Green Energy Futures: A Big Change for the Good

A Big Change for the Better

David Elliott

• Editore: Palgrave Macmillan
• Anno: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137584434
• Argomento: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Categoria: Politica ambientale ed energetica

What will replace fossil fuel? Is there a way forward using renewable energy sources while avoiding nuclear power?This book argues that nuclear is unlikely to have much of a role in future, and shows that the pro- and anti-nuclear debate has absorbed too much time and energy over the years. This has been to the detriment of a more relevant, interesting and increasingly urgent debate over what sort of renewable/efficiency mix we need. This book engages in that debate, exploring the implications of shifting to greener, cleaner energy sources. Importantly, David Elliott argues there is no one green future. There is a range of possible options of various types and scales: we need to choose amongst them. This book offers an overview of the technical, economic and environmental issues to help scholars, professionals and policy makers involved in discussing those options.

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Introduction: What Are the Options?

Abstract: Climate change, along with falling air quality, are key environmental concerns and seem to be related to human activities, most obviously the combustion of increasing amounts of fossil fuel. There are several options for reducing or avoiding these problems. A shift to using nuclear energy is seen by some as one, but there are significant technical, economic, safety and security problems. Reducing energy waste is a more likely contender, but there are limits, and however much energy efficiency is increased, there will still be a need for energy supplies. That leaves renewable energy sources as a key hope. This book asks, what are the problems and can these new green sources be used to deliver energy reliably and economically on a significant scale?

Keywords: climate change; energy saving; nuclear power; renewable energy

Elliott, David. Green Energy Futures: A Big Change for the Good. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137584434.0004.

1.1A big change is needed

Access to energy services is vital to modern life, but there are growing concerns about whether the current range of energy sources can be used into the future. Some worry that fossil fuel reserves will be exhausted, and there are debates about when ‘peak oil’, the point at which use outstrips production, will occur. Some say it already has, others say that, with shale oil and other finds, there are still decades in hand, but the debate is just about when, not if, oil will become scarce (Brandt et al., 2013). Similarly, though later, for gas (including shale gas) and later still for ‘peak coal’ (Maggio and Cacciola, 2012).

However, the reality seems to be that not much of whatever there is left of these fossil energy sources can be burnt off without risking what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns could be ‘severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts’ from climate change (IPCC, 2014). In parallel there are increasing impacts on air quality, this reaching crisis point in some newly industrialising countries, most visibly in China.

This book is based on the assumption that the use of fossil fuels has to be halted, probably long before this is forced on us by the inevitable ultimate depletion of these resources. As with the resources estimates, there are debates on timescale, and for example, over how serious climate change related impacts might be and on how quickly, and where, they will occur, but few deny that it is a major and increasingly urgent problem, and even fewer deny that air pollution is having major heath impacts.

There may be ways to limit some of these impacts, or even adapt to them, but in longer term we have to deal with the problems at source and stop burning fossil fuels. That will involve a major change. Over 80% of the energy used globally comes from these sources – coal, oil and gas – used for heating, electricity production and to power vehicles. The aim of this book is to ask whether their use can be phased out, and if so, what will be the problems and implications of shifting to greener, cleaner renewable energy sources.

1.2Climate change

Ever since the industrial revolution, the combustion of fossil fuel has expanded, coal at first, then oil and more recently (natural) gas, all extracted from underground strata. Burning these fuels releases carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere and it has an impact: it increases the so-called greenhouse effect. As with the panes of glass in a garden greenhouse, some solar radiation that would otherwise not be retained is trapped by a range of gases in the upper atmosphere, so the incident solar radiation heats up the greenhouse, in this case the earth. There is a natural balance in this process which keeps the planet’s basic temperature at habitable levels. However, adding extra carbon dioxide, along with other greenhouse gasses such as methane (mostly from increased intensive agriculture), disturbs this balance, so that the average global temperature begins to rise: that’s global warming.

So far that is incontrovertible. It is widely agreed that temperatures have risen and also that this has had an effect on the climate system. In a joint report, the United Kingdom’s Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences said: ‘It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate. The atmosphere and oceans have warmed, accompanied by sea-level rise, a strong decline in Arctic sea ice, and other climate-related changes. The evidence is clear’ (Royal Society/NAC, 2014).

Certainly, the vast majority of scientists are said to think that climate change, due to human activities, is real, up to 97% in some surveys (Cook et al., 2013), and although there are claims that the extent of consensus is less (Tol, 2014), there seems to be wide agreement that climate change will have significant impacts, with the Royal Society/NACS claiming that ‘further climate change is inevitable; if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, future changes will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far.’ That means, some say, that about 80% of the coal in the ground will have to stay unused (McGlade and Ekins, 2015).

However, there are still debates on how much temperatures will rise in future and what the longer-term impacts will be, driven in part by skeptical minority views, often amplified by the media’s inevitable focus on conflict rather than consensus. Some ‘contrarians’ claim that most of the temperature rise has been due to other, natural, causes, and some say the rises will tail off. They dispute the models that have been produced. The fact that recent temperature rises have been lower than many expected gives them some ammunition, although the climate modelers have come up with various explanations for this. For example, some suggest that the heat has been absorbed in the depths of the oceans, but there is much debate about causes and effects, with some saying that the temperature pause may last for 10–20 years.

Uncertainty and doubt make it hard to come to an agreement regarding measures for responding to climate change. If it will only be mild and slow, as some contrarians argue, then simple adaptation measures should be sufficient, that is, coping with impacts. That argument is popular since it avoids having to adopt more radical and potentially costly and disruptive mitigation approaches, dealing with the cause, chiefly by phasing out fossil fuel use.

Some contrarians claim that global warming will have benefits. That seems to be a line taken by the UK-based Global Warming Policy Foundation, which also says that, if it turns out to be real, negative and significant, it can best be dealt with by adaptation rather than what they see as expensive mitigation measures. Its report on sea-level changes said: ‘It is the height of folly, and waste of money, to attempt to “control” the size or frequency of damaging natural events by expecting that reductions in human carbon dioxide emissions will moderate climate “favourably”, whether that be putatively sought from a moderation in the frequency and intensity of damaging natural events or by a reduction in the rate of global average sea-level rise’ (de Lange and Carter, 2014).

Some contrarians argue that even if it is real, climate change is not that important compared with other global environmental and health issues. Danish contrarian Bjorn Lomborg says that ‘Global warming pales when compared to many other global problems. While the WHO estimates 250,000 annual deaths from global warming in 30 years, 4.3 million die right now each year from indoor air pollution, 800 million are starving, and 2.5 billion live in poverty and lack clean water and sanitation’. And anyway, he adds, our approach to dealing with climate change is wrong. Like the Global Warming Policy Foundation, he is doubtful about the value of renewable energy as a response (Lomborg, 2014). It could of course be countered that these issues are not separate and independent. A focus on renewables, in response to climate change, could help address some of the issues Lomborg raises, for example, laying the basis for local economic growth and reducing the need to use polluting firewood and dung.

While debates on policy are fair enough, some think the endless debate on climate science is unhelpful and often of low quality (Dana, 2014). It is important to continually challenge assumptions and check data: debate and conflicts are the lifeblood of science, which moves through periods of doubt and then consensus. But at some point a halt has to be called, for example, it is now clear that the world is not flat and that it orbits the sun. That level of certainty may not have been attained yet over climate change, but there are strong indications that there are growing problems so that urgent action is needed. That view is also backed by increasing numbers of the public. In a Populus UK public opinion poll in 2014, 73% wanted world leaders to agree to a global climate deal and 66% thought action must take place now and only 20% felt it could wait a few years (DECC, 2014).

1.3What should be done?

While concern in many countries is high, the barrage of contrarian views, as relayed by the media, and uncertainties about what might be done seem to have had an impact on some others, for example, in the United States and Australia, where global warming and responses to it are very politicised issues, with many people expressing disbelief. Given that both countries have experienced many very severe weather-related shocks in recent years, this may be surprising, but it remains the case that no one weather event can necessarily be directly liked to climate change. However, it is also true that in both countries, as globally, fossil fuel interests are very powerful, although, around the world, they are increasingly being challenged as awareness of, and concern about, climate change grows (Berners-Lee and Clark, 2013; Klein, 2014).

Despite the uncertainties, governments around the world, to varying degrees, have developed policies for reducing emissions and impacts, both nationally and via international agreements (Marquina, 2010; Dupont and Oberthür, 2015). However, there are disagreements about response strategies, and crucially, at the global level, about who should pay. It seems clear that, whatever happens, adaptation measures will be needed to deal with increased flooding, storms, droughts, wild fires and heat waves. That will hit some countries hard.

Many poorer countries may not be able to cope financially and will need external help from rich countries. Moreover, the longer-term solution of moving away from fossil fuel may not appear to be economically viable for them, and in any case will not help them deal with the impacts in the short term. And yet, it can be argued, unless all countries start making this transition we may all be doomed – if you believe the modeling.

There has been something of a political stand-off. The poor developing countries often claim that the rich countries, who have benefited in the past from burning fossil fuels, should shoulder some, or even most, of the cost, for example, by contributing to aid programmes. There is, however, now some movement on this issue. Agreement in principle has been reached on establishing a $100 billion p.a. Green Climate Fund by 2020, with donations from the major industrial countries: the United States recently provided $3 billion.

For the longer term, policy debates and attempted negotiations continue at the annual global Conference of Parties (COPs) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, although these days expectations that the COPs will lead to much of significance are low. The global accord reached at the Kyoto climate summit in 1997 (averaging a 5.2% global emission cut) only ran up to 2012. A loose commitment to a follow-up Kyoto II protocol has been thrashed out, but it is not legally binding. The stumbling blocks have chiefly been the United States and China, which have seemed happy enough to commit to ramping up green energy technology (in competition with each other), but did not want to accept binding constraints on emissions. However, with air quality an urgent issue in China, emission limits there now seem likely (a commitment has been made to halt the rise by around 2030), and the United States, under Obama, evidently is now serious about reducing emissions from coal (by 30% by 2030) and overall by 26–28% by 2025. So the COPs might be a bit more productive.

There are of course deviants, like Japan, which after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, reneged on its emission reduction targets, and Australia, which has experienced if anything even more severe extremes of weather recently than the United States, but is heading off in the opposition direction – cutting just about all its climate policies and initiatives. The EU remains on message and is making progress on its renewable and climate targets (a 20% emission cut by 2020 and possibly 40% by 2030), but is constrained from going further and faster both economically and politically, by the leftovers of the recession and the swing to the political right in many EU countries. Russia remains an anomaly, focused on its huge fossil exports, for example, to Eastern European countries.

The rest of the world? Understandably, as noted earlier, most developing countries want help from rich industrial nations to meet the cost of limiting emissions and dealing with impacts. Unsurprisingly, aid of that sort is something that has been agreed only in rather broad terms.

As things stand at present, the programmes and policies that are in place may not hold average global temperatures below the 2° C rise that many think is a crucial threshold, although there are some hopeful signs. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has claimed that emissions from the energy sector in 2014 were at the same level as in 2013, the first time a leveling off or reduction has occurred outside a recession in 40 years, which suggests that policy responses, rather than economic factors, led to zero growth in emissions (Briggs, 2015).

There is also some movement from the fossil fuel interests. With concerns about climate change growing, and, more directly, worries being expressed that fossil assets would become worthless as governments adopted tighter emission regulations, the big oil companies have been beginning to react. Although there may be unethical investors ready to fill the gap, ‘divestment’ initiatives may also be having an impact, w...