FT Piece Explodes Some Magical Thinking - The Hard Truth Is That We Are Not On Track

[hatrack]

Few things should make you as optimistic — or as pessimistic — as the rise of renewable energy. Optimism comes from a new sense of urgency as the UK, Germany, and Spain set record highs for use of wind and solar power, and record lows for coal. Even the US can now generate more power from renewables than from coal, and last month, the “Ocean Wind” project in New Jersey was the largest ever offshore wind farm procured by a US state.

Yet pessimism comes from the fact that all of this may not be enough. In our research at UBS, we estimate that to avoid a dangerous level of global warming, the world would need to commission an asset the size of New Jersey’s Ocean Wind every day for the next 30 years, without missing a day. Or put another way: we need to triple wind and solar construction overnight and sustain that new growth rate for decades, with no room for setbacks. The hard truth is that we are not on track for that. Nor are we close to an overnight technical solution to the many other challenges of the energy transition that must be solved before we can develop a 100 per cent clean energy system.

Of course, these realities do not stop us from telling ourselves fairy tales. The first one is that energy efficiency will save the day. The facts show just the opposite: over 50 years since the oil price crises of the 1970s, we have seen rising energy efficiency in almost all walks of life, yet in the same time period energy demand and carbon emissions have tripled. As the Victorian economist WS Jevons understood already in 1865, the more efficient you become in your use of a fossil fuel, the more valuable that fossil fuel becomes to you, and the more of it you will consume.

The second fairy tale is a type of deus ex machina, a divine intervention usually staged in the last act of a play. Variously we hear that carbon capture, or nuclear fusion, or geoengineering could play this role. Suggestions include sending mirrors into space to reflect away heat, or ploughing crushed volcanic rock into fields to soak up carbon dioxide. These concepts may one day have potential but few are viable today, and with government debt already at levels similar to the period immediately after the second world war, we see little hope for a programme of public sector investment to speed things up.

Ed. - Though I don't think they're on the money re. debt - when things get bad enough, we'll spend. Frantically and inefficiently, but we'll spend.

EDIT

https://desdemonadespair.net/2019/07/it-is-probably-too-late-to-stop-dangerous-global-warming-the-hard-truth-is-that-we-are-not-on-track.html

[bronxiteforever]

1. Kick &recommend. I would add another to the deus ex machina

The belief that we will find another planet or moon to inhabit before dangerous warming takes place. As the saying goes, “there is no planet b”.

[progree]

2. Both in the U.S. and globally, carbon emissions increased in 2018

and globally, new renewable capacity additions were the same in 2018 as in 2017, and far short of what's needed to meet climate goals.

https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/may/renewable-capacity-growth-worldwide-stalled-in-2018-after-two-decades-of-strong-e.html

Renewable capacity growth worldwide stalled in 2018 after two decades of strong expansion

After nearly two decades of strong annual growth, renewables around the world added as much net capacity in 2018 as they did in 2017, an unexpected flattening of growth trends that raises concerns about meeting long-term climate goals.

Last year was the first time since 2001 that growth in renewable power capacity failed to increase year on year. New net capacity from solar PV, wind, hydro, bioenergy, and other renewable power sources increased by about 180 Gigawatts (GW) in 2018, the same as the previous year, according to the International Energy Agency’s latest data. That’s only around 60% of the net additions needed each year to meet long-term climate goals.

Global CO2 emissions increased in 2018 by 1.7%, and in the U.S. by 3.1%
https://news.yahoo.com/global-co2-emissions-hit-record-120010006.html

So yes, there is trouble in paradise.

As for renewables can exceed coal in the U.S., that was one fucking month, April, about the lowest electrical demand month of the year. And of course natural gas is picking up a lot of what was generated from shutdown coal plants.

It's also well to keep in mind that the electric power sector in the U.S. accounts for only about 28% of GHG emissions. So even if we made electrical generation entirely fossil-fuel-free in the U.S., we would still be with 72% of the problem, and growing.

Back to globally -- from the IEA 2018 Report that came out in November 2018 -- in 2040 in the New Policies Scenarios, "other renewables" will be 9.3% of the fossil fuel total -- What scares me most is the end year of that graph -- even in 2040, 21 years from now, (a whole human generation) under the very optimistic (to me) New Policies Scenarios (described next to that graph), is that "other renewables", which encompass solar and wind, will be only 1223 MTOE (51 exajoules), compared to fossil fuel of 13,139 MTOE (550 exajoules), summing up oil + coal + natgas. IOW in 2040, the "other renewables" will be 9.3% of the fossil fuel total. https://www.iea.org/weo/