R Kym Horsell
2016-05-13 01:35:11 UTC
<http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/12/3776728/climate-change-solutions/>
We Can Stop Searching For The Clean Energy Miracle. It's Already Here.
Joe Romm
May 12, 2016 2:40 pm
Key climate solutions have been advancing considerably faster than
anyone expected just a few years ago thanks to aggressive market-based
deployment efforts around the globe. These solutions include such core
enabling technologies for a low-carbon world as solar, wind,
efficiency, electric cars, and battery storage.
That's a key reason almost everything you know about climate change
solutions is probably outdated. In Part 1 of this series, I discussed
other reasons. For instance, climate science and climate politics have
moved unexpectedly quickly toward a broad understanding that we need
to keep total human-caused global warming as far as possible below 2?C
(3.6?F) - and ideally to no more than 1.5?C. But the media and
commentariat generally have not kept up with the science or solutions
and their utterly game-changing implications.
This post will focus on the light-speed changes in clean energy
technology that have left even the most informed journalists and
experts behind, which in turn means the public and policy-makers are
receiving outdated information.
The Clean Energy Miracle Is Already Here
Consider solar power. In recent days, both the Council on Foreign
Affairs and the New York Times have published claims that were
literally out-of-date the instant they were put on the internet.
Last week, Varun Sivaram, a smart young physicist who has worked on
advanced solar, wrote this on the Council on Foreign Relations'
"Energy, Security, and Climate" blog:
Indeed, just this week, a Saudi-backed consortium placed an
astonishingly low bid to build a solar farm in Dubai for only 3?/kWh,
half the local price of power from natural gas. Existing technologies
may surprise us, as Dr. Romm suggests, especially if this bid turns
into a contract and Dubai's prices can be replicated elsewhere in the
world. (I am skeptical, though, of the latter possibility).
This was part of a response to my critique of a piece Sivaram
coauthored for Foreign Affairs last month. That piece had argued,
"trying to create a zero-carbon power grid with only existing
technologies would be expensive, complicated, and unpopular." I argued
that, as vital as R&D is, we don't need breakthrough energy miracles
to create a zero-carbon grid.
I argued, to use Sivaram's words, "Existing clean energy technologies
have fallen in cost and will continue to do so as a function of their
deployment, which implies that they are sufficient to achieve
ambitious climate goals." (Though I wouldn't have used the word
"sufficient" but would have reiterated that we're talking about the
existing technologies simply getting steadily better over the next two
decades much as they have in the last two.)
The premiere New York Times blogger on climate change, Andy Revkin,
then posted Sivaram's response in its entirety on NYTimes.com. Here's
the thing, though: As highly informed as Revkin and Sivaram are, what
they published was instantly out of date.
The Dubai price for solar had already been replicated elsewhere in the
world - and in fact it has also been replicated elsewhere for wind!
Here is the key chart from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)
Chairman Michael Liebreich, one of the world's leading experts on the
state of emerging clean energy.
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/11133023/
BNEFsolarwind2016-740x434.jpg>
Last month, Liebreich devoted his entire keynote address at BNEF's
annual conference to debunking the energy miracle myth that Bill Gates
has popularized. Indeed his data- and chart-filled analysis -
pointedly titled "In Search of the Miraculous" - explained in great
detail how the energy miracle is already here: solar and wind and LED
lighting and electric cars and advanced batteries and smart grids!
One of Liebreich's themes is what he calls "The March of the Price
Signal" - the rapid expansion of global deployment programs,
especially market-based mechanisms such as renewable portfolio
standards and reverse auctions. The March of the Price Signal has led
to astounding sustained price drops characteristic of experience or
learning curves:
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/11140540/
BNEFsolarWind2016b-740x424.jpg>
So I think it's pretty clear that, yes, "Existing clean energy
technologies have fallen in cost and will continue to do so as a
function of their deployment." Indeed, the International Energy Agency
wrote a whole report making that exact point back in the year 2000,
titled, "Experience Curves for Energy Technology Policy." I'll discuss
that must-read report in more detail in a later post, but its main
conclusion is always worth repeating:
For major technologies such as photovoltaics, wind power, biomass, or
heat pumps, resources provided through the market dominate the
learning investments. Government deployment programmes may still be
needed to stimulate these investments.
In other words, if you want to keep improving the cost and performance
of the key low carbon technologies, the marketplace is going to
provide the dominant amount of those funds. The best way government
can accelerate the process is through deployment programs.
I do understand why so many people think existing technology can't get
us to a carbon-free future and that we we need multiple energy
breakthroughs or energy miracles. Breakthroughs are sexy and get a lot
of attention, whereas deployment efforts are not and do not.
The mainstream media generally has a bias towards bad news - if it
bleeds it ledes, goes the saying. You have to wait an awfully long
time on the evening news - or indeed most news shows and media outlets
- to see "good news." As a result, they rarely cover the solar energy
"miracle" or the wind energy "miracle" because they think they already
did that story years ago.
Almost everybody is behind the curve - literally. The U.S. Energy
Information Agency (EIA) consistently underestimates renewables growth
in its projections.
Solar and wind have been continuously outperforming expectations for
so long that even the International Energy Agency (IEA) - a world
leader in analyzing clean energy trends - itself keeps underestimating
what's about to happen year after year, as BNEF chair Liebreich
explained in his keynote:
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/11163245/
BNEFsolarWind2016c-740x427.jpg>
"This trend gets underestimated persistently. The IEA forecasts for
wind and solar over years have gone up and up and up," Liebreich
said. "In the case of wind, five times - five-fold increase. In the
case of solar, fourteen-fold increase since the year 2000."
Also, while Sivaram and Revkin imply that only solar energy might
vindicate my assertion about how the unexpectedly rapid
deployment-driven advances in clean tech are game-changing for clean
energy policy, in fact it's clear from BNEF and others that this is
true across the board. As but one example, the charts above clearly
show the impact they've had on wind power. The Electric Car And
Battery Revolution
But it may be the arena of electric batteries and electric vehicles
(EVs) where deployment-driven advances have overturned basic
assumptions most people had just a few years ago. As I've noted
before, in 2013, the IEA estimated EVs would achieve cost parity with
gasoline vehicles when battery costs hit $300 per kWh of storage
capacity, which the IEA said would happen by 2020. Then, last spring,
a detailed analysis in Nature concluded that as of the end of 2014,
"the cost of battery packs used by market-leading BEV manufacturers
are even lower, at US$300 per kWh."
BNEF's Liebreich makes a similar point in his talk, what he calls "The
Miracle Of Musk." That's a reference to the CEO of Tesla, a company
that almost single-handedly turned around the moribund EV business,
and whose Gigafactory promises to continue providing downward pressure
on EV prices. Liebreich says that, starting from just 2010, "The price
of batteries is coming down 77 percent by the time the Gigafactory and
other battery manufacturers scale up in 2018."
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/12114036/
BNEFbatteries2016full-740x420.jpg>
Here's the topper: The EV battery market appears to be moving so fast
that even BNEF - which is at the cutting edge of collecting and
analyzing clean tech market data - itself appears to be
underestimating what's happening.
GM revealed last fall that the battery cell it is getting from the
South Korean company LG Chem for its forthcoming all-electric Chevy
Bolt will cost just $145 per kWh! This astounding price allows GM to
offer its 200+ mile range EV later this year for a sticker price of
$37,500 - before any state or federal tax credits are applied.
And GM says it expects that price will continue to drop, as it made
clear in this chart:
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/11102001/bolt-
battery-cost-lg-chem.jpg>
CREDIT: GM
The 2015 Nature study had concluded, "If costs reach as low as $150
per kilowatt hour this means that electric vehicles will probably move
beyond niche applications and begin to penetrate the market more
widely, leading to a potential paradigm shift in vehicle technology."
The paradigm shift is here. One early sign is Tesla's Model 3 -
another affordable 200+ mile range EV (due in 18 months) - which had
record-setting presales in its first weekend of $12 billion. Another
sign is that Europe and China are placing enormous bets on both
batteries and EVs, leading to exponential sales growth in those
markets:
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/06132433/EVsales2015
-638x323.jpg>
Global EV sales, 2011-2015 (Source: energy.gov via insideevs.com).
This EV and battery revolution is happening in real-time - so it's not
surprising that its implications have hardly been discussed in the
mainstream media. This revolution is directly a game-changer for the
speed of plausible CO2 reductions in the transportation sector. And it
is directly a game-changer for the speed with which the grid can
incorporate renewables and go carbon-free (without any need for
breakthroughs or miracles) because:
EVs can directly be used as a way of managing demand response and
variability of solar and wind during the 90 percent plus of the time
they aren't being driven. The plummeting price of EV batteries means
a plummeting price of batteries needed for electricity storage, as
Musk has already shown with his Powerwall residential battery. The
surge in EVs means a surge in used or "second-life" batteries for
electricity storage at truly disruptive prices, as I discussed here.
Again, that's the thing about existing technology - it can surprise
you a lot faster than non-existing technology can. And time is of the
essence for all who agree we must work as hard as possible to keep
total global warming "to well below 2?C [3.6?F] above preindustrial
levels," a goal the major nations of the world unanimously adopted in
December.
I remain as strong an advocate for increased funding of clean energy
R&D as I have been for the past 25 years. But to avoid calamity, more
aggressive deployment programs remain the sine qua non of climate
policy.
--
UK weather: Britain's intense 26C heatwave is history as this weekend will see snow with freezing -2C temperatures
Mirror.co.uk, 12 May 2016 11:29Z
Chilly winds, frost and even the chance of snow are all set to give Brits a
change of pace this weekend having just enjoyed a sweltering Sat and Sun.
Ceres Conferees Sing New Tune on Oil, Climate
Yale Climate Connections, 12 May 2016 11:30Z
Insiders regularly in contact with major fossil fuel companies said many
corporations are reluctant to publicly acknowledge the "stranded asset"
realities - even if they are planning for such scenarios behind closed
boardroom doors. They fear such talk ...
Woking floods: Residents left homeless by devastating downpours
Get Surrey, 12 May 2016 16:28Z
Flood hit residents in Sheerwater and West Byfleet have been made homeless
after filthy water surged into their homes yesterday (May 11).
Swarm Intelligence Picks Kentucky Derby Superfecta
Discovery News, 12 May 2016 16:33Z
The results are in! Two heads are better than one and 20 heads can win big
bets and make millions. A software program called UNU harnessed the
collective power of horse racing experts to correctly predict which four
horses would cross the finish line ...
After record-breaking hurricane season, 2016 expected to be tamer
Hawaii News Now, 12 May 2016 17:32Z
After a record-breaking 2015 hurricane season brought 15 tropical cyclones
close to the Hawaiian islands, a national weather expert says the 2016
hurricane season won't be nearly as wild. Jeff Masters, co-founder of
Weather Underground, told Bloomberg ...
Methane Pollution Addressed With First-Ever EPA Rules
Newsweek, 12 May 2016 17:35Z
[Image] A fracking rig flares gas in London on February 9. The Environmental
Protection Agency has released federal rules aimed at curbing methane, the
main component of natural gas.
In Depth:EPA Issues Final Rules Cutting Oil, Natural Gas Methane Emissions
-- WSJ
Emissions estimates
We expect that the GFED estimate for the 2015 fires will be about 1.75
bn metric ton of CO2 equivalents, with substantial uncertainty.
Conversion of active fires to emissions
<Loading Image...
>
This graph shows how we derive the 2015 estimates. The grey dots indicate
the total annual active fire observations in Indonesia on the horizontal
axis and the corresponding GFED estimates are on the vertical axis with the
years 2006 and 2014 labeled. Each grey dot represents one year between 2003
and 2014. The relation is not perfect and adds some uncertainty to those
that are in these estimates already. The non-linearity is probably related
to smoke obscuration of active fires in high fire years.
We Can Stop Searching For The Clean Energy Miracle. It's Already Here.
Joe Romm
May 12, 2016 2:40 pm
Key climate solutions have been advancing considerably faster than
anyone expected just a few years ago thanks to aggressive market-based
deployment efforts around the globe. These solutions include such core
enabling technologies for a low-carbon world as solar, wind,
efficiency, electric cars, and battery storage.
That's a key reason almost everything you know about climate change
solutions is probably outdated. In Part 1 of this series, I discussed
other reasons. For instance, climate science and climate politics have
moved unexpectedly quickly toward a broad understanding that we need
to keep total human-caused global warming as far as possible below 2?C
(3.6?F) - and ideally to no more than 1.5?C. But the media and
commentariat generally have not kept up with the science or solutions
and their utterly game-changing implications.
This post will focus on the light-speed changes in clean energy
technology that have left even the most informed journalists and
experts behind, which in turn means the public and policy-makers are
receiving outdated information.
The Clean Energy Miracle Is Already Here
Consider solar power. In recent days, both the Council on Foreign
Affairs and the New York Times have published claims that were
literally out-of-date the instant they were put on the internet.
Last week, Varun Sivaram, a smart young physicist who has worked on
advanced solar, wrote this on the Council on Foreign Relations'
"Energy, Security, and Climate" blog:
Indeed, just this week, a Saudi-backed consortium placed an
astonishingly low bid to build a solar farm in Dubai for only 3?/kWh,
half the local price of power from natural gas. Existing technologies
may surprise us, as Dr. Romm suggests, especially if this bid turns
into a contract and Dubai's prices can be replicated elsewhere in the
world. (I am skeptical, though, of the latter possibility).
This was part of a response to my critique of a piece Sivaram
coauthored for Foreign Affairs last month. That piece had argued,
"trying to create a zero-carbon power grid with only existing
technologies would be expensive, complicated, and unpopular." I argued
that, as vital as R&D is, we don't need breakthrough energy miracles
to create a zero-carbon grid.
I argued, to use Sivaram's words, "Existing clean energy technologies
have fallen in cost and will continue to do so as a function of their
deployment, which implies that they are sufficient to achieve
ambitious climate goals." (Though I wouldn't have used the word
"sufficient" but would have reiterated that we're talking about the
existing technologies simply getting steadily better over the next two
decades much as they have in the last two.)
The premiere New York Times blogger on climate change, Andy Revkin,
then posted Sivaram's response in its entirety on NYTimes.com. Here's
the thing, though: As highly informed as Revkin and Sivaram are, what
they published was instantly out of date.
The Dubai price for solar had already been replicated elsewhere in the
world - and in fact it has also been replicated elsewhere for wind!
Here is the key chart from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)
Chairman Michael Liebreich, one of the world's leading experts on the
state of emerging clean energy.
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/11133023/
BNEFsolarwind2016-740x434.jpg>
Last month, Liebreich devoted his entire keynote address at BNEF's
annual conference to debunking the energy miracle myth that Bill Gates
has popularized. Indeed his data- and chart-filled analysis -
pointedly titled "In Search of the Miraculous" - explained in great
detail how the energy miracle is already here: solar and wind and LED
lighting and electric cars and advanced batteries and smart grids!
One of Liebreich's themes is what he calls "The March of the Price
Signal" - the rapid expansion of global deployment programs,
especially market-based mechanisms such as renewable portfolio
standards and reverse auctions. The March of the Price Signal has led
to astounding sustained price drops characteristic of experience or
learning curves:
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/11140540/
BNEFsolarWind2016b-740x424.jpg>
So I think it's pretty clear that, yes, "Existing clean energy
technologies have fallen in cost and will continue to do so as a
function of their deployment." Indeed, the International Energy Agency
wrote a whole report making that exact point back in the year 2000,
titled, "Experience Curves for Energy Technology Policy." I'll discuss
that must-read report in more detail in a later post, but its main
conclusion is always worth repeating:
For major technologies such as photovoltaics, wind power, biomass, or
heat pumps, resources provided through the market dominate the
learning investments. Government deployment programmes may still be
needed to stimulate these investments.
In other words, if you want to keep improving the cost and performance
of the key low carbon technologies, the marketplace is going to
provide the dominant amount of those funds. The best way government
can accelerate the process is through deployment programs.
I do understand why so many people think existing technology can't get
us to a carbon-free future and that we we need multiple energy
breakthroughs or energy miracles. Breakthroughs are sexy and get a lot
of attention, whereas deployment efforts are not and do not.
The mainstream media generally has a bias towards bad news - if it
bleeds it ledes, goes the saying. You have to wait an awfully long
time on the evening news - or indeed most news shows and media outlets
- to see "good news." As a result, they rarely cover the solar energy
"miracle" or the wind energy "miracle" because they think they already
did that story years ago.
Almost everybody is behind the curve - literally. The U.S. Energy
Information Agency (EIA) consistently underestimates renewables growth
in its projections.
Solar and wind have been continuously outperforming expectations for
so long that even the International Energy Agency (IEA) - a world
leader in analyzing clean energy trends - itself keeps underestimating
what's about to happen year after year, as BNEF chair Liebreich
explained in his keynote:
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/11163245/
BNEFsolarWind2016c-740x427.jpg>
"This trend gets underestimated persistently. The IEA forecasts for
wind and solar over years have gone up and up and up," Liebreich
said. "In the case of wind, five times - five-fold increase. In the
case of solar, fourteen-fold increase since the year 2000."
Also, while Sivaram and Revkin imply that only solar energy might
vindicate my assertion about how the unexpectedly rapid
deployment-driven advances in clean tech are game-changing for clean
energy policy, in fact it's clear from BNEF and others that this is
true across the board. As but one example, the charts above clearly
show the impact they've had on wind power. The Electric Car And
Battery Revolution
But it may be the arena of electric batteries and electric vehicles
(EVs) where deployment-driven advances have overturned basic
assumptions most people had just a few years ago. As I've noted
before, in 2013, the IEA estimated EVs would achieve cost parity with
gasoline vehicles when battery costs hit $300 per kWh of storage
capacity, which the IEA said would happen by 2020. Then, last spring,
a detailed analysis in Nature concluded that as of the end of 2014,
"the cost of battery packs used by market-leading BEV manufacturers
are even lower, at US$300 per kWh."
BNEF's Liebreich makes a similar point in his talk, what he calls "The
Miracle Of Musk." That's a reference to the CEO of Tesla, a company
that almost single-handedly turned around the moribund EV business,
and whose Gigafactory promises to continue providing downward pressure
on EV prices. Liebreich says that, starting from just 2010, "The price
of batteries is coming down 77 percent by the time the Gigafactory and
other battery manufacturers scale up in 2018."
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/12114036/
BNEFbatteries2016full-740x420.jpg>
Here's the topper: The EV battery market appears to be moving so fast
that even BNEF - which is at the cutting edge of collecting and
analyzing clean tech market data - itself appears to be
underestimating what's happening.
GM revealed last fall that the battery cell it is getting from the
South Korean company LG Chem for its forthcoming all-electric Chevy
Bolt will cost just $145 per kWh! This astounding price allows GM to
offer its 200+ mile range EV later this year for a sticker price of
$37,500 - before any state or federal tax credits are applied.
And GM says it expects that price will continue to drop, as it made
clear in this chart:
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/11102001/bolt-
battery-cost-lg-chem.jpg>
CREDIT: GM
The 2015 Nature study had concluded, "If costs reach as low as $150
per kilowatt hour this means that electric vehicles will probably move
beyond niche applications and begin to penetrate the market more
widely, leading to a potential paradigm shift in vehicle technology."
The paradigm shift is here. One early sign is Tesla's Model 3 -
another affordable 200+ mile range EV (due in 18 months) - which had
record-setting presales in its first weekend of $12 billion. Another
sign is that Europe and China are placing enormous bets on both
batteries and EVs, leading to exponential sales growth in those
markets:
<http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/06132433/EVsales2015
-638x323.jpg>
Global EV sales, 2011-2015 (Source: energy.gov via insideevs.com).
This EV and battery revolution is happening in real-time - so it's not
surprising that its implications have hardly been discussed in the
mainstream media. This revolution is directly a game-changer for the
speed of plausible CO2 reductions in the transportation sector. And it
is directly a game-changer for the speed with which the grid can
incorporate renewables and go carbon-free (without any need for
breakthroughs or miracles) because:
EVs can directly be used as a way of managing demand response and
variability of solar and wind during the 90 percent plus of the time
they aren't being driven. The plummeting price of EV batteries means
a plummeting price of batteries needed for electricity storage, as
Musk has already shown with his Powerwall residential battery. The
surge in EVs means a surge in used or "second-life" batteries for
electricity storage at truly disruptive prices, as I discussed here.
Again, that's the thing about existing technology - it can surprise
you a lot faster than non-existing technology can. And time is of the
essence for all who agree we must work as hard as possible to keep
total global warming "to well below 2?C [3.6?F] above preindustrial
levels," a goal the major nations of the world unanimously adopted in
December.
I remain as strong an advocate for increased funding of clean energy
R&D as I have been for the past 25 years. But to avoid calamity, more
aggressive deployment programs remain the sine qua non of climate
policy.
--
UK weather: Britain's intense 26C heatwave is history as this weekend will see snow with freezing -2C temperatures
Mirror.co.uk, 12 May 2016 11:29Z
Chilly winds, frost and even the chance of snow are all set to give Brits a
change of pace this weekend having just enjoyed a sweltering Sat and Sun.
Ceres Conferees Sing New Tune on Oil, Climate
Yale Climate Connections, 12 May 2016 11:30Z
Insiders regularly in contact with major fossil fuel companies said many
corporations are reluctant to publicly acknowledge the "stranded asset"
realities - even if they are planning for such scenarios behind closed
boardroom doors. They fear such talk ...
Woking floods: Residents left homeless by devastating downpours
Get Surrey, 12 May 2016 16:28Z
Flood hit residents in Sheerwater and West Byfleet have been made homeless
after filthy water surged into their homes yesterday (May 11).
Swarm Intelligence Picks Kentucky Derby Superfecta
Discovery News, 12 May 2016 16:33Z
The results are in! Two heads are better than one and 20 heads can win big
bets and make millions. A software program called UNU harnessed the
collective power of horse racing experts to correctly predict which four
horses would cross the finish line ...
After record-breaking hurricane season, 2016 expected to be tamer
Hawaii News Now, 12 May 2016 17:32Z
After a record-breaking 2015 hurricane season brought 15 tropical cyclones
close to the Hawaiian islands, a national weather expert says the 2016
hurricane season won't be nearly as wild. Jeff Masters, co-founder of
Weather Underground, told Bloomberg ...
Methane Pollution Addressed With First-Ever EPA Rules
Newsweek, 12 May 2016 17:35Z
[Image] A fracking rig flares gas in London on February 9. The Environmental
Protection Agency has released federal rules aimed at curbing methane, the
main component of natural gas.
In Depth:EPA Issues Final Rules Cutting Oil, Natural Gas Methane Emissions
-- WSJ
Emissions estimates
We expect that the GFED estimate for the 2015 fires will be about 1.75
bn metric ton of CO2 equivalents, with substantial uncertainty.
Conversion of active fires to emissions
<Loading Image...
>This graph shows how we derive the 2015 estimates. The grey dots indicate
the total annual active fire observations in Indonesia on the horizontal
axis and the corresponding GFED estimates are on the vertical axis with the
years 2006 and 2014 labeled. Each grey dot represents one year between 2003
and 2014. The relation is not perfect and adds some uncertainty to those
that are in these estimates already. The non-linearity is probably related
to smoke obscuration of active fires in high fire years.