Infrastructural, Technological, and Economic Challenges of Alternative Energy – Blog Post 3 - September 5

This week, I read the next few sections of The Energy Reader and found the section “Alternative Energy Challenges” very interesting.  The section focuses on the non-monetary reasons why integrating alternative energies into society, and eventually replacing fossil fuels with them, is difficult.  David Fridley lists seven different factors that restrict or challenge alternative energy usage.  I would like to point out that each of the challenges listed does not affect each alternative energy source the same.  For example, one of the greatest problems with solar and wind energy is the intermittency of the technology, but electric-powered cars do not have this problem.  The reason I point this out is because at first glance, these seven challenges seem to make a future of alternative energy look improbable, but after looking at the list a little more carefully for each alternative energy, many alternative energies really only have a few major problems that challenge them.  These challenges can be solved through technological advancements, or through using certain technologies in certain situations.  The alternative energies that we create or use do not need to be perfect if they are integrated together in a way that complements their benefits and minimizes their costs.

For example, solar and wind energy already have the scalability and timing to be effective.  Both technologies can be manufactured and installed for a price that will eventually pay itself off and save the buyer money in the long run.  Solar and wind also do not have a major challenge in the substitutability area because there are not many infrastructural changes that need to take place to implement them.  No new roads, pipelines, refueling stations, or other infrastructure changes are really needed to use them, with the exception of transmission lines for centralized solar farms and more manufacturing plants to make the parts.  I do not consider transmission lines and more manufacturing plants that much of an infrastructural difference, especially compared to other energy technologies. 

Some of the major technological challenges to solar and wind energy include the energy density, intermittency, and material input requirements of the technologies.  Each of these challenges can be dealt with based on how we use the technologies, and through some technological advancements.  The energy density of solar and wind energy is low, but I do not think this is a major problem if solar and wind energy is used for purposes that do not require it to have high energy densities.  By this I mean that solar and wind are great for powering houses, but not so great for powering cars.  This means that solar and wind energy will not be good in every area of life, but they could definitely help to reduce the amount of coal used to generate electricity in the home.  Intermittency is a problem that can be solved by developing better energy storage systems, and material input requirements can be improved by finding replacements for rare heavy metals like gallium and indium for solar panels.  Although these problems exist and some of the problems do require technological innovations, solar and wind energy should still be implemented today in my opinion because they could help reduce our dependence on coal, which is much worse overall for the environment.

Some other challenges that affect solar and wind energy are economic.  Although solar and wind energy is scalable, they are not necessarily that commercially-sound.  This is because the initial cost to purchase these energies is high and many people cannot afford them.  Additionally, it is much more difficult to find solar or wind energy, learn about them, and then install them as opposed to just using the electricity from the grid.  Solar and wind energy are not available for cheap at Home Depot, for example, which would make buying and using them a lot easier.  Maybe some small scale ones should be sold in Home Depot, versions that are easy to operate and show how much energy and money have been saved, so that people can learn about these alternative energies and be more interested in using them.  Regardless, this does not change the fact that they are much more expensive to buy upfront than electricity from the grid.  Maybe if the EROI’s were adjusted more fairly, people would see that alternative energies are not as expensive by comparison.

By adjusting the EROI’s, I really mean two things.  First of all, I mean that the EROI’s should be calculated with none of the incentives or subsidies given by the government, to see which technologies are really the most expensive and which have been given an unfair advantage.  Second of all, I think that the type of EROI matters a lot here.  As Charles A. S. Hall discusses in his article “Energy Return on Investment,” EROImm is the most common EROI used, and is simply the energy that can be used divided by the energy used in the extraction or production facility.  This EROI favors fossil fuels because they are much more energy dense and much cheaper to extract than almost all alternative energies.  EROI point of use, on the other hand, is the ratio of available energy where it is being used divided by the energy needed to extract, process, refine, and deliver the energy to a certain area.  Since solar and wind energy locally produce energy, once they are set up, there is no energy needed to continue to extract, process, refine, or deliver the energy.  On the other hand, fossil fuels always need to be processed, refined, and delivered continuously in order to keep society running; therefore, using the EROI point of use and ridding of subsidies and incentives in the EROI equation may lead to a EROI that shows that many alternative energies may not be too far off from the fossil fuels.  This calculation does not even include the energy needed to remediate the destruction caused by energy production, which would certainly hurt the fossil fuels’ EROI even more!

In conclusion, although there are many challenges to alternative energies fully replacing fossil fuels, I think that many current alternative energy technologies are good enough to be implemented today to at least lower our fossil fuel usage.  Proper integration of different alternative energies could lead to a much more sustainable future.