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100% from renewables by 2050?

Almost all of the world’s demand for electricity, transportation and heating energy could be met from renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal power by 2050, WWF International have said, in yet another study confirming that this goal was possible. It follows on from the ‘100% by 2050’ global study by Delucchi and Jacobson, now published in Energy Policy, and several EU-focused ‘100% by 2050’ studies: e.g www.roadmap2050.eu www.rethinking2050.eu and www.pwc.co.uk/eng/publications/100percentrenewable_electricity.html

WWF’s report, produced with researchers at Dutch organizations Ecofys and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, says the share of oil, coal, gas and nuclear in the global energy mix could be cut down to 5% by 2050, and energy saving measures can cut total demand by 15% from 2005 levels, starting from an assumed baseline of 520EJ/a. The programme would require €3.5 trillion p.a. by 2035 to modernise buildings and electricity grids and expand wind farms and solar parks. It would take until 2040 to pay off.

“This is insurance against the volatility of oil and gas prices and climate change,” Stephan Singer, editor of the study and director of energy policy at WWF, told Bloomberg. He said it could be done using currently available technologies, but new technologies that aren’t currently close to commercialisation could make it possible to get 100% of the world’s energy by 2050.

Eco issues are put to the fore: there would be close scrutiny of hydro impacts and bio-energy use would be strictly controlled. Singer also noted that achieving the ramp-up in energy efficiency and renewable power would require behavioural changes, including eating less meat, using more public transport, and electrifying cars. New financing models will be needed to promote investments that generate long-term gains rather than immediate profits. “Sufficiency must be part of the solution - technology is not the sole provider. The global middle classes and the global rich of this world are not a blueprint model for the poor.” ‘The Energy Report’: www.wwf.org.uk/researchcentre/researchcentre_results.cfm?uNewsID=4565

Quite apart from these essentially political prescriptions, there is a lot to chew on in this study and in the other similar exercises that have emerged recently. Time was when renewables were seen as interesting but marginal. Now their supporters are claiming that they could dominate the energy scene. Their projections may been seen as very technologically and economically optimistic, especially given the low-level starting point- renewables only supply about 18% of world power at present, and that’s including hydro. But progress in the last few years has been very dramatic. We are already approaching 200 GW of wind, 40GW of PV solar globally, with prices falling rapidly. And many new improved technologies are emerging.

However, while some countries and regions are pushing ahead with quite radical technology deployment programmes, notably the EU, USA and China, overall the pace is relatively slow and there are many institutional biases and hurdles to overcome. But that’s nothing new- most new technologies have to face similar constraints. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the energy scenarios emerging from the oil industry do not have renewables supplying anywhere nears as much as those mentioned above.

For example, in 2008clu Shell produce a set of 2050 scenarios with renewables, including biofuels, only reaching about 37% by then in their ‘Scramble’ scenario, 30% is their more focused ‘Blueprints’ scenario - fossil fuels continued to dominate. Although, interestingly, nuclear was well behind renewables in both. See: www-static.shell.com/static/public/downloads/brochures/corporatepkg/scenarios/shellenergyscenarios2050.pdf

Shell has now produced a new set of energy scenarios, mostly running up to 2030, in which the future is seen as being even more challenging, with growth in energy demand rising dramatically and coal and especially gas rising to meet it, but oil more or less static. Biomass and nuclear build up equally, but most electricity supplying renewables less so: Shell stresses their technological and economic challenges.
www.shell.com/home/content/media/newsandmediareleases/2011/scenariossignalssignposts14022011.html and www-static.shell.com/static/aboutshell/ downloads/aboutshell/signals_signposts.pdf

BP has also issued its own 2030 projections, with coal and oil leveling off, gas rising, but overall the fossil fuels still dominating, although renewables, while small, expand, especially biofuels: ‘Renewables (including biofuels) account for 18% of the growth in energy to 2030. The rate at which renewables penetrate the global energy market is similar to the emergence of nuclear power in the 1970s and 1980s’: www.bp.com/liveassets/bpinternet/globalbp/ globalbpukenglish/reportsandpublications/statisticalenergyreview2008/STAGING/localassets/2010downloads/2030energyoutlook_booklet.pdf

Exxon Mobil (Esso in UK) also had a go, with similar results: www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/files/corporate/energyoutlookslides.pdf

Some of the difference between the oil company scenarios and those from green NGO’s and academics is due to fossil fuel lobby assumptions about demand and the role of gas (including shale gas), with CCS also seen as coming on line in a big way. For example, in its new report Shell says ‘Allowing natural gas rather than coal to grow to meet power demand is the surest, fastest and most comprehensive way there is to reduce CO2 emissions over the crucial next 10 years. Strong development of CCS programmes should help support such a strategy as part of a long-term vision for low-carbon energy supply’.

It’s interesting to compare these oil industry views with those of the ostensibly independent International Energy Agency. In its new Energy Technology Perspectives report on ‘Scenarios and Strategies to 2050’, it too sees CCS as playing a major role. It includes a ‘Blue Map’ scenario in which, by 2050, renewables provide almost 40% of primary energy supply and 48% of power generation globally. And the IEA’s Blue Map ‘HI REN’ Scenario has renewables supplying 75% of electricity by 2050. That’s some way from 100%, but it does suggest that the oil companies may be over-cautious, at least on renewables. www.iea.org/techno/etp/etp10/English.pdf

Posted by Dave Elliott on April 28, 2011 12:39 PM | Permalink