The “Green” Effect of Global Energy Internet

On September 26, 2015, at the United Nations Development Summit, China proposed to explore the construction of a global energy internet to promote the use of clean and green methods to meet global electricity demand. This proposal combines the two major trends of energy revolution and information revolution, and takes green development as its most important theme. The multi-dimensional green effect it releases is meaningful both for China and the world.

1. The background of the proposal of Global Energy Internet is that traditional energy is unsustainable

"The energy development model based on traditional fossil energy is no longer sustainable, and it is an inevitable trend for clean energy to completely replace fossil energy." Because the planet we live on is an open and unified system. It is open to the stable solar energy flow, the gravity of the sun and the moon, etc., but it is closed to the potential of fossil resources, as well as resources such as water, land and air. If the development of the world economy is always based on this closed and limited energy and raw materials, it is doomed to have a worrying prospect of being restricted and self-suffocating.

First, fossil energy on the earth is non-renewable and will eventually run out. Fossil energy mainly includes coal, oil and natural gas, which together account for more than 85% of the total energy used in the world. The latest "2014 World Energy Statistical Yearbook" released by BP (British Petroleum) shows that as of the end of 2013, the world's proven oil reserves were 1.6879 trillion barrels, which can meet the world's production needs for 53.3 years; the world's proven natural gas reserves were 185.7 trillion cubic meters, which can guarantee the world's production needs for 54.8 years; the world's proven coal reserves were 891.5 billion tons, which can guarantee the world's production needs for 113 years. The fuel for nuclear power generation comes from uranium mines, which can be mined for 77 years. If it is recycled and reused after use, its service life can be increased by 50 times, up to more than 3,800 years. However, the use of nuclear energy has its devilish nature that is difficult to eliminate, which always makes people feel terrified. So it now seems that the main energy sources that human survival depends most on are oil and natural gas, which will become exhausted in the first half of the 21st century.

Second, in the process of fossil energy conversion, it is inevitable that water, land, air and other life elements will suffer loss and destruction. Fossil energy is the most direct and largest producer of environmental pollution. In the past three hundred years since the industrial civilization, the consumption of fossil energy has reached its peak, and the amount of environmental pollution caused by humans has exceeded the accumulation of human "destruction" energy in the ten thousand years before the industrial civilization. The consequences are just as Liu Zhenya, a Chinese energy expert, said at the United Nations Climate Summit: the current global climate change situation is severe. Since the Industrial Revolution, the average global surface temperature has risen by nearly 0.9℃. If effective measures are not taken as soon as possible, the global temperature rise will exceed 4℃ by the end of this century, bringing disasters such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels, reduced food production, and species extinction, which will seriously threaten human survival and development. It is obvious that traditional fossil energy is bound to come to an end and is unsustainable.

Continuing to rely on fossil energy to maintain human development is like licking blood from a knife's tip and drinking poison to quench thirst. So how can we find a solution? The construction of a global energy internet has become one of the key links in solving the problem.

2. Green pursuit of building a global energy internet

In the past 20 years, in order to cope with the increasingly serious climate change and environmental pollution, the world's major economies have continued to negotiate and adopt carbon reduction, carbon pricing, carbon trading, carbon tariffs and other methods to solve the problem of carbon emissions and global warming. Solving the problem with institutional constraints is only focusing on the external factors at the energy utilization level, but the fundamental thing is to seek a solution from the internal factors of energy itself. To achieve green development of the global economy and society, it is necessary to change energy itself. This change is essentially an energy revolution. The energy revolution is the prelude to every industrial revolution. What is the way forward for the third industrial revolution? It should be said that the global energy Internet is a solution to the new energy revolution.

What is the Global Energy Internet? Mr. Liu Zhenya summarized it at the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit in New York: The Global Energy Internet is a global energy configuration platform with UHV power grid as the backbone grid (channel) and mainly for the transmission of clean energy. It can connect large clean energy bases and various centralized and distributed power sources to deliver clean energy to various users. In energy development, clean substitution is implemented, fossil energy is replaced by clean energy, and the transition from fossil energy to clean energy is realized; in energy consumption, electric energy substitution is implemented, coal and oil are replaced by electricity, and the proportion of electric energy in terminal energy consumption is increased, fundamentally solving the problems of fossil energy pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. In summary, it is the UHV power grid transmission, the smart grid management, and the most meaningful is the clean energy generation, which highlights that the value origin of the construction of the Global Energy Internet is the green energy development strategy.

Saving resources, breaking through bottlenecks, and ensuring energy security for the sustainable development of human society are the logical origins of the green development demands of the global energy Internet. Fossil energy such as oil and coal are becoming exhausted, but the rushing water, the passing wind, the shining sunshine, and the surging tides are endless. The world has more than 1 trillion kilowatt-hours of land wind power resources, more than 100 trillion kilowatt-hours of solar energy resources, and abundant hydropower, biomass energy, tidal, geothermal resources and other inexhaustible green energy. However, the distribution is extremely uneven. High-quality wind and solar energy resources are mainly concentrated in "one pole and one road" and large green energy bases on various continents. The existing ultra-high voltage power grid cannot meet the development and configuration needs in a large range, so that "distant water cannot quench near thirst". The global energy Internet can be said to be a good remedy for the symptoms.

Reversing the current situation of environmental pollution and climate change and returning green mountains and clear waters for human survival is the inevitable logic of the green development of the Global Energy Internet. The Global Energy Internet promotes clean substitution and electric energy substitution, that is, replacing fossil energy with clean energy, realizing the transformation from fossil energy as the main and clean energy as the auxiliary to clean energy as the main and fossil energy as the auxiliary; replacing coal with electricity and oil with electricity, promoting the application of electric boilers, electric heating, electric refrigeration, electric cooking and electric transportation, etc., increasing the proportion of electricity in terminal energy consumption, and reducing fossil energy consumption and environmental pollution. It can be seen that the green force of the Global Energy Internet is changing the production and living patterns of human beings through the energy "channel" with a multiplier or even exponential effect, eliminating the inherent paradigm left by industrial civilization, which can be said to be "green wind and cloud are everywhere".

3. Building the three-dimensional “green” effect of the global energy internet

As an energy revolution, the effects of the Global Energy Internet are not limited to energy itself. Its significance and value to the existence of human society will also extend to multiple fields and aspects.

First, the construction of the global energy internet has a good green ecological effect. Liu Zhenya specifically mentioned at the United Nations Climate Summit: Building a global energy internet to meet global electricity demand in a clean and green way, the proportion of clean energy will reach 80% by 2050, which can replace fossil energy equivalent to 24 billion tons of standard coal each year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 67 billion tons. By then, global carbon dioxide emissions can be controlled at around 11.5 billion tons, only about half of that in 1990, and the goal of controlling global temperature rise within 2°C can be achieved. These numbers are difficult to pry nerves for individuals or even a generation, but their significance to the existence of human beings from a distance is vital to life and death.

Secondly, the construction of the global energy internet has a good green human effect. The current energy pattern of "division among princes" determines that the world will never be able to get rid of disputes and even wars caused by resource bottlenecks. In fact, as long as the economic development of certain regions depends on the existence of resources, constant conflicts will be pre-programmed, because at this time national interests take precedence over global interests, and the resulting global hierarchy will inevitably hinder the generation of human peace. The construction of the global energy internet has an obvious "human harmony" effect. It can enhance South-South cooperation and North-South cooperation, transform the resource advantages of developing countries such as Asia, Africa, and South America into economic advantages, solve power shortages, eliminate poverty, narrow regional differences, reduce international disputes, and make the world a "global village" with sufficient energy, blue sky and green land, bright and peaceful and harmonious.