[Graeme]

The Power Is in the Data – reports reveal the status of global clean-energy transition

As any analyst will tell you, the power is in the data. To know where we are going, we first must know where we are. But, setting global energy baselines is anything but easy.

Today, at the Clean Energy Ministerial meeting in New Delhi, the International Energy Agency released two reports – “Tracking Clean Energy Progress 2013” and the “Global EV Outlook.” The latter includes landmark trending data for the global electric vehicle (EV) market, which was then used to determine the overall trajectory of a global clean-energy transition.

According to these two reports, despite significant gains in renewable power generation, coal technologies still dominate and nuclear power continues to struggle. But, a window of opportunity is opening in the transportation sector.

The tracking report reveals analysis shows that the world is not moving quickly enough to meet environmental targets. Key technologies are not being developed. Global research and development investments need to be dramatically increased. The clean-energy transition appears to have stalled.

The world is sitting on a sustainability precipice and, in the words of IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven, “we must change course before it is too late.”

Eleven Progress Areas – Two On Track

In this IEA “Tracking Clean Energy Progress 2013” report, the authors outline a set of eleven progress areas that their analysis has identified as being essential in moving the globe through a cost-effective clean-energy transition. These areas are:

Renewable power
Nuclear power
Gas-fired power
Coal-fired power
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
Industry
Fuel Economy
Electric and hybrid-electric vehicles
Biofuels
Buildings
Smart grids

scientificamerican

[Graeme]

World Energy Agency Exaggerates Climate Potential of Efficiency

Energy Consumption ‘Rebound’ Downplayed, Experts Say

As our technologies become more efficient, reducing the effective cost of energy, we use a significant portion of the savings to use more technology — and more energy. This effect — known as “rebound” — shows up in various ways, direct and indirect, and tends to be much larger among low income groups, developing economies, and productive sectors. In its latest global predictions, however, the International Energy Agency bases its vast emissions reductions from efficiency measures on a highly selective reading of the scientific literature on rebound, according to experts cited in the Paris-based agency’s latest global report. Policymakers relying on IEA data risk being misled into believing that efficiency can do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than is actually possible.

The International Energy Agency grossly overestimates how much energy efficiency can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to scholars cited by the agency’s own “World Energy Outlook,” bringing into question its claim that such measures can account for almost three-quarters of all emissions reductions by 2020.

Experts expressed concern that governments relying on IEA data for global warming mitigation efforts would overinvest in efficiency and under-invest in low- and zero-carbon energy technologies.

The Paris-based agency’s projections of emissions reductions from energy conservation and efficiency are based on questionable assumptions, experts say, pointing out that rebound effects frequently take back much or all of the energy savings that efficiency policies attempt to capture.


In other words, the Barker study shows that more than half of the carbon dioxide savings that the IEA projects will result from efficiency policies would be negated unless increased energy consumption is met by zero-carbon sources. A rebound rate of 52 percent would eliminate the IEA's projected emissions reductions from efficiency by about 3.2 billion tons annually by 2035 — it would require the construction of about 530 one-gigawatt nuclear power plants to offset this amount of emissions.

thebreakthrough