Solar Paradox - Paradigm Shift in Waiting
- xav031
- Jan 26, 2015
- 3 min read
The enormous paradox in the present global situation is that in regard of the Four Challenges and of Prof. Klare’s anticipation of at least 30 years of high turmoil, here on Earth, at ground level, in the order of 510 TW of solar influx is available versus only about 17 TW presently derived from fossil and nuclear sources. [1] This paradox may perhaps appear even more vividly if we consider that each year the Earth receives from the sun some 23,000 Terawatt year (TW.y) of energy (1 TW.y = 8,760TWh) while the world presently uses in the order of 16TW.y/year and may require some 28TW.y/year in 2050. Let’s also consider that beside direct solar, the total energy flow that could potentially be harvested from so-called renewable resources is in the order of only 72TW.y/year (that is, Wind, OTEC, Biomass, Hydro, Geothermal, Waves, Tides) and that the total once-off energy content of proven fossil and nuclear reserves is in the order of 1,555TW.y. In other words the yearly solar energy influx is over 15 times larger than once-off fossil and nuclear energy reserves combined. [2]
Fundamentally, there is absolutely no “natural” energy scarcity. Scarcity is something engineered by people as a result of how they think, what they believe, and how they act to achieve essentially predatory, shorter-term aims for their own businesses notwithstanding that other paradigmatic options they remain blind to would be significantly more beneficial to them as well as to everyone else.
Energy flows from solar origin can be extremely abundant and can become the basis for renewed prosperity if one knows how to harvest them sustainably and efficiently. In short, it is becoming clear to the too few analysts who have become aware of the drastic character of the EROI challenges that a paradigm shift is urgently necessary concerning the entire spectrum of energy technologies. It is no longer viable to waste those 88% of the primary energy influx, using expensive technologies plagued with low EROI that cannot scale efficiently into large intelligent energy networks.
In brief, with reference to Figure 1, page 9, it is becoming abundantly clear that:
A paradigm shift is necessary for the development of new energy technologies enabling sustainable EROIs substantially above 30:1 – such a shift has become extremely urgent since it takes at least some 40 to 50 years to replace globally one infrastructure with an other, while the time window to address the present emergency situation before irretrievable collapse has shrunk to substantially less than 20 years – this is a race against time;
On their own, governments and major corporate organisations are not able to address the issues within the time that remains to do so and in any globally coordinated fashion;[3]
Instead, as demonstrated by the emergence of the Internet during the 1980s, only entrepreneurship focused on disruptive innovations that are marketed and deployed globally in viral, extremely rapid fashion can meet the challenges; [4] and
Considered in this entrepreneurial fashion, there is a huge market void to be filled urgently between rapidly increasing energy demands and supplies that are beginning to fail, all being compounded by more and more severe ecological challenges.
Instead of looking down for fossil, nuclear, of non-viable renewable solutions and be depressed it is now high time to look up to the enormous solar opportunity.
[1] Kleidon, Axel, 2011, How does the earth system generate and maintain thermodynamic disequilibrium and what does it imply for the future of the planet? Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, available at arXiv:1103.2014v1 [nlin.AO]
[2] Perez, Richard and Perez, Marc, 2009, A Fundamental Look at Energy Reserves for the Planet, Draft intended for IEA/SHC SOLAR UPDATE, 27 January.
[3] Even concerning the now largely recognised Climate change issues, no significant progress has been achieved over the last two decades, Greenhouse Gases keep increasing unchecked, and as we pointed out concerning the Fourth Challenge, instead of slowly unfolding climate change we may be on the verge of very abrupt, catastrophic warming.
[4] Let’s recall that once the initial research had been completed and the technology demonstrated under the DARPANET project, the development of the Internet and its global market diffusion has been accomplished by myriad small to medium entrepreneurs who saw the huge opportunities that could be availed. It is only some 20 years later, once the hardest part of the take off had been successfully carried out and the benefits were by then obvious, that large telecom corporates made the jump (initially rather reluctantly) and finally became major players. It is also only in this second development phase that governments took on increasingly important regulatory roles.
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