The American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) likes to say that we are in Phase II of renewable energy development. In this worldview, the past 30 years were about developing core clean-energy technologies, and the next couple of decades will be about focusing the nation's efforts on putting (as ACORE says on its web site) "these new technologies to use in our society, with benefits for energy supply, national security, economic growth, investment, jobs, a cleaner environment, reduced risk of climate change, and improved health."
I couldn't agree more. We are moving into the next stage of clean-energy technical, financial, and policy development. And I believe it will be all about scaling up.
Clean energy is moving so far beyond the "alternative" moniker that many regions and states are now targeting 20 percent or more of their energy from clean-energy sources within the next decade or two—representing more electricity generating capacity than natural gas in many regions. Even China is targeting significant amounts of renewable energy. China's Renewable Energy Law is targeting 120 GW of new renewable by 2015 (representing three times the amount of nuclear power currently on the drawing boards).
So, will clean energy technologies like solar, wind, and biofuels and its efficiency brethren like green buildings, light emitting diodes (LEDs), and the smart grid be the dominant form of global energy generation (and conservation) by 2020? Perhaps not. But will they represent the highest growth and innovation opportunity in the energy sector and double-digit chunks of our energy infrastructure? Absolutely!
I firmly believe that scaling up manufacturing and driving down costs is not a luxury for the clean-energy sector—but a necessity. Wind, after 30 years of significant gains is now cost competitive in most markets in the world with limited subsidies.
Solar, while still 2-3 times more expensive than most of its energy competitors on a pure cost basis, can compete economically at the retail level in many markets when modules and systems integration are packaged with government incentives and financing schemes. As installed solar system pricing reaches $3.50 per peak watt in the next five year s or so—we'll see solar competing in most utility markets without the need for significant subsidies.
As I look out over the next 5-10 years I'm confident that the most important development in the clean-energy sector will be the scaling of manufacturing, systems integration, and equally important, technology deployment. Millions of jobs and billions of dollars will be generated in the process if policymakers, investors, corporations, and innovators get this right.
It won't be easy. Many core technologies, like solar cells and wind turbines and LEDs, will become commodities—making the business proposition more difficult for players that don't innovate and capture a larger portion of the value chain. But it represents the natural "growing up" of the clean-energy sector. And, as we move into this next stage of clean-tech development, the economy will be sustainably transformed in the process.
full article
Wednesday 8 August 2007
Tuesday 7 August 2007
Cheap, clean housing from the Co-op
The Co-operative bank has launched an eco-friendly house building scheme in tandem with developer Space 21.
Targeted at addressing the twin problems of global warming and housing shortages the scheme aims to create eco-friendly properties within the price range of first-time buyers.
Set up in response to the government's Housing Green Paper the homes will feature timber frames, facilities to store and recycle rain water and sloped roofs to maximise solar efficiency.
The houses will be priced from £59,950, excluding land, allowing first-time buyers to take their first step on the housing ladder.
It is hoped the venture will assist the government in meeting targets to reduce property carbon emissions by 25 per cent by 2010 and increase the UK's house building programme by twenty per cent.
full article
Monday 6 August 2007
'Sunshade' for global warming could cause drought
Pumping sulphur particles into the atmosphere to mimic the cooling effect of a large volcanic eruption has been proposed as a last-ditch solution to combating climate change – but doing so would cause problems of its own, including potentially catastrophic drought, say researchers.
Sulphur "sunshades" are just one example of a "geo-engineering" solution to climate change. Such solutions involve artificially modifying our climate to counteract the effects of human greenhouse gas emission. Other examples include space mirrors and iron fertilisation of the ocean (see also Sunshade for the planet.
Recent research has suggested that sulphur sunshades could rapidly cool the climate back down to pre-industrial temperatures (see Solar shield could be quick fix for global warming).
Sulphur sunshades are inspired by the cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions, which blast sulphate particles into the stratosphere. The particles reflect part of the Sun's radiation back into space, reducing the amount of heat that reaches the Earth. In 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled Earth by a few tenths of a degree for several years.
full article
Sulphur "sunshades" are just one example of a "geo-engineering" solution to climate change. Such solutions involve artificially modifying our climate to counteract the effects of human greenhouse gas emission. Other examples include space mirrors and iron fertilisation of the ocean (see also Sunshade for the planet.
Recent research has suggested that sulphur sunshades could rapidly cool the climate back down to pre-industrial temperatures (see Solar shield could be quick fix for global warming).
Sulphur sunshades are inspired by the cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions, which blast sulphate particles into the stratosphere. The particles reflect part of the Sun's radiation back into space, reducing the amount of heat that reaches the Earth. In 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled Earth by a few tenths of a degree for several years.
full article
Government energy policy a total sham
Last week's news that widening a stretch of the M6 motorway will cost £3bn, or £1,000 an inch, was depressing not just because of the huge sum but for what it says about the government's spending priorities.
It is 40 times what the government is spending on its low-carbon buildings programme aimed at boosting the take-up of renewable energies.
It is also what the government will reap from its recent rise in air passenger duty over three years. That, though, will do nothing to deter air travel because it only adds a few pounds to a ticket.
Instead of using the £3bn to widen a road, spending it on railways, solar panels, wind turbines or insulation might have been more sensible.
So many things make a mockery of the government's claim to be leading the world on climate change that this latest news hardly comes as a surprise.
Professor Nicholas Stern's review of the economics of climate change emphasises that Britain is talking the talk, not walking the walk. His call for extra spending now was not heeded.
What the government has also not done is send out new "price signals", as economists call them. If as a country we want to reduce carbon emissions in a serious way, those emissions have to be made more expensive. The government has long urged people to get out of their cars and on to trains and buses. But there is no price signal.
Protests
Motoring has got cheaper under Labour while train travel has shot up in price. So expect no change in habits, with car use continuing to grow. But if the cost of petrol was, say, doubled over a few years, that is a price signal people would respond to.
The government's problem is easy to see. It put up petrol duty by more than inflation until the fuel duty protests of 2000, since when it has backed away from any action in that area.
There are already two cars out there doing more than 70 miles to the gallon and there will soon be a diesel Mini that will join them. But people won't move over en masse with fuel at 95p a litre. They would at £2 a litre.
Another price signal would be a much bigger rise in air passenger duty than the recent increase. The absurdity that airline fuel is not taxed can at least be partly compensated for by raising APD. People could still fly, but would pay some of the cost of the carbon they emit.
Another price signal could come from a feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable energy, used so successfully in countries such as Germany. The FIT sets a guaranteed price a consumer will get for any electricity he or she generates and exports to the grid.
At present, the government is running the ineffective low-carbon buildings programme, providing grants for things such as solar panels and wind turbines. But it keeps changing the system and recently slashed the grants to ensure that the £80m allocated for the three years to 2008 does not run out. Britain's nascent micro-generation industry is suffering as a result.
Some readers may recall that I installed a solar photovoltaic system on my house in the spring. I heard last week that the small company which fitted it has gone bust for lack of cash flow. Another company, Thermomax, the country's largest maker of solar thermal panels, has just gone into administration. Britain's climate change strategy, such as it is, is crumbling.
The problem is that the government has helped create monopolies by restricting its lists of approved suppliers for projects to a handful of companies, ensuring that the small guys go the wall and prices to consumers remain higher. My solar PV system, for example, would be more than 30% cheaper in Germany than it was in Britain.
The government's other support mechanism, the renewable obligation (RO) system, which requires energy producers to use a growing proportion of renewable sources, is hardly working. The government is planning changes but they won't come until 2009.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Britain's use of renewables rose about 10% last year to 4.6% of all energy use. And the pace of increase slowed. In Germany it is rising much faster and is already at 13% of all energy, a share Germany proposes to double by 2020. Germany now has 200 times as much installed solar energy capacity as Britain, for example.
Britain's chances of achieving the EU target of a 20% cut in emissions by 2020 are negligible. Indeed, the government has acknowledged it will not achieve it. Germany plans to over-achieve it.
The RO's essential problem is that it does not send a clear price signal and is aimed only at producers rather than consumers as well. The FIT gives a very clear price signal. It works because it is clearly understood by producers and consumers. Rather than going bust as in Britain, German renewables companies are some of the fastest expanding on the planet.
Early adopters
In the case of solar electricity, you get about 35p per kilowatt hour, four times the market rate, for 20 years. This puts the return on your investment up towards 10% - four times that in Britain - and brings the payback time below 10 years. The cost of the FIT is spread by the electricity companies among all consumers and has added about £1 a month to the average electricity bill.
The FIT for solar will be cut by 5% a year over the next 20 years, the idea being to encourage early adopters and give a boost to production levels so that costs will fall rapidly and eventually make the FIT unnecessary.
With a FIT, a company can expand knowing that the demand for its products is there. Banks will lend on projects because of the secure flow of finance. The market still works because consumers shop around for the best and cheapest products so firms have to innovate and compete. Prices of renewable technologies in Germany are much lower than the UK and it has 250,000 jobs in the industry - 10 times the total of the UK and a number expected to double by 2020. I don't think Germans will tell you that going green is damaging their economy.
The FIT brings ordinary people into the fight against climate change and reinforces the notion that something can and is being done. Governments, except ours, like the FIT because it does not cost them anything.
Thus, while in Britain you have to be mad to get into renewables, in Germany you are mad not to. That is what a price signal does. At the latest count, says Miguel Mendonca of the World Future Council, 47 other countries or states have brought in FITs.
Academics like it. "There is a lot of theory and evidence showing that large volumes of renewable energies are delivered cheapest under a feed-in tariff," says David Toke, senior lecturer in environmental policy at Birmingham University. "The RO system is a cumbersome, expensive and opaque way to finance renewables."
Other political parties are supportive. The Lib Dems are calling for an FIT. The Tories say the current system needs to change. But the chancellor, Alistair Darling, told the Guardian recently the government could not keep chopping and changing, even though it has been doing exactly that with its grant system.
So next time you hear the government claim it leads the world on climate change, do as the Germans do: burst out laughing.
full article
It is 40 times what the government is spending on its low-carbon buildings programme aimed at boosting the take-up of renewable energies.
It is also what the government will reap from its recent rise in air passenger duty over three years. That, though, will do nothing to deter air travel because it only adds a few pounds to a ticket.
Instead of using the £3bn to widen a road, spending it on railways, solar panels, wind turbines or insulation might have been more sensible.
So many things make a mockery of the government's claim to be leading the world on climate change that this latest news hardly comes as a surprise.
Professor Nicholas Stern's review of the economics of climate change emphasises that Britain is talking the talk, not walking the walk. His call for extra spending now was not heeded.
What the government has also not done is send out new "price signals", as economists call them. If as a country we want to reduce carbon emissions in a serious way, those emissions have to be made more expensive. The government has long urged people to get out of their cars and on to trains and buses. But there is no price signal.
Protests
Motoring has got cheaper under Labour while train travel has shot up in price. So expect no change in habits, with car use continuing to grow. But if the cost of petrol was, say, doubled over a few years, that is a price signal people would respond to.
The government's problem is easy to see. It put up petrol duty by more than inflation until the fuel duty protests of 2000, since when it has backed away from any action in that area.
There are already two cars out there doing more than 70 miles to the gallon and there will soon be a diesel Mini that will join them. But people won't move over en masse with fuel at 95p a litre. They would at £2 a litre.
Another price signal would be a much bigger rise in air passenger duty than the recent increase. The absurdity that airline fuel is not taxed can at least be partly compensated for by raising APD. People could still fly, but would pay some of the cost of the carbon they emit.
Another price signal could come from a feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable energy, used so successfully in countries such as Germany. The FIT sets a guaranteed price a consumer will get for any electricity he or she generates and exports to the grid.
At present, the government is running the ineffective low-carbon buildings programme, providing grants for things such as solar panels and wind turbines. But it keeps changing the system and recently slashed the grants to ensure that the £80m allocated for the three years to 2008 does not run out. Britain's nascent micro-generation industry is suffering as a result.
Some readers may recall that I installed a solar photovoltaic system on my house in the spring. I heard last week that the small company which fitted it has gone bust for lack of cash flow. Another company, Thermomax, the country's largest maker of solar thermal panels, has just gone into administration. Britain's climate change strategy, such as it is, is crumbling.
The problem is that the government has helped create monopolies by restricting its lists of approved suppliers for projects to a handful of companies, ensuring that the small guys go the wall and prices to consumers remain higher. My solar PV system, for example, would be more than 30% cheaper in Germany than it was in Britain.
The government's other support mechanism, the renewable obligation (RO) system, which requires energy producers to use a growing proportion of renewable sources, is hardly working. The government is planning changes but they won't come until 2009.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Britain's use of renewables rose about 10% last year to 4.6% of all energy use. And the pace of increase slowed. In Germany it is rising much faster and is already at 13% of all energy, a share Germany proposes to double by 2020. Germany now has 200 times as much installed solar energy capacity as Britain, for example.
Britain's chances of achieving the EU target of a 20% cut in emissions by 2020 are negligible. Indeed, the government has acknowledged it will not achieve it. Germany plans to over-achieve it.
The RO's essential problem is that it does not send a clear price signal and is aimed only at producers rather than consumers as well. The FIT gives a very clear price signal. It works because it is clearly understood by producers and consumers. Rather than going bust as in Britain, German renewables companies are some of the fastest expanding on the planet.
Early adopters
In the case of solar electricity, you get about 35p per kilowatt hour, four times the market rate, for 20 years. This puts the return on your investment up towards 10% - four times that in Britain - and brings the payback time below 10 years. The cost of the FIT is spread by the electricity companies among all consumers and has added about £1 a month to the average electricity bill.
The FIT for solar will be cut by 5% a year over the next 20 years, the idea being to encourage early adopters and give a boost to production levels so that costs will fall rapidly and eventually make the FIT unnecessary.
With a FIT, a company can expand knowing that the demand for its products is there. Banks will lend on projects because of the secure flow of finance. The market still works because consumers shop around for the best and cheapest products so firms have to innovate and compete. Prices of renewable technologies in Germany are much lower than the UK and it has 250,000 jobs in the industry - 10 times the total of the UK and a number expected to double by 2020. I don't think Germans will tell you that going green is damaging their economy.
The FIT brings ordinary people into the fight against climate change and reinforces the notion that something can and is being done. Governments, except ours, like the FIT because it does not cost them anything.
Thus, while in Britain you have to be mad to get into renewables, in Germany you are mad not to. That is what a price signal does. At the latest count, says Miguel Mendonca of the World Future Council, 47 other countries or states have brought in FITs.
Academics like it. "There is a lot of theory and evidence showing that large volumes of renewable energies are delivered cheapest under a feed-in tariff," says David Toke, senior lecturer in environmental policy at Birmingham University. "The RO system is a cumbersome, expensive and opaque way to finance renewables."
Other political parties are supportive. The Lib Dems are calling for an FIT. The Tories say the current system needs to change. But the chancellor, Alistair Darling, told the Guardian recently the government could not keep chopping and changing, even though it has been doing exactly that with its grant system.
So next time you hear the government claim it leads the world on climate change, do as the Germans do: burst out laughing.
full article
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