Give Me All The Energy Sources
Reducing carbon emissions to net-zero is an easy enough goal to digest. You remove as much CO2 from the atmosphere as you release. It becomes more complex of a goal when it is timebound and even more of headache when you realize that it is difficult to justify any one approach to reaching this goal.
In the past week, Nature Magazine published “Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power” that highlighted nuclear power as not being the answer to reducing carbon emissions, and prioritizing nuclear over renewables will stymie innovation in renewables. The one nuance to note here is that this argument is centered around electricity. Not CO2 emissions from cars, or agriculture, but good ol fashion electricity. The reason for this is not only because 1/3 of CO2 emission comes from electricity use but because reducing emissions through end products such as electricity consumption in the industrial or automotive sector relies on electricity as well. If this is true, CO2 emissions objectives agreed to by the Paris Climate Agreement alongside a modest prediction of double the energy usage by mid century, focus is a compelling vision.
The issue is that biomass and renewable energy sources alone cannot both reduce CO2 emissions and meet energy demands by the end of the century — although biomass, wind and solar of energy are meeting their deployment/usage rates outlined by the Paris Climate Agreement.
The downside is that uptick in innovations and usage of nuclear and carbon capture technologies have been relatively flatlined since the early 2000s. Wait, so is this a bad thing? In 2019, this letter was penned to several congressional representatives requesting a redefinition of renewables to include wind, solar, and potentially geothermal energy sources. The reasoning behind this request is unclear but I mean if renewables are becoming cheaper and are being used more and more in our infrastructure to replace fossil fuels, why do we need nuclear energy? Because as with any technology, economies of scale has a limit…even with renewables. See the graph below:
Over time, as Solar energy market value decreases, total share of annual energy increases but at approximately $40/MWh the costs of deploying solar energy /MWh is equal to it’s value. Meaning at some point, it’s Solar’s energy production will cost more than its value. This is in large part due to the limits of Solar/Wind energy deployment — the main limitation being availability of solar and wind respective to peak energy consumption times (Eg. what happens when there is not sun or no wind, can we rely on those energy sources at all points in time?).
The following are the 3 main reasons for decline of value from renewables:
1- Declining “fuel saving” value: For every MgW hour from wind or solar how much does that decrease our reliance on other energy sources.
2- Decreasing Capacity Value: For every MGW hour of energy from wind or solar, how much capacity of energy can I store to replace energy stored by natural gas or nuclear energy.
3- Increases in Overgeneration: Energy that is stored or wasted increases demand for that energy.
To summarize:
1 — Renewables are becoming more cost effective and more adopted by the consumer over time.
2 — Renewables cannot be the only source of energy to rely on because there is a limit to its market value respective to reliability to replace current energy sources.
3 — Replacing electricity is key to reducing CO2 gas emissions as many modalities to reduce CO2 production with consumer goods rely on electricity.
There is no silver bullet when it comes to replacing current energy sources to reduce CO2 emissions. It has to be a multimodal approach, until there comes a time when we can reliably replace one energy source over another.
