World energy consumption and resources:
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The
first part of the talk is based on the following article and references
therein (please refer to it if you need to quote from this talk):
© 2008 Gian Paolo Beretta
A more recent version of this talk, given as a keynote lecture at the ASME Congress in Boston on Nov.4, 2008 is available here. It includes new ideas such as "what I would do if I were the new president elected..." as well as an appendix containing unused text and slides from this Jan.08 talk.
1.
Before we start, this initial slide defines the unit of measure of
energy that is best suited for the purposes of our discussion today: the ton of
oil equivalent. The toe. That is, the average heating value of one metric ton
of oil, which is about 7.3 barrels. In more standard units, this amount of
energy is equivalent to 10 billion calories, about 42 billion Joules, about
12000 kWh. Just to fix ideas, if one toe of primary energy is used in a 52%
power plant, it produces slightly over 6000 kWh of electricity; if the primary
energy source used is indeed oil, at $95/bbl it costs $700, and the electricity
produced sells in Massachusetts at about $900.
The current global yearly consumption is about 11 billion toes.
Not a very gentle tiptoeing on the surface of our planet!
The average per-capita consumption of primary energy is 7.9 toes
per year in the US, almost seven gallons per day. In Europe it is less than
half. The world average is less that a quarter.
2.
The outline of the talk is as follows. We first review historical
data on past consumption of primary energy, and on the overall efficiency of
final use. We then single out some social and economic data and considerations
useful for an outlook, to infer a plausible scenario about demographic growth,
energy needs, and mix of primary resources. We then compare this scenario with
data on currently proved and presumed energy reserves on our planet, to decide
whether we are really running out of fuel as media and politicians keep saying.
Next, we use the scenario to infer how much carbon dioxide we will release due
to primary energy consumption during the rest of the century, and what impact
this will have on global warming.
We will conclude with some comments on the complexity and the
inertia of our energy and economic system, and about the dissipative role of
disinformation, false fears and false hopes of simple solutions. As an example,
I will show the numbers on a comparison between the energy and global warming
perspective impact of hydrogen cars vs electric battery cars.
I will talk for about 45 minutes and then we will have plenty of
time for discussion.
3.
Let's start with the global energy consumption over the last 150
years. Today, the global demand of about 11 billion toes per year is covered
for 78% by fossil fuels (33% oil, black in the figure, 21% natural gas, red;
24% coal, gray), 5.5% by nuclear fuels (violet), 17% by renewable sources,
mainly hydro (blue), 5.5%, while the remaining 11% are non-commercial biomasses
(green), like wood, hay and other forage which in rural-economy countries are
still the main resource. These rural biomasses are not counted in the usual
energy statistics by oil companies, but in a global framework they should be
considered, because at least 2 / 3 of human kind still lives in rural and craft
economies not much different from those of the european middle age. Consider
hay for animal feed. Not more than 150 years ago, in the United States
two-thirds of the mechanical work came from horses, and in 1925 the horses were
still about 30 million.
The direct use of solar energy (yellow in the graph) is currently
estimated at about 10 million toes
(millions, not billions) and so, on the scale of this chart it is invisible,
since it meets less than one thousandth of the global need.
4.
In this chart, which refers to year 2000, nations are divided into
10 groups homogeneous by type of economy, industrial development and intensity
of energy consumption. For each group of nations, the left bar is the yearly
consumption in billion toes; while the right bar represents the population, in
billions; and the number in blue at the top indicates the intensity of energy
consumption, expressed in toes per year per capita. Globally, in year 2000,
about 6.2 billion souls consumed about 10.3 billion toes, with an average
intensity of 1.7 toes per year per capita.
The graph shows very pronounced disparities in the intensity of
consumption. It varies widely from country to country, depending on many
factors such as the different geographical and climatic conditions. For
example, Sweden has a harsh climate that requires a high level of energy for
heating, moreover its geography and low population density require moving
people over long distances with high consumption also for transportation.
Similar problems characterize Canada and the United States with the addition of
a strong need for air-conditioning of buildings due to moisture levels in the
summer months. By contrast, for example, Egypt does not need winter heating,
nor air conditioning during the summer because the weather is dry, and also the
average trip distances are small, because the population is condensed in a
narrow strip along the Nile and its Delta. Another important factor is the
technical economic and organizational efficiency in exploiting the resources,
which depends on the political-economic system internal to the individual
nations. For example, the bureaucratic mentality that has dominated
collectivized economies such as the former Soviet Union, where everything was
subjected to meticulous central planning, causes strong dissipations, and this
is not due to technological backwardness, nor to lack of internal vitality. In
fact, in less than two decades, following the reorganization of former Soviet
Union states, their per capita consumption has halved, and reached the same
average intensity of most European countries.
But, beyond the political and climatic diversity, the main
factor that determines differences in per capita energy consumption, is the
level of development and industrialization, as we can infer by considering the
historical trends.
5-1.
If we consider the bare survival, an active human body requires
about 3000 kilocalories per day (... about half of that is enough for my
daughter, but that's another story...), equivalent to about 0.11 toes per year
It is
estimated that with the discovery of fire 500,000 years ago, the per capita
requirement doubled to 0.22 per year. Another doubling, to 0.45, is attributed
to the Neolithic, due to additional consumption to heat the homes that replaced
the natural caves, to feed animals, for which it was necessary to cultivate the
fields, and later to extract and work bronze and iron. Within the Roman Empire,
the increase in demand was counterbalanced by the progressive improvements in
the efficiency of use. With the use of water to power mills, wind propulsion to
power ships and then also wind mills, with the use of oil and bituminous
products for lighting, the per capita consuption settled to about 0.5 toes per
year, and did not change much until 1800. But then the transformation from
rural to industrial economy in very delimited geographic areas, beginning with
England, involved a rapid increase in the demand for coal, up to 2.8 toes per
year in 1900 in England. In the next century, in western Europe, following
complete industrialization, even where GDP more than doubled, the per capita
energy demand grew only up to 3.5 toes per year. So, industrialization is
really a key factor in attempting a reasonable forecast.
5-2.
For example, consider the case of Italy. In rural-and-craft greek-roman economy, the agricultural product was about 2 / 3 of the gross
product, in 1900 it had fallen to almost half, without a substantial change in
the per capita consumption of energy, mainly from sources still almost only
renewable. In 1913 the gross agricultural product had instead fallen to 42%,
meaning that industrialization had started, and the consumption rose to 0.55
toes per year. In 1939, 28% and 1 toe / year, with the increase all shifted
towards the consumption of fossil fuels instead of renewables. In 1981 the
agricultural product had fallen to 6.4%, the process of industrialization was
almost complete, the gross product per capita had increased fivefold since
1913, and, like in England during industrialization, the per capita energy
consumption rose to 2.5 toes per year.
5-3.
Overall, in the last two thousand years, the global demand of
energy had a 70-fold increase, the population a 20-fold increase and the per
capita consumption little more than a 3-fold increase (from 0.5 to 1.7 toe per
year). The transition from renewable energy sources (wood and forage) to
massive use of fossil fuels, has accompanied and allowed the processes of
development and industrialization, which allowed profound changes in the
quality of life.
6.
There is a strong inverse correlation between the per capita
consumption of energy, and various factors and indicators of social and
economic development, especially the fertility rate and hence the rate of
population growth. Energy allows improvements in the standard of living, broad
access to health care, use of contraceptives, longer life expectancy, services
that increase the level of literacy and access to information, working
opportunities for women, and, importantly, a lesser need to have children and
numerous families to ensure the survival of the unproductive members, children
and the elderly. The per capita energy consumption emerges therefore at the
same time as an index and as an instrument of social and economic development.
Countries with high standards of living and higher per-capita consumption, have
very low or no population growth. Underdeveloped countries have high growth
rates, sometimes doubling the population every 25 years. An important stage in
the development seems to be the passing of the 1 toe threshold. Social
conditions improve, life expectancy reaches 70 years, fertility decreases and
population growth slows down.
7.
Clearly there is no room on Earth for an indefinite population
growth. Most studies agree with the estimate that a sustainable future for our
planet requires the global population to stabilize around twice the current
population and that this will occur in the next 100 years. But population
growth rates will vary greatly from region to region on the planet, depending,
as we have seen, on the current stage of development. On this basis, the chart
shows the expected population growth for the rest of the century, for each of
the 10 groups of countries we already saw.
We will pass from 6 to 11 billion people. Growth will stabilise in
all countries, soon after they pass the threshold of 1 toe per year per capita.
Africa and South Asia today host a third of human kind, at the end of century
they will host a half. North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and
Former Soviet Union states, will drop from todays overall 22% to only 13%.
8.
While this social and economic development takes place, also
technological development continues. The efficiency of exploitation of energy
resources, and of end uses of energy carriers will continues to improve.
This graph shows how technical and scientific research has
resulted in a steady improvement of energy conversion machines, according to a
process that follows the logistic laws typical of all human learning processes.
The chart spans the last 300 years. On the right scale, it shows the regular
growth of the thermodynamic effectiveness of the best available technology for
fossil-fuel primary-availability conversion into mechanical work and
electricity, from the first steam engnes at the dawn of the industrial
revolution in England, to the modern combined-cycle power plants and fuel
cells, which now exceed 60%. We are talking here of the thermodynamic
effectiveness which is sometimes also called ‘second-law or exergy efficiency’.
The fact that it is a remarkable straight line on this scale, is a typical
feature of any learning process. The importance of this correlation of
historical data, is that it shows that progress will continue, and by the end
of the century, we will have energy conversion technologies, with thermodynamic
effectiveness well over 80%. The scale of this graph is not linear in the
effectiveness itself, but in the logarithm of the ratio of the effectiveness to
one minus the effectiveness, as shown on the left logarithmic scale of the
graph. If we were to show effectiveness versus time on a linear scale, the graph
would look as follows.
9.
The typical S-shaped curve of a learning process. Where growth is
at any time proportional to the current efficectiveness and the current room
for improvement, and the time constant turns out to be about 60 years. Sixty years
to change the ratio of eta to one minus eta by a factor of e. Sixty years to go
therefore from the current 60% to 80%. This graph is very exciting, especially
for people like me who work in thermodynamics: you see, we are still just past
a half of our learning process about understanding and mastering the laws of
thermodynamics. That's why we thermodynamicists are still going to be in
business for a while.
10.
Similar improvements will of course obtain also in all the
end-uses of energy, so that at the end of the century the overall life-cycle
efficiency will be doubled, that is, the current standard of living, possible
today in Europe with a per capita consumption of 3 toes per year, will require
only 1.5 toes per year.
The graph shows the trend for the per-capita consumption in the 10
groups of countries already cited. Efficiency improvements, will cause a steady
decrease in countries that are already industrialized, and will partially
mitigate the increase for developing countries, intrinsic in their process of
industrialization. Overall, from the current 1.7 world average, we will end the
century with a world average of only 1.4, in spite of the vaste
industrialization of most of the globe.
11.
Well, we can now combine this chart with the one about demographic
growth we just saw. We multiply, for each group of nations, the per capita
demand by the expected population. Thus we get an estimate of the energy needs
for each group of nations.
12.
Here's the resulting scenario. The global demand will keep growing
quickly for a few decades, but then will stabilize at the end of the century to
a value of about 16 billion toes against the current 11 billions. The
contribution of the most industrialized nations will still grow slightly in the
first two decades, but then reduces to 3 / 4 of their current needs. Compared
to global needs, however, the marginal impact of today's most industrialized
countries will fall from 60 to 28%. Instead, Africa and South Asia will rise
from 10 to 33%.
Given this forecast of energy needs, an even more disputable
affair is to predict how the mix of energy resources used to satisfy them, will
evolve. The various possible scenarios depend on many variables, especially the
geopolitical context that will develop.
13.
Here is a possibility, very balanced I believe, although quite
optimistic in some ways.
The consumption of coal will continue to grow because it will be
used with increasingly clean technologies. Nuclear energy will continue to grow
in the (optimistic) hypothesis that the geopolitical context will stabilize,
allowing for ways to manage the military risks, and that technology will solve
current environmental safety and radioactive waste management concerns.
Oil consumption will peak around year 2020 and then will start to
very slowly decline, due to the progressive but slow depletion of the current
wells, and the decreased rate at which new wells are found. Natural gas and
'clean' coal will take up oil's role and will become the predominant resources
of the century. Still uncertain is the role that non-conventional oil resources
such as tar sands, bituminous shales, heavy crudes and methane hydrates will
have.
Renewable energy consumption will increase, thanks to increasing
exploitation of
hydroelectric resources, increasing 'sustainable' uses of
biomasses and solid wastes.
Direct solar power, wind power, tidal power and other renewable,
or better, quasi-inexaustible resources, will certainly increase, but most
likely will keep their current marginal role for the entire century, although
the learning curve of these technologies will also climb up and hopefully
contribute more significantly.
14.
The scenario just presented as a pausibile mix of resources for
our mid term future is obviously debatable, no one has the crystal ball, it is
nevertheless compatible with what is shown in this graph. The historical trends
of market shares of the various primary sources, extrapolated with the scenario
just discussed, again shown on a logistic scale, namely a scale linear in the
log of f over one minus f, where f if the market share of each resource.
The laws of the market have resulted in the gradual competition
and replacement of resources, from wood and rural biomasses to coal, from coal
to oil, to the current mix of sources that sees gas about to overtake oil. The
slopes on this chart warn about the huge inertia of the economic and energy
technology system. We need tens of years for a new resource to reach a
significant market share. The very life of production facilities ranges from 20
to 40 years. It is obvious that the inertia of the system involves long
response times and long-term returns of investments.
15.
A practical consequence of the inertia of the system, is that any
uncoordinated local or national energy policy, not well-weighted and
well-concerted internationally and globally, cannot possibly change the course
of the system. Not only such a local energy policy would be ineffective and
dissipative, but it could even reduce the confidence of operators in the
stability of the economic and regulatory context in which they are called to
make investments.
Well, from the scenario and the mix of resources we forcast, we
can now calculate the cumulative consumptions per resource at the end of the
century. These are written in the top right box. Compare them with the
cumulative consumptions so far, in the box at the center. In the next slide, we
will compare these numbers, with current estimates of the available reserves,
of fossil and nuclear fuels, to decide if we have enough resources to satisfy
the predicted energy demand for the rest of the century.
16.
Here is the histogram that compares past consumption and future
demand with the known reserves of oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear fuels. The
red bars indicate how much we have already consumed up to the last century, the
orange bars how much we will consume in the current century (according to the
scenario proposed), and the blue bars indicate conventional reserves, that are
considered either proved or highly probable.
Further bars indicate resources that with today's methods are
considered non conventional and not potentially recoverable, but that
presumably could be developed on the time scale we are considering, such as the
use of tar sands, bituminous shales, heavy crudes and methane hydrates, as well
as breeding fission technologies and the Thorium cycle.
It is quite clear that reserves will last well beyond the current
century.
Thus the allegation that primary energy reserves are scarse, which
is constantly repeated by the press, by politicians at all levels with obvious
demagogic purposes, and by aggressive futurologists whose sole interest is to
sell their books and speeches, is clearly false and unfounded. There is no
shortage that will prevent or impede the impressive social and economic
development expected in this century by the emerging countries. When a resource
gets scarce, the markets will adjust, but we will not remain out of fuels for
very long time.
And we didn't mention nuclear fusion here as an option, because of
the difficulties it encounters in the labs and because of the decades that will
separate physics laboratory demonstration, from engineered industrial
installations, and from gaining a sizable share of the market. In any case, we
all know that reserves for fusion would be plentiful, as Lithium is a most
abundant element.
So, the concern is not scarsity, but rather the fact that in the
long-term the second most abundant resource (after breeding nuclear fission) is
coal. Well-known environmental concerns derive from the well-founded
hypothesis, that the amounts of greenhouse gases introduced in the atmosphere
by anthropic exploitation of fossil fuels, may significantly influence the
thermal balance of our planet, affecting clima and melting polar ice-caps. This
hypothesis is in fact pushing towards more energy consumption to seize and
confine part of the carbon dioxide released by the use of fossil fuels.
17.
Indeed, for each toe of primary energy obtained by oxidation of
fossil fuels, the carbon dioxide emission can be estimated to a very first
approximation, by simple stoichiometry. It is 4.6 tonnes of CO2 for wood, 4 for
coal, 3.1 for oil and 2.3 for natural gas. Better numbers would require
considering the full life-cycle from-well-to-final-use of each of these fuels.
In the next slide, we will apply these rates to estimate the overall CO2
emissions implied by our scenario.
Before that, however, I would like to make a brief digression on
the role of waste-to-energy technology, with respect to greenhouse gas
emissions. Municipal wastes are composed for almost 80% of biomasses, and as
such they can be considered a mainly renewable resource. In Brescia, in Italy,
where a top technology, very clean, waste-to-energy power plant has been
operating for ten years now, 1 toe of primary energy is saved for every 6 tons
of waste which is burned. With respect to landfilling, depending on the quality
of the landfilling technology, 1 toe of primary energy saved by burning the 6
tons of wastes, results in saving also about 10 tons of greenhousegas
emissions. This is the estimate based on the current average landfilling
technology in Italy. So, waste to energy does contribute positively. But the
contribution is limited. Even if we burnt all our wastes in power plants like
the Brescia one, the primary energy savings would not exceed 2%, but the GHG
savings would be of the order of 5%.
18.
Ok, back to the anthropogenic CO2 emissions for the next century.
This is the scenario of CO2 emissions due to fossil fuel
consumption according the scenario we have developed. If during the last
century human kind has released a total of 300 billion tonnes of carbon in the
form of CO2, in the current century we will release another 800 billion tons, an
average of 8 billions per year. And it will be more, if the optimistic
assumption of an acceptable resolution of the problems of nuclear energy should
not come through.
This anthropogenic release, which arises from primary energy
consumption, is certainly not a negligible amount, but it is a relatively small
fraction of the complex natural balances and exchange mechanisms, by which
carbon accumulates on the surface of our planet and in the ocean depths,
determining the natural concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
19.
The 8 billion tons of annual, anthropogenic, energy-related
emissions, are about 5% of the amounts exchanged every year in the natural
carbon cycles, regulated by the production of biomass for photosynthesis,
decomposition of biomass plants and animals, and mass exchanges accompanying
seasonal temperature changes. Every year, the atmosphere exchanges 60 billion
tons of carbon with the land surface and 90 billions with the upper layers of
the oceans. The yearly exchanges in the ocean between the surface layers and
the intermediate and deep layers are about 100 billion tons, and they are
important because carbon dioxide, which is heavier than both air and water
accumulates in large and stratified amounts in the ocean’s depths.
So much so, that one of the ideas for segregating the CO2 produced
from oxidizing fossil fuels, is to separate it from the products of oxidation,
solidify it to the so-called dry ice from, and then drop it down in the ocean
depths (8-9 thousand meters) where the absence of convective mixing and the
high pressures, maintain very large and stable viscous lakes of liquid carbon
dioxide.
Today the atmosphere contains about 750 billion tons of carbon in
the form of CO2, the surface layers of the oceans contain 1000 billion tons of
carbon, and the earth's surface 2200,
while the deep ocean layers contain 38000. So, the overall cumulative
anthropogenic emissions during this entire century, 800 billion tons, amount to
slightly less than 2% of the overall natural reserves of carbon, but are about
20% of the surface amounts.
20.
So, of course, what matters are the rates at which the natural
mechanisms can metabolize the amounts of CO2 we inject. Of the 300 billion tons
we emitted during the past century, only about 45% have been metabolized. We
infer that from the fact that the remaining 55% have accumulated in the
atmosphere, causing an increase in CO2 concentration of 80 ppm, from 280 to
360. Assuming the phenomenon is still in its linear phase, as suggested by the fact
that the anthropic contribution is a small fraction of the natural metabolism,
we infer that of the additional 800 billion tons that we will inject in this
century, still only about 55% will remain in the atmosphere, meaning that the
concentration will go up another 220 ppm, to a final 580. Considering the
apparent direct proportionality between increase in CO2 concentration and
increase in average surface temperature, we will have another scary 1.6 degrees
Celsius temperature increase, on top of the 0.6 degrees already occurred, with
all the climatic changes that will follow.
So, differently from what I thought when I wrote the paper I
circulated, I now changed my mind, and I am now convinced of the existence of
scientific evidence that anthropic emissions are to be held responsible for the
climatic changes. Arguments about the unprecedented rates of increase have
convinced me. However, the doubt remains that the enormous costs and efforts,
also in terms of additional primary energy consumption, that are necessary to
obtain significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, could be easily
rendered vain by small fluctuations in the many broad natural mechanisms that
regulate the thermal equilibrium of our planet.
21.
In any case, legislators, politicians, media, and ultimately the
people, should not lean on disinformation or cheap futurology, and should not
be tempted by false promises of easy solutions, of the complex energy and
environmental problems we face. Decision makers and everybody else should never
forget the characteristics of complexity, inertia and globality, of the social
and economic context, in which the energy and environmental problems are
embedded.
For example, especially in Europe, in the name of sustainable
development, we have been spending a lot of research money to chase the mirage
of the so-called hydrogen economy. The idea that the synthetic production of
hydrogen fuel from water, could serve as an energy carrier, alternative and
better than electricity, is in my view illusory and misleading.
I look forward to your comments and to the discussion which I hope
will follow, as I am quite open to hear you comments, and I am eager to learn
from you, if I should change my mind about this too. Therefore, to provoke some
discussion, I will conclude my talk by showing the numbers, that convince me,
that a hydrogen economy centered on hydrogen cars, is a bad idea, both from the
point of view of energy consumption and of climate change. The numbers I found,
from prominent sources, seem to suggest quite clearly that an economy based on
electricity and electric battery cars, is much more energy efficient and
environment friendly.
Of course, hydrogen may be the most abundant element in the
Universe, and there is no doubt that it is a great fuel, if handled with care,
but nowhere on Earth we have hydrogen wells. Hydrogen on Earth is not a primary
source of energy, yet most european laymen, due to bad information, have
unfortunately been convinced that hydrogen, is the source of energy of the future.
Of course in this room we all know very well that if we want to
produce hydrogen, we must consume a primary resource. Just as we do to produce
electricity.
Electricity is an energy carrier, that we have been using for over
a hundred years, central to past as well as current industrialization
processes. Electricity is a non-polluting energy carrier, in the sense that
where it is used for a variety of end uses, it does not produce local
pollution. But we do pollute, and do consume primary energy, in the power
plants where the electricity is generated.
For hydrogen, the picture is exactly the same. Hydrogen too is a
non-local-polluting energy carrier, if it is used in a fuel-cell to power an
electric car. But to make the hydrogen, we do pollute, and do consume primary
energy.
So, to decide whether to invest on hydrogen or on electricity, we
must study the entire life cycle from well to wheel, and we must compare the
two energy carriers on equal grounds.
22.
Here is such a comparison, in a scenario in which the primary
energy source is natural gas. Forget the details. The problem of an energy life
cycle that passes through the production of hydrogen, is that it generally has
more intermediate processes, and more irreversibilities than going through electricity.
According to these perspective estimates, worked out by internationally
recognized experts, the well-to-wheel efficiency of a hydrogen car will hardly
ever exceed 24%, compared to the 34% of an electric battery car. This means
that in the best perspective, the hydrogen car will consume 43% more primary
energy than the battery car. The local pollution will be zero in both cases,
but mind that if the primary energy source to produce hydrogen or electricity
is a fossil fuel, this also means 43% more greenhouse gases and other
pollutants.
23.
Well. It is often said, that hydrogen is really ideal for use with
renewables, solar photovoltaic and wind power, or with hydro and nuclear power,
and that it helps reducing greenhouse gases in a fully renewable or nuclear
scenario. But this too seems to be contradicted by the conclusions of the
experts. If the hydrogen is produced by electrolysis, using electricity from
renewable sources (or nuclear electricity), the comparison is even worse: 27%
instead of 62%, which means that the consumption of primary energy of the
hydrogen car is 130% more than that of the battery car; it consumes more than
double. And note that these estimates were done on the basis of the same
autonomy, power, and cruise speed of the car.
24.
This table puts the estimates we just mentioned, together with the
many other potential combinations for automotive traction. If we start from the
more likely traditional mix of primary sources, the perspective numbers
proposed by automotive experts, confirm that the electric battery car is the
least consuming, immediately followed by various hybrid car combinations. The
best hydrogen car combination consumes 43% more, as we have seen. If we assume
an unlikely hypothetical scenario of all renewable primary sources, the picture
for hydrogen cars is even worse, as the best combination consumes 130% more, as
we have just seen. This means that for the same mileage, we would need more
than twice as many windmills and twice as many fields covered by photovoltaic
cells.
And notice that these are just the numbers for energy, without
accounting for the additional burden to build up the necessary infrastructures,
the market penetration, and the safety measures that a hydrogen economy would
require.
Sure, the development of electric battery vehicles still requires
a lot of research, and infrastructure investments for upgrading the
distribution network, and also to recharge the exhausted batteries, but a good
part of the technology is well known and established. In addition, based on the
existing electricity network, the diffusion of these vehicles for limited
distances, can start right now and build up gradually. Indeed, some cities in
urban areas where environmental benefits justify the higher costs, have already
adopted fleets of battery vehicles. Research can focus on the development of
better batteries, and more efficient recovery of the kinetic energy dissipated
during braking of the car.
25.
So, all these numbers, show that energy is a complex and global
problem, characterized by large inertia and influenced by geopolitical
difficulties. If we want to change the direction of such a large and heavy
ship, we must schedule and coordinate the maneuver well in advance. Local
manoeuvers, if not well coordinated on the global scale, will hardly be
effective. It is a difficult equilibrium to maintain, between the short-term
time scale of the political world and the long-term time scale needed to direct
and attract investments in the proper coordinated directions.
26.
In the meantime, one of the best investments we can make is in
research, fundamental and applied, technological and scientific, in all
directions, to continue our learning process, and guarantee that indeed sixty
years from now, we will have power plants with a net thermodynamic
effectiveness over 80%, and we will greatly improve on all our end uses of
energy.
27.
With this, I thank the foundation Jean-Michel Folon, for
publishing the evocative works of art of this great belgian artist, from whom I
have freely drawn all except one of the backgrounds of my slides ( http://www.folon-art.com/
). And I thank you all for your attention, and look forward to your
comments.
Click here to see the VIDEO (wmv) of the discussion that followed the talk
(be patient...: after about one minute, the camera will turn and stay on the audience)