Abstract

Carbon dioxide emissions represent the primary driver behind the accelerated global warming problem. While mitigating these emissions from key sectors may necessitate a protracted timeframe, several promising technologies offer the potential for short-term advancements in full or partial decarbonization efforts. In pursuit of establishing a sustainable and reliable zero-carbon energy system, the deployment of energy storage systems integrated with clean and renewable resources becomes imperative. Solar and wind technologies are ubiquitously available across numerous nations and have attained a level of maturity conducive to widespread deployment on a grid scale. The combination of solar and wind energy with energy storage serves to expedite the decarbonization of electricity generation processes.

In this dissertation, we address the challenges and the potential solutions for achieving a reliable and sustainable energy system. We start with decarbonizing the electricity generation by using renewable resources combined with energy storage. Decarbonizing the electricity generation will accelerate the decarbonization of other sectors like transportation and industrial sector. Both sectors are contributing significantly to the global carbon dioxide emissions. We propose the use of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology to capture the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. We study the decarbonization of industrial process heating using solar thermal technology. Our results show the possibility of decarbonizing the electricity generation and partial industrial sector decarbonization while reducing the atmospheric carbon content.

Biography

Mahmoud Abido is a Ph.D. candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California Merced. He joined Prof. Sarah Kurtz research group in Fall 2020 soon after obtaining his Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from Cairo University. In Kurtz research group, he studies developing reliable and sustainable zero/negative carbon energy systems.