The worst expectations for oil prices never materialised, thank goodness. In mid-March a year ago Brent reached $114 and WTI $103 a barrel. By the same time this year it was $72 and $66 respectively. That’s despite no end in sight for the Russia-Ukraine war, the trigger to the 2022 price escalation and global crisis. Carole Nakhle at the University of Surrey explains how today’s forecasts are similarly uncertain. She points at conflicting … [Read more...]
“GETs”: cheap ways for Grids to double Wind & Solar integration and help battle global inflation
Accelerating the clean energy transition can tackle the inflation crisis, not just save the climate, explain Russell Mendell, Mathias Einberger and Katie Siegner at Rocky Mountain Institute. Rising energy costs are driving current global inflation. So now is the perfect time to drive through low-hanging-fruit ways to increase wind and solar generation and storage. In the U.S. interconnection queues – the pipeline of clean generation projects … [Read more...]
Record global clean energy spending, but it’s still not enough and costs are rising
Since 2020, clean energy investment has grown by 12% per year – it was only 2%/year during the five years after the 2015 Paris Agreement. That boost is the main reason why total global energy investment is set to reach $2.4tn in 2022, according to the latest “World Energy Investment” report from the IEA. It’s very good news that spending on solar PV, batteries and EVs is now growing at rates consistent with reaching global net zero emissions by … [Read more...]
A massive expansion of domestic Renewable energy stops wars, not just climate change
Hans-Josef Fell at Energy Watch Group says bluntly that a massive expansion of domestic renewable energy generation over the last decade would not only have saved the planet from a future climate catastrophe, it would be stopping wars today. Firstly, 70% of Russia's state revenues come from oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy deals. State revenues fund its military. Secondly, an EU dependent on imports from any geopolitical adversary will … [Read more...]
