[kublikhan]

All eyes are look at US and China. The US refused Kyoto (China was not that relevant at that time), China and the Us sabotaged Kopenhagen, China and US heavily(!) opposed the EU law on carbon tax for flights (that would have been quite low, btw)

Please understand the German point of view. If you tell use that we should keep out coal in the ground to save the climate we don't care.

come to the table and than we talk.

Otherwise we are now getting prepared for a +4K world. It's the only intelligent thing that we could do now.

If you think that climate change is a threat, you have to persuade your fellow US citizens first to put it on your countries political agenda...

Despite not ratifying the treaty, the US was the only major nation to actually meets it's Kyoto targets. Doesn't that count for something?

New EIA data shows USA inadvertently meets 1997 Kyoto protocol CO2 emission reductions without ever signing on. In 2012, a surprising twist and without ever ratifying it, the United States became the first major industrialized nation in the world to meet the United Nation’s original Kyoto Protocol 2012 target for CO2 reductions.

Kyoto is the bedrock of international law that serves as the legal foundation used by all nations for their individual actions taken to reduce global CO2 emissions. The United States, the lone non-signatory, is now the only major polluter to have met the standard.

USA meets Kyoto protocol goal – without ever embracing it

[Graeme]

Appreciate the contributions from all posters here, but let's get the thread back on track. It's about how US businesses can reduce their carbon emissions using "the 3% solution", and make substantial savings as well. How are they going to do this? According to the report quoted, they can do it using the following 4 actions.

1. Improve energy management and investments. Capital expenditure is needed to meet emissions goals, Swartz said, and to get there you need to articulate that these actions are investments in growth, get management to make them a priority and gather the necessary expertise to handle the hundreds of small projects that will be needed.

2. Increase low-carbon energy supplies. The utility sector is the main player in this step, he said.

3. Develop low-carbon products and supply chains. Companies and utilities can greatly shape consumer carbon reductions through low-emission vehicles, cheaper solar PV, efficient appliances and energy management solutions.

4. Engage with stakeholders and government. "This is going to require more than companies acting alone," Swartz said, "They're going to have to work in an ecosystem that includes everybody."

In addition:

To help corporations get going, the CDP and WWF put together a calculator that takes a few key inputs about a company and produces an emission reduction target, how much capital you'll likely spend and expected savings.

More important than those other steps, Swartz said, is setting ambitious targets, pointing to research showing that companies that set targets outperform companies that don't.

S&P 500 companies that report to the CDP and set greenhouse gas reduction targets saw a return on investment an average of 9 percentage points better than companies without goals, he said.

Not only that, CDP co-founder and CEO Paul Simpson said that companies listed in the Climate Performance Leadership Index -- those that have the highest scores based on their actions to mitigate climate change -- have had consistently higher financial returns in the past two years than companies on the Global 500, a list of the world's largest companies by revenue.

"If anyone can do this, I really think U.S. companies can do it," he said.

[Plantagenet]

US businesses can reduce their carbon emissions using "the 3% solution", and make substantial savings as well. How are they going to do this?

1. Capital expenditure

Capital expenditures aren't savings....they are EXPENSES.

2. Increase low-carbon energy supplies. The utility sector ...

Low carbon energy supplies are MORE EXPENSIVE. Thats why they aren't already installed.

3. low-emission vehicles, cheaper solar PV,

Low emission vehicles are MORE EXPENSIVE. Similarly solar PV is MORE EXPENSIVE than off-the-grid power.

4. ...government.

Yes, Governments can provide subsidies to offset the extra costs. But all that does is transfer the extra business costs of low carbon power to the taxpayer. And why should the taxpayer be forced to underwrite big corporations?

Basically, you want taxpayers to pay for business power costs.

Sorry---let the big businesses pay for their own fricking energy use.

[cephalotus]

Despite not ratifying the treaty, the US was the only major nation to actually meets it's Kyoto targets. Doesn't that count for something?

wasn't the target for US -7% from the 5 year average from 2008-2012 compared to 1990?

Germany (I assume that we count as a major nation regarding CO2 emissions?) reached her goal (-8%), the US obviously did not.

http://unfccc.int/cop3/fccc/info/indust.htm

Is the UN data wrong or is the quoted article pure BS?

[kublikhan]

Sorry for hijacking your thread there Graeme!

PS, about the Kyoto thing, I thing you are right about the numbers cephalotus. I think it is a case of sloppy journalism. One of the comments points out at least 2 errors in the article. One was they took the year of the Kyoto article was signed(1997) as the base year instead of the actual base year(1990). Second, they took the average co2 reduction target of industrialized nations of 5.2% instead of the US's actual target of 7%(The US target was bigger than the average target). I think a third error is the accomplishments of other nations as well. Anyway, thanks for pointing out this error, I didn't actually crunch the numbers until you mentioned it. I think this article has better numbers showing who passed and who failed(stops at 2011): Has the Kyoto protocol made any difference to carbon emissions?

[Graeme]

Well, again you have to actually read the WWF report. Download it at this site. In general terms, renewable energy is going to get cheaper than fossil-fuel power. Costs for the former are falling and the latter are rising. And each company has to invest initially in the new tech in order to get savings later over many sectors identified in the report.

The US corporate sector, excluding utilities14, could capture up to
US$190 billion (PV) in net savings in 2020 alone by reducing energy related
emissions by 3.2 percent each year on average. Between 2010
and 2020, the US corporate sector can unlock up to $1.26 trillion (PV)
in savings. Unlocking those savings would require capital expenditures
of approximately $480 billion (PV), resulting in a net present value (NPV)
savings of up to $780 billion.

Tax payers are not involved. Savings are made by engaging with local authorities to find out what their regulations are.

For US companies to capture the full potential of emissions reduction wider collaboration will be needed, including with local and national governments, NGOs, industry associations, cross-industry groups and research partners. The aim is to engage in policy development, improve reporting, and encourage cross sector collaboration.

Engage in policy development

Public policy is key to reducing carbon emissions. Companies may encounter regulatory barriers to pursuing energy efficiency and solar PV, such as difficulties with net-metering35 or bans on third-party Power Purchase Agreements.36 Solving these external barriers will require companies to engage relevant stakeholders and federal, state or local governments.

[Graeme]

According to wiki:

Grid parity (or socket parity) occurs when an alternative energy source can generate electricity at a levelized cost (LCoE) that is less than or equal to the price of purchasing power from the electricity grid. The term is most commonly used when discussing renewable energy sources, notably solar power and wind power.

Reaching grid parity is considered to be the point at which an energy source becomes a contender for widespread development without subsidies or government support. It is widely believed that a wholesale shift in generation to these forms of energy will take place when they reach grid parity.

And:

In order to encompass all of these possibilities, Japan's NEDO defines the grid parity in three phases:[6]

1st phase grid parity: residential grid-connected PV systems
2nd phase grid parity: industrial/transport/commercial sectors
3rd phase grid parity: general power generation

These categories are ranked in terms of the price of power they displace; residential power is more expensive than commercial wholesale. Thus, it is expected that the 1st phase would be reached earlier than the 3rd phase.
Predictions from the 2006 time-frame expected retail grid parity for solar in the 2016 to 2020 era,[7][8] but due to rapid downward pricing changes, more recent calculations have forced dramatic reductions in time scale, and the suggestion that solar has already reached grid parity in a wide variety of locations.[2] The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) calculated that PV would reach parity in many of the European countries by 2020, with costs declining to about half of those of 2010.[1] However, this report was based on the prediction that prices would fall 36 to 51% between 2010 and 2020, a decrease that actually took place during the year the report was authored. The parity line was claimed to have been crossed in Australia in September 2011,[9] and module prices have continued to fall since then. By late 2011, the fully loaded cost of solar PV was projected to likely fall below $0.15/kWh for most of the OECD and reach $0.10/kWh in sunnier regions like the southern United States or Spain.[10] This is below the retail rate for power in much of the OECD already. In 2013, Germany's Deutsche Bank was particularly optimistic about solar power price parity in India, the U.S., China, the U.K., Germany, Spain and Italy.[11]

[cephalotus]

Appreciate the contributions from all posters here, but let's get the thread back on track. It's about how US businesses can reduce their carbon emissions using "the 3% solution", and make substantial savings as well. How are they going to do this? According to the report quoted, they can do it using the following 4 actions...

Sorry. I think I will stop it now, most arguments have been exchanged already.

Back to the topic.

Interestingly the IEA also has published a new report and has defined a 4 point plan how the world could achieve significant climate gas reductions until 2020:

http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media ... ateMap.pdf

What I do not like about the report is how they see very little growth in renewables. They estimate a global PV capacity of only 265GW by 2020. I think that this is a bad joke and expect China alone to have 265GW of PV capacity in 2020.

But of course this is the IEA, they always underestimate renewables, seems to be their agenda.

But the other stuff gives an interesting reading:

The policies in the 4-for-2 °C Scenario have been selected
because they meet key criteria: they can deliver significant reductions in energy-sector
emissions by 2020 (as a bridge to further action); they rely only on existing technologies;
they have already been adopted and proven in several countries; and, taken together, their
widespread adoption would not harm economic growth in any country or region. The four
policies are:
- Adopting specific energy efficiency measures (49% of the emissions savings).
- limiting the construction and use of the least-efficient coal-fired power plants (21%).
- Minimising methane (CH4) emissions from upstream oil and gas production (18%).
- Accelerating the (partial) phase-out of subsidies to fossil-fuel consumption (12%).

[cephalotus]

According to wiki:

grid parity itself says nothing.

small residental solar power costs around 10€ct/kwh in Germany (1400€/kWp; 1000kWh/a, 20€/kWp anual costs; 3% interest rate, 25a lifetime), whil you have to pay more than twice as much from the grid (excl. VAT).

But in reality if you have a 5kWp system producing 5000kWh a year and if you have a consumption of 5000kWh / year only 25% of you solar power will substitue electricity from the grid.

If you have no use for the remaining 75% you solar kWh will cost 4x more.

If 25% of your electricity is worth 24€ct/kWh you have to get at least 4€ct/kWh for the remaing 75% that you are feeding to the grid to recover your solar production costs of 10€ct/kWh.

You could reach 50-60% direct using with battery systems, but they are too expensive now (but I'm optimistic to the huge price reductions in the next 5 years)

another option is to look at solar oil parity.

Making hot water from oil or gas costs around 10€ct/kWh used energy in Germany. Average consumption is 2000kWh for a houshold of 4.

So from your 5000kWh solar energy produced, 1250kWh (25%) would be direct usage worth 24€ct/kWh and another 1250kWh (25%) could be hot water worth 10€ct/kWh.
So if you are able to add an electric car that uses another 1250kWh (25%) worth lets say 14€ct/kWh (to make the elctric car competitive to a gosline power car)

you now have 25%*24€ct/kWh+25%*10€ct/kWh+25*14€ct/kWh = 12ct/kWh average. So in that case PV has become a vialable alternative for the individual, even if you throw away 25% at 0€ct/kWh.

NOW you don't need any feed in scheme.

(from the national point of view its still a loss, because Germany includes lots of taxes and the EE funding systems in the electricity price, which have to be recovered somewhere else)

Of course the situation is more problematic in Germany because of our huge difference in solar production between winter and summer. Direct consumption rates in other countries could be higher, because of better all year distribution, AC in summer and a generally higher consumption rate of electricity.

"grid parity" alone is worthless as long as you don't find options how to use much of your electricity for yourself

[Graeme]

Cephalotus, Thanks for your post regarding grid parity. In order to get full benefits of cheap solar power, you need to have some sort of storage. I'll come to that later but first let's begin with "grid parity" for the US (part of topic of thread).

First of all, here’s a fun one that shows that solar PV power should hit grid parity in the US (on average) between 2014 and 2017:

But because the principles outlined in the WWF report are universal, any business (incl FF!) in any country could adopt them. Apparently, 105 countries ("covering 98% of world's population", see comments) have reached 'grid parity'.



Notice this comment:

Natural gas is probably the big contributor here to the demise of nuclear plants, but wind and solar are going to be the long term killers. Wind will drag the off-peak price below cost of production and solar will pull down the profit ceiling to the point where nuclear can't cover its late night losses.

Now I'll come back to storage. Just saw the following article this morning about hydrogen generated by a wind farm in Germany, which is being used to supplement natural gas storage!

Once operational, it will use surplus renewable-source electricity to produce about 360 cubic meters of hydrogen per hour. It will therefore harness renewable-source electricity that otherwise could not be fed into the grid. The region’s wind farms already frequently produce more electricity than the local grid can handle.

Alternatively,

Other similar approaches include putting hydrogen produced from excess renewables to work in fuel cells, and reacting it with CO2 from bioenergy plants to produce a carbon neutral methane, sometimes known as “renewable methane” or synthetic methane. This synthetic methane could go directly into the natural gas pipeline without the limitations of hydrogen. A 25-kilowatt demonstration plant using just such a system is operating in Germany.

In the US, for example:

But to focus simply on renewables for distributed power would do some other parts of the industry a disservice, because companies such as Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ: CPST ) are proving that localized generation of natural gas can be just as efficient as a big centralized utility plant. This one-two punch of renewable power as the primary energy source with localized natural gas generation as a backup for when solar or wind can't generate power could be a big threat to the utilities sector.

And see my thread on energy storage.

[Plantagenet]

renewable energy is going to get cheaper than fossil-fuel power. Costs for the former are falling and the latter are rising.

When the trend lines cross and renewables are cheaper than FF, businesses will shift over to FF.

Public policy is key to reducing carbon emissions.

Not really. When renewables become cheaper than FF, then companies will shift to them. Until renewables are cheaper, companies will resist shifting, no matter what the "public policy" is.

[Graeme]

According to the WWF report:

Analysis of investment data showed that 79 percent of US companies in the S&P 500 that report to CDP earn more on average from investments aimed at reducing carbon emissions than on their overall capital expenditures.16 The highest returns were from improving energy efficiency. These earned an average ROI of 196 percent, with an an average payback period between 2 and 3 years

For example:

Walmart, a global retailer, is pursuing its goal of being powered by 100 percent renewable energy through onsite renewable energy projects, power purchasing agreements with offsite wind farms, and participating in utilities' green power purchasing programs. The company is testing a range of onsite installations including solar panels on store rooftops, micro-wind turbines on parking lots, biodiesels generators, and fuel cells.

Johnson & Johnson, a multinational pharmaceuticals, medical devices and diagnostics, and consumer products company, made a recent commitment to increase onsite renewable and clean technology energy capacity to 50 megawatts by 2015, as part of its Healthy Future 2015 Citizenship and Sustainability goals.

I think that FF will provide the dominant back-up for renewable energy in the short-term but my impression now from my posts in the energy storage thread linked above is that batteries including fuel cells will dominate in the medium and long term.

[Graeme]

German solar company launches household energy storage device

SMA Solar, Germany's largest solar company, is launching an battery set that will allow households to store surplus daytime solar energy for use in the evening, cutting energy bills.

German households pay some of the highest prices in Europe for electricity because they pick up much of the cost of subsidising cleaner energy production.

SMA Solar, which is up against fierce Asian competition, says it can help owners of solar panels use more of their self-generated power.

It is Germany's largest solar company and the world's largest maker of solar inverters, a component that helps to feed solar-generated energy into the electricity grid.

The company says its combined inverter battery will give a four-person household up to three hours of extra energy during the evening. The device will go on the market in the second half of this year.


SMA says combining existing SMA devices with the inverter battery enables consumers to use up to 50 per cent of their own solar power, allowing a typical household to more than halve their annual power bills once the cost of buying the devices has been covered.

The company said it will announce the price of the device - which will compete with stand-alone solar batteries - later this year.

businessspectator

[Ulenspiegel]

Germany is doing what it needs to keep the lights on.

No they aren't. Germany is shutting down nukes (which keep the lights on and release zero CO2) and building coal-fired power plants to replace them. The net result is a huge INCREASE in German CO2 production.

This kind of foolishness from Germany is exactly why we need a new global climate treaty to force countries to reduce their CO2 emissions. The planet's atmosphere is not just a trashpile into which Germany or China or other countries should be allowed to dump more and more CO2.

Sorry, that is nonsense. The coal power plants that go on-line now in Germany were planned long before the decision to shut down all NPPs until 2022.

Around 2005 still almost everybody in industry and even many people in academia believed that Germany has an increasing demand for electricity (+25% in 2030). Most of the new coal capacity was assumed to supplement other sources.

With an increasing share of wind and PV and a at the same time decreasing domestic demand for electricity the utilities are now in a catch-22 situation. The renewables that come on-line substitue the for the reduced output of the NPPs and some of the new coal power plants are already struggling because of the shrinking demand after 2008.

The higher production of coal power plants fueled with hard coal is a direct result of high NG prices in Europe and would also happen in other scenarios.