The MIT Energy Initiative (MITIE) has completed a 3-year study of “Mobility of the Future” to plot a decarbonised pathway for light duty vehicles (i.e. cars) globally. Wide in scope and detail, it covers government policies, consumer choices and technologies, combining their multiple and complex impacts to make their assessments. Kathryn Luu at MITIE reviews the final 220-page report. For consumers, cost, convenience, and — increasingly — carbon … [Read more...]
The coalition for an EU-ETS carbon price floor is reaching critical mass
The EU Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) is bound to play a major role for ratcheting up climate policies in both the EU and its member states. After a prolonged period of low prices that questioned the ETS’s viability, the recent price run upwards in the wake of a major reform has sparked confidence that from now on “everything goes in the right direction”. But this confidence is misguided and ignores major risks for the scheme, argue Michael … [Read more...]
COP25: the “easy wins” are coming to an end. What now?
Lola Vallejo at IDDRI says the impressive wins we’ve seen so far in clean electrification are merely the easy “low hanging fruit”. Other big sectors like transport, buildings and industry have barely started to transition. As COP 25 convenes in Madrid this week, the world will want to know what promises will be made - via each country’s self-imposed enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - to meet the Paris goals, because the current … [Read more...]
Fossil fuel politics is changing: Big Oil, automakers split on Trump lowering standards
Cara Daggett at Virginia Tech has noticed a positive change in corporate support for the Transition. In the past, Big Oil and automakers would have opposed any limits to business-as-usual. But today, major oil companies, including BP and Royal Dutch Shell, are opposing U.S. President Trump’s intention to further deregulate methane emissions. That’s because they’ve invested heavily in natural gas as a bridge fuel for a clean future, which would … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 v the IEA’s WEO 2019
Schalk Cloete has completed his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 to compare with this year’s IEA World Energy Outlook, published mid-November. Underpinning all his predictions is his bet that the world will adopt tech-neutral policies (i.e. not backing any one technology over another, like a very high carbon tax) in 2030: in his opinion it will be the best way to accelerate the transition to meet the Paris goals as the 1.5°C … [Read more...]
Grid switchgear uses SF6, the world’s most potent greenhouse gas. How do we regulate it?
Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6) is described as the world’s worst greenhouse gas. It’s 23,500 times more potent than CO2. Global annual emissions are 8,100 tonnes, equivalent to the CO2 emissions of 100m cars. It has an atmospheric lifetime of over 1,000 years and its installed base is expected to grow by 75% by 2030. 80% of all SF6 is used in gas insulated switchgear, a vital component of the grid (isolating and protecting different sections), so … [Read more...]
Decarbonising industry: how much policy-driven adoption is needed to let the market take over
Decarbonising industry is one of the world’s greatest challenges. The costs, today, are huge and therefore the technology adoption required has hardly started. But several technologies already exist. Gbemi Oluleye at Imperial College (UK) explains the first step is to measure the market size for each sub-sector, then estimate how much policy-driven adoption is required to achieve the cost reductions that make the change viable. After that, no … [Read more...]
California fires and blackouts: would non-profit utilities be more reliable, safer, cheaper?
The wildfires in California ignited by poorly maintained transmission lines have themselves ignited a debate about whether the guilty - and now bankrupt - energy utility PG&E (the largest in the state) should now become publicly owned. That in turn has led Severin Borenstein at the Energy Institute at Haas to consider the pros and cons of public v private in this vital activity. The first thing to note is that electricity transmission and … [Read more...]
Behaviour Change: measuring complex mobility options to make cities smarter
How do you factor future behaviour change into transport, housing, workplace and energy infrastructure planning? Clearly, future plans based on past behaviour will end up being wrong. And metrics that tell us which behaviour is most efficient can point us in better directions. We won’t find the answer until we start measuring it. That’s why the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is leading a collaboration of U.S. government and academia … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 5 of 5): Electric cars
Schalk Cloete has completed his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with this year’s IEA World Energy Outlook, published this week. Underpinning all his predictions is his bet that the world will adopt tech-neutral policies (i.e. not backing any one technology over another) in 2030 as the best and only way to accelerate the transition to meet the 2050 goals. Given that, he sees the traditional fossil fuel ICE’s share … [Read more...]
IEA’s WEO 2019 scenarios won’t hit the Paris targets, again. It must start telling us what will
As always, the energy world is abuzz with reactions to the IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook, published yesterday. As always, it’s getting plenty of criticism from those who say it lacks ambition, and in doing so will again get quoted to justify support for continued reliance on fossil fuels, explains Kelly Trout at Oil Change International. The IEA’s most ambitious pathway, the Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS), gives a 66% chance of … [Read more...]
Electricity pricing: shifting costs on to households that can afford it
Utilities need to invest in the future, and the Transition needs to be paid for by their customers. The less painful that is to each customer, the more publicly acceptable it will be. Maximilian Auffhammer at the Energy Institute at Haas explains how electricity pricing usually combines a fixed monthly charge with a block rate price (the charge for each additional unit of energy). Here he reviews a new report that scrutinises how different firms … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 4 of 5): Nuclear, biomass and CCS
Schalk Cloete is creating his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with the next IEA World Energy Outlook, due in November. To make his predictions he has created simulations of cost-optimal technology mixes and made his own assumptions over the drivers that will affect them: policy, technological progress, demand growth and behavioural change are all included. If nuclear, biomass and CCS take off they will … [Read more...]
German Onshore Wind hit by residential regulations: will new profit-share rules help?
5.3 GW of newly installed capacity in 2017, 2.4 GW in 2018, 0.5 GW in the first nine months of 2019. Germany’s onshore wind power expansion has seen a dramatic slump. That’s completely against the trend in total renewables growth which saw its share of gross power consumption reached a record of almost 43% in 2019, up 5% on the previous year. Clearly, onshore wind is facing obstacles the other technologies aren’t, and that is the rules around how … [Read more...]
DNV-GL: energy’s shrinking share of growing global GDP shows how we can afford Transition
At the current rate of progress higher energy efficiency, more renewables, and carbon capture will not be enough to keep the global temperature rise to well below 2°C. So to point the way, DNV-GL has condensed its Energy Transition Outlook 2019 into 10 ways technology can meet the COP21 targets. This article gives figures on how much solar and wind we really need, battery production, annual investment in grids, and energy efficiency. It further … [Read more...]
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