David Dumeresque of Tyzack Partners discusses how to stand out from the crowd in an ever-changing sector.
With the global population growing by an estimated 80 million people every year, including a significant increase in middle-class consumers, it is forecast that by 2030, the nine billion people living on this planet will need 40% more energy than is produced today. Yet already, some 1.3 billion people are without electricity. Do these statistics, as some commentators are suggesting, paint a rosy picture for energy producers, or are they more suggestive of a giant Gordian Knot?
The global well-being of people, industries and economies depends not only on the provision of environmentally safe, sustainable, secure and affordable energy but also on access to clean drinking water and nutritional food. Energy, water and food have become inextricably linked, and their scarcity and the complex connectivity requiries a radical rethink of corporate environmental behaviour.
In Europe, energy-related emissions account for almost 80 percent of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions, with the energy sector representing around a third of these emissions. This compares unfavourably with transport (19 percent), industry (13 percent) and households (nine percent). Additionally, there is the further environmental impact of our energy production encompassing air and water pollution, and waste.
Our current energy systems and the way we produce, transform and consume energy are, therefore, unsustainable. Emphasis must be placed on developing
more innovative ways of sustainable
energy provision.
Reducing the reliance on fossil fuels by diversifying into wind is one answer to producing cleaner and more cost-effective energy. However, the big increases in the number of middle-class consumers globally has resulted in a massive change in the demand for food, especially meat products. Since it takes about eight kilos of grain to produce 500 grams of meat, there is an immediate conflict between the production of grain for food production and for biofuel feedstocks. Furthermore, according to Nestle CEO Paul Bulcke the crisis developing in the availability of suitable water could cut the global cereal production by some 30 percent by 2030.
Unless half of the world’s population switches to a vegetarian diet, the current biofuels trend is not sustainable because we would need to have a doubling of agricultural output over the next 30 to 40 years. In the US alone, food production already accounts for around 50 percent of available land and 80 percent of fresh water.
Just as a billion people currently are without electricity, almost one billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water. With the population forecast to rise to nine billion by 2030, and climate change forecast to further shrink the availability of suitable water, this situation is set to escalate. As President John F Kennedy said in 1962: “If we could produce fresh water from salt water at a low cost, that would indeed be a great service to humanity, and would dwarf any other scientific accomplishment.”
Desalination plants are widely viewed as a vital option for the provision of water to support economic development and social stability, particularly in many arid, coastal areas around the world where fresh water is not easily accessible. A 2010 Global Water Intelligence report predicted that the demand for desalination will almost triple by 2016, resulting in a possible global desalination market that will top $US30 billion. Over the past few years, we have certainly made great strides in the provision of desalination plants around the world. However, the desalination industry has been limited by the fact that it requires significant amounts of energy which, perversely, has kept the cost of desalination plants too high and out of reach for the majority of those most in need fresh water.
Ongoing investment in desalination R&D, particularly in the areas of reverse osmosis (using membrane technology) and thermal desalination, is producing innovations that are reducing the industry’s energy requirements. Further efficiencies are being made by coupling thermal distillation plants with power plants. This dual-purpose approach uses waste heat from the power plant to warm the seawater for distillation.
