Rational Cause for Optimism

From our bird's-eye view of the renewable energy industry, we often see positive developments for humanity before they become common knowledge. The purpose of this blog is to highlight the clean energy innovations and sustainability actions that are legitimate cause for optimism despite the very real threats to people and the environment posed by climate damage.

by Co-Founder Phil Coupe

A new phrase has been coined to describe how clean electricity combined with hyper-efficient technology can unleash energy abundance, lower costs, and a cleaner environment: the "Electrotech Revolution."

"At its core, this revolution is driven by physics, economics, and geopolitics…the arc of energy history bends towards solutions that are leaner, cheaper and more secure. Electrotech makes a mockery of setting fossils on fire and losing two-thirds of the energy to heat,” according to Ember, a global independent energy think tank based in London.

In September, Ember Futures, a new research initiative to help leaders navigate the rapid rise of electrotech and the decline of fossil fuels, released the first of what will be an annual report: The Electrotech Revolution.

What can we learn from this cornucopia of science-backed, data-rich information? The cherry-picked slide below (page 49) illustrates the sheer, perpetual extractive magnitude of the fossil fuel energy system per year on the right, compared to the 25-year extractions required for an Electrotech Revolution that evolves into a perpetual circular economy, on the left of the graphic.

Below is a real-world example of the circular economy attributes of an Electrotech Revolution. Solar panels (95% recyclable) and used EV batteries are being used to power a small data center, adjacent to a recycling facility that will eventually absorb the end-of-life clean technology and use the recovered raw materials to reincarnate new solar panels and batteries.

But how is the Electrotech Revolution relevant to New England, with an economy and society dependent on 160-year-old combustion technology and enormous volumes of oil and gas?

“There is a clear parallel with the agricultural revolution here. When early societies learned to farm, they began producing food in place — harvesting from the same fields again and again instead of chasing animals across vast territories. That shift unlocked far greater energy yields from the land, rising by roughly two orders of magnitude in most estimates. The result was abundance, settlement, and growth: the foundation of civilization itself,” according to Ember.

In the early 1800’s, whale oil and wood were the dominant energy sources in our region, and both were abundant and relatively low cost until the first commercial ‘rock oil’ well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. The discovery of cheaper, easier-to-get underground oil quickly led to the demise of commercial whaling, saving the Sperm whale from extinction and unleashing an era of fossil fuel abundance that powered the Industrial Revolution and profound advancement for humankind over the last 150 years.

“An analogous revolution is now underway in energy. By shifting from tracking down and collecting fossil fuels to farming sunshine, wind, water and heat from the ground, we are unlocking a resource base that is more local, steady and vastly larger: capable of supplying orders of magnitude more energy than fossil fuels — with every nation sitting atop renewable resources at least ten times, and for some a thousand times, greater than its demand. As renewable generation scales and electrification carries it through the economy, the age of electrotech marks a new period of energy abundance,” according to Ember.

Crucially, electrotech is three times more efficient at utilizing electrons that can be generated from infinite wind and sun, compared to the 160-year-old combustion technology dependent on finite, polluting molecules of oil and gas. This thermodynamic truth reveals the unbeatable economic advantages of using renewable energy to power electric vehicles, heat pumps, induction cooking, and the rapidly growing constellation of electric appliances that are better than anything that requires internal combustion.

Granted, it will be harder to wean New England off fossil fuels than it will be in places closer to the sun-drenched equator, but make no mistake - the Electrotech Revolution is coming our way faster than most people realize. Two surprising examples include Vermont-based electric airplane manufacturer BETA Technologies that already has 900+ employees, and marine electrification in Maine across ferries, aquaculture, and boating.

In the short-term, fossil fuel industry-funded political resistance to the Electrotech Revolution is a formidable obstacle to be overcome, but the long-term advantages of lower cost energy and better-functioning technology assure the eventual breakthrough of renewables and cleantech.