Renewable energy transition makes dollars and sense

Date:
July 15, 2020
Source:
University of New South Wales
Summary:
Ne research has disproved the claim that the transition to renewable
electricity systems will harm the global economy.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Making the transition to a renewable energy future will have environmental
and long-term economic benefits and is possible in terms of energy return
on energy invested (EROI), UNSW Sydney researchers have found.


========================================================================== Their research, published in the international journal Ecological
Economics recently, disproves the claim that a transition to large-scale renewable energy technologies and systems will damage the macro-economy
by taking up too large a chunk of global energy generation.

Honorary Associate Professor Mark Diesendorf, in collaboration with
Prof Tommy Wiedmann of UNSW Engineering, analysed dozens of studies on renewable electricity systems in regions where wind and/or solar could
provide most of the electricity generation in future, such as Australia
and the United States.

The Clean Energy Australia report states that renewable energy's
contribution to Australia's total electricity generation is already at
24 per cent.

Lead author A/Prof Diesendorf is a renewable energy researcher with
expertise in electricity generation, while co-author Prof Tommy Wiedmann
is a sustainability scientist.

A/Prof Diesendorf said their findings were controversial in light of some fossil fuel and nuclear power supporters, as well as some economists,
rejecting a transition to large-scale electricity renewables.



========================================================================== "These critics claim the world's economy would suffer because they argue renewables require too much lifecycle energy to build, to the point of diverting all that energy away from other uses," he said.

"Our paper shows that there is no credible scientific evidence to support
such claims, many of which are founded upon a study published in 2014
that used data up to 30 years old.

"There were still research papers coming out in 2018 using the old data
and that prompted me to examine the errors made by those perpetuating
the misconception." A/Prof Diesendorf said critics' reliance on outdated figures was "ridiculous" for both solar and wind technology.

"It was very early days back then and those technologies have changed so dramatically just in the past 10 years, let alone the past three decades,"
he said.



========================================================================== "This evolution is reflected in their cost reductions: wind by about 30
per cent and solar by 85 to 90 per cent in the past decade. These cost reductions reflect increasing EROIs." A/Prof Diesendorf said fears
about macro-economic damage from a transition to renewable energy had
been exaggerated.

"Not only did these claims rely on outdated data, but they also failed to consider the energy efficiency advantages of transitioning away from fuel combustion and they also overestimated storage requirements," he said.

"I was unsurprised by our results, because I have been following the
literature for several years and doubted the quality of the studies that supported the previous beliefs about low EROIs for wind and solar."
Spotlight on wind and solar A/Prof Diesendorf said the study focused
on wind and solar renewables which could provide the vast majority of electricity, and indeed almost all energy, for many parts of the world
in future.

"Wind and solar are the cheapest of all existing electricity generation technologies and are also widely available geographically," he said.

"We critically examined the case for large-scale electricity supply-demand systems in regions with high solar and/or high wind resources that
could drive the transition to 100 per cent renewable electricity, either
within these regions or where power could be economically transmitted
to these regions.

"In these regions -- including Australia, the United States, Middle
East, North Africa, China, parts of South America and northern Europe -- variable renewable energy (VRE) such as wind and/or solar can provide
the major proportion of annual electricity generation.

"For storage, we considered hydroelectricity, including pumped hydro,
batteries charged with excess wind and/or solar power, and concentrated
solar thermal (CST) with thermal storage, which is a solar energy
technology that uses sunlight to generate heat." Energy cost/benefit
ratio approach Co-author Prof Wiedmann said the researchers used Net
Energy Analysis as their conceptual framework within which to identify
the strengths and weaknesses of past studies in determining the EROI of renewable energy technologies and systems.

"We used the established Net Energy Analysis method because it's highly relevant to the issue of EROI: it aims to calculate all energy inputs
into making a technology in order to understand the full impact," Prof
Wiedmann said.

"From mining the raw materials and minerals processing, to building
and operating the technology, and then deconstructing it at the end of
its life.

So, it's a lifecycle assessment of all energy which humans use to make
a technology." Renewable transition possible A/Prof Diesendorf said
their findings revealed that a transition from fossil fuels to renewable
energy was worthwhile, contradicting the assumptions and results of many previous studies on the EROIs of wind and solar.

"We found that the EROIs of wind and solar technologies are generally
high and increasing; typically, solar at a good site could generate the lifecycle primary energy required to build itself in one to two years
of operation, while large-scale wind does it in three to six months,"
he said.

"The impact of storage on EROI depends on the quantities and types of
storage adopted and their operational strategies. In the regions we
considered, the quantity of storage required to maintain generation
reliability is relatively small.

"We also discovered that taking into account the low energy conversion efficiency of fossil-fuelled electricity greatly increases the relative
EROIs of wind and solar.

"Finally, we found the macro-economic impact of a rapid transition to
renewable electricity would at worst be temporary and would be unlikely
to be major." A more sustainable future A/Prof Diesendorf said he
hoped the study's results would give renewed confidence to businesses
and governments considering or already making a transition to more
sustainable electricity technologies and systems.

"This could be supported by government policy, which is indeed the case
in some parts of Australia -- including the ACT, Victoria and South
Australia -- where there's strong support for the transition," he said.

"A number of mining companies in Australia are also going renewable, such
as a steel producer which has a power purchase agreement with a solar farm
to save money, while a zinc refinery built its own solar farm to supply
cheaper electricity." A/Prof Diesendorf said the Australian Government, however, could help with more policies to smooth the transition to
renewable energy.

"In Australia the transition is happening because renewable energy
is much cheaper than fossil fuels, but there are many roadblocks and
potholes in the way," he said.

"For example, wind and solar farms have inadequate transmission lines
to feed power into cities and major industries, and we need more support
for storage to better balance the variability of wind and solar.

"So, I hope our research will help bolster support to continuing with
the transition, because we have discredited the claim that the EROIs
of electricity renewables are so low that a transition could displace investment in other sectors."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_New_South_Wales. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. M. Diesendorf, T. Wiedmann. Implications of Trends in Energy
Return on
Energy Invested (EROI) for Transitioning to Renewable Electricity.

Ecological Economics, 2020; 176: 106726 DOI: 10.1016/
j.ecolecon.2020.106726 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715095448.htm

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