Posted By Michael Bastasch On 12:17 PM 04/25/2017 In | No Comments
A group of executives who want to fight global warming has published a new report calling for countries to spend up to $600 billion a year over the next two decades to boost green energy deployment and energy efficiency equipment.
The Energy Transitions Commission’s (ETC) report claims “additional investments of around $300-$600 billion per annum do not pose a major macroeconomic challenge,” which they say will help the world meet the goals laid out in the Paris agreement.
ETC is made up of energy executives, activist leaders and investment bankers, including former Vice President Al Gore, who would no doubt get a piece of the trillions of dollars they are calling for.
ETC’s goal is to “accelerate change towards low-carbon energy systems that enable robust economic development” and limit global warming. ETC’s report comes out as the Trump administration considers whether or not to stay party to the Paris agreement, which went into effect in 2016.
Trump has ordered Obama-era policies meant to comply with the Paris agreement be rolled back, but the White House is mulling whether or not to pull out of the agreement altogether. European countries and energy companies have been pressuring the White House to stay party to Paris.
Royal Dutch Shell, for example, aided the pro-Paris faction of the Trump administration by publicly supporting continued U.S. participation in the United Nations deal. Shell is a major producer of natural gas, which the company bills as a way to fight global warming.
Shell funds ETC, and the group’s report mainly targets emissions from coal use. ETC calls for “a rapid decrease in unabated coal consumption, a peak of oil in the 2020s and a continued role for gas provided methane leakages are reduced significantly.”
ETC says global carbon dioxide emissions need to be cut from 36 gigatons to 20 gigatons by 2040, and the world needs “net zero” emissions after 2050 to keep global temperatures from hitting 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
To meet that goal ETC claims the world needs “investment in renewables and other low-carbon technologies some $6 trillion higher ($300 billion per year); while the largest required increases – of almost $9 trillion ($450 billion per year) – will be in more efficient energy saving equipment and buildings.”
[dcquiz]
That’s a $15 trillion price tag to theoretically limit future global warming.
ETC says fossil fuel investment would need to be cut $3.7 trillion over this time, and that’s on top of fundamentally altering their economic systems to make green energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels in some parts of the world by 2035.
The group says an “explicit, predictably rising, forward price curve for carbon, resulting from policy, reaching approximately $50 per tonne in the 2020s and rising to around $100 per tonne in the 2030s – is essential to drive decarbonization beyond power, to reinforce regulatory-driven improvements in energy productivity and to prevent falling fossil fuels prices from undermining the pace of the energy transition.”
"In 2008, the Michigan Economic Growth Authority board approved a state tax credit worth $1.8 million over 10 years to win the Evergreen Solar expansion over another state. Midland leaders already had approved a 12-year abatement worth $3.9 million to support the project."
"Dow Chemical’s (DOW) PowerHouse solar shingles may be coming to ahome near you. The announcement of efficient, affordable, andeasily-installed solar rooftop shingles has shaken the building andsolar industries quite a bit, as the company itself revels in theexpectation of around $5 billion in revenues by 2015 for the singleproduct alone. Dow received a $20 million grant from the United StatesDepartment of Energy for development on the project and will deploy itsshingles via select builders in 2010, with more widespread availabilityslated for 2011."
There are rooftop solar panels, and then there are roofs that are solar panels. The difference isn't enough to stake a market on.
Dow Chemical Company is cutting off its solar shingle line, the Powerhouse Solar System 2.0, reported MLive. The company will sell its last systems on July 28 and ship them out by August 10, less than five years after it launched the product.
The demise of the business reflects the difficulty of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), which incorporate solar modules into construction materials. These systems tend to replicate the purpose of a rooftop solar installation -- but with less efficiency, which makes it hard to sell in the long run.
Even the Powerhouse marketing material had trouble articulating why it's better than conventional rooftop PV. The product website claims the Powerhouse "completely changed the way the world looks at roofs" because "instead of merely lying passively on your house, these shingles generate electricity from the sun’s rays to power your life."
You know, kind of like solar panels.
The stated argument for choosing solar shingles instead of conventional PV modules is less grand: "Unlike other solar alternatives, everything in your Powerhouse system is provided and backed by Dow." If that doesn't sell a customer, perhaps the aesthetics will. The shingles integrate flat on the roof, instead of popping up from the surface of the building. The concept simplifies solar installation, too, by combining it with roof construction.
The problem is that solar shingles generate electricity on a roof much less efficiently than solar modules. There's an environmental appeal to wringing every last bit of use out of the built environment, but it doesn't change the fact that rooftop or distributed solar PV does the job better.
Once the conventional PV sites are tapped out -- if that ever happens -- the value of solar-generating windows, walls and roads will increase. Until then, BIPV frequently amounts to paying a premium for less of a return. That math has already killed a long line of companies.
The shingle shutdown also resulted from the internal dynamics at Dow. The massive corporation is reorganizing in advance of a merger with fellow giant DuPont, and that includes cutting 2,500 jobs worldwide. A Dow spokesperson told MLive that "a majority of positions in the Dow Solar business will be impacted by the restructuring."
The decision also marks a blow to NuvoSun, which produces the flexible CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) panels used in the shingles. The late 2000s saw an influx of billions of dollars in investments for CIGS companies, very few of which still stand or produce serious capacity (Remember Solyndra?).
NuvoSun was one of those survivors, acquired by Dow in 2013. It offers a standalone flexible solar cell, but it remains to be seen what the company will do once the shingle application cuts off.
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