DISCUSSION POINTS
• The new natural gas volumes create opportunity for innovation in new uses of natural gas. In the coming years, natural gas will become more prevalent in additional sectors, such as transportation, petrochemicals, materials, and more, and innovation should be developed for their use.
• Scientific advances that reduce methane emissions along the natural gas production and supply chain are needed.
• Rising use of renewable energy will demand technological advances that lower their environmental impact and the development of new renewable energy forms that have lower environmental impact. In contrast to common perceptions, renewable and green are not the same.
• Current mining technologies and the need for rare minerals in batteries undermines many of the potential benefits of the switch from oil-fueled to electricity-powered vehicles.
• Despite dramatic changes in almost every sphere of technology, in the last fifty years, there have been few transformative changes in the field of transportation. Some of this may be due to the immense investments sunk in existing energy and transportation infrastructure that are not easily transformed. However, it also seems that scientists in these fields need to ask themselves a different set of questions. In the fields of energy and transportation, scientists need to approach their work like in medicine, information, and communication, with no boundaries and a willingness to explore entirely new directions of innovation.
Changes in global energy trends and policies affect demands for scientific innovation. This article discusses the major emerging trends in the global energy sphere and the demands they will place on scientists for innovation in the next decade.
Changing global energy mix: more natural gas and renewables, but renewables still remain minor
The composition of the global energy mix is changing—the share of natural gas continues to grow fastest among the major energy sources. By 2030 it appears that oil, natural gas, and coal will comprise equal parts of the global energy mix and together all three will provide a little over three-quarters of the global energy consumption.1 Renewable energy is growing rapidly, but barring significant new technological developments, it is likely to occupy only 10% of the global energy mix within a decade.1 Demand for natural gas has been rising due to the growth in both available volumes and locations of sources and subsequent lower prices. In addition, its lower carbon emissions and environmental impact than coal or oil add to natural gas’s attractiveness. Demand for natural gas is anticipated to grow even further, due to its proficient ability to serve as the base load to the current prevailing renewable energy technologies (wind and solar). Use of natural gas in power generation is relatively flexible, as volumes can be turned up or down much quicker than coal or nuclear power, allowing it to pair with fluctuating solar or wind energy to provide consistent outputs to consumers.
The change in the global fuel mix that puts oil, gas, and coal in equal proportions, increases the utility and demand for energy systems and their components with fuel switching capacity, that allows the use of the different fuel sources. In addition, increased availability of natural gas (both scope of volumes and number of locations) creates more opportunity for innovation in new uses of natural gas. Today, natural gas is primarily used for power generation. In the coming years, natural gas will become more prevalent in additional sectors, such as transportation, petrochemicals, industry, and more, and innovation should be developed for their use. The increased global availability of natural gas also creates demand for new and improved technologies for transference and uses of gas to liquids, which would increase the transportation and utilization options of the gas volumes.
Rising consumption of natural gas will generate several demands for innovation from scientists. A chief innovation demand will be the reduction of climate-altering emissions of natural gas production and consumption, especially reduction of methane emissions. Natural gas emits half of the carbon emissions of its chief alternative source—coal—for power production. However, natural gas’s climate impact will need to be reduced even further for it to continue to hold this advantage. To accomplish this, interested companies and governments are already focusing on reducing the methane emitted in the process of producing, transporting, and using natural gas. Scientific advances that reduce methane emissions along the natural gas production and supply chain are thus in demand. In addition, innovation in further uses of methane will be in demand, especially those that can make commercial use of the removed methane. If there is commercial use, it will turn removal of the methane from the natural gas supply profit generating, thus easy to implement.
In addition, the increase in consumption of natural gas will create interest in new technologies to reduce costs in liquefying natural gas (LNG). Natural gas is still transported primarily by pipeline rather than LNG tankers because of the far lower costs of production and transportation of pipeline-supplied gas versus liquefied gas. Global demand for LNG will grow, but price will serve as a barrier. Technological developments that enable lower costs of liquefying gas and transportation of LNG, will enable increased international gas trade and consumption.
With the anticipated rise in consumption of natural gas and the drop in the proportion of oil and coal in the global fuel mix, security of supply challenges will grow. Consequently, the needs for tools to improve security of supply will rise. Coal as a solid and oil as a liquid are cheaper and more flexible to store and transport than natural gas. More robust supply systems will be required for reliable delivery of gas supplies. Elements may include technologies related to gas storage and dual-fuel power plant capacity.
As stated, the place of renewable energy in the global energy mix is growing, albeit barring dramatic technological change, it will only comprise approximately 10% of the global energy consumption in 2030. With this rise, there will be demand for technological advances to lower the environmental impact of current and the development of new renewable energy forms that have lower environmental impact. In contrast to common perceptions, renewable and green are not always the same. In the quest to increase consumption of renewable energy and to lower the impact climate, the environmental impact of the current modes of renewable energy has often been disregarded or there is little public awareness of it. For example, rigid percentages of mandatory use of renewable energy have led to increased burning of wood in the EU that is highly polluting. Utilities, struggling to cope with the costs of achieving mandatory renewable energy targets, have frequently (especially in Europe) resorted to balance these actions with an increased use of low-cost coal. Rising air pollution is become an increasing political concern globally, including in nondemocratic countries. Thus, it is highly likely that scientific advances of renewable energy technologies with low environmental impact will become a higher priority in the next stage of their development, especially as use increases.
Changes in demand sector: most growth in power generation
The sector that will see the most growth in demand over the next decade is power generation, with an estimated two-thirds of global demand growth for primary energy emanating from a substantially increased demand for electricity.1 This will require scientific innovation in all spheres of electricity production, transmission, and distribution. It is far from clear that the existing grid and distribution models will be able to supply the anticipated demand in electricity. The increased use of electricity will also create additional challenges that require scientific innovation. One, there will be a need for innovation to improve the cyber security of grids, connected appliances, vehicles and more. The “smarter” grids become and the more interconnected, the more vulnerable they are to cyber-attacks. In addition, metering technologies and instruments for measuring natural gas and electricity usage need improvement and further development. These also need to be made more resilient to cyber-attacks. Today, most of the measurement technologies in use are quite vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
Next, there will be demand for development of improved financial instruments for the electricity and natural gas markets. The financial instruments in place today in most Western countries do not adequately incentivize the necessary supplies. The models that harness a good balance between market forces and government balance have not yet been developed. As consumption of electricity grows globally, the development of these instruments is essential.
Furthermore, the need for technologies related to storage of electricity, including battery-related technology, will continue to grow. Innovation in new forms of electricity storage technology beyond the current battery models will be necessary. This will include the need for battery and other energy storage technology that are not based on the use of rare elements, especially cobalt. Development of methods for less energy-intensive mining of minerals used in battery production is necessary. Mining is a very energy-intensive industry. Batteries, electricity infrastructure, and materials for batteries in many electric cars raise demand for mineral commodities. The energy intensity of mining of the necessary materials (today mined mostly in places where electricity is produced primarily from coal—such as Indonesia and India) cancels out many of the benefits of the switch from oil to electricity to power vehicles. In addition, as electric car use continues to grow, there will be a higher demand for the development of vehicles that also need less minerals, especially copper, in their construction.
With the projected rising use of electricity, requests will grow for technologies for balancing of electric grids, which are more accommodating to the changes in demand (such as peak demand periods which today strain grids and obligate the creation of capacity that is idle many hours of the day and days in the year). In addition, there will be a greater need for technologies that enable grids to accommodate multiple sources of electricity at once and produced by different fuels and technologies (natural gas, nuclear, coal, and renewables).
Delinking of economic growth from energy demand trends and decreased energy subsidies
For most of the last century, there was a strong correlation between economic growth and demand for energy. In periods of economic growth, demand for energy grew, and vice versa.Reference Shaffer2 Due to a new trend of increased energy efficiency in many (especially developed) economies, economic growth is taking place without a major change in demand for energy.3 In addition, many countries, including developing countries, are lowering energy subsidies and improving measurements of energy consumption (metering) and thus public incentive has grown to reduce energy consumption. This creates increased commercial interest and demand for energy-efficient technologies, especially ones that are deployable in developing economies. In addition, this trend creates increased requirement for energy use metering and other measurement instruments.
Climate change measurements
Despite the fanfare related to U.S. President Trump’s announcement of Washington’s intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord (COP 21), the reality is that the nonbinding agreement with or without the United States’ participation would not significantly alter the trajectory of consequential climate change. Regardless of its status in the treaty, U.S. climate-related emissions are expected to continue to decline (due to extensive switching of power generation from coal to natural gas).Reference Storrow4 In contrast, in the leading proponents of the treaty—such as Germany, India, and China—emissions are growing, and without a major policy change will continue to grow.Reference Storrow4 New policy instruments to avert climate change are necessary. Among the multiple future requirements to address climate change, new policies require innovation in the accuracy of emission detecting instruments, which are not sufficiently precise at this stage.
Beyond the car: new forms of transportation and urbanization
There is high anticipation in the business and policy circles that the use of electric cars and autonomous vehicles will greatly expand in coming decades. If this materializes, it will not necessarily solve or contribute to the major environmental, climate, and supply challenges connected to energy use. First, electricity production and transmission have major environmental and climate impact. Many countries promoting the use of electric vehicles, such as China, produce the majority of their electricity from coal and thus increased use of electric vehicles creates few environmental benefits. In the case of China, the main motivation to move to electricity-based vehicles, is the reduction of security of supply vulnerability on foreign oil transported over global sea lanes and not the anticipated pollution reduction.
Moreover, globally, ride sharing, and autonomous vehicles may actually increase the amount of car usage (due to lower costs to attain access to use of a car and wider public access to cars).Reference Clewlow and Mishra5 The “mobility revolution” may in fact lower the use of public transportation and investments in this sphere. In addition, the increased deployment of electric vehicles may delay the transition to new forms of transportation beyond the car.
Scientific innovation is necessary in developing completely new transportation systems that do not just change the fuel source of the car or improve its output but completely change the prevailing forms of transportation. In addition, city planning instruments that reduce the needs for transportation of both people and goods and can easily absorb innovation in the field of transportation and energy are required.
In addition, new forms of sea transport will be in demand. The sea transport sector is one of the largest producers of both pollution and climate emissions and with global trade expanding, it is poised to grow. New innovation is required to alter the prevailing means of sea transport and the fuel sources for existing forms of sea transportation.
Despite significant and continued developments, innovation related to energy and some of the main consuming sectors, such as transportation, often focuses on improvements in existing uses. Scientific developments to improve the car for instance, take place, but few put forward radically new forms of transportation. Despite dramatic changes in almost every sphere of technology, in the last fifty years, there have been few transformative changes in the field of transportation. Some of this may be due to the immense investments sunk in existing energy and transportation infrastructure that are not easily transformed. However, it seems also that scientists in these fields need to ask themselves a different set of questions. In the fields of energy and transportation, scientists need to approach their work like in medicine, information, and communication, with no boundaries and a willingness to explore entirely new directions of innovation and not just improving existing forms.
Future innovation demands
A variety of entities—including commercial companies, policy makers, and nongovernmental organizations—promote the perception that how we consume energy globally is rapidly changing. The term “energy transition” is in frequent use. However, in contrast, as shown in this paper’s introduction, global energy consumption trends are not yet undergoing fundamental transformation. Fossil fuels will most likely remain the bedrock of global energy consumption for the next two decades. In addition, based on current global behavior, current energy related problems, such as pollution and climate change, will remain. Moreover, current modes of use of renewable energy also generate many challenges, including pollution, climate impact, and security of supply. Relevant scientific innovation is more necessary than ever.
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DISCUSSION POINTS
• The new natural gas volumes create opportunity for innovation in new uses of natural gas. In the coming years, natural gas will become more prevalent in additional sectors, such as transportation, petrochemicals, materials, and more, and innovation should be developed for their use.
• Scientific advances that reduce methane emissions along the natural gas production and supply chain are needed.
• Rising use of renewable energy will demand technological advances that lower their environmental impact and the development of new renewable energy forms that have lower environmental impact. In contrast to common perceptions, renewable and green are not the same.
• Current mining technologies and the need for rare minerals in batteries undermines many of the potential benefits of the switch from oil-fueled to electricity-powered vehicles.
• Despite dramatic changes in almost every sphere of technology, in the last fifty years, there have been few transformative changes in the field of transportation. Some of this may be due to the immense investments sunk in existing energy and transportation infrastructure that are not easily transformed. However, it also seems that scientists in these fields need to ask themselves a different set of questions. In the fields of energy and transportation, scientists need to approach their work like in medicine, information, and communication, with no boundaries and a willingness to explore entirely new directions of innovation.
Changes in global energy trends and policies affect demands for scientific innovation. This article discusses the major emerging trends in the global energy sphere and the demands they will place on scientists for innovation in the next decade.
Changing global energy mix: more natural gas and renewables, but renewables still remain minor
The composition of the global energy mix is changing—the share of natural gas continues to grow fastest among the major energy sources. By 2030 it appears that oil, natural gas, and coal will comprise equal parts of the global energy mix and together all three will provide a little over three-quarters of the global energy consumption.1 Renewable energy is growing rapidly, but barring significant new technological developments, it is likely to occupy only 10% of the global energy mix within a decade.1 Demand for natural gas has been rising due to the growth in both available volumes and locations of sources and subsequent lower prices. In addition, its lower carbon emissions and environmental impact than coal or oil add to natural gas’s attractiveness. Demand for natural gas is anticipated to grow even further, due to its proficient ability to serve as the base load to the current prevailing renewable energy technologies (wind and solar). Use of natural gas in power generation is relatively flexible, as volumes can be turned up or down much quicker than coal or nuclear power, allowing it to pair with fluctuating solar or wind energy to provide consistent outputs to consumers.
The change in the global fuel mix that puts oil, gas, and coal in equal proportions, increases the utility and demand for energy systems and their components with fuel switching capacity, that allows the use of the different fuel sources. In addition, increased availability of natural gas (both scope of volumes and number of locations) creates more opportunity for innovation in new uses of natural gas. Today, natural gas is primarily used for power generation. In the coming years, natural gas will become more prevalent in additional sectors, such as transportation, petrochemicals, industry, and more, and innovation should be developed for their use. The increased global availability of natural gas also creates demand for new and improved technologies for transference and uses of gas to liquids, which would increase the transportation and utilization options of the gas volumes.
Rising consumption of natural gas will generate several demands for innovation from scientists. A chief innovation demand will be the reduction of climate-altering emissions of natural gas production and consumption, especially reduction of methane emissions. Natural gas emits half of the carbon emissions of its chief alternative source—coal—for power production. However, natural gas’s climate impact will need to be reduced even further for it to continue to hold this advantage. To accomplish this, interested companies and governments are already focusing on reducing the methane emitted in the process of producing, transporting, and using natural gas. Scientific advances that reduce methane emissions along the natural gas production and supply chain are thus in demand. In addition, innovation in further uses of methane will be in demand, especially those that can make commercial use of the removed methane. If there is commercial use, it will turn removal of the methane from the natural gas supply profit generating, thus easy to implement.
In addition, the increase in consumption of natural gas will create interest in new technologies to reduce costs in liquefying natural gas (LNG). Natural gas is still transported primarily by pipeline rather than LNG tankers because of the far lower costs of production and transportation of pipeline-supplied gas versus liquefied gas. Global demand for LNG will grow, but price will serve as a barrier. Technological developments that enable lower costs of liquefying gas and transportation of LNG, will enable increased international gas trade and consumption.
With the anticipated rise in consumption of natural gas and the drop in the proportion of oil and coal in the global fuel mix, security of supply challenges will grow. Consequently, the needs for tools to improve security of supply will rise. Coal as a solid and oil as a liquid are cheaper and more flexible to store and transport than natural gas. More robust supply systems will be required for reliable delivery of gas supplies. Elements may include technologies related to gas storage and dual-fuel power plant capacity.
As stated, the place of renewable energy in the global energy mix is growing, albeit barring dramatic technological change, it will only comprise approximately 10% of the global energy consumption in 2030. With this rise, there will be demand for technological advances to lower the environmental impact of current and the development of new renewable energy forms that have lower environmental impact. In contrast to common perceptions, renewable and green are not always the same. In the quest to increase consumption of renewable energy and to lower the impact climate, the environmental impact of the current modes of renewable energy has often been disregarded or there is little public awareness of it. For example, rigid percentages of mandatory use of renewable energy have led to increased burning of wood in the EU that is highly polluting. Utilities, struggling to cope with the costs of achieving mandatory renewable energy targets, have frequently (especially in Europe) resorted to balance these actions with an increased use of low-cost coal. Rising air pollution is become an increasing political concern globally, including in nondemocratic countries. Thus, it is highly likely that scientific advances of renewable energy technologies with low environmental impact will become a higher priority in the next stage of their development, especially as use increases.
Changes in demand sector: most growth in power generation
The sector that will see the most growth in demand over the next decade is power generation, with an estimated two-thirds of global demand growth for primary energy emanating from a substantially increased demand for electricity.1 This will require scientific innovation in all spheres of electricity production, transmission, and distribution. It is far from clear that the existing grid and distribution models will be able to supply the anticipated demand in electricity. The increased use of electricity will also create additional challenges that require scientific innovation. One, there will be a need for innovation to improve the cyber security of grids, connected appliances, vehicles and more. The “smarter” grids become and the more interconnected, the more vulnerable they are to cyber-attacks. In addition, metering technologies and instruments for measuring natural gas and electricity usage need improvement and further development. These also need to be made more resilient to cyber-attacks. Today, most of the measurement technologies in use are quite vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
Next, there will be demand for development of improved financial instruments for the electricity and natural gas markets. The financial instruments in place today in most Western countries do not adequately incentivize the necessary supplies. The models that harness a good balance between market forces and government balance have not yet been developed. As consumption of electricity grows globally, the development of these instruments is essential.
Furthermore, the need for technologies related to storage of electricity, including battery-related technology, will continue to grow. Innovation in new forms of electricity storage technology beyond the current battery models will be necessary. This will include the need for battery and other energy storage technology that are not based on the use of rare elements, especially cobalt. Development of methods for less energy-intensive mining of minerals used in battery production is necessary. Mining is a very energy-intensive industry. Batteries, electricity infrastructure, and materials for batteries in many electric cars raise demand for mineral commodities. The energy intensity of mining of the necessary materials (today mined mostly in places where electricity is produced primarily from coal—such as Indonesia and India) cancels out many of the benefits of the switch from oil to electricity to power vehicles. In addition, as electric car use continues to grow, there will be a higher demand for the development of vehicles that also need less minerals, especially copper, in their construction.
With the projected rising use of electricity, requests will grow for technologies for balancing of electric grids, which are more accommodating to the changes in demand (such as peak demand periods which today strain grids and obligate the creation of capacity that is idle many hours of the day and days in the year). In addition, there will be a greater need for technologies that enable grids to accommodate multiple sources of electricity at once and produced by different fuels and technologies (natural gas, nuclear, coal, and renewables).
Delinking of economic growth from energy demand trends and decreased energy subsidies
For most of the last century, there was a strong correlation between economic growth and demand for energy. In periods of economic growth, demand for energy grew, and vice versa.Reference Shaffer2 Due to a new trend of increased energy efficiency in many (especially developed) economies, economic growth is taking place without a major change in demand for energy.3 In addition, many countries, including developing countries, are lowering energy subsidies and improving measurements of energy consumption (metering) and thus public incentive has grown to reduce energy consumption. This creates increased commercial interest and demand for energy-efficient technologies, especially ones that are deployable in developing economies. In addition, this trend creates increased requirement for energy use metering and other measurement instruments.
Climate change measurements
Despite the fanfare related to U.S. President Trump’s announcement of Washington’s intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord (COP 21), the reality is that the nonbinding agreement with or without the United States’ participation would not significantly alter the trajectory of consequential climate change. Regardless of its status in the treaty, U.S. climate-related emissions are expected to continue to decline (due to extensive switching of power generation from coal to natural gas).Reference Storrow4 In contrast, in the leading proponents of the treaty—such as Germany, India, and China—emissions are growing, and without a major policy change will continue to grow.Reference Storrow4 New policy instruments to avert climate change are necessary. Among the multiple future requirements to address climate change, new policies require innovation in the accuracy of emission detecting instruments, which are not sufficiently precise at this stage.
Beyond the car: new forms of transportation and urbanization
There is high anticipation in the business and policy circles that the use of electric cars and autonomous vehicles will greatly expand in coming decades. If this materializes, it will not necessarily solve or contribute to the major environmental, climate, and supply challenges connected to energy use. First, electricity production and transmission have major environmental and climate impact. Many countries promoting the use of electric vehicles, such as China, produce the majority of their electricity from coal and thus increased use of electric vehicles creates few environmental benefits. In the case of China, the main motivation to move to electricity-based vehicles, is the reduction of security of supply vulnerability on foreign oil transported over global sea lanes and not the anticipated pollution reduction.
Moreover, globally, ride sharing, and autonomous vehicles may actually increase the amount of car usage (due to lower costs to attain access to use of a car and wider public access to cars).Reference Clewlow and Mishra5 The “mobility revolution” may in fact lower the use of public transportation and investments in this sphere. In addition, the increased deployment of electric vehicles may delay the transition to new forms of transportation beyond the car.
Scientific innovation is necessary in developing completely new transportation systems that do not just change the fuel source of the car or improve its output but completely change the prevailing forms of transportation. In addition, city planning instruments that reduce the needs for transportation of both people and goods and can easily absorb innovation in the field of transportation and energy are required.
In addition, new forms of sea transport will be in demand. The sea transport sector is one of the largest producers of both pollution and climate emissions and with global trade expanding, it is poised to grow. New innovation is required to alter the prevailing means of sea transport and the fuel sources for existing forms of sea transportation.
Despite significant and continued developments, innovation related to energy and some of the main consuming sectors, such as transportation, often focuses on improvements in existing uses. Scientific developments to improve the car for instance, take place, but few put forward radically new forms of transportation. Despite dramatic changes in almost every sphere of technology, in the last fifty years, there have been few transformative changes in the field of transportation. Some of this may be due to the immense investments sunk in existing energy and transportation infrastructure that are not easily transformed. However, it seems also that scientists in these fields need to ask themselves a different set of questions. In the fields of energy and transportation, scientists need to approach their work like in medicine, information, and communication, with no boundaries and a willingness to explore entirely new directions of innovation and not just improving existing forms.
Future innovation demands
A variety of entities—including commercial companies, policy makers, and nongovernmental organizations—promote the perception that how we consume energy globally is rapidly changing. The term “energy transition” is in frequent use. However, in contrast, as shown in this paper’s introduction, global energy consumption trends are not yet undergoing fundamental transformation. Fossil fuels will most likely remain the bedrock of global energy consumption for the next two decades. In addition, based on current global behavior, current energy related problems, such as pollution and climate change, will remain. Moreover, current modes of use of renewable energy also generate many challenges, including pollution, climate impact, and security of supply. Relevant scientific innovation is more necessary than ever.