Fossil Fuels: Developing Nations Look to Future Technologies for Energy Independence

The world is currently going through paradigm shift for large scale energy production. As a growing multitude of people, globally, are plugging in, that energy comes from technologies that were first developed in the 19th century. Renewable energy projects are outpacing fossil fuels and plummeting prices is causing demand to grow exponentially. Despite efforts to improve upon the antiquated design of heat source, boil water, steam, turbine, energy, to squeeze out and clean up as much coal and oil as possible, renewable energy technology needed to be developed, mass produced, and installed on a colossal scale to overtake the cheap operations cost coal has held for over a century.

Taking a systematic approach, I will bring to attention the global energy revolution that is transforming the lives for billions of people. Likewise, I will address some of the common stigmas of size, jobs production, health effects of fossil fuels, and which countries are leading the largest efforts in industrial scale renewable energy production. Lastly, I will close with energy estimations into the future and what it means for renewable energies as they inherit a larger role in the energy landscape. Leading into 2018, renewable energy is now cheaper and more cost effective than fossil fuels, which data illustrates a decade of decline in fossil fuels for developed nations, but moreover that developing nations are now leap frogging fossil fuels in spending, taking advantage of the global cheaper cost of renewable energy.

Detractors for fossil fuels will argue that this is because fossil fuels are cheap to produce and operate and as such should remain the primary resource for energy production as the Earth has still hundreds of years-worth and those in the future will figure out something that works. Well a quick response to that short-sighted answer, is the sun has billions of years remaining the technology for energy extraction is here now. However, data derived from Bloomberg states:

The Frankfurt School, Renewable Cost Database of the International Agency for Renewable Energy (IRENA) and UN Environment – puts fossil fuels generated energy costs in the range of $49 and $174 per MWh (Megawatt hours) in G20 energy markets in 2017. Over a comparable period, renewable energy production came in between $35 and $54 per MWh (Sharma).

Based on the data, no matter how a public relations employee of insert [fossil fuel corporation here] tries to spin the information, renewables are considerably cheaper, and prices continue to fall. This lower cost also allows for power companies to build larger renewable energy plants or cheaper plants that pass the savings to the customer.

Critics for fossil fuels despite the data and evidence that renewable energies are more cost effective will then lament about the jobs created by the fossil fuel industry and people who have no other skills and are unable to learn something new. This again is a fallacy as the fastest growing segment in the energy industry for jobs growth is renewable energy. When compared against gigawatt hour energy production the two forms of energy producing technologies show orders of magnitude difference in favor for renewable energies:

The number of jobs directly created from generating electricity via solar and wind power is ~10-60 jobs/GWh. This is significantly more jobs than are created through investments in conventional energy technology such as coal (0.3 jobs/GWh) and natural gas (0.1 jobs/GWh) (Noordeh).

The size and scope that developing nations are applying towards renewable energy projects is in the billions of dollars. China is leading the way by setting the record in 2017 with a staggering 126.6 billion USD (REN21 140). China’s investment in renewable energy is serving two purposes though. The first as demonstrated to the world in the 2008 summer Olympics is the abysmal air quality around China’s capital Beijing. Decades of manufacturing and industry growth combined with little to no environmental regulation has led to China claiming the title for poorest air quality in the world. As it stands, “Air pollution kills 3.3 million people a year world-wide, including 55,000 Americans, according to a new study by an international group of scientists” (Adams 961).

Continuing down the path of fossil fuels will lead to environmental catastrophe, one that neither China nor the world can afford. The second reason is economies of scale. China has over a billion people and being able to sufficiently provide reliable power to them and future generations is a daunting challenge. With renewable energies being cheaper than fossil fuels, and construction-to-operations time being significantly less, China can start supplying stable energy to its population and prevent spikes in prices and demand as regions continue to grow. As China and India move to stabilize and improve their electrical grid, this affords their populations to grow from an average household annual energy consumption rate of:

1,600 KWh in 2011 to 2,000KWh in 2016. By contrast the average US household consumes roughly 12,000KWh annually in 2016 and is the world’s foremost consumer of electricity only followed by the Middle East. Currently the average global household energy consumption for 2016 is 3,800 KWh. (REN21 169)

Renewable energy production and plummeting cost has countries you might not consider building in clean energy plants in record numbers. In the Middle East there is a new energy boom happening with truly transformative scale in solar plants as they are setting the stage to provide clean power to their nation and the surrounding region for the 21st and 22nd century. The Middle East, oil capital of the world is preparing to continue to export energy as a trade after oil the runs out. Major economies of scale started in 2017 including a 200MW solar plant completed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia completed a 300MW solar plant with the announcement in January 2018 that they were planning a 3.3GW plant to be constructed and operational in one year (REN21 95)! Costs per KWh for these power plants have also set records for being the cheapest price to buy. For a size comparison the average US coal power plant is 50MW, while if you wanted to achieve one gigawatt or more you needed a nuclear power plant.

So where does that leave wind energy? Globally, since 2007 wind energy has grown from 94GW to 539GW in 2017 with China producing roughly 190GW of energy, blowing away its next nearest competitor the United States who produced 85GW in the same timeframe (REN21 109-110). Not to be detoured but for size and scope of renewable energy, if the wind energy produced in the United States would have been globally ranked by state, “Texas were a country, it would rank sixth worldwide for cumulative capacity. Wind power accounted for nearly 15% of electricity generation in the state during 2017” (REN21 111-112). Across the globe counties that could not develop large enough solar arrays due to either space or location, have found remarkable success in wind turbine utilization. Many counties that have a coast line are opting for massive off-shore wind farms leveraging the ocean winds with no impact on the land mass of that country.

As renewable energy prices continue to dive because of mass production, adoption, and economies of scale more developing nations will see this as a viable resource. The stigma surrounding renewable energy as a fringe or small-scale resource have been shattered and every argument from the fossil fuel industry has been debunked and laid to rest, people are realizing that it is time to move to a better, cleaner form of energy generation. Not only for themselves but for their children as well, combining to this is the ability to build anywhere and on a scale that can meet the needs of the people in that particular region. With some developing countries having little to no infrastructure and having their only option being the cheapest product, they are then left with two choices, wind or solar. This will in effect cause them to adopt and leapfrog 20th century industrial age energy production methods involving fossil fuels, while continued suppling of fossil fuels for energy production is not beneficial and leaves developing nations beholden to outside nations and that could become a national security risk. This will provide them with a freedom to choose and build how their energy infrastructure looks and in turn teaches the next generations how to improve and make it better for their kids.

Works Cited

Adams, Jill U. 'Air Pollution and Climate Change.' CQ Researcher 13 Nov 2015: pp. 961-84. library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqreserr2015111300.
British Petroleum BP. 'Coal - BP Statisical Review of World Energy 67th Edition.' BP Statisical Review of World Energy 67th Edition (2018): pp. 35-40. https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2018-coal.pdf. 12 09 2018.
Mantel, Barbra. 'Coal Industry's Future.' CQ Researcher 17 June 2016 : pp. 529-52. library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2016061700.
Noordeh, Emil. 'Leapfrogging Dirty Energy in Developing Nations.' 05 11 2017. http://large.stanford.edu/. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph240/noordeh1/. 12 09 2018.
REN21. 'Renewables 2018 Global Status Report.' Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (2018): pp. 95, 109-112, 140, 169. http://www.ren21.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/17-8652_GSR2018_FullReport_web_final_.pdf.
Sharma, Gaurav. 'Production Cost Of Renewable Energy Now 'Lower' Than Fossil Fuels.' 24 04 2018. https://www.forbes.com. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gauravsharma/2018/04/24/production-cost-of-renewable-energy-now-lower-than-fossil-fuels/#7cc5b68d379c. 12 09 2018.

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