The Economist Debate On The "World Energy Crisis"  

Energy Bulletin points to a debate starting at The Economist on whether or not "breakthrough innovations" are required to solve the energy crisis. My view is that we don't really need any "breakthroughs" - just incremental advances on todays technology and wide scale deployment.

Starting tomorrow The Economist Online Debate Series is starting a two-week long online, Oxford-style debate on solving the world’s energy crisis. Since this topic is highly relevant to you and readers of Energy Bulletin, we wanted to give you and your readers an early invite to participate and be heard alongside notable experts and debaters in this intellectually stimulating, global conversation.

Would you be interested in supporting the discourse on this topic by posting about this debate and your response to our proposition on your blog? To help out, we’ve included a preview of tomorrow’s opening statement by moderator and Economist correspondent, Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran.

The proposition is:

“This house believes that we can solve our energy problems with existing technologies today, without the need for breakthrough innovations.” What do you think? Will the reduction of global energy consumption be enough to sustain current fossil fuel reserves? Or should all efforts be directed toward discovering new technologies that broaden the world’s energy portfolio?

In his opening statement, Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran details both the Pro and Con arguments. Joseph Romm, Pro expert and Senior Fellow at the Centre for American Progress argues that “the world must deploy staggering amounts of low-carbon energy technology as rapidly as possible.” The Con argument made by Peter Meisen, President of Global Energy Network Institute argues that a “design science revolution is required.” Do you agree? Is it more important to support conservation or innovation? Given that both efforts are currently being explored in parallel, where should the center of gravity lie?

Joseph Romm and Peter Meisen will dispute the topic tomorrow in opening posts followed by rebuttals (August 22) and closing statements (August 27). A winner will be determined by popular vote and announced on August 29.

Additionally, the following guest participants are scheduled to post their one-time statements:

• August 20 – Michael Eckhart, President, American Council on Renewable Energy
• August 21– Katie Fehrenbacher, Founding Editor, GigaOM’s Earth2Tech
• August 25 – Makito Takami, Chief representative of Washington DC Office, New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO)
• TBD – Mujid Kazimi, Director, MIT’s Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (CANES)

It seems strange to me that the GENI representative is arguing the "con" case, given that Bucky identified most of the solution decades ago - and the parts that aren't quite there yet (electric cars, smart grids, home scale energy storage) are good things to have, but not absolutely mandatory to solve our energy problems.

Buckminster Fuller, visionary engineer of the 20th century, would challenge his audiences: “There’s no energy shortage; there’s no energy crisis; there’s a crisis of ignorance.”

With oil at more than $100 a barrel, carbon dioxide at 383 parts per million (ppm) and rising, China adding a coal-fired plant every week, and continuing Middle East tensions, Bucky’s statement seems almost flippant. We will argue that he was right.

A bit of history frames the discussion. Mankind has had access to electricity for only 130 years. In just over a century, we have extended transmission lines, providing refrigeration and lighting to 5 billion people around the world. This extraordinary feat elevated three-quarters of humanity out of the daily toil experienced by pre-Edison generations. NASA’s “Earth at Night” map highlights this world of prosperity, yet 24% of humanity still lives in the dark. More than one and a half billion people spend their days in repetitive labour and subsistence farming, fetching water and wood every day simply to survive. There are two worlds—the fortunate who have electrical energy, and the poor who do not.

Ironically, the choices we made to achieve our unprecedented prosperity may bring about our downfall. In 1950, there were 2.5 billion people and a global economy of $7 trillion. In just 6 decades, we are now 6.7 billion with a $66 trillion gross world product. The burning of fossil fuels in the first half of the 20th century had a relatively small ecological footprint. Today, the consequences of energy use are felt in every wallet, on each continent, coastline and in our shared atmosphere.

We are addicted to fossil fuels. Coal and natural gas fire two-thirds of all power production and nearly all transportation uses petroleum. Nature isn’t making any more oil, gas or coal, while the IEA forecasts energy demand will increase 50% by 2030. Business-as-usual is a recipe for disaster—for the global economy and our environment.

When asked about solving difficult societal problems, Bucky Fuller would seek new tools that make the old problem obsolete. Regarding energy issues, he posed a more expansive question: How can we provide the quality-of-life needs for everyone in a manner that is environmentally sustainable for our planet? The premier strategy from this investigation: clean electricity for all. Sounds good, but is it possible?

Scarcity of energy is a myth that persists in society, because our fixation remains on fossil fuels. Yet the resource potentials of solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass and ocean energies are abundant far beyond our needs. The winds of the American plains are sufficient to power all the electrical demand of the United States, and solar radiation from just 3% of the world’s deserts could power all global demand. There is no shortage of renewable energy on our planet! While annual growth rates of 20-40% for geothermal, wind and solar are promising, their share of the energy pie remains less than 3%.

Critics state that renewable energies are intermittent—the sun isn’t always shining and the winds don’t always blow—and we need reliable electricity every second. The critical infrastructure that solves this is high-voltage transmission. The interconnected grid acts as the freeway for electricity from generator to user, and it is already built throughout the developed world. Today, bulk transmission can deliver power far beyond political boundaries, with over 100 nations trading electricity for mutual benefit. Interconnected grids enable load levelling, economic exchange of power, system reliability and emergency back-up options. Long-distance transmission allows us to tap remote renewable energy resources, sometimes located in neighbouring nations, and to feed clean electricity throughout the network.