Solving the Energy Crisis with Renewable Fuel Diversity

Renewable energies are typically viewed by the general public to include wind turbines and solar panels, both of which have weather limitations, therefore, diversifying renewable energies to include biogases and hydrogen would allow for the continual production of renewable electricity all year round at a constant rate. Biogas being produced from waste, whether animal or human, as well as many other industrial bi-products, can be seen to have a greater environmental impact other than being just a renewable fuel. As well as being utilised like natural gas to produce electricity, biogas also has the potential to be used as a gas, either fazed into a national grid network, or as a fuel, produced and used, by an individual building. Thus making it an ideal fuel for tackling energy poverty in economic deprived areas or communities, such as that of the global south, where no present infrastructure exists to provide energy, or where the cost of solar installation would be deemed expensive or inappropriate. Projects using hydrogen as a gas are being experimented, such as the blending into the gas network in the UK, but the viability of hydrogen as a fuel for transport has a greater scope to be developed. Utilising hydrogen as a fuel for transport, by the use of electric fuel cells, would allow non emission vehicles, to convert hydrogen to electricity, decreasing the dependency of the use of electricity from the grid, and allow larger vehicles, such as Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV) and Public Service Vehicles (PSV), to become emission free without the need for heavy and large batteries. At present, we are analysing how blockchain and certification can aid the uptake on renewable gases, and how this can be developed to allow economic deprived areas or communities to utilise the energy revolution to also tackle the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).