Green energy is ruined?

I recently saw this article shared on Facebook with a huge amount of likes and shares. The basic premise of the argument is that green energy in Europe is a scam and is emitting more than fossil fuel equivalents. This clearly seems problematic from the outset, and reading through this made me quite unsure about the place of social media in green energy debates. The ‘clickbait’ nature of the title fails to show the bigger picture. ‘Europe’s green energy policy is a disaster for the environment’ is something of an overstatement, as the actual article only talks about biomass burning, and glazes over the swathes of ‘good’ renewable energy being invested in, especially in western Europe and Scandinavia.

Now onto the meat and gravy of the article. The pivotal statement is that burning wood releases carbon into the atmosphere, at a greater level than the amount of carbon sequestered by the trees over their lifecycle. Whilst this may be true for wood, some biomass is produced via non-wood products, and has a much more carbon-neutral production. As for the wood itself, this comes into an interesting distinction – wood from afforestation has been found to be low emitting, lower than the emissions of fossil fuels. Similarly, waste wood, salvage wood and ‘pre-commercial thinnings’ are also low emitting. So the only types of wood that are high emitting are sawn wood, coarse dead wood and tree stumps. The article fails to attempt to find out how much of the latter group is being used for biomass production, and this could undermine the entire argument. Now, I’m happy to be proven wrong with sufficient evidence but it seems to me at the moment that New Scientist is clutching at straws to trip up Europe’s green energy policy for the sake of a shocking headline. This is particularly evident through the sheer number of people sharing and responding to the article with shock on social media, and this engrains a lack of trust in environmental government practices which (may) be unjustified. With so many delegates and climate scientists working on policies to reduce emissions, I cannot see how something that is made out to be so shocking, has been overlooked. The net emissions of bio power are likely lower than fossil fuel equivalents, and whilst some aspects of the burning may be high emitting, these probably do not take up the majority of the biomass generation.

If for some reason the biomass issue has been occurring, then official documents of the European Commission do acknowledge the high emissions of certain aspects of bio power, and so I am sure steps are being taken to minimise the amount of high emission bio power generation.

However, I am confident that there is no ‘grand scam’ taking place, and with the efforts of so many countries building wind and solar farms, and countries like Iceland already producing most of their energy sustainably, I believe that our governments do truly want to reduce emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change. I have witnessed the positive outlook on European energy policies through my blog and research for it, and if the future of green power was not looking so good, I would probably cut this article some more slack – but this is not the case. Sadly, all it takes is a few articles such as these to go viral, and the hard work and huge investments of so many are overlooked.

Developing nations and renewable energy

Last week as part of my studies, I took part in a mock COP21 debate, which saw us become delegates from each country, who were to come together and decide on emissions cuts to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. The debates ended up highlighting some interesting things – one of which being that developing nations seemingly held little ability to cut their own emissions, mainly limited by funding.

In reality, this is avoided through overseas investment and in recent weeks there have been some major advancements in renewable energy projects funded through foreign investment. For example, Skytron energy has just been commissioned to supervise the ‘Oriana’ solar power plant in Puerto Rico which has been active since September. This plant provides power for 12,000 homes and has a net carbon displacement of 95,000 tons of CO2 per year. This shows that despite having limited funding, developing nations can join the push for renewable energy.

Morocco similarly has had a huge amount of investment from overseas into renewable energy. Around $3.9bn has been invested into the Ouarzazate solar complex which has come from German investment bank KfW, the World Bank and European Investment Bank. This has led to the creation of the 160MW plant, which is being expanded to a total 350MW added to the national grid. In combination with investment in wind power of a further 850MW, this will help to reach Morocco’s aim for 52% renewable electricity generation by 2030.

These plans show that the developing world is not separate to renewable energy, but can use it to develop as exemplar countries with high levels of renewable energy generation. Indeed, Morocco’s wind power plants expect to produce electricity at $0.03 per kWh, which will also help to develop the country through lower energy prices. Perhaps then the argument to allow developing nations to emit as much as they like, due to their lower ability to adapt to new energy systems and their lack of responsibility for past emissions, can be revoked. Many developing nations have land ripe for providing renewable energy, with countries like Morocco prime examples of this – with high solar insolation aiding the implementation of solar power.

As suggested in a previous blog post, one solution to the renewable energy debates is to create a global network of renewable energy, using each energy source in its most efficient location. This in a sense is already being applied with foreign investment funding projects such as those discussed, and perhaps one way for developing nations to pay for these power plants is to provide energy to the funding country, once enough energy is produced for the hosting country. Obviously this is a long way off, but it offers a way for developing nations to hold greater power in global debates such as those at the COP21 meeting.

Case Study - UK

As a UK student, it seems only fitting to focus on the case study of my home country. The renewable energy of the United Kingdom would be expected to be very similar to that of Australia, as both countries are highly developed, globalised nations. However, with very different climate and geography, the two are in fact quite dissimilar.

The current situation of UK renewable energy is mixed, with 25% of electricity produced renewably in mid 2015. Current targets are to increase this to 15% of total energy production by 2020 (currently around 5%). Of this, the majority of the energy is produced via wind energy which has grown massively since the 90s (Figure 1). Nevertheless, the UK is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels imported from elsewhere, which breeds political instability. If the UK is able to diversify our energy mix, this will give us much more energy resilience.

Figure 1 - Wind power growth 1991-2011 (source) 

Current energy demand is around 210GW with 6.9GW currently produced renewably. As current renewables are far from 100% supply, it is worth focusing on how the UK could exploit renewable resources to achieve a much more sustainable energy supply. If the UK were to grow photovoltaics, systems implemented on 20m roofs would still only produce 2% of the energy demand at average efficiencies. Similarly plans to exploit tidal power in the Severn would equally only produce 1%, and biomass would require over 1 tonne of fuel per person per year in order to produce 5.5GW average power! These figures may seem extortionate, but based on our current consumption of 80 million tonnes of oil per year, we come to realise that the UK demands a LOT of energy.

It seems then that wind offers the best path to a renewable society. With considerable investment into it already, the UK is able to produce wind power at high efficiencies and relatively low costs compared to those just bringing wind power to their country. The role of wind power has been modelled for the future in the UK, which has shown than wind power could account for 21GW of total generation by 2020, eventually growing to 49GW by 2050. Without carbon capture implementation, such a high wind power production would help to achieve climate goals, and ultimately may produce up to 50% of UK electricity demand by 2050.

Wind is not a perfect solution however. As wind is not constant, nor will the supply of energy be. As a result, the UK would also need a backup of at least 50GW of other sources, such as gas power plants, in order to ensure no blackouts.

However, this turns back to traditional combustion. I believe if used alongside other renewable developments, wind power could supply energy without the need to supplement with fossil fuels. For example, fully commercialised marine renewable energy is expected to be able to produce 20% of electricity. With government policy supporting innovation and growth in the renewable sector, the costs of providing this level of renewable energy will only decrease, especially if marketised (Leete et al 2013). However, in order to attract this type of investment, the UK must have a long term support plan for renewable energy, which is suggested to help to reduce risk for investors.

The UK is one of the few countries able to provide the necessary infrastructure and resources in order to overcome the high short term cost of renewable energy, and once this is achieved, wind power in combination with other major renewable developments could lead to a renewable UK society.

Australia Revisited

I recently saw this news article concerning Australia's renewable sector and its recent growth. In October, 21.7% of electricity came from renewable energy sources in the country. This is in comparison to the 2016 average for Australia, which sits at 14.7% renewable electricity. This is a positive sign and it shows that change is occurring (perhaps they saw my blog post!). 

The effects of this movement to renewable sources are unlikely to be felt by the public, where electricity production prices have remained stable in the transition from coal to renewables. This means any price increases have not resulted from the increased use of renewable energy.

In a week of renewable instability from the US election, this is a welcome sign of changes that are occurring for the better. With much of the world ratifying its agreement to the COP21 climate agreements, this is a crucial time for the future of renewable energy

Weekly Conversations - The US Election

The shockwave released from the results of the US election has been all-encompassing, and impossible to escape. From conversations with fellow geographers and family, there is a clear worry about the future state of renewable energy, particularly in the US. The future president of the United States, is by and large, a climate change denier. Now Donald Trump has made a great deal of his 'beliefs' known over the last year or so, but this one is particularly damaging. For such an influential figurehead to disregard climate change is to disregard any efforts to mitigate it. This leads to two main paths of destruction. On one path, US renewable energy is sure to suffer. He has pledged to cut spending on clean energy and pull out of the recently agreed COP21 agreements in Paris. This will reverse the progress towards sustainable energy that America has made, and prevent further growth of the sector. 

The other path, perhaps the less direct one, is the influence on the global renewable sector. With a major player in politics and the global economy making such a high profile decision, any countries looking up to the US may follow suit. This could cause a snowball effect leading to a total collapse of global partnership in climate change mitigation. Similarly, such a large polluter not following global agreements makes the agreements far less valuable, as the US emissions will remain the same (or perhaps increase). 

There are very few ways in which this decision (if it goes ahead) could benefit renewable energy. This is obviously a troubling position to be in, and the next few months will quite possibly determine the future of renewable energy.

Case Study - Australia

It became quickly apparent during my last blog post that summing up the economic viability of renewables is simply not possible in the space of a single blog post. Therefore, this week, I had a look at different case studies of renewable energy, in order to get a better idea of what is being done and what can be achieved in the future.

Firstly, an interesting case that arose during my research was Australia. Australia has an energy mix dominated by fossil fuels (ease off on the BBQs maybe?), due to a low price driven by large reserves within the country. This would suggest that it would be extremely difficult for the country to migrate to renewable energy. However, reliance on fossil fuels has a secondary effect of making Australia more susceptible to fuel price fluctuations. As supplies dwindle, fossil fuel price will increase, meaning eventually renewable energy will become the more cost effective method. This point will be reached quicker due to their large reliance on carbon intensive energy and may drive a boom in renewable energy.

From a resource and implementation standpoint, Australia has one of the best positions in the move to renewable energy. There is high solar radiation, facilitating the use of solar photovoltaics in electricity production, alongside an excess of space due to low population density, providing ample room to put wind or solar power plants. The low population density also helps to overcome a common barrier to renewables – the social pressures. Wind farms particularly often face a backlash due to their obstruction of the landscape and noise. With a low population density, this is no longer an issue, as there is enough room to put these farms away from large populations and provide transmission lines to cities. Furthermore, Australia stands as a highly developed nation with enough capital to invest in a large scale movement to renewable energy.

On the implementation side, many studies have assessed the current price and future price of various renewables and found that the most cost effective method of renewable energy provision in Australia is a combination of wind and solar, with lesser contributions from biofuels and hydroelectricity to minimise costs. Solar would be more dominant if the price reduced dramatically but (as seen in my previous blog post) it is currently too expensive to be used on a mass scale. Other renewables such as geothermal power, whilst available in Australia, are not needed to provide large scale renewable energy.

Personally, I believe it is countries such as Australia which should be at the forefront of renewable development and application. Developed nations have both responsibility for past emissions, and the capital to invest in renewable energy. However, past records of energy consumption for Australia have shown little to reinforce this statement, with renewables growing at a lower rate than fossil fuel consumption (see figure 1).

Figure 1 – Australian energy consumption, 1973-2014

Similarly, whilst the reliance of the country on fossil fuels is beneficial in some forms for swapping energy sources, the sheer amount of money and investment into infrastructure needed to swap to 100% renewables all but eliminates the possibility of it happening in the short term. Perhaps rising carbon taxes and accountability for the negative effects of fossil fuel burning will force this change more effectively, but without the economic incentive, it is hard to see why Australia would make such a drastic change.

Economic Viability of Renewable Energy

Renewable energy has attracted a great deal of attention over the past decade, alongside climate change debates and decreased fossil fuel security. Indeed, renewables now account for over half of the net additions to global energy production. However, this has still not led to the majority of our energy mix coming from renewables, due to the relative difficulty of changing away from fossil fuels, with economic, spatial and social barriers to overcome. As of 2010, only 13% of our global electricity came from renewable energy sources. A focus will be drawn therefore on these barriers to wide scale energy source changes, taking a particular emphasis on the economic issues surrounding renewable energy at the moment and going into the future.

Whilst there is a wide variation of different renewable energy sources, major debates concerning renewable energy usually concern photovoltaics (PV) and wind power. The former due to its direct generation of electricity, and the latter due to its position as a mature renewable resource. Wind power has been harnessed in many forms for centuries, and our modern application of wind to generate electricity has also been widely popular in many developed nations. However, social pressures in areas such as the UK lead to opposition of wind farms in many areas due to their audiovisual disturbances – which has in turn led to the development of off-shore wind farms. These turbines are more efficient as wind speeds tend to be higher over oceans, giving higher energy yields. However, the economics of off-shore turbines is contested, with maintenance costs, as well as infrastructure costs of transporting generated electricity to demand areas leading to overall higher costs compared to on-shore farms. This begins to describe the complexity of the renewable energy arena, with high cost and supply uncertainties.

However, there are a number of positive outcomes of the recent years’ energy debates and movements. Efficiencies of wind energy are increasing, with larger turbines capable of production up to 5MW. In the same vein, prices in nearly all renewable energy sources are decreasing (Figure 1).

Renewable Energy Source	Price (€ct/kWh)
Wind (offshore)	5 (18)
Photovoltaics	20
Hydro	4-19 depending on site
Tidal	10
Geothermal	7-15

Figure 1 - Price of renewable energy

Figure 1 shows the current prices of major renewable sources. A consequence of this price drop is that renewables have become increasingly feasible as a primary energy source, leading to a valuation of the renewable export market at £6.1bn. Nevertheless, this market is difficult to access for a great number of nations. Renewables usually require a high capital investment, even in countries with established renewable sectors. This alienates much of the developing world in producing energy renewably. Investment has been suggested to be a product of policy stability, as well as a baseline of capital, that many developing nations cannot afford to achieve. As a counter to this, a number of studies have suggested the need for a global ‘supergrid’, which allows for global provision of renewable energy based on connected hotspots of each renewable resource – for example, solar power from the Middle East and wind power from Northern Europe. This would allow for an efficient infrastructure of renewables not limited to wealthy or resource rich nations. However, it relies on a global communication and cooperation that has not been possible before, and a level of global trust. Also, countries such as the UK have moved to a greater renewable focus partially to reduce reliance on other nations, and a supergrid would combat this priority. Perhaps in the future, such an agreement will not seem so ambitious, but for the moment it seems that renewables will remain open only to those who can obtain sufficient investment and have the correct natural resources.

This brings the focus to the future of renewable energy. With the constant pressure of climate change, many expect the renewable industry to continue to grow exponentially over the coming decade. High profile studies, such as those conducted by Stern highlight the need to adopt renewable energy methods as soon as possible. The premise of the argument is that a small (1%) contribution of global GDP will allow for the establishment of a primarily renewable society that is able to minimise the impacts of global warming, in comparison to a ‘Business-as-usual’ model, or adopting renewables too far into the future. Failure to swap to renewables in the short term will mean greater losses of GDP in the future to accommodate for climate change induced losses. As a result, it is expected that renewables will show a clear superiority over fossil fuels by 2020, due to high investment over the coming years, and further technological advances. However, there are a number of developments needed to complement this economic advantage of renewables. Renewable energy incurs significant costs transporting the generated electricity to areas of demand. Avoiding these costs will require the movement of energy-intensive industries to the areas around power plants, thus reducing the amount of transmission lines and infrastructure needed. Furthermore, whilst PV panels have received increased traction, with government grants in some European countries, in order for them to become a fully-fledged energy source, a method of energy storage is required – such that energy can be provided throughout periods of low solar radiation e.g. at night. Alongside technological developments, social pressures impact the viability of renewable energy in the present. Societal growth demands an annual increase of energy demands by 1.8% to enable greater equality and development of poorer nations. Renewable skeptics do not see this able to be achieved using purely renewable energy. However, given our current rate of technological innovation, this could be achieved through increased efficiency of consumption, such as a movement to LED lights, which are around 5 times as efficient as traditional tungsten lights.

It has been found that we are capable of achieving a 100% renewable society. However, in order to reach this point, innovations into storage and transport methods must occur, which will facilitate the adoption of renewables on a global scale. Renewables are limited in their ability to supply all our energy needs, but based on real world data and future trends, it is possible that we can become a renewable society in an economically sound manner.