Strategic Aspects of Energy

Abstract

The history of mankind is that of its ascent to unprecedented levels of comfort, productivity, and consumption—enabled by the increased mastery of the basic stocks and flows of energy. Intensive use of electricity in particular has enabled the 3rd and 4th industrial revolutions, the latter is on-going with the progressive fusion of the natural and digital worlds. Such innovations drive and are supported by a global urbanization trend, leading to futuristic mega-cities. And while about 20% of the global population are at the forefront of this development, the remaining 80% wish to attain the same standard. This requires a massive growth in the overall supply of electricity, in particular in concentrated form to power mega-cities and e-mobility.

This miraculous trajectory is confronted by the consensus that anthropogenic CO₂ emissions must decrease, requiring de-carbonization of the energy system, and more generally a decoupling of economic growth and development from CO₂ emission and departure from unsustainable practices. Modern renewables are often proposed as the way forward. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is by far the densest available form of energy and, unlike intermittent renewables, it has proven to be continuously available. But, it has been left out of many energy scenarios and strategies. There are serious concerns about whether sources like wind and solar alone will be sufficient to power expansion of human populations and prosperity. The mature field of sustainability analysis provides a rigorous systematic way to balance the pros and cons of the existing energy technologies, via lifecycle assessments and weighting criteria covering the environment, society, and economy. In such a framework, nuclear power is ranked favorably but, as a strong emphasis is often put on husbandry of radioactive wastes and dread of radiations, renewables are usually top-ranked by politicians and the general public.

Annexes

Fig. 1.18

World’s fastest growing economies (Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2016)

Fig. 1.19

CO₂ emissions makeup by sectors and regions in Gt (Giga tons) over the time period 1990–2014. The “Other” category includes agriculture, non-energy use (such as cement), oil and gas extraction and energy transformation (such as refining) (Source: International Energy Agency (2016), World Energy Outlook Special Report, OECD/IEA, Paris)

Fig. 1.20

ETP model: technology, bottom-up analysis of the global energy system (Source: International Energy Agency (2016), Energy Technology Perspectives 2016, OECD/IEA, Paris)

Fig. 1.21

Economic growth drives energy demand but not proportionately due to improvements in energy efficiency, production of high value low energy goods like iPhones, and low energy high value services like Netflix: Global GDP grows by 107% while energy demand grows by 34%. (Source: BP 2016 Energy Outlook)

Fig. 1.22

Decline in world energy intensity and world energy demand in the three alternative scenarios. Toe stands for ton of oil equivalent (Source: BP 2016 Energy Outlook). The % decline in energy intensities for different scenarios shown in the left bar graph are used to project different energy demand scenarios into the future

Fig. 1.23

Significant changes in the fuel mix projected in the BP Energy outlook: Oil and coal shares are seen to decrease and renewables and gas shares are seen to increase. The largest projected growth is expected to be that of renewables. (Source: BP 2016 Energy Outlook)

Fig. 1.24

Shares in primary energy demand in the three different scenarios for 2050 (6DS, 4DS, 2DS) and the situation in 2013 (Source: International Energy Agency, Energy Technology Perspectives 2016)

Fig. 1.25

Energy makeup projections for time period 2010–2050, reproduced from MIT Energy and Climate Outlook (Reilly, J., Paltsev, S., Monier, E., Chen, H., Sokolov, A., Huang, J., & Schlosser, A. (2015). Energy & climate outlook: perspectives from 2015. MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Available at: http://globalchange.mit.edu/files/2015%20Energy,20,26). These projections are at odds with Figs. 1.6 and 1.7, illustrating some of the differences between the BP, IEA and MIT views on the energy future

Fig. 1.26

Left: Scenario of global primary energy use (in (exajoules)); Right: Changes in outlook from 2014 to 2017 also in exajoules. 1 EJ (exajoules) corresponds to 23.88 Mtoe. Reproduced from MIT Energy and Climate Outlook (2015)

Fig. 1.27

Critical uncertainties in the PSI’s Energy Trilemma (PSI, World Energy Scenarios: The Grand Transition, October 2016, https://www.worldenergy.org/work-programme/strategic-insight/global-energy-scenarios/). PSI is the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland, a Swiss National Laboratory funded within the ETH domain (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)

Fig. 1.28

Global per capita annual primary energy consumption peaking before 2030; reproduced from PSI, World Energy Scenarios: The Grand Transition, October 2016 (PSI, World Energy Scenarios: The Grand Transition, October 2016, https://www.worldenergy.org/work-programme/strategic-insight/global-energy-scenarios/). The peak of 80 GJ can be expressed in toe (ton of oil equivalent) units as equal to 0.570 toe annual consumption per capita on average for the World. In comparison, Brits consume ~ 5 toe while Canadians consume about 10 toe. This comparison suggests that energy efficiency needs to accelerate so much that it is able to compensate for the increasing need for energy of the 85% of the world population who are trying to catch up with the developed world in terms of quality of life

Table 1.4 Overview of outcomes of studies and short-listed studies (Source: Prognos, Analysis and comparison of relevant mid- and long-term energy scenarios for EU and their key underlying assumptions, 2011: Basel/Berlin)

Table 1.5 Environmental criteria and indicators established in the NEEDS project^a

Table 1.6 Economic criteria and indicators established in the NEEDS project ^a

Table 1.7 Social criteria and indicators established in the NEEDS project^a