Energy Transition
What is an energy transition?
An energy transition is a significant structural change in a system of producing and consuming energy. An energy transition throughout the world to sustainable energy is taking place primarily in order to reduce climate change. Through global science, business and politics, the energy transition has become a planetary event.
In 1992 and 1993, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed and it took effect in 1994. The Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the UNFCCC takes place annually. CoP21 in 2015 resulted in the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a commitment signed by 195 states to limit climate change to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050 and to adopt measures domestically, realised, measured and reported by NDCs or Nationally Determined Contributions, to achieve that goal. It entered effect in 2016.
Why is there an energy transition?
1) Climate Change
Habitat destruction, dangerous and destructive weather, unknowns and uncertainty about the future of the planet are some of the impacts of climate change. The warming climate is altering weather patterns and melting ice in both the poles and alpine regions. Animal species are losing their habitats and people are being forced to evacuate their homes.
The current energy model predominantly burns fossil fuels to generate energy. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, a ‘greenhouse gas,’ into the atmosphere. It traps heat in the atmosphere. Since 1880, the Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by approximately 1.1 degrees Celsius.
What do we know about the Earth’s climate in the past?
The Marion du Fresne, a southern ocean research vessel, extracts samples of sediments from the seafloor that reveal climatic variations over the Earth’s history. From layers of sediment up to 6,500 metres deep, obtained using a core drill, scientists can reconstitute the climate of the earth over hundreds of thousands of years.
When marine life dies in the southern ocean, it sinks to the seabed and is compressed into the strata. Each strata represents a different geological era, with the deposed sediment of earlier eras being compressed by sedimentation during more recent history. When the climate varies, so does the extent of the ice pack around Antarctica and the life that survives in these regions varies too. By examining the contents of the strata at different episodes in geological history, we can identify what life was possible at the time in these latitudes and therefore reconstitute the climate during that era.
The last 10,000 years of geological history are the Holocene period, characterised by a relatively warm, mild climate.
What is unrecoverable carbon?
The earth is one giant ecosystem. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere is not only dependent on how much we release, but also on how much the earth itself can absorb. Plants produce energy via photosynthesis, a chemical process facilitated by the “green chemical,” chlorophyll (chlorophyll literally gives leaves their green colour). The reactants are carbon dioxide and water and the products are glucose and oxygen.
A large recent issue in climate science has been what is called ‘unrecoverable carbon.’ These are large areas of ancient forest, mangrove and peatland, which store gigantic amounts of carbon. Many parts of nature have been destroyed by human activity, and if we were to lose these areas, all that harmlessly stored carbon would become devastating atmospheric carbon. We would not be able to recover this carbon because these ecosystems do not regenerate, or only regenerate over very large time-scales.
What is the 1.5 degrees Celsius climate benchmark?
The world’s average temperature should not exceed that of preindustrial levels by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to the Paris Agreement, reaching a global average temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050 is crucial for mitigating the worst impacts of climate change. To achieve this, global net zero emissions are required by 2050, meaning the world must remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it puts into it.
Unfortunately, 2024 was the first year that the planet has exceeded the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold. There is a 52% chance that 2025 will have an average temperature above the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold, and the World Meteorological Organisation forecasts a 70% chance of the 2025-2029 period having a 5 year average temperature more than 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial times.
2) Resource scarcity
Fossil fuels were created by compacting of carbon matter, before the existence of some of our decomposing life forms, such as fungi, began recycling dead carbon into new forms of life. That is why the earth has not produced any new fossil fuels for 3 billion years. Fossil fuels include coal, natural gas and petroleum. Fossil fuels are getting harder to find.
3) Pollution
Burning fossil fuels for energy releases other pollutants besides carbon dioxide. Carbon monoxide is one product of combustion that is an air pollutant damaging to health. Many fuels contain mixtures of nitrogen and sulfur that become harmful oxides when burned. These gases can mix with clouds and lead to acid rain.
A rise in sustainable energy systems
1) Energy production assets
Changing how we generate energy is the most fundamental part of the energy transition. Hydro, wind and solar projects are helping to reduce our reliance on fuels which have no future - coal, gas and oil - for power generation. Demand is growing for electric transport, including both public (electrified public transport services) and private (vehicles running on a rechargeable electric battery).
2) Location
Another aspect of the energy transition is changing where we generate electricity. Most electricity today is generated in large, remotely located power stations, from which it is transmitted over long distances to consumers through power lines. This model of electricity production and consumption is called a 'centralised electricity grid.' It is inefficient because of transmission loss and the generation resources often have either environmental (such as coal power stations) or ecological (establishing wind or hydro generators in ecologically sensitive areas) harmful impacts. The photo at the top of this post shows the typical appearance of centralised energy.
Power will increasingly be generated locally to where it is consumed. The types of generation assets are called ‘distributed energy resources,’ because the resources to produce power are distributed among users rather than at big, distant power plants serving an enormous grid.
3) Energy sharing
Distributed energy resources are giving rise to ‘microgrids,’ groups of energy producers and users who share power amongst themselves with a 'smart network.’
The energy transition is also part of the global sustainable development goals (SDGs), which include bringing power to energy-poor communities as well as protecting the environment. The implementation of microgrids in villages in undeveloped areas in developing countries is allowing children to study at night with electric light, and bringing business and entrepreneurship to poor communities. Electric power supports health services and can improve access to clean water, and it can reduce the burden of domestic chores, freeing women from traditional gender roles so they can seek work.
Concerns about wider impacts
As important as the energy transition is, there are also negative impacts we need to be aware of. The processes of building wind turbines and hydroelectric turbines draw on large amounts of electricity, which today still comes predominantly from fossil-fuelled power plants.
There are a wide variety of materials that can be used to make batteries for energy storage and electric vehicles, but the most common ones in use today use cobalt and lithium. Most of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The DRC cobalt industry is not a safe environment for workers. Workers suffer from toxic exposure to cobalt in hand-dug mines and some of those workers are children. The largest lithium extraction occurs in salt flats in the Andes. In the “lithium triangle” (Bolivia, Argentina, Chile), indigenous communities are protesting because they are losing control of their land and their scarce water supply is being depleted by the lithium-extraction business. At the same time, there are local economic benefits.
An opportunity
The energy transition is almost certainly going to be challenging and complex. To limit climate change, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation and consumption and transport. New technologies and ideas for harnessing power and bringing power to people are opportunities for growth and development.
However, there is a need for deep research into the processes and materials used to produce effective, reliable, ethical, sustainable energy.