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Renewable Energy Can Power the World, Says Landmark IPCC Study
UN's climate change science body says renewables supply, particularly solar power, can meet global demand
Renewable energy could account for almost 80% of the world's energy supply within four decades - but only if governments pursue the policies needed to promote green power, according to a landmark report published on Monday.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of the world's leading climate scientists convened by the United Nations, said that if the full range of renewable technologies were deployed, the world could keep greenhouse gas concentrations to less than 450 parts per million, the level scientists have predicted will be the limit of safety beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible.
Investing in renewables to the extent needed would cost only about 1% of global GDP annually, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC.
Renewable energy is already growing fast – of the 300 gigawatts of new electricity generation capacity added globally between 2008 and 2009, about 140GW came from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, according to the report.
The investment that will be needed to meet the greenhouse gas emissions targets demanded by scientists is likely to amount to about $5trn in the next decade, rising to $7trn from 2021 to 2030.
Ramon Pichs, co-chair of one of the key IPCC working groups, said: "The report shows that it is not the availability of [renewable] resources but the public policies that will either expand or constrain renewable energy development over the coming decades. Developing countries have an important stake in the future – this is where most of the 1.4 billion people without access to electricity live yet also where some of the best conditions exist for renewable energy deployment."
Sven Teske, renewable energy director at Greenpeace International, and a lead author of the report, said: "This is an invitation to governments to initiate a radical overhaul of their policies and place renewable energy centre stage. On the run up to the next major climate conference, COP17 in South Africa in December, the onus is clearly on governments to step up to the mark."
He added: "The IPCC report shows overwhelming scientific evidence that renewable energy can also meet the growing demand of developing countries, where over 2 billion people lack access to basic energy services and can do so at a more cost-competitive and faster rate than conventional energy sources. Governments have to kick start the energy revolution by implementing renewable energy laws across the globe."
The 1,000-page Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) marks the first time the IPCC has examined low-carbon energy in depth, and the first interim report since the body's comprehensive 2007 review of the science of climate change.
Although the authors are optimistic about the future of renewable energy, they note that many forms of the technology are still more expensive than fossil fuels, and find that the production of renewable energy will have to increase by as much as 20 times in order to avoid dangerous levels of global warming. Renewables will play a greater role than either nuclear or carbon capture and storage by 2050, the scientists predict.
Investing in renewables can also help poor countries to develop, particularly where large numbers of people lack access to an electricity grid.
About 13% of the world's energy came from renewable sources in 2008, a proportion likely to have risen as countries have built up their capacity since then, with China leading the investment surge, particularly in wind energy. But by far the greatest source of renewable energy used globally at present is burning biomass (about 10% of the total global energy supply), which is problematic because it can cause deforestation, leads to deposits of soot that accelerate global warming, and cooking fires cause indoor air pollution that harms health.
There was disappointment for enthusiasts of marine energy, however, as the report found that wave and tidal power were "unlikely to significantly contribute to global energy supply before 2020". Wind power, by contrast, met about 2% of global electricity demand in 2009, and could increase to more than 20% by 2050.
As with all IPCC reports, the summary for policymakers – the synopsis of the report that will be presented to governments and is likely to impact renewable energy policy – had to be agreed line by line and word by word unanimously by all countries. This was done at Monday's meeting in Abu Dhabi. This makes the process lengthy, but means that afterwards no government or scientist represented can say that they disagree with the finished findings, which the IPCC sees as a key strength of its operations.
The launch of the report is streamed on the IPCC web site.
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Show AllNo it would not cost trillions, not to the economy in general.
As the (paper) value of of suburbia goes down throught the drain, the value of urban areas goes up. One balances the other.
It would cost trillions to those who decided owning a McMansion in suburbia was a good decision. Too bad.
You would have to spend trillions to build enough urban housing to to relocate
those from suburbia. Then the majority would then have to commute out to suburbs where the job is.
Nope.
Death by starvation should take care of them quite nicely as the economy collapses.
Who will get a bill through congress that appropriates money for competitors to the oil industry?
You and I, working together.
It's the only way.
We, the people, have to be "The Little Red Hen". and do it ourselves to the extent it will be done. The political machinery of our country is too far gone in the hands of oil and coal to expect this change from Congress. There are great opportunities for solar and wind in the Native American lands. Would it not be justice if they ended up in a position of supplying all of us with energy and in control of those revenues?
Our existing political structures are too hidebound. I believe that other, more vital countries will take the lead. We will be last, and suffering to fuel our war machinery, while others will be sitting pretty in a few decades.
Here is anothrer alternative which is readily available, the technology is already well proven, it is being used in many places, it is very, very cost effective at from $0,04 cent, to an average of $0.06 cents per kWh at the meter. It is clean with almost zero atmospheric pollution,
If we had the will, the desire and political and business intelligenge supporting it, we could have it within one decade, not three or more and replace every nuclear and almost all of the coal fired plants and contimue to improve upon and develop solar. We had damn well better start on it,,, soon.
And any who claim it is not viable, readily availabel, clean, and cost efective, are being bull headed and have an agenda other than clean energy.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/faqs.html
I consider this very good news. It puts to bed the "ability" piece. Now there is the "willingness" piece.
EARTH COMMANDMENTS TEXT
1. Thou shalt see thyself as part of the whole and not place thyself above other creatures.
2. Thou shalt live in balance and harmony with all creation and not seek dominion over nature.
3. Thou shalt not multiply thy species endlessly without regard to the limits of my bounty.
4. Thou shalt not empty the seas of fish and the forest of trees, nor turn fertile fields to deserts and take the blue from the skies.
5. Thou shalt not overgraze thy sheep till pastures disappear and famine visits the land.
6. Thou shalt not produce what cannot be destroyed and returned to dust upon the earth.
7. Thou shalt not harvest greed, envy, and hatred but instead husband thy seed stock and plant as well the seeds of peace, love, and tranquility.
8. Thou shalt be a friend to the world and to all creatures great and small by doing unto all species as you would have them do unto mankind.
9. Thou shalt walk lightly upon the earth and nurture the balance of existence, seeking not a kingdom in the sky but a heaven on earth.
10. Thou shalt keep the earth a paradise as it has been for all eternity.
Mother Earth
http://www.earthcommandments.com/
"Man has lost a capacity to foresee and forestall.
He may end by destroying the earth."
Albert Einstein
lovely ezeflyer..............haven't seen that before. brought tears to my eyes...........
I always did like you.
OBVIOUSLY!
Take heating and air conditioning with geothermal (passive) energy. Suppose your house could ALWAYS be above freezing even in the coldest, most wicked winter weather with 15 below zero outside? You can achieve that with passive geothermal. Now figure out the energy saved over the entire fucking planet by NOT having to heat houses up to 38 degrees (that's almost free from the ground with passive heat transfer pumps - very low electrical demand). Just with that saving alone wou could probably knock off 25% of the current energy use. Throw in air conditioning in the summer (ground temperatures, even in the tropics 20 feet down are about 72 degrees) and you have now saved maybe 40%.
It can be done. The oil, coal and nuclear industries just don't want it to happen because you can't put a meter on mother earth. Once you get the plumbing and the pumps, your maintenance is peanuts.
Of course Galenwainwright will, no doubt, rush to remind me how much fossil fuel will be burned making the plumbing and pumps for all these geothermal installations. No shit! So are we supposed to all move into teepees and dig latrines out back for our compost, prepare pemmican for the winter, send grandma out to freeze to death when she is no longer useful and kill nine out of every ten humans in order to "FIX IT"?
I don't think so.
I say go geothermal, wind and solar. Reducing technological demand is a pipe dream that Galenwainwright refuses to relinquish. I agree we need to live simply. That is the way I live. I have a third world carbon footprint in the middle of Vermont.
Galenwainwright should be championing legislation to penalize the rich massively (90% taxes) for their large carbon footprints. That would castrate the predatory corporations run by them by limiting investment capital. We could then use that money to detox the land and re-educate the people for simpler living. As it is now, the pigs are just being piggier. They need negative motivations.
"the world could keep greenhouse gas concentrations to less than 450 parts per million, the level scientists have predicted will be the limit of safety"
I thought 350 parts per million was the level scientists were predicting was the limit of safety. Who bumped it up another 100 parts per million?
That's the FIRST thing that jumped out, nosurrender, when I read the article! This is irresponsible and pathetic! Pathetic because it shows that the IPCC has been firmly pushed on the defensive by the organized criminals and their unpaid henchmen all aound.
Whether it's 350ppm or 400ppm, the prudent thing to do would be to listen to the more dire warnings such as from people like James Hansen who warn of a climate tipping point. James Lovelock seems to think we might have already crossed the tipping point, damn it!
If you want to go all renewable and no-coal and no-nuclear, start from there and see what is feasible. Cut out everything else. Start rationing electricity and fuel if necessary. Or, better yet, start rationing annual carbon credits proposed by George Monbiot in his book "Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning" and make everything payable with carbon credit. Whether people buy solar or wind or whatever would be up to them, as long as people pay with their allotted carbon credits. Why is no one talking about rationing yet? Lot's of wishful thinking and denial going on here.
We need a better word than "renewable". Corn based ethanol is renewable, but a very bad choice, leading to starvation, water shortages, and more CO2 in the air. There is enough nuclear fuel to last for millenia, but its waste products are dangerous to the environment, not to speak of accidents.
Is there a word that means all of these things: clean, non-polluting, endless supply, non-carbon burning? If not, we need to invent a new word.
Is there a word that includes the concept of living in a way that consumes less energy, in our design of housing, transportation, manufacturing? Is there a word that means living in peace and not using energy to bomb and blitz the earth and its inhabitants? If not, we need to invent a new word.
"I thought 350 parts per million was the level scientists were predicting was the limit of safety. Who bumped it up another 100 parts per million?"
That would be the Corporations funding the universities employing the scientists.
likeitornot,
Speaking of peddled rubbish, you are really peddling hard today.
You must be related to Billy Sol Estes.
I know where rubbish comes from. Even it can be used for alternative energy. Your brand however, is what is causing the problem in the first place. Wise up, likeitornot.
Of course those solar-thermal fields can be made into small ones so the locals can own/operate them. And the wildlife can run between them. The materials from which they are made can be recycled into.. new ones, over and over.
We don't need "efficiencies of scale" now. In fact, we need to scale back, more than anything. That's why das kapitalists are shrieking. All of their ideas are defunct now, fundamentally, and everyone knows it.
If you're looking for some guidelines, we only need about 4kWh per person per day, about 1/4 the current consumption rate in Merka. And 50 gal. of biofuel (1/4 acre) per person per year, about 1/4 the current consumption rate in Merka. Check out how far that will get you. Then you'll know. You can for example demand public rail transport for most journeys, then take an occasional Sunday drive in a 150 mpg series-electric turbo-diesel, built by your neighbor down the street. I guess we all have a pretty good vision of the anti-kapitalist way.
rtdrury,
You are right. Ever since Little John wanted to charge Robin Hood a toll to cross a creek, the "centralization is good" goons have always conspired to put a meter on every human need. Decentralization strikes fear in the heart of the elite pigs. They will continue to jimmy our local ordinances to try to keep us from providing our own power but, eventually, decentralization will be the law of the land. In nature, it always was. It was mankind that tried to change that.
No slick corporate advertising is going to stop this trend. Good.
A feasability study for a transition to renewables in Japan.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
A study like this probably exists for the USA but the power industry isn't being too public about it. All those people feeding the grid instead of running up their meters gives the power industry pigs heartburn.
http://www.iccgov.org/iew2009/speakersdocs/Ashina-et-al_FeasibilityStudyForLow-CarbonGrid.pdf
One of the biggest lies that power industry advocates use is the "no storage capacity" lie about renewable power grids. All you need is a series of tanks with a nontoxic substance (e.g. water) pumped in when excess power is available and used to run turbines hooked to generators when extra demand occurs. As fossil fuel is used less and less, the huge tank farms all over the USA could be appropriated for this use instead of oil storage.
It can EASILY be done. The greedy pigs just don't want us going off fossil fuel dependency. How could we justify all those foreign wars if we didn't need any poil, HUH? How could we justify all those nuclear shit piles if we weren't short on energy, HUH?
Just put the tanks on any hill in town and you can multiply the energy storage capacity of the tanks manyfold!
HEADLINE....HEADLINE....HEADLINE
NEWS JUST IN: ..galenwainwright discovers 2nd law of thermodynamics...counsels mass suicide......
"i love horsies..and i will slap anyone who says ney...."
"i love horsies..and i will slap anyone who says ney...."
Let's see you eat a tractor.
Yup.
De-centralized, distributed renewables are easily conceptualized and implemented by most folks here on cd. However, cd-ers are a spit in the ocean. Most of the US will continue to blissfully watch msm TV, worship the military, go to wallyworld, and don't even want to be bothered. In fact, most folks get upset with facts that upset their norms, or are too hopelessly depressed to either listen or help themselves.
Not a snowball's chance.
I wonder why there is no mention of the one source of unlimited renewable energy--space based solar power. Because it hasn't been done yet? It's being done. I also wonder what is the benefit of just arguing against anything that someone thinks might have a good positive impact? "Whatever it is, I'm agin it!" Just pointing out all the reasons why something won't work? What's the benefit in that?
"Those who say it can't be done should refrain from interrupting those who are doing it."
commers makes billions on bottled water so why not on renewable energy - too poor customers?
The IPCC is sadly mistaken. There is simply not enough energy currently available to extract enough resources to produce enough renewable energy systems, to ship the resources after mining them, manufacture all the parts, ship them again, install, maintain, as well as building, shipping, and using all the peripheral support products and services (trucks, delivery, businesses that run the services and make the products,etc.), not to mention that keeping such a support system functioning would require a fully functioning (i.e. growing) economy.
This is a dangerous fantasy, as it soothes us into a false sense that our current lifestyle can be maintained much as it is now. Not true. Our lives must (and will) change dramatically- we can accept that and prepare or we can live in fantasy land until reality intrudes, which will be a much harder landing!
No, I think that's their peer-reviewed conclusion, and by itself, it's not fantasy. It's unasailable and a nice piece of work. Photovoltaics, especially, have come a long way recently, and the price continues to go down. PVs are generally formed using silicon and other relatively common ingredients, so it's just another wafer fab project. Similarly, there are no logistical or special requirements for wind / hydro turbines. Plenty of wind on the plains.
You correctly point out that actually DOING IT ain't gonna happen. And I agree that we should perhaps assume the worst and plan accordingly.
Trouble here for me is that what appears as good to use renewable sources, it is doing nothing to rid the whole concept of the utilities to whom one writes checks to every month. And it isn't address the issue of the space taken up to lay out huge arrays or farms of solar of wind energy sources.
What needs to be done is to break these down to units that serve individual homes and negates the utilities. And supposedly will give more land back for people to enjoy and do something with. I never have liked to be held hostage by energy corporation or their partners in crime the Public Service Commission, if those even still exist, to set rates and availability of energy. To create massive arrays and farms only leaves those insidious corporations in charge and I thought the enron debacle proved that was not a good idea.
I can say this is a (slam dunk fact). When the atmospheric Co2 levels hits (450 ppm) we won't be here to see it. No one alive today will.
Atmospheric Co2 was in the 320 ppm range in 1950, Within 61 years it has soared to the (397 ppm) range and it is steadily rising, to say nothing of the atmospheric methane (Ch4) level, which is now the highest it has been in the last 40,000 years and is very quickly rising. . That rapid rise of potent greenhouse gases, especially Co2 is phenominal in geological time.
During the last three global warming periods on Earth, it took a million years to rise from a low of 320 ppm to 400 ppm. After 410 ppm, global warming became very bad for most life on Earth and it then continued to rise to over 1,200 ppm and long before then almost all life on Earth had been eradicated. The reason it stopped at 1,200 ppm was because (heavy) volcanic activity had slowed and stopped. It then was many millions of years before the atmosphere cleared for life to once again evolve.
Anyway; the (450 ppm) atmospheric Co2 level is bullshit. No one alive will ever live to see it and when it reaches (405 to 410) ppm most will wish they'd never been born. Wait and see when the Arctic is ice free and (trillions of tons) of methane has escapsed into the atmosphere. That will be in the next few years. If any think climate changes are happening, and they surely are, what we are experiencing now is peanuts to what is coming round the bend.
We can stop burning coal and oil tomorrow but global warming and the Arctic ice melt will continue as if we humans had never existed now. We screwed around arguing for too many years. Bill Mckibbon and his 350 ppm agenda was ignored and we are ALL going to be very sorry that he was ignored. That "very sorry" includes the CEOs of big oil and coal and believe me, I'm very sorry to write this, but facts are facts and reality is reality.
"During the last three global warming periods on Earth, it took a million years to rise from a low of 320 ppm to 400 ppm."
Significant periods of global warming accompanied the end of each "Ice Age" -obviously- and there is evidence of warming episodes leading to cooling ones -the Younger Dryas period, for example. Meaning that there have been more than three "global warming periods" just IN the last million years. How then, could the CO2 rise have taken "a million years" during each warming period?
Something is wrong here...
Those were not (global warming) periods, the planet was warmer than during the ice ages. Atmospheric Co2 levels never went above 310 ppm for rmillions of years until after the industrilal age began in the 1800s.
The most serious global warming periods were 251 million years ago and again 55 million years ago. Both times almost all life on Earth was wiped out. 55 million years ago was less serious, but the dinasours were eleminated. The next most serious is now. and it is just starting to really take off.
The Pleistocene era, or the third global warming period, occurred from 2.590 million to 12,000 years ago. It ended the last ice age and it took almost three million years to do so. Surprisingly the atmospheric Co2 level never went above (310) ppm.
When atmospheric Co2 levels are in the (250 - 260) ppm range or less, global cooling ensues and an ice age develops. When the Co2 level is above (340) ppm, it is time to be very concerned, above (390) ppm and it's too late to be concerned, then (serious) global warming has occurred and it will intensify as the feedback loops to global warming kick in. The feedback loops are less ice to reflect the sun's rays, vast amounts of methane gas escaping into the atmosphere, warmer oceans and changes to ocean currents, much faster thaws of glaciers and the ice caps. Things move much fater than anyone ever dreamed. Scientists have also recently discovered that methane gas is 70 times more potent as a greenhose gas than Co2 is, not just 25 or 30 times more potent.
Even the Medival Warm Period, which was restricted to the Norhtern Hemisphere was not a global warming event and the atmospheric Co2 level was less than 310 ppm.
WayneWR
Thanks for bringing up the geothermal earlier in this thread. It's kind of amazing no one reads or hears much about it.
You wrote of the CO2 PPM range in 1950. Weren't the first definitive measurements done later on Mauna Loa? How solid is the scientific consensus behind the PPM theory? Thanks again.
Thank you for the Thanks liveitnow
.
I doubt anyone will thank me for my last three posts. I don't like it either.
Co2 levels are taken from 60 seperate locations on the planet, located around the globe. Those are collected daily by the CDIAC in New Zealand and they work very closely with the NOAA and NASA scientists. I do not agree it is good to use the reading from near an active volcano and years ago I understand that was the only place it was taken. I also understand they deducted the amount of Co2 which comes from that volcano as they know the amount of Co2 it emits, but it has given Global warming deniers a soap box.
In 1950 weather and climate world wide were pretty stable and decent. We were in the beginning stages of (serious) global warming then however.
Any atmospheric Co2 level of near (270 to 300) ppm can actually be termed "global warming", but global warming of the type of global warming we'd all like to see. Right now unless scientists can figure a way to safely lower the atmospheric Co2 level we are in deep do-do.
I'd hate to just give up however and do wish world governments would get on the geothermal bandwagon and stop burning coal. I hate nuclear but if it were up to me, I'd replace the coal fired plants first and then the nukers and oil fired plants, continue to develop solar, tidal and wave.
I personally don't give a lot of credit to wind power for the mass electrical power grids. It's fine for private homes, farms, factories, hotels and things such as that where they can supplement regular delivered power whe the wind stops. The current methods of huge wind fans is not cost effectve. Some areas the wind never stops... I have been accused of that.
More than 10,000 scientists, earth scientists, geologists, ocean bio chemists, atmospheric scientists, physicists who have earned their doctorates all agree that Co2 and methane are greenhouse gases and atmospheric levels above the (350) ppm range are serious and will cause serious global warming. They do not all agree on time frames or how high is too high to reverse it. Based upon past history, it is reasonable to say any over (400) ppm will cause a casistrophic disaster for all life on Earth. I am not qualified to disagree with them.
Wayne, thanks for the posts. And thanks especially for adding your suggestions and recommendations, and at least a sliver of cheeriness/humor. Any author or poster can criticize, snipe, and preach doom, but few go on to actually discuss solutions and alternatives.
>WayneWR: "I doubt anyone will thank me for my last three posts. I don't like it either."<<
Well, it did occur to me to thank you for being among the exception on this thread to draw attention to the uncomfortable reality. But I was very discouraged (!) by so much "positive" talk that refuses to be grounded in reality.
Even before that, I was upset by this somewhat irresponsible article that cites a 450ppm limit for CO2 by referring to another news story from 2008, that is, from one year before the Copenhagen fiasco!
And here are folks discussing solutions as if the upper limit on CO2 does not matter and the timeframe to bring about this reduction does not matter. The upper limit and the narrow timeframe (some say it should have been done by yesterday!) change the picture COMPLETELY and I don't think many people are ready for the implications. And so the talking continues. That's what I call denial. (Different from the "deniers" who deny man-made global warming.)
Anyway, thank you for calling attention to reality, and I hope you'll keep reminding people about it in future threads as well.
It is too late for change. We will try -- we may even try hard, but we are too far ingrained with personal gain and greed to ever possess the will to do what is necessary. It is not corporations that are at fault-- it is our primary motive in life. The world must scrap capitalism, profit motivation, and money. When we learn to work for the common good, survival, harmony, and equality, what few people who will remain on the planet will survive nicely. Government must be run by Scientists with the prime mission of survival.
Except scientists and engineers (and the intellectual class in general, but definitely these two categories) have never been anything but brown tongued cocksuckers of any form of power, economic or political. You can only believe in technocracy if you know no history, or are a fascist anyway. Engineering as a profession is especially predisposed towards forms of fascism, and even in democracies it's traditionally a pretty right-wing job. As for scientists, in general they're very often moral imbeciles, too preoccupied by their own specialisation to care for the world, or busy serving power. Just try talking with these people about scientists and engineers taking moral responsibility for their work, for example, you'll see how detached from the world they are and how much they resent the idea that they have any personal responsibility for what they're creating. Of course there are always exceptions, but that's the general case afaics.