environmentalresearchweb blog

« Phasing out nuclear in Japan | Main | Fukushima tops nuclear bill in Dallas »

Energy at 2050

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently produced a new edition of its ‘Energy Technology Perspectives- Scenarios and Strategies to 2050’. It evaluates possible ways of reducing global carbon emissions while not curbing rapid economic growth in developing countries. It’s main BLUE Map Scenario has carbon emissions levelling off by 2020 and then declining by 50% from today’s level by 2050, to about 14 Gt of CO2 per year, with fuel saving/efficiency contributing 58% of this reduction. That is made up from increased efficiency in fuel and electricity end use, which saves 38%, end use fuel switching, which saves 15% and power generation improvement and fuel switching, which saves 5%. That leaves 42% of the overall reduction to come from more renewables, more nuclear, and by the wide-scale introduction of carbon capture and storage (CCS). Within that, nuclear accounts for only 6% of the CO2 saving, renewables for 17% and CCS 19%, by 2050.

The IEA did predict that global nuclear capacity would rise to 1200GWe by 2050 from 375GWe today, but some its problems seem to be recognised, and it is clearly not seen as the major player. By contrast the IEA still seems to be fossil fuel fixated, although it is now also keen on renewables. It says by 2050 renewables could provide almost 40% of primary energy supply and 48% of power generation; nuclear 24%; while fossil plants with CCS only 17%- the rest are unabated. And in its enhanced ‘HI REN’ scenario it has renewables supplying 75% of global electricity by 2050. IEA report: www.iea.org/techno/etp/etp10/English.pdf

100% Renewables

A much more radical view is taken by Prof Mark Jacobson from Stanford University and Mark Delucchi from the University of California Davies, who recently produced two papers for the journal Energy Policy, expanding upon their article ‘100% wind, water, and solar power for the world’, published in Scientific American in November 2009.

As before, their scenario runs up to 2050, by which time they claim that all energy, globally, can come from renewables. They say ‘A large- scale wind, water, and solar energy system can reliably supply all of the world’s energy needs, with significant benefits to climate, air quality, water quality, ecological systems, and energy security, at reasonable cost. To accomplish this, we need about 4 million 5MW wind turbines, 90,000 300 MW solar PV plus CSP power plants, 1.9 billion 3 kW solar PV rooftop systems, and lesser amounts of geothermal, tidal, wave, and hydroelectric plants and devices’. But no nuclear, which is phased out from 2030.

There is extensive analysis of grid balancing issues, with electricity storage in electric/hybrid vehicles (BEVs and HFCVs) being seen as part of the answer, along with better wind forecasting, and demand side management to reduce demand peaks. They add that this also ‘requires an upgraded and expanded transmission grid and the smart integration of the grid with BEVs and HFCVs as decentralized electricity storage and generation components’ and look in detail at the costs.

The resource implications are recognised e.g. it is suggested that some rare earth materials will have to be recycled or substitutes found, but overall they say there are no major technical or economic problems with getting to 100%, although there may be political and institutional obstacles.

So how about the UK? A new Earthscan book ‘Energy 2050’, edited by Jim Skea, Paul Ekins and Mark Winskel, outlines some of the results of the recent work within the UK Energy Research Centre, looking at a range of mixes of energy systems, some with large renewable or nuclear percentages, some with large energy savings in various sectors, and then at possible pathways up to 2050, using the MARKAL-MED model. However it is not prescriptive, since, they warn, ‘we simply do not know and cannot know,’ how the costs and other parameters will develop over the next four decades. And so their pathways study concludes that ‘perhaps the most important priority of government policy at present is to ensure that, to the extent possible,the options for the full range of technologies are kept open, so that they all have an opportunity to be commercialised if their development in the meanwhile singles them out as one of the more competitive low carbon technologies of the future’.

That said, they do look at what happens if certain energy supply developments are accelerated, and more generally at the resiliance of the energy system to ‘external’ shocks and changes. ‘Resiliance’ has become a buzz-word in this field. A recent conference blurb defined it, in perhaps typically academic style, as follows ‘The property or process of social resilience is said to be contingent upon the manner in which the system it describes can successfully achieve a socio-technical and political shift in its internal organisation in response to a change in external circumstances’.

As can be seen, the discussion is moving away from whether heat pumps or micro wind work and on to the social process of transition to a low carbon economy. So while the intro chapters, which review the technical options, are useful and reasonably up to date (although for example not covering EST’s damning survey of heat pump performance), possibly the most interesting chapter in this book is the one on ‘the way we live from now on’, which looks at lifestyle change and how that might help reduce carbon emissions. It suggests that saving of 30% overall might be possible, and 50% in the domestic sector, from changed consumer behaviour. However, much of the emphasis seems to be on transport (admittedly one of the largest culprits) and housing policy (with also a good chapter on micro-gen options and uptake patterns), and OPT won’t be happy that there is no discussion of population levels as an issue.

Overall the book provides a good snapshot of the state of play of scholarly study in the UK in the energy field. The basic message is that a transition to a low carbon future is possible, and it explores some of the scenarios that might get us there- but, unlike the US study mentioned above, it does not back any one.

Neither does the new updated version of DECCs 2050 Pathways study, revised after extensive feedback. But it does adjust some estimates of possible future UK renewable energy developments, most notably, increasing the potential contribution from offshore wind under the maximum Level 4 scenario, from 430 TWh/yr to 929 TWh/yr of electricity at 2050, assuming a 45% load factor. www.decc.gov.uk/en /content/cms/consultations/2050pathways/2050pathways.aspx

DECC has also produces a user-friendly web application designed to help the public have a go at making the choices we face when it comes to moving to a secure, low carbon economy, and to let DECC know what they want 2050 to look like. You can try out various mixes of supply and various demand assumptions. Simple but fun. Pity though it’s not costed. http://www.decc.gov.uk/my2050

Posted by Dave Elliott on March 26, 2011 12:53 PM | Permalink