Announced at COP28, a total of 123 countries committed to tripling renewable power capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030. China didnât. Why? Quoting experts, Lin Zi at China Dialogue explains that the bundling together of the two targets is the problem. Tripling renewables is very achievable; in fact China may well exceed that target. But reducing energy intensity is not easy, even though China has a good record: among the G20 members, … [Read more...]
Global inflation: high borrowing costs threaten the continued growth in Renewables. What must be done?
Over the last decade, investors and governments got used to two supportive trends: relatively cheap capital from low interest rates, and steadily falling costs. However, this changed as the world emerged from the Covid pandemic and into the global energy crisis. In a new era of high interest rates, the impressive growth in renewables deployment is under threat, explain Tim Gould, David Fischer, Paolo Frankl and Heymi Bahar at the IEA. Renewables … [Read more...]
China is still playing the long game with its ânew threeâ: solar cells, lithium batteries, EVs
Chinaâs ânew threeâ â or xin san yang â are solar cells, lithium-ion batteries, and EVs. The term harks back to the concept of its âold threeâ that were once the pillars of its exports: clothing, home appliances and furniture. Chinaâs success is seen in the numbers: it accounts globally for 80%+ of solar cell exports, 50%+ of lithium-ion batteries and 20%+ of EVs. You Xiaoying, writing for China Dialogue, interviews experts and quotes reports … [Read more...]
Nearly 2,000 Hydrogen projects worldwide: IEAâs interactive tools give snapshot on progress, costs
The IEA has released new interactive data tools to track the development of low-emissions hydrogen production around the world. They provide a snapshot of progress on hydrogen production, with data on almost 2,000 projects that are either already in operation or have been announced. Most projects to date are concentrated in Europe and Australia, with a growing number planned in Africa, China, India, Latin America and the U.S. One of the tools … [Read more...]
Another chapter in Offshore Windâs stop-go story: New York
New York State should be leading the offshore wind ambitions of the U.S. The region enjoys high capacity factors for offshore wind, especially during the peak winter heating season. And New York is used to being a leader in so many things. Thatâs why it put its climate reputation at risk in October when the state government announced it would not renegotiate contracts with offshore wind providers Ărsted, Equinor and BP, explains Joseph Webster at … [Read more...]
Polandâs Coal-to-Nuclear plans move forward with U.S. partners
Poland sees nuclear as ideal for replacing its coal, explain Matt Bowen and Sagatom Saha at the Center on Global Energy Policy. Though Poland's renewables like wind and solar have grown rapidly in the last few years, reactors can provide dispatchable heat and power in the way that coal currently does. Poland is extremely reliant on coal, generating over 70% of its electricity and giving it the second-largest coal fleet in the EU. Hence, in … [Read more...]
Improved âSolar Thermochemicalâ process captures 40% of the sunâs heat to produce Green Hydrogen
The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal to make green hydrogen domestically at $1 per kilogram by 2030. Current costs range from $3 to $8 and none of it is being done at scale. Getting the cost of green hydrogen down is a serious concern for policymakers and industry alike. Most efforts are through electrolysis, which used electricity to split the water that delivers the hydrogen production. Jennifer Chu at MIT describes research there on … [Read more...]
Europe is updating its price cap sanctions on Russian oil. How to make them work?
The EC has put forward proposals for tightening the implementation of a price cap on Russian oil exports. Brian OâToole, Olga Khakova and Charles Lichfield at the Atlantic Council and Tomasz Wlostowski at EU Strategies review the performance of the price cap sanctions one year on from their implementation, and give recommendations for how to make them work better. Though most observers agree that the cap has limited export income for Russia this … [Read more...]
Will AI queries increase Data Centre energy use by an order of magnitude?
Data centres globally consumed 220-330 TWh in 2021 (California uses around 278 TWh/year). How much more will they consume if AI takes off, given AI queries consume an order of magnitude more energy, and there are over 5bn internet users worldwide? The first step is to make a decent evidence-based prediction, but the U.S. and the EU are only expected to enforce reporting requirements next year, explains Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeleyâs Energy … [Read more...]
Nations are on track to meet their NDC targets. The catch is those targets arenât high enough for net zero by 2050
Globally, current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) targets are within reach thanks to the increasing speed of clean energy transitions around the world. Thatâs as NDCs have, as planned, got more ambitious as nations have updated them every five years. The problem is current NDCs are still not ambitious enough to meet our actual 2050 net zero target. Daniel Wetzel, Gabriel Saive, Luca Lo Re and Alice Latella at the IEA summarise the … [Read more...]
When 0.2% Methane leakage can make Gas dirtier than Coal
Around the world gas is replacing coal to reduce emissions. But even small amounts of methane leakage in the gas life-cycle can make emissions on par with or even worse than coal, explain Shannon Hughes and Deborah Gordon at RMI. They present their calculator that shows if West Virginia state's gas methane leakage rate is just 1.4% their emissions equal the coal it replaces. Texas Permian LNG exported to China only needs a leakage rate of 0.2% to … [Read more...]
Resource nationalism is not the United Statesâ biggest minerals problem
A growing number of resource-rich nations are planning to restrict exports of unprocessed raw materials, explain Gracelin Baskaran and Cy McGeady at CSIS. Currently, a significant proportion of critical minerals are exported to China for processing, giving it monopoly power in the value chain. If countries like the DRC, Namibia, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia instead processed their own raw materials they would create skilled jobs and industries … [Read more...]
Make EV batteries bidirectional, get GWs of storage for the Grid
How to cope with the hourly, daily and seasonal variation in demand as regions electrify more, depend more on variable renewables like wind and solar, and cut baseload fossil generation? Storage shifts load nicely. But why build grid-scale batteries when millions of little batteries in our EVs are sitting idle in our driveways for most of the time? As Mark Specht at the Union of Concerned Scientists explains, itâs why in California a bill is … [Read more...]
Could big U.S. subsidies for Hydrogen create perverse incentives, raise emissions?
There is a danger that the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) subsidies for hydrogen production (defined in provision 45V) may create perverse incentives that do not reduce emissions and may increase them. James Sallee at the Energy Institute at Haas explains why. The goal is to make âgreenâ hydrogen powered by newly built clean energy. But what if the generously subsidised hydrogen is made from clean energy (new or not) that should be powering … [Read more...]
Agrivoltaics: GWs of solar power from farmland using strategically placed panels (and raising crop yields)
In Canada and the U.S. âagrivoltaicsâ are taking off. Itâs when solar panels are laid out strategically on farmland. After concerns that it will obstruct farm machinery and lower crop yields, studies have shown that panels â on a large scale â can be placed so that they do not. In fact, certain crop yields can be raised when the panels are used to shield them from direct sunlight, explains Joshua Pearce at Western University, Canada. He looks at … [Read more...]
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