View to learn about renewable energy, its types, and also how the coronavirus pandemic has changed energy consumption and production patterns
View to learn about renewable energy, its types, and also how the coronavirus pandemic has changed energy consumption and production patterns
Learn how the coronavirus pandemic has changed energy consumption patterns and how these changes might affect renewable energy in this interview with Melissa Petruzzello, Editor of Plant and Environmental Science at Encyclopædia Britannica.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
MATT: Hi, Melissa. Thanks for joining us today.
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Hi, thanks for having me.
MATT: Yep, of course. So today, I want to talk about energy, specifically renewable energy and also, how maybe the pandemic has affected our energy consumption and production. First, let's just start with, what is renewable energy? And what other type of energy is it compared to?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Sure. When we talk about renewable energy, what we're talking about is usually electricity. And it's electricity that is made from sources that are naturally replenishing. And that's in contrast to energy that is made from sources that don't replenish, such as fossil fuels.
And for most of modern human history, we've been making electricity from fossil fuels with coal-powered power plants, predominantly. And coal, and natural gas, and other fossil fuels are extracted from the ground. And they are not replenished by the Earth in any timescale that's relevant for human activity.
MATT: This perfectly segues into my next question, which is, what are some types of renewable energy?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Sure. The most important in terms of commercial production are solar power, so solar panels on a rooftop or a big solar array out in the desert. That's wonderful renewable energy from the sun. Wind is another excellent source of renewable energy.
We have wind turbines. Hydroelectric is an important source of renewable energy. And that mostly looks like dams on rivers. And then on a lesser scale, there's geothermal energy. And that relies on geothermal activity in certain places in the world.
Iceland has a lot of opportunity to tap into this and then as I mentioned, the bio-fuels, which can be made from-- often they're made from corn or from sugar cane. And there's also some emerging technology that uses algae to make plant-based fuels for vehicles, mostly, but there's other applications as well.
MATT: My next question is about the pandemic that we're currently in. How has the pandemic affected our energy consumption and production? The first thing that comes to mind for me is that we're traveling less. So we're probably using less gas, right?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Yeah. With people staying home, it has absolutely had a major impact on travel. Car travel has gone down and then of course, cruise ships and airlines. Those industries are really suffering from people choosing or being forced to stay home.
The transportation sector, at least in the United States, is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, because they're powered by fossil fuels and all those types of engines. With people staying home, there has been a significant reduction in those emissions. So that's been a really major impact of the pandemic on energy use.
Also, though, there's been a major impact on electricity consumption with businesses shuttered and factories closed. And people are in their homes. And the demand for electricity has also dropped. In some places, as much as 30%-- the demand for electricity has dropped.
That's been another really important change in the emissions. Because the electricity generation in the United States is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. So with a decline in transportation and a decline in electricity, the projection probably will be 11% lower in our greenhouse gas emissions this year than a normal year.
MATT: The pandemic is really forcing us as a planet to change. And we're probably going to be dealing with these changes for the next few years, really like travel.
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Sure.
MATT: So the combination between these changes that we're making as a whole and climate change-- do you think that we're in a shift away from fossil fuels and really trying to embrace renewable energy alternatives?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: This is the critical moment, I would say. There is a lot that's attractive about natural gas. There's a lot of effort in natural gas pipelines in this country and in Canada. And extraction is a source of jobs and income. So the push is either, will it be switching us as we phase out coal? Will we be switching to natural gas power plants? Or will we be going all the way to renewables? And that remains to be seen.
The main limiting factor of renewables-- they're getting more and more cost effective and competitive in that sense. The main problem, still, is that you're only making electricity from the sun when the sun is shining or from the wind when the wind is blowing. And so battery technology is still expensive to store what's being made during the day so that it can be used overnight.
What I've read being proposed is that maybe we can do renewables, ideally as the main source and then, perhaps, natural gas to work overnight, or when the wind is not blowing, or whatever factors might be limiting the renewables. So maybe a hybrid system would be the best.
But, yes, hopefully with us rethinking how we live in the terms of the pandemic. And, definitely, we need to do some thinking in terms of climate change, that this is a really good moment to start making some big changes in our energy production, for sure.
MATT: Are there any newer renewable energy sources that some people may not be aware of yet, something that's still being developed, perhaps?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Well, the sources are mostly there-- the wind, the water, the sun. But there are new applications that use those sources. And some of them are really exciting. In 2015, a manned plane circumnavigated the globe using only solar power. Its wings were just solar arrays.
And that's really promising. Because there is not a lot of great innovations in transportation using renewable energies yet. Hopefully, sometime we can make planes a bit greener by at least supplementing some of their energy needs with solar or something like that.
I was reading that in Sweden, they are experimenting with these electric roadways, like a light rail system where their municipal trucks attach to electric wires over the road. And they get charged as they go along. And then what they need to get off the road to do normal things-- they switch back to being a hybrid vehicle.
And that's a really innovative idea to let them be charging as they drive on a dedicated roadway. Because it's actually, constantly-- it's a really innovative area, so it's really exciting. Things come out all the time. And hopefully, we'll all be more familiar with it really soon.
MATT: Thank you for joining us today. I think that we just scratched the surface in terms of renewable energy. So hopefully, in a few weeks, we could dive deeper into one of them and learn a little bit more.
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Sure. I'd love that. Thanks so much, Matt.
MATT: Thanks, Melissa.
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Hi, thanks for having me.
MATT: Yep, of course. So today, I want to talk about energy, specifically renewable energy and also, how maybe the pandemic has affected our energy consumption and production. First, let's just start with, what is renewable energy? And what other type of energy is it compared to?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Sure. When we talk about renewable energy, what we're talking about is usually electricity. And it's electricity that is made from sources that are naturally replenishing. And that's in contrast to energy that is made from sources that don't replenish, such as fossil fuels.
And for most of modern human history, we've been making electricity from fossil fuels with coal-powered power plants, predominantly. And coal, and natural gas, and other fossil fuels are extracted from the ground. And they are not replenished by the Earth in any timescale that's relevant for human activity.
MATT: This perfectly segues into my next question, which is, what are some types of renewable energy?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Sure. The most important in terms of commercial production are solar power, so solar panels on a rooftop or a big solar array out in the desert. That's wonderful renewable energy from the sun. Wind is another excellent source of renewable energy.
We have wind turbines. Hydroelectric is an important source of renewable energy. And that mostly looks like dams on rivers. And then on a lesser scale, there's geothermal energy. And that relies on geothermal activity in certain places in the world.
Iceland has a lot of opportunity to tap into this and then as I mentioned, the bio-fuels, which can be made from-- often they're made from corn or from sugar cane. And there's also some emerging technology that uses algae to make plant-based fuels for vehicles, mostly, but there's other applications as well.
MATT: My next question is about the pandemic that we're currently in. How has the pandemic affected our energy consumption and production? The first thing that comes to mind for me is that we're traveling less. So we're probably using less gas, right?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Yeah. With people staying home, it has absolutely had a major impact on travel. Car travel has gone down and then of course, cruise ships and airlines. Those industries are really suffering from people choosing or being forced to stay home.
The transportation sector, at least in the United States, is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, because they're powered by fossil fuels and all those types of engines. With people staying home, there has been a significant reduction in those emissions. So that's been a really major impact of the pandemic on energy use.
Also, though, there's been a major impact on electricity consumption with businesses shuttered and factories closed. And people are in their homes. And the demand for electricity has also dropped. In some places, as much as 30%-- the demand for electricity has dropped.
That's been another really important change in the emissions. Because the electricity generation in the United States is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. So with a decline in transportation and a decline in electricity, the projection probably will be 11% lower in our greenhouse gas emissions this year than a normal year.
MATT: The pandemic is really forcing us as a planet to change. And we're probably going to be dealing with these changes for the next few years, really like travel.
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Sure.
MATT: So the combination between these changes that we're making as a whole and climate change-- do you think that we're in a shift away from fossil fuels and really trying to embrace renewable energy alternatives?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: This is the critical moment, I would say. There is a lot that's attractive about natural gas. There's a lot of effort in natural gas pipelines in this country and in Canada. And extraction is a source of jobs and income. So the push is either, will it be switching us as we phase out coal? Will we be switching to natural gas power plants? Or will we be going all the way to renewables? And that remains to be seen.
The main limiting factor of renewables-- they're getting more and more cost effective and competitive in that sense. The main problem, still, is that you're only making electricity from the sun when the sun is shining or from the wind when the wind is blowing. And so battery technology is still expensive to store what's being made during the day so that it can be used overnight.
What I've read being proposed is that maybe we can do renewables, ideally as the main source and then, perhaps, natural gas to work overnight, or when the wind is not blowing, or whatever factors might be limiting the renewables. So maybe a hybrid system would be the best.
But, yes, hopefully with us rethinking how we live in the terms of the pandemic. And, definitely, we need to do some thinking in terms of climate change, that this is a really good moment to start making some big changes in our energy production, for sure.
MATT: Are there any newer renewable energy sources that some people may not be aware of yet, something that's still being developed, perhaps?
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Well, the sources are mostly there-- the wind, the water, the sun. But there are new applications that use those sources. And some of them are really exciting. In 2015, a manned plane circumnavigated the globe using only solar power. Its wings were just solar arrays.
And that's really promising. Because there is not a lot of great innovations in transportation using renewable energies yet. Hopefully, sometime we can make planes a bit greener by at least supplementing some of their energy needs with solar or something like that.
I was reading that in Sweden, they are experimenting with these electric roadways, like a light rail system where their municipal trucks attach to electric wires over the road. And they get charged as they go along. And then what they need to get off the road to do normal things-- they switch back to being a hybrid vehicle.
And that's a really innovative idea to let them be charging as they drive on a dedicated roadway. Because it's actually, constantly-- it's a really innovative area, so it's really exciting. Things come out all the time. And hopefully, we'll all be more familiar with it really soon.
MATT: Thank you for joining us today. I think that we just scratched the surface in terms of renewable energy. So hopefully, in a few weeks, we could dive deeper into one of them and learn a little bit more.
MELISSA PETRUZZELLO: Sure. I'd love that. Thanks so much, Matt.
MATT: Thanks, Melissa.