Renewable Energy Transition - Embracing A Possible Future
Renewable energy transition will be a large-scale change that will affect our lives in several ways.
Very large investments will be needed, and many people will need to work with the development of technologies and large-scale implementation of systems. In the following video I discuss the opportunities and challenges of this change.
If you prefer, you can read the video transcript further below.
Renewable Energy Transition - Video Transcript
This video will be about the renewable energy transition.
Renewable energy is energy that can be produced from natural sources, energy that can be generated over and over again without depleting the resources that are used today.
Examples of renewable energy sources are wind power, solar power, but also biological fuels such as ethanol, methanol and biogas.
There are also synthetic fuels that are renewable. They are produced through the use of electricity and various biological and renewable raw materials like hydrogen and carbon that can be even derived from the air.
A transition to a renewable energy economy will, however, not be a straightforward process. It will involve large amounts of investment and the creation of entirely new systems, both for the usages of energy such as electromobility, to replace fossil fuels for transportation, but also for the development of the infrastructures for generation of electricity or the production of other renewable fuels, for the distribution of fuels, and also for the utilization of fuels.
So this investment need and the need to install large amounts of equipment, build power plants, large production plants for biofuels or synthetic fuels is the reason why it is hard to make a transition to renewable energy.
Simply put, countries can't build new systems for all of the new fuels that are available.
We need to make decisions and governments need to make decisions in unison between them because one country needs to have transport systems compatible with those of other countries.
Governments need to make up their minds regarding which fuels we will use and which vehicles that will be fueled by these fuels.
We also need to map the future systems to see what is it, what are the investments that will need to be made to make this new system work.
The investment will be very different and the structure of the systems will be very different.
If we go for battery electric vehicles using batteries to store electricity and to drive cars, or if we choose hydrogen, which also needs a lot of energy. Actually, hydrogen systems need twice the amount of energy, twice the amount of electricity that will be needed to drive cars using battery electric technologies.
So this mapping of the future systems, the planning of the change process and starting the new projects will have to be a type of development and concerted effort similar to, for example, the Apollo program, where the first space technologies were developed.
Countries will need to focus resources, mobilize support for the various activities that will be needed and train people to participate in the various projects and sub-projects that will be needed.
In the Apollo program, 400,000 Americans were involved. That was 3% of the American population at the time.
The change to renewable fuels will be even greater in terms of manpower, in terms of change activities and in terms of investment than the Apollo program.
It will involve changes everywhere, in so many different industries, and a few industries will have to change entirely, such as the auto motive industry and the utilities industry and there will be a need to build large new industries for services, for electric vehicles and electric vehicle users.
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