Evaluating Efforts to Migrate Towards Clean Energy
A reader challenges my post hailing Sweden for its success in the migration to renewables. I wrote: “Sweden managed to reach its goal of a 50 per cent renewable energy share several years ahead of the Swedish government’s 2020 schedule, in 2012. The most recent figure of 52 per cent for renewable energy – including electricity, district heating and fuel – is the highest in the EU.”
The reply: That’s wonderful, but I will not cheer Sweden until they achieve AT LEAST 90% CO2 free power which is highly unlikely. That is the minimum that the entire world will have to achieve. Goals of less than that are inadequate and should be recognized as such.
The reader is entitled to his opinion, but I have to say with all due respect that it’s a bit bizarre. The idea of not praising groups that fail to achieve complete success in getting to carbon-free energy is like saying that physics is a failure because we don’t understand black matter, or that modern medicine is a failure because there is still disease.
He may want to rethink this.
90 % CO2 free power. Yes, that guy is obviously a dreamer and is going down a path that excludes energy production from put and take systems. In an ideal world of the future we should be able to guilt-free generate more carbon dioxide than we emit from our lungs. For example a forest products industry should be able to balance the growth of timber and its sequestration of carbon dioxide with the burning of sawdust and scrap wood to produce heat, steam and or electricity.
No, I see no need to rethink my failure to praise a country that has achieved 50% CO2 free power. I believe that what will happen is that if they get somewhat above 50% they will find it impossible to get much higher if they simply expand the technology that got them to 50%; they will hit a wall beyond which they cannot go.
France achieved 80% CO2 free power although it has since dropped to about 75%, yet I don’t see people praising France. Why is that? Moreover, they went from 0% CO2 free power to 80% CO2 free power in only 15 years.
The global demand for power is likely to increase by FOUR TIMES by the end of the century. Thus, if every country, by the end of the century, achieved only 50% CO2 free power, global emissions of CO2 would INCREASE, not decrease. Considering the increasing demand for power, probably 90% of power will have to be generated without emitting CO2 to reduce CO2 emissions significantly below what they are now.
If Sweden had achieved 50% carbon free power by using a technology that by simple expansion would permit them to achieve 90% at a later date and they were well on their way towards doing so, I would praise them. However, that is not the case.
Actually, the percentage of CO2 free power is not a very good measurement even though it is commonly used. For example, take two countries, as follows:
Marsovia gets 50% of its power with hydro and 50% with natural gas.
Dystopia gets 50% of its power with hydro and 50% with coal.
Both countries get 50% of their power by CO2 free means, but Dystopia emits far more CO2 than Marsovia because natural gas emits far less CO2 than coal. We really need a better measurement system.