Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
US oil production is about to peak, but the world is unprepared for the tremendous economic and political consequences. The only path through is energy and economic transformation.
As Europeans suffer surging energy prices, the EU is renewing its commitment to costly natural gas instead of investing in cheap renewables, it has been revealed.
The share of renewable energies in global electricity generation increased again last year and capacity financed by investments even reached a record level in 2019, according to a recent report on global investments in renewables, EURACTIV Germany reports.
The rapidly dropping cost of renewable energy has upended energy economics in recent years, with new solar and wind plants now significantly cheaper than coal power.
Prices for solar, wind, and battery storage are dropping so rapidly that renewables are increasingly squeezing out all forms of fossil fuel power, including natural gas.
The staggering drop in the cost of clean energy has already upended the global power market over the past two decades — and that trend will only continue for the next two decades, according to new analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
Dramatic cost reductions mean wind and solar can now compete on price with conventional sources of energy in many parts of the world, including the UK. This turns the spotlight onto the so-called “whole system costs” of integrating renewables into the electricity system, which include backing up intermittent generation and strengthening grids.
According to fossil fuel companies, the world will continue to rely on their products for decades. They even have sophisticated scenarios, outlooks and modelling to prove it.
Looking at the markets from a 30,000 foot level, some interesting shifts are occurring. And yet they are almost completely under the radar screen.
Investment in renewables worldwide has picked up steam.
Renewables and associated storage, transport and digital technologies are so rapidly disrupting whole industries’ business models they are pushing the fossil fuel industry towards inevitable collapse.
Last Friday, I posted an exclusive report about a new NASA-backed scientific research project at the US National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (Sesync) to model the risks of civilisational collapse, based on analysis of the key factors involved in the rise and fall of past civilisations.
