Javier Tomas Iener 2019

Publication of the II Congress of Electric Energy iENER´19 book

The book of the Second Conference on Electrical Engineering iENER´19 is now public. From here I show you how to download it and a summary of the central focus of my intervention.

iENER 2019

You can download it in the event webpage:

https://www.congresoiener.com

O directly from here:  my chapode between pages 1056 y 1106:

Download Now

The Great Revolution

We are at the gates of a great revolution. The way we have moved over the past 100 years is no longer valid for the future. We are aware that the evolution of humanity, thanks to the development of technologies based on fossil fuels, has been incredible. We have arrived where our ancestors could never have imagined and we enjoy superlative possibilities of movement.

Unfortunately, this successful model of our past must and will change radically for two main reasons. First, the fuel (oil) we have used to date is not infinite, its massive use is generating a major health problem for both people and planet Earth; it is simply unsustainable to continue in the same line. As a second reason for change, the need to reduce the number of vehicles circulating in our cities; we do not need cities collapsed at certain times, we must give way to other forms of movement that are more efficient for the activities we perform.

For this necessary revolution to take place, it is very important that each person internalize the problems that the current model of mobility generates around us and, above all, the future of our next generations. It is time to act, and for this understanding and training on technologies that allow us to change this situation is part of the key.

As we said before, in the last century we have had a great development. We have evolved a great deal as a society and partly thanks to the means of transporting fossil fuels. Nevertheless, if we want to continue moving forward without bringing the planet to collapse, we must evolve and change our habits.

Tomorrow’s energy

Transport consumes 27% of the energy produced in the world and in some countries this percentage is even higher. One example could be Spain, which accounts for 40%. If we want to move to a more sustainable world it is obvious that we have to take measures in the transport sector and the electric car is one of the ways to do this.

From the European Union there are important environmental objectives, reinforced since the Paris Agreement in 2015. Spain specifies them in the Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition. For all these legislative frameworks, there is a firm commitment to the transition to the electric car as a means of reducing pollutant emissions. By 2030, Spain should have a fleet of electric vehicles of between five and seven million units. In 2050, the final objective would be to achieve a totally decarbonized economy (that does not generate emissions) and that the cars that circulate on our roads are not polluting, whether they are electric vehicles or any alternative technology that ends up being imposed.

And in the incipient stage that we are, there is a lot of news around the electric car. Talking about what will happen in the future is always difficult, but many times some aspects that distort reality are confused. Despite this, it is undeniable that the European and national institutions are firmly committed to it, fighting to break down the existing barriers of traditionalism.

The future cities

One of the proofs of this could be the city of Madrid and its Central Madrid project, which has limited the circulation of polluting vehicles through the city center. The measure clearly favours the introduction of electric vehicles and associated new mobility concepts such as car sharing. In the last thirty years, Madrid has doubled its population, the more people live in the urban nucleus, the more pollution there is, and solutions must be implemented to protect the health of citizens.

Neither is it a unique case at world level, but there are also other cities at European level with similar policies such as Amsterdam, whose low emission zone is four times greater than that of Madrid, Berlin (19 times greater) or London (1580 times greater).

The electric car as one of the solutions.

In this trend, it seems clear that electric cars help reduce emissions in our cities since they do not emit CO2 while driving. Cities are where 68% of the 2050 population is expected to live. But can we say that the electric car is 100% clean?

We can say that it is 100% clean when it circulates, but it is not when we think about the origin of the energy we use to charge the electric car. If the energy is obtained from thermal power stations that use fossil fuels, in a certain way we are also polluted.

Even so, it is true that it is already a very important advantage to be able to reduce (if possible eliminate) the pollution of the urban centers of our cities. From then on, little by little these polluting thermal power stations must be replaced by renewable energies. The energy coming from these clean energies has sometimes reached 40% of the total energy produced.

We need to eliminate pollution from our cities, it is the place where more people live and where more people can be affected. In Spain there are more than 24,000 premature deaths due to poor air quality, which is 15 times more than deaths from traffic accidents (according to report on air quality of the city of Madrid Ecologistas en Acción).

Another advantage of using the electric car comes through its engine. The motor of the electric car is three or four times more efficient than the motor of a combustion car. That’s because an electric car doesn’t need the large amount of parts that are needed in the combustion car and that waste energy.

 

 

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