Transition énergétique ?

I’m used to environmentalists and futurists writing about The Limits to Growth. I’m less used to seeing investment writers mention research that’s linked to The Limits of Growth. But that’s what Joachim Klement did in his daily newsletter recently. Of course, anyone who writes about Limits of Growth has to do all the usual disclaimers first. This is because the combination of the words “limits” and “growth” in the title produced a lot of critical responses, on a range from straight-up hatchet jobs which misrepresented the book, to people who didn’t appear to understand the systems dynamics model that sat behind it.

To tackle the challenges of competitiveness and well-being of future generations, Europe needs to accelerate the climate transition. This will require sizable investment, both public and private. National governments must thus embrace and the EU must facilitate investments in climate transition.

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.

A case in point: When Ecuador placed a windfall tax on foreign oil operations, French and U.S. companies filed claims—and were awarded more than $800 million.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund threatens to vote against boards on firms it holds investments with over lax climate and social targets

Duurzaam beleggen is populairder dan ooit. Maar ondanks mooie praatjes en beloftes belegt de helft van Europa’s duurzaamste beleggingsfondsen nog altijd in kolenbedrijven, oliegiganten en andere vervuilers.

Investments of more than half a trillion euros will be needed to modernise Europe's energy grid this decade, if countries are to succeed in ramping up wind and solar power to break free from Russian gas, a draft EU document showed. The European Commission is set to publish next week a plan to "digitalise" Europe's energy system, as well as laying out new emergency measures to tame sky-high gas prices and help cash-strapped energy firms this winter. The draft plan, seen by Reuters, said electricity grid investments of 584 billion euros are needed until 2030, to support the planned rapid uptake of electric vehicles, renewable energy and heat pumps, and shift away from fossil fuels. Of this, around 400 billion euros would target the distribution grid. Some 170 billion of that would focus on ditigalisation, including the so-called "smart grids" that respond faster to local supply and demand fluctuations, helping waste less energy and benefit from cheaper periods.

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

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.

That same day, oil giant ExxonMobil made an announcement of its own: a $10 billion final investment decision for an oil and gas development project in the South American nation of Guyana that the company said would allow it to add a quarter of a million barrels of oil a day to its production in 2025.