The Challenge of Decarbonization and the Possible Consequences in Political and Economic Terms
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Department of Political Sciences Chair of Energy and Environmental Policies European Green Deal: the challenge of decarbonization and the possible consequences in political and economic terms Supervisor: Prof. Alessandro Lanza Candidate: Carlo Minopoli Student: 640012 Co-Supervisor: Prof. Angelo Taraborrelli ACADEMIC YEAR: 2019/2020 Table of contents Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 5 1ST CHAPTER - THE HISTORY OF ENERGY.................................................................................... 8 What is Energy? The two principles .................................................................................................... 8 Drivers of an Energy Transition ........................................................................................................... 9 History of Energy: Homo Sapiens ...................................................................................................... 12 Foraging Societies ............................................................................................................................ 15 Agriculture ....................................................................................................................................... 16 Preindustrial Period ......................................................................................................................... 18 The first energy transition: from timber to coal ................................................................................. 20 From the age of muscle to age of consumption: coal ......................................................................... 22 Gas .................................................................................................................................................. 24 The first usage of Oil ........................................................................................................................ 25 XX Century: Oil on podium ............................................................................................................... 28 1973: the oil crisis and the adaptation of the dominant networks...................................................... 30 After 1973: can Oil run out? ............................................................................................................. 32 Oil and Gas: independence or interdependence? .............................................................................. 34 What we learn from history.............................................................................................................. 35 2ND CHAPTER: CLIMATE AND ENERGY ..................................................................................... 38 The Environmental Issue .................................................................................................................. 38 Global Warming ............................................................................................................................... 41 The COP (Conference of Parties) of ONU ........................................................................................... 44 The Paris Agreement ........................................................................................................................ 47 Is energy transition possible? ........................................................................................................... 51 Answering to the Epstein’s Question ................................................................................................ 54 3RD CHAPTER – European Green Deal ...................................................................................... 56 11 December 2019 – Historical Data: European Green Deal ............................................................... 56 Green Deal in practice ...................................................................................................................... 58 The harsh reality .............................................................................................................................. 59 First limit: CO2 is global .................................................................................................................... 63 Case Study: China ............................................................................................................................. 65 Second Limit: New Renewables ........................................................................................................ 69 Case Study: Italy and the Photovoltaic investments .......................................................................... 74 Third Limit: Export Countries ............................................................................................................ 79 Case Study #1: Saudi Arabia ............................................................................................................. 80 Case Study #2: Russia ....................................................................................................................... 86 4TH CHAPTER: Zero Emissions Strategy .................................................................................... 91 Nuclear Energy ................................................................................................................................. 91 A Brief History of Nuclear Energy ...................................................................................................... 93 Nuclear and new renewables: the comparison .................................................................................. 94 Case Study: Sweden ......................................................................................................................... 97 The Energy of the future, but patience is needed: Hydrogen ........................................................... 100 Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) & Utilization of Carbon (CCUS) .......................................................... 102 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 105 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................. 108 Sitography ..................................................................................................................................... 111 Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 119 Introduction Climate change, which is the subject of an extensive international debate, is due, according to a shared opinion, to the growth of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. This growth is principally traced back to the emissions of the fossil sources of energy, which, still today, accounts the 80% of the energy generation. In order to contrast the climate change, the necessity of an energy transition is indicated that is substantially identified in the goal of a rapid decarbonization. The paper aims to analyze the energy transition. What, most of all, can teach us what the future will be is the past, and that is why defining the concept of energy and then analyzing what caused the other energy transitions in history, recognizing their drivers and the surrounding market conditions, is of vital importance. The paper continues with an analysis that combines the political scenario with the technical explanations of energy sources, highlighting their limits but also the enormous impact, both economically and in everyday life, that it has had on human development. For each source that realized the transition, a graph will be shown, containing the main drivers and how they occurred. The thesis will then analyze the history that linked the climate to energy, with the first literary productions that formed the basis of the international climate meetings (COP), then analyzing the results, in terms of emission reduction, resulting from the protocol of Kyoto and the Paris Agreement. Human-related global warming is, rightly or wrongly, the theory shared by much of the scientific community. It deserves to be highlighted that there is another slice of scientists, not indifferent in terms of reputation, who do not deny global warming, but who argue that further studies are needed to link anthropogenic activities to this result. The paper will analyze the literary history and the moment in which fossil sources were indicated as responsible for significant climate impacts, first in Global Cooling, then in Global Warming. The analysis of what in fact led to the birth of environmentalism that contrasts fossil fuels with renewable sources is fundamental to be able to answer Epstein's question, contained in the final part of the second chapter: what value do we give to human life? In the following, the European Green Deal will be analyzed, presented by Ursula Von Der Leyen on 11 December 2019, which, for the first time in history, establishes a deadline for the energy transition, 2050. In a period in which only doubting the feasibility of the energy transition, at least in the ways in which it is prophesied, is sufficient to be qualified at best as ignorant and at worst as "morally reprehensible", an analysis of the limits underlying the Green Deal (the low climate impact of Europe alone, the technical limits of the