30 March 2016, Energy Post, European dash for gas at odds with climate ambitions. European energy and European climate policies, although often portrayed as being two sides of the same coin, are still not sufficiently harmonised, writes Stefan Bößner, Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute. The EU’s new LNG and gas storage strategy serves as a prime example where EU energy security concerns work against climate protection efforts. The strategy is likely to lead to costly investments into infrastructure which may not be needed and which come at the cost of other options to enhance climate protection and energy security. The European Union often claims leadership on climate change. The EU not only saved the Kyoto Protocol by convincing Russia to join but also pushed for an ambitious climate agreement prior to the Paris Climate Conference (COP 21) last December. It is the only developed economy of comparable size that sources 26% of its energy needs from low-carbon sources and its 2030 goals to reduce emissions by 40% are among the most ambitious in the world. So far so good. The European Commission acknowledges the importance of “avoiding the ‘lock-in’ of high emissions infrastructure and assets.” But tis is exactly what might happen when one looks at the EU’s recent LNG and gas strategy. But despite those ambitions, the EU is likely to miss its contribution to limit global warming to two degrees (as decided upon in the Paris Agreement). And while some member states demand to raise the EU’s climate ambitions others refuse to do so, illustrating existing frictions between EU and member state policy making. But the EU itself is not without fault either. The European Commission also pursues conflicting aims sometimes in its climate and energy policies. Read More here
Category Archives: The Mitigation Battle
28 March 2016, Energy Post, Wake up call for oil companies: electric vehicles will deflate oil demand. The major oil companies greatly underestimate the impact electric vehicles will have on their market, write independent energy advisors Salman Ghouri and Andreas de Vries. According to Ghouri and De Vries, the trends currently underway in the auto industry are likely to have a substantial impact on oil demand in the medium term, and even a devastating impact in the longer term. If there is one event in history that has shaped the crude oil industry, it is the popularization of the internal combustion engine (ICE) by the auto industry. At the beginning of the 20th century, coal and wood were the dominant sources of energy, together providing more than 90% of global energy consumption. From 1910 onward, however, the Automotive Revolution triggered by Henry Ford spurred on demand for liquid fuels, causing crude oil’s contribution to global energy supply to more than double every decade. Consequently, by 1970 crude oil had taken top-spot in the global energy mix. Continued growth in the transportation sector ever since has provided the world’s oil companies with plenty of organic growth opportunities. And judging by the energy outlooks the major oil companies have published, they appear to expect this status quo to continue. For example, BP’s most recent Energy Outlook 2035 assumes that non-oil based transport will grow just 5% per annum for the next 20 years, and that essentially all of this growth will be in the gas-powered transport segment. Similarly, The Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040 published by ExxonMobil assumes that by 2040 “plug in” electric vehicles (EVs) and fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) will have no more than a 4% market share. Chevron, meanwhile, has indicated that it plans on the basis of the assumption that the auto industry will remain fundamentally the same for at least another 50 years. Alternative assumptions However, as we documented elsewhere, the auto industry itself expects its future to be radically different from its present. To assess how the new vision of the auto industry would impact crude oil demand, we have developed an Alternative Energy Outlook (AEO). Read More here
27 March 2016, Climate News Network, Renewable energy demands the undoable. Switching to renewable energy as fast as the world needs to will require changes so massive that they are unlikely to happen, scientists say. The world is increasingly investing in renewable energy. Last year, according to UN figures, global investment in solar power, wind turbines and other renewable forms of energy was $266 billion. This was more than double the investment of $130bn in coal and gas power stations in 2015. It sets a new investment record and brings spending on renewable energy since 2004 to a total, adjusted for inflation, of $2.3 trillion. And, says the United Nations Environment Programme’s report on Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016, that same push added 134 gigawatts (one gigawatt is reckoned enough to supply the needs of 750,000 typical US homes) of renewable power worldwide. It also spared the atmosphere the burden of an estimated 1.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions (human activities, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, add an extra 29 gigatonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere annually). Not enough But right now, the report says, renewable energy sources deliver just 10.3% of global electrical power. Neither the report’s authors nor anyone else thinks that is enough to slow climate change driven by rising global temperatures as a consequence of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Read More here
24 March 2016, Renew Economy, Five things we learned about Malcolm’s attempts not to be Tony. Plus ça change. The more it changes, the more it stays the same. And that ageless expression seems to apply with Malcolm Turnbull’s desperate efforts to convince people that he is not Tony Abbott, that he is not the sword carrier for Abbott’s policies as his predecessor suggests, and that he is not a slave to the conservative rump of his party. This week, Turnbull turned to clean energy to show that his spots are not the same as Abbott’s. If publicity and headlines are the main indicators, it has been a smashing success. Mainstream media has lapped it up: “PM’s climate of change,” hoorayed Fairfax. “Coalition saves two clean energy funds,” chorused the ABC. “PM tilts at green windmills,” booed the Murdoch media. (That editorial is probably worth a complete dissection on its own, so many errors, misconceptions and prejudices in such a few short paragraphs, but time is not infinite). But what really happened this week? In the face of opposition in the Senate, Turnbull bowed to the inevitable and decided to keep the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. That is good. And that is change. The CEFC – once decried by its newest biggest supporter, environment minister Greg Hunt as a great big green hedge fund – has been behind many of the most important new clean energy projects and initiatives in the country, underwriting finance for large-scale solar projects, innovative solar thermal installations, battery storage trials, and any amount of energy efficiency and rooftop solar support. And in doing this it has also delivered a significant return to the government. Hunt should now feel free to turn up at one of its project openings. Turnbull then took $1 billion out of the CEFC kitty and rebadged it with his favourite buzzword, “innovation” and claimed the creation of a “new” thing called the “Clean Energy Innovation Fund”. But it does not represent new funding. Read More here