Time to wrap up the course, we've addressed many different ideas and issues. So let's quickly review the main points before we leave you with some conclusions to think about and study further. Humanity has progressed throughout history by using more and more of earth's resources to supply the energy and material things we need food, shelter, transportation, and for some of us lifestyle luxuries. We're coming to realize that we are stretching the limits of many resources and that we must focus on sustainable development. Development that can sustain humanity in the future as well as today. The UN sustainable development goals provide a broad set of targets to achieve. Sustainable development goal number seven, access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all is arguably the most fundamental goal. We need abundant and affordable energy to achieve all of our other goals. Without adequate energy, modern life is impossible. We said the elephant in the room in our energy conversation is climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. It's not really the classic elephant in the room anymore as everybody's talking about it, but it is huge in terms of sustainability of energy production. Every energy strategy we developed is scrutinized through the lens of GHG emissions and many of the policies that impact energy today are strategies to address GHG emissions, not to optimize energy generation and use. More than 80% of the energy used in the world today comes from fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas. After more than two decades of development of modern renewable energy sources, they still supply only about 11% of our total energy consumption. Historical energy consumption patterns demonstrate that this world energy hunger grew over the past 200 years, new energy sources were added. But that instead of replacing existing energy sources, new technologies supplemented them. If we extended this graph to the present day, we'd see modern renewables playing a role. But all the other sources continuing to grow as well. Good long term energy planning would look to modify these patterns by diversifying our energy sources, reducing demand growth, and ensuring that adequate energy resources can be acquired in the future. Governments need to find ways to reduce emissions but doing so without regard for energy security they make the energy transition more complex and difficult to manage. Every nation produces energy from the resources it has available. Canada is fortunate to have abundant supplies of many energy sources. Hydroelectricity is huge, gas and oil are abundant and we can build and fuel our own nuclear power generation. Modern renewables are small contributors but are growing. Most countries are not as energy rich as Canada, so are forced to use whatever sources they have available. Germany has some oil, gas and coal, but is forced to import much as a discouraged development of domestic supplies and attempt to move toward low emissions sources. While wind and solar have grown, they are still relatively minor players. In fact, most nations have difficult choices to make in sustaining and growing their energy supplies. They may choose what's available today instead of, or as well as what's most sustainable tomorrow. When creating new energy sources, there are many choices subject to the availability of resources we have just discussed. Renewable energy sources, hydroelectricity, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass are often labeled as clean. Whereas non-renewable sources, coal, oil, gas, and to some extent nuclear are often called dirty. But the choices are far more complex than simple labeling would imply. Each energy source has its own benefits and challenges and different energy sources may be the best or even the only choice for particular situations. Let's quickly review the energy sources we talked about in this course. Coal is a leading energy source in the world today, critically important in power generation and industrial processes, particularly steelmaking. We see on this map more than 13,000 coal fired electricity generation facilities. Coal is abundant, cheap, easily stored, energy dense, and the world has well established extraction and transportation infrastructure. But burning coal creates a lot of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and can also have negative impacts on water resources and landscapes. Oil is today's leading energy commodity. It dominates transportation and many industrial processes. It too, is abundant in certain countries cheap, much of the time, easily transported and stored, and is very energy dense. As well, oil and natural gas are both important sources of petrochemicals, essential to many of our industrial processes and consumer goods today. Burning oil, well, not as polluting as coal, still creates pollution and substantial GHG emissions and its production can similarly have negative environmental impacts on water resources and landscapes. Natural gas, composed predominantly of the simplest hydrocarbon methane is critically important for power generation, heating and cooking, and industrial applications, particularly in producing plastics and other petrochemicals. It is also abundant and relatively cheap and transportation infrastructure is growing rapidly with the construction of liquefied natural gas or LNG facilities. Natural gas produces much less pollution and GHG emissions than coal and oil, but carbon dioxide and methane emissions are still considerable. The use of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas attracts controversy in some jurisdictions over possible environmental impacts. Nuclear fission supplies reliable electricity generation with virtually no GHG emissions and field supplies are huge. Nuclear electric generation occupies a very small land footprint and can be sighted near demand centers like big cities. But nuclear has not grown since the turn of the century because of long planning and development timelines, high capital expenditures, and many people not accepting the risk profile of nuclear power and waste disposal. Nuclear fusion is an exciting area of energy research, holding out the promise of virtually limitless energy supply with minimal environmental impacts. But the technology has been in development for decades and commercial application lies somewhere in the indefinite future. Hydroelectricity is the original large commercial renewable energy source having been in operation for more than 100 years. Huge dams on major rivers and smaller run of river operations are important electricity producers, while pumped hydro storage is by far the largest energy storage method in the world today. Hydro produces reliable and dispatch herbal electricity generation with low GHG emissions and pollution once facilities have been built. But big hydro projects have long planning and development timelines and can have huge land impacts drowning river valleys, forests, farmland, and cultural sites. Hydropower can be less reliable under drought conditions and generation sites are generally far from demand centers, necessitating construction of extensive transmission grids. Energy from the wind is harnessed to produce electricity, and is a growing component of global electrical grids. GHG emissions and pollution are very low. And operating costs are generally low as well. Wind resources are abundant in many places, onshore and offshore. But wind produces energy intermittently, not necessarily when power demand is greatest. Generation sites can be a long way from demand centers. And long term cost reductions have been eliminated or reversed by increasingly scarce supplies of critical materials required to create the turbines. Solar energy is also growing rapidly as a source of electricity. Like wind, GHG emissions and pollution are very low, and operating costs are low as well. Solar resources are particularly abundant in low latitudes, but are only niche contributors for population centers further North, or in cloudy and rainy areas. Intermittency is a major issue for solar power generation. And safe disposal of old solar panels is becoming a significant challenge as older installations are retired or updated. Most critically, however, supply chain issues for solar panels, both critical minerals and manufacturing threaten future growth of solar. Energy produced from biological waste from forest, fields, and the food supply can be repurposed to create a variety of fuels with relatively low or even negative net GHG emissions. These can be very useful in powering non-electrical applications such as transportation. But burning biomass produces pollutants. And if forests are cut down to produce wood for fuel, the GHG gains become difficult to quantify. Growing crops for biofuels also competes with human and animal food supplies. Geothermal energy, heat from the earth, is a relatively minor renewable energy player. But it is growing, particularly when you consider shallow-earth heat exchange or heat pumps for heating and cooling. Emerging technologies are making heat pumps more efficient and cost effective in more places. Geothermal benefits from very low GHG emissions and pollution, dispatchable power generation, predictable operating costs, and long-lived resources and facilities. However, high quality geothermal is available only in certain locations. Exploration and development costs can be high, and induced seismicity is a risk to be considered. Waves and tides offer huge amounts of energy, but they have failed to scale up globally. Marine energy can produce electricity with very low GHG emissions and pollution. And although production is intermittent, it is highly predictable. However, it's difficult to maintain complex structures in hostile marine environments. And each new installation is unique, requiring large design costs and other issues that many investors are not willing to address. Electricity is the energy vector that allows us to effectively use many different forms of primary energy. Modern renewables and nuclear power produce electricity almost exclusively. And so if we want to maximize our production of low-emissions energy, we need to produce a lot more electricity, and to design more applications to run on it, particularly in industry and transportation. That means massive investments not only in energy sources, but in transmission systems and in energy storage and management systems to ensure electricity is delivered reliably and on demand. Modern technology to generate, store, and use electricity relies on many critical metals and minerals. There are currently inadequate supplies available to build out the infrastructure envisioned in many future energy systems. We can develop more supply with years of exploration and mine development, but some critical metals would be required in volumes exceeding what is reasonably and economically available on earth, regardless of timing. Large-scale energy storage is critical in fitting intermittent energy supplies to short term and long term electricity demands. There are many different energy storage systems, each capable of delivering energy over specific time periods. Batteries and other short term storage systems are getting better at providing short term electricity backup and grid balancing, and at powering transportation. To date, only pumped hydro offers significant long term storage potential sufficient to take communities through longer periods of inadequate energy supply. However, pump hydro is available only where is already abundant hydroelectricity, areas with lots of water and significant physical relief. Other long term storage technologies such as compressed air energy storage and hydrogen are being developed, but are years away from being significant players. Hydrogen has many potential applications as an energy carrier or energy storage medium. The idea is to manufacture it using low emissions energy, and to move it to where building, transportation, and industrial applications can use it directly. That said, hydrogen is expensive to manufacture, and much primary energy is lost in the process. It's also much more difficult to transport than natural gas. So many challenges remain in making hydrogen a significant component of 21st century energy systems. Many analysts regard energy efficiency as perhaps the greatest single contributor to energy transition. It offers an opportunity to slow down energy demand growth so that our evolving energy sources can catch up. Technology has enabled us to do many things using less and less energy, as we see with the progression from incandescent to LED light bulbs. But really big, energy efficiency gains also require people to change their behavior to accomplish tasks using less energy, more walking and cycling, smaller and more efficient homes, less travel, and food from more local sources. Many entrepreneurs and innovators have tackled the idea of capturing carbon dioxide from concentrated sources such as industrial plants before it is released into the atmosphere, and either storing it underground geologically, or incorporating it into materials such as engineered carbon. While many technologies are promising, few have been scaled up to commerciality to date. Encouraging more natural vegetation growth by planting trees or facilitating kelp or seaweed growth can work too, although accurate carbon accounting is often challenging. Having digested all this information about energy sources, vectors, management, storage efficiency, and mitigation, we can start thinking about designing efficient ways to diversify our energy systems, and to reduce their environmental impacts. Here are some key issues to keep in mind while undertaking these enormous tasks. World population continues to grow. People in every nation strive for a modern energy-rich lifestyle as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, those that have the most energy-rich lifestyles are not making sacrifices to reduce energy consumption and increase energy efficiency. Energy supply chains and infrastructure are complex. We can't change them overnight regardless of how much we want to, and no matter how much money we're prepared to spend. Once we've incorporated those issues into our thinking, we need to consider some important questions including, what energy sources are available in different parts of the world? Many countries have few choices. How can we best balance the top priorities which often conflict, like maximizing or even just creating energy supplies? While minimizing environmental impacts. How do we balance interests and rights of all the different stakeholders that are affected by new energy projects? A Lula Dante showed us the political conflicts arising between Ethiopia and its neighbors when trying to build a new hydro dam on the Nile River. How do we maintain and improve energy security at all times in face of many unpredictable events, including both natural and social disasters like wildfires and wars. There are no simple answers to these questions, particularly as everyone sees the world differently within the frameworks of their own values and worldviews. Two competing realities have emerged regarding the energy transition. Reality one holds that energy transition and GHG reductions will take place gradually dictated by economics and market forces. Reality two dictates reducing GHG emissions as quickly as possible to medicate a climate crisis, and to phase out fossil fuel production driven by strong policy interventions. Well, reality two has a strong presence in media and political rhetoric. Most high income nations lean towards reality one policies and actions, particularly as energy security is threatened by armed conflict and commodity shortages. Many middle to low income countries place higher priority on obtaining adequate energy supply than on addressing GHG emissions reductions, and so our reality one players. Looking at Ireland as an example, we confronted the energy trilemma. To solve energy challenges, we have to consider security and reliability, affordability especially to those already energy poor as well as environmental impacts. Creating actual pathways or specific sets of actions to make energy transition happen is far more difficult than simply setting targets for energy creation or emissions reduction. There are countless targets out there, IEA net zero by 2050 summarizes many. And many governments have set dates by which they hope to accomplish specific targets. But these are almost all exclusively emissions targets, and most don't consider how we can maintain or gain abundant, reliable and affordable energy while working toward the desired emissions target. Each new wind, solar, nuclear or gas fired generating facility, each new battery manufacturing plant, each new cobalt or copper mine needs to be planned, permitted, financed, built and tested before it can produce. Simply setting more aggressive targets for emissions reduction without creating pathways cannot speed those processes. Moreover, unrealistic targets create confusion and uncertainty and can destroy the value of investments. Here's a basic principle that politicians and voters must learn preferably before energy crisis hit. There have to be new energy generators in place before the old sources can be shut down or people quickly suffer. The economics of every new energy project requires scrutiny. How much will it cost and when, what will the revenues be, what are the risks and potential delays, will investors put their money into it? Regardless of the political system one is operating under, investments must make economic sense. An investor, whether in a utility company, a government or private capital needs to undertake a full cycle economic analysis to determine whether the money they are going to invest will earn an acceptable return, and how long it will take. The analysis must include not only the cost of materials and construction, but the associated infrastructure. Such as the cost of power backup and storage for intermittent generators, and the cost of new transmission lines to tie a new source to the grid. Everything must come together in the policies that governments create to support energy systems that supply human needs with minimal environmental impacts. Governments don't make big changes happen by themselves, they set the stage so that people can do what's required. Working together, building new energy projects, retiring old inefficient energy sources and reducing their own impacts. Here are a few of the points that Dr Gallinger laid out for us, policy must attend to both energy and climate needs. Energy markets must be functional, competitive and efficient, investors must have confidence in policy and regulatory frameworks. Policymakers must be forthright about who pays for what, when and how for emissions reductions. All environmental impacts must be addressed, not only climate, but impacts on land, air, water, wildlife and ecosystems. Policy must lay out energy transition pathways that are viable for people and the institutions and industries that serve them. Humanity's energy transition began thousands of years ago when we first harnessed energy from animals and fire. Transition moved at a slow pace through most of our history, then accelerated dramatically 200 years ago with the industrial revolution and widespread use of coal. Rapid transition continued as oil, natural gas, hydropower, nuclear and modern renewables came onstream successively through the 20th century. The 21st century energy transition is not something new, it's the continuation of a process that has been growing and changing for more than 200 years. But as global energy demand grows, we are becoming more aware of both the limitations of our energy sources and their various environmental impacts. We also realize that energy transition is not a finite process, it's continually changing and continues to evolve. Our goals and methods for energy production will continue to evolve as well. Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change are seen by many people as a reason to try to dramatically change the transition process. Attempting to quickly replace high emissions energy sources, primarily fossil fuels, with low emissions sources or primarily modern renewables. However, we've learned in this course that today's energy systems are immense and complex, so changing them is an enormous task. Vaclav Smil summarized it in this way in his latest book, How the World Really Works. The fact is that we can make a great deal of difference, but not by pretending to follow unrealistic and arbitrary goals. History does not unfold as a computerized academic exercise with major achievements falling on years ending with zero or five, it is full of discontinuities, reversals, and unpredictable departures. Smil also noted what we cannot be specific, we know that the most likely prospect is a mixture of progress and setbacks of seemingly insurmountable difficulties and near miraculous advances. The future as ever is not predetermined, its outcome depends on our actions. Each energy source has both merits and challenges, and most are available only in specific places. Solar power is truly viable only where it's sunny, wind power where it's windy, hydropower along large rivers, tidal power at the seashore, and geothermal power where the geothermal gradient is high. Coal, oil and gas are unevenly distributed around the world, and many countries that don't have a rich fossil fuel endowment struggle to pay to import these fuels. We need much more electrical infrastructure and energy storage to supply electricity if we want to convert transportation and industrial processes so that they can be powered by low emissions sources. We need to invent and develop many new technologies to make processes more efficient. We need to build immense new supply chains to supply the critical materials needed for those technologies. And perhaps most of all, we need to figure out how to use less energy to live our lives. The experts that have spoken to you in this course are all building pathways towards a more diverse energy future, designing new and better technology and creating policies and pathways to enable transition processes. They all share practical and constructive points of view, knowing what humanity can accomplish and understanding our limitations in getting there. Let's close by considering the last of Dr Gallagher's conclusions, the need for politically viable energy pathways moving forward. Ongoing political support for transition is essential, but it is not guaranteed. Citizens must ensure that those in political power understand our energy and environmental drivers, and create policy accordingly. Transition is politically contentious, different realities shape individual, regional and country views of the best path forward. We must respect those points of view, and not expect the rest of the world to simply agree with our own priorities. Pathways need to attend to all energy imperatives, climate, security, markets and other environmental impacts to be politically viable and effective. Even today, we are seeing the policy and pathways that ignore any of these crucial elements are failing, all depends on collaboration and consensus seeking. We don't have to agree on everything, but we have to reach agreement on how to move forward. Thank you for your time and interest in the 21st century energy transition in this course. To learn more, please take the time to review the readings and references and to participate in the discussion forums, and please share your feedback. We all have much to learn, thank you. [MUSIC]
