Instant Genius - What clean energy will look like after renewables

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

When it comes to the climate crisis, energy is one of the biggest and most complex topics. To help us break it down into something more manageable, we spoke to engineer Dr Bart Kolodziejczyk from Monash University in Australia. (Bart has advised everyone from the UN to the World Economic Forum on clean energy technologies). In this episode, Bart tells us about the surprising energy transition that he predicts will happen after renewables, the research he’s working on that could reduce global carbon emissions by a whopping 10 per cent, and what you can do to help transition our energy towards a sustainable future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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When it comes to the climate crisis, energy is one of the biggest and most complex topics. After all, it's exploitation of fossil fuels that got us here in the first place. But to help us break it down into something more manageable, we spoke to engineer Dr. Bart Kolojacheck from Monash University in Australia. who has advised everyone from the UN to the World Economic Forum on Clean Energy Technologies. In this episode, Bart tells us about the surprising energy transition that he predicts will happen after renewables, the research that he's working on that could reduce global carbon emissions by a whopping 10% and what you can do to help transition our energy towards a more sustainable future.

So Bart, we hear a lot of buzzwords when it comes to this topic. we hear about clean, green, sustainable and renewable energy. So which of these terms should we be using, in your opinion, and how interchangeable are they? I would say that they are used interchangeably, but to be honest, they probably shouldn't. So renewable energy refers to renewable resources that we can harvest for energy generation, whereas clean refers to a broader source of energy sources, including nuclei. which is not necessarily renewable, but it's still clean. And then in terms of green, that greenness actually relates to carbon emissions.

So how this particular technology compares to other technologies like fossil fuels in terms of carbon footprint or carbon emissions. So, you know, if it's significantly smaller, we can call it green. And then sustainable energy, that's a tricky one. And I would love to talk about it more maybe later on. But, you know, my main issue with energy transition today is that it may not necessarily be sustainable. So, you know, I've been doing renewables for roughly 15 years, hydrogen for 14 years. And more recently, given the scale of this energy transition, we are moving away from fossil fuels to renewables. But I start questioning whether that transition is actually significantly better or how much better it is.

We are moving away from sources of energy that emit CO2 and cause climate change towards sources of energy that will require roughly 23 times more mining activities or mining sites to actually deliver raw materials to energy sources that basically will take vast amounts of land. So there is a question between energy production and food production. And then lastly, you know, majority of those energy sources, those renewable energy sources, their lifetime is roughly 15 to 20 years. We will have to produce them at the scale or volumes that, you know, once those energy generation devices reach end of the lifetime, we will have to dispose them somehow. As of today, there is no incentive to recycle them, maybe except for batteries. Lithium prices, nickel prices and coal prices are so high that battery recycling, lithium-ion battery recycling became actually quite profitable business. But that does not necessarily apply to solar panels and wind turbines. So a sustainable energy, I'm not sure if we have one.

It feels like despite the fact that the climate crisis is clearly worsening, conversation around whatever you want to call it, whichever one of those definitions you're picking up on. But conversation around, let's say, clean energy has stagnated a little. But what's actually happening behind the scenes? I'm sure it hasn't stagnated. And of course, you and many academics around the world are working on this. So where are we with clean energy and how far do we have to go? I would say that energy transition is real.

The activities in this field are increasing significantly, especially in the last couple of years. The activities are to a scale where it starts becoming a problem. There are many renewable energy companies that basically want to bring new renewable energy projects online, whether it's wind, solar, hydropower, or any other type of renewable energy. But our transmission lines are actually quite. outdated. And by putting all this new capacity on the grid, the grids actually start struggling with that additional capacity. So we probably are not able to add renewables as quickly as we would like to because of those kind of related issues. So grid connectivity, you know, availability of

equipment, uptake of renewables became so large that at one point quite common and produced at-scale equipment, like, for example, transformers and rectifiers became a bottleneck. So you cannot get enough of those different technologies to deploy them quickly enough. What is the worst energy? What's the energy that we should be completely leaving in the past? I guess fossil fuels, so whether it's coal or natural gas, you might be aware that European Commission actually announced that natural gas should be considered green, but obviously it's not green. It still emits CO2, carbon dioxide, into atmosphere, but those emissions are significantly smaller

compared to like so coal. But we definitely need to move away from fossil fuels, and renewables seem like a viable solution, although in the future, once renewables become mainstream, there might be those challenges that I described just now, massive amounts of waste associated with spend renewable energy equipment, whether those are solar panels or wind turbines, wind turbine blades. They are very robust. They are made to last years. So recycling of those components become a challenge. So recently, I start believing that our transition to renewables may not be the last transition.

There might be something actually significantly better in the future. There is a lot of funding and research towards nuclear fusion. So not fusion, but fusion. And obviously, many people say that fusion was 10 years away, 10 years ago. It is 10 years away today and it will be 10 years away in a decade. Given how much money is poured into that particular field, I believe that there will be a certain progress made. And obviously, nuclear fusion brings a lot of promise.

Although we had a same belief in renewables and today we start realizing that they may not be as sustainable as we initially thought. So there might be some underlying challenges with fusion that we're. we are not aware of today. But again, I believe that this is just first of our energy transitions. There might be more coming in the future. So renewable first and nuclear fusion later. Could you tell us more about what nuclear fusion is? Is that the same as nuclear energy?

It's a type of nuclear energy, but instead of splitting atoms to basically harvest energy, we actually fuse atoms together and in the process we release energy. So that type of nuclear energy is significantly cleaner or clean compared to nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion basically produces radioactive waste, whereas nuclear fusion in that sense is completely clean. So would that use all the same infrastructure that we currently have for producing nuclear energy? via fission? No, so that would be entirely new technology.

And that technology doesn't exist today, or at least not commercially. There are a number of different startups and also government initiatives. For example, in Europe we have AITER, which is basically very large Tokamak-like device. So Tokamak refers to a donut-like kind of shaped plasma reactor. Yeah, look, you know, some of those. startups received as much as $2 billion of VC funding or investor funding. So, you know, at this scale, that kind of gives you certain hope that technology will be developed. But again, there might be some underlying challenges that we are not aware of today.

And just to be clear, that's not renewable because there's only a finite amount of it, or would you still call that renewable energy, the nuclear fusion? No, you probably would call it clean because it doesn't emit CO2 or any other greenhouse gases. It doesn't produce nuclear waste, so it is clean, but it's not renewable for the reasons that you mentioned. Let's pick up on that recycling element, because you mentioned it before about these renewable technologies that we're currently using, having a kind of shelf life. Why is that? Why can't we just kind of transform those into something else and take? the elements? I mean, what makes that such a difficult process to do? So in terms of solar panels and wind turbines, materials used in those technologies are

relatively inexpensive and broadly available. For that reason, it's just cheaper to manufacture those technologies using raw materials rather than recycled materials. Also, when we think about recycling, once those technologies are distributed to the different end customers, the value chain to recover those spent technologies becomes a logistic nightmare. So instead of having a single source of raw materials, we basically need to collect those spent technologies from many different decentralized nodes. So supply chain becomes very decentralized.

And that is obviously logistically challenging, but also because today's transportation is mainly reliant on fossil fuel. The footprint of that collection of spent renewable energy technologies is becoming large in terms of carbon footprint. The only technology, renewable energy technology or technology that is associated with renewable energy are lithium ion batteries. The reason why they are actually profitable today to be recycled is that cobalt, nickel, and lithium are becoming quite scar.

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Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. You yourself are working on converting a different material. So you're working on converting iron ore to zero carbon iron using renewables, I believe. So what does this mean? Could you unpack that research that you're working on for us and why you're doing this and what it will be used for? Yes, definitely. So recently together with my colleagues who are veterans in mining industry, we established this startup company called Element Zero. And Element Zero developed new technology that allows to take.

ion ore of any grade with any amount of impurities. Dissolve it at relatively low temperature. So traditionally we would be looking at roughly anywhere around 1000 degrees Celsius for traditional processes that make steel. In our case, we can use temperatures as low as 170-250 degrees Celsius. We basically dissolve iron ore with all the impurities in our unique electrolyte at relatively low temperature, we remove those impurities. So we basically end up with very pure iron oxide in electrolyte, and then we basically zap it with electricity. And by doing so, we take

ion oxide and reduce it to a solid state, so pure iron. And the reason why we are doing this is that iron and steelmaking globally contribute roughly 8 to 9% of global CO2 emissions. So that that footprint of iron and steelmaking is actually quite high, nearly 10% of global CO2 emissions. So, you know, addressing that industry will allow us to significantly reduce CO2 footprint or CO2 emissions. And also, you know, we discovered that our technology is actually quite economically viable. So it's a great business. What is the steel and iron used for? Is it mostly as a building material?

Building materials, automotive industry, you know, aviation, etc., traditional uses. So, yes, construction. We basically rely on steel quite significantly. Steel became a major structural material that is used by us today. So we're talking quite a massive impact on reducing global emissions? Yes, correct. nearly 10%, so that that's quite significant. We are planning to deploy it in Pilbara region of Western Australia,

which is the major iron ore production region. And what energy are you using in this research? So in the research phase, we are using grid electricity. It's not clean. Well, it's partially clean because it depends on the time of the day. Some renewables are basically in the grid. but majority of that electricity that we use at the laboratory scale is basically based on fossil fuels. But in the future, once we deploy the plant, it will rely on wind and solar.

So Pilbara is basically a red desert. That's a very remote part of Australia. It is very close to equator and for that reason, it has some of the best wind and solar conditions in Australia and globally. Yeah, I mean, if there's one thing, Australia is famous for it. is the sun. But how would this work, would this be able to work in somewhere, say, like, England, where we unfortunately don't get so much sun? We do get a fair bit of wind, I guess. It could work in England, but obviously cost of renewables in England would likely be significantly higher compared to Australia. And secondly, capacity factors. So, you know, how much energy

is produced per given device would also differ. So that's probably, a main consideration. To make it economically, we basically want to get as cheap renewable electricity as possible, operate that plant as much as we can. But obviously, renewables are quite intermittent. So the future green industries will likely have to migrate to regions that are blessed with wind and solar or other renewables. Historically, when we look at what happened in aluminum industry. Aluminium industry basically moved around globally to places with excellent hydropower resources. So New Zealand, Canada, Iceland, Tasmania, here in Australia. I believe that the same migration will happen for other industries. In your opinion, do you think that it's better for

this energy to be more national or more community-based? I mean, should we be moving away from the centralized energy systems that we've built? I believe we should. There are a number of advantages of doing so. Inefficiency in terms of transmission is one of those. But also, transmission lines are actually quite expensive in terms of different transmission fees, connection fees, etc. So if we can produce energy at point of use, that's the best case. And to your question whether we should move to more decentralized energy generation,

I believe we already do, and that is going to be more and more of a trend in the future. And at least in the UK, there is a bit of stigma when it comes to new energy projects, and some communities object to the kind of aesthetic changes that these projects bring with solar farms and with offshore wind, and then all the, obviously, the associated developments that come with it when things have to be kind of dug up and pipelines laid and that kind of thing. So how do you respond to that? what's your opinion on those community objections? Look, it's a trade-off.

So they are probably partially right. We know that wind turbines kill birds. Some wind turbines can be noisy. But we are getting better and better to address those challenges. In terms of aesthetics, yes, they may not look great. But we effectively need to move away from fossil fuels. So again, it's a trade-off. And I would say it's probably better to have a large wind turbine that destroys the view than continue with fossil fuels.

Yeah. And some of those, of course, aren't that pretty themselves, are they? I wondered if you could give any great examples of places that are successfully using energy sustainably, any communities that have fully made the transition that we can look to as an example in the future. One of those communities or even countries is Iceland. I actually lived in Iceland. I studied renewable energy in Iceland. That was over a decade ago.

But look, Iceland was one of the pioneers in terms of renewables. They rely mainly on hydropower and geothermal energy. The benefit of those two renewable energy types is that intermittency can be addressed. or they basically produce power 24-7, unlike wind and solar. These days, Iceland is also looking at onshore and offshore wind to kind of add more renewable energy to the grid. Back then, a decade ago, when I lived in Iceland, the only issue that they faced was transportation.

So obviously, we didn't have battery electric vehicles. their challenge was how to decarbonize transportation. And obviously they had to rely on imported diesel, which was quite costly. But these days, obviously, there are battery electric vehicles and having fully decarbonized electricity grid. Makes a perfect sense to move away from diesel mobility towards battery or hydrogen-based mobility. So we've mentioned a few things during this conversation, like electric vehicles, as you're just talking about, and solar panels, that are things that we as kind of people in our personal lives could invest in and could buy ourselves in theory. Obviously, they're not cheap, are they? But I was wondering if you could give us examples of some of the choices that we could make in our personal lives when it comes to energy and fuel. I guess the first step is really around energy efficiency. So basically buying house equipment that is more energy efficient.

And obviously in the UK, there is a big and growing movement in terms of heat bumps. So that's a good first step. In countries like Australia, I would suggest investing in rooftop solar plus battery. you know, that can actually cut your energy bill quite significantly. And then, you know, being aware of how we actually use energy. So, you know, being kind of aware of how we can reduce our energy footprint, you know, can basically reduce usage by, I don't know, using less of our air conditioners. Those are actually quite energy consuming, getting better washing machines that are more

energy-friendly. Obviously, that comes at the cost. Again, it's a trade-off. Everything in energy is a trade-off. And just picking up on that solar panel thing, you mentioned the battery there. I recently found out that that's pretty much the only way to make it efficient for yourself economically is making sure you also get a battery with a solar panel. Is that correct? Yes, so look, you would normally slightly oversized your rooftop solar panels. that surplus energy produced during the day that is not utilized by you would be basically stored in that battery and utilized overnight. So that makes your household energy independent or energy autonomous in a way. Finally, I'd just like to ask you about some of the biggest

upcoming innovations that might help us make our energy more sustainable. In terms of energy innovation. Solar panels are becoming more and more efficient. There are a number of emerging technologies, including perovskite solar cells. Those are cheaper to make and significantly more efficient in terms of how they harvest that energy of the sun. But perovskite solar cells are a bit similar to that nuclear fusion. They have been five years away, five years ago, And today they are still five to ten years away. So, you know, they have their own challenges that need to be addressed through further research and commercialization. But hopefully renewable energy technologies that we are using will become more efficient and significantly cheaper for regular users.

In terms of wind turbines, those are also becoming significantly more efficient, easier to deploy, less noisy. So many advantages are coming to wind turbine development as well. There are also new type of batteries or battery chemistries that will possibly allow us to move away from lithium. And obviously lithium is becoming very expensive and rare material. So moving away from lithium to likes of sodium, which can be easily harvested from seawater, you know, number of different battery chemistries are emerging that will make them better, cheaper, safer and more practical. And all of these changes and the transition more generally, can we make them fast enough

given what's on its way the climate crisis? Probably in some cases, yes, but I believe that those technologies will evolve continuously. So there won't be a moment in time where we've been. basically decide, oh, this is good enough. Let's stop here and just use it. There will be always research and development to make those energy systems better, whether it's batteries or solar panels. We will always find ways to make them more efficient, cheaper, easier to manufacture, more recyclable, possibly as well, to reduce that environmental impact. So look, with current technologies, we can definitely move away from fossil fuels. And with future technologies, we'll just

make that transition better. But you're a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Please could you tell me why and what some of the benefits that brings? I'm actually a fellow of RSC. And look, it's a great community. I basically joined RSC purely for networking purposes. and it has been a, you know, very interesting journey for me. I got engaged with Royal Society of Chemistry back in my PhD days when I was doing PhD at Monash University. I actually published a number of papers through RSC journals. And, you know, I basically decided to kind of benefit more from that community. And yeah, it has been a great journey, very supportive community.

and I would advise to join if you are into chemistry. You've been listening to Bart Kolojeechek, talking about what we can do to support the green energy transition and the future beyond it. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus magazine. By the latest issue of science focus in store or visit us at sciencefocus.com.

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