So many what-if moments of possible energy development

The energy infrastructure we have today is the result of thousands of years of technological development, during which the systems evolved based on what had and hadn’t been invented, and where. The Romans had everything they needed to develop a steam engine, but they didn’t. Where would humanity be today if we had almost 2,000 more years of industrialization?

The existence of legacy systems significantly affects the speed with which we design and install energy systems based on the latest technologies. Systems that have already been designed, installed and mostly or completely paid for, can be exceptionally hard for new systems to compete with.

If we were designing today’s energy systems from scratch, based on the technologies we have now, without consideration of pre-existing systems, they’d look different. Here in Western Washington:

We’d still have large-scale hydroelectric dams. They would have been designed with more consideration about fish populations than they originally were, but their advantages are still relevant. Dams are very low-cost, reliable, durable energy generation systems. Through their ability to reverse the flow of water during periods of time when energy is inexpensive, they have the added capability of being able to store large quantities of energy. Pumped hydroelectric systems are, even with the cost of batteries having fallen precipitously in recent years, the least-expensive, most reliable large-scale energy systems available. Their use helps to stabilize the electric grid and keep prices down, no matter what the other sources of grid energy are.

We’d have much more solar energy installed in advantageous locations, e.g., on water reservoirs, where they help to prevent evaporation and are cooled by the water. This type of installation is likely to become far more common going forward from this point, because solar panel costs are still falling, and because it’s generally easier to put new generation systems in where the legacy transmission infrastructure already exists (e.g., at large existing dams).

We’d have more wind energy, especially offshore wind, which can be located in places that would otherwise be at the end of the transmission infrastructure. Putting wind turbines among the San Juans, for instance, would provide low-cost renewable energy for the islands themselves, and/or would allow for some energy to be sent to the western side of Skagit County. Local generation would reduce the need to build transmission and distribution infrastructure to deliver energy from as far away as Montana. Some artificial lakes to couple this additional wind with local pumped hydro storage, and/or inexpensive heat storage systems, possibly including cooperative district heating systems like those used in East Coast locations that still have steam heat, would probably have been invented earlier, and would be more common.

Whether wind is developed in this manner or not, it’s likely that we will indeed see an increase in the use of both energy storage and district heating/cooling systems here in Western Washington. Thanks to the existence of the legacy transmission infrastructure, these systems might wind up being powered by California solar energy rather than local wind, but both are possible.

Energy use systems would be affected. There wouldn’t be any fluorescent lights; they’d all be LEDs. This is likely to happen by 2030. Heat pumps would be more common … and will become so as new construction takes place. And, there would be more electric cars.