The International Energy Agency published this year’s magnum opus a week or so ago – here’s the Executive Summary (pdf). Key points:
– The Outlook sets out three scenarios that look ahead to 2035: a Current Policies Scenario, which assumes no change on policies as at mid-2010; a New Policies Scenario, which takes account of recently announced pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and eliminate fossil fuel subsidies (which are “assumed to be implemented in a relatively cautious manner, reflecting their non-binding character”); and a 450 Scenario, which sets out an energy pathway consistent with 2 degrees.
– In the New Policies Scenario, energy demand rises 36% from 2008 to 2035 – that’s 1.2% a year on average, compared to 2% a year over the previous 27 years and 1.4% in the Current Policies Scenario. In the 450 scenario, by contrast, demand rises by only 0.7% a year.
– For the first time, the WEO has a whole section on peak oil, which notes that in the New Policies Scenario, “crude oil reaches an undulating plateau of 68-69 mb/d by 2020, but never regains its all-time high of 70 mb/d reached in 2006”. But they also note that “production of natural gas liquids and unconventional oil grows strongly”. Their conclusion: “clearly, global oil production will peak one day, but that peak will be determined by factors affecting both demand and supply”. See here for what the peak oilers have to say about all this. Remember that the greenhouse gas emissions associated with unconventional oil are far higher than for conventional.
– Lots of discussion about natural gas, with the phrase “golden age” getting a look-in. Key take-away: “the glut of global gas-supply capacity that has emerged as a result of the economic crisis (which depressed has demand), the boom in US unconventional gas production and a surge in liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity, could persist for longer than many expect”. The glut was 130bcm in 2009 – next year, it will rise to 200bcm before starting to decline again.
– Biofuels are expected to expand rapidly – from 1 mb/d today to 4.4 mb/d in 2035 under the New Policies Scenario. Advanced biofuels aren’t expected to enter the market until around 2020. Total government support for biofuels came to $20 billion in 2009, mostly in the US and EU; between 2010 and 2020, that’s expected to rise to about $45 billion a year. Hard to find much to cheer about on the food security front here.
– Copenhagen was a “step forward” [like every other weak climate summit ever] but still “fell a very long way short of what is required to set us on a path to a sustainable energy system”. 2 degrees C isn’t definitively out of reach – yet – but the weak summit outcome means that much stronger efforts, costing considerably more, will be needed after 2020″, and “the speed of the energy transformation that would need to occur after 2020 is such as to raise serious misgivings about the practical achievability of cutting emissions sufficiently”.
Limiting warming to 2 degrees is “all but impossible” under the New Policies Scenario, in which emissions rise to 34 gigatonnes in 2020 and 35 Gt in 2035, from 29 Gt in 2008 – an increase of 21% by 2020, all of which is accounted for by non-OECD countries. Instead, we put ourselves on track for stabilisation at over 650 ppm of CO2e, and a likely temperature rise of over 3.5 degrees C. So what would a scenario look like in which we don’t screw ourselves? Answer after the jump.
The WEO says that in order to limit warming to 2 degrees C, we have to achieve a “far-reaching transformation of the energy system”. What that means is:
– Oil demand peaks just before 2020, at 88 mb/d (only 4 mb/d more than today), and falls to 81 mb/d in 2035;
– We still need to build nearly 50 mb/d of new oil capacity, but that’s only two thirds the level of the New Policies Scenario, so we get to shelve some of the worst projects;
– Coal demand peaks by 2020, and is back to 2003 levels by 2035;
– Renewables and nuclear account for 38% of primary energy by 2035, double their current share, with renewables reaching over 45% of global generation by this year;
– And carbon capture, biofuels and advanced vehicles are also big growth areas, with about 70% of car sales accounted for by hybrids, plug-in hybrids and fully electric cars by 2035.
