Documents published in Scipedia

• Renewable energy capture and occupation of territory

  M. Estorach, E. Estany, J. Peiró Alemany, P. Centelles, C. Riba Romeva

  Abstracts_4rceec (2024). 129

  
  

  Abstract

  Today there is a broad consensus that mitigating the effects of the energy and climate crisis requires the substitution of fossil resources for renewable energies in the coming decades. The Paris Agreements of 2015 (COP 21) set a limit on the increase in the average temperature of the surface of the planet Earth of 1.5 ºC, which means leaving unburned about half of the reserves of fossil fuels. Since the nature of renewable energy sources is very different from that of fossil fuels, this transition will lead to changes in the way energy is used in the transition towards sustainable social development: we are facing a real change of civilization. One of the most significant effects is the need to recapture energy from solar radiation (photovoltaic and termosolar) and its derivatives (water flows, winds, biomass). Fossil fuels are the result of capture by photosynthesis and other chemical reactions that took place hundreds of millions of years ago for hundreds of millions of years. It is a finite resource that we are now burning at a rate of 1 million times faster than when they were formed. Estimates made by some authors allow us to affirm that the surface (and territory) requirements necessary to capture and manage renewable energies will be about 80 times those of the fossil and nuclear energy system. This aspect has not yet been internalized neither by the political representatives, nor by the economic managers, nor by the general population. This communication analyses the projection of these territorial requirements on a Catalan scale when, after reducing current energy expenditure by 21% with savings programs and good practices, it will be necessary to occupy an extension of around 124,000 hectares for photovoltaic and wind catchments of which 60,000 may be on anthropized soils and the remaining 64,000 on sensitive soils (agricultural, forests and woodlands). The lack of information and an executive plan together with the high dense and unbalanced population pose additional difficulties to Catalonia's energy transition. In order to provide criteria for catchment implementations and to establish bridges of dialogue, since 2021 the CMES association has promoted the Energy Transition and Territory project (Transició Energètica I Territori, TEiT project) in collaboration with entities and people from different counties of Catalonia. This communication shall put numbers to these realities and ends with the exposition of the most relevant aspects that have emerged from these meetings.

  Abstract
  Today there is a broad consensus that mitigating the effects of the energy and climate crisis requires the substitution of fossil resources for renewable energies in the coming [...]

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• The reconfiguration of transport in the energy transition

  J. Peiró Alemany, E. Estany, O. Miquel-Sicilia, J. Barcelo-Bugeda, J. Montero-Homs

  Abstracts_4rceec (2024). 124

  
  

  Abstract

  The configuration of current civilization would not be conceivable without abundant and cheap transport: the dominant trends of recent decades such as the globalization of the economy, the segmentation of productive processes in distant places, the metabolism of large cities fueled by distant resources or mass tourism, would not have been possible. During the first two decades of the 21st century, world passenger transport has grown like population (26.5%), but world freight transport has more than doubled (115% increase) to reach 53 tkm/ hab/day (tons x km per inhabitant and day). The characteristics of oil and its derivatives (gasoline, diesel, kerosene and fuel oil), with high energy densities (around 10 kWh/kg and around 8 kWh/litre), rapid recharge and artificially low costs by not including outsourcing, have led to a close correlation with transport and its growth: today 95% of transport (land, sea, air) is powered by petroleum products and 75% of oil is used for transport. Electricity, the main renewable energy vector in the transport of the future, represents a substantial improvement in the performance of the driving elements but requires important power systems (storage in batteries, hydrogen and fuel cell, electrified catenary) that will be necessary implement to reconvert the centralized system of obtaining and distributing fossil fuels to mostly distributed systems of electric energy and hydrogen. It is necessary to rule out the obtaining of biofuels from crops, in collision with food and of very low yields, and limit them only to small amounts obtained from waste. The transition in transport, based on renewable energy vectors and in the framework of sustainable development, will bring important changes and limitations with respect to some of the characteristics and uses we are used to today with oil, but also advantages and new possibilities. The purpose of this communication is to analyse these issues and explore the incidence of renewable transport in the current dominant trends and in the sustainable development of the future

  Abstract
  The configuration of current civilization would not be conceivable without abundant and cheap transport: the dominant trends of recent decades such as the globalization of [...]

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