History
The Old Days
Before the industrial revolution, our energy needs were modest. For heat, we relied on the sun—and burned wood, straw, and dried dung when the sun failed us. For transportation, the muscle of horses and the power of the wind in our sails took us to every corner of the world. For work, we used animals to do jobs that we couldn't do with our own labor. Water and wind drove the simple machines that ground our grain and pumped our water.
Simple machines based on the ability to harness the power of steam have been dated by some sources as far back as ancient Alexandria. The evolution of the steam engine continued over time and significantly ramped up in the 17th and 18th centuries. But it was the significant adaptations of Thomas Newcomen and James Watt in the mid 1700s that gave birth to the modern steam engine, opening up a world of possibility. A single steam engine, powered by coal dug from the mines of England and Appalachia, could do the work of dozens of horses.
More convenient than wind and water, and less expensive than a stable full of horses, steam engines were soon powering locomotives, factories, and farm implements. Coal was also used for heating buildings and smelting iron into steel. In 1880, coal powered a steam engine attached to the world's first electric generator. Thomas Edison's plant in New York City provided the first electric light to Wall Street financiers and the New York Times.
Only a year later, the world's first hydroelectric plant went on-line in Appleton, Wisconsin. Fast-flowing rivers that had turned wheels to grind corn were now grinding out electricity instead. Within a few years, Henry Ford hired his friend Edison to help build a small hydro plant to power his home in Michigan.
By the late 1800s, a new form of fuel was catching on: petroleum. For years it had been a nuisance, contaminating wells for drinking water. Initially sold by hucksters as medicine, oil became a valuable commodity for lighting as the whale oil industry declined. By the turn of the century, oil, processed into gasoline, was firing internal combustion engines.
Horseless carriages were a rich man's toy until Henry Ford perfected the assembly-line method of mass production for his Model T. Interestingly enough, electric cars were a rich woman's toy at the same time. Quiet and clean, electric cars started without a starter crank, an exertion that would have overtaxed the gentle ladies of the day. When gas cars adopted electric starters, their superior range quickly drove the electrics out of the market.
Another key invention of the era was the safety bicycle, which had two wheels of the same size, putting the rider much lower to the ground than earlier bicycles. The pneumatic tire, invented by John Dunlop, made cycling all the more comfortable over the cobblestone and dirt roads, and bicycles became a national obsession in the 1890s.
Image reproduced from https://www.nvenergy.com/kids_conservation/more/timeTravel.html
Energy Takes Off
With the low-cost automobile and the spread of electricity, our society's energy use changed forever. Power plants became larger and larger, until we had massive coal plants and hydroelectric dams. Power lines extended hundreds of miles between cities, bringing electricity to rural areas during the Great Depression. The cheap car made suburbs possible, which in turn made cheap cars necessary, feeding the cycle of suburban sprawl.
Energy use grew quickly, doubling every 10 years. The cost of energy production was declining steadily, and the efficient use of energy was simply not a concern.
After World War II unleashed nuclear power, the government looked for a home for "the peaceful atom." They found it in electricity production. Over 200 nuclear power plants were planned across the country, and homes were built with all-electric heating systems to take advantage of this power that would be "too cheap to meter."
Gasoline use grew unchecked as well. Cars grew larger and heavier throughout the 1950s and 1960s. By 1970, the average mileage of an American car was only 13.5 miles per gallon, and a gallon of gas cost less than a quarter.
The Great Energy Crash
In 1973, American support for Israel in the Arab-Israeli War led the Arab oil-producing nations to stop supplying oil to the United States and other western nations. Overnight, oil prices tripled. In 1979, when the Shah of Iran was forced out by the Ayatollah Khomeini, oil prices leaped again, rising 150 percent in a matter of weeks. Motorists lined up at gas stations to buy gasoline, and President Carter went on television to declare that energy conservation was "the moral equivalent of war." By 1980, the average price of a barrel of oil was almost $45.
Only three months after the fall of the Shah, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant suffered a partial meltdown after a series of mechanical failures and operator mistakes. After years of hearing that a nuclear accident could never happen, the American public was shocked. The accident added to the sense of crisis.
But the accident at Three Mile Island was only the latest in a long line of problems plaguing the nuclear industry. New plant orders had already ceased, because of multibillion-dollar cost overruns, high inflation, and a slowdown in electricity demand growth due to the early effects of energy conservation. No new plants were ordered after 1978, and all those ordered since 1973 have been cancelled.
Impetus for Clean Energy
The world needs to transition from its current unsustainable energy paradigm to a future powered by entirely renewable and clean energy supply. Only by making such a transition will we be able to avoid the very worst impacts of climate change.
Although for some, nuclear power is seen to be a part of the solution to the energy crisis – given that it produces large-scale electricity with low carbon emissions, the fact is that mining and enriching uranium is itself very energy intensive.
Additionally, it should be recognised that nuclear fission produces dangerous waste that remains highly toxic for thousands of years, and there is nowhere in the world where it can be stored safely. The United States and Germany alone have accumulated more than 50,000 and 12,000 tonnes respectively, of highly radioactive waste which has not yet been disposed of securely. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it will be at least 10,000 years before its threat to public health is substantively reduced.
Equally troubling, the materials and technology needed for nuclear energy can also be used to produce nuclear weapons. In a politically unstable world, spreading nuclear capability is a dangerous course to take.
Nuclear power is also an extremely expensive option. Before pouring billions into creating a new generation of nuclear power stations, we need to ask whether that money would be better invested in other, sustainable energy technologies.
Limited Non-Renewable Energy Resources
Supplies of cheap, conventional oil and gas are declining while our energy demands continue to increase. It is clear that our reliance on fossil fuels cannot continue indefinitely. With the world’s population projected to increase to over 9 billion over the next 40 years, “business-as-usual” is not an option.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) , production from known oil and gas reserves will fall by around 40-60% by 2030. Yet the developed world’s thirst for energy is unabated, while demand is rocketing in emerging economies, such as China, India and Brazil. If everyone in the world used oil at the same rate as the average Saudi, Singaporean or U.S. resident, the world’s proven oil reserves would be used up in less than 10 years. Competition for fossil fuel resources is a source of international tension, and potentially conflict.
Figure: World oil production by type (reproduced from World Energy Outlook (2010) - http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2010/key_graphs.pdf)
Global Warming and Climate Change
Even if fossil fuel supplies were infinite, we would have another compelling reason for an urgent switch to renewable energy: climate change. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are already affected by water shortages, crop failures, tropical diseases, flooding and extreme weather events – conditions that are likely to be made worse by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere. The WHO estimates that climate change is already causing more than 150,000 deaths a year.
Global warming threatens the fragile balance of our planet’s ecosystems, and could consign a quarter of all species to extinction. The loss of ecological services from forests, coral reefs and other ecosystems will also have huge economic implications.
The costs of adapting to climate change will be colossal: a recent report suggests that by 2030, the world may need to spend more than €200 billion a year on measures such as building flood defences, transporting water for agriculture and rebuilding infrastructure affected by climate change. To avoid devastating consequences, we must keep eventual global warming below 1.5°C compared to pre-Industrial temperatures. To have a chance of doing that, global greenhouse gas emissions need to start falling within the next five years, and we need to cut them by at least 80% globally by 2050 (from 1990 levels) – and even further beyond that date.
The global energy sector holds the key. It is responsible for around two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions, an amount that is increasing at a faster rate than for any other sector. Coal is the most carbon-intensive fuel and the single largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The WWF proposes that embracing renewable energy, along with ambitious energy-saving measures, is the best way to achieve the rapid emissions reductions we need.
Environmental Concerns
Energy companies are increasingly looking to fill the gap with unconventional sources of oil and gas, such as shale gas, oil from deep water platforms like BP’s Deepwater Horizon, or the Canadian tar sands. But these come at an unprecedented cost – and not just in economic terms. Many reserves are located in some of the world’s most pristine places – such as tropical rainforests and the Arctic – that are vital for biodiversity and the ecosystem services that we all depend on, from freshwater to a healthy atmosphere. Extracting them is difficult and dangerous, and costly to businesses, communities and economies when things go wrong.
Processing and using unconventional fossil sources produces large quantities of greenhouse gasses and chemical pollution, and puts unsustainable demands on our freshwater resources, with severe impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Impetus for Developing Countries
A fifth of the world’s population today still has no access to reliable electricity – drastically inhibiting their chances of getting an education and earning a living, not to mention escape from the vicious cycle of poverty. As energy prices increase, the world’s poor will continue to be excluded.
At the same time, more than 2.7 billion people are dependent on traditional bioenergy (mainly from wood, crop residues and animal dung) as their main source for cooking and heating fuel. This is often harvested unsustainably, causing soil erosion and increasing the risk of flooding, not to mention threatening the biodiversity and adding to greenhouse gas emissions. Traditional stoves also present a significant health problem – according to World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, 2.5 million women and young children die prematurely each year from inhaling their fumes. With many developing societies becoming increasingly urban, air quality in cities will decline further.
Finite and increasingly expensive fossil fuels are not the answer for developing countries. Instead, renewable energy sources offer the potential to transform the quality of life and improve the economic prospects of billions.