Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Renewable Revolution
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Renewable Revolution
“RENEWABLE REVOLUTION”
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SIMONE MALACRIDA
Simone Malacrida (1977)
Engineer and writer, has worked on research, finance, energy policy and industrial plants.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Mohandas Gandhi
The book focuses on the particular role of renewable energy sources in the current context of social, political and technological revolutions and a crucial historical shift in the future reconciliation between development and the environment. New industrial and geopolitical balances impose a radical re-examination of some pre-existing concepts and the changing relationships between technology, society and daily life. The book is the second in an energy trilogy.
ANALYTICAL INDEX
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
ON THE THRESHOLD OF A REVOLUTION?
Talking about renewable sources and alternative energies is certainly not original. The subject, very fashionable nowadays, seems to have been gutted so many times as to not allow any significant addition to the energy, social and cultural debate that has seen a real boom in recent years.
Yet it is not so. It is not for a trivial fact that scientists, especially mathematicians, are well aware of. The solution of an equation does not depend only on the equation (as it is obvious that it is) but also on the "boundary conditions", i.e. on all those situations which delimit and determine the field of action of the equation and the way of propagation of the properties from the initial problem to the solution found. In other words, by changing the boundary conditions, the same problem has different solutions and evolutions.
And this is precisely the contingent and current situation. In addressing the issue of renewable energies, new conditions have arisen, while others have changed. From this point of view, it makes sense to redefine and reposition the role of alternative sources to understand where this new solution will lead us.
Of course, there will be some surprises if you are used to reasoning with the "old" scheme and you will realize this both in this introduction and in the chapters of the book and in the final conclusions.
Here, it is necessary to introduce what were the boundary conditions that have changed and what is the new background context.
On a changeable, but nonetheless foreseen scenario, real discontinuities have arisen that have distorted the panorama.
What was widely foreseen by numerous studies and by every sociological survey is substantially the idea that there will be a widespread increase in living standards on the planet and that, at the same time, the human population will increase in number, up to nine billion individuals in 2050.
These two predicted data led to a simple conclusion. The world's energy demand will increase substantially. Hence the first question: how to satisfy these new energy needs? And from this question, the classic predictions and decisions descended.
The points of discontinuity with respect to this general approach, on the other hand, have been quite numerous and have followed one another in a very pressing way over the last three years. Among them we mention:
- the increase in the price of raw materials and, in particular, of oil
- the financial crisis of 2008-2010
- the oil rig accident in the Gulf of Mexico during the summer of 2010
- the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in spring 2011
- the social revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa of 2011
- the crisis of the European area of 2011, in particular referring to Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy
To analyze the impact of each of these facts on the global energy, social, geopolitical and economic system, entire books dedicated to each event would be needed and this obviously goes beyond the scope of this paper.
What is important to point out about these events is that, taken individually, they would not have been able to undermine an existing system, but if seen in their totality they give a very real idea of how the current situation is not the same as the one before -crisis. In other words, what was written and predicted before 2008-2009 is largely superseded by reality itself. Similarly, the solutions envisaged before 2009 are no longer valid, precisely because the surrounding conditions have changed.
By way of example, we cite only the fact that nuclear energy and forecasts on the future of electricity production from this source did not take into account the dramatic impact of the Japanese accident or that no sociological survey of Arab countries took into consideration the possibility of such a rapid overthrow of existing regimes.
In this new context, a new way of conceiving renewable sources is therefore needed, not because it is beautiful or to fill other pages of a book, but because, given the recent changes, it has become an urgent need if we really want to understand how to direct change. As will be clear at the end of the book, change and the future will happen anyway, even without our consent, we "only" have to choose whether to undergo this change, govern it, understand it or predict it.
To expose what has already been argued in a new way, it is necessary to introduce new arguments and possibilities that were previously considered purely imaginative, but which are now real and concrete potentialities.
This book follows exactly the vein just exposed and does so both in structural and in substantial terms.
In terms of exposition, the first three chapters are "canonical" and "classical" trying to introduce the issue of renewable energies in the existing energy context, describing what the renewable sources are and seeing the particular case of Italy. However, within them there are already the seeds of the new way of approaching the problem; in almost every paragraph, the new perspective and new vision will already be highlighted.
In the central chapters, the fourth, fifth and sixth, the main points of the discussion and the foundations of the new perspective are addressed, respectively in the links with research, politics, economy, the environment and society.
Particular attention will be given to the environment and to environmental disasters perpetrated by man as the energy vulnerability revolves around the very concept of the relationship between humanity and planet Earth.
Only by starting from research will there be that push towards renewable energies to make them integrated, efficient and functional, but only by arriving at a geopolitical and social level will it be possible to witness that great planetary change which is the new solution to the energy problem.
The final chapter will trace future forecasts and will take shape the idea behind this book, that of the fundamental energy revolution.
All the data for a new revolution are already there. We have witnessed two key passages in the past of contemporary society, one at the beginning of the 19th century and one at the beginning of the 20th century. In both there was a concurrence of change between social, industrial, cultural, political and energy aspects.
It is easy to see that the First Industrial Revolution took place in the first decades of the 19th century, following the discoveries and research made at the end of the 18th century on a particular branch of physics, thermodynamics. These researches focused attention on coal as an energy source for producing steam and thus fundamentally changing the very concept of machine and work.
On a social level, this has led to the creation of large industrial clusters, generating new and different problems with respect to the past, such as pollution, the assembly line and effectively creating a new social class: the proletariat. Hand in hand, new forms of power management were establishing themselves which replaced the last legacies of feudal aristocracy, a political system typically linked to an agricultural society. At the same time, a new form of communication such as that of newspapers was also spreading. It has been underlined several times how the drastic change of the first decades of the 19th century was not only industrial and energy, but also political, cultural and social and these simple considerations support this thesis. On the other hand, it is the very pervasive and all-encompassing essence of energy that implies this global perspective change.
Similarly, in the first decades of the twentieth century, the Second Industrial Revolution, which imposed oil as the primary energy source, had a political counterpart in the constitution in concrete form (actually, there were already many ideas about it in the previous century) of the two great ideologies of the twentieth century, communism and capitalism, and at the level of information technology in the emergence of the telephone, radio and television.
The society that arose from here is, broadly speaking, the current one, with uses and customs that have adapted to all this new energy flow available.
In the last twenty years, there has been a Third Industrial Revolution based on services and information technology (for which we now speak of a post-industrial society) which has gone hand in hand with the end of the "mass" production system and with the 'advent of a third generation of communications, given by the Internet and mobile phones.
Now, the discontinuities mentioned above have highlighted that we are on the threshold of a third energy revolution, based on renewable sources precisely because the current model is under discussion, based on predominantly fossil non-renewable sources which, not by chance, are at the origin of all the rupture events mentioned above.
As in those that have already passed, a revolution of this kind would take on the characteristics of the energy source responsible for the change. The Seven Sisters arose from oil, from the intrinsic nature of renewable sources it could (and logically should) arise in a bidirectional distributed model.
In turn, this would have consequences on the economic and political system, such as the beginning of a new widespread democratic era and a more egalitarian economic system in a society that pays ever greater attention to the quality of life linked to a more responsible vision of environmental impacts, energy efficiency and a more conscious use of the resources at our disposal.
It will be understood how much this revolution is possible and depends on us (and not so much on international bodies), only at the end of the book, in the conclusions. At the beginning, it was necessary to have an understanding of the situation and the peculiarity of this historical passage in order to redesign the society of tomorrow.
The choice is only up to us.
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1
THE ENERGY CONTEXT
In order to correctly introduce renewable sources, it is first necessary to outline the energy context in which they are located. If this were not done, the fundamental background given by the frame of reference would be lost and, therefore, what we are going to expose in this book would be devoid of a compass by which to orient ourselves in the intricate maze of numbers, problems and connections that the energy establishes.
The energy context is first and foremost characterized by the global picture, a view "from above" on the real dimensions of the energy factor and what role renewable sources have at this given moment. It goes without saying that, given the intrinsic dynamism in everything, this framework is destined to change, even radically, just as there have been epochal upheavals in the past.
On the other hand, without understanding the current contingent there is no possibility of understanding the way to the future.
The energetic context is also completed by two concomitant factors. First of all, energy efficiency which, in itself, is not an energy source either fossil or renewable or of any other type, but which plays a primary role when it comes to research, the future, geopolitics, economy, society and the environment.
Finally, the question of complexity cannot be avoided. Energy is a "difficult" topic precisely because it fits into a theory of complexity that is well suited to it.
This initial picture presented is to be kept in mind in each paragraph of the following chapters, as a kind of reminiscence to which everything belongs.
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The global energy picture
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World energy demand increased tenfold during the 20th century from 1,000 to 10,000 Mtoe. Mtoe means "millions of tons of oil equivalent" and is the unit of measurement used to compare the various sources of energy.
This increase is due to the constant growth of the world population and to the greater need for energy per capita for the uses that have gradually been introduced during the last century (cars and transport in general, the heating systems of houses and offices and the distribution of electricity and electrical appliances).
From 2000 to today, demand has grown further, reaching around 12,500 Mtoe in 2010.
This world primary energy is mainly used in three different sectors: transport, electricity and the domestic, residential and industrial heating (and conditioning) sector.
The percentages of use in these sectors, as well as the differences between world, European and Italian use, are shown below, also considering the percentages relating to the same sectors in 1973, a year considered a watershed in the second part of the twentieth century by virtue of the onset of the first oil crisis.
- Domestic, residential and industrial sector:
a) global percentage today 35.2% (in 1973 it was 37.5%)
b) European percentage today 36.3% (in 1973 it was 38.1%)
c) Italian percentage today 35.7% (in 1973 it was 37.7%)
- Transport sector:
a) world percentage today 34.7% (in 1973 it was 31%)
b) European percentage today 33.2% (in 1973 it was 31.9%)
c) Italian percentage today 34.1% (in 1973 it was 31.8%)
- Electric energy:
a) world percentage today 30.1% (in 1973 it was 31.5%)
b) European percentage today 30.5% (in 1973 it was 30%)
c) Italian percentage today 30.2% (in 1973 it was 30.5%)
As can be seen, the percentages are quite homogeneous both in terms of geographical area and in terms of historical trend. The main use of the energy produced is given by the regulation of the temperature of private homes, offices and industries, while the smaller share is for the production of electricity. From these data also derives the elimination of a classic error which is often perpetrated also in the writings dedicated to the experts of the sector. Many times we tend to confuse the energy problem with the production of electricity, while here it is clearly indicated that it is only 30% of the whole matter.
In other words, all those who think of solving the energy problem by focusing only on the production of electricity are on the wrong track. Only if all world transport were powered by electricity and all homes, offices and industries were electrically heated, only then would the energy problem coincide with the production of electricity, but this situation is far from being the current reality and the near future .
The transport sector is dominated by the use of oil, with 96%, electricity is present at 2% (mainly trains and subways), while 1% is given by natural gas and 1% by the use of biofuels to replace petroleum. These percentages are more or less homogeneous for almost all the countries in the world.
The residential sector is instead dominated by natural gas (31% at world level, 38% at European level, 45% at Italian level) with significant shares due to coal (respectively 15%, 13%, 10% always in the order indicated above ) and oil (27% uniform almost all over the world). In many parts of the world, especially the less well-off, wood is still a primary source for heating buildings. The remainder is due both to the contribution of electricity and to that of renewable sources.
The production of electricity, on the other hand, is highly diversified and depends on the connected industrial context. For example, France depends almost entirely on nuclear energy, while in Italy 54% is due to natural gas. Worldwide, the following “ranking” can be done
Coal: 39%
Natural Gas: 19%
Hydroelectric Energy: 17%
Nuclear Energy: 15%
Oil: 6%
Other renewable sources (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass): 4%
which thus becomes at the European level
Coal: 32%
Nuclear Energy: 29%
Natural Gas: 21%
Hydroelectric Energy: 10%
Oil: 4%
Other renewable sources (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass): 4%
And so on the Italian level
Natural Gas: 54%
Hydroelectric Energy: 15%
Coal: 14%
Oil: 11%
Other renewable sources (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass): 6%
Nuclear Energy: 0%
The last 35 years have witnessed the worldwide collapse of the percentage of oil for the production of electricity, the substantial stability of coal mainly for economic reasons, the notable increases in natural gas, geothermal and nuclear energy and the emergence in last 35 years of renewable sources such as wind or photovoltaics.
Europe is characterized by a greater dependence on nuclear power (mainly due to the weight of France and Switzerland) and by a greater development of wind and solar photovoltaic energy. On the other hand, Italy shows a very clear trend in the use of natural gas compared to coal, in the more abundant use of geothermal resources and biomass compared to the very low percentages of other renewable sources and in the total absence of the contribution due to nuclear energy. In addition, it should be emphasized that our country is not independent in terms of electricity, importing about 15% (primarily from neighboring countries) of the electricity needed to satisfy national consumption.
At the level of individual sources, world primary energy can be divided as follows:
Oil: 34%
Natural Gas: 26%
Coal: 21%
Renewable sources: 13%
Nuclear Energy: 5%
Wood: 1%
As can be seen, fossil fuels clearly predominate, covering 82% of the total and non-renewable sources 87% (fossil fuels plus nuclear power).
Oil is still the first source of primary energy, due to its high weight in the transport sector. However, it must be said that the trend says interesting things about the future and we will see it shortly.
The main oil producing countries are almost all located in the Middle East region (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Libya) with significant presences of the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Norway, China, Canada and Russia (second largest producer in the world ). It must be said that, over the last thirty years, Middle Eastern oil has gradually become less and less decisive. As far as natural gas is concerned, there is no doubt that the first producer is Russia, followed by the United States, Canada, Iran, Algeria, Norge, Libya and the United Arab Emirates. For coal, the leading producer is China, with a share exceeding 40% above all for economic reasons of extraction, significant shares are also found for the United States, South Africa, Australia, India and Russia. The major producers of uranium, necessary to fuel nuclear power plants, are Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, Russia. For renewable sources it is difficult to make a classification and a distinction between producers and consumers, as production and consumption are local, but it can be said that, for hydroelectric energy, the main producers (and therefore consumers) are China, Canada, Brazil, the United States and Russia.
If we consider the percentages of each country for each individual energy source and "weigh" these percentages on how much each source affects world primary energy, we can establish which country in the world supports the world's energy demand the most. This nation Russiaalone contributes 11% of the world's primary energy.
On the consumer side, the nations most "hungry" for energy are the United States and Europe, due to the high standard of living of their inhabitants, and China, India, due to the large population. This applies to any energy source, there are cases in which, for example Sweden and la Finlandia, wood is still decisive or, as in France, there is the maximum consumption of energy from nuclear plants or Norge and Brazil which depend very much on energy hydroelectricity, but the decisive factors for energy consumption in each sector remain on the one hand the living standards, on the other the number of inhabitants.
The world energy context outlined so far is a snapshot of the current state, as such it is only representative of what is the reality today. Since society and the planet are constantly evolving, this context cannot remain unchanged for the future any more than it has in the past. In fact, if we had painted such a picture in the 1970s, different things would necessarily have been said.
It therefore remains to be seen what the future developments are. A premise is a must though. For the future of renewable sources and for all the related implications, please refer to the last chapter when some fundamental elements such as geopolitics, the economy, research and the environment will be clearer.
The first easily feasible prediction is that energy demand is bound to increase. The 12,500 Mtoe of 2010 will no longer be enough in the future as the world population will rise to 9 billion individuals and they will have better living standards with a consequent increase in per capita energy consumption. By 2050, annual world energy demand is projected to be 24,000 Mtoe, a substantial doubling, and electricity generation to triple.
At the sectoral level, the percentages will move slightly, but we will see a progressive increase in electricity to the detriment of the weight of transport and the heating of homes and buildings. The problem of electricity production will therefore become dominant.
In the transport sector, oil will see its absolute primacy eroded and that 96% share will fall in favor of natural gas, biofuels and electricity.
At the residential level, we will see the ever more affirmation of natural gas, electricity and renewable sources to the detriment of oil and coal.
For the production of electricity, coal will significantly erode its shares by "giving them" to natural gas and renewables. Oil will continue its decline and nuclear energy will remain completely marginal, especially after the Fukushima accident and the reactions from many states to end or put a stop to national nuclear programs, for example la Germania(barring the surprise of a fourth generation which, for now, is not probable).
At the individual source level, therefore, natural gas will overtake oil as the primary energy resource, coal and nuclear power will have less weight and renewable sources will increase it.
Precisely for this reason, producing countries such as Russia will become even more important from a geopolitical and energy point of view, while the Middle East will gradually lose its specific weight on world energy decisions.
For consuming countries, China and India will overtake both Europe and the United States.
Very briefly, it can be said that the future will increasingly be the prerogative of electricity, natural gas and renewable sources and that, alongside the Europe – United States – Middle East triad, there will be another date from Russia – China – India.
As regards specifically the future of renewable sources and the role of a possible and eventual fundamental energy revolution, see the last chapter, as already mentioned.
Now, to provide an initial and summary picture of the energy world, it should be made clear what the current role of renewable sources is and what is meant by energy efficiency and complexity, two concepts without which it is not possible to understand what will be said in the next chapter.
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The role of renewable sources
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As is clear from the previous paragraph, the current percentage of renewable resources is still low compared to fossil fuels.
In fact, over the last 35 years, the global percentage share of energy produced from these sources has remained virtually unchanged, passing from 13.5% to 13%, even though the increase in general production has led to an obvious increase in production from renewable energy sources as well. In the same period, in Europe the percentage rose, on average, from 14% to 15% and in Italy from 15% to 16%, mainly thanks to hydroelectric energy.
The property of being inexhaustible sources, without worrying about reserves and their location, certainly makes them fundamental for the future of humanity, above all if we consider that fossil fuels will not survive this century, with the possible exception of coal.
And this is the key point. In the distant future, only renewable sources will be able to guarantee a balance between environmental sustainability, energy demand and above all security of supply that is almost unlimited over time.
What we are experiencing now is, inevitably, a transitional phase. To feed our needs, we are consuming a disproportionate amount of energy (in the last 100 years we have consumed more energy than man ever did from his appearance millions of years ago until 1900), but above all we are doing it with fossils, the residue of millions of years of evolution and which we are using in a whirling way without being able to reproduce them in the laboratory and to replenish the reserves.
Furthermore, by doing this, we are progressively polluting the planet, both at the level of local ecosystems and, more widely, by contributing to the increase in the earth's average temperature through factors of solely anthropic origin.
The picture itself is very linear.
The current energy system is not fit for the future and is therefore bound to be replaced. From what? From renewable sources, precisely because they have fundamental properties including being inexhaustible.
We will see all the possible implications of this in the last chapter, now it is only convenient to remember that, nowadays, renewable sources are used as a "compendium" to fossil ones, without having determined a real new way of conceiving society, the economy and politics.
The role, therefore, is secondary, subordinate and ancillary, but it will not remain so for much longer. Our children will live in a world in which renewable sources will have a much more decisive and, perhaps, totally primary weight. It is up to us to deliver to future generations effective ways to exploit these resources.
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Impressum
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 18.04.2023
ISBN: 978-3-7554-3912-7
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