Yasmin Ali on how energy gets from remote parts of the world to your home

Getting hold of energy can be done in many different ways. It has shifted over the years and is transitioning around us right now from fossil fuels to renewables. Extracting the fossil fuels that we so heavily rely on – coal, oil and gas – involves drilling rigs and platforms in the middle of the sea, helicopters, boats and a rich history.

Another historically significant energy resource is nuclear power – starting out as a weapon but morphing into a carbon dioxide emissions-free energy source. Luckily for humans, there is plenty of energy hitting the Earth from the sun; not only is this responsible for the coal, oil and gas reserves we rely on, but also some of our renewable energy sources. Over time, we have learned to harness these energy resources by converting them into heat, light, movement and electricity.

Once we get these resources and convert them into a useful form, they need to move from the point where they are converted to the point where they get used. Oil can be extracted from a well in the Saudi Arabian desert, but it then has to travel through a pipeline to a refinery to be processed, before traversing the ocean in huge oil ships, and being poured into the cylindrical drum of a truck to get to a remote petrol station to fill up the pumps. Only then can you fill up a car with petrol.

Likewise, natural gas flows through pipelines snaking along the seabed, then criss-crosses its way through overground and underground pipes to get to a gas hob before you can cook a meal.

The electricity that powers our lights and laptops, however, is tricky. Unlike oil and gas, it’s not easy to store. This means electricity demand and supply has to be carefully matched, second by second. Storing electricity to use later, by taking advantage of chemical reactions in batteries or in pumped hydropower stations, means more electricity from renewables like wind and solar can be used.

Once the energy is in the form we want it, and we’ve moved it to where it needs to be, there are many different types of end users. The largest consumers of energy are the heating and cooling of homes, transporting of people and goods, and the manufacturing industries. Huge amounts of energy are used to heat and cool our environments, and as summers get hotter, air conditioning will become more essential – consuming more electricity, exacerbating greenhouse gas emissions. This highlights the urgent need for renewable electricity, and alternative home designs and technologies for cooling.

Industry makes the stuff we use, directly and indirectly. For example, fertiliser is needed to grow food – and fertiliser relies on the manufacture of ammonia, which consumes large amounts of energy. Steel, cement and glass are the main ingredients of our built environment, and producing these materials uses up (you guessed it) lots of energy.

Cars, buses, trains, planes and ships guzzle fuel to get us around and to transport the things we want and need from one place to another. The birth of the internal combustion engine is very closely linked to the enormous rise in oil consumption that the globe has seen over the past hundred years or so; it will take a huge cultural shift to change this.

Likewise, international travel is becoming a staple of many people’s lives, which brings different people and cultures together, but planes release greenhouse gases, damaging the planet – another area where low carbon alternatives are urgently needed.

It is a similar story for shipping, with fragile island nations like the Marshall Islands being most at risk from climate change yet still reliant upon fossil fuel-powered boats to travel between the islands.

The world is a completely different place today compared to the days of the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, energy also enables the digital revolution, a major turning point for our society. The internet, vital for everyday activities, relies on an enormous energy supply, as does our use of smartphones and laptops. And in the future, as our lives become increasingly dependent on and intertwined with digital technologies like artificial intelligence, reliable energy supplies will become ever more crucial for everything from medical procedures to security systems.

But beyond these big systemic building blocks and the technical engineering involved, energy is underpinned by people – none of this is possible without them, and any changes will be implemented by the people in the energy industry. It is not a faceless monolith, even though that can be how it comes across at times.

I am one of those people making this global network a well-oiled machine, allowing you to effortlessly turn lights on, cook your food, travel across the globe, stay warm when it’s snowing and cool when it’s baking hot, use a computer and all the countless other conveniences that these days we just couldn’t live without.

This is an extract from Power Up: An Engineer’s Adventures into Sustainable Energy (Hodder Press, £22).

Buy a copy from Blackwell’s here.

Yasmin Ali studied Chemical Engineering at university, completed a two-year graduate scheme with E.ON, worked in oil and gas exploration and production for about five years, then took a role as the control room manager for E.ON’s district heating business. She then transitioned away from fossil fuels into more sustainable energy systems, and now works in hydrogen. In addition, Yasmin has given many talks about engineering and energy. In recognition of her public engagement work, she has been awarded and shortlisted for multiple industry awards, including the 2020 Women’s Engineering Society’s top 50 female engineers in sustainability.

Yasmin is our guest on A Drink with the Idler this Thursday 9 May 6-7pm. Free to subscribers.

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