ESG Economist - Heating technologies to reduce emissions
In this ESG economist we start with an overview of what the current sources of heat in the EU and the Netherlands. Then we highlight the alternative sources of heat and their technologies. This is followed by an overview of all the pros and cons of every technology followed by a conclusion.
Data from Eurostat show that heat in the EU is mainly produced from natural gas (48%) solid biofuels, renewable wastes (33%) and coal (20%). The composition differs per country. For the Netherlands there is almost no coal used and natural gas takes a 55% share followed by solid biofuels and renewable waste (25%). The share of the other renewables are very low in EU and in the Netherlands.
To move away from fossil fuels and reaching net zero for heating is a complex task
One option is to burn fuels or mass that emit less or no emissions such as synthetic fuels including bio-fuels and bio-mass.
But these fuels are not all zero carbon, they are expensive, production is limited, and some technologies are not commercially available yet. Replacing fossil fuels by synthetic fuels is in terms of infrastructure often the easiest option.
Another option is to absorb heat from other sources such as the sun, ground, air, water or rest heat. These technologies are expensive, some need a substantial upfront investment for the infrastructure and they are not suitable for every application. However, these technologies are efficient and very promising
The last option is to create heat from electricity. These are less efficient than the previous option while the renewable electricity needs to be used to result in zero emissions
So there are several options but these options are currently more expensive than burning fossil fuels
These alternative heating technologies need to become more affordable, supply/availability needs to increase and the use of fossil fuels needs to become more expensive.
Please check the download for full article