EuroWire Sept 2015

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Transatlantic cable
September 2015 33
The days when many items were interchangeable among autos
of di erent models and years are gone.
Some parts must be electronically reprogrammed; and tech-
nology-intensive hybrid vehicles, in particular, dictate the
presence of specialists on the sta s of recycling centres.
“It’s not as easy to take a vehicle right into your facility and
dismantle it,” said Mr Wilson of the ARA, adding that his group
has grown since the recession of 2007-2009, even as the industry
has consolidated.
Energy
Foreseen over the next quarter-century:
profound changes in how the world
gets its electricity
According to a new forecast by Bloomberg New Energy Finance
(BNEF) that plots out global power markets to 2040, six massive
shifts are “coming soon to power markets near you.”
The shifts that are seen as transforming markets over the next
25 years rest on a belief that the renewable-energy boom is
already here.
Proceeding from there, BNEF asserts that the trillions of dollars
that will be invested in energy generation over the next 25
years will drive some of the most profound changes yet in how
electricity is produced and delivered.
Here, abbreviated and lightly edited, are highlights
from the BNEF forecast, as reported by Tom Randall of
BloombergBusiness (“The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About
to Change Forever,” 23rd June)
Solar prices keep crashing
The price of solar power will continue to fall, until solar becomes
the cheapest form of power in a rapidly expanding number of
national markets. By 2026, utility-scale solar will be competitive
for the major part of the world.
The lifetime cost of a photovoltaic solar-power plant will drop
by almost half over the next 25 years, even as the price of fossil
fuels creeps higher.
Solar power will eventually become so cheap that it
“outcompetes” new fossil-fuel plants and even starts to supplant
some existing coal and gas plants, potentially stranding billions
in fossil-fuel infrastructure.
“The industrial age was built on coal,” wrote Mr Randall. “The
next 25 years will be the end of its dominance.”
Solar billions become solar trillions: With solar power so cheap,
investment will surge. Expect $3.7 trillion in solar investments
between now and 2040. Solar alone will account for more than a
third of new power capacity worldwide.
The revolution will be decentralised: The biggest solar revolution
will take place on rooftops. High electricity prices and cheap
residential battery storage will make small-scale rooftop solar
ever more attractive, driving a 17-fold increase in installations.
By 2040, rooftop solar will be cheaper than electricity from
the grid in every major economy, and almost 13 per cent of
electricity worldwide will be generated from small-scale solar
systems. Global demand for electricity slows: Even as the
world is inundated with mobile phones, at screen TVs, and air
conditioners, growth in demand for electricity is slowing.
The reason: e ciency. To cram huge amounts of processing
power into pocket-sized gadgets, engineers have had to focus
on how to keep those gadgets from overheating.
That has meant huge advances in energy e ciency. Switching
to an LED light bulb, for example, can reduce electricity
consumption by more than 80 per cent.
Thus, even as people rise from poverty into the middle class
faster than ever, global electricity consumption will remain
relatively at.
Over the next 25 years global demand will grow about 1.8 per
cent a year, compared with three per cent a year from 1990 to
2012. In wealthy OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development] countries, power demand will actually
decline.
Natural gas burns brie y: Natural gas will not become the
“oft-idealised bridge fuel” that transitions the world from coal to
renewable energy.
The USA fracking boom will help bring global prices down
somewhat, but few countries outside the US will replace coal
plants with natural gas. Instead, developing countries will often
opt for some combination of coal, gas and renewables.
Even in the fracking-rich US, installing wind power will be
cheaper than building new gas plants by 2023, and utility-scale
solar will be cheaper than gas by 2036.
Fossil fuels are not going to suddenly disappear. They will retain
a 44 per cent share of total electricity generation in 2040 (down
from two-thirds today), much of which will come from legacy
plants that are cheaper to run than to shut down.
Developing countries will be responsible for 99 per cent of new
coal plants and 86 per cent of new gas- red plants between now
and 2040.
Coal is clearly on its way out, but in developing countries that
need to add capacity quickly, coal-power additions will be
roughly equivalent to utility-scale solar.
The climate will still su er: The shift to renewables is happening
stunningly fast but not fast enough to prevent perilous levels of
global warming.
About $8 trillion, or two-thirds of the world’s spending on
new power capacity over the next 25 years, will go toward
renewables.
Still, without additional policy action by governments, global
carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector will continue to
rise until 2029 and will remain 13 per cent higher than today’s
pollution levels in 2040.
“That’s not enough to prevent the surface of the Earth from
heating more than two degrees Celsius, according to BNEF,”
Mr Randall wrote, in conclusion.
“That’s considered the point of no return for some worst
consequences of climate change.”
Dorothy Fabian
USA Editor