The Present: Energy – Part 1

After diving into history, it's time to focus on the most important time, the present. Specifically, the present-day energy industry.

Sections

1. Key Criteria For Evaluating Energy Production Methods

2. Climate Change – ESG The Religion – What Is Holding Us Back

3. Temperature Rises in a Historical Context – Is There Really A Problem?

4. The Carbon Cycle

5. The Cycle of Ice Ages

6. Solar Cycles

7. Milankovitch Cycles

8. Climate Change Isn’t Explained By Milankovitch Cycles

9. So What If Earth Gets Warmer?

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Key Criteria For Evaluating Energy Production Methods

When assessing how effective an energy production method is at doing its job of producing energy, here are some key characteristics to consider:

· Efficiency – Energy production methods should convert input energy into an output with the smallest loss possible. This loss can be wasted heat energy for example. Higher efficiency is better for reducing waste and using resources as effectively as possible.

· Environmental Impact – Any energy production method should have minimal impact on ecosystems, air, and water, and not contribute to climate change. Water is vital with it becoming scarce due to climate change.

· Affordability – For any technology to be adopted, it must be affordable or demonstrate the ability to one day compete with other energy production methods. This can be costs to construct, operate, and maintain infrastructure, or expenses with the inputs such as fuel.

· Scalability – If populations grow, or an area becomes more densely populated, the demand for energy will be higher. Hence energy production methods should be scalable to meet a higher level of energy demand for any reason. This shouldn’t compromise the previous three characteristics when scaled.

· Reliability – Energy production methods should provide a consistent energy supply. Solar and wind power struggle to fit this category as they both experience fluctuations based on weather patterns. Since the weather is a level one chaotic system, it doesn’t care what predictions we make about it. It will do whatever it wants to do.

· Flexibility and Adaptability – Energy production methods must be able to be integrated into many different environments while also integrating with existing energy infrastructure such as the electricity grid.

· Durability and Resource Availability – You want your energy production method to be durable. If it will break after three years it might not be financially viable. Finite resources will eventually be used up. Energy production methods that use finite resources can be more in sync with these characteristics, but they delay the problem for another day due to their scarcity. The end goal needs to be an infinite resource to produce cheap energy on a global scale.

· Safety and Security – During operation, maintenance and construction, these energy production methods must be safe. They must also be secure and minimize threats from bad actors such as physical damage.

· Social Acceptance – Energy production methods can have impacts on local communities. Nuclear disasters make an area uninhabitable. Wind turbines can be deemed as an eye-sore. These need to be considered when choosing energy production methods. They can’t negatively impact one group too much.

· Regulation and Policy Adherence – Favourable policies can incentivise energy companies and expand the energy production industry through research and exploration. The Inflation Reduction Act and Paris Agreement are two recent examples of energy regulation and policy. Have they helped incentivize energy companies? Not in the fossil fuel industry that most of the world still relies on they haven’t.

These ten qualities will be used as we examine the current energy industry.

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

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Climate Change – ESG The Religion – What Is Holding Us Back

The clean energy transition will contribute towards the individual becoming more aware of their habits that are damaging the environment. As such, individuals will have the capability to produce their own clean energy. Be it through solar panels, or small wind turbines. Of course, this infrastructure costs money to install. But after, people can save money from renewable resources.

However, as we saw with the ESG movement, movements can become so strong they can turn into a religion. The belief that we have to throw fossil fuels in the bin today is a consequence of the belief system and ideology becoming more structured and encompassed in society. This is actually the reason that we are being held back in the energy transition, and how it will cause an energy crisis.

I will address the clean energy revolution throughout this five-part series on the present-day energy environment. Today I’ll cover if there is a problem, how it came to exist, and why we need to address it.

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Temperature Rises in a Historical Context – Is There Really A Problem?

Short answer, yes there is obviously a problem. In this piece, I’ll dive into how and why this problem exists. First I will start with the how.

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The Carbon Cycle

1) Carbon Exists In The Atmosphere - Released through breathing and volcanic activity. Since industrialisation has also been produced by human processes such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.

2) Carbon Taken In Through Photosynthesis - Plants absorb carbon and convert it to carbohydrates and also release oxygen. Hence why deforestation leads to more carbon existing.