Local vs centralized: instead of or together?
Let's start with energy generation. Two are developing here
Nuclear energy.According to forecasts of the Ministry of Energy, the share of nuclear generation inthe country will grow until 2050. Nuclear power plants are compact, efficient and environmentally friendly in terms of energy output. And the fact that a kilogram of uranium can produce 90,000 times more energy than a kilogram of coal speaks for itself.
The air of remote and hard-to-reach cities will soonwill change small modular reactors, according to the Ministry of Energy. Of about a hundred projects, about ten are at the final stage of development and are preparing to receive licenses. Instead of coal, the combustion of which affects air quality, there will be a peaceful atom: the environment will improve.
Globally, even themselves see the situation differentlyatomic scientists. The IAEA predicts that by 2050 the total capacity of nuclear power plants will increase by a maximum of 82%, and the total generation of energy from all sources will double. So the share of nuclear power plants, today it is 10.4%, will gradually decrease, albeit not critically.
Hydropower.But with the development of hydroelectric power stations, everything is not sodefinitely. There are no plans to build new hydroelectric power plants in Russia, but there are no plans to demolish existing ones either, because they provide relatively cheap electricity and allow them to cope with peak loads. American scientists say that due to climate change, a number of ongoing projects will generate less electricity than planned, citing as an example two dams on the Madeira River in Brazil. And in Georgia this year there were mass protests against a new hydroelectric power station. The stronger the influence of environmentalists, the less chance there is for the development of hydropower.
There is one more obstacle to the development of hydroelectric power plants -the development of most of the economically viable hydro potential in North America (about 70%) and Europe (75%). Experts predict that new hydroelectric power plants will be built in Africa, Asia and South America, since on other continents, wherever a large hydroelectric power station can be built, they are already standing. And the topic of ecology in developing regions is not so closely followed.
The developed potential of hydropower in Russia is only 20%, but there are no plans for the development of the industry in the country.
Fuel energy.It is influenced by the growing popularity of electric vehicles.They squeeze the oil market, which will make oil and gas cheap sources of electricity, and create additional demand for energy. Experts predict that by 2050 the price per barrel of oil will drop to $10–18. According to the Institute of Energy Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Energy Center of the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo, by 2025 transport will consume 17% of all energy (in 2015 it was 16% ) and will retain its share due to the electrification of rail and road transport.
There are now 200 charging stations in Moscow forelectric vehicles, and by 2023 there will be more than 600 of them. To cope with the additional load on the power supply system, it is necessary to modernize the networks. This can be done without increasing the power of generation and transformer substations, due to competent work with existing equipment. For example, the introduction of RUTAS 4K technology will increase the reliability of systems operated by Rosseti, MOESK, DRSK, RES, EESK and other power grid companies by 67%, and will also add up to 20% additional useful power by minimizing the effect of reactive power on the power supply system. This will make it possible to build new electric charging stations at the existing capacities at least in every residential area or courtyard.
Yard charging stations aren't the only waydevelopment. For example, in Italy, the Israeli startup Electreon Wireless upgraded the allocated bandwidth with Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer technology. The system is located under the asphalt and charges vehicles using magnetic coils while driving.
The imminent end of the oil era is also recognized incountries whose well-being until recently was completely dependent on energy exports. For example, in the UAE, the received petrodollars are invested in the development of agriculture, industry and recreational resources. Thanks to free economic zones, Dubai has become a global business center: in 2020, oil accounted for less than 1% of GDP there, and the port of Jabel Ali, thanks to its favorable position, entered the top ten world leaders in terms of container terminals.
The share of coal-fired thermal power plants will gradually decrease, but due to the low cost of obtaining fuel and the possibility of using them in hard-to-reach areas, they will be in demand for decades to come.
Coal will run out of money.During 2015-2018, 33 large banks around the world announced restrictions on financing projects and companies in the field of coal mining and coal generation. Among them are Barclays, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and others. This is not the best direction for your startup.
Alternative energy.This type of energy becomes more accessible.The US Department of Energy plans to reduce the cost of solar electricity by 60% by 2030, from 4.6 cents / kWh to 2 cents / kWh. It is with solar energy that the main hopes are connected: petrothermal (the energy of the Earth's core) is unprofitable, hydrothermal energy has a high efficiency only in areas with volcanic activity, and wind turbine is accompanied by constant hum and vibrations. It will not become a popular local “at home” instrument, especially in cities.
The solution in the cities of the future is likely to beSolomon and will be able to combine a combination of centralized (it is economically and environmentally beneficial) and local (roofs of cars, houses, facades - everything where solar panels can be placed) power supply.
Population growth will lead to denser developmentand urbanization in the future - central power supply is better suited for high-rise buildings. There is a likelihood of the emergence of limits on the consumption of centralized energy in order to stimulate people to generate part of the energy themselves. Despite energy-saving technologies, human needs are growing. According to the UN, high-income countries have a per capita eco-footprint 10 times higher than low-income countries.
You can calculate your eco-trace using a special eco-calculator from the UN.
Renewable vs fossil
The second level of competition is between traditional(fossil) and alternative energy. The US Energy Information Administration expects alternative sources in the country to overtake fossils soon. In Scotland, renewables cover 97% of household needs. But in Russia, traditional energy will remain the main one for at least another 15 years due to the raw material nature of the economy.
In the EU for the implementation of the Paris Agreement andKeeping the global average temperature rise below 2 ° C is also planned to reduce emissions from the energy sector to zero, which means a transition to renewable energy sources. In the article Applied Energy: Is a 100% Renewable European Power System Feasible by 2050, the authors modeled for each EU country the optimal ratio between different types of renewable energy sources, based on their climatic characteristics and the forecast for an increase in total energy consumption by 2050.
It is very likely that for the fulfillment of obligationsto reduce CO2 emissions by different countries, including in the cities of the future, will be monitored by the "climate police". The Climate TRACE project is a system that, based on satellite images in the infrared spectrum, using computer simulations, can find sources of pollution around the planet and assess their harmful effects. As early as 2021, environmental organizations are projected to be able to verify how governments around the world are complying with commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The main challenges of the decade:learn to effectively recycle used components of solar and wind energy installations and establish the repeated use of rare earth metals. For example, by 2050, the total weight of used wind turbine blades will be 40 million tons. The European Technology & Innovation Platform on Wind Energy proposes cutting the blades and then crushing them into crumbs for the production of building materials. But it is not easy to process them - there are almost no installations of this size, and the logistics for getting to them are complex and expensive.
An industrial wind turbine can be built in 7-10 days. Its average lifespan is 20-30 years, and the blades decompose for hundreds of years.
Solar panels are also problematic.Photovoltaic panels contain impurities of lead, cadmium and antimony. When dismantled, they fall into the soil and poison it, are washed out by rains into the aquifers. In recent years, such waste has been illegally exported to poor countries. According to the UN, this is done with 60-90% of all panels that have served. Some states are taking the more cunning route by selling used low-resource panels to third world countries.
Alternative energy advocates canto object and remind about coal-fired power plants, which occupy 47% in the Asia-Pacific region, but there is also nuclear power from fossil fuels. Against the background of problems with the recycling of solar and wind installations, it looks like the height of environmental friendliness. And in this confrontation there is no winner.
On the way to the consumer
Electricity production is not the only element inpower system, which is waiting for big changes. Work also looks promising at the level of transmission and use of energy. RUTAS data show that today it is necessary to generate 20–40% more energy than the consumer actually needs. This is due to technical losses (up to 20%) and reactive power consumption by modern household and office equipment (up to 30%).
The company has technology that coversall stages of the passage of electricity: from generation (high voltage) through transmission lines (medium voltage) to consumers (low voltage). Mentioned above in the context of the infrastructure for electric vehicles RUTAS 4K can reduce technical losses by up to 7% of the supplied electricity and almost completely eliminate the consumption of reactive power by equipment.
The solution reduces the amount of energy neededto generate, this means less fuel is needed. That is, thermal power plants in Siberia, the Far East and the Urals will be able to use less coal for generation, emit less CO2 and save resources. The same works for gas generation and any other.
It is appropriate to draw an analogy with building a house.The foundation of the electric power industry is generation, cable and overhead lines, transformers and electric motors. The foundation is a rough draft, on top of which a floor screed is required. Without it, you cannot place furniture, appliances and the necessary attributes for a civilized life. RUTAS 4K technology is the screed that helps to harness energy, reduce by 67% the number of disruptions leading to power outages.
The time without power supply is reduced by 55% for households in cities where RUTAS 4K technology has been applied.
Technology also helps in private solutions.In 2020, Time magazine selected the BrainBox AI facility management system as one of the 100 best inventions of 2020. The artificial intelligence-based system uses weather reports, precipitation and other environmental phenomena to predict thermal conditions in a building, and then adjusts the power of air conditioning or heating. Launched last year, the technology monitors the temperature of more than 3.6 million square meters of building, helping to reduce CO2 emissions by 20-40%. And the lithium-ion Powerwall battery, developed by Tesla, helps distribute the load on the network and is used as a backup power source in private homes: it accumulates energy generated by power plants or renewable energy sources during periods of low consumption and releases it at peak times or during power outages .
Construction changes energy
Today energy efficiency comes next toenvironment, and work towards sustainable development helps to attract personnel and find investments. The logic is straightforward: buildings and structures with a lot of natural light spend less resources on lighting devices, with good thermal insulation - on heating, and so on. Since 1990, there has been a method of environmental assessment of buildings performance (BREEAM) in the world, according to which more than 200 thousand buildings and structures have been certified.
In Russia, for example, almost all tradeMEGA centers have passed BREEAM in USE International certification with a Very Good rating. This year, Ingka Investments (like MEGA, part of the Ingka Group) acquired 49% of shares in eight solar power plants in southwestern Russia. The energy capacity of the projects will be 160 MW: this is enough to provide electricity to a part of shopping centers and all IKEA stores in Russia.
Changes also apply to housing and officeconstruction. For example, the Tower C skyscraper in Shenzhen, China by Zaha Khadid Architects will be built using only recycled materials, and a special shading façade in the structure of the towers will promote ventilation and prevent overheating - less energy is required for air conditioning.
New buildings in Russia are 7-9 times more energy efficient,than the Khrushchevs. The energy consumption of Khrushchev is 350-450 kWh per square meter per year, and the most common new building is no more than 90 kWh per square meter. The calculation was done on the example of Moscow. It turns out that an old five-storey house uses the same amount of electricity as a new 35-storey house with the same base area.
The production of building materials is also changing, evenenergy-intensive such as steel and concrete. For example, another Time magazine winner in 2020, Heliogen HelioHeat, presents 100,000 mirrors in the field. They are controlled by a computer, concentrating the reflected sunbeam on a 40-meter tower. The temperature there reaches 1,100 ° C: enough to melt steel and produce cement. You can do without burning fossil fuels. Heliogen founder Bill Gross said future versions will also use the technology to create hydrogen for zero-emission vehicles.
Perhaps behind such multifunctional,green and smart designs are the future of industry and cities. We cannot know exactly how the megacities will meet us in 10 or 20 years, but through innovations in the energy sector we can easily make “casts of the future”. All these amazing technologies once again confirm the phrase of the science fiction writer William Gibson: “The future has already arrived. It's just that it's not evenly distributed yet. "
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