Solar May Produce Most of World’s Power by 2060, IEA Says

[kristopher]

Solar May Produce Most of World’s Power by 2060, IEA Says
By Ben Sills
Aug 29, 2011 8:10 AM GMT-0400


Solar generators may produce the majority of the world’s power within 50 years, slashing the emissions of greenhouse gases that harm the environment, according to a projection by the International Energy Agency.

Photovoltaic and solar-thermal plants may meet most of the world’s demand for electricity by 2060 -- and half of all energy needs -- with wind, hydropower and biomass plants supplying much of the remaining generation, Cedric Philibert, senior analyst in the renewable energy division at the Paris-based agency, said in an Aug. 26 phone interview.

“Photovoltaic and concentrated solar power together can become the major source of electricity,” Philibert said. “You’ll have a lot more electricity than today but most of it will be produced by solar-electric technologies.”

The solar findings, set to be published in a report later this year, go beyond the IEA’s previous forecast, which envisaged the two technologies meeting about 21 percent of the world’s power needs in 2050. The scenario suggests investors able to pick the industry’s winners may reap significant returns as the global economy shifts away from fossil fuels....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-29/solar-may-produce-most-of-world-s-power-by-2060-iea-says.html

[HughBeaumont]

1. The key word in that sentence is "may".

We'll see what Big Oiligarchy has to say about that.

[LAGC]

4. Did you see the AP article that ran in many newspapers yesterday?

It was all about the oil and natural gas fields in North Dakota, and how people were relocating from all across the U.S. to fill these "man camps" of grueling 80-hour work weeks that paid upwards of $5000/week (yes, $5000 PER WEEK).

Here, I found the article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44375648/

One of the workers testified:

"I was going to go to school for alternative energy — and here I am in the oil field.

"So much for solar panels."

So long as the big money is still in oil and natural gas, we'll never see solar energy take off and succeed on a wide-scale.

Somethings got to give before we have a real breakthrough in this fossil fuel paradigm...

[kristopher]

7. Some revealing numbers

"Two years ago, solar was little more than a romantic notion in Italy. There was a total of about 1 gigawatt of capacity that had been installed over the previous four years. Everyone loved the idea of solar, but it gained relatively little traction compared to other parts of Europe.
Then markets elsewhere slowed down and policies within Italy changed. Suddenly, it became the hottest market around, and the nation’s installed capacity shot up to 3.4 GW by the end of last year to a shade under 9 GW by the end of July. Now a country that had implemented a target of 8 GW of solar by 2020 has rewritten its target to achieve 23 GW by 2016."


http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/08/lessons-learned-italys-solar-rise-and-the-path-ahead?cmpid=SolarNL-Tuesday-August30-2011


Accomplished:
2005 - begin installation of solar
2009 - 1 GW of cumulative installed capacity (1 nuclear power plant equivalent = 25%)
12/2010 - 3.4 GW of cumulative installed capacity (85% of (1) 1GW nuclear plant)
7/2011 - 9 GW of cumulative installed capacity (225% of 1) 1GW nuclear plant)

Projected:
2016 - 23 GW of cumulative installed capacity ( 575% of (1) 1GW nuclear plant)

Compare that to this:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/progress-energy-customers-are-helping-to-pay-for-a-nuclear-plant-they/1189391

[LAGC]

9. I'm not arguing for nuclear power here at all, kristopher.

You already won me over, the risk isn't worth the reward, I've conceded the issue.

The real problem we face is the fact that so long as oil and natural gas remain so lucrative for both investors and workers, alternative energy is never going to take off big time until something fundamental changes.

I mean, you're talking about a couple dozen giga-watts capacity in 10 years... we need to be talking about TERA-WATTS here to put a serious dent into this:

[kristopher]

10. And yet you continue your antirenewable spin.

Old habits die hard, I suppose. Take your characterization of the news about solar. Let's compare what was posted with your response:
I wrote:

"Two years ago, solar was little more than a romantic notion in Italy. There was a total of about 1 gigawatt of capacity that had been installed over the previous four years. Everyone loved the idea of solar, but it gained relatively little traction compared to other parts of Europe.
Then markets elsewhere slowed down and policies within Italy changed. Suddenly, it became the hottest market around, and the nation’s installed capacity shot up to 3.4 GW by the end of last year to a shade under 9 GW by the end of July. Now a country that had implemented a target of 8 GW of solar by 2020 has rewritten its target to achieve 23 GW by 2016."


http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/08/lessons-learned-italys-solar-rise-and-the-path-ahead?cmpid=SolarNL-Tuesday-August30-2011


Accomplished:
2005 - begin installation of solar
2009 - 1 GW of cumulative installed capacity (1 nuclear power plant equivalent = 25%)
12/2010 - 3.4 GW of cumulative installed capacity (85% of (1) 1GW nuclear plant)
7/2011 - 9 GW of cumulative installed capacity (225% of 1) 1GW nuclear plant)

Projected:
2016 - 23 GW of cumulative installed capacity ( 575% of (1) 1GW nuclear plant)

Compare that to this:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/progress-energy-customers-are-helping-to-pay-for-a-nuclear-plant-they/1189391

And your response is "I mean, you're talking about a couple dozen giga-watts capacity in 10 years".

Really? Is that what that timeline tells us? Or is more aptly interpreted by what has happened since the end or 2009 - as the lead in to the article notes? Isn't your use of the period before policies strongly supporting solar were implemented really a way to try and paint this remarkable achievement in a lesser light?

I routinely talk with academics and professionals working on the climate change problem, and news like this is universally hailed as wonderful. So you'll have to forgive me when I doubt your sincerity regarding your allegiance to nuclear in this post-Fukushima period of hiding for that despicable industry's proponents.

[kristopher]

6. Not really. The only question is "Will the Transition to Renewables Be Fast or Slow?"

Will the Transition to Renewables Be Fast or Slow?

Yes, solar is a miniscule part of the energy budget, but history shows market shares can shift rapidly.


The technology is dangerous, expensive and hard to find.

That was the conclusion of a panel convened by the U.S. Navy in the 1850s to determine whether the fleet should switch from boats powered by sails to ones that run on coal, according to Ray Mabus, the current Secretary of the Navy. Nonetheless, the switch took place, and in a few years' time, coal ruled the seas.

In the 1890s, a new generation of experts argued that a switch from coal to oil would be cost-prohibitive. Think of all that money spent on coaling stations! And in the 1950s, the critics once griped that nuclear-powered ships and submarines were an impractical fantasy. Now, all of the Navy’s carriers and submarines run on nuclear power.

Can the world rapidly jump when it comes to solar, wind or alternative fuels? Energy technology, from a day-to-day perspective, seems to move at a snail’s pace, particularly when compared to things like TVs or electronics. Back in the late '80s, only billionaires had cell phones and they were the size of small shoeboxes. Twenty years later, the cellular industry can brag about having billions of subscribers worldwide.

Over that same time 25-year span...

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/will-the-transition-to-renewables-be-fast-or-slow/

It's good to see all of our pronuclear friends doing all they can to downplay the stunning growth in the renewable industry.

[FirstLight]

2. too little too late

I will keep saying this... ALL the models are WRONG. What they say 'may' happen with storms, sea level rise, etc. by 2050 or 2100 is gonna happen within the next 5 years.

I am afraid we will not 'make it' to the place of technological turn-around for energy or environment.

At this point, it's just hang on and wait for the evolutionary bottleneck, it's coming already

[Fresh_Start]

3. Actually it already produces most of the worlds energy

its just that we haven't harnessed that power for our use

[MineralMan]

5. They may. I will certainly be dead by then.

May. Certainly. I guess I'll never know, eh? :rofl:

[kristopher]

8. That's fine...

The circle of life still presses on with or without any individual.

In the meantime:

Investment Breaks Records
August 29, 2011

...The document, Global Trends in Renewable Investment 2010, an Analysis of Trends and Issues in the Financing of Renewable Energy, reports that the record itself was not the only eye-catching aspect of 2010. Another was the strongest evidence yet of the shift in activity in renewable energy towards developing economies. Financial new investment, a measure that covers transactions by third-party investors, was $143 billion in 2010, but while just over $70 billion of that took place in developed countries, more than $72 billion occurred in developing countries.

... renewable energy's balance of power has been shifting towards developing countries for several years. The biggest reason has been China's drive to invest: last year, China was responsible for $48.9 billion of financial new investment, up 28 percent from 2009 figures, with dominance in the asset finance of large wind farms. But the developing world's advance in renewables is no longer a story of China and little else. In 2010, financial new investment in renewable energy grew by 104 percent to $5 billion in the Middle East and Africa region, and by 39 percent to $13.1 billion in South and Central America.

...A second remarkable detail about 2010 is that it was the first year that overall investment in solar came close to catching up with that in wind. For the whole of the last decade, as renewable energy investment gathered pace, wind was the most mature technology and enjoyed an apparently unassailable lead over its rival renewable energy power sources. In 2010, wind continued to dominate in terms of financial new investment, with $94.7 billion compared to $26.1 billion for solar and $11 billion for the third-placed biomass & waste-to-energy. However, these numbers do not include small-scale projects and in that realm, solar, particularly via rooftop photovoltaic installations in Europe, was completely dominant. Indeed, small-scale distributed capacity investment ballooned to $60 billion in 2010, up from $31 billion, fuelled by feed-in tariff subsidies in Germany and other European countries, the report finds. This figure, combined with solar's lead in government and corporate research and development, was almost enough to offset wind's big lead in financial new investment last year, the document concludes.

Furthermore, no energy technology has gained more from falling costs than solar over the last three years. The price of PV modules per MW has fallen by 60 percent since the summer of 2008, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates, putting solar power for the first time on a competitive footing with the retail price of electricity in a number of sunny countries. Wind turbine prices have also fallen - by 18 percent per MW in the last two years - reflecting, as with solar, fierce competition in the supply chain. Further improvements in the levelised cost of energy for solar, wind and other technologies lie ahead, posing a growing threat to the dominance of fossil fuel generation sources in the next few years.

...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/08/renewables-investment-breaks-records?cmpid=GeoNL-Thursday-September1-2011


Now, if we weren't wasting all that money on technologies that produce filth, such as coal and nuclear, imagine what we could do.

[glinda]

11. That is a ridiculous date. Too late.

[kristopher]

12. Too late for what?

How did you establish that claim? Do you have some sort of solid analytic foundation for it, or is it more along the lines of a gut feeling?

[txlibdem]

13. I think glinda means that date would be too late to avoid serious and expensive climate changes

Most climate scientists agree that as we reach a certain level of CO2 in the atmosphere it will cause irreversable changes in the Earth's climate, nearly all of them bad for the places where most people live now. There is a little debate on exactly what CO2 level is the so-called "tipping point" but there is no argument that more action is needed to curb CO2 and expand renewable energy.

James E. Hansen believes this point has already been reached with carbon dioxide levels currently at 391.7 ppm. "Further global warming of 1°C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know."<1>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_point_%28climatology%29

Earth's Climate Approaching 'Tipping Point', According To NASA
... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070531073748.htm

Mass tree deaths prompt fears of Amazon 'climate tipping point'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/03/tree-deaths-amazon-climate

Of course, the folks in the Coal, Oil and Natural Gas industries say we should just relax, that there's no problem...

[kristopher]

16. And you say that because it relates to the OP....

how?

[txlibdem]

18. Read the title of the OP, please

The scientific consensus is that all the coral reefs will be dead by 2050.
http://thewe.cc/weplanet/news/water/rising_sea_temperature_killing_great_barrier_reef.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/25/coral-reefs-may-be-gone-b_n_827709.html
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-world-coral-reefs.html
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2007-12-13-coral-reefs_N.htm

Here's what is projected to be the human impact by 2030 

Climate change is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and is affecting 300m people, according to the first comprehensive study of the human impact of global warming.

It projects that increasingly severe heatwaves, floods, storms and forest fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030, making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world faces.

Economic losses due to climate change today amount to more than $125bn a year — more than all the present world aid. The report comes from former UN secretary general Kofi Annan's thinktank, the Global Humanitarian Forum. By 2030, the report says, climate change could cost $600bn a year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/29/1

2030... it seems that 2060 target is about 30 years too late to save these people, lives.

[kristopher]

20. Perhaps you would benefit from reading and thinking about what you're responding to

The OP is an estimate of the possible path solar will take based on economics, technology and pricing. It says nothing about a timeline for carbon reductions related to either solar or the renewable mix that will actually develop in response to climate change.

It is worth noting that this is from the IEA, a group that has previously been inclined to strong support for fossil fuels. What is significant from the article isn't the date, it is the admission by that agency that a renewable energy source has the potential stated.

[txlibdem]

21. 1st, I got into this thread because you were very rude to glinda who stated facts, short and sweet

There are many, many projections for when we can be 100% fossil free. The IEA has no monopoly on that.

Al Gore stated that we could do this in 10 years.
... from http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/gore-speech-47071701


From the link in the OP:

• Solar generators may produce the majority of the world’s power within 50 years, slashing the emissions of greenhouse gases that harm the environment, according to a projection by the International Energy Agency.
  
  
• Photovoltaic and solar-thermal plants may meet most of the world’s demand for electricity by 2060 -- and half of all energy needs -- with wind, hydropower and biomass plants supplying much of the remaining generation, Cedric Philibert, senior analyst in the renewable energy division at the Paris-based agency, said in an Aug. 26 phone interview.
  
  
• Under the forecasted scenario, which Philibert will set out in more detail at a conference in Kassel, Germany, on Sept. 1, most heating and transport will switch from dirtier fossil fuels to cleaner electric power. Carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector would fall to about 3 gigatons per year compared with about 30 gigatons this year.

You wrote: "It says nothing about a timeline for carbon reductions related to either solar or the renewable mix that will actually develop in response to climate change."

Seems you were wrong there, too.

[kristopher]

22. You are treating 2060 as if it were the date we start reducing CO2 emissions

Instead of an endpoint. As I said, the article gives no sense at all of a timeline for CO2 reductions so to say it is 'too late' is a statement with no foundation at all.

You have a lot of zeal, it would profit from an increased focus on accuracy.

[txlibdem]

23. No. I am treating 2060 as being 10 years AFTER all the corals are dead, 30 years after the death tol

... 30 years after the death toll from Global Climate Change reaches 500,000 PER YEAR. Let me repeat: P-E-R Y-E-A-R. What will the death toll be by 2060? I have no idea. But at least I give a damn enough to think about it. That makes one of us, perhaps.

And, again, you failed to read my entire post. Or are you playing word games with that "timeline" bull. The article clearly states their will be a reduction from 30 Gigatons to 3 Gigatons annually. You claim that isn't a "timeline" for CO2 reduction. I say "potato / potato"

[kristopher]

24. I haven't seen reasoning like that since Curly, Larry, and Moe.

[txlibdem]

25. I'd liken your post as an homage to the movie "Duck Soup"

[glinda]

14. Good grief. People, animals, plants are already dying at a breakneck speed. Geeesh!

[kristopher]

15. What do you think the date signifies?

Is it too difficult to actually express the thinking behind your statements. You were pretty cryptic in your first post.

[txlibdem]

17. Kristopher, we all know you are very intelligent. Please don't play the fool just to win an argument

That's a waste of your intellect and our (collectively) time.

You have stated in numerous posts that you work for an organization that has something to do with knowledge about the environment so you cannot deny your awareness of:

- ocean acidification due to coal

- the current (very high) rate of species extinctions

- "The Greenhouse Effect" and CO2, Methane, etc.'s role in it

- we are losing arctic/antarctic ice at a faster pace than even many alarmists had projected

- the dangers inherent in continued use of fossil fuels like Coal, Oil and Natural Gas

Glinda and I seem to agree on at least one point: the sooner we end the use of fossils the less damage we (and the world) will face in the end.

[kristopher]

19. That does not address my question.

It is an evasion. I asked what the significance was of the date, since that is what I presume triggered the gllinda's reply. Also, the question was about the thoughts of another poster. I really am not interested in your perspective of what glinda is thinking.