Energy reimagined: Understanding the past and the future of energy transition

Renewable
4 min read

Mr Jiwesh Nandan ,
ETEnergyWorld

Updated On Sep 2, 2024 at 02:45 PM IST

Energy reimagined: Understanding the past and the future of energy transition - ET EnergyWorld (2)

The World is passing through interesting times, in terms of rapid transition that we see on the energy front. In order to imagine what it will be like in another half century, it will be apt to look at the history of energy transition and what were the driving factors.

Energy was always needed by humankind and light and heat from sun was the gift of nature. Fire was used for heat and light around 500,000 years ago. Wood and chaff and other biomasses were used for fire. Human beings were using muscle power for transportation needs and it started use of other animals for transportation in the period around 5000 BCE. The potential of water and wind to harness energy was also exploited very early as sail of logs and boats and as watermills for moving things. The use of wind energy for sail boats was recorded for the first time in 4000BC. Watermills have first recorded history of 200 BCE. But windmills came much later around 650 AD.

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Till industrial revolution during the 18th century, use of energy was modest and in absolute terms the world used around 300 Mtoe in a year in 1800 AD as compared to around 9300 Mtoe in 2000 AD. The Industrial revolution really cranked up the interaction of energy with human beings as we became more and more dependent on machines driven by energy. Later the newly industrialized world started using coal for its energy use and invented pumps and motors driven by steam. Electricity, a new form of energy, got established firmly with the invention of electric motor and then electricity generator towards the end of 19th century. Today, electricity has edged out all other forms of energy except for fossil fuel for transportation and now even that is giving way to electricity. With electricity it became possible to change the form of energy on the flip of a switch which was not possible with any other form of energy. Electricity had the drawback of not being very amenable to storage. Thus, the factors that have driven the transition of energy in the past are essentially ease of use, easy to convert to other forms of energy, efficiency of use and ease of transportation and storage (this is where electricity fell short).

Use of fossil fuel for electricity generation with exponential demand growth led to huge GHG emissions that resulted in Global Warming. The consumption of electricity has risen from 66.4 TWH in 1900 to 25000 TWH in 2023. So, another factor for energy transition needs to be added, namely, low or zero emission source of energy. Hence the factors which will shape energy transition in future are low or zero emission, ease of use, efficiency of use, easy to convert forms and ease of transportation and storage.

Crucial questions in transition seem to be the form of energy needed, whether it can be transported from the point of availability to the point of use and whether it can be stored. So future trajectory of energy transition is likely to be electricity generation from low or no carbon emitting ways. The world has seen solar, wind, hydro, biomass as sources of electricity production. Since these sources have lots of daily and seasonal variations and are localized in some parts of the globe, storing energy will become very prevalent and crucial. Electricity needs to be stored in other forms like heat, potential or kinetic energy or chemical or in any other form not used hitherto. So further research in storage and finding out the most efficient way to store energy will be of immense interest in coming decades. Storage whether as heat in Concentrated Solar or potential energy in a pump storage or chemical energy through battery and newer ideas, all will be studied and experimented with. This also means that all forms of energy need to be explored afresh and so it is like going back to reinventing the wheel.

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Very long-distance transportation which was dominated by fossil fuel is also going to change. One obvious solution is transmission lines for electricity across continents. Hence, intercontinental transmission lines will be explored. Another area of interest will be finding long-distance transportable fuel. The contenders for this seem to be compressed biogas or hydrogen as of now.

Overall, this century seems to be the century of energy where all hitherto used forms of energy will be relooked. If we look at the long history of humankind and even longer history of mother earth, the era of fossil fuel was very short, hardly three hundred years and is rapidly coming to an end. It has also taught us that use of energy in our day-to-day life has crossed sustainable limits and the clock must be reversed as far as use of energy is concerned. The world is also likely to introspect its use of energy and change lifestyle that optimizes the use of energy.