If you’re among those others, I’d be really interested to hear a critique of the article. It seemed pretty convincing to me, as well as constructive by suggesting that green investment is the right path forward
I'll give you one example which I find pretty convincing:
Take aviation. You can make aviation green by using hydrogen (on medium distances), batteries (on short distances) or efuels (everywhere, it's basically kerosene, but made with renewable electricity). Ok, great.
Now there's an EU research project that has run some numbers. Note that this project happened in collaboration with aviation companies, it's unlikely to paint a particularly pessimistic picture. Page 44 here:
https://www.cleansky.eu/sites/default/files/inline-files/202...
Their calculation is that you need between 21 and 32 Petawatthours per year to green aviation (depending on how optimistic you are about hydrogen-based aviation). That is around the same as the total amount of electricity the world uses today (all electricity, not just green electricity).
They assume a 4 percent growth rate for aviation, which is in line with what aviation organizations expect.
I have trouble imagining that this is realistic. Like: I'm pretty optimistic about renewable energy. But I just don't think it's very plausible to say: "We'll make all our electricity green, and then we'll add the same amount in green electricity just for aviation, and oh, we'll probably do the same for a bunch of other industry sectors that will need similar amounts" (there are studies with similar numbers e.g. for the chemical industry). Like I just don't think it's plausible to green all electricity and then grow the electricity sector by something like 500% in a short amount of time.
And when you come to the conclusion that this is not realistic you should start to wonder if you should really assume that aviation will just continue to grow and grow. (And the same is pretty much true for a lot of sectors where greening is not impossible, but challenging.)
hannob|4 years ago
Take aviation. You can make aviation green by using hydrogen (on medium distances), batteries (on short distances) or efuels (everywhere, it's basically kerosene, but made with renewable electricity). Ok, great.
Now there's an EU research project that has run some numbers. Note that this project happened in collaboration with aviation companies, it's unlikely to paint a particularly pessimistic picture. Page 44 here: https://www.cleansky.eu/sites/default/files/inline-files/202...
Their calculation is that you need between 21 and 32 Petawatthours per year to green aviation (depending on how optimistic you are about hydrogen-based aviation). That is around the same as the total amount of electricity the world uses today (all electricity, not just green electricity).
They assume a 4 percent growth rate for aviation, which is in line with what aviation organizations expect.
I have trouble imagining that this is realistic. Like: I'm pretty optimistic about renewable energy. But I just don't think it's very plausible to say: "We'll make all our electricity green, and then we'll add the same amount in green electricity just for aviation, and oh, we'll probably do the same for a bunch of other industry sectors that will need similar amounts" (there are studies with similar numbers e.g. for the chemical industry). Like I just don't think it's plausible to green all electricity and then grow the electricity sector by something like 500% in a short amount of time.
And when you come to the conclusion that this is not realistic you should start to wonder if you should really assume that aviation will just continue to grow and grow. (And the same is pretty much true for a lot of sectors where greening is not impossible, but challenging.)
dariosalvi78|4 years ago