What do you do if climate change threatens the future of the energy sector?

If climate change is threatening the future of the energy sector, the first thing it tells me is that carbon forward generation sources must go, period. Coal, oil & gas may keep the lights on & provide jobs in many places, but what good are those jobs if we don't have a planet to live on? It goes back to the old cartoon about climate change deniers at an int'l conference - "What if we put all this money into energy independence, sustainability, green jobs, livable cities, renewable energy, clean air & water, & it all turns out to be a hoax?" Yes, it'll cost money to shift to a world that runs on carbon free energy, but when the alternative is a dead planet & the end of humanity, what choice do we have?

Energy security is one the key challange in light of climate change and mitigating adverse climate conditions. Various options for energy supply chain to be explored/ assessed using tools including evaluation of technical and financial risks. Distributed energy system with less dependency on several geographical supply chain to be considered as a critical parameter in decision making for each energy system. Proper assessment and evaluation is important considering future scenarios such tapping of low carbon energy systems

Transitioning to renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, improvements in energy efficiency can lower overall demand and lessen reliance on fossil fuels. These changes are essential for mitigating climate change and ensuring a sustainable future for the energy sector.

If CC threatens the future of the energy sector, proactive measures are essential. Firstly, investing in RE sources like solar, wind, and hydroelectric power can mitigate reliance on fossil fuels, reducing carbon emissions. Additionally, implementing energy-efficient technologies and practices across industries and households can curtail energy consumption. Collaborating with policymakers to enact climate-friendly regulations and incentives for sustainable energy initiatives is crucial. Furthermore, fostering innovation in energy storage solutions can enhance resilience to climate-related disruptions. Lastly, raising awareness and promoting sustainable lifestyles can drive behavioral changes to support a greener future.

Begin by conducting a thorough risk assessment to understand how climate change can specifically affect your energy systems. Based on more recent studies of 10-years, rather than 50-years historical data, should point to locations where extreme weather events are likely to occur. Extreme heat, cold or flooding events can be mitigated by building (B)ESS for backup generation and ancillary services for grid resiliency and reliability. Additional resilience can be added by grid fail-safes, redundancy, smart monitoring and early warning systems, from more extreme fires, tornadoes etc. A comprehensive risk assessment and revisited every 5-years, is crucial for informed decision-making and prioritization of mitigation efforts.

Deploying the renewable energy technologies that are currently available is critical. At the same time, demand side measures, and investment in new technologies should receive equal investment. The transition to clean energy is critically important to the planet and requires a “yes, and”, “all of the above” approach while we continue to work toward decarbonization of the energy sector.

Should we build more renewables to mitigate climate change? Yes of course! But is our grid capable of handling it? Not as of today. Hence as we build more renewables and energy storage, efforts to modernise the grid has to happen in parallel. On the policy side, right incentives like locational pricing (when the time's right) have to be put in place for renewable generators to mitigate negative pricing scenario. The point is not only to have greater proportions of renewables in the energy mix for the sake of it, but also a reliable energy infrastructure to ensure quality and availability for everyone.

Climate Change is a long term phenomenon with immediate short term effects. To mitigate with respect to energy transition consequences — we must understand how long term intersects with current events. For example — Climate Change alters not only mean values for meteorological variables but also their tail distributions. As we build out renewables we have to factor in extreme weather; how that can contribute to intermittency in renewables; how that can potentially trigger brownout in some cases unless we have sufficient capacity to mitigate generation losses due to extreme weather events. As with any complex system we need to design for robustness and build in resilience mechanisms that can deal with variable weather.

This is something quite important. As energy sector deeply affect climate change, so climate change has big impact on the energy sector This faces multiple threats from climate change, in particular, from extreme weather events and increasing stress on water resources. Greater resilience to climate change impacts will be essential to the technical viability of the energy sector by upgrading infrastructures and incorporating climate elements in réalisation of new energy systems

The answer has been right in front of us for 75 years. Nuclear. There is no greener or safer source of energy. Anyone who professes to be for the planet needs to be advocating for it.

Building resilient energy systems, including to climate change, is more than upgrading and making infrastructure resilient. It means creating redundancy in your system that can be activated when necessary and, importantly, creating decision making processes that preview upcoming potential events and can take actions quickly and correctly. That’s why we are working with the WMO on creating tools and real-time AI-based mechanisms that, coupled with climate forecasting services, can provide decision makers with the right set of options to face the embedded uncertainty when dealing with climate events in the uncharted territory that we have embarked on

Transitioning to renewable energy is mandatory. We have no choice. Countries like Norway, Iceland, Uruguay produce more than 70% of their energy from renewable sources. However, intermittent nature of renewable energy needs a storage in the form of battery and hydrogen. Sooner we are able to bring down the cost of storage , faster would be the transition!!

Developing micro grids. Micro grids are helping improving grid resilience against wildfire threat. They are already coming back in 🇺🇸 since a few years in areas exposed to severe wildfires, for national security reasons (California). They can minimize power shutoff during massive electrical grid disruption. #SmallIsBeautiful.

This is a tricky thing to achieve. The energy sector is a traditional sector and the teams are generally heterogenic both in gender and other factors. To have a diverse team and to be able to speak up, have enough psychosocial safety and be able to collect all ideas, is a key to creating a innovative culture. Also, the way of work often relates to asset owning with operation and maintenance. To foster an innovation culture within these organisations is challenging and sometimes the innovation needs to be brought up outside the companies and then be incorporated. It comes down to which type of leaders the organization chooses, if the company are going to have a successful new solution or not.

Innovation is speed: the more we are able to enter in the market with a fast pacing, the more credible we can be both internally in the organization and externally with stakeholders (customers, but not only) Entering in a phased approach with minimum viable products for then scaling up later in terms of performances is key (when clearly possible)

In addition to adapting to climate change, innovation is much needed in the ways we use energy. Since it is a big challenge to connect renewable energy systems to grids, producing green hydrogen and then using it as energy storage source is a reliable way to expand production of renewable energy. In doing so, social and political innovation is essential in addition to technological innovation. Huge investment in Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCVs) and hydrogen energy projects will be required which will only be possible with the support of governments.

Climate threats to the energy sector, fostering innovation is paramount. Invest in R&D for technologies and advanced energy solutions. Collaborate with startups, academia, and industry to develop resilient and sustainable innovations. Innovation drives adaptation, ensuring a thriving energy future in a changing climate.

I disagree with that. The risk that energy sector poses to the ecosystem and mother earth is much larger than the risk to energy sector. Energy companies must realize the risks of climate change and global warming before it's too late. Governmental policies should focus on subsidizing the clean energy projects and introducing/increasing carbon tax.

Climate threats to the energy sector, policy advocacy is essential. Lobby for regulations favoring renewable energy adoption and carbon reduction. Advocate for incentives to spur green investment. Strong policies drive the transition to a sustainable energy landscape.

Until the impacts of climate change are overwhelming and eliminate all the FUD and arguing, humans will chip away but not get there till we have a broad consensus...

This is the main item where especially at industrial/commercial level is frequently labelled as “waste of time”. This is absolutely not - rather than the contrary: any action (from upgrading current infrastructures to leveraging new forms of energy) will require consensus and alignment across stakeholders: communities, people, public entities. Each one of us is not only running its own role: has to become a promoter/manager of sustainability.

For running energy transition projects it is needed one additional point to the usual business plan: credibility. We need to be credible when we declare that we want to change the current status quo on energy efficiency, emissions and sustainability: for making it real, the transition has to happen also on the culture of the company - fresh new people, “believers” and leaders that are there not only for a matter of career path but because they really feel such item as a mission.

I do not understand he word "if" in the question above. And isn't it rather the future of civilisation (= you and me) than of just the energy sector which is under threat?

One extra solution we can adapt is to enhance energy consumption patterns for all kinds of consumers; industrial, commercial, residential ..etc through effective energy management which will continually improve energy efficiency and decrease total consumption in a systematic way. many people don't know the fact that energy efficiency practices can have more positive impact than injecting new renewables into the grid but, if we raise awareness and perform sustainable measures, we can reach wonderful results that would increase our resilience and minimize the risks.

This question seems like a bit of a canard. The world ceases to function without reliable energy, and climate change means we adapt how we produce and store energy by force or choice. If we are smart, we will choose to take a holistic and proactive approach rather than a reactive one. I don't believe, however, that the flow of energy halts or ceases due to climate change. If that were to occur, the cataclysmic events likely coinciding with this would signify far more significant problems for mankind. Opportunities often lie within the problems themselves if we are willing to be bold enough to take accountability. There is abundant energy in things we waste. It may be possible to create energy and improve the environment at the same time.

The problem here is that this article is written from the perspective of 'saving' the energy system that is part of the problem, not the solution. merely adding 'renewables,' strengthening infrastructure, etc., will not build the resilience that SOCIETY needs, That resilience will come to the extent that we redesign the energy system so that energy production is distributed among clusters of users, not transmitted all across the country. Local community energy with regional backup capacity is far more efficient, effective, and secure. Well, I should say, "would be," since the existing system is so centralized.