The Sustainable Spark: An Exploration of Electric Energy and the Environment

GEOG 211, Brown

     Energy is perhaps one of the most significant drivers in the in the establishment and development of the modern world. With this increasingly interconnected geography of business, technology and culture comes an emergence of global-scale environmental impact due to energy production and consumption. While there are many forms of energy worth discussing, the purposes of this paper will be to concentrate on the processes and consequences of electrical energy. Due to the growing demand of electricity worldwide to support a constantly rising living standard, it is forecasted that world electricity generation will increase by 58.5% in just twenty years, reaching 45,709 billion kWh by 2030 (Akpinar 40). This paper recognizes that this rapid increase in electricity production can only happen by drawing resources from and eliminating wastes back into the environment, making it crucial to strive to understand the trajectory of the industry, and possibilities for sustainable usage. I will review cultural establishments of consumption demonstrated through Singaporean household practices, as well as geopolitical interests in the construction of Laos’ hydropower dam NT2 in an attempt to investigate the human drivers causing this increase in electric energy demand. I will also discuss the pressures these drivers put on the environment using Turkey as a case study, and the socio-economic strains felt today and in the future as a result. Lastly, I will examine the successful and developing responses to these ever-pressing environmental concerns, and reflect on the implications they have on the future of electrical energy.

Why should we care?

     Energy has the potential to shape cultures, economies and transnational relations, becoming an integral part of the daily lives of many developed and developing countries. In fact, changes in energy technology “have been a key part of many dramatic social, economic and environmental changes during the twentieth century and before” (Carlsson-Hyslop 75), bringing society through the industrial revolution into the hi-tech world of today. And it is an ever-evolving industry; in just the last three and a half decades, methods of electric energy generation have changed drastically, with the focus shifting from nuclear power in the 1970s-80s to natural gas in the 1980s-1990s, to hydropower and other renewable energy sources in the 2000s (Akpinar 29).  Electric energy use has been increasing as well, with oil usage slowing down since the OPEC embargo of 1973, and the energy market reform of 1998-1999 “focused primarily on the electricity sector” (Akpinar 28) rather than gas. Although electricity generation from hydropower and other renewable energy sources is “projected to grow by 56% over the next [19] years” (Akpinar 30), coal has been and still is the dominant fuel used (Akpinar 29). This progression can be seen in the case study of Turkey, an example of a nation whose rapid urban and industrial development requires an immense intake of electrical energy. Until the 1970s, its largest domestic energy source for electricity production was coal, which was overtaken by natural gas in the mid-1980s (Atilgan 555). Today, coal and natural gas are the dominant sources of electricity, with hydropower emerging as the third largest contribution (Atilgan 556).

     Whether it be from finite or renewable resources, electric energy production has been a major player in the last few decades, and continues to rise as an indicator for countries with leading development.

This table shows the leading producers of electricity in the world (as of 2004), with the top three countries responsible for 42.5% of total production in the world (Akpinar 30). The US, China, and Japan are widely known to be leading countries in the world market, signifying a correlation between energy production and economic development. This is most likely due to the necessity for electric energy to enable economic activity and wellbeing, through such assets as high-standard facilities, transportation and technology. Rapid urbanization on a global scale is demanding more production of electricity than ever, and as a result, concentration on its environmental impacts is crucial in planning for the future.

Human Drivers

     Before discussing the environmental impacts that occur due to electricity production, it is important to first understand the drivers behind the need for such increasingly large-scale energy distribution. How has electric energy production and consumption become such a topic of concern? The push for more intensive global energy production in the past few decades can largely be attributed to two types of human drivers: modern social constructs of living standard, and geopolitical interests.

     In his article, Ezra Ho describes the need for high levels of energy consumption as the product of socially constructed “subjectivities of materialities, practical ethics, socialized rules and histories” (Ho 150). In other words, high-energy consumption practices are embedded in society’s notion of normalcy, a constructed idea of necessity. Ho draws upon his observation of households in Singapore, with the intent to examine “why certain household energy practices have become…accepted as normality” (Ho 151), beyond the simple necessity for survival. Like most Global North-standard housing, flats in Singapore are filled with an abundance of appliances used for “heating, cooling, washing [and] entertainment”, with just their stand-by electricity usage alone “[taking] up a sizeable chunk of household electricity” (Ho 156). Not to mention the actual usage of the appliances themselves; although they acknowledge that their clothes dryer consumes an enormous amount of energy, for one of the couples in Ho’s study, the dryer is “nested within normative and pragmatic visions of an orderly household” (Ho 157), and is hard to live without. To them, having a clothes dryer (as opposed to hanging the clothes to dry) not only allows them to control their laundry efficiency despite wet weather, but having machine-dried clothing is an accepted aspect of ‘developed’ life.

     Along with clothes dryers, the normalization of air conditioning and refrigeration accounts for the “ratcheting-up of standards of comforts and energy demand in buildings” (Ho 156), which is also prevalent in Thailand’s rapid increase in energy demand. For the people of Thailand, air conditioning and refrigeration have become “a sign of modernity and urbanization”, embodying a “transformation of cultural attitudes” and social norms as people accustom to the new standard of technologic prosperity (Baird 1228, 1229).  However, this contemporary standard is a cultural construction of necessity, set in the mid-twentieth century “by research teams in the Global North linked to [the] air conditioning industry” (Baird 1229), despite the fact that the ideal temperature for Westerners is considered cold for many Thai people. As a result of these social constructs engrained in the fabric of modernity, any energy conservation initiative attempts that do not take into account this culturally-rooted sense of normality face difficulty in making any real impact at all.

     Due to the increase in energy demand in the expanding urban centers of Thailand to accommodate new necessities such as air conditioners, Thailand has had to look for outlying sources of energy to fulfill their needs. Construction of the Nam Theun 2 (NT2) hydropower dam in Laos began in 2005, partly as a response to the high energy consumption patterns in Thailand (Baird 1224). Despite the NT2 being the largest hydropower dam project in Laos with a capacity of 1070MW, only a small part of its direct electricity benefit actually goes towards the people of Laos, with 93% of the energy being rerouted to Thailand (Baird 1224).

                 

              

With electricity demand from the air conditioning of Bangkok alone exceeding the total output of NT2 (Baird 1230), there is major incentive for the government of Laos to invest in such a project, as “part of a push for a Greater Mekong Sub-Region” (Baird 1226). The dam’s revenue is looked at as a key player in Laos’ national development, demonstrating a clear geopolitical driver in the investment of intensive energy production. Although hydropower is a renewable method of energy production, the NT2 hydropower dam has been cited to have “poor electricity system planning and inattention to energy efficiency” (Baird 1230), making it a strain on the environment it is built in. However, the large scale of the project required the foreign investment of many others, with 40% being owned by Electricite de France, 35% by Electric Generation Public Co. Thailand, and the 25% of Laos’ share being funded by loads from World Bank (Baird 1224). This implies that the project is embedded into a network, and that any conservation effort alterations would need the support of all the parties affected, making it very difficult to adjust. As a result, these human drivers of investment and geopolitical interest account for the increase in electric energy production and consumption, with a distinct impact on the wellbeing of the environment.

Environmental Pressures of Electric Energy

     The steady rise in global energy demand due to human drivers puts continual pressure both on society and on the environment. While Thailand consumes most of the energy produced at the NT2 hydropower dam, the majority of negative environmental and social impacts have been felt by Laos. Hydropower, the use of water flowing through a turbine to produce electricity, reflects a vital “interconnection between water and energy systems”, that results in a dependency on water usage to “access, process and convert” energy (Grubert 88). Built on the Xe Bang Fai (XBF) river that had been an “important resource for fishing and other river-based livelihoods for over 150,000 people” (Baird 1225), the NT2 is responsible for many negative downstream changes in the river’s hydrology and water quality. The fluctuations in hydrological flow are largely dependant on the fluctuations in Thailand’s energy demand, where it is typically lower in winter “due to cold weather and reduced air conditioning usage” (Baird 1225) and higher during the summer. This shows the power of social behaviour in remaking and reshaping the surrounding ecologies themselves.

Water usage is also exploited in non-hydropower energy plants, with cooling systems accounting for the “largest categories of freshwater withdrawal in the United States, at 38%” (Grubert 88), but the use of natural gas, coal and other nonrenewable resources is at the root of many other environmental pressures as well. Global electricity production is still dominated by the use of non-renewable resources, which is expected to rise due to factors such as gas and coal industries in the EU electricity sector arguing against renewable energy (Akpinar 30). The intensive use of nonrenewable resources to produce energy is strongly related to climate change and other environmental concerns such as “air pollution, ozone depletion, forest destruction and emissions of radioactive substances” (Toklu 1173), that have major impacts on society. Turkey, the case study mentioned above, “is heavily dependent on expensive imported energy resources that place a big burden on the economy” (Toklu 1185) and increase levels of air pollution around the country. Air pollution concerns in Turkey are mainly due to the operation of power plants and transportation of imported fuels, which increases the level of  “sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and total suspended particulates (TSP)” (Toklu 1179) released into the air.

In Turkey alone, annual electricity generation from the burning of fossil fuels “emits 109 Mt CO2-eq.” and “depletes 1660 Pj of primary fossil energy” (Atilgan 563, 555). In 2010, a quarter of the total national emissions released were CO2 greenhouse gas emissions from electricity sector fossil fuel processing (Atilgan 556), and yet Turkey still has the “lowest [greenhouse gas] emission per capita in Europe”, reflecting the severity of the scale at which this is affecting the environment. Whether it is a hydropower dam in Laos or a fossil fuel-burning power plant in Turkey, energy production has proven to put immense pressure on the environment and on society, with no real evidence of effective improvement.

Impacts of Electric Energy Environmental Pressures

     With the inability of efficient energy production or consumption conservation efforts to counteract the cultural and political drivers that maintain these environmental pressures, a number of negative economic and health impacts will continue to surface in the foreseeable future. The NT2 project in Laos is an example of the negative ecological impacts large hydropower dams create, such as the water quality decline, riverbank erosion and biodiversity decline on the XBF river, and how that results in “large declines in fisheries and associated livelihoods” (Baird 1225) of the communities established downstream. The uprooting of traditional livelihoods and local sources of income have led to numerous dislocations of population and culture, stranding many families in the wake of geopolitical interest. NGOs and academics have expressed serious concerns with the NT2 dam, but the World Bank’s “notorious history with ecologically damaging large dams” (Baird 1225) is often justified with unfulfilled strategies for energy conservation. The NT2’s “broad willingness to sacrifice downstream ecologies and associated livelihoods” (Baird 1232) is shaping the social ecology of Laos, with its subjects vulnerable to similar upheaval in the future.

     In comparison to hydropower dams however, the impacts of coal, fossil fuel, lignite and other non-renewable forms of energy production are exceptionally worse. The growing level of air pollution emissions affects the the environment, but also affects the health of millions of people around the world, especially those in cities whose infrastructure and development are not yet adapted to manage high levels of pollution. “Aggravate airway pathology, respiratory symptoms, [and] reduced lung function” (Tecer 1489) are all linked to air pollution, which lead to “increased hospitalization costs, restricted activity days and shortened life expectancy” (Toklu 1179) in populations that already suffer from low economic prosperity, contributing to the cycle of path dependent conditions in the Global South. In many cities like Balikesir, Turkey, “traffic and heating systems [are] likely to be the most important source of air pollution” (Tecer 1490), yet studying the human drivers of energy consumption in Singapore has shown that the use of energy is not likely to decrease, as it is engrained in society’s “normative visions of…how to live” (Ho 153). The ironic fact is that the world is accustomed to a standard of living that seems more comfortable, but has adverse affects on health and sustainable levels of resource consumption in the future.

     At current energy management rates, there is also a concern on the economic impacts of inefficient energy production. Electric energy storage in a world of increasing energy demand is crucial in the trajectory of sustainable and profitable electricity. While the need for energy storage will only increase in the future, “the problem of ensuring power quality is already upon us, as evidenced by power outages in recent years” (Hall 4352), in both the Global North and Global South. Poor power quality is already estimated to cause “productivity losses in the region of $400 billion each year to the US economy” (Hall 4352), a significant blow that undoubtedly induces a chain of negative economic impacts, and will continue to create losses until the situation can be improved.

Responses

     So what has the world done in response to the knowledge of impending pressures put on the environment by vigorous energy usage? Recognition of the need to reduce harmful emissions from non-renewable substances such as fossil fuel and coal is present, but its effects are limited. Turkey’s plans to reduce its share of lignite and hard coal power and expand the contribution of natural gas would reduce certain environmental impacts, but would still cause the ozone layer to deplete substantially (Atilgan 555). Its heavy reliance on imported energy sources has turned its attention to renewable energy sources, recognizing that they “appear to be one of the most efficient and effective solutions for clean and sustainable energy development in Turkey” (Toklu 1185). However, it has been established that renewable sources of energy such as hydropower dams are not without their negative effects. To combat the impact of altered hydrological flows due to dam activity, ‘environmental flows’ have been suggested, which comprise of “releasing water more regularly, but crucially, in ways that mimic natural daily and season flows so that downstream impacts are reduced” (Baird 1231). This would benefit both the aquatic ecosystems and the human socioeconomic systems that are linked with rivers such as the XBF in Laos, but as seen in the NT2 case, a “downstream-sensitive hydrological regime can directly affect electricity managers’ abilities to make strategic commercial decisions” (Baird 1232), and as a result, environmental flows remain a concept rather than an active practice. This dilemma has conservationists turning to different methods of practical response, such as examining energy demand itself, and recognizing the need to balance energy demand with supply. Energy demand forecasting has been branded “one of the most important policy tools used by decision makers all over the world” (Akpinar 29), due to its ability to guide policy makers towards the actions necessary to ensure sustainable energy production in the future. Other focuses on clean, sustainable energy management have also been growing, such as solar thermal power plants in Southern Europe (Akpinar 30) and the importance of energy storage technologies in ensuring a “secure and continuous supply to the customer” (Hall 4352).

     Along with the practical responses of cutting back on resource use and developing new technology, there has been a societal response recognized as necessity in achieving a cleaner future in energy management. This manifests in the research of understanding social practices, and focus on changing the unsustainable household patterns of energy use to achieve a tangible result. This demand management approach means a necessity to start the “Going Green discourse” in a way that accounts for the practical ethics of a society (Ho 157). This attempt to change the mindset of necessity has materialized as a initiative in Singapore that sent a monthly set of bar graphs “charting the household’s electricity, water and gas consumption for the past 6 months” (Ho 158), in comparison to the national average. By visualizing consumption, the state managed to “render once-invisible flows of electricity visible” (Ho 158), in hopes that an attempt in demand management might “have the potential to lead to substantially reduced energy use” (Carlsson-Hyslop 76), and nudge ideal consumption to a sustainable rate.

Conclusion

     Electric energy is constantly growing in demand, and has yet to fully obtain a sustainable level of production. In this age of rapid connectivity and consumption, electricity is vital in the development and maintenance of societies all around the world. Its growth is driven by socially constructed and geopolitically motivated desires, which prevent many efforts to cut down energy consumption. While there are renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy production, both have adverse effects on the environment that result in negative economic and health-related impacts. If electricity is to continue to benefit society without becoming a plague to the environment, efforts in demand management and clean production alternatives must be made, for the world will continue to consume energy in escalating amounts, regardless of whether or not the environment can accommodate it.

 

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