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Energies
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Rethinking Energy: Earth System Science Approaches
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Rethinking Energy: Earth System Science Approaches

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2019) | Viewed by 13455

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Patrick Moriarty

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Guest Editor
Department of Design, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3145, Australia
Interests: energy analysis, renewable energy, global warming mitigation, transport, futures
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Damon Honnery

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Co-Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne VIC 3145, Australia
Interests: combustion; energy analysis; renewable energy; global warming mitigation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

For the past century or more, fossil fuels have dominated not only energy use, but also the way we think about energy systems. Given the finite reserves of fossil fuels (FFs) and their uneven global distribution, in the 1960s and 1970s, high hopes were placed on nuclear power as a successor fuel, but it is now projected to play only a minor role in future energy. With the rising awareness of the climate change problem, renewable energy (RE) sources are increasingly promoted as a key climate mitigation strategy. However, controversy exists as to whether RE sources have a large enough EROI to replace the still-dominant fossil fuels. Because only intermittent RE sources—wind, solar, and perhaps wave energy—have a high technical potential, large-scale energy storage will be needed, which will reduce the overall EROI. Furthermore, although the environmental problems of FFs have long been recognised, there is now increasing recognition of those for RE, as well as requirements for (often scarce) metals, water, and land. This Special Issue aims to explore the energy future from an Earth systems science viewpoint, thus widening the scope of energy research.

Assoc. Prof. Damon Honnery
Prof. Patrick Moriarty
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Climate change mitigation
  • Carbon dioxide reduction
  • Earth systems science (ESS)
  • Ecosystem maintenance energy (ESME)
  • Energy return on energy invested (EROI)
  • Food–energy–water nexus
  • Fossil fuels
  • Future energy
  • Geoengineering
  • Renewable energy

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Review

16 pages, 723 KiB  
Review
Energy Accounting for a Renewable Energy Future
by Patrick Moriarty and Damon Honnery
Energies 2019, 12(22), 4280; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12224280 - 10 Nov 2019
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 5948
Abstract
For millennia, humans relied almost entirely on renewable energy (RE), largely biomass, for their energy needs. Over the past century, fossil fuels (FFs) have not only largely replaced RE, but have enabled a many-fold rise in total energy use. This FF dominance changed [...] Read more.
For millennia, humans relied almost entirely on renewable energy (RE), largely biomass, for their energy needs. Over the past century, fossil fuels (FFs) have not only largely replaced RE, but have enabled a many-fold rise in total energy use. This FF dominance changed the way we think about and accounted for energy use. If (as at present) the world essentially continues to ignore climate change, eventual resource depletion will force conversion to RE and, perhaps, nuclear energy will once again have to provide most of the world’s energy use. However, the change is more likely to come about because of the urgent need for climate change mitigation. At present, primary RE electricity accounting is done by calculating the FF energy that would be needed to produce it. But as FFs disappear, this approach makes less sense. Instead, a new approach to energy accounting will be needed, one that allows for the intermittent nature of the two most abundant RE sources, wind and solar power. Surplus intermittent RE might be converted to H2, further complicating energy accounting. An additional complication will be the treatment of energy reductions, especially from passive solar energy, likely to be more important in the coming decades. This paper is a review of the evidence to try to determine the best approach to future energy accounting. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rethinking Energy: Earth System Science Approaches)
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17 pages, 263 KiB  
Review
Energy Efficiency or Conservation for Mitigating Climate Change?
by Patrick Moriarty and Damon Honnery
Energies 2019, 12(18), 3543; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12183543 - 16 Sep 2019
Cited by 47 | Viewed by 6964
Abstract
Given that global energy use today is still dominated by fossil fuels, there is an urgent need to rapidly reduce its use in order to avert serious climate change. However, the alternatives to fossil fuels—renewable and nuclear energy—are more expensive, and have so [...] Read more.
Given that global energy use today is still dominated by fossil fuels, there is an urgent need to rapidly reduce its use in order to avert serious climate change. However, the alternatives to fossil fuels—renewable and nuclear energy—are more expensive, and have so far done little to displace fossil fuels. Accordingly, reducing energy use must play an important part in both averting climate change and avoiding the depletion of high energy return easily recoverable fossil fuel reserves. This paper examined both the potential and barriers to the adoption of energy reduction measures, with particular attention to domestic energy and passenger transport. The main finding was that energy efficiency approaches alone are unlikely to deliver anywhere near the energy reductions needed in the limited time available. Instead, most energy reductions will have to come from energy conservation, involving less use of energy-using devices, including private vehicles. Achieving such reductions will require changes in lifestyles, especially for residents of OECD nations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rethinking Energy: Earth System Science Approaches)
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