Russia (bbabo.net), - There would be no life without carbon. We eat carbon, we are made of carbon and everything around us is built on carbon. Even though carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane absorb infrared radiation, collecting the thermal energy of sunlight and trapping it in the atmosphere, we know very little about the ozone layer, its actual role in the carbon cycle and shaping the Earth's climate.
We also practically ignore the role of the magnetosphere in this cycle. At the same time, we know for sure that CO2 maintains global temperatures within certain limits, ensuring the preservation of life on the planet. Finding answers to questions such as the causes of climate change, the physics of the carbon footprint, the prospects for hydrogen as a new energy resource and possibly as a mineral, as well as the genesis and exhaustibility of hydrocarbons, is the most important task facing science rather than society .
Uncertainties in climate predictions and attributing the observed average warming of the Earth's surface to a direct greenhouse effect is an oversimplification. Quantification indicates that natural processes (solar radiation and stratospheric volcanic aerosols) are probably most responsible for large-scale temperature changes over the past century, and to a lesser extent anthropogenic forcing. The discussion of the causes of warming is in active dynamics.
I have no doubt that we must significantly reduce the pollution of nature by energy facilities. At the same time, the categorical assertion that it is their emissions into the environment that are the prevailing cause of possible climate change is highly controversial from a scientific point of view. Society is offered a simple and uncontested set of tools that will save the planet: intensifying the energy transition and creating a hydrogen economy. There are also increasingly persistent calls to reduce investment in hydrocarbon production, as this will lead to a reduction in their supply on the market and a drop in demand. But in fact, such an approach only leads to an increase in energy prices due to the threat of a shortage of raw materials.
In order to take an evolutionary step and make a technological breakthrough in the field of flow energy (air, water, light), and especially hydrogen energy, humanity needs to spend a huge amount of additional energy on creating technologies and putting them into practice. Today it is impossible to do this without hydrocarbons.
At the same time, the development of the oil and gas industry, the largest sector of the global national economy and, without exaggeration, its foundation, is taking place outside the paradigm of market relations, which poses a threat to the energy security of a number of states. Oil, gas and products of their processing are the basis of international trade. It is no coincidence that the leaders of many leading world powers, representing the interests of the most liquid sectors of the economy, along with financiers and arms manufacturers, have traditionally lobbied for the interests of oil and gas corporations. However, now the situation has changed. The so-called fourth industrial revolution led to the emergence of fundamentally different elites, consisting of people of a new generation, in particular, the creators of IT companies and virtual marketplaces. Often they use their capital not to produce end-use goods and saturate the market, but to invest in products that have not yet been created or exist in the form of prototypes.
Most of the new establishment also has interests in renewable energy, since this is a promising area, as it receives generous government subsidies. However, promoting alternative energy, its adherents often ignore the elementary laws of physics. Such, for example, as the specific heat of combustion of hydrogen or the ability of its molecules to penetrate the crystal lattice of almost any steel.
Indeed, an opportunity opens up for Russia to solve the long overdue task of significantly reducing the share of hydrocarbon consumption, including by increasing the efficiency of their use. There is enormous potential here. After all, the efficiency of the use of hydrocarbon resources in the heating cycle today is: coal - 20-26%, with a possible 45-55%; petroleum products - 24-30% with a possible 50-70%; natural gas - 26-32% with a possible 70-78%.Scientists of St. Petersburg Mining University are conducting scientific research aimed at achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 through energy transition, taking into account the actual state of affairs in the economy and focusing on energy efficiency. This is extremely important, since Russia needs to implement the least costly and most affordable way of decarbonization, the most positive way to ensure the competitiveness of our economy. Empirical data, analysis and calculations show that due to the implementation of appropriate measures at the proper level, the potential for reducing the share of consumption of hydrocarbon resources by 2050 is 45-55%.
Our studies have shown that the energy transition to carbon neutrality by 2050 should be based on the use of carbon neutral resources - gas, nuclear and hydropower with a slight increase in the share of renewable sources as local energy resources. No less important for the domestic and world economy is the formation of a new way of life for a consumer-urban civilization based on global energy and heat conservation. Our country has a huge reserve for this. Thus, it is possible (and necessary) to reduce the energy consumption of the housing stock from 400 to 50 kWh per m2 per year. It is also necessary to stimulate cogeneration in the heating cycle of CHPPs, to increase the efficiency of the use of hydrocarbons in generation by more than 2 times.
To implement the new economic order, the government needs to create motivation, including through the adoption of new norms and rules for determining the effectiveness of existing and created objects, using energy (joules) rather than money as an equivalent. The government should pay more attention to this area, as it is the foundation without which it is impossible to build a truly new economy, create a new environment and ensure the development of our country as a whole.
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