William Todts at Transport & Environment is very worried about the Biden administration’s approach to aviation and shipping emissions. The signals are that the U.S. wants to work through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). But they have neither the ability nor the means to spur technological breakthroughs. That matters, because it’s only the use of alternative fuels that can … [Read more...]
Bioenergy is the undervalued pillar of the clean energy transition
Bioenergy is already the world’s largest source of renewable energy, responsible for 70% of the supply (and around 10% of total primary energy). Burning organic matter goes back to the invention of fire and is still commonplace around the globe. Yet it gets hardly any of the attention and policy support that’s given to other clean energy technologies like solar, wind and now hydrogen. Bioenergy can and should play an even greater role, explain … [Read more...]
Biofuels vs Hydrogen: which can fuel aviation, shipping, trucks?
The positive signals coming from EV sales and charge points contrast with the lack of progress in finding alternative fuels for aviation, shipping and trucks. Cornelius Claeys runs through the prospects for biofuels and hydrogen to power long-haul transport. Biofuels are already used as a substitute for fossil fuels, and EV uptake will usefully free them for fuelling heavy transport. But as decarbonisation ambitions rise the pressure on scarce … [Read more...]
Which sectors need Hydrogen, which don’t: Transport, Heating, Electricity, Storage, Industry?
Which sectors are most suited to hydrogen, and which are not? For the answer, six academics from the UK and the Netherlands - Tom Baxter, Ernst Worrell, Hu Li, Petra de Jongh, Stephen Carr, and Valeska Ting – use their areas of expertise to neatly summarise hydrogen’s pros and cons in Road and Rail, Aviation, Heating, Electricity and Energy Storage, and Heavy Industry. Their general message seems clear: hydrogen is still very expensive, so it can … [Read more...]
France’s recovery plan: will support for emissions-high sectors compromise a new Green economy?
The French recovery plan, formally presented today, combines emergency rescue measures, economic stimulus and longer-term investments. A substantial €32bn out of the €100bn budgeted is earmarked for the green economy. But Sébastien Treyer at IDDRI asks whether rescue measures for traditionally emissions-high sectors - tourism, aviation, automotive, buildings, agri-food – will collide with climate targets. He references studies that should be used … [Read more...]
IEA: Without accelerating clean energy innovations we cannot hit net zero by 2050
The impressive rise of renewables and energy efficiency, alone, will not be sufficient to meet the world’s 2050 emissions goal, says the IEA in its flagship Clean Energy Innovation report. New technologies, taken all the way through to widespread adoption by the market, must become an essential part of the net zero pathway. The stark warning is that existing policies to decarbonise shipping, trucks, aviation and heavy industry are not nearly … [Read more...]
An EU Hydrogen strategy: from industry feedstock to energy vector
The bravest recovery strategies will invest robustly in new yet-to-take-off clean energy technologies. If you are going to have to spend hundreds of billions to revive your economy isn’t it better to replace the old with the new rather than prop up what you’ll have to abandon soon anyway? In anticipation of that happening, new technologies are lining up. Here, Cédric Philibert at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate summarises their detailed … [Read more...]
IRENA’s Global Renewables Outlook and how Europe can lead the way
If the coronavirus slump has knocked everything off track IRENA’s first ever Global Renewables Outlook is a timely reminder of what that track should look like. It can help policymakers design stimuli packages that will get us back onto it, and even accelerate the transition. IRENA’s Gayathri Prakash, Nicholas Wagner and Ricardo Gorini run through the comprehensive report’s main recommendations. Annual investment, shares and GW targets to 2030 … [Read more...]
Defining green investments, ending greenwash: the EU’s new Taxonomy Regulation
When the EU Commission’s new Taxonomy Regulation is approved, expected in March, it will provide the legal framework to define what is a truly ‘green’ investment. As Luca Bonaccorsi at Transport & Environment explains, right now asset managers and national authorities are free to define what is green, allowing some to greenwash investments in things like oil and pesticides. The Taxonomy's purpose is to reduce ambiguity and therefore increase … [Read more...]
Don’t wait for international agreements. Sector-wide action can accelerate the Transition
December’s COP25 in Madrid showed how difficult it is proving to get agreement between nations on how to ramp up the deep decarbonisation the world needs. David Victor at the University of California, San Diego, writing for Rocky Mountain Institute, accepts that international consensus is never going to be easy. Instead, he recommends that individual sectors take control of their destiny. His co-authored report “Accelerating The Low Carbon … [Read more...]
Biofuels: slump in investment and innovations must be reversed
IRENA is predicting the future of liquid biofuels by monitoring the number and technology-type of patents. It’s not looking good. The first thing to note is that, after a promising rise, the total number of patents has slid from over 6,000 in 2011 to around 2,500 in 2017. That’s reflected in the dramatic fall in global biofuel investments, from $27bn in 2007 to $2bn in 2017. The likely main cause is a lack of stable regulation, say Alessandra … [Read more...]
Aviation’s multiple challenges: from renewable fuels to non-CO2 emissions
Barely the first steps towards climate-neutral aviation have been made. High energy density renewable fuels are needed, and at scale. But even as they become available, hard-to-abate industries will be queuing up to buy them first. And then there’s reducing the "non-CO2 effects" that, according to Germany's environment agency (UBA), can harm the climate twice as much as direct CO2 emissions: condensation trails, particles and other greenhouse … [Read more...]
Advanced Aviation Biofuels: ready for take-off?
A survey by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) of leading biofuel investors and producers worldwide reveals that they are still struggling to get governments to deliver the right regulatory framework – and carbon pricing – to ensure biojet fuel’s rapid growth. Scaled up, the fuel also needs to come down in price to compete with jet fuel’s 50 eurocents per litre. Technological progress is being made. But biofuel investment has … [Read more...]
UK’s net-zero ambition: counting all emissions, not just in-country
The UK’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has advised its government to go zero-carbon by 2050. But, say Joe Blakey and Marc Hudson of the University of Manchester, counting all emissions means counting the carbon footprint of imports too. Including these (and excluding emissions from exports) the UK’s footprint is 70% higher than the figure used by the CCC. The same is likely true for all high income economies. And the cost of successful … [Read more...]
Clean air transport: batteries or biojet or both – but let’s get on with it
In his last article for Energy Post, Mike Scott looked at how airlines are under increasing pressure to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions rather than offsetting them as they do now. How can it be done? There is no one-size-fits-all solution for the varied size of aircraft and flight distances but that should be no excuse. Battery innovation offers solutions for some cases whilst biojet (aviation biofuel) can fill many of the remaining gaps. … [Read more...]
Recent Comments