I have been saying for sometime that to be useful energy has to be cheap - cheap enough to waste. Therefore, I agree that we need to be providing abundant, clean, cheap energy.
100% agree with need for more adavnced renewables, but need to have equal focus on efficiency. Ie, in the west do we really need so many clothes and junk to fill our homes? Large petrol guzzling cars? It doesn’t mean less of a life if we use led bulbs, efficient engines cars and a higher quality (but less) of clothing.
As for sources of power surely it would make sense for hotter sunnier countries to use the solar panel technology before the cooler cloudier places in the west?
Renewable isn’t cheap, to be viable to keep the energy which is actually provides the things of greatest value to us we need to use it wisely and not waste it.
I disagree with Matthew about a “need to have equal focus on efficiency”. Wasting energy is only a problem if it’s carbon-based, because of its role in promoting global warming. If, for instance, our electricity was to be 100% non-carbon we wouldn’t need to worry about waste except in so far as efficiency saves money. It’s far more beneficial to the poor to focus on driving down the price of non-carbon energy than it is to bother about small savings from efficiency.
Scotland is home to two world-class wave energy pioneers, Aquamarine Power who announced this month that they are downsizing from 50 to 20 employees. This can’t help the roll out of their Oyster device. The market leader Pelamis who’s pioneering “sea snake” device delivered utility scale deployment of wave energy has gone into administration, the UK equivalent of Chapter 11. Last year coal produced the highest proportion of the UK’s power for 40 years. It did so because it is cheap. I don’t see this shifting in the direction of renewables when carbon energy prices keep falling. OPEC’s target may be US oil firms but its first victims are in renewables.
On exactly what reasoning do you base … “While renewables have a role to play in our energy systems, they are unlikely on their own to meet the energy demands of those struggling to escape poverty in the developing world, let alone the full needs of modern society.”
This is based on a review of energy scenarios done by governmental bodies, academics and think tanks around the world. One quite recent review of most of these scenarios is here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.324/abstract.
Rachel,
The EIA’s record of renewable projections is not good. In 2000 their projection for built wind capacity was 32.500MW for 2010. The actual installed wind capacity turned out to be 197,637MW. In 2007, projecting in only a 3-year time frame, the EIA’s 2010 was still 1.6 times short. Other renewable capacity projections are way off too and now being challenged.
Recently the U.S. EIA estimated natural gas output will continue to rise through 2040, UT Austin researchers argue natural gas production will plateau by 2020. According to this new research, the nation’s four major shale plays - the Marcellus, Barnett, Fayetteville and Haynesville formations - could produce half of the natural gas the EIA says they will by 2030.
They have recently taken to revising and revising …
UCS, in Ripe for Retirement , says that modeled economic assumptions about additional capacity requirements led business consultants to reach the conclusion that an additional 360GWs of central capacity is required. An alternative view says “100.2 GW of coal electricity can be replaced through a combination of ramping up underused existing natural gas plants, making use of new renewable energy generation, and reducing demand resulting from energy efficiency savings.”
The criticism I read at your citation said … “To be reliable guides for policymaking, scenarios such as these need to be supplemented by more detailed analyses realistically addressing on the key constraints on energy system transformation.” System transformation is what will happen and what we are beginning to see.
Reducing central demand is the primary difference, from efficient buildings and onsite generation. Lot’s of professional assessments believe a 20-30% reduction of demand is possible through efficient buildings. Buildings use 70% of the electricity produced. Templates for reducing use for 30-50% have been developed. Add to that a well developed on-site solar market, which reduces central load demand by 2-3 times the energy produced and used on site.
In light of the IPCC’s assessment that today’s efforts will fall far short of what we need to do in order to prevent the “high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally,” of climate change, I am suggesting that just extrapolating historical trends is not enough. We need to look at what is possible to accomplish. The projections will be very different.
the article is very generic; tho i agree with the concept. However, actual path forwards are needed not airy statements. Suggest we look at the 15 Wedges work from Socolow.
thus the fossil fuel industry has only one option to stay in business - carbon capture & seq of the CO2 from the burning of their products at utilities. They need to practice stewardship of their fuel products and pay for more R&D and actual implementation . Also America needs to build many new gen nuclear and off shore wind and put lots of money into R&D energy break thrus.
lets start with the fossil fuel industry making public their risk assessments of the climate science. Not why we need more energy but what they think of the climate science. The majors have this in hose already. let the public debate begin with a focus on the science .
There are lots of paths forward that contain specifics. Reinventing Fire is one place to start. NREL Futures paper sets renewables at 80% of energy generated by 2050 as doable.
Both of these use currently available technology. No big new tech breakthroughs are required and no carbon capture, which is very expensive so far. Both also rely on retrofitting our buildings which use 70% of generated electricity.
Yes to lots of offshore wind, particularly on the east coast where the continental shelf is wide and shallow and there is easy space for offshore wind farms.
Ceres has asked the fossil industries to evaluate their risks in light of climate science. Exxon’s response … Exxon’s latest projection sees wind, solar and other non-hydro electric energy growing from 1% in 2010 to 4% of global energy in 2040, That means oil and gas will still provide 58% of global energy, while coal will account for another 19% of global generation. Biomass, nuclear and hydro will supply the rest. Exxon’s vision is broadly similar to that of the International Energy Agency’s ‘business as usual’ future.
In other words they do not admit to risks of any kind. Companies not involved in fossil extraction and burning are signing on to sustainable futures …
to jane: 1.i would love to see NREL futures come true… But you must be realistic - there are at least two barriers- cost of REng. including Eng. storage vs coal & nat gas… and all solutions must include the fossil fuel industry. In USA - $ 1.1 trillion to economy and lots of good jobs and suppliers jobs. & huge political clout.
So if you think you can go all renewable - no matter if off the shelf technology - the FFI - will block you. So they need and must have CC&S to survive . your solution would kill them. they won’t roll over . i do not wish my grand kids to live in very hot world so am ok with funding CCS.
CEREs should have pushed back and restated the request. they need to be pushy or the FFI will keep giving us “why poor people need energy”. it is true society in every country needs lots of energy. Who in America will give up even a small part of their lifestyle?
let’s have obama or you and I ask the industry to make public their assessment of the climate science. Simple - yet powerful way to have the needed discussions.
I like off shore wind but very very expensive. why not new generation nuclear ? dispatchable and 24/7 an the Nuscale SMR is inherently safe. look at what china is doing.
You need to “get” system transformation. Go to RMI’s Reinventing Fire.
The system is changing and that is why the historically based projections don’t work. Buildings can head to “net-Zero” and they are! and the centralized grid is starting to break down as New England evaluates how to deal with another Sandy.
COMMENTS
BY Steven Boxall
ON December 12, 2014 12:50 PM
I have been saying for sometime that to be useful energy has to be cheap - cheap enough to waste. Therefore, I agree that we need to be providing abundant, clean, cheap energy.
BY steve kirsch
ON December 12, 2014 01:43 PM
Totally agree
BY Matthew hubble
ON December 13, 2014 02:27 AM
100% agree with need for more adavnced renewables, but need to have equal focus on efficiency. Ie, in the west do we really need so many clothes and junk to fill our homes? Large petrol guzzling cars? It doesn’t mean less of a life if we use led bulbs, efficient engines cars and a higher quality (but less) of clothing.
As for sources of power surely it would make sense for hotter sunnier countries to use the solar panel technology before the cooler cloudier places in the west?
Renewable isn’t cheap, to be viable to keep the energy which is actually provides the things of greatest value to us we need to use it wisely and not waste it.
BY Mark Pawelek
ON December 13, 2014 07:28 AM
I disagree with Matthew about a “need to have equal focus on efficiency”. Wasting energy is only a problem if it’s carbon-based, because of its role in promoting global warming. If, for instance, our electricity was to be 100% non-carbon we wouldn’t need to worry about waste except in so far as efficiency saves money. It’s far more beneficial to the poor to focus on driving down the price of non-carbon energy than it is to bother about small savings from efficiency.
BY Derek Louden
ON December 14, 2014 08:29 AM
Scotland is home to two world-class wave energy pioneers, Aquamarine Power who announced this month that they are downsizing from 50 to 20 employees. This can’t help the roll out of their Oyster device. The market leader Pelamis who’s pioneering “sea snake” device delivered utility scale deployment of wave energy has gone into administration, the UK equivalent of Chapter 11. Last year coal produced the highest proportion of the UK’s power for 40 years. It did so because it is cheap. I don’t see this shifting in the direction of renewables when carbon energy prices keep falling. OPEC’s target may be US oil firms but its first victims are in renewables.
BY Jane twitmyer
ON December 15, 2014 11:43 AM
On exactly what reasoning do you base … “While renewables have a role to play in our energy systems, they are unlikely on their own to meet the energy demands of those struggling to escape poverty in the developing world, let alone the full needs of modern society.”
particularly the use of “unlikely”.
BY rachel pritzker
ON December 15, 2014 02:01 PM
This is based on a review of energy scenarios done by governmental bodies, academics and think tanks around the world. One quite recent review of most of these scenarios is here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.324/abstract.
BY Jane Twitmyer
ON December 17, 2014 08:13 AM
Rachel,
The EIA’s record of renewable projections is not good. In 2000 their projection for built wind capacity was 32.500MW for 2010. The actual installed wind capacity turned out to be 197,637MW. In 2007, projecting in only a 3-year time frame, the EIA’s 2010 was still 1.6 times short. Other renewable capacity projections are way off too and now being challenged.
Recently the U.S. EIA estimated natural gas output will continue to rise through 2040, UT Austin researchers argue natural gas production will plateau by 2020. According to this new research, the nation’s four major shale plays - the Marcellus, Barnett, Fayetteville and Haynesville formations - could produce half of the natural gas the EIA says they will by 2030.
They have recently taken to revising and revising …
UCS, in Ripe for Retirement , says that modeled economic assumptions about additional capacity requirements led business consultants to reach the conclusion that an additional 360GWs of central capacity is required. An alternative view says “100.2 GW of coal electricity can be replaced through a combination of ramping up underused existing natural gas plants, making use of new renewable energy generation, and reducing demand resulting from energy efficiency savings.”
The criticism I read at your citation said … “To be reliable guides for policymaking, scenarios such as these need to be supplemented by more detailed analyses realistically addressing on the key constraints on energy system transformation.” System transformation is what will happen and what we are beginning to see.
Reducing central demand is the primary difference, from efficient buildings and onsite generation. Lot’s of professional assessments believe a 20-30% reduction of demand is possible through efficient buildings. Buildings use 70% of the electricity produced. Templates for reducing use for 30-50% have been developed. Add to that a well developed on-site solar market, which reduces central load demand by 2-3 times the energy produced and used on site.
In light of the IPCC’s assessment that today’s efforts will fall far short of what we need to do in order to prevent the “high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally,” of climate change, I am suggesting that just extrapolating historical trends is not enough. We need to look at what is possible to accomplish. The projections will be very different.
BY Bill
ON December 17, 2014 11:08 AM
the article is very generic; tho i agree with the concept. However, actual path forwards are needed not airy statements. Suggest we look at the 15 Wedges work from Socolow.
thus the fossil fuel industry has only one option to stay in business - carbon capture & seq of the CO2 from the burning of their products at utilities. They need to practice stewardship of their fuel products and pay for more R&D and actual implementation . Also America needs to build many new gen nuclear and off shore wind and put lots of money into R&D energy break thrus.
lets start with the fossil fuel industry making public their risk assessments of the climate science. Not why we need more energy but what they think of the climate science. The majors have this in hose already. let the public debate begin with a focus on the science .
BY Jane Twitmyer
ON December 17, 2014 01:20 PM
There are lots of paths forward that contain specifics. Reinventing Fire is one place to start. NREL Futures paper sets renewables at 80% of energy generated by 2050 as doable.
Both of these use currently available technology. No big new tech breakthroughs are required and no carbon capture, which is very expensive so far. Both also rely on retrofitting our buildings which use 70% of generated electricity.
Yes to lots of offshore wind, particularly on the east coast where the continental shelf is wide and shallow and there is easy space for offshore wind farms.
Ceres has asked the fossil industries to evaluate their risks in light of climate science. Exxon’s response … Exxon’s latest projection sees wind, solar and other non-hydro electric energy growing from 1% in 2010 to 4% of global energy in 2040, That means oil and gas will still provide 58% of global energy, while coal will account for another 19% of global generation. Biomass, nuclear and hydro will supply the rest. Exxon’s vision is broadly similar to that of the International Energy Agency’s ‘business as usual’ future.
In other words they do not admit to risks of any kind. Companies not involved in fossil extraction and burning are signing on to sustainable futures …
BY Bill
ON December 17, 2014 02:05 PM
to jane: 1.i would love to see NREL futures come true… But you must be realistic - there are at least two barriers- cost of REng. including Eng. storage vs coal & nat gas… and all solutions must include the fossil fuel industry. In USA - $ 1.1 trillion to economy and lots of good jobs and suppliers jobs. & huge political clout.
So if you think you can go all renewable - no matter if off the shelf technology - the FFI - will block you. So they need and must have CC&S to survive . your solution would kill them. they won’t roll over . i do not wish my grand kids to live in very hot world so am ok with funding CCS.
CEREs should have pushed back and restated the request. they need to be pushy or the FFI will keep giving us “why poor people need energy”. it is true society in every country needs lots of energy. Who in America will give up even a small part of their lifestyle?
let’s have obama or you and I ask the industry to make public their assessment of the climate science. Simple - yet powerful way to have the needed discussions.
I like off shore wind but very very expensive. why not new generation nuclear ? dispatchable and 24/7 an the Nuscale SMR is inherently safe. look at what china is doing.
Some ref you might find of interest..
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/issues/decarbonization/us-china-climate-deal-underscores-need-for-substantial-energy-innovation ...
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change
BY Jane Twitmyer
ON December 17, 2014 02:16 PM
You need to “get” system transformation. Go to RMI’s Reinventing Fire.
The system is changing and that is why the historically based projections don’t work. Buildings can head to “net-Zero” and they are! and the centralized grid is starting to break down as New England evaluates how to deal with another Sandy.