Foreword

Global warming is a result of increasing anthropogenic CO₂ emissions, and the consequences will be dramatic climate changes if no action is taken. One of the main global challenges in the years to come is to reduce the CO₂ and GHG emissions.

It is widely accepted that the climate change issue is a global concern that directly links with the emission of greenhouse gases notably carbon dioxide (CO₂) associated with the use of fossil fuels around the world. Last decade 32.6 Gt of CO₂ was released to the atmosphere as a consequence of the global harnessing of fossil fuels. From this amount 41% of the CO₂ relates to coal. From a more simplistic point of view the challenge may be construed as just obviating these emissions either by swapping to carbon-neutral primary energy possibly wind, biomass, photovoltaic and nuclear, or by isolating the CO₂ and preventing it from being released to the atmosphere (or combined). But the challenge, also involves a geopolitical dimension represented by a fast-growing global population and increasing prosperity level. This dimension is prone to justify the extended electrification in developing nations. On this basis prognoses suggest that the global electricity demand will grow by a factor 3 to 7 within this century.

So far, no sustainable primary energy has been identified as being capable of supplying electric power on demand - in very large quantities at a reasonable cost the global primary energy supply will continually be dominated by fossil fuels over the foreseeable future - regardless of the CO₂ emissions that constitute a major drawback of these fuels.

The previous considerations are behind developing a new book on this topic and caused the motivation. The book edited by Prof. Chavez provides a broad overview on several techniques feasible to developed and reduce the amount of CO₂ released into the atmosphere.

We are most grateful to the numerous authors who put so many times into writing outstanding chapters. This book includes all the relevant and current information on:

• Expand knowledge and research to establish criteria and solutions to reduce of
• GHG emissions.
• Awakening interest of new generations in knowledge and research in this area.
• Establish links between researchers, as well as in the academic community.
• Establish solutions to this huge climate change in the world.

Much information is completely updated. Although we believe that this book will provide a clear understanding of these techniques, we invite our readers to inform us about differences of opinion they may have with its contents and areas that need improvement.