Experts say nuclear power needed to slow warming

Some of the world's top climate scientists say wind and solar energy won't be enough to head off extreme global warming, and they're asking environmentalists to support the development of safer nuclear power as one way to cut fossil fuel pollution.

Traveling Wave Reactor

Four scientists who have played a key role in alerting the public to the dangers of climate change sent letters Sunday to leading environmental groups and politicians around the world. The letter, an advance copy of which was given to The Associated Press, urges a crucial discussion on the role of nuclear power in fighting climate change.

Environmentalists agree that global warming is a threat to ecosystems and humans, but many oppose nuclear power and believe that new forms of renewable energy will be able to power the world within the next few decades.

That isn't realistic, the letter said.

"Those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough" to deliver the amount of cheap and reliable power the world needs, and "with the planet warming and carbon dioxide emissions rising faster than ever, we cannot afford to turn away from any technology" that has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases.

The letter signers are James Hansen, a former top NASA scientist; Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution; Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tom Wigley, of the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Hansen began publishing research on the threat of global warming more than 30 years ago, and his testimony before Congress in 1988 helped launch a mainstream discussion. Last February he was arrested in front of the White House at a climate protest that included the head of the Sierra Club and other activists. Caldeira was a contributor to reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Emanuel is known for his research on possible links between climate change and hurricanes, and Wigley has also been doing climate research for more than 30 years.

Emanuel said the signers aren't opposed to renewable energy sources but want environmentalists to understand that "realistically, they cannot on their own solve the world's energy problems."

The vast majority of climate scientists say they're now virtually certain that pollution from fossil fuels has increased global temperatures over the last 60 years. They say emissions need to be sharply reduced to prevent more extreme damage in the future.

In 2011 worldwide carbon dioxide emissions jumped 3 percent, because of a large increase by China, the No. 1 carbon polluting country. The U.S. is No. 2 in carbon emissions.

Hansen, who's now at Columbia University, said it's not enough for environmentalists to simply oppose fossil fuels and promote renewable energy.

"They're cheating themselves if they keep believing this fiction that all we need" is renewable energy such as wind and solar, Hansen told the AP.

The joint letter says, "The time has come for those who take the threat of global warming seriously to embrace the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems" as part of efforts to build a new global energy supply.

Stephen Ansolabehere, a Harvard professor who studies energy issues, said nuclear power is "very divisive" within the environmental movement. But he added that the letter could help educate the public about the difficult choices that climate change presents.

One major environmental advocacy organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, warned that "nuclear power is no panacea for our climate woes."

Risk of catastrophe is only one drawback of nuclear power, NRDC President Frances Beinecke said in a statement. Waste storage and security of nuclear material are also important issues, he said.

"The better path is to clean up our power plants and invest in efficiency and renewable energy."

The scientists acknowledge that there are risks to using nuclear power, but say those are far smaller than the risk posed by extreme climate change.

"We understand that today's nuclear plants are far from perfect." More

 

 

How solar and EVs will kill the last of the industry dinosaurs

Several years ago, Tony Seba, an energy expert from Stanford University, published a book called Solar Trillions, predicting how solar technologies would redefine the world’s energy markets and create an investment opportunity worth tens of trillions of dollars.

Most people looked at him, he says, as if he had three heads. That was possibly because the book was written before the recent plunge in the cost of solar modules had taken effect, and before most incumbent utilities had woken up to the fact that solar – even with minor penetration levels – was turning their business models upside down.

Seba is now working on a new book, with even more dramatic forecasts than his first. His new prediction is that by 2030, solar will make the fossil fuel industry more or less redundant. Even more striking is his forecast that electric vehicles will do the same thing to the oil industry by around the same date.

The predictions are made on the basis that the cost of solar and EV batteries will continue to fall, while the cost to consumers of sourcing energy from fossil fuels through the grid or liquid fuels will continue to rise. Before the decade is out, Seba says, both technologies will pass a tipping point that will eventually sweep the incumbents aside, just as technology and cost developments have done in the computer, internet, media, photographic and telecommunications industries.

“I am incredibly optimistic that by 2030, nuclear, coal, gas, big hydro, and oil will be all but obsolete,” Seba toldRenewEconomy in an interview in San Francisco last month. “The world will be mostly powered by solar and wind, and most new vehicles will be electric. The architecture of energy markets is going from centralized to distributed – in liquids and the electric market.”

The working title for the book is “Disrupting energy – how Silicon Valley is making coal, nuclear, oil and gas obsolete.” It is pinned on the theme that decentralised generation and storage will replace the centralised, hub and spoke model that has prevailed for the last century. The impact of decentralised generation is already being felt. The striking part of Seba’s prediction is the speed with which it will happen.

First, on the technology cost issue. For EVs, Seba says the success of Tesla – in sales and in reputation – has changed the conversation around EVs, particularly after it won the 2013 Car of the Year award.

“Basically, EVs were supposed to be expensive and underpowered and weak and 50 years away. Tesla showed all that was wrong. The EV will do to oil what solar will do to coal, nuclear and gas. EVs are a disruptive technology, there is no doubt about that.

“The propaganda says that it is too expensive and has little range. But if you look at the cost curve of batteries, even Detroit is saying that by 2020 lithium-ion batteries will be at $US200/kWh.

“The tipping point for the mass market to move from internal combustion engines to EVs is between $US250 and $US300/kWh. Once it gets to $US100/kWh, it is all over. I think we will get to $US250/kWh by 2020. By 2030, when batteries are at $100/kWh, gasoline vehicles will be obsolete. Not on their way out, obsolete.” Seba thinks that mass migration will start around 2018 to 2020.

On solar it is a similar story. “When I wrote my first book, a lot of people looked at me like I had three heads,” Seba says. “They thought I was way too optimistic because the conversation then was about grid parity for solar in 2060, or 2070.

“And what you hear is the same thing we heard 20 years ago, that this is not going to happen, that it is difficult, that power needs specialised scale, that it can only be done like this. When in fact, over the last few years, a country like Germany has pioneered the move from a few dozen central power plants to more than a million producers.

“Australia has done the same thing. Bangladesh has a million solar installations. So the poorest people in one of the poorest countries are adopting solar unsubsidised. Solar is already cheaper than grid – what people are paying for electricity – in dozens of countries already. And that is despite huge fossil fuel subsidies.

“The sun is more democratic than any other source of energy. Coal is in pockets, gas is in pockets, oil is in pockets. The sun shines a little bit more in some places than others, but everyone gets sunshine. And the thing about solar, is that it can be built on a distributed basis.”

Can solar really be built on a scale that would meet the bulk of the world’s electricity needs? Seba points to the computer industry, where he worked in the 1990s, and to the internet and telecommunications. All three were dominated by huge, centralised technologies. All three industries have been turned upside down by new “distributed”, or hand-held devices. He says the same thing will happen in electricity.

“This is not in the future. We are going from big centralised power plants to decentralised generation, to decentralised storage, and to decentralised distribution.

“It is just a matter of policy makers understanding this and making regulations appropriately. In India, about $30-40 billion goes to subsidise diesel. The grid there is already obsolete. It went down and 500 million people didn’t notice, because they are not on the grid.

“If they stop subsidising diesel and put it into solar, they could bring 100 million people a year into solar. If all you do is stop subsidising diesel, you can, in five years, bring solar electricity to 500 million people who are not on the grid today.

The biggest threat from all this radical change is to the traditional utility model, Seba says. “Utilities as we know them are over. They are the land line telephone companies of 20, 30 years ago. We will start using them as back-up, as world goes distributed and every house has solar, and factories do the same, and they are stuck with these stranded investments.

“What they will try to do is to keep jacking up prices – which makes solar even more affordable. It will be this death spiral. You will see bankruptcies. Finally, it will not make sense.

He says markets will be redesigned, and there will be huge opportunities for new companies – he dubs them the Ebays of the electricity world – that can aggregate and trade distributed production, and that can manage the process. More

 

Climate change threatens nation's energy, DOE report warns

Climate change and extreme weather are disrupting the ways we generate, distribute, and consume energy, according to a report released Thursday by the US Department of Energy. It's part of a growing acknowledgement among officials for a need to adapt to the planet's changing climate.

A nuclear plant shuts down when high temperatures overheat its reactor. A drought-stricken city bans the use of its increasingly scarce water in hydraulic fracturing. More than 8 million customers lose power when winds topple utility poles and a storm surge floods transformers and underground power lines.

Extreme weather and a changing climate are disrupting the ways we generate, distribute, and consume energy, according to a report released Thursday by the US Department of Energy (DOE).

That's not exactly breaking news to anyone who's ever suffered through a blackout in the midst of a storm, but the government report details the extent of energy's vulnerability to weather, from the light bulbs in your kitchen all the way to rigs drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. It's part of a growing recognition among local, state, and federal officials for a need to plan for and adapt to the planet's changing climate.

"When you think about any individual circumstance, it's not a surprise," Jonathan Pershing, who led the development of the DOE report, said in a phone interview. "What was a surprise was putting it all together and seeing how large and pervasive the damage is."

Higher air and water temperatures, scarcer water resources, and more intense and frequent storms routinely disrupt modern energy infrastructure, according to the report. That includes high-profile failures like the outages in the wake of superstorm Sandy, but the report also points to less-visible, more pervasive ways in which energy is vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change.

Last summer's drought, for example, lowered river water levels, disrupting the shipment of petroleum and coal delivered by barges. In 2010, unusually low precipitation in the Columbia River basin deprived hydroelectric dams of water flow needed to meet electricity demand. In the Arctic, thawing permafrost and melting ice can damage oil pipelines and restrict access to resources.

"Climate change is not the only risk, but it piles on a couple of different problems going in the same direction," James Newcomb, program director at theRocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit focused on resource efficiency, said in a phone interview. "Solar storms, cyberattacks, extreme weather all pose the risk of cascading blackouts that can have extraordinary consequences for the economy."

President Obama highlighted these threats in a speech on climate change at Georgetown Universitylast month. With Congress unable to pass a broad climate policy, Mr. Obama directed theEnvironmental Protection Agency to impose carbon limits on both new and existing coal power plants. He called on other federal agencies to take a hard look at their own contribution and vulnerability to a volatile climate.

State and local governments are also looking at ways they can mitigate extreme weather threats to infrastructure. Motivated largely by the devastation from superstorm Sandy, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled last month a $20 billion plan to protect New Yorkers from storm surges. Four counties in southern Florida have collaborated on a plan to manage the regions ecosystems and slow the flow of seawater into freshwater.

"[The DOE report} is another indication of the recognition among key actors that climate change is a significant risk to what they’re responsible for taking care of," Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute, said in a phone interview. She added that the evidence of threats to the traditional, carbon-based energy system should play a significant role in the broader debate over America's energy future.

The challenges aren't without solutions. The DOE calls for improved efficiency across the grid and the strengthening of transmission lines, power plants, oil and gas refineries, and other energy equipment. Greater coordination is needed between governments, industry, and civilians to identify risks and vulnerabilities, and protect against them, according to the report. More

 

Four energy policies can keep the 2 °C climate goal alive

Warning that the world is not on track to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, the International Energy Agency (IEA) today urged governments to swiftly enact four energy policies that would keep climate goals alive without harming economic growth.

“Climate change has quite frankly slipped to the back burner of policy priorities. But the problem is not going away – quite the opposite,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said in London at the launch of a World Energy OutlookSpecial Report, Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map, which highlights the need for intensive action before 2020.

Noting that the energy sector accounts for around two-thirds of global greenhouse-gas emissions, she added: “This report shows that the path we are currently on is more likely to result in a temperature increase of between 3.6 °C and 5.3 °C but also finds that much more can be done to tackle energy-sector emissions without jeopardising economic growth, an important concern for many governments.”

New estimates for global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 2012 reveal a 1.4% increase, reaching a record high of 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt), but also mask significant regional differences. In the United States, a switch from coal to gas in power generation helped reduce emissions by 200 million tonnes (Mt), bringing them back to the level of the mid‑1990s. China experienced the largest growth in CO₂ emissions (300 Mt), but the increase was one of the lowest it has seen in a decade, driven by the deployment of renewables and improvements in energy intensity. Despite increased coal use in some countries, emissions in Europe declined by 50 Mt. Emissions in Japan increased by 70 Mt.

The new IEA report presents the results of a 4-for-2 °C Scenario, in which four energy policies are selected that can deliver significant emissions reductions by 2020, rely only on existing technologies and have already been adopted successfully in several countries.

“We identify a set of proven measures that could stop the growth in global energy-related emissions by the end of this decade at no net economic cost,” said IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol, the report’s lead author. “Rapid and widespread adoption could act as a bridge to further action, buying precious time while international climate negotiations continue.”

In the 4-for-2°C Scenario, global energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions are 8% (3.1 Gt CO₂‑equivalent) lower in 2020 than the level otherwise expected.

• Targeted energy efficiency measures in buildings, industry and transport account for nearly half the emissions reduction in 2020, with the additional investment required being more than offset by reduced spending on fuel bills.
• Limiting the construction and use of the least-efficient coal-fired power plants delivers more than 20% of the emissions reduction and helps curb local air pollution. The share of power generation from renewables increases (from around 20% today to 27% in 2020), as does that from natural gas.
• Actions to halve expected methane (a potent greenhouse gas) releases into the atmosphere from the upstream oil and gas industry in 2020 provide 18% of the savings.
• Implementing a partial phase-out of fossil fuel consumption subsidies accounts for 12% of the reduction in emissions and supports efficiency efforts.

The report also finds that the energy sector is not immune from the physical impacts of climate change and must adapt. In mapping energy-system vulnerabilities, it identifies several sudden and destructive impacts, caused by extreme weather events, and other more gradual impacts, caused by changes to average temperature, sea level rise and shifting weather patterns. To improve the climate resilience of the energy system, it highlights governments’ role in encouraging prudent adaptation (alongside mitigation) and the need for industry to assess the risks and impacts as part of its investment decisions.

The financial implications of climate policies that would put the world on a 2 °C trajectory are not uniform across the energy sector. Net revenues for existing renewables-based and nuclear power plants increase by $1.8 trillion (in year-2011 dollars) collectively through to 2035, offsetting a similar decline from coal plants. No oil or gas field currently in production would need to shut down prematurely. Some fields yet to start production are not developed before 2035, meaning that around 5% to 6% of proven oil and gas reserves do not start to recover their exploration costs. Delaying the move to a 2 °C trajectory until 2020 would result in substantial additional costs to the energy sector and increase the risk of assets needing to be retired early, idled or retrofitted. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can act as an asset protection strategy, reducing the risk of stranded assets and enabling more fossil fuel to be commercialised.

To download the WEO special report Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map, click here.

To read Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven's comments at the report's launch, please click here.

To see the presentation that accompanied the report's launch, please click here.

Accredited journalists who would like more information should contact ieapressoffice@iea.org.

About the IEA

The International Energy Agency is an autonomous organisation which works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for its 28 member countries and beyond. Founded in response to the 1973/4 oil crisis, the IEA’s initial role was to help countries co-ordinate a collective response to major disruptions in oil supply through the release of emergency oil stocks to the markets. While this continues to be a key aspect of its work, the IEA has evolved and expanded. It is at the heart of global dialogue on energy, providing reliable and unbiased research, statistics, analysis and recommendations.

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Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map

 

Rising energy prices will challenge western way of life – MoD report

A little-known Ministry of Defence (MoD) report published earlier this year warns that converging global trends will dramatically affect UK economic prosperity through to 2040.

The report says that depletion of cheap conventional "easy oil", along with shortages of food and water due to climate change and population growth, will sustain rocketing energy prices. Long-term price spikes are likely to lead to a long recession in Western economies, fuelling internal unrest and the rise of nationalist movements.

The report departs significantly from the conservative and relatively optimistic scenarios officially adopted by the British government, as exemplified in the coalition's new Energy Security Strategy published in November last year by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc).

Peak "easy oil"

The report predicts that "the imminent passing of the point of peak 'easy oil' will mean that hydrocarbon-based energy prices will rise significantly out to 2040." Other factors affecting energy prices include "increasing demand for fossil fuels" due to South Asia's "industrial rise" and greater "volatility in supply" in the Middle East.

Contradicting the British government's official position on peak oil - which accepts the International Energy Agency's (IEA) latest estimate that oil prices will reach "$125/barrel in real terms (over $215/barrel in nominal terms)" - the MoD report projects an exponential escalation in prices, such that "the increasing price of oil... is likely to reach $500 a barrel by 2040" - almost double conventional projections.

This price rise will, however, "drive the development of alternative fuel sources" including tar sands, shale gas, coal, nuclear and renewables.

Rising demand for "resources and energy" from China and India will spur a "'scramble' for commodities and resources" as less developed countries' "resource requirements may go unfulfilled." There will also be a greater chance of clashes over access to "Middle East resources", the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Climate crisis

Climates change will significantly compound these challenges, including a wide range of impacts such as "rising sea levels... increased incidents of seasonal floods, heat-waves, storms, and unpredictable farm yields."

If sea levels rise quicker than anticipated, "millions of people across South Asia (principally in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives) will be displaced, with no opportunity to return to their homes."

Irregularities in the pattern of monsoon rains are likely to undermine South Asia's "agricultural and domestic water needs", while higher temperatures will "increase the range of vector-borne diseases such as malaria", such that it becomes "prevalent all-year-round."

Water stress

Water may become a "destabilising factor", with water stress and scarcity affecting some "2.5 billion people", and acting as a limiter to economic growth in some South Asian economies, including China by 2030.

Water will be a "defence and security issue" through to 2040, and increasing water demand is also likely to "heighten tensions over shared resources such as the Brahma-Putra Himalayan region and the River Indus", between China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Food shortages

The sustainability of food production in such conditions "will also be a key issue for the region, with much of the population dependent on rice crops as a staple." The report warns that a "rapid loss of some arable land is likely to promote local, then national migration", which may contribute to unrest.

As agriculture is the single largest contributor to GDP and employment in the region, the report observes that the decline in agricultural output driven by higher temperatures, erratic weather, lower yields, soil erosion and increased pests and weeds, will primarily affect nearly all those who are "close to, or below, the poverty line."

Demographic time bomb?

Although China and India will incorporate "some measures of sustainable development", those measures will be limited by the fact that "economic growth will remain the imperative throughout the period."

Despite their confidence in being able to meet these emerging climate and energy challenges, the sheer scale of the latter - "especially with regard to food and water availability and the sensitivity of the monsoon cycle, may challenge such confidence."

Under present trends, South Asia will contain "nearly 40% of the world's population" within the next 30 years. China and India will therefore face "increasing demands" from their "burgeoning populations" requiring "strong levels of sustained economic growth over the period to maintain internal stability."

Inadequate "social and educational policies" and persistent "inequality and corruption" could turn this demographic dividend into "a 'demographic time bomb.'"

In fact, the report predicts that due to "rising inequality", ethnic tensions, strict controls on freedom of speech, and increased access to global communications, "China is likely to experience increased incidents internal of unrest."

End of growth due to resource price spikes?

But the West faces other parallel challenges:

"The growth of South Asian economies will impact on most western nations, where the way of life for the majority of the populaces may be challenged by rising energy and resource prices, coupled with a relative decline in the value of their national economies...

The economic and industrial rise of China and India will increase the cost and reduce the availability of UK energy supplies. As a resource-importing nation, and with relatively modest fossil fuel reserves, the UK will be affected by increased resource and commodity costs. The UK will increasingly need to compete with China and India in order to secure enduring access to energy."

Consequently, the report argues that the "western 'way of life'" - associated with "a wide variety of consumer choice and relatively cheap energy" - will be "increasingly challenged as lifestyles follow GDP levels and 'normalise' across the globe."

Within the US and UK, the bulk of the populations will be affected by:

"... rising energy and resource prices, and the declining availability of finance to sustain discretionary spending. In such a context, this could lead to periods of sustained recession in the West, causing increasingly protectionist policies to be adopted."

"Internal unrest"

This could occur even as growth continues in South Asia, with global GDP per capita overall levelling off to "equilibrate", culminating in "the stalling and subsequent decline of many western economies." This will result in:

"long periods of recession and rising disaffection within the UK population... This could subsequently lead to increased incidents of internal unrest, a rise of nationalistic groups and a demand for protectionist economic and defence policies."

Corporate stakeholders

This could occur even as growth continues in South Asia, with global GDP per capita overall levelling off to "equilibrate", culminating in "the stalling and subsequent decline of many western economies." This will result in:

"long periods of recession and rising disaffection within the UK population... This could subsequently lead to increased incidents of internal unrest, a rise of nationalistic groups and a demand for protectionist economic and defence policies."

The report, titled Regional Survey: South Asia out to 2040, was published by the MoD's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) as part of its Strategic Trends Programme in January. The DCDC is an MoD think tank within the Defence Academy site at Shrivenham.

The report utilised the input of a range of government agencies and departments, including the MoD's Strategy Unit, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the Cabinet Office, and the Foreign Office - as well as two private institutions, Standard Chartered Bank and Now & Next. Decc is notably missing from the list of contributors.

Standard Chartered has a chequered history replete with scandals and "ethical lapses". Two years ago, an Ecologist investigation alleged that a coal power plant project in India financed by Standard Chartered among others, had "displaced poor communities and will lead to the destruction of forests."

The project was slated to receive carbon credits under the UN's controversial Clean Development Mechanism. Standard Chartered is now heavily invested in South Asia.

Now and Next is the website of a future trend analysis publication, What's Next, which includes among its clients General Electric, KPMG, McDonalds, and Shell.

Privatisation of power

Although the document sets out reasons to believe the UK is well-positioned to "adapt" to these converging trends, and perhaps even benefit from them, the overall vision heralds the recognition that of a rapidly shifting global landscape.

The report concedes that the "'relative' decline of the West is likely to lead to a new power framework where alliances are constantly reassessed and negotiated." This will also see "the declining influence of existing international institutions such as NATO and the UN Security Council."

In this context, the report predicts an accelerating coalescence between nation states and global capital, noting that:

"The line between government, and private industry protection of intellectual property of key technologies for security and wealth creation, may become increasingly blurred... [as] blueprints, patents and formulas will be increasingly seen as the foundations of wealth generation." More

MOD Report

 

Kosovo Is a Test for the World Bank’s Support of Clean Energy

In April, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said in a panel discussion in Washington, D.C., “I don’t think it’s fair to tell the people in Kosovo, ‘While the rich countries continue to burn coal, you’re going to have to freeze to death because it’s against our political ideology to support you.’”

Kim added, “I can’t do that."

Kim’s statement puts the World Bank somewhat at odds with itself. The World Bank has been a majorproponent of investment in renewable energy. Yet, it says it must choose between a coal-fired plant in Kosovo and people freezing to death.

But based on the solutions available today (some created by the World Bank itself under Dan Kammen), and where the world is heading on CO2 emissions, the choice between development and combating climate change is a false choice.

Here’s the false choice argument.

On the one hand, we are already deeply in the red in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that even if we could go carbon-free tomorrow, we are still going to subject ourselves to human-induced climate change beyond our goal of a maximum of 2° Celsius temperature rise. As a result, we must curtail any future emissions wherever and whenever possible.

On the other hand, what is one more coal-fired power plant in a nation such as Kosovo where energy shortages impact industry and economic development? This is a bright red line for the World Bank President. Are his previous words about the dangers of climate change sincere or hollow?

Development agencies such as the World Bank have generally argued that their poverty mission includes bringing energy access to those without energy. So despite the World Bank’s support of renewable energy in most cases, every once in a while, a coal plant needed to save those who are freezing trumps the environment.

But they have to dance around the central question: can Kosovo’s energy needs be met without coal?

This is the ultimate question facing not only the World Bank, but also India, China, South Africa, and all others that seek to provide power to the powerless.

It’s now 2013, and we are deploying advanced energy technologies at the billion-dollar scale -- $279 billion alone in 2012. Finance and business model innovation have made this choice of coal or freezing to death (in the Kosovo case) obsolete.

From no-money-down solar to the use of “big data” to reduce electricity theft, entrepreneurs have come up with clever ways to solve real-world problems while accommodating the power structures currently in place.

Those of us in the energy industry need to step in to help the World Bank -- not only with words, but also with action. We can make climate-friendly development a top priority, as it goes hand-in-hand with human needs.

In fact, World Bank President Kim commissioned a report last year that found “the Earth system's responses to climate change appear to be non-linear. […] If we venture far beyond the 2° guardrail, toward the 4° line, the risk of crossing tipping points rises sharply. The only way to avoid this is to break the business-as-usual pattern of production and consumption."

What is important -- and deserves repeating to all agencies involved in international development and the financing of health, education, infrastructure and other drivers of economic growth -- appears in the preface of the report written by Kim himself: "Most importantly, a 4°C world is so different from the current one that it comes with high uncertainty and new risks that threaten our ability to anticipate and plan for future adaptation needs."

So this is the World Bank president’s moment of truth.

Christiana Figueres, the United Nations' top climate change official, said last week the time has come for the World Bank to get out of coal.

Speaking in Washington, D.C. after attending the World Bank spring meetings, Figueres praised Kim for making global warming a top priority. Figueres said that nations, along with the World Bank, no longer need to invest in coal as an energy source.

However, in defiance of international pressure after the Tata Mundra coal project in India and Eskom’s project in South Africa, the World Bank is currently considering an investment in a 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant for Kosovo.

Yet Kosovo does not have a great experience with coal. The country suffers from regular power outages and from the worst coal-driven air pollution in Europe. Investing in coal when European nations are working to clean their energy economies and to set region-wide standards to push out coal would be handing Kosovo a discriminatory, backward-looking investment package.

Instead, this should be an easy decision for investors and the World Bank. The World Bank’s own studyfound that Kosovo has wind, biomass, solar, hydro, and energy efficiency resources available that are more than sufficient to meet the 600-megawatt supply needs. Further, European investors have already proposed over 200 megawatts of privately funded wind energy investments in Kosovo. This shows that industry is ready to move at the scale needed to put clean energy to work in Kosovo today. More

 

A Moral Question

A Moral Question from Sustainable Man on Vimeo.

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Bombshell IMF Study: United States Is World’s Number One Fossil Fuel Subsidizer

Between directly lowered prices, tax breaks, and the failure to properly price carbon, the world subsidized fossil fuel use by over $1.9 trillion in 2011 — or eight percent of global government revenues — according to a studyreleased this week by the International Monetary Fund.

The biggest offender was by far the United States, clocking in at $502 billion. China came in second at $279 billion, and Russia was third at $116 billion. In fact, the problem is so significant in the U.S. that the IMF figures correcting it will require new fees, levies, or taxes totaling over $500 billion a year, or more than 3 percent of the economy.

The most significant finding is that most of the problem — a little over $1 trillion worth — is the failure to properly price carbon pollution. Global warming is the ultimate example of a “negative externality” — a market failure in which one market actor enjoys the benefits of an exchange while another actor pays the costs. \

When we burn gasoline to power our cars or coal-fired electricity to run our homes, we enjoy the benefits of that energy use. But someone else — a farmer facing increased drought, coastal populations facing rising seas, or the global poor facing food supply disruptions — shoulders the burden of the added carbon pollution we’re dumping into the atmosphere. It’s the global ecological equivalent of tapping into your neighbor’s electrical wiring so that they wind up paying your utility bill.

The world’s advanced economies consume huge levels of fossil fuels, so the failure to properly build pollution costs into the consumer price of fossil fuel use — through a carbon tax or cap-and-trade-style system, or some other policy — is what makes these economic giants the biggest contributors to worldwide fossil fuel subsidies. Emerging and developing economies in Asia (which mainly means China) come in a decent second. “Pre-tax” subsidies, which are breaks built into the tax code along with other policies, contributed another $480 billion, mostly from countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The pre-tax subsidies of the advanced countries were negligible.

Finally, lots of countries have a national consumption tax called a VAT (or value added tax), and often offer breaks through it for energy purchases. The IMF had to calculate those separately for methodological reasons, and found they contributed several hundred billion dollars more, again largely from the advanced countries. More

 

International Energy Agency's Fatih Birol on fossil fuel subsidies.

IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol's strong messages at EWEA2013:

"Global fossil-fuel subsidies, which jumped to $523 billion in 2011, are providing an incentive to emit CO2 that is equivalent to $110 per ton"

"However, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the major barrier of the better prospects of wind is not the lack of predictability of the available wind, but the lack of the predictability of government policies, in terms of investment frameworks; My message to the governments here, including own governments: if the government policies about wind energy would be as predictable as the availability of wind, then we would win this game".

Moreover, Birol said: "Last week, according to our numbers, wind became the third largest source of electricity in China, surpassing nuclear".

IEA: World to Burn 1.2 Billion More Tons of Coal Per Year by 2017 (If We Don't Wake Up)

Forecasts are not destiny, but when created by informed people they can represent our best guess about the future.

In the case of the latest report by theInternational Energy Agency (IEA), it would be great to prove the forecasters wrong, because what they predict is not very appetizing: BY 2017, the world could burn 1.2 billion additional tons of coal per year, mostly thanks to growth in India and China. This would mean that coal is catching up with oil as an energy source, with 2017 "global coal consumption [standing] at 4.32 billion tonnes of oil equivalent (btoe), versus around 4.40 btoe for oil."

Equivalent to Current Coal Consumption of Russia and U.S. Combined

Since 1 ton of coal produces 2.86 tons of CO2 when burned (because each carbon atom combines with 2 oxygen atoms from the atmosphere), this would mean an additional 3.4 billion tons of CO2 produced just from this extra coal. Definitely not a good scenario; we shouldn't run large scale experiments with our planet's atmosphere, it's our only life support system and the less we mess with it, the better.

Even the lower demand for coal in the U.S. because of low natural gas prices is just shifting the problem (though only partially):

"As US coal demand declines, more US coal is going to Europe, where low CO2 prices and high gas prices are increasing the competitiveness of coal in the power generation system. This trend, however, is close to peaking, and coal demand by 2017 in Europe is projected to drop to levels slightly above those in 2011, due to increasing renewable generation and decommissioning of old coal plants."

Let's Prove the Forecasters Wrong

What we truly need is clean energy innovation and investment. We have so many ways available to speed up the transition to clean energy, we just need to implement them with much more urgency! More

 

Shale offers freedom and security – but it could be a trap

Exploiting shale gas and oil entails greenhouse gas emissions that will far outstrip our ability to adapt to the climate change they will cause.

Wars are fought over energy. So vital is it to the economy that the few custodians of the world's oil and gas wealth have the power to determine global booms and recessions.

At last, it seems, a new source of energy might liberate us from this conflict – fossil fuels trapped within dense rock for millennia that we are now able to free, thanks to advances in engineering unthinkable a decade ago, and that are available in countries from Britain to Australia. But those same fossil fuels, much higher in carbon than their conventional counterparts, are likely to unleash runaway climate change that could put paid to any hopes of a low-cost – and low-risk – energy future.

Exploiting these new forms of energy – shale gas and oil entails greenhouse gas emissions that will far outstrip our ability to adapt to the climate change they will cause. But history shows we are unlikely to be able to leave any of these chaos-causing fuels unexploited. For most of the past 30 years, the main question for the US has been how to ensure enough energy to meet the economy's needs. The oil shocks of the 1970s showed the economy's vulnerability to foreign imports. Since then, the goal of "energy security" has been crucial.

One route has been to exploit biofuels, made from maize, a policy introduced by George W Bush. But these are expensive as they divert food sources into use as fuel. A far better bet for the US, barely thinkable during Bush's presidency, is shale gas, which is transforming the US economy.

The first companies into shale were independents, leaving the more staid multinationals in their wake. Mitchell Energy and Development, subsequently bought by Devon Energy, was credited with being the first major exploiter. Pioneer Natural Resources was another. But the multinationals, led by ExxonMobil, soon caught up.

In less than 10 years, the US has become one of the prime producers of gas. The price of gas plummeted to only $2 a unit this year. That compares with about $9-12 in Europe, and about $15 in Asia. The International Energy Agency in 2011 heralded "a global golden age of gas" and new estimates show that, by 2017, the US could be the world's biggest producer of oil and gas.

But the plunging price of gas in the US has caused its own problems. At such low output prices, developing shale gas reserves becomes much less economically attractive. "Some companies have had financial difficulties," says Steven Estes, partner at KPMG in Dallas. He points to Chesapeake Energy, one of the pioneers: "Companies that were heavily involved in shale gas exclusively have really taken a hit."

The solution has been to explore the same gas fields to look for another prize – shale oil. While the price of natural gas has plunged, oil has kept its value. Liquids too can be trapped in dense shale rocks. But some shale gas fields will easily yield oil, while others will not. The difference between the two is heralding a huge difference between gas and oil producers in the US. Estes says: "Companies that have oil to exploit as well as gas – including Exxon and Shell, which have made acquisitions – are in the best position." More