The world ofenergy it is changing rapidly driven by billionaire investments and innovations in renewable sources. Sun, wind and water they are the ones that we all commonly know and that today attract the greatest public and private resources. But they are not the only renewable sources that will help speed up the process energy transition in place. There are other sectors, perhaps less known to the public, which promise to be equally strategic in the coming decades. Among these are theagri-feedstockthe magnetic confinement fusionl’marine energyil concentrated solar powerl’offshore wind and thegreen hydrogen.
For the definitive affirmation of renewables, the storage technologies, that is, energy storage systems capable of compensating for the intermittency of sources such as the sun and wind. Or the use of futuristic supercomputers, real digital brains with enormous computing power capable of accelerating the industrial transition towards the use of renewable energy with zero impact. Italy is at the center of these changes because it represents the natural logistic platform for the development of renewables in all its forms. And Eni, the largest national company in the energy sector, is the right party to do this.
Emblematic is the case of agri-feedstock, agriculture oriented to the production of raw materials for the production of biofuels, fundamental elements, today and in the future, for the transport decarbonisation. Or of the Ccus technologies (Carbon capture use and storage) with which it is possible to reduce the emission of CO2 into the air, capturing it in the plants where it is produced and converting it into raw material for the production of products such as fuels, substances chemical or building materials.
In this transformation, thefusion energy: a technology that, when mature and used industrially, could respond to the energy needs of large manufacturing and urban settlements. To understand how this technology works, we need to study the physical reaction that powers the stars: it is the fusion of two light atoms, which releases an enormous amount of energy, drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, “New” renewable sources they are establishing themselves on the market. They are “new” energies because their use for the production of electricity is much more recent than traditional sources. The most intense phenomenon concerns the energy produced by the sun, in particular the “concentrated solar power” (Csp) which, according to insiders, will play a fundamental role in world energy production in the coming decades, allowing the production of significant quantities of electricity. and hydrogen with completely renewable cycles and without greenhouse gas emissions.
Another form of energy that has known and continues to experience great growth is wind power. The technologies available today make it possible to considerably contain production costs, even if there is no lack of resistance in the local communities for the installation of turbines and wind turbines: an alternative in this sense is constituted by off-shore plants, built in the open sea. , which allow for a stronger and more continuous energy supply, plus it does not need to be transported over long distances.
Finally, the energy produced by sea waves: the largest unused renewable source in the world boasting extremely high energy density, high predictability and low variability. The wave motion has an average energy density five times higher than that of the wind and up to 10-20 times higher than that of the sun.