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If the world is going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Last year, we took another lurching step toward planetary catastrophe.
Demand for coal, oil, and natural gas hit new all-time highs in 2018, according to a worrying new report from the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization that compiles statistics on global energy use.
IEA data released on Monday show that nearly every major economy on Earth boosted its use of polluting energy sources. Continuing on like this amounts to knowingly sentencing the world to an unlivable future.
The report provides further evidence that the world’s two biggest emitters, the United States and China, are choosing to switch from coal to natural gas, not coal to renewables. While natural gas is often touted as being lower in CO2 emissions than coal, it still releases plenty of CO2 as well as methane — an even more powerful greenhouse gas. The move could lock in decades of emissions.
In Asia, coal demand itself also continued to grow. In China and India, 2018’s growth came from coal power plants that are only 12 years old on average (coal plants typically last about 40 years). Although coal demand continued to drop in the U.S., natural gas consumption surged to its highest level since record-keeping began 46 years ago.
Despite strong growth from wind, solar, and nuclear, carbon-free sources accounted for just one-third of the world’s new energy in 2018, meaning fossil fuels remain firmly dominant.
For the most part, humanity’s growing demand for energy still means a growing demand for fossil fuels. Europe was the only region in the world that managed to stabilize its total energy demand through expanded use of renewable energy.
China added more than six times the amount of renewable energy to its grid than the United States did — but even that is nowhere near enough to offset continued investment in fossil fuels.
The IEA also said that efforts to improve energy efficiency failed to offset global economic growth. Society’s basic energy challenge is to simultaneously build huge amounts of carbon-free energy sources and radically boost efficiency. Energy efficiency is normally responsible for a huge offsetting of growth, but it fell last year due to the combination of ineffective and poorly enforced policies. In other circles, the idea of abandoning economic growth entirely is gaining steam.
There is a huge gap between global climate policy and the urgent demands placed on leaders by the bare truths of climate science: On our current pace, with current policies, the world will warm by about 3.3 degrees C this century — roughly in-line with the worst-case scenario, according to climate scientists.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A new research report from a clean-energy policy think tank found that solar and wind have become so cheap in the United States that it’s more cost-effective to immediately tear down and replace 74 percent of the country’s coal-fired power plants than to continue fueling them. That poses an important question to utilities and elected officials: What, exactly, are you waiting for?
Originally posted here:
Mother Jones
Every year the International Energy Agency publishes the World Energy Outlook, which, among other things, forecasts the growth rate of solar PV installations. The 2016 edition even included a whole “special focus” on renewable energy. Presumably this means they took an extra careful look at their solar PV forecast. Here it is:
That looks…odd, doesn’t it? Solar PV has grown at a pretty fast clip over the past decade, but the IEA assumes the growth rate will suddenly level out starting this year and then start to decline. And this is their optimistic scenario that takes into account pledges made in Paris.
What can we make of this? Auke Hoekstra provides some context:
I made a graph showing the historic track record of the IEA in predicting solar: reality steeply increasing but IEA is having none of it. pic.twitter.com/Mq5Jx8LY6z
— AukeHoekstra (@AukeHoekstra)
Every single year, the IEA projects that solar is a passing fad and its growth rate will level out that year. And every single year, solar continues to grow anyway. But the next year the IEA makes the exact same forecast. It’s almost as if they have some kind of hidden agenda here.
See the original article here:
In 2002, the IEA Predicted Solar Was Going Nowhere. And in 2003. And 2004. And 2005…
According to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewable energy, mostly solar and wind, accounted for more than half of all new electric capacity added in the world last year, a 15 percent jump from 2014. Globally, there is now more renewable power capacity than coal power capacity.
Clean energy growth was especially high in China, which was responsible for about 40 percent of all new clean energy capacity. Get this: In China in 2015, two wind turbines were installed every hour.
This surge in renewables, according to the IEA, can be attributed to policy changes, lowered costs, and improvements in technology.
So renewable energy hit some big milestones last year, but it’s still just the beginning: The IEA — which has been accused of underestimating the growth of renewables — expects 28 percent of electricity to come from renewables by 2021, up from 23 percent today.
“I am pleased to see that last year was one of records for renewables and that our projections for growth over the next five years are more optimistic,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “However, even these higher expectations remain modest compared with the huge untapped potential of renewables.”
So let’s keep this moving, folks.
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We fact-checked Donald Trump’s latest comments on renewable energy.
According to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewable energy, mostly solar and wind, accounted for more than half of all new electric capacity added in the world last year, a 15 percent jump from 2014. Globally, there is now more renewable power capacity than coal power capacity.
Clean energy growth was especially high in China, which was responsible for about 40 percent of all new clean energy capacity. Get this: In China in 2015, two wind turbines were installed every hour.
This surge in renewables, according to the IEA, can be attributed to policy changes, lowered costs, and improvements in technology.
So renewable energy hit some big milestones last year, but it’s still just the beginning: The IEA — which has been accused of underestimating the growth of renewables — expects 28 percent of electricity to come from renewables by 2021, up from 23 percent today.
“I am pleased to see that last year was one of records for renewables and that our projections for growth over the next five years are more optimistic,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “However, even these higher expectations remain modest compared with the huge untapped potential of renewables.”
So let’s keep this moving, folks.
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Half a million solar panels were installed every day in 2015.
who likes money?
High gas prices got you down? Your problems are a tiny fraction of those faced by our whole fossil fuel–addicted global society.
A new report from the International Energy Agency considers the cost of remaining hooked on antiquated, polluting, and climate-changing energy sources.
First, here’s what might seem to be bad news from the new report: It would cost the world $44 trillion to end our fossil fuel addiction by 2050 and switch to clean energy. Worse, this figure is $8 trillion higher than the IEA’s last estimate, published two years ago. Expected costs have risen because we’ve delayed the process of switching over to climate-friendly energy sources.
And now the good news: We can save $115 trillion in fuel costs by 2050 if we move away from dirty energy, making for net savings of $71 trillion.
“Growing use of coal globally is overshadowing progress in renewable energy deployment, and the emissions intensity of the electricity system has not changed in 20 years despite some progress in some regions,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. “A radical change of course at the global level is long overdue.”
Greenpeace put out its own energy report on Monday, in concert with international renewable energy groups. The Energy [R]evolution report, which is focused on the U.S., found that we could save $6 trillion by switching to renewables by 2050. That’s compared with pursuing the unambitious fossil fuel–heavy energy mix forecast by the U.S. Energy Information Administration in its 2013 Annual Energy Outlook.
Sven Teske, one of the authors of the Greenpeace report, told Grist that plummeting prices for solar panels and wind turbines mean that the barriers for an energy revolution of this sort are not financial or technological — they are political. They are the result of fossil fuel industries and outdated utility companies desperately fighting against the forced obsolescence of their assets.
“This is not something that is completely crazy; this is something that’s possible,” Teske said. “In the expert arena, this is accepted. But we realize that we’re not very close to the public opinion right now — especially not in the U.S.”
Source
Energy Technology Perspectives 2014 — Harnessing Electricity’s Potential, International Energy Agency
Energy [R]evolution 2014: A Sustainable USA Energy Outlook, Greenpeace
John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.
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End fossil fuel burning, save $71 trillion — and preserve civilization as we know it
Posted 28 February 2013 in
The news is out today that US crude oil production is has topped 7 million barrels/day, the highest it’s been since 1992. And based on the way the oil companies talk about the promise of domestic drilling, you’d expect today’s gas prices to be at record lows as well. But instead, a gallon of gas costs about 56 cents more than it did just two months ago!
Study after study has come out saying more drilling won’t work. Soaring and unpredictable gas prices are here to stay unless we diversify our fuel supply, thereby lowering and stabilizing prices.
According to an American Security Project report that came out on Tuesday, “we cannot drill our way out” of vulnerability to global oil markets. A recent report by IEA predicted that drilling our way to oil independence will still leave us with oil costing $215+ per barrel. And you guessed it: consumers filling up their tanks will foot the bill.
The oil industry is shamefully using concerns around high gas prices to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes and coax them into supporting domestic drilling. It’s no secret that more oil wells at home will only solve one “problem”: that the oil industry made “only” $118 billion in profits last year.
By diversifying our fuel supply with low-cost, homegrown renewable fuel, we will reduce our dependence on oil. This will mean lower and more consistent prices at the pump for us all.
Renewable fuel is more important than ever – driving economic growth in communities that need it, improving our nation’s energy security and attracting millions in new technology dollars to invest in America’s future.
Fuels
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Extremely good news for the world: Over the next five years, oil will fall from the top spot as a source of energy.
Extremely bad news for the world: Coal will replace it.
From The Guardian:
Coal consumption is increasing all over the world — even in countries and regions with carbon-cutting targets — except the US, where shale gas has displaced coal, shows new research from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The decline of the fuel in the US has helped to cut prices for coal globally, which has made it more attractive, even in Europe where coal use was supposed to be discouraged by the emissions trading scheme. …
According to the IEA, demand from China and India will drive world coal use in the coming five years, with India on course to overtake the US as the world’s second biggest consumer. China is the biggest coal importer, and Indonesia the biggest exporter, having temporarily overtaken Australia.
According to the IEA’s Medium Term Coal Market Report, published on Tuesday morning, the world will burn 1.2bn more tonnes of coal per year by 2017 compared with today — the equivalent of the current coal consumption of Russia and the US combined. Global coal consumption is forecast to reach 4.3bn tonnes of oil equivalent by 2017, while oil consumption is forecast to reach 4.4bn tonnes by the same date.
The calculus, in brief: The U.S.’s natural gas boom has dropped demand for coal, making U.S. coal cheaper. That cheaper U.S. coal helps drive down costs for the fuel internationally, where it’s already cheap and accessible. So in five years’ time, we’ll be burning as much coal as we do now, plus the amount of coal currently consumed by another Russia and another United States.
Last year, global demand for coal rose 4.3 percent. It’s expected to keep growing until it hits the figures above. A short ton of coal produces 2.86 short tons of carbon dioxide. So the additional 1.2 billion tons of coal we’ll be burning each year means 3.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide produced on top of what we’re producing right now — getting us ever closer to the magic too-late number on carbon pollution.
The IEA report does have some good news. In the U.S., coal production is expected to plummet. And Europe, temporarily crazy for coal, will recover from that psychosis as natural gas prices and coal prices even out and the continent relies more heavily on renewables. But that’s about it. Australia and Indonesia will export more. India will become a dominant force in coal markets.
But the grimmest note is the one the IEA leaves us with:
In the pipeline are almost 300 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of terminal capacity and the 150 mtpa (probable) to 600 mtpa (potential) of mine expansion capacity, more than enough to meet coal demand in a secure way over the outlook period.
For all of the coal that the world’s going to want to burn, there’s more than enough to supply it. Dig it up, light it on fire, watch the smoke rise into the sky.
Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.
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By 2017, the world will be burning enough coal for another U.S. and Russia
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