Technological Advancements in Non-Conventional Energy Sources

Energy is the key input to drive and improve the life cycle. Primarily, it is the gift of the nature to the mankind in various forms. That the human race faced an energy crisis became painfully obvious during the 1970s. Since that time the blatant obviousness of the problem has waned, but the underlying technical and political problems have not disappeared. Humanity continues to increase in number (the world population is, at present, in excess of five billion) and, despite major efforts towards improving the efficiency of energy consumption, the overall per capita use of energy continues to increase. With ever growing population, improvement in the living standard of the humanity, industrialization of the developing countries, the global demand for energy is expected to increase rather significantly in the near future. The primary source of energy is fossil fuel, however the finiteness of fossil fuel reserves and large scale environmental degradation caused by their widespread use, particularly global warming, urban air pollution and acid rain, strongly suggests that harnessing of non-conventional, renewable and environment friendly energy resources is vital for steering the global energy supplies towards a sustainable path.