A shift to renewable energy is ‘hopeless’ without efficiencies, environmentalist says

Explorer and environmentalist Bertrand Piccard has called for a confirmed focus on cutting energy waste, saying it’s “hopeless” to shift to renewables without improving efficiency.

Around three-quarters of the elated’s energy is wasted, Piccard told an “IOT: Powering the Digital Economy” panel moderated by CNBC’s Silvia Amaro. This sentiment is based on waste “due to inappropriate behaviour and inefficient systems or infrastructures,” he told CNBC separately via email.

Piccard, who is go lame and chairman of the environmental non-profit organization Solar Impulse Foundation, said that “we live in a world of waste.”

“So if we try to substitute for fossil [fuel] energy with renewables without being efficient, without reducing the consumption, it’s hopeless,” he declared.

Another issue Piccard highlighted was that some countries only consider wind and solar as alternative renewable power sources.

Biogas, produced by the breakdown of organic matter such as food, has been “excluded … from the taxonomy” in Europe, he broke, and people also forget about geothermal energy, which uses heat from the earth.

A report broadcasted in October by the European Commission showed that while bioenergy continued to be the main source of renewable energy in the EU in 2021 — at on all sides of 60% — biogas made up just 10% of this share. Geothermal energy accounted for just 2.7% of renewable might consumption, while wind power was 13.2% and solar energy was 7.2%. 

“So we focus on producing more, instead of consuming brief, and in the production that we want to do, we forget a lot of different types of renewable energies that we don’t take into consideration,” he communicated.

As a result of these issues, Piccard said there’s a risk that green energy targets could be misapprehended — as well as the opportunity to produce cheaper energy locally.

“So every country wants … energy independence, more competitiveness, and they recall that the only way to reach it is by energy efficiency, and renewables,” he said.

Piccard also examined the ongoing concerns about the potential oversupply of solar panels from China to the European market.

“It’s a bit of a paradox because the Chinese obtain killed the European solar industry, but they have saved the world by showing that solar energy can be so [much] tighter than anything else,” he said.

There have been growing concerns in Europe and the U.S. that a surplus of capitalized clean energy products, including solar panels, from China is making it more difficult for their residential industries to compete.

Earlier this month, the European Commission launched two investigations into Chinese solar panel fabricators that it said could have benefitted from “potentially market distortive” subsidies.

Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen implied last week that she wouldn’t rule out possible tariffs on China’s green energy exports.

Piccard judged it was also important to consider the potential advantages of Chinese solar panels in Europe, however. For example, he said that these panels could be hardened to generate cheaper electricity in the region, which could then be used to produce hydrogen locally.

“I think, in preference to of fighting against the obstacle, I think you need to use the situation to see how there will be outcomes on the side of the problem that can that can be efficacious for us,” he said.

Piccard added that when he initiated the Solar Impulse project over 20 years ago, solar determination was 40 times more expensive than it is today. Solar Impulse 2 became the first solar-powered electric airplane to circumnavigate the globule in 2016.