Cover image The Joker, a fanart by Bung Carol
As much as all-renewables zealots desire a national grid powered uniquely by renewable electricity sources, the reality simply suggests something else.
Given how aggressive the campaigns for renewable energy are, chances are most of us have at least heard the idea of an all-renewable electricity. Fueling this idea is a borderline delusional fanaticism that a national grid fully powered through renewable sources is entirely possible, and that the only impediment to achieve that state is some political will.
Well, that is wrong.
Personally, I am sympathetic towards renewable electricity. There are certainly some merits in renewable electricities and their technologies, with some technologies deserve a warmer welcome than others. For instance, there is no denying that household solar panels are a good solution to families in developing countries such as Indonesia who are largely dependent on less reliable centralised, state-owned, electricity. Having a separate grid would not only reduce the electricity bill, but also allow a degree of independence in accessing electricity.
That said, acknowledging renewables’ merit does not necessarily entail some moral imperative to support an all-renewables energy policy. An entirely renewable national grid is factually impossible, and if we want to endorse the idea of grid decarbonisation, the reality of the world states should open our eyes.
Iceland is the only country with a self-sustaining all-renewables electricity due to its hydropower sources.
There is only one first-world country whose electricity is majoritarily powered by renewables, namely, Iceland. This is due to the fact that the country is blessed with an abundant source of hydropower that hydroelectricity naturally comes as the best option for the national grid.
Having natural resources is not all that matters in Iceland’s case. In addition to having abundant renewable resources, it is important to have technological feasibility to harness them and an overall electricity demand which does not surpass the available final energy. On top of abundant hydropower, hydroelectric power plants are a decades-proven technology in terms of both its capacity factor, and electricity demand from Iceland’s population also never surpasses the generated electricity.
Iceland’s case is a good example of how to keep our expectation towards renewable energy grounded. Pushing all-renewables ideas while assuming a pro-planet moral attitude is plain foolish.
Germany’s aggressive all-renewables policy ends up with a highly polluted grid despite its high renewables’ penetration.
In Europe, Germany is probably one of the most, if not the most aggressive country to push an all-renewables agenda. Within the 2011-2023 period, the country got rid of their entire commercial nuclear power plants while trying to advance the renewable technologies such as installing more solar panels and wind turbines, searching for better storage design, optimising hydrogen technology, and so on.
While the ambition to completely transition to renewable energy is commendable, Germany’s decision to phase out their nuclear power comes at a cost. Without nuclear energy to stabilise the grid, i.e. responding to load demand when there is no sunlight to feed the panels or wind to move the turbine, the role to provide the baseload falls to lignite. This means Germany burns more coal during periods of low sun and wind.
Germany’s case is a good example of what not to do in energy policy if we want to have reliable low carbon electricity. Going all-renewables is an unreliable policy because they are essentially intermittent. If nuclear is out of the table, then the backup must come from another source, namely, fossil fuels. No wonder the German grid counts amongst the most polluted in Western Europe.
Countries with low renewable electricity sources can decarbonise their grids thanks to nuclear power.
Contrary to Germany, France does not implement a lot of renewable energy into its national grid. Yet, Les Bleus’ emission profile is among the lowest in Europe. Unlike Germany, France does not possess much fossil fuel resources to electrify their grid so that reliance on fossil fuel during an unreliable transition to renewable energy is off the table.
What does the French use to achieve a clean emission profile, then? The answer is simply nuclear energy. France’s adherence to nuclear energy which allows a completely emissionless electricity generation is not a secret to keep, but somehow untouched by pro-planet, pro-sustainability, all-renewables folks. Today, nuclear energy makes up for 65% of French electricity, the lowest point since 1985. Despite that, this proportion is enough to make a difference that would otherwise be filled by fossil fuels due to renewables’ intermittency.
The French case exemplifies the reality that in the effort to decarbonise the grid, it is nuclear energy, not renewables, which plays a major role for sustainable energy transition. Nuclear energy is the elephant in the room which very few people address, and which all-renewables proponents address with contempt. Despite everything, the fact remains that nuclear energy is the key to decarbonise the grid and not renewables.
All renewables?
This brings us to the question in the title. Is an all-renewables plan a desirable plan? The answer to that question is a solid no. Unless a country is blessed with abundant hydropower resources proportional to the electricity demand like Iceland, an all-renewables transition would certainly remain a pseudo-moral jargon used to veil a polluted reality of high fossil-fuels usage to cover for the renewables’ inherent intermittency. Germany’s polluted grid profile is a solid proof for that. On the other hand, as exemplified by France, a clean grid profile with low renewables integration is possible when nuclear energy is on the table.
There is an overarching lesson when thinking of energy technology and human values here. In an effort to implement values in energy technologies and practice in societal life, we need to connect the values that we want to realise from the energy sector and the technical reality nowadays. The truth of the matter is that as long as we value grid decarbonisation, from the technical perspective, nuclear energy is the best that we have.
