An energetically sustainable Chile

By Daniel Olivares Quero, associate professor, faculty of engineering and sciences Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI), director of the center for energy transition (CENTRA) UAI.

In addition to Valentine's Day, World Energy Day is celebrated on February 14, an event that invites us to reflect on the role of energy in society and raise awareness regarding the impacts, both positive and negative, implied by its use. Notably, since the first industrial revolution, humanity has made steady progress in the development of societies capable of supporting a larger population, with a growing life expectancy, and accompanied by increasing use of energy. 

One of the technological milestones that marked this process was the introduction of the steam engine in different production processes and as a means of transportation, initially powered by mineral coal. Subsequently, the development of internal combustion engines using hydrocarbons, and machines capable of generating, transporting and harnessing electrical energy ended up shaping the conditions that led to the development of modern industrialized societies.

Since then, with countless technological improvements along the way, humanity has been in a relentless search for energy sources to keep the machines that maintain our society running. The energy sources available on our planet can be classified as renewable, such as the sustainable use of biomass, solar radiation and energy from winds and water currents; or non-renewable, which are mainly fossil fuels such as oil and its derivatives, natural gas and coal. However, the original source of all the aforementioned sources is one: the Sun. The fundamental difference then lies in the speed with which the sun and our planet are capable of restoring the sources that we take advantage of and process their waste, in relation to the speed with which humanity makes use of them.

Due to its economy of extraction and use, the explosive growth of industrialized societies has occurred based on the use of fossil fuels, reducing the planetary reserves accumulated by millions of years of decomposition and fossilization of biomass. This pattern has always had an expiration date, since at this rate we would inevitably end up completely consuming the reserves of these sources. However, nowadays we know that we have to deal with an associated problem even sooner that threatens the stability of our ecosystem and the survival of many species: the use of fossil fuels releases CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that are responsible for the global warming and climate change.

So, the task facing us is monumental. We have to reduce the consumption of fuels that are, to a large extent, responsible for the development of the modern societies in which we live and which have been progressively built since the beginning of the 19th century. Instead, we must use renewable energy sources, which present challenges involving daily and seasonal variations, such as solar and wind energy, and which require the use of scarce and expensive materials for their production and storage. It is naive at this point to think that we can cope with this process based solely on technological advances without also making changes in our lifestyle and society. The responsibility for an energetically sustainable planet is in our hands.

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