IEA Calls for Urgent Development of Renewables
01 October 2008
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that nearly 50% of global electricity supplies will have to come from renewable energy sources in order to halve CO2 emissions by 2050 in order to minimize significant and irreversible climate change impacts. This, said the IEA in its launch of a new study on deploying renewables, “is a huge challenge.”
In the new study, Deploying Renewables: Principles for Effective Policies, the IEA carried out a comparative analysis of the performance of the various renewables promotion policies around the world. The study encompasses 35 countries, including all OECD members and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and addresses the three relevant sectors: electricity production, heating and transport.
In 2005, these 35 countries accounted for 80% of total global commercial renewable electricity generation, 77% of commercial renewable heating/cooling (excluding the use of traditional biomass) and 98% of renewable transport fuel production.
The report shows that there are still significant barriers which hamper a swift expansion and increase the costs of accelerating renewables’ transition into the mainstream.
Governments need to do more. Setting a carbon price is not enough. To foster a smooth and efficient transition of renewables towards mass market integration, renewable energy policies should be designed around a set of fundamental principles, inserted into predictable, transparent and stable policy frameworks and implemented in an integrated approach.
—Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the IEA
Renewable policy design should reflect five key principles, according to the study:
The removal of non-economic barriers, such as administrative hurdles, obstacles to grid access, poor electricity market design, lack of information and training, and the tackling of social acceptance issues (“not in my backyard”—NIMBY), with a view to overcome them in order to improve market and policy functioning;
The need for a predictable and transparent support framework to attract investments;
The introduction of transitional incentives, decreasing over time, to foster and monitor technological innovation and move technologies quickly towards market competitiveness;
The development and implementation of appropriate incentives guaranteeing a specific level of support to different technologies based on their degree of technology maturity, in order to exploit the significant potential of the large basket of renewable energy technologies over time; and
The due consideration of the impact of large-scale penetration of renewable energy technologies on the overall energy system, especially in liberalized energy markets, with regard to overall cost efficiency and system reliability.
Resources
At least the International Energy Agency (IEA) is telling the truth about the size of the fix necessary.
(Actually, we really aught to implement these solutions sooner).
Posted by: John Taylor | 01 October 2008 at 11:47 AM
A ten mile by ten mile section of the Mojave desert with concentrated solar thermal electric power generation and pumped hydroelectric storage could replace all the nuclear power plants in California. If you have ever been in the Mojave, you can drive 100 miles and see nothing but desert and sun.
Posted by: sjc | 01 October 2008 at 10:27 PM
Back to 0 fossil emissions,the recognition of the need to implement these targets by "old entrenched buisness and their supporters, backers.
Effectively from the developed counries, bringing China, India on board, reduction in per capita energy usage through smarter consumption patterns.
Changing he emphasis of the economy from consumption and production to energy reduction and alternatives by those with the industrial and educational resources.
What are the chances of all this happenng by itself?
The focus on attrition and change or gambling on breakthroughs, when just accepting the newreality will require much readjustment.
Undoubtably there will be many difficult challenges along the way.
Posted by: arnold | 01 October 2008 at 10:29 PM
Nuclear power plants and nuclear rectors that produce liquid fuels for cars are the only solution for providing energy as free of CO2 as possible.
Very few people know that they, themselves, and all their ancestors and all other life on the planet have always been radio-active because all of the potassium ingested by any life form has always been radio-active. Each pound of humans has more than a hundred explosions of potassium atoms every second. Most are inside cells some are in blood etc. Every such explosion gives off a strong X-ray.
Life adapted to and developed the means to deal with even much stronger radio-activity, so it can deal with the less than one X-ray photon per second that living at the boundary of a nuclear reactor installation might bring. Sitting next to a big tree or a brick wall will expose you to more radio-activity. Coal and gas power plants release more radio-activity to the air than do nuclear power plants. China is collecting uranium fronm their coal ash.
Solar energy and wind energy are free, but the devices to collect it are very expensive. The land costs something too. California has a lot of land area, but it is trying to get wind electricity made in Utah. Make it inside your own boundaries if wind power is so good for Californians. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 02 October 2008 at 12:05 AM
@Sjc
There might be enough energy coming into 10 miles square of th Mojave to power california, but the pumped storage is a massive problem (or a massive undertaking).
Plus, what do you do on the occasional cloudy day ?
All you can hope to do is to reduce the amount of gas you use during sunny times (which is not at all bad).
You will still have to keep all your gas stations for the (literally) rainy days when there is no sun in the Mojave (and wiinter, when there is less sun).
As for the Nukes, be grateful you built then when you could and run them for as long as possible.
There is no simple solution to electricity generation, it is a collection of technologies, connected by a massively beefed up (and expensive) grid.
To misquote Bob Dylan ...
"The answer, my friend, is blowing in the grid"
Posted by: mahonj | 02 October 2008 at 01:31 AM
Some months ago, here in GCC, an article informed that, according to a study from Stanford University, the bio-fuels that can be produced in available land -in the world- could power 8 % of the world transportation that is currently powered by petroleum based fuels.
So I think fuel-efficient motorcycles (including hybrid models) could help a lot for individual mobility once we are in the post-Peak Oil era.
Posted by: Jorge | 02 October 2008 at 08:50 AM
I would use combined cycle natural gas power plants and make the methane for them by gasifying biomass. No need for dirty coal nor nuclear, with 1000s of years of radioactive waste.
Posted by: sjc | 02 October 2008 at 07:17 PM
@sjc
I have heard claims about solar like yours in California before closing Rancho Seco in 1989. So how is it coming?
Posted by: Kit P | 03 October 2008 at 05:13 AM
Kit P,
You should know that I do not respond to people like you. Clean up your act and maybe we will talk.
Posted by: sjc | 03 October 2008 at 09:06 AM
The International Energy Agency (IEA, or AIE in Romance languages) is a Paris-based intergovernmental organization founded by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the oil crisis. It has 26 members.
Posted by: sulleny | 03 October 2008 at 10:18 AM