Energy Quality and Efficiency
Electricity is high quality energy and can be converted to heat, mechanical or electromagnetic energy efficiently. Heat from burning fuel is low quality energy, used for simple tasks like water heating. Electrical energy is considered high quality due to efficiency when transformed. High-quality energies like electricity, coal, natural gas, nuclear, and petroleum are highly ordered and concentrated. However, electricity is believed to be the highest quality energy, followed by natural gas, oil, coal, and biofuels in order of quality. Energy production can negatively impact health and environment by burning fossil fuels, which is dangerous, versus nuclear and renewable energy which are cleaner. Energy brings benefits but has downsides. From health and climate perspective, transitioning from fossil fuels matters more than if switching to nuclear or renewable energy.
Energy Quality Evaluation
Industrialization affects energy quality evaluation methods. Two main methodologies used for energy quality calculation: receiver and donor methods. Main difference is whether quality upgrades during energy transformation.
Entropy and Energy Quality
Entropy describes energy quality. High quality means electrical, mechanical and some chemical stored energy like fossil fuels. Low quality means low temperature heat. High and low quality energy measured in same units. Most used are Joule (J) and kilowatt hour (kWh).
Differentiating Energy Sources
As you can see, nuclear energy has the highest capacity factor of any other energy source. This basically means nuclear power plants produce maximum power over 93% of the time. However, electricity believed the highest quality energy, followed by natural gas, oil, coal, and biofuels.