Insufficient facts always invite danger...
Let's have a hypothetical conversation with Spock
Planet Earth, December 16, 2023
- Tibor, why do humans make big promises?
- Spock, you know, we have politicians and have to make big statements all the time
- And do you know what the basis of this promise is?
- I don’t know, Spock; I don’t trust politicians, so I’ll dig into this topic
- You’re a very skeptical human, don’t you?
What does the COP28 plan mean for the EU - Part 1
I guess we all heard the super exciting news:
More than 110 countries have committed to tripling renewable energy capacity worldwide by 2030 to push out fossil fuels
This is a big deal. We’ll have tripled the renewable energy capacity by 20230, and we can finally get rid of fossil fuels.
While I was reading some newspapers and watching some videos about this fantastic announcement, I had the hope someone would ask the EU these three questions:
What does the EU’s energy structure look like?
What is the deal with fossil fuels?
Can we replace it?
So, I started to think and did some research. This post will contain some diagrams. Yes, I know, we represent in a diagram that most people don’t like diagrams, but my message won’t be understood without any diagram. I like the onion principle, start from the outside to get the bigger picture and finally focus on the actual problem.
What does the EU’s energy structure look like?
To answer this question, I need to explain two definitions:
Primary energy: This energy can be found in nature that has not been subjected to any human interaction or conversion process. Typical examples are solar energy, wind - we don’t change the wind, harness its power with a wind turbine, water, natural gas, coal, biowaste, geothermal energy, uranium, and hopefully, one day, thorium.
Electricity is not a different source of primary energy. Electricity is generated from the configuration or movement of electrons in several ways, requiring primary energy. In a solar cell, primary solar energy is transformed into electricity; in a power plant, we transform primary coal, gas, uranium, biowaste, and geothermal energy into electricity through the rotation motion of generators.
I wanted to highlight these definitions because they are often misinterpreted.
Let’s start with the first diagram:
Primary energy consumption and electricity generation of the EU since 1985:
We can extract the following information:
The EU reached the maximum in 2007; we have had a slightly descending tendency since then. We can not see the effects of the war in Ukraine yet.
Both the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Covid-19 can be seen as a massive hit, followed by a jump
Electricity generation is roughly 15% of the whole primary energy consumption
Now that we contextualize the EU’s primary energy consumption and electricity generation, let’s look at the next layer. Where does this primary energy come from?
The mix of the primary energy sources of the EU since 1965:
What shows us this diagram:
Renewables started from a relatively high basis - thanks to hydropower and biomass. Solar and wind energy have become significant only after 2000
The share of nuclear energy has decreased since 2011 as a consequence of the Fukushima accident
After more than five decades, 71.3% of the primary energy comes from fossil fuels
Let’s take a look at fossil fuels to understand what kind of fossil sources are used in the EU
The mix of the fossil energy sources in the EU since 1965:
Analyzing the curves, we can get the following conclusions:
Since 1965, the share of coal has decreased; today, we are at 12%. The reason can be explained as follows:
Coal is primarily used in the power plants to generate electricity and heat.
In the 80s, massive nuclear power plant projects, which replaced a large part of coal-powered power plants in the electricity and heat generation
Tremendous development in power plant technology: better materials and engineering tools helped to increase the thermal efficiency of power plants
Rise of the North European natural gas industry since the 70s also provided a cheaper and cleaner alternative. The cheap and reliable Russian natural gas strengthened this tendency
Since 2022, we have had a drop in gas consumption and a hike in coal consumption. The sanctions against Russia and the global disturbance in the energy market can explain this
The share of oil remained at 40%.
What is the deal with fossil fuels?
The last diagram showed that we consume a lot of oil, but is this a problem? If we’re talking about fossil energy, we must mention CO2 emission. If a diagram can be described as a scary diagram, the next one fits this category with flying colors:
CO2 emission - primary fossil energy sources in the EU since 1965:
Before analyzing this diagram, I’d like to explain something here. Burning fossil energy creates CO2; their CO2 footprint, however, is different. I made a small calculation: how much CO2 gets generated while we get 1kWh of electricity
Natural gas: we need to burn 0.21m3 of natural gas. Assuming natural gas is 100% methane (CH4) and the molar mass is 16 units - one hydrogen (H) has a molar mass of 1, and we need 4, and the one carbon (C) weighs 12 units. Burning methane generates water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The molar mass of CO2 is 44 units, so we have a 1:2.75 ratio. 1m3 of natural gas is 0.829kg, so we have just burnt 174g of CH4, and using the 1:2.75 ratio, we generated 478.5gr CO2/kWh
Coal: using the same idea, we get a 1:3.66 coal-to-CO2 ratio. This is the theoretical value; coal is never 100% pure C. We can use the same ratio as natural gas, but this does not mean coal gets cleaner. On the contrary, we get CO2 and a lot of ashes. For 1kWh of electricity, we need 430gr coal for 1kWh of electricity, which generates 1182gr CO2/kWh
Oil: we can use the 1:3.66 ratio - assuming a perfect process. We need 218gr oil to generate 1kWh electricity, which gives a roughly 800gr CO2/kWh
What can we see here:
Natural gas reached the emission from coal, but we get 250% more energy for the same CO2 footprint as we would get from coal
The CO2 footprint decreased, but the oil share is still 7000Mt. To give you an idea, what is this number:
The volume of an average car is 10m3; let’s say this is a Tesla Model 3 (4,7m long)
10m3 of CO2 is 6800kg, which is 6.8 tons; for the sake of simplicity, 7 tons.
7000Mt of CO2 means we have 1 Billion such cars after each other
In other words, 4.7 million km, which is 12.2 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon
And this is only the EU and one year…
In this relation, we can understand the initiative of COP28. We have to do something with the fossil fuels. But there is the question:
Where do we use so much oil?
Where the oil is used in the EU:
Aha, it becomes clearer:
The most significant junk is transportation (air, ships, cars, trucks, etc..), which gives 62%
Industry uses almost 25%
Now, put this into perspective:
If we manage to decarbonize the entire transportation, then 7000Mt multiplied by 62%, we can cut 4340Mt of CO2 only in the EU
In 2022, the EU gained 6148TWh of energy from oil, and
this makes 3812TWh energy in a year
- So, dear Spock, we need to replace 3812 TWh energy with renewable sources by 2030
- Okay, Tibor, but how?
- I’ll ask Scotty…