The discourse on climate change seemed to be turning a tide in recent years. With stakeholders across various industries becoming vocal advocates for a transition to renewable energy, a new age of energy production looked predetermined.
Despite the climate zeitgeist, the overwrought rhetoric and tactics from the most ardent climate activists in the face of the difficult physical and economic demands of a true energy transition have hamstrung realistic attempts at an effective transition policy regime. This is unfortunate, as lowering dependence on fossil fuels is a worthy goal whether the desired result is less carbon emissions or fewer geopolitical tensions.
Source: NASA
Source: Visual Capitalist
With international tensions elevated and inflation persisting the world over, it remains difficult to imagine significant sacrifices being made by less developed countries to decrease their carbon emissions in the near term. While developed countries have reduced their carbon emissions some, the increasing demand for energy worldwide has not seen much letting up.
Source: ourworldindata.org
The toughest obstacle in the transition to renewable energy comes from the sheer feasibility of relying predominantly on solar and wind energy in any modern economy. Developed and developing countries alike rely on cheap and reliable energy, as businesses and the general populace will not put up with unaffordable bills or intermittent blackouts without replacing their political leadership.
Energy is an input into every sector of the economy and is required to be available on demand in the modern world. Currently, the ability of solar and wind to provide baseload power to energy grids on a mass scale may prove more difficult than many pundits claim. And as electric vehicles continue to replace internal combustion engines, all of this electricity required to charge them would put further strain on the electric grid. Right now, these EVs are still being fueled primarily by electricity created by burning fossil fuels in the United States.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Renewable energy sources should of course play a pivotal role in any form of energy transition, as there are locations where the sun shines brightly and wind blows reliably. But the idea that the technology exists to scale an energy grid that can store and transmit energy reliably in places less suitable for wind and solar is controversial at best. For times when the sun is not shining, or the wind is not blowing, this energy needs to be stored in batteries, and the environmental and economic toll of building this type of storage apparatus remains daunting.
Source: U.S. Dept of Energy – NREL
Instead of resting the fate of decarbonization on renewables alone, a mixed approach seems like the more sensible approach. Ramped up natural gas production resulting from the fracking boom has helped reduce the reliance on crude oil and coal while emitting far less carbon in the atmosphere per megawatt generated. Its continued use for reliable energy in any climate or geography should not hold the same stigma as other fossil fuel sources.
Source: The Met Group
What could prove the most powerful method for rapid decarbonization while maintaining a reliable energy grid throughout the world is nuclear energy. Energy resulting from nuclear fission, a technological achievement of the Mid-20th Century, has been scorned as unsafe and expensive for decades. But in light of the difficulties posed by an energy transition in an increasingly energy reliant world, it could end up as the most feasible option for powering base load energy. The next Macro View post will discuss the possibility of an energy transition relying heavily on this technology and the headwinds that further adoption faces.