Clean energy progress is too slow, says IEA
Progress on research, developing and deploying clean energy technologies “has not been fast enough”, said the International Energy Agency in its Tracking Clean Energy Progress 2013 report. The report blames large market failures that have prevented adoption of clean energy solutions, failure to tap potential for energy efficiency gains, sluggish progress on energy-related research and development, and a lack of policies that address broader energy systems, rather than energy in disparate components.
“Governments have the power to create markets and policies that accelerate development and deployment of clean energy technologies, yet the potential of these technologies remains largely untapped,” said the IEA in the report. And with coal continuing to dominate power generation, especially in emerging economies such as China and India, “the amount of CO2 emitted for each unit of energy supplied has fallen by less than 1% since 1990”, it said.
Coal demand to remain resilient, says EIU
Coal demand will remain robust in the largest coal-consuming countries, which in aggregate account for around 90% of global demand, despite efforts to transition to fuels with fewer CO2 emissions, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report, Rock Steady: A Special Report on Coal Demand. “Governments’ high-minded efforts will slow coal’s progress but not reverse it,” said the report.
The EIU points to the failure of the European Union to set a high enough price on carbon emissions credits to discourage coal use in power generation as a telling example, noting that European coal consumption grew in both 2011 and 2012, partly due to rising coal exports from the US in the face of an abundance of cheap domestic gas. The EIU also stressed that while economic growth may slow in emerging Asian economies such as China and India, these countries will remain somewhat coal-dependent, and Asian demand will determine the trajectory for coal’s prospects globally.
CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa hit record
The disappointing pace of clean energy advancement and continued reliance on coal appear to be even more pressing problems since the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) reported that the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere breached the 400 parts per million (ppm) mark at the Mauna Loa, Hawaii measurement station on May 9.
This is the highest level recorded at the station, which has been measuring atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1958. “Carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning and other human activities is the most significant greenhouse gas (GHG) contributing to climate change,” according to NOAA.
NOAA reported last year that all Arctic sites in its network of measuring stations hit 400 ppm for the first time.
US demand for petroleum products keeps falling
By some measures, efficiency enhancements have already proven effective. US demand for petroleum products, such as gasoline and residual fuel oil, has has fallen year-over-year in all but two months since March 2011, according to UK-based The Centre for Global Energy Studies’ latest Global Oil Insight. CGES attributed falling gasoline demand to greater auto efficiency, and to and the growing market share of alternative-fuel vehicles like hybrids and natural gas vehicles (NGVs).
As demand for petroleum products has been falling, US oil production has risen. “The current inverse relationship between US oil production and oil demand is causing crude stocks to rise, bringing aggregate US inventories up to 395.5 mn bbls, the highest level since records began,” said CGES.
