Renewable energy engineering — Sustainable energy engineering — Anoverview

This paper discusses many of the issues of renewable-sustainable energy use in the light of the second law of thermodynamics. This paradigm reinforces some issues and highlights others. The proposition is put that no energy is renewable. A budget is presented for energy use in the globe. Several technologies currently experiencing substantial research attention are discussed under this paradigm. The case is made that efficiency of use is a fundamental part of energy considerations, and several topical issues in energy efficiency are discussed. The issue of matching the entropy of the load to the entropy of the source is introduced.