Thinking about the Future of Energy

2010

Reducing the flow of greenhouse gas emissions to stabilize the stock of greenhouse gases, especially in the context of an expanding global economy, require substantial changes in global energy technology mix. Future technology change will come in form of technologies expected to mature in the near or distant future and technologies not yet known. Endogenous technological change has been introduced in strategic energy analysis since about the mid 1990s by implementing so-called energy technology learning rates, which specify the quantitative relationship between the cumulative experience of a given technology and the cost reductions. Emerging technologies typically evolve through several stages of development. A topical question is how technologies pass from one stage of development to another. The possible changes in the cost trends of emerging technologies can be assessed by different but complementary approaches. In this report, basing on recent empirical data the long time perspe...

Energy policy is what systems scientists literally call a "mess": a tangle of economic, environmental, social, and technical problems stirred by competing and often conflicting political agendas. Breakthrough Institute founders Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger have promoted the case for a fundamental shift in energy policy strategies-away from schemes to make dirty energy more expensive and instead a strategy to make clean energy cheap. What they call an "emerging consensus" of analysts and centers agrees that a greatly increased investment in breakthrough technology innovation is essential to resolving the mess of energy-related economic, climate, and other problems.

American Journal of Physics, 1980

This paper focuses on the novel and leading innovations and investments into the new energy technologies. Energy issues, including sustainability, energy security and energy dependency are probably one of the most crucial and critical issues that humanity must face at the moment. Recent global challenges, such as climate change and the rise of the “green” energy (represented by the increasing deployment of the renewable energy sources (RES)), as well as distributed energy generation and platform energy markets (e.g. peer-to-peer (P2P) markets for electricity) that were made possible thanks to the rise of Internet, social networks and sharing economy, all create a demand for the new energy technologies. The leaders in energy innovations, such as Tesla are becoming the true trendsetters who are marking the way for the humankind to go forward. We provide an overview of the innovative energy technologies that might change the energy market as we know it and discuss their outcomes and possible implications. Moreover, we contemplate the changes that might be caused by the ongoing transition from the fossil fuels to RES. Our results might be of some interests to researchers and stakeholders dealing with energy economics and policy.

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Social, Economic and Academic Leadership (ICSEAL 2018), 2018

This paper focuses on the novel and leading innovations and investments into the new energy technologies. Energy issues, including sustainability, energy security and energy dependency are probably one of the most crucial and critical issues that humanity must face at the moment. Recent global challenges, such as climate change and the rise of the "green" energy (represented by the increasing deployment of the renewable energy sources (RES)), as well as distributed energy generation and platform energy markets (e.g. peer-to-peer (P2P) markets for electricity) that were made possible thanks to the rise of Internet, social networks and sharing economy, all create a demand for the new energy technologies. The leaders in energy innovations, such as Tesla are becoming the true trendsetters who are marking the way for the humankind to go forward. We provide an overview of the innovative energy technologies that might change the energy market as we know it and discuss their outcomes and possible implications. Moreover, we contemplate the changes that might be caused by the ongoing transition from the fossil fuels to RES. Our results might be of some interests to researchers and stakeholders dealing with energy economics and policy.

Energy is such a critical contributor to prosperity and national strength that we regularly worry about where it will come from in the future. No government leaves its energy supply solely to the marketplace, and stakeholders have strong opinions about both the ends and means of energy policy. By asking "Which energy future?" this chapter identifies those ends and means, and highlights which aspects of our energy future are controllable (via our choices) and uncontrollable (because they are exogenous or uncertain).

TECNICA ITALIANA-Italian Journal of Engineering Science

While the European Union is preparing its Green New Deal, whichever it will be, the energy sector is moving, anyway, towards its transition. The so-called "energy transition" is dictated by the fact that energy is reckoned as one of the main responsible for climate change and by the awareness that the era of fossil fuels is approaching its end. To better define the energy transition, some points that are expected to characterize the passage from fossil fuels to renewables are explored in the paper.

Science, 2003

WE AGREE WITH M. I. HOFFERT ET AL. ("Advanced technology paths to global climate stability: energy for a greenhouse planet," Review, 1 Nov., p. 981) that stabilizing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations at 550 parts per million (ppm) or below will require investment in energy research and development well in excess of current levels. However, their conclusion-that known technological options are not up to the tasksuffers from two shortcomings related to how much decarbonization is required and how soon we need it. First, they do not consider uncertainty in future energy demand, basing their analysis on a single reference scenario (1). In contrast, the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on emissions scenarios (2) foresees a wide range of plausible development paths leading to global primary power demand of anywhere from 20 to 50 TW by 2050. Relative to these scenarios, as quantified by six different integrated assessment modeling teams, stabilizing at 550 ppm may not require any additional energy from carbon-free technologies over the next 50 years beyond that produced by known technologies for reasons unrelated to climate change. Or it could require that additional zero-carbon generating capacity deliver nearly 600 TWyears of energy over that same period. Policy responses to climate change should be robust across this wide range of uncertainty. Second, we doubt whether the development and implementation of the radically new technologies such as fusion or solar power satellites advocated in the article are feasible within the time horizon necessary for CO 2 stabilization. The process from invention, to demonstration projects, to significant market shares typically takes between five and seven decades (3). Fundamentally new technologies that have not been demonstrated to be feasible even on a laboratory scale today would therefore likely come much too late to contribute to the emissions reductions necessary by 2050, particularly for stabilization at 450 ppmv or below (4). We believe that the appropriate mix of investments must include an initial focus on technologies with proven feasibility if we are to embark on a path to stabilization. At the same time, we should begin to explore new energy sources that might then be available in the long term to finish the job.

International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 2000

This paper expands the outlook on future energy systems as it is presented in other contributions to this Special Issue in two ways. First, we put the medium-term scenarios developed by the TEEM Project into the context of longer-term studies. We do this by discussing the plausibility of possible continuations of the TEEM medium-term scenarios by existing longer-term studies. For this 'embedding' we have chosen a joint IIASA-WEC study, in which six global scenarios with different primary energy supply characteristics are reported for the time period from 1990 to 2100. Applying the obvious caveats, the environmental and technological implications of the IIASA-WEC scenarios can thus be thought of as consistent expansions of the implications drawn from the TEEM scenarios. The second expansion of the outlook presented in other papers of this Special Issue is a discussion of strategic aspects of European energy RTD policies in the light of the six global scenarios and the formulation of conclusions for European R&D strategies.

2011

We acknowledge many valuable discussions with RTI staff members. We thank David F. Myers for his role in initiating this project, James A. Trainham for valuable discussions, RTI Press former Editor-in-Chief Kathleen N. Lohr for her involvement and support during the preparation of the monograph, and Vikram Rao (of the Research Triangle Energy Consortium) for his interest in the study and insightful comments. Finally, we express our gratitude to the RTI Executive Leadership Team for initiating and supporting the Grand Challenge Initiatives of the RTI Fellows Program. Acknowledgments 2 Chapter 1 sustainability, support long-term economic prosperity, promote energy security, and reduce environmental impacts. " 2(p1) A series of reports resulted from the work, including America's Energy Future: Summary of a Meeting; 3 America's Energy Future: Technology and Transformation; 2 and Real Prospects for Energy Efficiency in the United States. 4 Also of significance to our analysis is a recent National Research Council report, Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use. 5 We can group the issues considered in these reports into three main categories: technological, economic, and societal considerations. America's Energy Future: Technology and Transformation 2 concludes that of these three, the "weakest link" is an insufficient understanding of the societal dimension. Accordingly, the report makes extensive calls for more data, analysis, and recommendations from the societal research disciplines. It concludes that "mobilization of the public and private sectors, supported by sustained long-term policies and investments, will be required for the decades-long effort to develop, demonstrate, and deploy these technologies. " 2(p1) The report emphasizes the need to consider "policy and societal factors that would enhance or impede technology development and deployment" 2 (p10) and observes that a "study on energy conservation would require, for example, an in-depth understanding of how societal, economic, and policy factors affect energy consumption. " 2(p33) It refers to a "behavioral gap" that hinders the introduction of energy-efficient technologies, despite their economic advantages, and calls for continuing research to understand this gap more fully so that strategies can be devised for closing it. 2(p50) Other societal research needs listed in the report include land use considerations in siting renewable technologies, opportunities for incentivizing businesses and the public, and opportunities for energy education. (For a collection of report excerpts pertaining to the societal dimension, see the appendix.) The committee's call for the societal analysis of the US energy equation has motivated us to address this important topic and thereby provide a societal research-focused complement to the National Academies' technology-focused effort. Our approach recognizes the complexity of the problem, manifest in the intricate interactions among the technological, economic, and societal dimensions of the energy challenge. Consequently, we realize that the societal dimension should be discussed not in isolation but in its integrated, holistic context, at its intersection with technology and economics. For this purpose, we formed an interdisciplinary team of investigators at RTI International, an independent research organization with expertise in all three key dimensions of the energy problem. Rejected Energy 57.07 Energy Services 42.15 Net Electricity Imports Energy Technologies 7 energy. Biomass, counted as a renewable source, contributed 3.88 quads (3.9 percent), 21 percent of which went for transportation. Approximately one-third of the total US energy consumption came from imported sources. Some notable facts about the primary US energy sources: • Despite all efforts to expand the use of renewable sources (solar, hydroelectric, wind, geothermal, and biomass in Figure 2.1), they remain a small proportion of sources overall (7.3 percent). • All of nuclear power and 91.6 percent of coal are used to generate electricity. • Transportation consumes 70.9 percent of the petroleum used in the United States. • Almost all energy imports are petroleum; in 2009 about 62 percent of petroleum and petroleum products consumed in the US came from imports. • Only 2.8 percent of natural gas is used for transportation. Energy Sources In this section we discuss the key US energy source technologies. They each have a large literature that is extensively cited in the National Academies reports. 2-5 Unless stated otherwise, the numerical data quoted in this chapter are from the US Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration database. 9 Sustainable energy Sources A number of primary energy sources are sustainable (i.e., considered inexhaustible or renewable). Among these sustainables are hydroelectric, geothermal, solar-thermal, solarelectric, wind-electric, wave-electric, and biomass energy sources. Hydroelectric Hydroelectric energy generation (2.45 quads in 2008, 2.4 percent of the total) depends on suitable geography; it is perceived to be almost fully developed in the United States. Geothermal Geothermal energy is feasible at volcanic locations, such as the edges of tectonic plates in California and Iceland. It can generate electricity by means of steam turbines or provide heating. About 0.3 percent of the world's electrical generating capacity comes from geothermal plants, with a global generating capacity of more than 10 gigawatts (GW). The largest geothermal generating site in the world is the Geysers, north of San Francisco, where 22 plants have a combined capacity of 1,517 megawatts (MW). Proposed novel 8 Chapter 2 geothermal technologies include hot (steam) wells drilled to a depth of up to 10 kilometers; this technology, if realized, would mitigate the current geographic limitations. Solar Solar energy (0.09 quads in 2008, 0.09 percent of the total) has a high but declining levelized cost (combination of capital and operating expenses, expressed as the cost of a unit quantity of energy) due to high capital expenses; therefore, to be competitive today, it requires government subsidy or needs to find niche, less cost-sensitive applications. Solar technologies are either solar-electric or solar-thermal; solar-electric technologies involve crystalline silicon (efficient but expensive), thin film (less efficient but also less expensive), and amorphous silicon (cheapest but inefficient). Solar-thermal technologies involve nonfocused sunlight for heating water or focused sunlight to generate high temperatures that can be used directly (steam turbines) or indirectly (via pyrolysis of agricultural waste into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, followed by catalytic processing into solar biofuels). Challenges of solar energy include intermittent operation (requiring energy storage) and the need to operate at sunny, often remote locations (requiring a "smart grid" that would compensate for the uneven spatial and temporal distribution of this form of electricity). The solar plant's footprint is a function of solar irradiation intensity and of the areal efficiency of the solar cells or solar collectors. Wind Some of the challenges of wind energy (0.52 quads used in 2008, 0.5 percent of the total) are similar to those of solar energy. Both are capital intensive, intermittent, and often remote, and at present both require subsidies, energy storage, and a smart electric grid. Some issues with wind energy are associated with changing the landscape, as wind turbines tend to be huge installations, or that they interfere with birds and other wildlife, such as bats. Additional challenges include the need for addressing reliability and maintenance requirements, such as periodic cleaning to remove debris, life expectancy, and recyclability of the structures and components. The suitability of locations for developing wind energy varies significantly across the earth's surface. Like solar, wind energy is intermittent; most of the power is derived during relatively brief periods of high winds. Wind speeds change with the seasons and may or may not correspond to peak electricity demands, e.g., in the southwest United States, wind speeds tend to be low during the hot summer months, when air conditioning drives the demand for electricity. Conversely, in the United Kingdom the demand for power Energy Technologies 9 10 Chapter 2 Depletable energy Sources Most of the United States' conventional energy sources are depletable; they include the fossil fuels coal, oil, and natural gas, as well as nuclear energy. Coal The United States has hundreds of years' worth of coal (22.42 quads in 2008, 22.6 percent of the total) at current rates of consumption. Coal is the most important commodity carried by rail, at about 44 percent of Class I rail tonnage; about two-thirds of US coal shipments are by rail. Ninety-two percent of coal is used for electricity generation; 51 percent of US electricity is generated by burning coal. Coal is central to the current energy debate. The nation's ability to address this primary energy source intelligently will significantly affect the US energy future. Although coal is abundant, cheap, and domestic, it is beset with some major externalities (we discuss these unaccounted-for costs further in Chapter 3). These externalities include pollution in the form of sulfur and nitrogen oxides, mercury emissions, and about 300,000 tons of ash per GW-sized power plant per year, assuming 10 percent ash content of the coal. 10 In addition, coal-fired power plants are the most prolific sources of CO 2 emissions, both in absolute terms and on the basis of tons per kilowatt-hour (kWh); therefore, these plants are implicated in the atmospheric accumulation of this greenhouse gas. Furthermore, openface coal mining, a method widely employed in the United States today, has a significant environmental and...