The Disruption of Energy
The concept of sustainability is vague and difficult to quantify, which is perhaps why progress toward sustainability has been so slow. A new mindset is needed to create the future it envisions.
Clean energy is often perceived as a transition from cheap, abundant fossil fuels to expensive, scarce renewables. In this paper, I will argue that the clean energy revolution can usher in a fundamental shift in the way we produce energy. This change can revolutionize the specific energy and labor relationships that have led to the consequences of fossil fuel resource scarcity in the past.
It is time for new terminology that provides clarity and motivates people to act - terminology that goes beyond the language of sustainability and expresses the potential for shared prosperity and abundance that we have overlooked. Because prosperity simultaneously expands economic opportunity, strengthens community, and restores the planet, it provides an important mechanism to achieve the Paris climate goals.
Solve global warming with an abundance perspective
What if we could use a lot more energy? In recent decades, the industry's focus has been on increasing energy efficiency rather than finding new productive uses for more energy. The market demands energy efficiency when energy costs are not trivial, when supply shocks can suddenly drive them up, and when consumers are aware of the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels. This leads to global economic problems such as those we are currently seeing around the world.
In the years since the mid-20th century, policymakers have focused on energy efficiency rather than energy abundance by setting standards for cars and banning the sale of incandescent light bulbs. These measures make sense, but they have not been balanced by efforts to achieve true energy abundance. At best, today's policymakers talk about new energy technologies to replace fossil fuels with carbon-free alternatives.
Climate change gives us an opportunity to rethink energy technology. Recent reductions in the cost of generating wind and solar power have created a wave of optimism. If they continue, or if similar cost reductions are possible with advanced nuclear or geothermal technologies, we could find ourselves in a place most of us never expected: a world with cheap energy, free of international supply shocks, and with limited environmental incentives to conserve. We call an extreme version of this scenario "energy superabundance."
If our society continues to shy away from high energy spending, we should consider that the reason may be a lack of vision of what we could do with abundant energy. This article aims to provide that vision by exploring the environmental benefits of abundant energy. We hope to change mindsets by focusing on the positive aspects of abundant energy. Even though today's energy sources come with environmental costs, we can still see them as worthwhile if we strive for abundance.
My or our goal in promoting abundant renewable energy is to raise our standard of living. The relationship between economic growth and energy consumption runs both ways: Rich countries need more energy because they are wealthier, but higher energy consumption directly increases economic growth. Cheap energy lowers the cost of all the goods and services we consume today that require energy to produce. More importantly, it allows us to produce more and new goods and services in ways that are only economical when energy costs are low. When we look at different economic systems, it's always about how we can grow as a society. What would a world and an economy look like that is based on infinite renewable energy? If we don't need the earth's resources for that energy and can use that energy to create new materials and solutions that were previously unthinkable.
We believe that our current energy consumption is abysmally low by the standards of the future. To achieve super-surplus energy, we must not only replace existing fossil fuels with carbon-free alternatives. We need to increase energy production by an entire order of magnitude. We hope that our exploration of the uses of abundant renewable energy will advance this goal.
For me, this involves two key issues. Water and materials. These are the fundamental building blocks for our society.
Water - the foundation of life
Two percent of energy production is for the treatment and distribution of water. Traditional water supplies are in short supply worldwide, so there is a demand for technologies that tap new sources of fresh water. These technologies trade increased energy consumption for the preservation of existing groundwater resources and the settlement and development of land that otherwise would not be possible.
Desalination
The cost of desalination has dropped by 75% over the past 40 years, due to better membranes for reverse osmosis and the use of energy recovery equipment. The price of desalinating water could be as little as twice the cost of using surface water. Desalination today consumes about 10 kWh per 1,000 gallons, or about four times as much energy as surface water distribution and treatment. New technologies such as electrodeionization could be about twice as energy efficient, and it may be possible to achieve further efficiency gains by mimicking the biological processes by which mangrove plants and euryhal fish extract freshwater from seawater.
Desalination is likely to remain a niche water source in much of the rich world, but it is important to note that many parts of Africa and Asia will need to greatly expand their water supplies to meet growing populations. In Israel, for example, desalination already provides more than half of the water for households, agriculture and industry. Singapore and island nations like Trinidad and Tobago also rely heavily on desalination. Here, there are already some projects that have been inspired by nature. Small semi-permeable membranes based on nanostructures can make salt water drinkable.
Water reclamation
Water reclamation is a process in which wastewater is treated and reused. Water utilities use the same reverse osmosis process as desalination plants. Reclaimed water can be used for agriculture, but must first be purified to make it potable. Israel recovers nearly 90 percent of its wastewater. If we develop new materials that can filter the water and use energies that convert it, we can really recover wastewater in a meaningful way, perhaps even increasing the rate to 99 percent.
Condensing water from the air
While desalination requires large plants and a well or the ocean to extract water, a startup has figured out how to condense water from the air. The company's system uses 0.7 kWh/gallon, 70 times more than modern desalination plants. The application of this technology is niche, but the low cost of energy makes it competitive with water transported by truck, where both infrastructure and water are scarce.
Materials - the building blocks of our creativity
Sand
Sand is everywhere, but coarse-grained sand is needed for construction purposes such as concrete. This sand is mostly found in rivers and lakes, which means it is in limited supply and its extraction is harmful to the environment. We use a lot of sand - the United States uses 1 billion tons of construction sand per year.
The energy costs associated with using desert sand for construction vary widely, so we assume 1 MWh/ton. For comparison, the United States alone could use 4 percent of its primary energy needs to convert desert sand into building sand for domestic use. Globally, 34 percent of today's total energy demand would be needed to sinter enough fine-grained sand to alleviate sand shortages and preserve river and lake habitats. In countries like the United States, where supplies are plentiful, construction sand is cheap. In Asia and Africa, where demand is increasing, this technology could help meet the need. To make our sand consumption less harmful, we need cheap, abundant energy.
If we are looking for new materials, what are the alternatives? Can we genetically engineer fungi to produce fast-living materials that we can use to build houses? Or can we reprogram plants so that we can live in them? I like to remind people about the bamboo houses in Bali. They're incredibly beautiful, sustainable, and have a special energy when you sleep in them. Wouldn't that also be conceivable for a modern city?
Steel
Steel is responsible for about 7 percent of global carbon emissions. Blast furnaces consume 0.77 tons of coking coal to produce one ton of steel from iron ore. The calorific value of this coal is about 6 MWh per ton of steel. Coal accounts for about one-sixth of the cost of steel, but even with cheap energy and falling investment costs for electrolysers, there will be no dramatic drop in steel prices to increase consumption. Since primary energy consumption will remain about the same (it takes about 6 MWh of primary energy to produce 3.5 MWh of electricity), total energy consumption in steelmaking will increase primarily because of economic growth, which requires more steel.
What if we could replace steel with new materials? Sounds unrealistic, but we have talked to some research teams working on bacteria that produce artificial nacre, which is stronger, harder and lighter than carbon and steel and will be the perfect raw material for building houses, planes or rockets in the future. All we need is energy + bacteria + sugar + 3D printers.
Plastics and polymers
Chemical companies make plastics and polymers by forming long chains of small molecules like ethylene and propylene. Raw materials like ethylene are made by cracking ethane (a component of natural gas) or naphtha (a crude oil component).
If we make electricity cheap enough, CO2 can compete with fossil fuels as a raw material for plastics. This requires a lot of energy and is only economical if electricity is really cheap. If electricity regularly cost less than $0.02/kWh, companies could produce ethylene from air, water and electricity at competitive prices. These products could easily replace existing chemical plants.
The plastics and polymer industries are growing rapidly. Per capita consumption in developed countries far exceeds that in developing countries, which means demand in developing countries will likely continue to grow as they catch up. In a few decades, existing production facilities will account for only a small portion of total production. Chemical companies would retool their plants to easily process the feedstocks needed to produce electrofuels.
An interesting side effect of this scenario is that the consumption of single-use plastic would sequester carbon dioxide for hundreds of years. The technologies for garbage trucks and landfills are widely available and do not need to be coordinated across countries. If we reduced global plastic consumption by a factor of 10, the industry would sequester cumulative global emissions in 150 years. For our great-great-grandchildren who can drill for fossil hydrocarbons again to prevent a global cooling catastrophe, we should let them know where we buried all the plastic in case they need it as a raw material.
The coming carbon shortage
If a process for producing materials that uses CO2 from the air becomes economical, we are in big trouble. Every ton of polyethylene produced sequesters over three tons of CO2. Cement production would also be CO2 negative. When these processes become economical, there will inevitably be a shortage of carbon in the atmosphere.
Once plastics are made from air, water and electricity/solar instead of fossil fuels, they will not relinquish their market leadership to conventionally produced materials. The fossil fuel industry must constantly adapt to new technologies. Mining technologies are being developed to tap into certain types of reserves. When those reserves are depleted, new technological investments are needed to develop more reserves. But in a world where energy is abundant and atmospheric resources are plentiful, it is hard to imagine these investments being made. Just as the Haber-Bosch process made the extraction of bat guano for fertilizer obsolete, we will no longer use mined materials to make plastics once cheap energy is available. Instead, we will develop raw materials that do not need to be mined from the earth and are therefore renewable and more competitive.
Although the amount of plastics and cement we consume is only a fraction of our future consumption, we are already seeing the impact on our environment. The future supply created by taking carbon out of the air will exceed existing carbon sources. This may be as soon as 75 years from now or as late as 750 years from now, but at some point the world will have to move to taxing the carbon taken out of the air rather than taxing the carbon released into the atmosphere.
This would happen if we continued to fund current "innovative" projects. If we were to take a different path and create living systems that produce energy or something similar this will not happen. We would always provide a natural exchange between carbon and other materials. Above I talked about living materials that could replace cement. If we seriously think about the next years, we cannot avoid to become regenerative.
The regenerative future
Although energy surpluses bring great gains in performance and well-being, the results we have described are, by and large, only the beginning. They still assume an energy and power density that can be achieved with near-term technologies.
One day we could have airplanes that never have to land, plants that produce metals, your windows and walls that generate energy in your home, and refrigerators that never have to plug in. Our total primary energy consumption will increase dramatically when our appliances are powered by miniaturized, built-in nuclear reactors (renewable, of course)! - Or - even better - self-sufficient in energy.
It is possible for cities and villages to produce all the energy they consume themselves. Without relying on regional, national or supranational energy grids, cities could become more autonomous. Energy technologies have always played an important role in geopolitics, and they will continue to define people's lives in the future. This will be the cornerstone for new civilizations, forms of government, and economic systems.
Conclusion
Energy is everywhere. Everything is made and transported with energy, and everything we eat and drink contains energy. Our cities and infrastructure use and promote the use of energy.
There is no reason to believe that we will reach a ceiling on energy use anytime soon. As we have shown, while per capita energy consumption in Europe and the U.S. peaked in the late 1970s, there is still plenty of room for growth. With an abundance of energy, we would travel faster and experience more of the planet in our daily lives and during our lifetimes. Our goods would become cheaper. There would be more abundant building materials. And our health would improve with more nutritious food and cleaner water.
In our view, policymakers have mistakenly focused on energy technologies with only pollution and carbon emissions in mind. Although pollution is harmful and the planet is warming, and these problems should be addressed, it is better to keep in mind the true potential of energy technologies. Instead of simply replacing current energy consumption with energy from cleaner sources, we should figure out how to use new and renewable energy technologies to radically increase human prosperity.
To achieve this energy abundance, we must remove the barriers that keep us from using it.
If we continue as we are, many of the opportunities I have highlighted here will not be exploited for a long time. We should seize those opportunities now. Basically, to me, renewable energy means harnessing the energy of the sun.
Starting with fossil fuels, we have harnessed the sun by burning ancient plants that have extracted energy from the sun through photosynthesis.
More directly, solar cells convert the sun's rays into electricity by using photons to excite electrons in silicon cells.
But the potential is much greater. A total of 173,000 terawatts (trillions of watts) of solar energy continuously hits the Earth. That's more than 10,000 times the world's total energy consumption. How can we harness the full potential of the sun to produce energy, materials and more?
When exponential technologies come together to make renewable energy safe, ubiquitous, cheap and abundant, we are on the cusp of a new energy revolution.
We are building the FlyWheel for tomorrow's civilization. Solutions that can be deployed on Earth, Mars and Co.
Get involved in these important conversations:
As much as we believe in the cause ourselves, we won't make it without your commitment and support. If you believe in our mission and want to contribute to the development of JHI, you can get involved:
Discuss: