Figure 3.1 Energy Infrastructure

Credit: Chris LeBoutillier. "UCR ecologist on geoengineering: a new solution to the climate crisis." UC Riverside News. April 22, 2021.

This lesson will cover the basic principles of global climate change and how the warming of the climate is driving the push towards innovation and adoption of renewable energy technologies, processes, policies, and cultures. This lesson will look at the push for renewables as a necessary condition for beginning to address the climate problem at its main source, namely, greenhouse gasses emitted as a byproduct of the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial processes. The call to address climate change is, at its root, an ethical imperative which further underpins the drive for renewables.

Lesson Objectives

• Articulate the relationship between climate change and the drive for renewable energy.
• Explain environmental arguments for the move to renewable energy.
• Identify ethical reasons for considering renewables.
• Identify ethical challenges to adopting renewables.

What is due for Lesson 3?

This lesson will take us one week to complete. Please refer to the Course Syllabus for specific time frames and due dates. Specific directions for the assignment below can be found in this lesson.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please post them to our Questions? discussion forum (not email), located under the Discussions tab in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum daily to respond. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate.

The links between energy use and the global warming of the atmosphere are significant. In 2011, the global total output of CO₂ from energy production was 32,579,000,000 metric tons (32.6 Gigatons) or 71,824,400,397,211 pounds. That is just for one year, for energy consumption alone.

First, read Chapter 1 of the IPCC report on Renewable Energy (RE) and climate change.

This is a rather complex document with a significant amount of data and figures, and it is sometimes easy to lose the thread of the argument. This document expects you to already know something about how climate change works. For a quick background on how the greenhouse effect works, please have a look at HyperPhysics and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).

Pay attention to

In Chapter 1 of the IPCC RE Report:

• How is energy consumption linked to drivers of CO₂ output?
• How is renewable energy linked to CO₂ output?
• What kind of renewables should be implemented?
• When should they be implemented?

Potential ethical questions for consideration

1. Describe the reasoning behind the urgency to move to renewable energies by a certain deadline.
2. What is a per capita emissions output? What does it mean to have a high per capita emissions versus a medium or low per capita?

Figure 3.2: Silhouette of Three Wind Turbines

Credit: Pixabay from Pexel licensed under CC0

In Part 1, you read about the linkages between energy, renewables, and climate change. Now, read the International Energy Agency's Methodology for the "450 Scenario" and Chapter 8 of 2012 World Energy Outlook.

This report by the IEA works through various energy policy scenarios based on requirements to meet certain targets.

Pay attention to:

• The importance of the 450 in the 450 scenario
• What is meant by "carbon in energy reserves and infrastructure"
• Examples of emissions lock-in
• Energy efficiency versus renewable energy

Potential ethical questions for consideration

1. Is there an obligation to meet the 450 scenario? If so, what is that obligation?
2. Is there an obligation to invest in renewable energy innovation and infrastructure? By whom and when?
3. What do the scenarios demonstrate as the more effective investment in the near future? Renewable energy or energy efficiency?
4. Why should decision-makers listen to these research findings?