Feeling down about the continued dominance of fossil fuels? This RMI report is a good antidote:
The Cleantech Revolution
It’s exponential, disruptive, and now
Slide after slide documenting the exponential rise of clean energy technologies.
I hate the over-use of the word "exponential"; I only use it when I mean it.
Electrify everything, they say.
That is happening, and nowhere faster than in Asia.
The signs are unmistakeable: #FossilFuels are in decline.
No-one knows better than the oil and gas industry that the Öldämmerung, the twilight of oil, is upon us. Why do you think they work so hard to spread the disinformation, and to buy the politicians, and to suppress climate protests.
@Nonilex 65 mpg (US) is 3.6187 Litre/100km which is about of half what my VW golf can do on a good day. Will the average include #suv and other big end vehicles including light trucks and vans?
I expect that the #FossilFuels industry will not be pleased.
Global investment in clean energy technology & infrastructure is set to hit $2 trillion this year, twice the amount going into #FossilFuels, an International Energy Agency report shows https://buff.ly/3X7ndoh
A streak of record-setting #heat that began last summer has now persisted for an entire year across the globe, researchers announced Wed, pushing #Earth closer to a dangerous threshold that the #world’s nations had pledged not to cross.
Temperatures surpassed the 1.5°C #warming threshold over the past year, & scientists warn they will again soon.
"coal generators in Australia agree that baseload is dead as a concept. AGL says there is simply not the demand to operate coal fired power stations as “baseload,” and EnergyAustralia is pushing for contracts that will allow its last remaining coal generator, Mt Piper, to switch off completely in certain seasons"
It’s a signal that the concept of “baseload” power – interpreted by most as “always on” generation – is dead in the water.
" The deal with the government only requires Origin to operate Eraring at just one quarter of its rated capacity, about the same capacity factor as your average solar farm, and less than most wind farms."
@InfoMgmtExec
One point, touched on obliquely in the article, is that nuclear is even worse at load-following than is coal. Load-following is the term for what fossil fuels and nuclear are supposed to do: fill in the gaps left by renewables (which storage does better, but that's a different argument).
Some French designs do load-follow, but they do it by wasting energy. Fuel is consumed at a constant rate, but the heat is bled off, instead of generating electricity. The result is less electricity for the same cost. That is, higher cost per unit of electricity. @SuperMoosie #Nuclear #RenewableEnergy #BaseloadParadigm #Coal #FossilFuels
@InfoMgmtExec
The term "baseload" originally referred to the minimum electricity that a coal generator could output before it had to be turned off completely. That was a function of "spinning reserves" in pure coal grids. Spinning reserves are generators, kept fired-up and running, to take over when units fail (as they inevitably do). Traditionally, enough spinning reserves were kept online to cover failure of the largest unit in the system.
Because those spinning reserves always generated their baseload, storage was invented to save the energy that would otherwise go to waste. Hence, pumped hydro energy storage, first implemented in 1907.
The Indian government continues its unrelenting pursuit of coal power while ordinary Indians succumb to the heat in record numbers.
While developed nations bear the bulk of the responsibility, developing nations cannot turn a blind eye the impacts of #ClimateBreakdown and their role in it.
All governments need to act NOW, not just set benchmarks and targets that are never met
"The era of fossil fuels’ dominance is coming to an end.
For every dollar that goes to #FossilFuels, an average of $3 needs to be invested in low-carbon energy over the remainder of the decade – up from parity today. A fully decarbonized global energy system by 2050 could come with a $215 trillion price tag – not an insignificant amount, but only 19% more than in an economics-driven transition, where the Paris Agreement goals are missed and global warming reaches 2.6C."
#Senate#Democrats opened an investigation on Thurs into #Trump’s meeting w/ #oil & #gas execs last month to determine whether Trump offered a “policies-for-money transaction” [#bribe ] when he asked for $1B for his 2024 campaign so he could retake the White House & delete #POTUS#Biden’s #climate#regulations.
The investigation is the 2nd congressional inquiry into the April 11 fund-raising dinner…. Trump told ~20 oil & gas execs that they would save far more than $1B in avoided #taxes & #legal fees after he repealed #environmental regulations….
So while you & I might think its necessary to speed up the Green Transition & enhance/accelerate measures to reduce emissions, Shell's shareholders disagree.
The firm has just sought & obtained agreement from investors to slow down its measures to mitigate its environmental impact & reduce progress towards its own (already weak) climate targets.
More reason(s) the fossil fuels sector cannot really be central to climate response(s).
Key Findings of Oil Change International's "Big #Oil Reality Check" - Oil majors fail to align with international agreements to phase out #FossilFuels and to limit global temperature rise to 1.5ºC ... Combined, 8 ('oil majors') companies’ current oil and #gas extraction plans are consistent with more than 2.4°C of global temperature rise, likely leading to global devastation."
...
Every company is “Grossly Insufficient” or “Insufficient” on a majority of criteria.
Three companies (Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil) are “Grossly Insufficient” — our lowest rating — on all criteria.
These 8 companies alone are on track to use 30% of our remaining carbon budget to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Of the 8 analyzed companies, 6 have explicit goals to increase oil and gas production. Even those without such plans are advancing new #FossilFuel projects and selling polluting assets rather than shutting them down, masking their actions as contributing to an energy transition while perpetuating #climate pollution.
Integrity: None of the companies we analyzed have set comprehensive targets to ensure their total emissions decline rapidly and consistently, starting now. Every company intends to rely on carbon capture and storage (CCS), offsets, and/or other methods that delay and distract from ending fossil fuels, and prolong the health and community safety impacts of dirty energy.
People-Centered Transitions: All companies fail to meet basic criteria for just transition plans for workers and communities where they operate. All companies fail to meet basic criteria on upholding human rights."
"The paper places a much higher estimate on economic losses than previous research, calculating a #SocialCostOfCarbon to be $1,056 per ton. This compares to a range set out by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that estimates the cost to be around $190 per ton.
The cost of transitioning away from #FossilFuels and curbing the impacts of #ClimateChange, while not trivial, pale in comparison to the cost of climate change itself."
Big banks have funneled nearly $7 trillion in funding to the fossil fuel industry since the Paris agreement on carbon emissions, $3.3 trillion towards expansion.
"Most of the funding, $621 million, will go toward 36 projects aimed at bolstering the resilience of existing infrastructure through things like improving draining, moving roadways, and lifting up bridges.
An additional $119 million will go toward protecting, strengthening, or removing at-risk coastal infrastructure like highways."
"In one of its biggest steps yet to keep #FossilFuels in the ground, the Biden administration announced Thursday that it will end new coal leasing in the #PowderRiverBasin, which produces nearly half the coal in the United States.
The bureau determined that no future coal leasing should happen in the basin, and it estimated that coal mining in the #Wyoming portion of the region would end by 2041."
Big Oil and its allies are attacking the International Energy Agency for forecasting a relatively imminent peak in fossil-fuel demand and the rapid uptake of #renewables
The fossil fuel industry is shooting the messenger, because the message contains the words "stranded assets".
If the banks hear that message, that industry is DONE.
"By analysing global accounting regulations using data on European banks, our team of researchers identified a structural bias in financial models which are required to assess and report risk.
Alarmingly, they tend to judge carbon-intensive assets as less risky than lower carbon ones."
"Even as insurers withdraw from #climate-vulnerable regions, they continue to invest in and insure #FossilFuels ― the very industry at the heart of the climate crisis. This omission points to a larger, uncomfortable truth about the insurance sector’s complicity in the crisis of our time, leading us to an uninsurable future."