Strategic Intelligence

This week's readings talk about several renewable energy technologies and provide examples on to how the systems can be modified, or were modified in the past, to promote their implementation. Marcello Graziano, in his paper, talks about Marine Renewable Energy (MER). Providing the example of Scotland, the author recommends a Diffused an Inclusive Community Entrepreneurship Paradigm (DICEP) to promote the implementation of MER. A few aspects from this article, however, sounded very naïve - like the concept of setting up an industry just because we have extra resources in an area.

Taking the renewables approach forward, Jennie Stephens in her chapter highlights the importance of policy in energy industry and advanced integration methods. Providing examples of Wind industry growth from Texas and Germany, the chapter talks about how growth in one sector can push growth in another. This leads to several bodies coming together to design mechanisms that support integration of several means. Similarly, Anju Dahiya discusses the scope of Bio Energy in her chapter.

While these three authors took specific examples on to how the renewables can facilitate an energy transition, the chapter by Naomi Klein calls for re-strategizing the existing economic model that she terms to be extractivist i.e. a dominance based approach that involves only taking without thinking of the consequences. She suggests that we need to move towards an economic model that promotes stewardship and saving the planet has to be advertised as an economic opportunity.

Talking an analytical approach, the paper by Florian Kern talks about the pace of energy transition. Be it the choice of renewables as suggested by the three authors, or a transition away from the existing capitalist world, transitions are historically known to be very slow paced. However, Florian suggests that the steps like Paris Agreement demonstrate a global political commitment, which has rarely been seen in the past, and can be a pace accelerator for energy transitions. One thing that most of the authors seemed to agree on was the immediate need for strategic intelligence to facilitate the energy infrastructure transition.

Discussion Question: Energy generated by burning one kilogram of coal would be far greater than the energy generated by burning one kilogram of biomass crops. Hence, you burn quite a lot of biomass crops to produce same energy as one kilogram of coal. Both of them are using earth’s stored nutrients/minerals and releasing them in the atmosphere on combustion. Can biomass crops be seen as a less efficient and more environment friendly coal?