The following content is to discuss our energy path and whether fossil fuel can be sustainable.
A sustainable energy source should be clean, endure, with low impact on land and water, as well as being a system which can be expanded.
In recent years, people are increasingly aware of the environmental damage and danger of political and economic catastrophe brought by the use of fossil fuels. Should we then stop using fossil fuel and concentrate on sustainable sources of energy only?
Currently, eighty five percent of what we consume is from fossil fuel, and the magnitude has been expanding dramatically since the beginning of the century. For instance, our energy system now is about sixteen times larger than what it was one hundred years ago, mainly due to the jump in personal mobility, use of electric appliances and industrial demand. Services are expanding in terms of both numbers and types with the improvement of people’s standard of living around the world. Although technologies are getting more and more efficient, the overall energy system will keep expanding in a large scale for the near future.
But the question of whether we should stop using fossil fuels can be misleading. With the expansion of our energy system, there are many other forms of energy which can meet human’s need notably nuclear power and renewable energy. Each of them is capable of covering the entire energy market potentially, though they all have drawbacks. Nuclear power has aversion to extreme event and geopolitical risks. Renewable energy still needs a longer period to take off due to the limited scale and high initial cost, as cost declines with research and development as well as cumulative production. Furthermore, renewable energy is very dependent on geographical location.
Meanwhile, new forms of energy or new energy extraction process are being discovered like coal to oil conversion, oil sand, as well as many zero emission fossil fuel technologies. The question is which one should dominate in the future and at what cost can we sustain our energy supply cleanly?
Research done by Professor Mark Jaccard’s research group shows energy per GDP has been decreasing in the past fifty years. Which means the relative price for using energy is about forty percent cheaper now than half a century ago. There is a wide range of technologies and resources available, and they are becoming economically feasible to use since fossil fuel’s price has gone up to a comparative high level. With the technological advance, clean fossil fuel and renewable energy are predicted to account for almost half of the energy output by 2100, and greenhouse gas would have been decreased by at least three folds accordingly.
The question now is do we want zero emission or zero fossil fuel? As zero fossil fuel does not mean zero emission, and now we have technological capabilities to use fossil fuels cleanly. The transition from conventional oil and gas to their unconventional sources including coal for producing electricity, hydrogen and cleaner-burning fuels will decrease energy dependence on politically unstable regions. In addition, our vast fossil fuel resources will be the cheapest source of clean energy of the next century and perhaps longer. This is essential for the economic and social development for the world.
For fossil fuel industry, instead of staying on the same path and hoping for the best, they could take the lead in more sustainable use of energy source and fossil fuel may be a friend again. Global policy will greatly affect the energy situation and the direction we are heading towards.
“By buying time for increasing energy efficiency, developing renewable energy technologies and making nuclear power more attractive, fossil fuels will play a key role in humanity’s quest for a sustainable energy system.”
By Mark Jaccard is Professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University