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Transition
UN says a global ‘backlash’ against climate action is being stoked by fossil fuel companies
A new study finds that the mining and processing of the metal critical to EV batteries and renewable energy storage projects depletes and contaminates surface water, often in already vulnerable communities.
This essay takes up and extends an analysis of the ambitions of the energy transition presented during the conference entitled “L’erreur fondamentale de la transition”, held in Lausanne in December 2022, at the annual Switzerland ShiftersDay. The intervention questioned the conceptualization of energy transition, given possible inaccuracies, or errors in the categorization of reality. It is not certain that the energy contained in the wind, solar radiation, or atoms is equivalent to hydrocarbon energy for human societalneeds. Although all energies are theoretically convertible into one another, the assumption that any type of energy can always be replaced by another is likely to prove false. An energy transition based on the substitution of energies would then be inconceivable.
Foundational innovation in cloud technology and artificial intelligence will require more energy than ever before—shattering any illusion that we will restrict supplies.
Sharp declines in critical mineral prices mask risks of future supply strains as energy transitions advance - News from the International Energy Agency
Global investment in the clean energy transition grew by 17% in 2023, showing resilience despite geopolitical tensions, high interest rates, and inflation. But was it enough to keep the world on track to hit net zero by 2050? To answer this question, we compare 2023 clean energy investment by sector with what’s annually needed to reach net zero by 2050, in partnership with the National Public Utilities Council.
Here are the real reasons we’re not building clean energy anywhere near fast enough.
EUCityCalc has officially launched its free, open source online platform that allows local councils and other stakeholders to visualise and simulate low-carbon scenarios for their towns and cities, as well as to assess the trade-offs related to available choices.
New path to transition away from fossil fuels marred by lack of finance and loopholes COP28 in Dubai sends an important signal on the end of fossil fuels but leaves more questions than answers on how to ensure a fair and funded transition that is based on science and equity
BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies found to be leading a multi-pronged influencing campaign that could lock in fossil gas across both continents, with push back coming from more renewables-focused European energy players.
Energy return on investment (EROI) is a biophysical and ecological economics concept that is useful to think about how organisms, ecosystems and societies must obtain enough surplus energy returned from energy gathering activities to live, reproduce, and thrive. EROI can help us overcome the false dualism between nature and society. EROI is a useful metric for economics because it is based on immutable physical laws rather than sometimes arbitrary human preferences. It is essential for assessing useful power, energy trade-offs, efficiencies (and inefficiencies), resource depletion trends, resource quality, and surplus potentials of different fuels and technologies that power, or might power, our socio-economic systems. Apparent inconsistencies in the literature can generally be reduced or eliminated by paying careful attention and explicitly stating boundaries and definitions. We argue that proper use of EROI is critical to understand the interconnections among the environment, energy, and socio-economic deve
A novel methodology is developed to dynamically assess the energy and material investments required over time to achieve the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources in the electricity sector. The obtained results indicate that a fast transition achieving a 100% renewable electric system globally by 2060 consistent with the Green Growth narrative could decrease the EROI of the energy system from current ~12:1 to ~3:1 by the mid-century, stabilizing thereafter at ~5:1. These EROI levels are well below the thresholds identified in the literature required to sustain industrial complex societies. Moreover, this transition could drive a substantial re-materialization of the economy, exacerbating risk availability in the future for some minerals. Hence, the results obtained put into question the consistence and viability of the Green Growth narrative.
Many people believe that wind, solar and electric vehicles are solutions to our energy problems. In this post I talk about the important role complexity plays. Growing complexity uses energy in hidden ways. The result tends to be more energy use, rather than less, as complex solutions such as wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles are added. Many measures of energy desirability give unreasonably favorable ratings to wind and solar and electric vehicles. The problem is that dual systems are needed, driving up energy consumption. Without enough energy, economies tend to collapse. This is a form of simplification.
This study evaluates how Europe can fulfil its goal of “achieving resource security” and “reducing strategic dependencies” for its energy transition metals, through a demand, supply, and sustainability assessment of the Green Deal and its resource needs.
The current energy transition is powered by the realization that avoiding the catastrophic effects of climate change requires a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This infographic provides historical context for the ongoing shift away from fossil fuels using data from Our World in Data and scientist Vaclav Smil.
An all-electric future depends heavily on copper, and looming supply shortfalls could hamper nations’ goals of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, according to a new report from S&P Global. Unless significant new supply becomes available, climate goals will be “short-circuited and remain out of reach,” the report says.
Countries should move from coal to renewable energy without shifting to gas as a “transition” fuel to save money, as high gas prices and market volatility have made the fossil fuel an expensive option, analysis has found. Natural gas has long been touted as a “transition” fuel for economies dependent on coal for their power needs, as it has lower carbon dioxide emissions than coal but requires similar centralised infrastructure, and gas-fired power stations take only a couple of years to build. Earlier this year, before Russia invaded Ukraine, the European Commission angered green campaigners by including gas as a “bridge” to clean energy in its guidebook for green investment.
Metals will play a central role in successfully building Europe’s clean technology value chains and meeting the EU’s 2050 climate-neutrality goal. In the wake of supply disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s lack of resilience for its growing metals needs has become a strategic concern. This study evaluates how Europe can fulfil its goal of “achieving resource security” and “reducing strategic dependencies” for its energy transition metals, through a demand, supply, and sustainability assessment of the EU Green Deal and its resource needs . It concludes that Europe has a window of opportunity to lay the foundation for a higher level of strate- gic autonomy and sustainability for its strategic metals through optimised recycling, domestic value chain investment, and more active global sourcing. But firm action is needed soon to avoid bottlenecks for several materials that risk being in global short supply at the end of this decade.
Inflation is a disease that disproportionately afflicts the poor. Even before Vladimir Putin unleashed his brutal war on Ukraine, whose byproducts include soaring energy and food prices, inflation was already over 7.5% in the US and above 5% in Europe and the UK. Calls for its taming are, therefore, fully justified – and the interest rate rise in the US, with the same expected in the UK, comes as no surprise. That said, we know from history that the cure for inflation tends to devastate the poor even more. The new wrinkle we face today is that the supposed solutions threaten not only to deal another cruel blow to the disadvantaged but, ominously, to snuff out the desperately needed green transition.
Accusations of greenwashing against major oil companies that claim to be in transition to clean energy are well-founded, according to the most comprehensive study to date.
To this day, the demand for metals has kept increasing. The energy transition necessary to meet climate objectives will add to that demand during the upcoming decades, for low-carbon energy technologies require larger metal quantities than their fossil-fuel based counterparts. This frequently raises concerns over the actual capacity of geological stocks to meet demand at scale, which we investigate in the present analysis.
Infinite growth on a finite planet has pushed us into crisis, and this forum tackles the difficult questions and taboo topics: Bursting the fantasy of sustainability based on clean energy transition and arguing for equitable approaches to global population. Pathways forward include a deliberate contraction of the human enterprise and a planned collapse.
The Belgian Institute for Sustainable IT is a think and do tank founded in 2020, based on its French equivalent the INR. Our aim is to bring together Belgian companies, organizations and individuals, and help them succeed their digital transition while reducing the environmental and social footprint of their IT services and usages. Thanks to the support of our members and of public authorities, we promote digital technologies and services that are more sustainable, inclusive and ethical.
The IEA examines the full spectrum of energy issues including oil, gas and coal supply and demand, renewable energy technologies, electricity markets, energy efficiency, access to energy, demand side management and much more. Through its work, the IEA advocates policies that will enhance the reliability, affordability and sustainability of energy in its 30 member countries, 8 association countries and beyond.
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers.
Energy transition and peak demand predictions have spooked investors in oil, putting the prospect of peak production sooner than anticipated accompanied by wild price spikes.
This article argues that resource and logistical constraints weighing on low-carbon energy and CO2 capture technologies are likely to pave the way for geo-engineering solutions such as Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), which demand negligible land, material, and energy inputs. This “climate transition without carbon transition”, though technically feasible, is far from being that simple, raising a whole new set of environmental risks as well as geopolitical, institutional, and ethical issues.
A Devon project to provide housing and community facilities has had the ground sold from under it
We are about to go through the most profound shift in the climate debate in 20 years. The result will be the end of the gas industry’s hope of being a transition fuel, a brutal market disruption to the agriculture and livestock industries and the arrival of the climate emergency into public consciousness. This will all be driven by the acceptance of methane as the critical response to the climate emergency.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major ocean current system transporting warm surface waters toward the northern Atlantic, has been suggested to exhibit two distinct modes of operation. A collapse from the currently attained strong to the weak mode would have severe impacts on the global climate system and further multi-stable Earth system components. Observations and recently suggested fingerprints of AMOC variability indicate a gradual weakening during the last decades, but estimates of the critical transition point remain uncertain.
