Does Green Energy Really Green?
By: Anthony Kurnia Jaya
Tags: Green Energy, Environment, Renewable Energy, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Footprint

Green Energy is being promoted to help on reducing environmental issues but does this goal could be really achieved?

Green Energy (source: https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/renewable/polish-parliament-approves-changes-to-green-energy-law/64794684)

Nowadays, there are a lot of campaigns to promote the Green Energy development and usage. The main idea is to do the energy transition from the conventional. This program is come from the Energy Mix which will differ for every country depends on their source and capability. The transition is aimed to reduce the effect of energy use to the global warming as the conventional energy will produce more carbon which will affect the Ozone as the Greenhouse Gas (GHG).

The idea is simple and the goal is clear. However, does the Green Energy will give a better condition for our life?

The answer is not at all. The emission will still there but there might be a slight reduction.

Why?

As the highest demand in energy source, the transportation will shifted into an EV type. With this case, the basic material in EV which is battery was made from a mineral source, such as Cobalt, Graphite, Lithium and Manganese. As the main component of battery is come from mining result, the increase of EV demand means an increase in mining exploitation. This means that the mine activity couldn’t be avoided and there still pollution in the environment. The global warming might be reduce as there are no significant GHG emission in mining operation. However, it will be the same and will be the time bomb where we only wait for our environment to be destroyed.

In the other hands, there is a case where a human exploitation was practiced due to high demand of EV. For example, in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRO) which is the highest cobalt reserves in the world with their 3.6 mTon in 2019, there are a child exploitation to produce more and more cobalt. Even though this problem is not fully the false of the company as there should be an improved rules from the local government but the problem is with the increase of EV demand, there will be another country which will start to do a human exploitation in the future.

The further problem that might be occur due to Green Energy glorification is the human sacrification in some poor and remote regions. The Green Energy implementation need to adapt with the environment condition. For example, in Africa where there still 352 million people that still use solid-fuel for cooking, it is really hard to enforce the energy transition into electric-based. Also, in the same region, almost 70% of local people are depending their economic source from mining and coal-fired power plant. Therefore, the electrification and Green Energy transition might impact on killing these people.

The other problem from the Green Energy is that there will still a carbon emission. However, the carbon is not come from the fuel that is used but come from the manufacture process. The overall carbon emission reduction of EV is only around 17% if compared with the conventional based on the Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Electric Vehicles. The reason is there is an additional part in EV car if compared with the conventional car. For the more specific number, the EV car production will caused 30,000 pounds carbon-dioxide emissions while conventional car will caused only 14,000 pounds. The more complex problem is the source of electricity in EV car. If the electricity is still come from coal power plant or other hydrocarbon-based power plant, the application of EV car will not give a significant impact to the carbon emissions.

The last problem from Green Energy is about the current technology that still have a little efficiency. This will caused a lot of area needed for solar or wind power plant to produce the same electricity with the conventional source. This problem could caused a deforestation in some places. The reduction of CO2 might be increased but there still CO2 being produced by human or other activity that needs tree to process and change it into oxygen. This will be a big problem in the future if there are no any improvement in the technology.

So what is the conclusion?

Overall the Green Energy could give an impact to the carbon emissions, but the reduction is still not that big. Therefore, there still need a further research and development to make a more impact in the carbon emissions. Also, the other side impact of the Green Energy should be reconsidered to make the execution run well. Before all of the problem is being solved, the Green Energy still have some disadvantage.