INSIGHT by Tansy Robertson-Fall, Senior Editor, Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This article was first published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
We need to talk about renewables
Part 1: Why renewable energy infrastructure needs to be built using a circular economy approach
The renewable energy sector promises to tap into limitless sources of energy while tackling pollution and climate change.
However, the materials needed to capture and store this energy are finite. As the industry scales at pace, renewable infrastructure designed within a ‘take-make-waste’ linear system could contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. To prevent this solution becoming a problem, renewable energy infrastructure needs to be built for a circular economy.
“There’s so much pressure and emphasis on getting the Green Revolution happening that it’s almost by any means necessary without that pause of ‘well it is green, but is it as green as it should be?”
-Scott Bryant, Circular Economy Coordinator, City of Greater Bendigo
It is unquestionable that renewable energy needs to be part of the solution to climate change. With many countries committing at COP26 to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, renewable energy infrastructure is set to scale rapidly.
This waste is currently an inevitability, the result of design and materials choices centred around two key factors: energy output and cost. These design choices have enabled renewables to compete with an established fossil-fuel industry.
The capacity of an individual wind turbine has more than doubled in the last 10 years, lowering the cost of wind energy, while developments in solar panel designs, along with policy support for the industry, have resulted in solar solutions that are “more cost effective than coal- and gas-fired power in many countries”, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). For projects that have gained from low cost financing and that tap high quality resources, “solar PV is now the cheapest source of electricity in history”.
This is great news for the industry, and for nations looking to reduce their carbon emissions. But these same design choices have made it challenging and uneconomical to reuse and recycle components, including wind turbine blades made from low-value fibreglass composites, meaning they are destined for landfill or incinerators.
As James Barry, CEO of Renewable Parts – a business that has been endeavouring to keep large steel components from wind turbines in use and out of landfill since 2011 – comments, efforts to scale renewable infrastructure have been “to some extent, at the expense of looking at how the supply chain and the whole technology that sits behind it becomes more sustainable and greener. We are not necessarily a green supply chain.”
The impacts of this go far beyond waste.
| The current renewable energy supply chain has adverse impacts
The renewable energy sector is materials intensive. Each wind turbine, for example, is made from large quantities of steel, iron, fibreglass, copper, and aluminium (among other materials), erected on a concrete base. The potential negative impacts of these material needs as the industry scales are significant.
Take a 500 megawatt offshore wind farm like the forthcoming Sydkustens Vind development in the Baltic Sea, which will be capable of powering around 250,000 Swedish homes. A development of this size currently requires around 4,400 tonnes of copper.¹ Given that in 2050 it is estimated that installed wind power capacity will be 6 million megawatts, if half of this comes from offshore farms an estimated 27 million tonnes of copper will be needed to build the necessary infrastructure.
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| All opinions expressed are those of the author and/or quoted sources. investESG.eu is an independent and neutral platform dedicated to generating debate around ESG investing topics.
