The Waste of the Future












With this installment we finish the trilogy of waste and refuse related to the energy sector and dominant technologies. Two weeks ago we entered into the public crisis generated by horse waste —urine, manure and corpses— in the great cities of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century; and the previous week, we analyzed how the growth in the use of fossil fuels in the world has produced an increase in greenhouse gas emissions related to climate change.

The problem caused by horse waste was solved when the automobile became widespread and the use of fossil fuels increased as the main source of transportation in the world. In the near future, the use of fossil sources could be replaced by the generation and storage of renewables, but that could also bring with it the energy waste of the future.

When the moment arrives, the proliferation of solar panels and batteries will be of such magnitude that, just like the horse in its time or greenhouse gas emissions, their final disposal can be a public problem of great importance.

Tons of waste of the future

Those solar panels that have been installed in recent years and those that are about to be installed could add up, by 2040, to 770,000 tons. This figure will increase as the roofs of the world become covered with solar panels; something that could be relatively fast, considering that the most important cities in the world have already begun to develop policies so that new constructions take advantage of their roofs to generate electric energy.

On the other hand, reaching the energy potential that renewable energies can release requires the development of storage on a large and small scale; this is batteries in generation plants, but also in buildings, businesses, industrial parks and homes.

Although there are many technological developments in the research and maturation stage, today conventional storage is carried out through lithium batteries that contain nickel, cobalt, aluminum, manganese and other components; in such a way that the batteries for cars and the electric sector that have been developed until now, and those that continue in the near future, can represent close to 7.8 million tons per year by 2040.

Given that one of the main costs of an electric car is the battery and its replacement can mean more expense —in terms of leveled investment— than buying another car, it is highly probable that the waste will not only be the batteries but the entire frame of the automobile, in addition to the fact that other legacy waste is not eliminated, such as tires.

A solution for the waste of the future

To solve these problems of the near future, two elements are required working jointly and in synergy:

  1. Policies for the final disposal of this waste in the present that responsibly address withdrawal in the future. That is, the responsibility of the producer and consumer must be extended in the present, in order to have the means of recycling, disposal and reuse in the future.
  2. Innovation and development to increase the useful life of technology and transition toward better methods of generation and storage of energy and transportation.

Who knows, perhaps another energy transition, there in the distant future, will allow us to change from solar generation, conventional storage and electric cars to a system based on hydrogen as an energy vector, storage and transportation. There is still a long way to go, but without a doubt, the energy future of the world will be surprising.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: August 26, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/opinion-la-basura-del-futuro-paul-sanchez-columna-energia-circular/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20220928192656/https://businessinsider.mx/opinion-la-basura-del-futuro-paul-sanchez-columna-energia-circular/ [Archived]

The Waste of the Present










“Our use of fossil sources pushes us to a point of no return.”

– Barack Obama

The massification of the automobile allowed an energy transition, particularly of the energy used for mobility. This allowed solving complicated public problems that the great cities of that time, such as New York and London, faced because of the waste of horses, the main means of transportation of that time, in the form of manure, urine and corpses.

However, despite the problems it solved, the adoption of new forms of energy and technologies brought with them their own problems. Although the waste of today, related to fossil sources, is multivariate and presents its own challenges, for example, used tires, batteries, coal mining or the used automobiles themselves, its most characteristic byproduct is greenhouse gas emissions.

The massification of the automobile and the development of electric plants based on fossil sources such as mineral coal and petroleum derivatives generated an increase in the emission of greenhouse gases, which made evident a series of social and environmental problems.

Global warming began to gain relevance in the world starting in the 1990s, particularly with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. The topic addressed particularly was the link between greenhouse gas emissions with the use of fossil sources of energy, with global warming, and the latter with climate change.

By the 1900s, the increase in the temperature of the Earth had been 0.2 degrees Celsius; with the massification of automobiles in the 1950s, an increase of 0.5 degrees Celsius was reached compared with the average temperature of the second half of the nineteenth century. By the year 2000, it had already reached 0.7 degrees and in 2018–2019 an increase of 1.2 degrees Celsius.

Undoubtedly, the economic, scientific, technological and social development of the world is intimately linked to a greater availability of energy, which opened a world of possibilities to expand the frontier of expansion of the global economy at an important cost: climate change.

It would not be fair to say that there were alternatives because, as I indicated in last week’s article, in the past there were also environmental impacts that were unsustainable in the long term. However, it is important to note that it is this public problem of global character that is the main reason why the international community has pressed for an accelerated energy transition based on the decrease in the intensity of the use of fossil sources of energy and greater use of renewable energy sources and storage.

Many solid advances have been made along that path; solar and wind have now contributed 10% of the energy consumed in the world, while generation based on mineral coal has lost almost the same amount, 8% in the same period, in such a way that it is not impossible to think that in a not very distant future we could see its replacement as a primary source of energy.

However, renewable and green sources, storage, electric automobiles, hydrogen and other technologies that are defining the future of energy, do they not generate waste, refuse or residues of some kind? The answer is yes, and just as in the past the horse generated an impact on the environment and today fossil sources do as well, it is a fact that in the future, energy waste will also change and we will talk about that next week. Until then.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: August 19, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/basura-del-presente-energia-circular-opinion-paul-alejandro-sanchez/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210306233903/https://businessinsider.mx/basura-del-presente-energia-circular-opinion-paul-alejandro-sanchez/ [Archived]

Democratization: The Fourth D of the Energy Future






There can be no democracy without citizenship every day

– Ralph Nader

In recent weeks I have addressed three trends of the energy future: decarbonization, decentralization and digitalization. Together these three trends create and reinforce a fourth trend: the democratization of energy, which is the fourth D of the energy future.

Democratization, for the purposes of this article, is not related to the concept of political science that refers to the transition from authoritarian political regimes to democratic ones, but it does take the most important component of the concept of democracy: the citizen who is the center of the democratic process.

A related concept would be the democratization of knowledge, which refers to the process of disseminating knowledge among ordinary people, thereby breaking the concentrations of knowledge enjoyed by elites. Libraries and access to the internet are sources that allow knowledge to be democratized.

In the same way, democratizing energy implies the process of breaking the barriers that prevent universal access to energy and the adaptation of consumption centers into production centers. This implies several things, but the most important is to develop regulation that places the consumer, the user and the citizen at the center.

This means that they are freely allowed to choose their energy provider and their source of generation; that they are allowed to install solar panels on their roofs without the need for complex regulations that benefit horizontally and vertically integrated production chains; and above all it implies that all citizens have access to energy, understanding by this not only electrification but having the capacity to pay or having a protected tariff according to their basic needs.

Just as in political democracy the source of the legitimacy of the ruler is deposited by sovereign citizens as a whole, the energy sector starts from the same logic, from the existence of social demands that are important for the development of a modern energy future for new generations.

This includes decarbonization reflected in a responsible consumption of energy that must consider the least possible impact on the environment. It also includes the breaking of state monopolies and State control in matters of provision of energy services and redesigning its role as regulator and protector of citizens, that is, a process of decentralization.

It also includes taking advantage of the resources that digitalization places within reach of modern societies for the consolidation of a sector that takes advantage of the interconnectivity of consumption centers with production centers and breaks with the limitations of the integration of renewable energies into energy distribution and transmission networks, which must at all times be intelligent.

And, of course, it implies paying attention to the most unprotected, marginalized and vulnerable, to those citizens who do not have access to energy or who have access to energy of lower quality — such as firewood or other solid fuels — or who have access to polluting energy or who, having an electric connection, for example, cannot pay their electricity bills.

The gap in access to energy is the fundamental source of energy poverty and inequality and that has an impact on the quality of life of citizens. In an energy democracy that must matter. The democratization of energy is therefore about bringing more energy at lower prices at lower environmental and social costs and that goes hand in hand with the digitalization, decentralization and decarbonization of the energy sector of the future.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: August 5, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/democratizacion-energia-electrica-futuro-energetico-energia-circular-opinion-paul-sanchez/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210306234818/https://businessinsider.mx/democratizacion-energia-electrica-futuro-energetico-energia-circular-opinion-paul-sanchez/ [Archived]