If climate change did not exist, sooner or later we would have to invent it. The banner of climate change is gaining a following that has a character distinctly different from the “greens” of the 1960s. A contentious opinion perhaps, but given the demonstration of corporate muscle and hard cash committed to the development of renewable energy at the Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi last month, it is an opinion that is based on the fact of finance rather than fantasy.
Not that everyone is open about the finance. Boeing and Honeywell, two major sponsors of Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Institute, a research university set up to investigate all aspects of renewable energy, were singularly evasive when asked directly how much they had actually committed. Their very presence at the summit indicated, however, that they had renewable energy in their sights and their public face was all about supporting that.
The move to green and renewable energy sources has long been sought by the archetypal be-sandaled hessian liberal. However, now that major corporations are investing in some very serious research and development — for example Siemens in the Sahara Desertec solar power project — is a strong indicator that at last someone has discovered that not only is there good public relations in “green” but there is something much more attractive — profit.
Once renewables offer two features, long-term sustainability for the investor and profit, then the movement will have come of age. Profit is what drives business and if the by-product of the green business has a beneficial outcome for the health of the planet, then it is a win-win situation.
Profit has been discovered; sandals can now decently be exchanged for Lobbs.
Although renewable energy is now a focus for research by major industrial concerns, renewables, with all their diversity, are nowhere near being the major energy source for industry in either developed or developing nations.
In fact, many countries still use coal to produce most of their electricity. Four of the world’s major industrial economies get nearly half or more of their energy needs from coal: Germany 47 percent, US 50 percent, India 78 percent and China 80 percent. (Source: World Coal Institute)
The rise in crude oil prices in 2008 led to a jump in demand for coal from industrial majors that outstripped supply.
“We are currently in the remarkable situation where the capacity of miners to supply appears to be outweighed by the possible demand of a growing world economy,” concludes a research report by Paterson Securities Ltd., an Australian investment house. Even with China’s vast coal reserves, it is a net importer of coal and with its steady drive for industrial muscle to capture the world manufactured-goods market, there is no indication of an equal drive for renewable energy resources.
The increased reliance on coal in the US was predicted 50 years ago in an obscure report produced by Thomas Phelps at Mobil Oil. He estimated that coal’s share of the total market would decline to 24 percent by 1968 from 27 percent in 1957 and 67 percent in 1928. But, he said, “we believe the decline in tonnage of coal consumed each year is ending. We estimate consumption of coal in 1968 at the equivalent of 6.9 million BOPD compared with 5.5 million BOPD in 1957 and 7.1 million BOPD in 1928.”
Oil over the last 150 years has risen in prominence from an intriguing lubricant and source of illumination in the form of kerosene for lamps at a time when most energy was derived from wood and coal to the major source of energy for transportation and the source of the myriad downstream chemicals and plastics ubiquitous in modern societies.
Its unique qualities, energy content, cost of production and speed of refueling have made it difficult to replace in the field of transport with greener sources of power, even though the science and technology exist. Two thirds of oil consumption in the US, for example, is in the form of transportation fuels with 95 percent of transport powered by petroleum or diesel, three percent renewables and just two percent natural gas. (Source: US Dept Energy)
Changing the consumption culture of well-wheeled industrialized nations will inevitably be a long process and require some inventive, and perhaps draconian, legislation.
The longest journey, as the old saw goes, begins with a single step. Even Saudi Arabia, whose very existence relies heavily on oil consumption, has taken its first tentative step toward embracing renewable energy in the form of solar power. The Kingdom receives a great deal of sunshine and the energy that could come from it is going to waste.
Enough energy from the sun falls on the Earth in 24 hours to supply the entire energy needs for the US for 240 years; it is free and although not renewable, when it runs out our planet will die — so there will be no one around to make any energy choices anyway.
The Kingdom sits in the center of the “Sun Belt,” part of a huge, rainless region extending from the western edge of North Africa to the eastern edge of Central Asia. It has some of the best solar energy resources on Earth. Whether the sun’s energy is harvested by photovoltaic cells or concentrated solar power (parabolic mirrors heating water to steam for turbines), the power source is clean and, effectively, inexhaustible.
Limited by the availability of water, both to clean the solar gathering equipment and provide feedstock for the boilers and turbines, the Kingdom has over 2,500 km of coastline to gather seawater and use desalination as a source of fresh water. Transmission for domestic use and export is easily possible by low-loss power lines and could transform Saudi Arabia from an oil producer to an energy provider. The beauty of this is that both the proven science and technology to do this exists; no one has to develop anything.
However, cultural, economic and geo-political considerations will sway the resolve and inclination of the developed and oil producing nations in their introduction of renewable energy as a main rather than minor ancillary source of energy. So it seems then that for some time to come black, not green, is the color of growth.
