Green energy  

Sanctions on Russia, though might make Russians’ lives miserable, have made ours difficult too. As the world’s second largest producer and third biggest exporter (Russia) of crude oil, global consumers are feeling the pinch of the ongoing disruption in deliveries. 

Certainly, a solution is available. To recall, almost two years ago (when Covid-19 seemed uncontrollable), oil prices plummeted. Consequently, OPEC member countries (plus Russia) substantially cut their production output to raise prices.  Therefore, the solution is crystal-clear, increase production output. 

The USA did increase its output but the OPEC member countries have a different agenda.  Yes, it is true that collectively they agreed (together with Russia) not long ago to increase production output as the world slowly opened up its economy after locking it down for over a year. Such agreement holds until April. The premise then, however, was solely based on the effect of the pandemic and the hoped economic recovery.   

Today, as there is a drastic fall in the supply side, these OPEC member countries are so adamant and will never yield to the requests of the USA and some European countries for the immediate output augmentation. Given the fact that five of the top ten oil exporting countries in the world are OPEC members, it should have been a surefire solution. These are United Arab Emirates (1), Saudi Arabia (2), Kuwait (4), Iraq (5) and Nigeria (8). Clearly, together with the other nine members, OPEC can substantially address the current production shortages. 

Obviously, money is the motivation. As oil price surges, the windfall is just so irresistible. Well, just plain deviousness. To think that the rest of the world are suffering from the ill effects of extreme weather that is caused largely by carbon dioxide emissions out of the production of fossil fuel and the use of it, this act (increasing output) could have been considered as a compensation. 

To put it clearly, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2019, “global emissions of energy-related carbon dioxide totaled 33.1 billion metric tons.”  That’s how huge and dangerous global CO2 emission is.

Knowing fully well that, despite being guilty of destroying our environment, these fossil fuel producers aren’t helping us get over these current oil shortages, a greener alternative must be considered. And there are credible studies that will help us understand this. One of them is the report from Carbon Tracker, a London-based non-profit organization. 

It revealed that “solar and wind have the potential to produce thousands of petawatt hours (PWh) of electricity a year, while the world’s current electricity demand stands at just 27 PWh.”  It further reported that “if humans chose to get all their energy from solar power alone, the land required would take up just 450,000 km2—just 0.3% of the world’s total land area, and less than the space currently taken up by fossil fuel industry operations.”

Yet right now, people are using only a fraction of the renewable energy available to them. The report notes that only “0.01% of the world’s solar potential is being utilized, and just 0.16% of wind potential is being exploited.”   As Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson shows in his book (100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything), “global energy demand could be met by using 0.2% of available land area for solar, and 0.5% for spacing between onshore wind turbines.”

So that, Carbon Tracker stressed that “solar and wind energy have the potential to meet global electricity demand 100 times over, and the costs of these renewables are collapsing so rapidly that fossil fuels could be pushed out of electricity generation altogether by 2035.”

With such findings, Carbon Tracker claimed that “the fossil fuel era is over.” At current growth rates, it says, “solar and wind power could price fossil fuels out of the world’s electricity markets by the mid-2030s, and by 2050 could replace fossil fuels entirely.”

We are a tropical country, hence, in us, the use of solar energy is a no-brainer.  Lest we forget, our easterlies and westerlies are also strong enough to turn onshore wind turbines.  Therefore, both are feasible.