The Road to Energy Independence
In recent decades, due to population growth and rapid economic development, demand for energy has increased. The most significant growth in electricity generation is observed in developing countries that are not members of the OECD. This advancement emerged despite several oil crises and the economic recession in 2009. As a result, consumption raised from $ 10 billion to $ 13.7 billion between 2000 and 2014. An increase in electricity production in non-OECD countries reaches an average of 1.9% per year, as rising living standards are boosting the demand for household appliances and electronic devices. There is also a higher need for commercial services, including hospitals, schools, administrative buildings, and shopping centers.
In OECD countries, where the infrastructures are advanced and the population growth is relatively restrained or decreasing, the demand for energy rises at the slower pace than it was in the past. Despite this trends, by 2040, we still expect energy demand to grow by about 30%. For the idea, this could be equivalent to the current demand for China and India together. Without improving energy efficiency, the increase in final energy consumption would more than double. Luckily, it seems that higher adoption of renewable sources predicts the end of the coal power plants.
The growth of electricity consumption is directly proportional to its production. Long-term global outlooks predict continuing improvement in the production of renewable energy and natural gas. Renewable energy sources are the fastest growing source of energy for electricity generation with an expected average increase of 2.8% per year between 2015 and 2040, where more than half of it comes from wind power. Renewables, together with natural gas and nuclear energy, are the most dynamically expanding power sources.
Many nations, particularly the OECD member countries, are adopting environmental policies and regulations aimed at intensifying pressure on electricity producers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by reducing the use of fossil fuels. As a result, coal ceases to be the cheapest fuel for power plants. Coal production increases by 0.4%/year, compared to an increase of 2.8% per year in the planned production of renewable energy sources. By 2040, at the global level, renewable energy production might surpass the production of electricity from coal.
Concerns about energy security and greenhouse gas emissions encourage the development of new nuclear capacities. In the reference case IEO2017, nuclear power generation should increase globally from 2.5 trillion kWh in 2015 to 3.7 trillion kWh in 2040. Most of the expansion of the world installed nuclear power capacity occurs in non-OECD countries. The total capacity of all OECD nuclear power plants is set to fall by 14 GW from 2015 to 2040. Concerns over the safety of nuclear power plants after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011, resulted in a reduction in production capacities in the United States, Canada, OECD countries, Europe, and in Japan. This decline was partly offset by new nuclear power plants in China, India and South Korea.
When we say nuclear power we do not only mean a reactor but the whole nuclear cycle. This also includes uranium mining, it’s processing, transport as well as dealing with the burned fuel, or other materials and waste generated in the process. Each of these processes is showing risks to the health of the population and the environment.
Let’s go back to the energy security. There are only a few nations that produce and own uranium resources. The most of these uranium reserves are located in Russia, Uzbekistan, Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, and Namibia. The nuclear power plants in the rest of the world are therefore dependent on the economic and political situation in these countries. For example, Slovakia and a lot of post-soviet European countries are 100% depending on imports of nuclear fuel from Russia.
An important advantage of solar and, to a certain extent, other renewable systems is that they are distributable and can be close to the consumption points, thereby reducing the loss of electricity transmission at larger distances of traditional power plants. Not only here, in FUERGY, we see many approaches leading to the decentralized energy production and the consumption of electric energy as close to the source as possible. If a renewable energy source with accumulation is available to every consumer today, pressure on the capacity of the distribution and transmission systems would be significantly reduced. The goal is to consume the generated electricity on the same network where it was produced, whether it is a site connected to a transmission system or a micro-grid.
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