Workshop: Extreme Events and Energy Transitions

Tackling the Challenges of Climate Change by

Integrating Social and Complex Systems Science

EU energy transition: concerns emerging from

ongoing research activities (MAGIC project)

September 25th, 2019 - JRC Visitor Center, ISPRA

Mario GIAMPIETRO

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020

Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 689669.

The present work reflects only the author's view and the Funding Agency can not be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

1. How did we miss the most extreme event experienced so far by humankind?

2. The problems with intermittent sources of electricity

3. The problems with biofuels

4. Do our governments understand what they want to govern?

The existing situation

The reasonable scenarios . . .

The narrative about the future used by mainstream economists

EXPECTED DIRECTION OF

ECONOMIC GROWTH

> 3% per year forever

Anyone who believes that exponential growth can

go forever in a finite world is either a madman or

an economist

THE PUN

Kennet Boulding

The elephant in the room – the ultimate extreme event in human history . . .

Thousands years!

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Fossil energy

Quantitative Story-Telling in action: renewable sources of electricity

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/strategies/2050_en

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-germany-emissions/ https://www.politico.eu/article/report-german-parties-agree-to-drop-2020-climate-goal/

The Budget Committee of the German Parliament

The problem is not about generating a given quantity of electricity over

a year, but it is about matching “demand and supply” defined at a smaller

scale minutes, hours, days, months . . .

Requirement

=

Supply

Time scale

e.g. nuclear or coal fired plants – high utilization factorsBase load

Peakers e.g. gas turbines or hydro – high flexibility in supply

EU28

Power Plant type

Power capacityMW

ElectricityProducedGWh

CapacityFactorGWh/MW

Nuclear 108,700 947,000 8.7

Brown Coal 30,800 240,000 7.8

Coal 60,600 280,300 6.4

Natural Gas 134,500 499,600 3.7

Fuels 29,550 98,200 3.3

Hydro 63,900 240,600 3.8

Base

loaders

Peakers

Data source: Enipedia - 2015

Acknowledging the existence of two types of power capacity used so far to

produce electricity – loaders and peakers – with different characteristics

IntermittentsPeakers

Case A - Intermittents with no priority in the supply to the grid

nuclear or coal fired plants – high utilization factors

Requirement

and Supply

Time scale

Electricity producedbut not used . . .

Base load

Intermittents

Requirement

and Supply

Time scale

Case B - Intermittents with priority in the supply to the grid

Peakers

All electricityproduced is used . . .

#euforiebcn

Back-up of

conventional

plants

Back-up of

conventional

plants

A back-up is required

to avoid blackouts

Renner A. and Giampietro M. (in press) Discourses of European electricity decarbonization: Contesting narrative credibility and legitimacy with quantitative story-telling - Energy Research & Social Science

Strauss, L. & Reeh, P. 1979 Electrical Load-curve Coverage, in R. Maxwell (Ed.)Electrical Load-Curve Cover., Pergamon Press, Oxford, England, UK: pp. 193–202.

The same information was available in a Table of a book of 1979 . . .

PeakersRequirement

and supply

Time scale

Intermittents

The need of taming the intermittent sources . . .

Functional elements of modern electric sectors

cannot be cheap and unreliable (intermittent)

we have to back-up intermittents!

+ +

By 2021 the largest announced storage system (more than 18,000 Li-ion batteries) will be in Long Beach for Southern California Edison: it will be capable of running at 100 MW for 4 hours. But 400MWh is still three orders of magnitude lower than what a large Asian city would need in just one day if it were deprived of its intermittent supply 600 GWh/400 MWh = 1,500

Vaclav Smil

Tokyo at 25 GW for just one day under typhoon will require 600 GWh

100MW/129MWh, the Hornsdale Power Reserve (TESLA)

The world's largest battery storage substation

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-04/tesla-flips-the-switch-on-the-gigafactory

Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Avicenne

2 million cars

165 GWh

20 GWh

#euforiebcn

In EU we have about290 million cars

24,000 GWh?

?!

105 GWh

Marie Antoinette

Quantitative Story-Telling in action: the biofuel solution

https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/the-netherlands-mulls-end-to-used-cooking-oil-double-counting/

https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Greenea%20Report%20Household%20UCO%20Collection%20in%20the%20EU_ICCT_20160629.pdf

1 kg of UCO p.c./year 0.75 kg of gross biodiesel p.c./year 0.6 kg of net biodiesel p.c./year

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/intelligent/projects/en/projects/recoil

= 7 kg of biodiesel from UCO p.c./year. This require more than 12 kg of UCO collected p.c./year

Corn Stove when looking for alternative fuels,does everything go?

What about refined biodiesel from human fat after liposuction?

after all thisis a win-winsolution . . .

“There’s an interesting business model: link a biodiesel plant with the cosmetic

surgeons,” says Mr. Bethune. “In Auckland we produce about 330 pounds of fat

per week from liposuction, which would make about 40 gallons of fuel.

If it is going to be chucked out, why not?”

“A large liposuction operation involves

removing 10 pounds of fat, which would

drive a car about 50 miles once converted”

The lean Mr. Bethune had about three ounces of fat extracted from

his body in a liposuction procedure, and he is seeking volunteers

to donate more.

From: http://calorielab.com/news/2005/11/11/

Peter Bethune

Peter Buthune is the founder of Earthrace, a project to promote the use of

biofuel trying to break the round-the-world powerboat speed record

in a boat powered by biodiesel fuel partly manufactured from human fat.

BiofuelProduction

GROSSSUPPLY

NETSUPPLY

internal consumptionof the energy system

costs for the economy

land water labor capital

energy used by theeconomy to produceand consume goodsand services

First Generation Biofuels

costs for the environment

W/m2

W/m2

W/m2W/m2 W/m2

W/m2

W/m2

W/m2

W/m2

Useful Energy

FUND

nutrients

nutrients

nutrients nutrients

nutrients

nutrients

nutrients

nutrients

W/m2

W/m2

W/m2

W/m2W/m2

Useful Energy

FLOW (fossil energy)

CITIES

FARMSFARMS

FARMS ENVIRONMENTAL

SERVICES

nutrients

nutrientsnutrients

leakage leakage

leakage

10-2 100 102 104 106 108 1010

10-1

100

101

102

103

104

105

po

wer

den

sity

(W

/m2)

area (m2)

10-2 100 102 104 106 108 1010

10-1

100

101

102

103

104

105

area (m2)

Energy supply Energy requirement

after Vaclav Smil 2003 Energy at the Crossroads, The MIT press

(Fig. 5.2 and Fig. 5.3)

oil fields

coal fields

phytomass

cities

industry

houses

supermarket

power density gaps

Biofuel

modern technical progress =

using oil to save land and labor

biofuel idea =

using land and labor to save oil!

fossil energy implies the

same problem generated

by disposable diapers !

Too much stress

on the sink side!

different forms of recyclable diapers have been used since the dawn of humankind . . .

So why did humans stop to use recyclable diapers in the first place?

“When moss was used for diapers the baby seldom became chafed,

and when it was unwrapped you could smell only sweet moss”

A Tikanagan used

by native Americans

Statement gathered by the ethnologist Imez Hilger

in the 1930s from an elder Native American British Museum

“The vast majority of the 6 million domestic biogas

plants in rural China have been abandoned as soon

as fossil energy has become accessible . . .”

Vaclav Smil

The delusion of domestic biogas plants in China . . .

So, what is wrong with domestic biogas plants?

1

3

5

2

4

6

ask the operator!

http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Commerce/China-factory-scenes.html

Energetics is no longer abasic course in Universityprograms . . .

my old book

of energetics

The neglected knowledgeof energetics . . .

WHAT IS GOING ON?

Do our governments understand the functioning of the systems they want to govern?

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/strategies/2050_en

Cosmas IndicopleustesTopographia Cristiana

A flat Earth supporting the heavens with high walls on its borders

550 AD240 BC

EratosthenesCalculation of Earth’s circumference

He calculated the circumference of the Earth from the distance from Alexandriaand Syene

800 years1971

The economyis an entropic

process

2019The economy can be circular

“To make sense of the complexity of the world so that they can act, individuals and institutions need to develop simplified, self-consistent versions of that world. The process of doing so means that much of what is known about the world needs to be excluded from those versions, and in particular that knowledge which is in tension or outright contradiction with those versions must be expunged . . .”

dysfunctional cases of uncomfortable knowledge have to be ignored in the official story-telling

“socially constructed ignorance”

Rayner, S., 2012. “Uncomfortable knowledge: the social construction of ignorance in science and environmental policy discourses” Economy and Society, 41(1): 107-125.

Thank you for your attention!

The present work reflects only the author's view and the Funding Agency can not be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

http://magic-nexus.eu

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme - grant agreement No. 689669.

https://www.facebook.com/MagicNexusEu/

#MAGIC_NEXUS @MAGIC_NEXUS