Surowce energetyczne są podstawą dla wytwarzania energii w formie ciepła i prądu na Ziemi. Obecne rozwiązania dotyczące konstrukcji bezpiecznych i ekonomicznych reaktorów jądrowych, jak również proces wykorzystania energii z odnawialnych źródeł energii, ponadto przyszłościowe rozwiązania otrzymywania czystej energii z wodoru, ogniw paliwowych i innych źródeł mają decydujący wpływ na zmianę tego tradycyjnego podejścia. Niemniej jednak, kopalne surowce energetyczne (ropa naftowa, gaz ziemny i węgiel) nie mają obecnie substytutów, które sprostałyby wymaganemu zapotrzebowaniu na energię. W artykule omówiono problemy i wyzwania związane z wykorzystaniem kopalnych paliw w energetyce polskiej. Przybliżono stan zasobów (bilansowych i przemysłowych) pierwotnych nośników energii: węgla kamiennego, węgla brunatnego, ropy naftowej, gazu ziemnego i metanu pokładów węgla. Zwrócono szczególną uwagę, że bardzo duże zasoby węgla kamiennego i brunatnego mogą i powinny być wykorzystywane w gospodarce kraju. Przeszkodą dla długoterminowego wykorzystania tych nośników w energetyce jest polityka energetyczno-klimatyczna Unii Europejskiej, która zdecydowanie zmierza do znaczącej redukcji emisji gazów cieplarnianych. Dokonano również omówienia stanu obecnego krajowej energetyki konwencjonalnej, jak również zarysu jej przyszłości. Zwrócono uwagę, że zapewnienie bezpieczeństwa dostaw energii elektrycznej będzie wymagało znacznego wysiłku inwestycyjnego zarówno w sektorze wytwórczym, jak i sieciowym. Artykuł zwieńcza omówienie problemów i wyzwań związanych z funkcjonowaniem krajowego sektora energii. Należy podkreślić, że nadszedł czas na podjęcie przez rząd strategicznych decyzji, dotyczących kształtowania przyszłej struktury paliwowej systemu wytwarzania energii. Polska musi w dalszym ciągu zmierzać w kierunku gospodarki niskoemisyjnej, a rozwój zaawansowanych technologii ograniczających emisję i podniesienie efektywności energetycznej to właściwy kierunek działań.

Postęp cywilizacji jest nieodmiennie związany z coraz szybszym wytwarzaniem odpadów. Kwestia odpadów stała się już globalnym problemem. Na całym świecie opracowuje się nowe technologie utylizacji odpadów i metody zastosowania ich w przemyśle. Jedną z takich możliwości jest wykorzystanie palnych frakcji odpadów w charakterze źródła energii.

The changes in the domestic solid fuel market (including forecasted increases in the fuel prices) and the growing requirements related to actual environmental standards, result in increased interest in renewable energy sources, such as biomass, wind and solar energy. These sources will allow to achieve reduction in the CO2 emission, and consequently – avoid environmental costs after 2020. Therefore, the development of distributed energy systems, based on the use of biomass boilers, gas boilers and high efficiency combined heat and power units, will enable the fulfillment of current standards in the field of energy efficiency and emission of pollutants to the atmosphere. It should be emphasized that the actions taken to reduce emissions (e.g. anti-smog act) will contribute to reducing coal consumption in the municipal and housing sector (households, agriculture and other customers) in favor of biomass and other renewable energy sources. The article reviews selected biomass technologies:

- fluidized, dust and grate boilers,

- straw-fired boilers,

- cogeneration systems powered by biomass,

- torrefaction and biomass carbonisation.

The mentioned technologies are characterized by a high potential of in the field of dynamic development and practical application in the coming years. Thus, they can improve difficult situation in the distributed energy sector with a capacity up to 50 MW.

The cement industry has been using waste as a raw material for many years. Waste is also used as alternative fuel. Cement plants are an important element of the waste management system and fit the idea of a circular economy. When waste is recovered in the cement production process, direct and indirect CO ₂ emissions are partially avoided. This article discusses the cement industry in Poland. The current situation in terms of the use of alternative fuels and raw materials in Poland, the different types of waste and the amount of waste used is discussed. The article discusses changes in the amount of waste (the increase in the amount of waste used as raw materials from the year 2006 to the year 2019) and the types of waste recovered in the cement production process and the possibility of closing material cycles on the plant scale (recycling to the primary process – cement kiln dust) and industry (using waste from other industries: metallurgy – granulated blast furnace slag, iron bearings; energy production – fly ash, reagypsum/phosphogypsum, fluidized bed combustion fly ash, and fluidized bed combustion bottom ash; wastewater treatment plants – sewage sludge, etc.). The analysis shows that the role of cement plants in waste management and the circular economy in Poland is important. Industrial waste from metallurgy, power plants, heat and power plants, wastewater treatment plants, and municipal waste is used as the raw material for the cement industry, leading to an industrial symbiosis.

The use of biomass in the energy industry is the consequence of ongoing efforts to replace Energy from fossil fuels with energy from renewable sources. However, due to the diversity of the biomass, its use as a solid fuel generates waste with diverse and unstable chemical composition. Waste from biomass combustion is a raw material with a very diverse composition, even in the case of using only one type of biomass. The content of individual elements in fly ash from the combustion of biomass ranges from zero to tens of percent. This makes it difficult to determine the optimal recovery methods. The ashes from the combustion of biomass are most commonly used in the production of building materials and agriculture. This article presents the elemental composition of the most commonly used biomass fuels. The results of the analysis of elemental composition of fly ashes from the combustion of forest and agricultural biomass in fluidized bed boilers used in the commercial power industry were presented. These ashes are characterized by a high content of calcium (12.3–19.4%), silicon (1.2–8.3%), potassium (0.05–1.46%), chlorine (1.1–6.1%), and iron (0.8–6.5%). The discussed ashes contained no sodium. Aluminum was found only in one of the five ashes. Manganese, chromium, copper, nickel, lead, zinc, sulfur, bismuth, titanium and zirconium were found in all of the examined ashes. The analysis of elemental composition may allow for a preliminary assessment of the recovery potential of a given ash.

The progress of civilization is inevitably connected with the ever increasing production of waste. Waste has become humanity's global problem. All over the world, new_ technologies are being developed that strive to decrease the amount of waste and seek ways of utilizing waste in industry. One of the opportunities for this involves the use of the combustible fractions of waste as an energy source.

The alternative waste fuels have a significant share in the fuel mix of the cement industry in Poland. The conditions inside cement kilns are favorable enough for environmentally-friendly use of waste fuels. In the article, the authors discuss the current situation concerning the use of alternative fuels in Poland, from difficult beginning in the 1990s to the present time, different kinds of fuels, and the amounts of used fuels. The use of fuels in Poland is presented against the global and EU consumption (including Central European countries and companies). The increased use of waste-derived fuels, from the level of about 1% at the end of the 1990s to the present level of about 70%, allowed for the limitation of waste storage, including avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions and consumption of conventional energy sources; those effects also contributed to the implementation of the sustainable development and circular economy conceptions. The experiences of the cement plants worldwide prove that the use of waste fuels is ecological and economical. The examples showed in the article confirm that cement plants are greatly interested in using waste fuels from waste, as they invest in the infrastructure allowing to store bigger amounts of waste and dose them more efficiently. Thus, the cement industry has become an important element of the country’s energy economy and waste management system.

In the era of the fight against global warming and in light of the search for energy with the least possible impact on the environment, interest in hydrogen has become a natural direction of development. Striving for a zero-emission Europe by 2050, the EU promotes low-emission and ultimately emission-free hydrogen for the widest possible use in the economy. Poland has developed a strategic document specifying the necessary activities for the use of hydrogen in the economy, which should at the same time maintain its competitiveness. Poland is currently the third producer of hydrogen in the European Union, which enables strategic thinking about maintaining Poland as a leading player on the hydrogen market in the long term. Currently, hydrogen in Poland is produced by (usually large) state-owned enterprises for their own needs with only a small margin of its resale. This is conventional hydrogen that is mainly obtained from natural gas. Therefore, it is difficult to talk about the hydrogen market, which must develop so that this raw material can be widely used in many branches of the modern economy. However, this requires taking a number of legislative, research and development and investment activities, as well as directing the national energy transformation to renewable energy sources, which may ultimately reduce the costs of pure hydrogen production. A number of actions have been taken, but the delay in legislative actions is slowing down the creation of the hydrogen market and is limiting the interest of private businesses in engaging in transformation activities.