Renewable Energy is Reshaping the Global Energy Landscape
TapTechNews on June 18th. Over the past hundred years, natural gas and oil have been the driving forces of economy and industrial development. Oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, Total Energies, ConocoPhillips and Eni dominate the global energy market and are known as the 'Seven Sisters', symbolizing an unshakable position and influence. However, with the rise of renewable energy, this pattern is quietly changing.
TapTechNews noticed that the well-known columnist David Fickling in Europe and the US who focuses on climate change and energy issues pointed out in an article in Bloomberg last weekend that we should re-examine the energy giants, because it's not the oil or gas itself that really provides energy, but the energy stored in the chemical bonds. Similarly, what solar equipment manufacturers provide is not just simple silicon and glass panels, but a machine that can obtain energy from the sun. Both sets of traditional energy and new energy companies provide new useful energy to the world every year, but in many ways, photovoltaic companies have already surpassed large oil companies.
The article said that the world's seven largest oil giants (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, French energy giant Total, BP, ConocoPhillips and Eni) extract about 40 exajoules of oil energy from the ground every year, equivalent to about 18 million barrels of oil per day. In contrast, the power generation of solar panels produced by China's seven major solar companies (Tongwei Co., Ltd., GCL Technology, Xinte Energy (under Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co., Ltd.), LONGi Green Energy, Trina Solar, JA Solar and Jinko Solar, also known as the 'New Energy Seven Sons') is about 5 exajoules, which at first glance seems far less than the former. However, this number does not take into account the losses in the process of oil combustion nor the lifetime power generation of solar panels, but only calculates the power generation in one year. Most modern solar panels have a 25-year warranty, while the oil drilled by oil companies burns out in a few months.
According to Fickling's rough estimate, only about a quarter of the energy extracted from the oil wells of oil companies can be converted into useful electricity. Fickling then performed a similar conversion to the equipment that uses solar energy, and a relatively simple conclusion can be drawn.
The results show that in terms of the useful energy produced annually, the current largest polysilicon producer, Tongwei, can already compete head-on with some of the largest European and American oil companies such as BP, Eni and ConocoPhillips, and other panel manufacturers are not too far behind. If Tongwei continues to implement the plan announced last December to build a 400,000 tons high-purity polycrystalline silicon project and supporting facilities in Inner Mongolia to nearly double its current production, then it may even surpass the 'big brother' of the European and American oil industry, ExxonMobil.
If considering the products that these two types of companies can produce without a large amount of investment - by comparing the geological reserves of oil companies with the products that solar companies can produce before the equipment is depreciated, clean energy is obviously in the lead.
Fickling said that if you look at the long-term energy support that each solar panel can bring to the global economy, it is actually several times that of the oil extracted by large oil companies.
The article finally points out that the first industrial revolution enabled the rise of coal-rich Britain, Germany and the United States, and the rise of crude oil brought power and wealth to Russia and the Middle East, while consolidating the global leadership position of the United States. The countries that control the lifeblood of these energy flows often become the hegemons of various eras.
Today, only in China, there are seven companies that have greater say in the energy supply of the 21st century than the dominant 'Seven Sisters of Oil' in the 20th century. The US' suppression of China's clean energy technology may be out of concern for this pattern change.