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Daily News for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, Wind, Wave, Solar & Biofuel
May 27, 2013
Global Renewable Energy Growth ( Solar Thermal Magazine ) – Improvements in cost-competitiveness means that renewables will account for between 69% and 74% of new power capacity added by 2030 worldwide, despite current difficult market conditions.
London and New York, 22 April 2013 – New research by analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance show that annual investment in new renewable power capacity is set to rise by anywhere from two and a half times to more than four and a half times between now and 2030. The likeliest scenario implies a jump of 230%, to $630bn per year by 2030, driven by further improvements in the cost-competitiveness of wind and solar technologies relative to fossil fuel alternatives, as well as an increase in the roll-out of non-intermittent clean energy sources like hydro, geothermal and biomass.
This is the message of new research published today by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The findings will be unveiled to delegates this afternoon at the analysis company’s sixth annual Summit, in New York.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s predictions for world energy markets to 2030 come from its Global Energy and Emissions Model, which integrates all of the main determinants of the energy future, including economic prosperity, global and regional demand growth, the evolution of technology costs, likely developments in policies to combat climate change, and trends in fossil fuel markets. Together these form three scenarios: “New Normal”, “Barrier Busting” and “Traditional Territory”.
The New Normal scenario is considered the most likely. It shows the investment requirement for new clean energy assets in the year 2030 at $630bn (in nominal terms), more than three times the investment in the renewable energy capacity that was built in 2012. This 2030 investment figure is 35% higher than that produced in Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s last global forecast a year ago, and the projection for total installed renewable energy capacity by that date is 25% higher than in that previous forecast, at 3,500GW.
In the power sector, the research company’s latest forecasts project that 70% of new power generation capacity added between 2012 and 2030 will be from renewable technologies (including large hydro). Only 25% will be in the form of coal, gas or oil, the remaining being nuclear. The scenarios are based on Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s latest projections for coal and gas prices. For gas, these assume prices stabilise in real terms at $6, $9 and $11/MMBtu in the US, Europe and the Asia respectively.
For comparison, the International Energy Agency’s New Policies scenario forecasts that 57% of power capacity added during this period will be from renewable resources (including large hydro).
Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that wind and solar will take up the largest shares of new power capacity added in terms of GW by 2030, accounting for 30% and 24% respectively. By 2030 renewable technologies will account for 50% of new power generation capacity installed around the world, up from 28% in 2012. In terms of power produced, the share of renewables will increase from 22% in 2012 to 37% in 2030.
The New Normal scenario’s outlook for global biofuel production in 2030 is that it will increase by around 200% from 120bn litres in 2012, to 370bn litres in 2030.
The future under Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s other two scenarios look somewhat different, although in both cases, there will be further growth in renewable energy demand. Capital requirements for renewable energy could reach $880bn by 2030, under the Barrier Busting assumptions ($9.3 trillion cumulative from 2013). This would require an additional $2 trillion (22% increase) invested in supporting infrastructure such as long distance transmission systems, smart grids, storage and demand response. Under a more pessimistic view of the world, in the Traditional Territory scenario, renewable energy investment requirements are projected to be $470bn by 2030 ($6.1 trillion cumulative).
Guy Turner, head of economics and commodities for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, commented:
This is the first time we have produced such detailed analysis of the future world energy system under different scenarios. It highlights that, in spite of the recent news showing a downturn in clean energy investment since 2011, renewable technologies will form the anchor of new generating capacity additions, even under a less optimistic view of the world economy and policy choices.
The main driver for future growth of the renewable sector over this timeframe is a shift from policy support to falling costs and natural demand. Our work also highlights, however, the importance of planning for the integration of intermittent renewables into the grid and into power markets. This will require significant new investment in grid infrastructure, load management and storage technologies.
Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance said: “The news right now is dominated by stories of pain caused by overcapacity on the supply side of clean energy, and the lure of cheap shale gas. But this is playing out against the falling costs of renewable energy and of all the technologies required to integrate it into our energy system, and falling costs win. What it suggests is that we are beyond the tipping point towards a cleaner energy future.”
More details on the three scenarios, and their implications for future energy markets, are available in the Global Renewable Energy Market Outlook fact pack. This will be available to the media on request.
For further information:
James Isola
Matt Wade September 06, 2014
Australia’s collective wellbeing has taken a backward step since the Coalition won office a year ago as national income declined, growth in our shared knowledge stalled and long-term unemployment rose.
The Fairfax-Lateral Economics wellbeing index, which puts a dollar figure on national wellbeing, fell by $2 billion in the June quarter and is $10.5 billion lower than a year earlier.
Wellbeing has now declined in four consecutive quarters for the first time since the global financial crisis. When gross domestic product declines for two consecutive quarters the economy is deemed to be in recession.
The index provides a deeper measure of national welfare than GDP by measuring changes in six key components: income, knowledge (called human capital), the environment, inequality, health and job satisfaction. GDP only measures the market value of all goods and services produced in the national economy during the year.
The findings of the wellbeing index – which declined by 2.8 per cent in the year to June – tells a different story to GDP, which grew by 0.5 per cent in the June quarter and 3.1 per cent for the year.
Growth in wellbeing far outpaced GDP growth during Julia Gillard’s time as prime minister. The index surged by 20 per cent in that period, a rate comparable to the booming growth rate of the Asian tiger economies like China and India. However, the index peaked just before last year’s election and has been on a downward trend ever since.
Tony Abbott became prime minister when the economy was in transition after a long mining investment boom that boosted growth and lifted household incomes.
The index’s creator, Nicholas Gruen, said it was picking up the negative consequences of that difficult economic transition better than GDP.
“We’re cranking up production at a reasonable rate, but the income we get from it is falling,” Dr Gruen said. “This helps explain why people seem more dissatisfied than the GDP numbers suggest they should be.”
Since the last election the unemployment rate has climbed from 5.7 per cent to a decade-high 6.4 per cent. The value of the exchange rate has also remained relatively high, despite falling commodity prices, putting a squeeze on Australian exporters.
While most factors driving the decline in wellbeing were beyond government control, Dr Gruen said some of the results were a “shot across the bow” of the federal government. One reason for the deterioration in wellbeing was a 5.2 per cent fall in the value of Australia’s collective knowledge in the year to June. The main reason for this was a decline in the proportion of adults with tertiary education.
“While it’s too early for this to be the result of any decisions made by the Abbott government, if its changes to higher education reduce the flow of post-secondary-qualified workers into the workforce, our wellbeing will be affected,” Dr Gruen said. “And our wellbeing index shows us [that] human capital really, really matters. It seems heretical to say it, but it matters more than micro-economic reform, as worthwhile as that can be.”
Another drag on wellbeing has been a slowdown in national income growth, arguably a better measure of economic wellbeing than GDP. Falling prices for Australia’s mining exports have helped reduce net national income in two of the past four quarters.
The index also draws attention to the wellbeing cost of long-term unemployment, which has climbed to about $3 billion following a steady rise in the number of people out of work for more than 12 months.
In May, there were 175,490 long-term unemployed people, or 1.43 per cent of the labour force, the highest proportion since April 2002. The loss of skills while being out of work over a long period is substantial.
“The wellbeing index tells us Mr Abbott became prime minister at a tricky time, with both the terms of trade and the growth of human capital falling,” Dr Gruen said.
High rates of obesity and untreated mental illness have become significant drags on national wellbeing.
The cost of obesity to the nation’s wellbeing reached $124.4 billion in the year to June, up 6.2 per cent. The annual wellbeing cost of untreated mental illness reached $192.4 billion, up 2.2 per cent on the previous year.
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2:34 PM (8 minutes ago)
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The Australian government has just received a vitally important report to guide their decisions on the future of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET). But it’s not the RET review report of the Coalition-appointed…
The Australian government has just received a vitally important report to guide their decisions on the future of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET).
But it’s not the RET review report of the Coalition-appointed expert panel, led by Dick Warburton, which was released last week.
Rather it is the draft final report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, which has just been sent to the governments of the IPCC’s 195 member countries. The report integrates the three previous reports on the science, impacts, and mitigation of climate change already released over the past year.
Its intent is to provide policymakers with a scientific foundation, based upon the work of the thousands of researchers volunteering their time to the IPCC, to tackle the challenge of climate change.
The report will be publicly released in November but a draft copy for review was recently leaked to the media. Its language is considerably more forceful than the previous report of 2007, noting that:
Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.
The report also highlights the growing challenges already posed by climate change including extreme weather such as heat waves, flooding and droughts, and its potential to worsen violent conflicts, refugee flows and food production.
A key focus of the report is on the growing risks of climate change – the synthesis report apparently uses the term “risk” 351 times in just 127 pages.
In 2009 countries around the world, including Australia, made a commitment to keeping global warming below 2C. However, the report says that it is looking more likely that the world will shoot past that point. Limiting warming to this level is possible but would require dramatic and immediate cuts in greenhouse emissions.
Indeed, the IPCC’s work on mitigation options suggests that near-complete decarbonisation of the electricity sector by 2050 will likely be required and that renewable energy has a key role to play, particularly given the evident challenges facing other low-carbon generation options including carbon capture and storage and nuclear power.
By comparison, the report of the Warburton review gives almost no consideration of these climate change challenges, and the Renewable Energy Target’s contribution to addressing them. This is surprising given that the RET is, after all, one of the most significant greenhouse emission reduction policies that Australia has implemented to date, and has already started to transform the Australian electricity industry towards a lower carbon future.
The review, however, framed its climate change considerations in terms of the Australian government’s current 5% emission reduction target from 2000 levels for 2020 — a target which the government’s own Climate Change Authority has determined is entirely inadequate given the scale of the climate challenge, and the efforts of other countries to date.
Furthermore, the Warburton review assumes that the target can best be achieved by the government’s proposed Emissions Reduction Fund — part of the Direct Action plan — a measure that remains largely unspecified and hasn’t yet been modelled, let alone legislated.
Instead, the main modelling undertaken by the review towards its first term of reference — the need to consider the economic, environmental and social impacts of the RET scheme — assumes there are no costs associated with the greenhouse emissions of fossil fuel generation out to 2030.
How, then, do they consider the future uncertainties associated with international action on climate change? They don’t, other than the inclusion of one scenario in their analysis featuring a token shadow carbon price of A$10 per tonne of carbon dioxide starting in 2021. Such a shadow price is not meaningful in terms of the climate challenge – even oil multinationals like BP and Shell are using a shadow carbon price of US$40 per tonne for their own investments.
Modelling work by groups including our Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets here at the University of NSW has highlighted that increased renewable generation provides an excellent hedge against the risks future international gas and carbon price increases currently pose for the Australian economy.
Fortunately, the Australian government does have before it an excellent and highly detailed report on ways to reform some of the present inadequacies of the RET.
Unfortunately, that’s not the Warburton report either.
It’s the 2012 report from the government’s Climate Change Authority on the RET. It rightly argues against changing the current target for renewable generation and highlights the importance of providing some measure of investment certainty to facilitate timely and least-cost renewables deployment. It also suggests a series of useful suggestions on how the scheme’s operation and performance might be improved. By comparison, the Warburton review offers two possible ‘reform’ options that both would pretty much kill the existing renewable energy support provided by the scheme.
After reading the IPCC and Climate Change Authority work, members of the government may well be needing some light relief.
And fortunately, they also have a report for that — yes, the Warburton review. The review was specifically asked by the government to consider the impact of the RET towards rising household and business prices. Its modelling, however, found — in broad agreement with other modelling exercises including again work here at UNSW — that the RET is likely to reduce these prices by increasing market competition.
Rather than households paying for the emission reductions delivered by the scheme, it is the incumbent fossil-fuel generators.
Seeing the panel tie themselves in knots trying to explain why they recommend ending or greatly reducing the target even though it will increase emissions, increase household and business electricity prices and deliver windfall profits to the large fossil-fuel generators is quite something to behold.
But after this light relief, the work of the government to actually address our climate change challenges still remains to be done. Confirming that the RET target will not be reduced is the place to start. Expanding the target for 2030 and beyond should come next.
It’s all about fresh water. In this case, massive freshwater outflows from the vast glaciers covering Antarctica.
This week, a new scientific report published in the Journal Nature found that from 1992 through 2012 freshwater outflow from Antarctica’s massive glaciers exceeded 400 gigatons each year. An immense flood of cold, fresh water. One that helped push sea levels rapidly higher around the Antarctic continent.
But with glacial melt on the rise and with mountains of ice now inexorably sliding seaward, these freshwater flows may just be the start of even more powerful outbursts to come. And such prospective future events have far-ranging implications for sea level rise, global weather, sea ice, human-caused climate change, and world ocean health.
Flood of Fresh Water Drives More Sea Level Rise Than Expected
The researchers discovered the tell-tale signature of this vast freshwater flood through chemical analysis of the seas surrounding Antarctica. The analysis pointed to a broad and expanding fresh water layer over-riding a warmer, saltier current issuing in from the Southern Ocean.
Since fresh water is less dense than salt water, the freshwater layer expands at the ocean surface causing sea levels to rise more rapidly. Meanwhile, the heating of the deep ocean surrounding Antarctica is thought to result in additional thermal expansion of the water column.
The researchers note:
On the basis of the model simulations, we conclude that this sea-level rise is almost entirely related to steric adjustment [changes that effect atomic spacing], rather than changes in local ocean mass, with a halosteric [salt based] rise in the upper ocean and thermosteric [heat based] contributions at depth. We estimate that an excess freshwater input of 430 ± 230 Gt yr−1 is required to explain the observed sea-level rise. We conclude that accelerating discharge from the Antarctic Ice Sheet has had a pronounced and widespread impact on the adjacent subpolar seas over the past two decades.
(Rate of sea level rise in the seas surrounding Antarctica since 1992. Aggregate sea level rise is indicated in black. Individual seas data is broken out by color. Image source: Nature.)
Previously, increased rates of sea level rise surrounding Antarctica were thought to have been set off by increasing winds around the continent. The winds were thought to push more water up against the ice faces forming a kind of perpetual, low-grade storm surge. But the current finding provides strong evidence that the source of the sea level rise is due to less dense fresh water over-topping saltier waters flowing in from the Southern Ocean combined with increasing heat along the Antarctic sea bed. And, notably, this is not the first study to find increasing freshwater flows spilling into the Southern Ocean. Last year, a KNMI expedition uncovered similar results.
More Evidence of Large-Scale Melt
The study comes on the back of other recent findings showing that warm water invasion at Antarctic glacier bases had led to more rapid than expected melt and destabilization. In May, two NASA studies showed that a broad section of West Antarctica had destabilized and was sliding at an ever more rapid pace toward the ocean (see reports here and here). These findings held stark implications for global sea level rise as large ice regions of Greenland and West Antarctica, containing enough water to raise seas at least 15 feet, are likely already in a state of irreversible collapse.
(Sea level rise anomaly of the region surrounding Antarctica compared with the rest of the Southern Ocean. Red indicates faster than normal sea level rise. Blue indicates slower than normal sea level rise. Image source: Nature.)
This intensifying glacial melt and associated freshwater cap expanding out from the pole has implications — not just for sea level rise, but for sea ice, weather, and world ocean system health.
Impacts For Sea Ice
Large outflows of glacial fresh water may well be involved in the recent observed expansion of sea ice in the zone surrounding Antarctica (see recent related study). Fresh water serves as an insulative cap on the ocean surface preventing warm water from entering the top layer from below. The warm, salty water, in the Antarctic instead pools near the bottom or at the base of the great ice sheets.
Fresh water also freezes at a higher temperature than salt water. So sea ice in an expanding freshwater zone around Antarctica would have naturally higher resiliency even to the rising temperatures now occurring due to human-caused warming. Eventually, however, human heat forcing would overwhelm the ice, but not before a period of related, localized negative feedbacks.
The Iceberg Cooling Effect
The fresh water is a haven for sunlight-reflecting sea ice. It is interspersed with ice bergs from the glacial discharge and the large ice bergs cool the surrounding air. The fresh water layer prevents warm water upwelling from the warm, deep waters surrounding Antarctica. And the leading edge of the fresh water would drive salt-water down-welling along its advancing front. This would push warmer waters toward the ocean bottom, resulting in a kind of heat sink. And this is exactly the kind of dynamic that appears to be ongoing in the Southern Ocean now. These combined impacts are what is known as the ice berg cooling effect associated with large-scale glacial outbursts known as Heinrich Events. And we may well be in the process of setting off one of these geological scale nightmares.
(Iceberg cooling effect under a mid-range warming scenario when global climate models were set to include the effects of large freshwater outflows from polar glaciers at a fast enough rate to raise seas by 60 cm through 2060 and 144 cm through 2080 [left frames]. Note the cooler zones in the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic adjacent to Greenland. Right frames include mid range emissions/warming scenarios and IPCC projected rates of sea level rise. It is worth noting that the amplifying effects of potential additional ghg release from the global climate system, particularly from Arctic and world ocean carbon stores, are not included in these simulations. Image source: Hansen and Sato.)
For global weather, such events have major implications. Regional cooling in the zone of freshwater outflow would juxtapose regional warming in the southern hemisphere meridional zones. This temperature differential would increase with the strength of the fresh water outflow and the rising intensity of the human-driven warming. The result would be a powerfully intensified storm track. Both the intensified storm track and increased atmospheric moisture loading due to human warming would result in much more powerful weather events than we are currently used to and the potential for catastrophic storms would drastically increase.
Amplifying Feedbacks and a Blow to World Ocean Health
Lastly, the expanding flood of fresh water would result in an increasing stratification of the world ocean system. This stratification would drive warm, salty water toward the ocean bottom and deplete already low oxygen reserves in that region. In addition, the extra heat is more likely to destabilize deep-sea clathrates — releasing methane which will speed in the oxygen depletion of the abyssal waters even as it tips the world ocean system to stop storing carbon and to begin releasing it. A combined feedback that is both an ocean killer and an amplifier to the already extraordinarily powerful human heat forcing mechanism.
Links:
Rapid Sea Level Rise Along Antarctic Margins Due to Increasing Glacial Discharge
Important Role For Ocean Warming and Enhanced Ice Shelf Melt in Sea Ice Expansion
Update on Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss: Exponential?
Grim News From NASA: West Antarctica’s Entire Flank is Collapsing
