By Paul Homewood
h/t Robin Guenier
More of the usual renewable energy propaganda from the Guardian:
Almost three-quarters of new electricity generation capacity built in 2019 uses renewable energy, representing an all-time record. New data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) shows solar, wind and other green technologies now provide more than one-third of the world’s power, marking another record.
Fossil fuel power plants are in decline in Europe and the US, with more decommissioned than built in 2019. But the number of coal and gas plants grew in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In the Middle East, which owns half the world’s oil reserves, just 26% of new electricity generation capacity built in 2019 was renewable.
The world has invested about $3tn in renewables over the past decade, according to Irena, but annual investments must double by 2030 to tackle the climate emergency.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the world will soon be 100% powered by renewable energy at this rate.
But, of course, the Guardian is misleading its readers by solely looking at CAPACITY and not GENERATION.
The addition in capacity last year was virtually all wind and solar, 59 GW and 98 GW respectively:
https://www.irena.org/publications/2020/Mar/Renewable-Capacity-Statistics-2020
Hydro power has, of course, been around for ever, and is now at a bit of a dead end.
Given that wind and solar plants produce so little electricity in terms of capacity, this new additional capacity is paltry, and will probably generate much less power than the new fossil fuel capacity added.
Assuming load factors of 25% and 10% for wind and solar, the new capacity in 2019 will generate 215 TWh a year, just 0.8% of global electricity consumption. Since the latter has been growing at an annual rate of over 3%, growth in renewables cannot even keep up increasing demand.
Even if demand stopped rising, it would take 94 years before the world’s power went 100% renewable at this rate. We must also remember that electricity only accounts for about 40% of total energy consumption.
The Guardian also falsely claim that solar, wind and other green technologies now provide more than one-third of the world’s power. It is not clear where they get this from, because the IRENA report does not even mention generation.
The latest data we have is from BP for 2018. This shows that renewables generated 25% of the world’s electricity. However the bulk of this, 16%, came from hydropower, and this figure has changed little in recent years.
Wind and solar power, which the Guardian is keen to highlight, only accounted for 7% of the world’s electricity.
Finally, we must not ignore the Guardian’s brag:
The world has invested about $3tn in renewables over the past decade,
Ye gods!! In the last ten years, this “investment” has produced an extra generation of 2869 TWh a year, just 11% of the world’s demand. And that includes hydro power.
Even assuming that demand for electricity stops increasing, we would need to spend another $24 trillion. And even then we would still need keep all of the conventional capacity we have, to meet demand when the wind is not blowing and the sun not shining.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
April 7, 2020 at 12:57PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 