movement of the beam into circular motion. A heavy flywheel was added to smooth out the variations in the force delivered to the engine shaft by the action of the piston in the cylinder. The flow of steam to the engine was regulated by a governor connected to the flywheel. In addition, Watt applied steam to both sides of the piston to produce greater uniformity of effort and increased power.

      Although far more difficult to build, Watt's rotative engine opened up an entirely new field of application: it enabled the steam engine to be used to operate rotary machines in factories and cotton mills. The rotative engine was widely adopted; it is estimated that by 1800 Watt and Boulton had built 500 engines, of which less than 40 percent were pumps and the rest were of the rotative type.

High-pressure steam engines

      Although Watt understood the advantages of utilizing the expansive power of steam within a cylinder, he refused to use steam under high pressure for reasons of safety. This limited the application of steam engines. By the early years of the 19th century, however, the American inventor Oliver Evans (Evans, Oliver) had built a stationary high-pressure steam engine for driving a rotary crusher to produce pulverized limestone for agricultural use. Within a few years Evans had designed lighter-weight high-pressure steam engines that could do various other tasks, such as drive sawmills, sow grain, and power a dredge. From 1806 to about 1816 he produced more than 100 steam engines that were employed with screw presses for processing paper, cotton, and tobacco.

      Other major advances in the use of high-pressure steam were achieved by Richard Trevithick (Trevithick, Richard) in England during the early years of the 19th century. Trevithick built the world's first steam-powered railway locomotive in 1803. Two years later he adapted his high-pressure steam engine to drive an iron-rolling mill and to propel a barge with the help of paddle wheels.

      Watt's engine was able to convert only a little more than 2 percent of the thermal energy in steam to work. The improvements introduced by Evans, Trevithick, and others (e.g., three separate expansion cycles and higher steam temperatures) increased the efficiency of the steam engine to roughly 17 percent by 1900. Yet, within the next decade the steam engine was supplanted for various important applications by the more efficient steam turbine. Owing to technological advances and the use of high-temperature steam, steam turbines have attained an efficiency of thermal energy conversion of approximately 40 percent.

Everett B. Woodruff Ed.

Stirling engine

      Many of the early high-pressure steam boilers exploded because of poor materials and faulty methods of construction. The resultant casualties and property losses motivated Robert Stirling (Stirling, Robert) of Scotland to invent a power cycle that operated without a high-pressure boiler. In his engine (patented in 1816), air was heated by external combustion through a heat exchanger and then was displaced, compressed, and expanded by two pistons. Stirling also conceived the idea of a regenerator to store thermal energy during part of the cycle and then return this energy to the working fluid. A successful Stirling engine was built for factory use in 1843, but general use was restricted by the high cost of the device. Nevertheless, until about 1920, small engines of this type were used to pump water on farms and to generate electricity for small communities.

      Since the Stirling engine is efficient, produces less pollution than most other kinds of engines, and operates on virtually any kind of fuel, efforts have been made intermittently since the late 1930s to reduce its manufacturing costs. Modern versions of the Stirling engine employ pressurized hydrogen or helium instead of air. Although attempts were made as recently as the 1970s to adapt the device to power automobiles, its only commercial application at present is use as a cryogenic refrigerator.

Internal-combustion engines (internal-combustion engine)

      While the steam engine remained dominant in industry and transportation during much of the 19th century, engineers and scientists began developing other sources and converters of energy. One of the most important of these was the internal-combustion engine. In such a device a fuel and oxidizer are burned within the engine and the products of combustion act directly on piston or rotor surfaces. By contrast, an external-combustion device, such as the steam engine, employs a secondary working fluid that is interposed between the combustion chamber and power-producing elements. By the early 1900s the internal-combustion engine had replaced the steam engine as the most broadly applied power-generating system not only because of its higher thermal efficiency (there is no transfer of heat from combustion gases to a secondary working fluid that results in losses in efficiency) but also because it provided a low-weight, reasonably compact, self-contained power plant.

      The German engineer Nikolaus August Otto (Otto, Nikolaus August) is generally credited with having built the first practical internal-combustion engine (1876), though several rudimentary devices had appeared earlier in the century. In 1885 Gottlieb Daimler (Daimler, Gottlieb), another German engineer, modified the four-cycle Otto engine so that it burned gasoline (instead of coal powder) and built the first successful high-speed internal-combustion engine. Within several decades the gasoline engine found wide application in motorcycles, automobiles, and small trucks.

      Another type of internal-combustion engine was introduced by Rudolf Diesel, also of Germany, in the early 1890s. Named for its inventor, the diesel engine was more efficient than engines of the Otto variety and was fueled by heavy oil, which is cheaper and less volatile than gasoline. As a result, it was adopted as the primary power plant for submarines, railway locomotives, and heavy machinery.

 An internal-combustion engine quite different from the reciprocating piston type was developed around the turn of the century. This was the gas-turbine engine, the first successful version of which was built in 1903 in France. Modern gas turbines have been used for electric power generation and various other purposes, but its primary application has been jet propulsion. In a gas-turbine system compressed air, heated by the combustion of petroleum, is used to turn a turbine to drive the compressor while excess energy accelerates the exhaust gas to high velocity for producing thrust.

      Another form of propulsive engine, the rocket, attracted increasing attention during the final decades of the 19th century due in part to the imaginative portrayals of space travel fabricated by Jules Verne and other science-fiction writers. From about 1880, various scientists and inventors began investigating theoretical problems of rocket motion and propulsion system design. By the mid-1920s Robert H. Goddard of the United States had developed experimental rockets employing liquid and solid propellants.

Electric generators (electric generator) and motors (electric motor)

      Other important energy-conversion devices emerged during the 19th century. During the early 1830s the English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday discovered a means by which to convert mechanical energy into electricity on a large scale. While engaged in experimental work on magnetism, Faraday found that moving a permanent magnet into and out of a coil of wire induced an electric current in the wire. This process, called electromagnetic induction, provided the working principle for electric generators.

      During the late 1860s Zénobe-Théophile Gramme (Gramme, Zénobe-Théophile), a French engineer and inventor, built a continuous-current generator. Dubbed the Gramme dynamo, this device contributed much to the general acceptance of electric power. By the early 1870s Gramme had developed several other dynamos, one of which was reversible and could be used as an electric motor. Electric motors, which convert electrical energy to mechanical energy, run virtually every kind of machine that uses electricity.

      All of Gramme's machines were direct-current (DC) devices. It was not until 1888 that Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American inventor, introduced the prototype of the present-day alternating-current (AC) motor.

Direct energy-conversion devices

      Most of these energy converters, sometimes called static energy-conversion devices, use electrons as their “working fluid” in place of the vapour or gas employed by such dynamic heat engines as the external-combustion and internal-combustion engines mentioned above. In recent years, direct energy-conversion devices have received much attention because of the necessity to develop more efficient ways of transforming available forms of primary energy into electric power. Four such devices—the electric battery, the fuel cell, the thermoelectric generator (or at least its working principle), and the solar cell—had their origins in the early 1800s.

      The battery, invented by the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta about 1800, changes chemical energy directly into an electric current. A device of this type has two electrodes, each of which is made of a different chemical. As chemical reactions occur, electrons are released on the negative electrode and made to flow through an external circuit to the positive electrode. The process continues until the circuit is interrupted or one of the reactants is exhausted. The forerunners of the modern dry cell and the lead-acid storage battery appeared during the second half of the 19th century.

      The fuel cell, another electrochemical producer of electricity, was developed by William Robert Grove, a British physicist, in 1839. In a fuel cell, continuous operation is achieved by feeding fuel (e.g., hydrogen) and an oxidizer (oxygen) to the cell and removing the reaction products.

      Thermoelectric generators (thermoelectric power generator) are devices that convert heat directly into electricity. Electric current is generated when electrons are driven by thermal energy across a potential difference at the junction of two conductors made of dissimilar materials. This effect was discovered by Thomas Johann Seebeck (Seebeck, Thomas Johann), a German physicist, in 1821. Seebeck observed that a compass needle near a circuit made of different conducting materials was deflected when one of the junctions was heated. He investigated various materials that produce electric energy with an efficiency of 3 percent. This efficiency was comparable to that of the steam engines of the day. Yet, the significance of the discovery of the thermoelectric effect went unrecognized as a means of producing electricity because of Seebeck's misinterpretation of the phenomenon as a magnetic effect caused by a difference in temperature. A basic theory of thermoelectricity was finally formulated during the early 1900s, though no functional generators were developed until much later.

      In a solar cell, radiant energy drives electrons across a potential difference at a semiconductor junction in which the concentrations of impurities are different on the two sides of the junction. What is often considered the first genuine solar cell was built in the late 1800s by Charles Fritts, who used junctions formed by coating selenium (a semiconductor) with an extremely thin layer of gold (see Exploiting renewable energy sources (energy conversion) below).

Modern developments

      The 20th century brought a host of important scientific discoveries and technological advances, including new and better materials and improved methods of fabrication. These developments permitted the enhancement and refinement of many of the energy-conversion devices and systems that had been introduced during the previous century, as exemplified by the remarkable evolution of jet engines and rockets. They also gave rise to entirely new technologies.

Discovery and application of nuclear energy

Fission reactors (nuclear reactor)

      Scientists first learned of the tremendous energy bound in the nucleus of the atom during the early years of the century. In 1942 they succeeded in unleashing that energy on a large scale by means of what was called an atomic pile. This was the first nuclear fission reactor, a device designed to induce a self-sustaining and controlled series of fission reactions that split heavy nuclei to release their energy. It was built for the U.S. Manhattan Project undertaken to develop the atomic bomb. Shortly after World War II, reactors were built for submarine propulsion and for commercial power production. The first full-scale commercial nuclear power plant was opened in 1956 at Calder Hall, Eng. In a power generation system of this kind, much of the energy released by the fissioning of heavy nuclei (principally those of the radioactive isotope uranium-235) takes the form of heat, which is used to produce steam. This steam drives a turbine, the mechanical energy of which is converted to electricity by a generator.

Fusion reactors (fusion reactor)

      In the late 1930s Hans A. Bethe, a German-born physicist, recognized that the fusion of hydrogen nuclei to form deuterium releases energy. Since that time scientists have sought to harness such thermonuclear reactions for practical energy production. Much of their work has centred on the use of magnetic fields and electromagnetic forces to confine plasma, an exceedingly hot gas composed of unbound electrons, ions, and neutral atoms and molecules. Plasma is the only state of matter in which thermonuclear reactions can be induced and sustained to generate usable amounts of thermal energy. The difficulty is in confining plasma long enough for this to happen. Although researchers have made significant headway toward constructing fusion reactors capable of such confinement, no device of this kind has been developed sufficiently for commercial application.

Other conversion technologies

      Energy requirements for space vehicles led to an intensive investigation, from 1955 on, of all possible energy sources. Direct energy-conversion devices are of interest for providing electric power in spacecraft because of their reliability and their lack of moving parts. As have solar cells, fuel cells, and thermoelectric generators, thermionic power converters have received considerable attention for space applications. Thermionic generators are designed to convert thermal energy directly into electricity. The required heat energy may be supplied by chemical, solar, or nuclear sources, the latter being the preferred choice for current experimental units.

      Another direct energy converter with considerable potential is the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD (magnetohydrodynamic power generator)) power generator. This system produces electricity directly from a high-temperature, high-pressure electrically conductive fluid—usually an ionized gas—moving through a strong magnetic field. The hot fluid may be derived from the combustion of coal or other fossil fuel. The first successful MHD generator was built and tested during the 1950s. Since that time developmental efforts have progressed steadily, culminating in a Russian project to build an MHD power plant in the city of Ryazan, located about 180 kilometres (112 miles) southeast of Moscow.

Exploiting renewable energy sources

      Growing concern over the world's ever-increasing energy needs and the prospect of rapidly dwindling reserves of oil, natural gas, and uranium fuel have prompted efforts to develop viable alternative energy (renewable energy) sources. The volatility and uncertainty of the petroleum fuel supply were dramatically brought to the fore during the energy crisis of the 1970s caused by the abrupt curtailment of oil shipments from the Middle East to many of the highly industrialized nations of the world. It also has been recognized that the heavy reliance on fossil fuels (fossil fuel) has had an adverse impact on the environment. Gasoline engines and steam-turbine power plants that burn coal or natural gas emit substantial amounts of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. When these gases combine with atmospheric water vapour, they form sulfuric acid and nitric acids, giving rise to highly acidic precipitation. The combustion of fossil fuels also releases carbon dioxide. The amount of this gas in the atmosphere has steadily risen since the mid-1800s largely as a result of the growing consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas. More and more scientists believe that the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide (along with that of other industrial gases such as methane and chlorofluorocarbons) may induce a greenhouse effect, raising the surface temperature of the Earth by increasing the amount of heat trapped in the lower atmosphere. This condition could bring about climatic changes with serious repercussions for natural and agricultural ecosystems. (For a detailed discussion of acid rain and the greenhouse effect, see the articles global warming, climatic variation and change (climate change), and hydrosphere: Acid rain (hydrosphere) and Buildup of greenhouse gases (hydrosphere).)

      Many countries have initiated programs to develop renewable energy technologies that would enable them to reduce fossil-fuel consumption and its attendant problems. Fusion devices are believed to be the best long-term option, since their primary energy source would be the hydrogen isotope deuterium abundantly present in ordinary water. Other technologies that are being actively pursued are those designed to make wider and more efficient use of the energy in sunlight, wind, moving water, and terrestrial heat (i.e., geothermal energy). The amount of energy in such renewable and virtually pollution-free sources is large in relation to world energy needs, yet at the present time only a small portion of it can be converted to electric power at reasonable cost.

      A variety of devices and systems has been created to better tap the energy in sunlight (solar energy). Among the most efficient are photovoltaic systems that transform radiant energy from the Sun directly into electricity by means of silicon or gallium arsenide solar cells. Large arrays consisting of thousands of these semiconductor cells can function as central power stations. Other systems, which are still under development, are designed to concentrate solar radiation not only to generate electric power but also to produce high-temperature process heat for various applications. These systems employ a number of different components, including large parabolic concentrators and heat engines of the Stirling engine type (see above). Another approach involves the use of flat-plate solar collectors to provide space heating for commercial and residential buildings.

      Although wind (wind power) is intermittent and diffuse, it contains tremendous amounts of energy. Sophisticated wind turbines have been developed to convert this energy to electric power. The utilization of wind energy systems grew discernibly during the 1980s. For example, more than 15,000 wind turbines are now in operation in Hawaii and California at specially selected sites. Their combined power rating of 1,500 megawatts is roughly equal to that of a conventional steam-turbine power installation.

      Converting the energy in moving water to electricity has been a long-standing technology. Yet, hydroelectric power plants are estimated to provide only about 2 percent of the world's energy requirements. The technology involved is simple enough: hydraulic turbines change the energy of fast-flowing or falling water into mechanical energy that drives power generators, which produce electricity. Hydroelectric power plants, however, generally require the building of costly dams. Another factor that limits any significant increase in hydroelectric power production is the scarcity of suitable sites for additional installations except in certain regions of the world.

      In certain coastal areas of the world, as, for example, the Rance River estuary in Brittany, Fr., hydraulic turbine-generator units have been used to harness the great amount of energy in ocean tides. At most such sites, the capital costs of constructing damlike structures with which to trap and store water are prohibitive, however.

       geothermal energy flows from the hot interior of the Earth to the surface in steam or hot water most often in areas of active volcanism. Geothermal reservoirs with temperatures of 180° C or higher are suitable for power generation. The earliest commercial geothermal power plant was built in 1904 in Larderello, Italy. Today, steam from wells drilled to depths of hundreds of metres drives the plant's turbine generators to produce about 190 megawatts of electricity. Geothermal plants have been built in a number of other countries, including El Salvador, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States. The principal U.S. plant, located at The Geysers north of San Francisco, can generate up to 1,900 megawatts, though production may be restricted to prolong the life of the steam field.

Charles R. Russell Ed.

Additional Reading

The concept of energy

General introductions are provided by Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, 3 vol. (1963–65; vol. 1 and 2 have been reprinted, 1977); Mitchell Wilson, Energy, rev. ed. (1970); Energy: Readings from Scientific American, with introductions by S. Fred Singer (1979); and Janet Ramage, Energy: A Guidebook (1983).

History of energy-conversion technology

Historical developments are outlined in Charles Singer et al. (eds.), A History of Technology, 8 vol. (1954–84); Maurice Daumas (ed.), Histoire général des techniques, 5 vol. (1962–79)—the first 3 vol. have been translated as A History of Technology and Invention: Progress Through the Ages (1969–79); and Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W. Pursell, Jr. (eds.), Technology in Western Civilization, 2 vol. (1967). Ed.

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