This month the UK government promised to accelerate the phase-out of fossil-fuelled cars. From 2035 all new diesel and petrol car sales (including hybrids) are banned. Promises are one thing, realistic policies, plans and investment is another. Last year only 1.6% of new passenger vehicles sold were EVs and that has to rise to 100% in 15 years. Ashley Fly at Loughborough University sets out what needs to be done. First, skills and training; much … [Read more...]
100% renewables by 2050: a technology, market, system, business model toolset for your nation
A growing number of countries are announcing increasingly ambitious renewable energy targets. But how do you deliver the results? IRENA’s Elena Ocenic explains that they have developed a toolset for countries to plot their unique pathway to success. Those tools range widely across technology, market design and regulation, system operation practices, and business models. The article lists the tools, and runs through some notable successes. Ocenic … [Read more...]
“Climate leader” UK: why did low-carbon electricity generation stall in 2019?
In 2019, just 1TWh of low-carbon electricity (wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, biomass) was added in the UK. That’s after a decade of adding an average of 9TWh/year. Why? The UK needs to know, given an extra 15TWh/year is required until 2030 to meet emissions goals on top of the planned electrification of transport and heating. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans runs through their thorough analysis. Wind power alone rose by 8TWh in 2019, but was offset by … [Read more...]
EV Charging Infrastructure: “hidden” soft costs are slowing take up
You don’t buy an EV if you’ve nowhere to charge it. So the take up of EVs depends on the availability – and therefore the costs - of charging infrastructure. Rocky Mountain Institute’s Chris Nelder describes the surprising conclusion of their recent report “Reducing EV Charging Infrastructure Costs”, that it’s the soft costs that are stubbornly refusing to go down in the U.S. That means things like permitting delays, complex utility … [Read more...]
EU pathway to 3m EV charge points by 2030
Right now the EU has around 185,000 public charge points, which is enough for today’s market (seven cars for each point). The current policy scenario targets 33m electric cars by 2030 (44m for climate neutrality). Transport & Environment’s Nico Muzi summarises their latest report that plots their ambitious pathway. It’s driven by the forceful idea of a European ‘right to plug’, and enabled by their new Public Charging Supply metric, using a … [Read more...]
Is Germany’s emissions drop thanks to the EU ETS, not Berlin?
The good news is that 2019 saw a big decrease in Germany’s emissions, meaning a 35% reduction since 1990. It was only 30.8% by 2018, so the acceleration was thanks to a sharp drop in coal use. But emissions rose in transport and buildings, making the 2020 target of 40% more daunting. Add to that the slump in wind installations (permit problems) and the planned nuclear exit by 2022 (will more fossil fuels be needed to fill that big gap?), … [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...]
What can Oil producers learn from a sunset Coal industry?
Although fossil fuels are being replaced by clean energy they are not going away. Even coal is not in decline, it’s just peaked globally: declining in mature economies, still rising in developing ones. Henning Gloystein at the Eurasia Group, writing for the Atlantic Council, asks to what extent oil will follow coal. Oil consumption is still growing – 1% this year - though at a much slower rate than before. As with coal, a re-focus onto cleaner … [Read more...]
The search for “thin film” solar PV: stable, efficient, non-toxic, abundant
Around 95% of the world’s solar modules are made with silicon. It’s stable against temperature and humidity fluctuations and we’ll never run out of it. But it’s quite inefficient at absorbing sunlight, and very brittle. So the silicon layers in PV have to be quite thick to capture sunlight and resist cracking, leading to heavy and bulky solar panels. The remaining 5% of solar modules are “thin film”, opening the way for game-changing lightweight … [Read more...]
Decarbonising light duty vehicles globally: consumer choice, technology, policy pathways
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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