Bulletin of PPTE2050 no. 1 (7) /2023 – introduction

Russia’s assumption of the presidency of the UN Security Council
provides the final closure in the loop that has motivated the author’s series (JP)
of polemical statements arguing for the hypothesis that the energy transformation
has already become the main battle line in the clash of civilizations for a new global political order
(Statements originating in the Introduction to the Bulletin RE in May 2022,
and continued in the PPTE2050 Bulletins in August 2022 and RE in November 2022).
After the closure of the causal loop, this painful diagnosis is seen to be not unfair.
As did the fallen political establishment of the Euro-Atlantic zone
want to tame Putin for two decades, incapable as it was of opposing his corporations
and oligarchs with interests in Russia (mainly concerning energy, but not only),
so now the societies of this zone, step by step, are sliding,
through resignation, and even a flight from freedom, into a black hole of entropic chaos.
Due to a photosynthesis of authoritarian origin,
this hole is teeming with life of random nature.
And it is not naive, after a painful diagnosis, to hypothesize that electroprosumerism
resting on the paradigmatic triplet of electric monism at its base, simultaneously has great potential
for global social transformation, without which the global political order necessary
for the modern world would not have a foundation.

 

The road to validating the hypothesis on the causative potential of the impact of the energy transformation sweeping the world on the new political order is bumpy. But on this path, even defeat is not in vain. This is determined by the strength of the paradigmatic and intuitive triplet of electric monism inherent in the potential of entropy measures and their three dimensions of transformation: socio-political, technological-economic, and environmental-climatic. In order to express, characterize, and transfer this intuition to the public space, the language of TETIPE [Polish words: energy transformation in breakthrough innovation mode to electroprosumerism] is needed. Language that will enable the building of new relationships in the public space will, in particular, help to reduce TETIPE’s cognitive delay. On the other hand, language will make it possible to limit the transmission of rapidly growing pathologies to the public space, the most important of which are the cognitive errors of the WEK-PK(iEJ) [Polish words: large-scale corporate fossil fuel – power industry, (including nuclear power)].

The first article (Electroprosumerism – more than climate neutrality and energy) presented in the Bulletin, includes a synthesis of earlier original language proposals of the TETIPE concept, and a significant extension of the same. However, it is primarily devoted to expanding the contextual use of the language of the concept in terms of its second paradigm (exergy) and first (socio-political) dimension. As a result, apart from energy entropy (understood as in thermodynamics), the article uses the concept of information and social (psycho-social) entropy.

The contextual extension of entropy is of particular importance because, in combination with entropy, apart from exergy (which is a standard in thermodynamics), it primarily allows for two other quantities: useful work and photosynthesis. The TETIPE concept opens the way to a good and unambiguous practical definition of markets. These are six domain electroprosumerism markets, three electroprosumerization grid electricity markets (two emerging and one declining), and two highly competitive grid-less electroprosumer markets (the first for devices and manufactured products, and the second for services). In addition, photosynthesis opens the way for entropy to be distinguished in the inanimate world (which is governed by thermodynamics) and the living world (which is of interest to biology).

This is a significant distinction from a theoretical point of view because photosynthesis, freeing the living world from the inevitability of entropy increase in the inanimate world, gives it a chance to be reborn. And since the socio-political world is a living world, it also has the same chance. At the same time, it is an opportunity undoubtedly related to the new global political order, although how it is to be used is still an open question, which is indicated in particular by the empirical process of shaping the Euro-Atlantic liberal order in two paths. The first is the path of socio-political thought. The second is the path of the industrial and digital revolutions (all with the energy sector in the background) along with radical social changes running in parallel. However, these matters are qualitatively different. It would, indeed, be dangerous to abandon the flow of human affairs to the revolutionary chaos of empiricism. Yet, hopes that the academy will lead things in the right direction are also unjustified. The inevitability of Copernicus’s law is evident: bad money drives out good. Thus, after the fall and degradation of elites (especially political), a rebirth and renaming must take place, the return of the ethos elites.

At this point, the question of the power of electroprosumerism in the game of civilization ceases to be a banality. However, to confirm its presence, stronger practical tools are needed to understand the essence of the complexity of electroprosumerism from the perspective of the total complexity of the modern world. The system of control shields is such a tool, providing a method that practically strengthens the contextual extension of the meaning of entropy and greatly facilitates the understanding of the importance of electroprosumerism on the way to a new political order. This method, which includes three compatible electroprosumerization systems of control shields (subjective electroprosumer shields, objective infrastructural and objective market shields) is, according to the TETIPE concept, an extension of the system of local and global thermodynamic shields. It is easy to see in this extension that thermodynamic shields with a terrestrial dimension collide not only with social shields but also environmental and climate shields, thus demanding a balancing of the consumption and production of energy on a galactic scale.

In order to understand the breakthrough nature of TETIPE and appreciate the meaning of electroprosumerism in the journey to a new global political order it is essential to take account of the second article of the Bulletin (Electrotechnologies, industry 4.0 and combined heat and power in the aspect of TETIPE). Although I had dedicated many years to searching for the essence of electroprosumerism from a broad perspective, I was not fully aware of the potential effect of practical actions on this path in my immediate environment. It was only at the stage of editorial work related to the second article that it became clear how a common linguistic term (electroprosumerism) could accelerate the discovery of the essence of the TETIPE concept by people with different experiences, specifically the authors of the second article and the editor of the Bulletin. Furthermore, It is clear that the paradigmatic triplet of electric monism, electrotechnologies (including combined heat and power systems both industrial and municipal, and industry 4.0 is quite necessary. This is especially true in the context of small and medium-size enterprises that need to cooperate with large corporate industrial players (Polish and global). This mutual need for the paradigmatic triplet and technological business practice is, without a doubt, a powerful and precious extension of the query of the verification concept and confirmation of the main hypotheses of TETIPE presented in the first article of the Bulletin.

The third article of the Bulletin (The role of control shields of local government units in the electroprosumerization of Poland) concerns the transmission of the current fossil fuel energy sector to the local government electroprosumerization control shields. JST [Polish words: local government unit], covering practically all national subjective electroprosumerization shields comprises a promising announcement of the possibility of creating a highly needed set of directories in a short time. For this set, the author of this foreword proposes the abbreviation ZKSE(JST) [Polish words: set of electroprosumerization standardization directories (local government unit)]. This represents a set of standardization directories needed by local government departments for standard quantities associated with control shields such as annual demand profile with hourly and other resolutions, marginal annual cost profile of electricity supply, structure (mix) of RES sources and electroprosumerization trajectory TETIPE (A→B).

Three review articles, initially collated in the Bulletin, show that the use of the TETIPE concept provides a significant advance in describing the complexity of the energy transformation unfolding around the world. In practice, it is currently being implemented in the form of political goals. At the same time, the irrevocable need to deal with the further expansion of this complexity is being revealed, which stands beyond the limits of the interests of politicians. In particular, it shows the inadmissibility of omissions regarding part of the complexity in the political transformation, the great importance of which in the TETIPE concept is suggested by entropy analysis. In the case of Poland, this immediately indicates three areas of complexity. Those omitted in the light of geopolitics in early 2023 are already unacceptable and form a natural extension of the complexity of TETIPE, a sanctioned feature of its concept.

1. From a broad (global) perspective, it is necessary to confront the TETIPE (A→B) trajectory more forcefully with the logic of processes typical of modern times (over the last three hundred years) including the development of the empirical sciences, three industrial revolutions, the construction of fossil fuel energy power, the digital revolution, and the development of biotechnology. The most crucial condition for the improvement of the TETIPE concept resulting from this logic and very useful for Poland is the abandonment of the exponential growth paradigm of the existing energy sector. Extremely high-entropy growth and quantitative energy well-being need to be replaced by qualitative well-being in people’s lives.

2. Secondly, it is necessary to gradually build the resistance of the TETIPE concept to the threats inherent in the current behavior of politicians, both in the world and in Poland to an extreme extent, in combining energy security and military security. The inconsistent actions of the government and parliament in constructing nuclear energy facilities on a scale of 1000-1600 MW, as well as SMRs, pumped-storage power plants, and large investment programs for the expansion of power grids constitute clear evidence. Above all, this shows the Polish establishment’s lack of understanding that this is a recipe for the destruction of energy security. Just one regulation means opening the possibility of attacking large-scale nuclear energy infrastructure (1000-1600 MW units, LV transmission networks, pumped-storage power plants) with tactical nuclear warheads (improved in parallel with SMR technology development programmes). At this point, it is worth looking at the complexity of the energy transformation which needs to be examined through the prism of the following sequence of experiences of the last eighty years: construction of an atomic bomb and a hydrogen and parallel nuclear power plants → ineffective moral protest of the most eminent nuclear physicists (including Fermi) against the use of two atomic bombs (on the Japanese front) and their (physicists) moving into the field of biological research → a significant acceleration in the development of biotechnology, which in authoritarian political systems are used to develop biological weapons → and finally the digital revolution that has made information wars possible. This complexity can, and should, be studied with the tools of entropy analysis. This is an analysis whose usefulness can be expressed in the case of the TETIPE concept by a portmanteau: electroprosumerism, in other words as much physics as possible in technology, and as much morality as possible in the market.

3. Thirdly, it is necessary to build an internal social balance in the TETIPE concept gradually, ensuring a balance between freedom and responsibility in the new political order. In practical terms, this is about the balanced principle of subsidiarity, a principle that will primarily balance energy poverty, the scope of subsidizing innovation, and the amount of taxes. The danger in this aspect is immediately noticeable if you focus on the most straightforward thing: in the energy sector, Poland has already become a land of competition for subsidies, rather than market innovation, as has the European Union as a whole.

Jan Popczyk

 

English version: Tomasz Kraszewski