Introduction
Every year, on average, a household consumes roughly 10900 kWh of energy. For every 1 tWH (terawatt-hour) of power produced from brown coal, 32.7 deaths occur from air pollution. Thus, for the consumption of energy by 92000 households (assuming only brown coal), 33 people die. Though this may seem like a minimal impact as relatively few people died from a toxic source, the deaths aren’t the only important consequence.
In addition to the “potential irreversible consequences” of global warming because of fossil fuels, “[r]esearchers suspect that polluted air can cause changes in your DNA that may raise your chance of [lung cancer].” Without a doubt, there may be some alarming consequences of consistent exposure to polluted air. However, in times like these, when there is complete uncertainty, it is surprising to see that there are some significant benefits due to quarantine from COVID-19. I am not suggesting that COVID-19 was a beneficial event for the world, but it had some indirect regenerative effects on the atmosphere.
As shown from the image, there is a noticeable difference in the climate of the same Indian city just a few months after the COVID outbreak, and this wasn’t the only case where it happened. All around the world from Italy to China, there were clear changes in the climate after just a few weeks of quarantine. This raised questions among the top clean energy advocates: how did this happen? How was something that we have been advocating for so long, accomplished in a matter of weeks? Many have clear evidence that the hidden culprit was the decrease in the use of energy amongst the public.
According to the Brattle Group, “Coal-fired generation appears to have the greatest lost production, due to reduced load and lower competing fuel costs, with some forecasters predicting it will decline 25% this year.” Since coal is the most environmentally damaging among fossil fuels, it is beneficial that it has decreased in production during quarantine. Investigating further into the phenomena associated with COVID, there is a clear correlation between decrease in pollution and the spread of the virus. Such evidence has led me to believe that COVID’s impact on public energy has directly influenced and improved what we call our social determinants of health (SDOH).
Public Energy before COVID-19
With a countless variety of energy sources, it has been hard for one single source to dominate. However, since the industrial revolution, our energy production, for the majority, has been from fossil fuels.
This is clear from the graph that shows coal as the leading energy source by production, and it is much higher than any other energy source by a massive margin. It is quite dismal to see that many renewable energy sources that have serious potential to be scaled up to the level of coal, haven’t been used adequately. According to Visual Capitalist, “Untapped Potential?...[T]he potential for renewables is far beyond existing generation capacity. In fact, humans are just using 0.81% of solar’s potential generation capacity, and 0.57% of the potential from wind.”
In addition to the fact that only 27% of the world’s power comes from renewable energy sources, it is clear that there is room to switch to a far more beneficial and non-toxic energy source that would substantially improve our environmental footprint. Sadly, this type of thought process isn’t found in our elected officials, which is something that needs to change for us to reverse our own mistakes, especially with upwards of 60% of energy produced from merely oil and coal.
For a long period of time, nuclear energy was rising in popularity to a point in which it may have been a candidate for #1 in production. But, with disasters like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, the stigma and opinions surrounding nuclear power have become very negative. This is why coal continues to lead in energy consumption/production and it results in heavy increases in pollution and deaths each year. However, COVID-19 may have tempered down this problem--temporarily.
COVID-19 Impact on Public Energy
As mentioned earlier, Coal has taken a huge nosedive in production to a point where many experts are expecting a decline of 25% this year. Without a doubt, there has been a substantial decrease in the use of oil, a leading fossil fuel, reaching a record low of $37 a barrel. Furthermore, “Natural gas prices have fallen by an average of 20% since early February...Summer-to-winter natural gas spreads at Henry Hub have doubled due to lower near-term demand and expected lower associated gas production.” Without demand and the need for energy, our economy can’t sustain itself. But to truly understand why there has been such a large decrease in demand in terms of energy consumption it is important to understand how it all started. According to the Congressional Research Service, “Electricity demand is determined…by... economic activity. Economic activity in recent months declined across the country, as governments took actions to slow the spread of COVID-19. These actions forced many businesses to close or curtail operations.” In fact, according to the CRS, the electricity demand in several states dropped by 13% in March and April 2020 compared to previous years. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects a 5.7% drop in annual electricity demand from 2019. If demand stays at this level for an extended period, a majority of power plants will become unprofitable, accelerating recent trends of switching towards a more green future. The country has taken on debt of $2 trillion as the federal government pushed capital to aid the failing economy. The thought process: by putting money in the hands of the American people, it will cause more spending from the citizens and it will keep the economy afloat. It is quite astonishing to see that in just a matter of months after COVID-19 spread rapidly, such devastating consequences are conspicuous. Despite this massive stimulus package that put money in the hands of American workers to boost the economy, small businesses are, still, completely in the dust. Not many are up and running, which is one of the main reasons why electricity consumption and demand has decreased so significantly. Although this situation has become increasingly worrisome and depressing for many families across America, important occurrences concerning the environment have happened. As mentioned above, harmful power plants have begun to close, finally opening a window for green energy to become more widespread. If power plants do end up becoming completely cost-inefficient, then it simply creates an opportune time for large corporations to change their environmental footprint for the better. However, these effects do raise a very important question: how does this temporary impact of COVID affect our future social determinants of health?
What are the Social Determinants of Health?
Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) are essentially the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work that shape health. These conditions can consist of their socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood, and physical environment, employment, social support networks, and access to health care, but why would we need to care about Social Determinants of Health?
“Addressing social determinants of health is important for improving health and reducing health disparities...Research shows that health outcomes are driven by an array of factors, including underlying genetics, health behaviors, social and environmental factors, and health care.” Though not one factor necessarily dominates the other, individual behavior such as smoking, diet, exercise, plays a major role. However, one should not solely judge their health on these factors and this is why it may seem that there might be a better definition for SDOH: “…while the factors and conditions considered here are referred to as ‘social determinants,’ they may be more aptly discussed as ‘influencers’ or ‘predictors’ rather than direct determinants of an individual’s or community’s health status.”
SDOH is simply an evaluation of the factors that may influence/predict your social and individual health. It should not be confused with something that measures your individual or community health. Each of these “influencers” are also something that large companies are trying to improve to better their SDOH: “‘Health in All Policies’ is an approach that incorporates health considerations into decision making across sectors and policy areas...It engages diverse partners and stakeholders to work together to promote health, equity, and sustainability, and simultaneously advance other goals such as promoting job creation and economic stability, transportation access and mobility, a strong agricultural system, and improved educational attainment.” Clearly, SDOH can be used for more than just personal health, improving business goals and their environmental footprint. But, most importantly, it is a clear indicator of COVID’s environmental impact, and what the energy sector’s future holds because of it. But first, it is important to examine how energy has impacted pollution and environmental health: a very large factor when it comes to social determinants of health.
The Public Energy Impact on the Environment
Without a doubt, everyone is actively aware that the production of energy has been quite devastating for the environment. This was vividly illustrated when UCSUSA.org stated, “More than 100,000 people have died in American coal mines—more than the number of servicemen lost in the Korean and Vietnam wars combined… [and] countless others suffer from its debilitating health effects; worldwide coal causes more deaths than natural disasters, homicide, road accidents, and measles combined.” Furthermore, with the increase in hydraulic fracturing in the US, natural gas and its implications have made a negative impact on the climate.
Evidently, because of the use of fossil fuels like coal, and natural gas, our environment has been polluted so heavily that it has drastically deteriorated public health. As shown from the pie chart above, 20% of SDOH is determined by social and environmental factors. Thus, because of this large issue associated with pollution and the dangerously high usage/consumption of energy in America, our SDOH has been negatively affected. In addition, our SDOH worsens as fossil fuels have become more popular. This rise has some serious implications, which means that oil is just fueling us in the wrong direction: “Oil is used for energy, in the form of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel… [and] [it’s] incredibly dirty: transportation is the largest source of carbon [and air] pollution in the United States and a major cause of asthma, bronchitis, and certain cancers…responsible for 5 million deaths per year.” As seen from both the graphic and the quote, it is clear that these are quite devastating, if not, fatal effects of the continual use of fossil fuels and pollutants. It has resulted in billions upon billions of tonnes of Carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and Mercury poured into the atmosphere. Many advocates of clean energy have protested against governments across the world in order to enact change, but nothing major has occurred, especially in the United States. However, after the occurrence of the COVID pandemic, it is clear that it has impacted our use of energy, and may effectively affect our mindset and priorities in implementing alternative energy sources over harmful fossil fuels.
COVID-19 Environmental Impact on SDOH
Recently, in April 2020, oil prices, for the first time in history, dropped to a negative. While such prices were short-lived, enduring low oil prices won’t be. Oil has been a substantial industry for a long time, and with such a devastating drop in prices from a pandemic, it may be the perfect time for large corporations to switch to a green alternative. Suddenly, the pandemic may seem to be the key to the greening of the oil industry. These unbalanced and odd outcomes of the COVID pandemic, according to several experts from EPRG, actually may inadvertently change the tide when it comes for energy production towards a more renewable generation: “These new low prices are especially bad for the International Oil Companies (IOCs) – the famous brands familiar to us in the west and around the world. There is a growing sense that oil could be so cheap in the coming years that the IOCs must finally recognize that there is no money for them there” Because they have some of the best engineers working for them, many suggest that IOCs should turn their attention towards retail sales of greener natural-gas derived fuels. It is quite startling in that, because of these record-low prices of oil, it has become expensive for these large IOCs to sell the oil, and it may be safer for them to move their priorities and business in the green/renewable energy market. This means that the lack of pollutants that are being released in the environment now may sustain over a longer period because of this shift. This shift has even reached a point where IOC companies must decide which type of energy sources they are going to focus on: “We [,experts,] suggest that they must now become hydrogen (and related ‘syn-fuel’) companies…Both Blue and Green Hydrogen will be important with the best hydrogen production processes requiring innovative science and technology...if we are to ensure climate policy progress.” Blue Hydrogen is essentially an energy source that would usually fit in the norm of what the IOCs would use rather than the alternative, a renewable version called Green Hydrogen. Though Blue Hydrogen’s process releases CO2, it isn’t harmful as long as the byproduct is managed carefully. The idea consists of taking the CO2 and giving it to trees and plants that need the compound for photosynthesis. This is a bit different from Green Hydrogen that is produced from water using renewable power. Though the processes may be quite different, there are some serious benefits and, finally, after a long time, large companies can feel safe and good about their environmental footprint. Furthermore, the IOCs actually may make a profit because of this shift: “Yes, the costs of change for the IOCs will be high, but so will revenue...We suggest that an important industrial transition may now be underway. It is a move involving, we hope, by the largest western energy companies belatedly turning towards a safer future for our global climate.” As the oil industry diminishes because of this crisis it has become increasingly clear to large IOCs, who have been some of the main contributors to pollution, that their past actions are not the right way to proceed, and a greener approach is favored. Also, because of this lack of economic value in fossil fuels, there is likely going to be a large dip in the industry and a large spike in the renewable space.
Many experts believe that at some point, this virus will lead to the collapse of the $25 trillion industry. In fact, the IEA (International Energy Agency) said that “the most severe plunge in energy demand since the second world war would trigger multi-decade lows for the world’s consumption of oil, gas, and coal while renewable energy continued to grow.” COVID has caused a steady rise in renewable energy due to the immense decrease in demand for fossil fuels. Thus, if permanently put in place, this will decrease carbon emissions for years to come, preventing additional pollution and further Global warming. Furthermore, because of these economic implications, Coal, the leading fossil fuel that causes the most deaths, actually is projected to decrease by 8%, and other fossil fuels are projected to fall by 5%. Meanwhile, renewable sources of energy are expected to increase by 5% to overall 30% of the world’s demand for electricity, a number never achieved before. Though many projects for starting up renewable energy sources in certain areas have been delayed, the renewable energy industry is going to continue growing past 2020, especially with many oil, gas, and coal companies trying to scamper for bankruptcy protection. Unsurprisingly, places like California and Texas have found that wind turbines and solar power produce electricity cheaper when compared to their polluting counterparts. However, one important question arises: isn’t this simply a temporary event? Aren’t large companies going to return to using fossil fuels once everything settles down and prices return to normal? Many say that normal is no longer an option or a possibility. With Russia and Saudi Arabia’s leaders creating a price war when it comes to oil, at one point, crude oil in America was trading at $25 a barrel, which is quite below the price needed to break even. It seems as though large and wealthy countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia are going to suffer tremendously from the direction that most of the world is steering toward: renewable energy. In effect, because these large countries are no longer breaking even due to the lack of demand, it has reached a point that Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, is hurrying to find a replacement for the leading profit channel: oil. From these extensive examples, it is clear that COVID has not only resulted in the successful persuasion of large companies to find alternative energy sources, but it has forced them into that decision through the economic challenges in simply staying in the fossil fuel industry.
Conclusion
Though COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on everyone’s lives and well-being, the future of green energy and pollution may be clearer because of it. Without a doubt, before the pandemic, public energy production was a growing cause for consistent pollution and global warming, but after COVID, the production has decreased to a point that cities all across the world can see an improvement in their air quality. Because of the decreasing trend of energy consumption, it is obvious that visible pollution and smog will diminish as well. The important revelation here is that this inevitable state we are in right now (in the context of the environment) isn’t temporary as companies are starting to realize that non-renewable energy sources are not going to be cost-effective any longer and that the initial investment in sustainable energy sources, though it may be daunting, has a far more profitable future.
Sources: The National Council, The Guardian (1), The Guardian (2), KFF, CRS Reports, Union of Concerned Scientists, Web MD, Brattle (1), Brattle (2), Forbes, NY Times, Our World In Data, Visual Capitalist, EPRG
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