The sower’s way: quantifying the narrowing net-energy pathways to a global energy transition

Abstract

Planning the appropriate renewable energy (RE) installation rate should balance two partially contradictory objectives: substituting fossil fuels fast enough to stave-off the worst consequences of climate change while maintaining a sufficient net energy flow to support the world's economy. The upfront energy invested in constructing a RE infrastructure subtracts from the net energy available for societal energy needs, a fact typically neglected in energy projections. Modeling feasible energy transition pathways to provide different net energy levels we find that they are critically dependent on the fossil fuel emissions cap and phase-out profile and on the characteristic energy return on energy invested of the RE technologies. The easiest pathway requires installation of RE plants to accelerate from 0.12 TW p yr -1 in 2013 to peak between 7.3 and 11.6 TW p yr -1 in the late 2030s, for an early or a late fossil-fuel phase-out respectively in order for emissions to stay within the recommended CO 2 budget.

In Support of a Physics-Based Energy Transition Planning: Sowing Our Future Energy Needs

“…These EPBT-based considerations can be confirmed by more detailed calculations that consider the factors such as the mix of different EROIs of renewable energy sources, the gradual depletion of the fossil sources, the increasing human population, the need of storage, and more requirements (Sgouridis et al 2016). Sgouridis et al take into account the fact that the current energy system is based on fossil fuels and that, therefore, it will be necessary to invest fossil energy during the initial phases of the transition.…”

“…We can identify a common requirement for these factors in terms of the energy investment required to extract minerals, refine them, produce components, assemble them, transport them, and other related physical actions. In the current situation, these energy investments can only come from fossil fuels and we referred to this need in a previous paper (Sgouridis et al 2016) in terms of "The Sower's Path," that is in terms of the need of using some of our current energy production ("the seed") in order to produce renewable energy (the future "harvest").…”

Solar photovoltaic capacity demand for a sustainable transport sector to fulfil the Paris Agreement by 2050

“…Both have considered the entire energy system, but none of them in an hourly resolution. The solar energy shares in total energy supply of the three other leading research groups are about 58% (Jacobson et al), 22% to 29% (Greenpeace International and German Aerospace Center), and 47% (Sgouridis et al, for the reference year 2050). The IEA still lags substantially behind with a share of 4% for 2040 (18% in the power sector), according to the latest published data and their most progressive scenario .…”

Adding Feedbacks and Non-Linearity to the Neoclassical Growth Model: A New Realm for System Dynamics Applications

“…Sterman modelled the energy transition of the economy of the USA confronted with a dwindling domestic oil supply [40], while Fiddaman focused his FREE model on the issue of global climate change [41]. Recent contributions include a REXS model developed by Ayres and Warr focused on modified production function and the role of useful work in the production process, a World Limits model developed by Capellán-Pérez et al aimed at predicting levels of energy availability under various assumptions about economic growth, energy efficiency and the speed of energy transition, and the SETI developed by Sgouridis et al, a model targeting the sustainable energy transition [42][43][44]. The main idea of this paper is concisely summed up by Takuro Uehara, who addresses the common flaw in many of the aforementioned models [45]: "While system dynamicists may not rely heavily on economic theory because of the seemingly unrealistic assumptions employed, economists are indifferent to models that seem to disregard economic theory".…”