The future of energy?
Summary
TLDRThe video script addresses the urgent challenge of global energy consumption, predominantly reliant on fossil fuels, contributing to climate change. It highlights the growth of wind power as a sustainable, low-carbon energy source, discussing technological advancements and the economic viability of onshore and offshore wind farms. The script also explores carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a means to reduce emissions from coal and gas power stations, emphasizing the need for large-scale demonstration projects. Lastly, it underscores the potential for significant energy and material efficiency improvements in various sectors, advocating for behavior change and innovative approaches to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Takeaways
- 🌍 Fossil fuels, such as oil, coal, and gas, account for approximately 85% of global energy consumption and are a major source of CO2 emissions, contributing to climate change.
- 📈 The global demand for energy is growing by about 2% each year, indicating a continued reliance on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
- 💨 Wind power has become a significant source of electricity generation, with advancements in turbine technology making it more affordable and reliable.
- 💡 Onshore wind farms are nearing economic viability without subsidies, while offshore wind farms offer greater potential but at a higher cost.
- 🔌 The variability of wind power requires effective integration into the electrical grid and the development of electricity storage solutions.
- 🛠️ Research at universities is focused on reducing the cost and increasing the reliability of wind turbine equipment, particularly in the area of generators.
- 🔄 Electricity accounts for only one-third of total energy consumption, suggesting the need to consider the electrification of other energy uses like heating and transport.
- 🔒 Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a technology that can reduce CO2 emissions from coal and gas-fired power stations by capturing and storing the gas underground.
- 🏭 The industrial sector is the largest energy user, and efficiency improvements in material production could significantly reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
- 🏢 Strategies such as designing buildings for longer life spans, using less material in construction, and deconstructing buildings for material reuse can reduce the demand for new materials and energy.
- 🚗 Opportunities exist to use energy more efficiently in transportation by increasing the intensity of car usage and implementing more efficient designs.
- 🌱 The transition to a low-carbon energy system will involve a combination of supply-side innovations, such as renewable energy and CCS, and demand-side changes, including behavior shifts and material efficiency.
Q & A
What is the primary source of global energy consumption?
-Approximately 85% of the global energy consumed comes from fossil fuels, which include oil, coal, and gas.
What is the main environmental concern associated with burning fossil fuels?
-Burning fossil fuels produces large volumes of CO2, which is released into the atmosphere, contributing to environmental damage and the significant risk of man-made climate change.
How is the demand for energy expected to change in the coming years?
-The demand for energy is expected to grow globally by about 2% each year, indicating a continued reliance on fossil fuels to meet this demand.
What is one form of sustainable low-carbon energy mentioned in the script?
-Wind power is highlighted as a sustainable low-carbon energy source that has developed into a major source of electrical power generation over the last 25 years.
Why is wind power becoming more economical without subsidies?
-Wind turbine equipment is becoming cheaper and more reliable, and the integration of wind power into the grid has been effectively mastered, making onshore wind farms economical without subsidies.
What challenges are associated with the placement of wind turbines?
-The placement of wind turbines must consider areas of great beauty and landscape preservation, as well as finding enough suitable sites to generate the required power.
How does the variability of wind affect power generation?
-The variability of wind is currently manageable within the normal operation of a grid, but as the proportion of power from wind increases, there is a need for electricity storage solutions to even out the output.
What are the advantages and challenges of offshore wind farms?
-Offshore wind farms have the advantage of more wind and more space, but they are currently more expensive than onshore farms, presenting a challenge in reducing costs for wider adoption.
What is the focus of the university's research on wind turbines?
-The research focuses on reducing the cost and increasing the reliability of wind turbine equipment, specifically by developing a new type of generator that does not use carbon brushes.
How does carbon capture and storage (CCS) work in reducing emissions from coal and gas-fired power stations?
-CCS involves removing CO2 from the waste gas produced by burning coal, compressing it into a high-pressure liquid, and storing it deep underground in rock formations, similar to fluid moving through a sponge.
What are some of the risks and considerations associated with storing CO2 underground?
-Risks include potential slow leakage to the surface or more dramatic release during geological events like earthquakes. Understanding the processes involved helps minimize the risks of leakage.
What is the role of CCS in the future energy supply system?
-CCS can play a major role in reducing CO2 emissions associated with fossil fuels, especially as the energy supply system evolves towards renewable energy sources.
What are some strategies mentioned for using less material in construction?
-Strategies include designing buildings for longer lifespans, using lighter weight materials without loss of performance, and deconstructing buildings to reuse materials like steel from old buildings.
How can behavior change contribute to reducing energy demand?
-Behavior change can involve using goods more intensively, such as driving fewer cars more often, which reduces the need for new materials and energy, as well as emissions.
What is the potential of renewable energy technologies in the future energy system?
-Renewable energy technologies, including solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, biofuels, and nuclear, offer exciting opportunities for innovation and have a role to play in transforming the energy supply system to be more sustainable.
Outlines
🌍 Energy Challenges and Wind Power Development
The script addresses the significant challenge of energy consumption, predominantly fueled by fossil fuels, which contribute to approximately 85% of global energy use and are a major source of CO2 emissions. It highlights the urgency of addressing climate change by either finding carbon-neutral energy sources or reducing energy consumption. Wind power is presented as a sustainable, low-carbon energy solution that has grown substantially over the past 25 years, now contributing a significant percentage to the world's electricity. The script discusses the economic and technological advancements in wind turbine equipment, the importance of strategic placement of wind farms, and the challenges of wind's variability. It also touches on the potential of offshore wind farms and the need for electricity storage solutions. The university's research is focused on improving wind turbine generators by eliminating carbon brushes to enhance reliability and reduce costs, which could make wind power an even more effective and economical solution for low-carbon energy production.
🌿 Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in Combating Climate Change
This section delves into the technology of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as a method to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas-fired power stations, which are responsible for about a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions. The process involves capturing CO2 from exhaust gases, compressing it into a high-pressure liquid, and injecting it underground into rock formations. The script discusses research aimed at understanding how CO2 spreads in subsurface storage sites, the effects of surface tension, and the behavior of CO2 in sandstone beds and clay layers. It mentions ongoing projects in the Norwegian North Sea and the Sahara Desert, where large volumes of CO2 are being injected annually. The potential risks of CO2 leakage and the importance of understanding these processes for safe storage are also highlighted. The script emphasizes the need for a commercial environment that supports the economic viability of large-scale CCS projects and suggests that CCS can play a significant role in reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, which are expected to remain a major part of the energy supply for decades.
🏭 Reducing Material Use and Energy Demand in Industry
The final paragraph shifts focus to the demand side of the energy equation, emphasizing the opportunities for reducing energy use in buildings and transportation. It points out that while industry uses the largest share of the world's energy, there are already high levels of efficiency, with over half of industrial energy going into the production of just five materials: steel, cement, paper, plastic, and aluminum. The script discusses various strategies for using less material, such as designing buildings to last longer, using materials more intensively, and employing more precise construction techniques to reduce material use without compromising performance. It also touches on the potential for deconstructing buildings at the end of their life to reuse materials like steel. The narrative concludes with a call to action for significant reductions in CO2 emissions, suggesting that a combination of technological innovation, policy changes, and behavioral shifts are necessary to address the serious threat of man-made climate change and transition towards a low-carbon future.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Energy Consumption
💡Fossil Fuels
💡CO2 Emissions
💡Wind Power
💡Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
💡Sustainable Energy
💡Energy Demand
💡Electricity Generation
💡Energy Efficiency
💡Renewable Energy
💡Behavior Change
Highlights
Energy consumption is a major global challenge, with 85% of it coming from fossil fuels, contributing to CO2 emissions and climate change.
Global energy demand grows by about 2% annually, indicating a continued reliance on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
Wind power has developed into a significant source of electrical power generation, with potential for further growth.
Wind turbine equipment is becoming more affordable and reliable, nearing economic viability without subsidies.
The placement of wind turbines requires careful consideration of environmental impact and landscape aesthetics.
Offshore wind farms offer more wind and space but are currently more expensive than onshore counterparts.
Research is focused on reducing wind turbine costs and increasing reliability, particularly through generator innovation.
Electricity accounts for only one-third of total energy consumption, suggesting a need to consider other energy usage sectors.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a technology that can significantly reduce CO2 emissions from coal and gas power stations.
CCS involves capturing CO2 from waste gas and storing it underground, where it spreads like fluid through a sponge.
Demonstration projects of CCS are underway in Norway and Algeria, with a focus on understanding and improving the technology.
Risks associated with CO2 storage include potential leakage and the impact of geological events on containment.
Creating a commercial environment for CCS is crucial for its large-scale implementation and reducing CO2 emissions.
Opportunities for reducing energy demand exist in buildings through better insulation and efficient design.
The industry sector, which uses 36% of the world's energy, has potential for efficiency improvements and material conservation.
Innovative approaches to construction, such as variable-depth beams, can reduce material use without compromising performance.
Deconstruction of buildings can enable the reuse of materials, promoting a circular economy in construction.
Behavior change and policy interventions are necessary to drive demand-side energy efficiency and emissions reduction.
The long-term energy supply will likely evolve towards alternative and renewable sources, with innovation in new energy technologies.
The debate on energy and emissions reduction must consider both supply-side technological solutions and demand-side behavior changes.
The urgency of addressing man-made climate change calls for the continued development of low carbon technologies.
Transcripts
[Music]
one of the biggest challenges we face
today is energy we use a lot of energy
and most of it comes from burning fossil
fuels in fact about 85% of the global
energy consumed comes from fossil fuels
which is oil coal and gas
we know that burning these fossil fuels
produces large volumes of CO2 which is
being released into the atmosphere
damaging the
environment and we know that releasing
carbon Dark Side runs a significant risk
of man-made climate
change the problem is compounded by the
fact that demand for energy grows
globally by about 2% each
year it's likely that over the next few
decades
we're going to continue using large
amounts of fossil fuels to meet a good
part of the energy demand so to respond
to global warming either we need an
energy Supply that has no carbon release
or we need to find ways to use less
[Music]
energy one form of sustainable low
carbon energy is is wind power wind
power in the last 25 years has developed
into a major source of electrical power
generation already generating several
per of the world's total electricity
output and in many countries it's the
fastest growing form of electrical power
generation wind turbine equipment is
becoming cheaper it's becoming more
reliable and we've leared how to
integrate wind power effectively into a
grid onshore wind farms are now
approaching the point of being
economical without subsidy which is very
good for the industry we've got to think
very carefully where we put our wind
turbines clearly there are areas of
great Beauty where the landscape simply
cannot accommodate wind turbines
nevertheless we want to generate low
carbon P so we have to make some
compromises we have to find enough sites
to generate the power we
need a further issue is the wind is
variable at the moment the variation in
output is easily accommodated within the
normal operation of a grid however if we
look into the future where a very large
proportion of our power might come from
wind then we've got to think of some way
of electricity storage to even the
output one way round the difficulty of
finding enough suitable sites on land is
to build wind farms
offshore the attraction is there's more
wind offshore and there's a lot more
space the problem is that to date
they're considerably more
expensive if we can find a way of put
putting them offshore at reasonable cost
then we can Harvest a lot more
energy our research at the university
has been very much focused on trying to
reduce the cost of wind turbine
equipment and increase reliability
specifically we're working on the
generator most contemporary wind
turbines use a form of generator which
relies on carbon brushes to make contact
to its moving part these are own
reliability issue and they add to the
cost of the generator we're working on a
new type of generator which doesn't have
brushes and thereby eliminates these
problems so our technology could well be
a cheaper and more effective
approach we've got to remember that
electricity only accounts for about 1/3
of our total energy consumption so what
we must think about is whether other
energy usage such as Home Heating or
transport can be transferred to Electric
Supply and then we can of course
generate that electricity cleanly this
would be a good way of reducing CO2
emissions although at present windar
accounts for only about 1% of overall
Global energy production it is growing
rapidly and I think in the foreseeable
future that it will become a major
producer of low carbon energy
most of the world's electricity is
derived from coal and gas fired power
stations about a quarter of the world's
carbon dioxide emissions come from the
burning of coal in order to reduce the
emissions of carbon dioxide at CF fired
power stations it's possible to use
carbon capture and storage or
CCS this is a technology in which carbon
dioxide is removed from the waste gas
produced by the burning of the coal and
is then stored deep
underground once the carbon dioxide is
captured from the exhaust gas it's then
compressed and turned into a high press
liquid which is pumped a couple of Miles
underground in the rock it spreads out
between the grains rather like fluid
moving through a
sponge our research is aimed at looking
at how the carbon dioxide spreads
through these subsurface storage sites
we've been looking at the flow of car
dioxide on the scale of the grains in
the Rock looking at the effects of
surface tension we've then been looking
at the flow on larger scales as the CO2
moves through the Sandstone beds we've
also been interested in understanding
the effect of layers of clay which can
cause the CO2 to spread out in unusual
ways there are projects where CO2 is
being injected into large subsurface
reservoirs there's one in the Norwegian
North Sea
and one in southern Algeria in the
Sahara Desert at each of these sites
about a million cubic meters of CO2 is
being injected every year into the
subsurface and we're using some of our
models to try to understand the
observations being collected at each of
these
locations there are risks associated
with storing CO2 when assessing the
potential for CO2 to remain trapped for
thousands of years there are potential
for slow leakage the surface or in the
event of geological events such as
earthquakes more dramatic release to the
surface understanding these processes
helps to minimize the risks of
leakage one of the main challenges is to
create a commercial environment in which
it's economically viable to build large
CCS projects over the last 10 years
there's been an enormous advance in our
understanding of CCS however we're now
at a stage where many more large scale
demonstration projects are needed to
learn about the Practical challenges of
the engineering involved in
CCS fossil fuels are likely to be a
major part of the energy Supply system
for several decades to come and our work
on CCS as well as the pilot plants and
other research around the world suggests
CCS can have a major role in reducing
CO2 emissions associated with these
fossil
fuels it would be great if we could find
a solution to the energy and Emissions
problem on the supply side but it's
difficult there are no easy solutions
for carbon free energy system so we have
to look at demand as well the great news
is that there are a lot of opportunities
for using less energy in buildings we
can use less energy because we can build
well insulated sealed houses and we know
how to do that for cars we can make
lightweight cars that use much less
energy the current world record for cars
is 14,000 m per gallon compared to just
35 on average in the UK at the moment
but the challenge that we're looking at
here is about the industry sector the
largest amount of energy is used in
industry 36% of the world's energy is
used in industry and it's amazingly
efficient already over half of
industrial energy is used to make just
five materials steel cement paper
plastic and aluminium and those
Industries have paid heavily for energy
for 100 years so they're using it
efficiently because they're already
motivated to do so so if we can't make
them with less energy the implication is
that we have to use less new material
and that's what's driving us here to be
Reon it turns out there are many ways
that we can use less material without
any real economic pain simple example is
that new Office Buildings put up in
European cities at the moment are
designed for 100 years but typically
replaced after just 40 if we could keep
them for 100 or 500 years as we do here
in Cambridge then we'd be able to reduce
the total amount of material required to
provide offices and
accommodation using things for longer is
great in many cases we could make them
lighter weight most buildings we found
could use a third less material with no
loss of performance whatsoever just if
we made them more precise
equally we could use Goods more
intensively we know that in the UK we've
got one car for every two people we
drive it for 4 hours per week and it
only has one and a half people in it so
if we use fewer cars more intensively
we'd need less material and of course as
a benefit we'd use less petrol and
therefore emit less
carbon all new office buildings are made
with columns and beams the horizontal
beams are typically a constant depth all
the way across the building but actually
they shouldn't be they should be deeper
in the middle and less deep at the edges
and if we made them like that we could
use about a third less steel with no
loss of performance so one of the things
we've been working on in the lab is to
invent a new process for making variable
depth
beams when the buildings are taken down
at the end of their life at the moment
we demolish them but if we instead
deconstructed them the steel in Old
buildings is perfectly ready to be used
again so we could unbolt the old steel
frame clean up the steel and then use it
in a new
building so there's a whole range of
strategies for using less material
without any significant reduction in the
service that we take from having that
material
around we make materials so efficiently
that they're cheap and that means that
we've developed an economy where we
assume that we can use materials
abundantly we need to move into a
different system now so our work has
been to try to find ways to live with
less new material and perhaps to our
surprise we found there are a whole
range of options for doing so and now
we're working with businesses and with
policy makers to try to bring that about
in reality
[Music]
ultimately it comes down to how
seriously we see the threat of man-made
climate
change if we do see it as a serious
threat as many of us do then we must
look at significant reductions in CO2
emissions and that means a big change to
our Energy System and that could be on
the supply side or the demand side over
the longer term the energy Supply will
evolve towards alternative sources of
energy including including solar wind
Hydro geothermal biofuels and nuclear
and there are exciting opportunities for
innovation in new Energy Technologies
all or at least many of these have a
role to play but they need to be
assessed against local conditions
technology such as CCS provides a means
of reducing the CO2 emissions associated
with burning these fossil fuels as we
transform the energy Supply system to
renewable energy on the demand side what
we've seen is that we can use a lot less
energy without much loss of service but
doing so does require Behavior
change that's where the debate now is on
the supply side we could do technology
and policy and on the demand side we can
do Behavior change despite considerable
financial and technical difficulties I
believe if we're going to avoid the
significant risks of man-made climate
change that we must continue to the
development of low carbon Technologies
[Music]
oh
[Music]
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