Home » Posts tagged 'low-carbon energy'
Tag Archives: low-carbon energy
Despite good progress, 100% low-carbon energy is still a long way off for the UK
Despite good progress, 100% low-carbon energy is still a long way off for the UK
In the past ten years the UK’s electricity mix has changed dramatically. Coal’s contribution has dropped from 40% to 6%. Wind, solar power and hydroelectric plants now generate more electricity than nuclear power stations, thanks to rapid growth. Demand for electricity has also fallen, reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. Thanks to these three factors, the carbon intensity of Britain’s electricity has almost halved, from more than 500g of CO₂ per kilowatt-hour in 2006 to less than 270g in 2018.
Progress has been so quick that a fully low-carbon power sector in Britain has transformed from a faint pipedream into a real possibility, according to the CEO of one of the UK’s “big six” energy companies. Indeed, the National Grid now expects to be able to operate a zero-carbon electricity system by 2025.
Already approaching that milestone on windy, sunny days, the country’s first hours of 100% low-carbon electricity could soon be here – but staying at 100% throughout the year will be much more difficult to achieve. So what does the journey to decarbonisation look like?
Headwinds to decarbonisation
To paint the UK’s energy future, it is important to first understand how electricity is generated today. The graph below is a visualisation of British electricity generation in October 2018. Periods of strong wind (in red) and sun (yellow) combined with nuclear power (green) meant that on some days, more than 75% of electricity came from low-carbon sources. With solar prices still decreasing and the government recently agreeing a major deal for offshore wind to produce one-third of the UK’s power by 2030, the country’s first hours of low-carbon power could arrive within the next five years.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Clean energy investment ‘must be 50% higher’ to limit warming to 1.5C
An extra $460bn per year needs to be invested on the low-carbon economy globally over the next 12 years to limit global warming to 1.5C, a new paper says.
This is 50% higher than the additional investment needed to meet a 2C limit, the paper says. It is the first to assess the difference in investments and monetary flows between the two temperature goals of the Paris Agreement, the lead author tells Carbon Brief.
The paper also finds a far faster increase in low-carbon energy and energy efficiency investment would be needed to limit warming to 1.5C. Meanwhile, coal investment would not change substantially between a 1.5C and 2C scenario, the lead author says, since a dramatic downscaling of coal investments is already required to meet the 2C goal.
Financial flows
The Paris Agreement says countries should scale up finance to the low-carbon economy. Article 2.1(c) of the deal commits signatories to:
“Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.”
The new paper, published today in Nature Energy, aims to quantify the scale of financial flows that may be required to meet the overarching temperature goals of the Paris deal. It assesses how much would be needed for four scenarios.
In the first, countries meet the targets laid out in their current individual climate pledges (“nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs). The second looks at meeting the Paris goal of limiting global warming to “well below 2C”. The third scenario considers a world where the aspirational Paris target of limiting warming to 1.5C is met. These are compared to a business-as-usual scenario with no further tightening of current climate and energy policies.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Renewable Energy: Why Emissions and the Economy Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Renewable Energy: Why Emissions and the Economy Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Last week, President Obama announced the Clean Power Plan, the United States’ strongest climate policy to date. The plan aims to reduce coal-fired power plant emissions by allowing states to devise their own plans to reach federally-mandated emissions reduction targets. This choose-your-own-adventure policy could send states down very different paths, some worse for the environment and community resilience than others.
A bragging point for the Clean Power Plan is its flexibility; all currently identified low-carbon energy sources can play a role in state plans, including natural gas, nuclear, hydropower and other renewables. But despite the low-carbon nature these energy technologies share, they differ greatly in overall community and environmental benefit. Natural gas is abundantly available today due to controversial fracking technology (most of which occurs near rural communities); hydropower requires dam construction (sometimes on massive scales); and nuclear power comes with the risk of disastrous accidents, issues around extraction and long-term storage problems.
The final Clean Power Plan rule does emphasize renewable energy and energy efficiency over natural gas; a “Clean Energy Incentive Program” provides credits that can be traded later as part of emissions trading systems to states that expand wind, solar and energy efficiency efforts in the two years before state implementation plans take effect. However, shifting from coal to natural gas is one of the three building blocks EPA used in calculating state goals, so states are still permitted to emphasize natural gas in their implementation plans, even if it’s not incentivized. Shifting from one fossil fuel to another is not a sustainable energy future for any state, even if it slightly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
– See more at: http://www.iatp.org/blog/201508/renewable-energy-why-emissions-and-the-economy-don’t-tell-the-whole-story#sthash.efdtxaKW.dpuf
