Why isn’t the Environment the energy transition’s greenest sales pitch?
Part 2: The Technical Limit
In the first part of this series, we paused at the point where we realized that humans are driven by comforts, and sophistication. Needless to say, such increased complexities also mean an increase in electricity consumption. This can be felt even through our wallets before searching for statistics. So, we wonder,
what about an energy transition scenario that puts the comfort of the general public in the back-seat? Will the environment still take center-stage as the primary driver, or are there more pressing concerns?
Here we omit the motivation of the public (rather grossly at that), just to examine the point of view that motivates the tech-driven folks. Engineers, designers, and to some extent, policy makers. The pitch being, “we can not rely on fossil fuels for long, so we must come up with something else for the needs of an ever-demanding population”. Reiterating here that the public is assumed to not be involved in this exercise.
Let us set up the premise for this argument. Fossil fuels are not infinite. As the rate of replenishment is quite below the rate of consumption, it is a resource group that is fated to go extinct. This makes resources like sun and wind, which are essentially “forever” (we can have a separate discussion about the death of the sun ☀️, or such cases) very appealing.
This must also coincide with a staggered decrease in use of fossil fuels, which is a very big discussion today. Sounds about right? This also coincides with the interests of those concerned about the environment, so one can call it a win-win. However, the action on this premise must be based on sound engineering and logic, as against good intentions and rhetoric alone.
Today, as we switch on our lights💡, TV 📺 or anything, power generated from a plant used to be fed into the other side almost simultaneously. It travels through one big system with multiple inputs (power sources), multiple outputs (homes, offices, factories), and connections (transmission cables, relay stations, transformers, interconnectors).
This is the mega-machine called “the grid”. This system was developed decades ago, when we primarily depended on coal plants located hundreds of kilometers away from us to produce our electricity. All of this worked like a charm for a hundred years until we decided to do something out of the box.
Generate and feed-in power from renewables.
This leads to multiple issues. First and foremost, lies the hurdle of generation. Renewables are so erratic that we struggle to maintain the balance between supply and demand more often than not. Solar energy, for example, is available until sunset and not after. It is also affected by seasonal cycles. Not to mention, the efficiency of the current modules are anywhere near 21–23%, with power outputs of 250–800 Watt Peaks.
That is a lot of solar panels if we want to meet the needs of any part of any nation. Similar logic can be extended to wind, hydro and also to some extent, biomass energy which are the current popular “renewable” energy sources. Clearly, this needs a large surface area dedicated only to these power parks.
Renewables are thus constrained by the limitation of space and shade (urban environments), or in case of wind, the wake effect (this is the reason why windmills are not right next to each other). Then there is also the issue of consistent availability of sun or wind, which further limits the locations one can set these up. Much like the issue of scarcity, there is an equal inconvenience in their abundance.
We then have to resort to purposely reducing the amount of green energy fed-in or bringing in other (potentially “non-green”) energy sources to make sure that security of supply is maintained. Then there’s the problem that the wires can only handle so much. Building up more than the transmission capacity means that bringing these sources online can be a huge problem.
We are often left with gigawatts worth of clean energy installed, but left waiting to be made active. And we aren’t even getting into the pointed conversation of too many power-generating sources at a concentrated point.
All of this signifies that the grid is the most important constraint to the energy transition, because of its centrality to all stakeholders. While saving the environment by building up more green energy plays well along with people’s emotions, the reliability of our electricity supply is based on cold, hard logic. All this has to function like clockwork, because we most certainly know how humans behave when our power goes off in the middle of movie night ⬇️.
Bringing it together,
How do we handle increased consumption along with building-up generation from renewables/ weaning ourselves off fossils, while simultaneously retrofitting grids to transport all of this green electricity, which is not guaranteed for a 24/7 availability? 🤔
That is the burning question. However, we must sidestep the technical discussion right now, because it is tangential (however important) to our overarching discussion. In Part 1, we established a comfort over environment approach. In this part, even discounting the public, there is the dilemma of choosing between the environment and reliable infrastructure.
We say this because of the several environmental issues rising out of an increasing build of renewable sources. This includes issues of mining, ecological displacement, land repurposing, spot-heating (microclimate), danger posed to aerial life, just to name a few. Oh, did we also include the whole can of legal and social worms that are opened when your best solar park is to be made in the middle of a residential space, or by messing up that beautiful riverside or hilly area?
But regardless, countries are accelerating their energy transitions, meaning all these concerns are somewhat co-opted into the larger purpose of infrastructure push and an “idea of a green future”.
In plain words, the purpose of our science talk is to point out that we once again seem to choose something else (in this case, progress) over environment.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Going back to our initial argument, we can understand that any sales pitch for energy transition is perhaps “soulless” without the people in it. Thereby, their participation is important even as some elements, like the need to phase off fossil fuels, are true and carried into the discussion.
In the next part, we will examine what people can be moved by, which brings us to the choices made by individuals and how to move them in the direction of sustainability. Of course, that does not only include renewable energies.
Fin.
