Page - 32 - in Our Car as Power Plant

32 At present we have different and separate energy systems for transport, energy and heating. Our transport system mainly uses oil. We extract oil out of the ground, transport it, refine it into a transport fuel, put it in our car fuel tank and then an internal combustion engine is producing the power to drive. Our electricity system stands separate. We extract coal, gas or oil, transport it, put it into a large power plant to produce electricity and distribute the electricity via a grid to our homes and offices. For heating we use a fuel (gas, oil, coal, wood) that we put into a boiler to produce hot water to heat our houses and other buildings. Some- times we use electricity to produce heat via a resistance heater or with a heat pump. And finally we use fuels in our industry for high temperature steam. Or as a feedstock, for example to make plastics from oil and fertilizers from gas. Taking a very high level view one may divide the world- wide energy consumption in four quarters: one quarter energy for transport, one quarter energy for heating and cooling of buildings, one quarter for electricity and one quarter for industry and feedstock. TOWARDS INTEGRATED ENERGY SYSTEMS