Renewable Energy Transition and Consumption

[gerontocrat]

The IEA has released electricity data to October 2024 for the OECD and various other countries

All attachments in this post are 12 month trailing averages derived from IEA monthly data

OECD + China +India - Electricity from Wind+Solar vs Fossil Fuels
Wind+solar eletricity in the 12 months to October 2024 increased by nearly 50 TWH per month (17%) compared with the 12 months to October 2023, while electricity from coal+gas+oil increased by just under 13 TWH (1.2%). So once again growth in electricity consumed meant that the inflection point, (i.e. when use of fossil fuels declines) was not reached.

China - Electricity from Wind+Solar vs Fossil Fuels
Wind+solar eletricity in the 12 months to October 2024 increased by around 40 TWH per month (25%) compared with the 12 months to October 2023, while electricity from coal+gas increased by just around 18 TWH (4.1%). So once again strong growth in electricity consumed meant that the inflection point, (i.e. when use of fossil fuels declines) looks as out of reach as ever.

USA - Electricity from Wind+Solar vs Fossil Fuels
Wind+solar eletricity in the 12 months to October 2024 increased by nearly 6 TWH per month (10%) compared with the 12 months to October 2023, while electricity from coal+gas increased by just 2 TWH (1%). Use of natural gas went up by 6 TWH per month (4%) while coal fell by 4 TWH (6.4%)

So once again strong growth in electricity consumed meant that the inflection point, (i.e. when use of fossil fuels declines) was not reached. Since November 5 2024 (Trump + AI) prospects look poor.

OECD Europe- Electricity from Wind+Solar vs Fossil Fuels
Wind+solar eletricity in the 12 months to October 2024 increased by nearly 10 TWH per month (14%) compared with the 12 months to October 2023, while electricity from coal+gas decreased by 13 TWH (15%). Use of natural gas went down by 9 TWH per month (17.5%) while coal fell by over 4 TWH (12%). Europe is prioritising its efforts on reducing dependence on Russian natural gas.

For the first time, OECD Europe produces a greater percentage (just) of electricity from Wind+Solar than fossil fuels (27.4% vs 27.2%), and that change in the last 2 years has been rapid

I think I will wait for the December data before I post again.

click images to enlarge

[gerontocrat]

China's National Bureau of Statistics has issued energy production data tables to December 2024  -  post 1 of 2 Electrical Energy

China produced 9,418 TWH of electricity in 2024, and increased of 509TWH (5.7%) over 2023.

However thermal electricity (over 90% from coal) production only increased by 112 TWH (1.8%) to  6,344 TWH.

Half the increase in electricity consumed was met by the increase in wind+solar power of 252 TWH (23%).

Hydropower also recovered in 2023 - increasing by 133 TWH to 1,274 TWH.

Wind+solar+nuclear+hydro electricity is now around 50% of thermal electricity

At the moment my speculative projections suggest thermal electricity may start to reduce in 2028. The key drivers are growth in total electricity demand and the rate of increase in wind+solar, though nuclear may take an increasing role in later years.

[gerontocrat]

China's National Bureau of Statistics has issued energy production data tables to December 2024  -  post 2 of 2 Fossil Fuel Energy

Coal production in 2024 increased by 101 million tons (2.2%) over 2023 to 4,759 million tons

Oil Based fuels In 2024 production of the major oil-based fuels selected reduced by 20 million tons (4.1%) to 462 million tons. Only kerosene (for aviation?) shows an increase.
Note: the products selected only include 65% of refinery output, the rest being for other fuels and non-fuel uses

In 2024 the crude processed in China's refineries resulted in refinery output of 708 million tons, a reduction of 27 million tons (3.6%) from 2023 production.

Gas production was 16,453 x 100million cubic metres, a drop of 1.9% from 2023 production.

The data suggests that apart from coal, fossil fuel consumption reduced in 2024. But is it a trend?


The overall picture of China's fossil energy use in 2024 is perhaps "no change"?

[gerontocrat]

X-post from the Trump Presidency 2 thread

Trump has signed an Executive Order that attempts to stop spending on initiatives under the Inflation Reduction Act. However, it looks like most of the money is already committed and maybe spending it can't be cancelled.

Nevertheless, together with kissing the Paris Accord goodbye and cancelling the EV mandate confirms that the Federal element of the US Energy Transition programme is pretty much dead in the water for the next 4 years and beyond.

https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/trump-orders-agencies-to-halt-spending-from-bidens-climate-law

Trump orders agencies to halt spending from Biden's climate law
The law has been seen as a target for the incoming administration, searching for ways to pay for tax cuts

Bloomberg News
Published Jan 20, 2025

President Donald Trump has ordered federal agencies to “immediately pause” the spending of money from the Inflation Reduction Act, former president Joe Biden’s signature climate law that provided hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to clean energy and other climate initiatives.

The directive, included in an executive order issued Monday, mandates agencies to review grants, loans and other payments associated with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which Trump has derided as the “Green New Scam.”

The order follows a vow Trump made on the campaign trail to “rescind unspent” money from the climate law, billed by Democrats as the largest-ever investment in fighting climate change.

Projected to provide incentives for electric-vehicle, wind, solar, hydrogen and nuclear power projects, the law has been seen as a target for the incoming administration, searching for ways to pay for Trump’s planned tax cuts.

Clawing back the funds won’t be easy, though. The Energy Department has committed more than $170 billion for grants and loans, through cash made available in the IRA and a separate bipartisan infrastructure law, it said on Friday. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said it has awarded 93 per cent of grant funding coming from the IRA.

The broader energy directive signed by Trump on Monday terminated Biden’s American Climate Corps program — a New Deal-inspired jobs program to fight climate change around the United States. Trump also ordered the EPA to consider eliminating the “social cost of carbon,” a metric used for estimating the potential economic damage from global warming and extreme weather, historically used to justify environmental policies.

[Sigmetnow]

Trump has signed an Executive Order that attempts to stop spending on initiatives under the Inflation Reduction Act. However, it looks like most of the money is already committed and maybe spending it can't be cancelled. …

Looks like EV “mandates” and charging infrastructure subsidies may be cancelled, but the $7,500 tax credit remains, and may not go away quickly.  (See below.)
 
Already there is a sizable customer population who say the tax credit was not an important factor for their EV purchase (probably because the EV they wanted wasn’t eligible, anyway).
 
Regarding charging infrastructure: the company installing the most, and the most dependable, EV fast chargers in the US: Tesla, has figured out how to make charging into a highly successful (and at least marginally profitable, at present) business.
EDIT: Adding an average of around 30 new Supercharger stalls globally per day throughout 2024.
 In fact, outside estimates are that by 2030, it could generate $6 billion to $12 billion annually from its charging network, driven by agreements with other manufacturers to use Tesla chargers.  So there’s plenty of incentive to keep expanding.  The company has already refused California subsidies that would have forced it to change its successful charging model. 
Thus, infrastructure growth should continue apace, even if federal subsidies are dropped.
 
It seems EV adoption, even in the laggard U.S., is entering an organic growth phase where the impact of subsidies is lessening.

< Does Trump's "Unleashing American Energy" Executive Order affect the $7500 Federal EV Tax Credit in any way? …
 
Sawyer Merritt:
 
No. None of the 196 Executive Orders signed by Trump today target the $7,500 Fed EV credit. The text below from his "Unleashing American Energy" executive order focuses on pausing spending on electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
 
Trump can alter the EV credit eligibility rules to some degree, but he will need to get congressional approval to completely cancel the EV credit since it is a passed law. He can't just cancel it himself via an Executive Order.
 
I have no doubt the EV credit will be canceled at some point, but as of right now we don't know when that will be, and if there will be a set period of time given for people to take advantage of it before it disappears. But if there's one thing we know, it's that… the EV credit is no doubt on DOGE's radar, so I imagine we'll get more info relatively soon.

1/20/25, 10:50 PM https://x.com/sawyermerritt/status/1881549864581869959

[KiwiGriff]

I post this as i found it interesting.
The NZ perspective may by interesting to  others .
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/01/21/here-comes-mega-solar-e-motorways-and-a-big-chance-for-nz/

The rise of mega solar in the coming decade offers our best opportunity to reduce carbon emissions and create a sustainable renewables economy to replace the age of fossil fuels. New Zealand cannot afford to be left behind.

To see how that can happen requires a strategic forecast on the state and prospects of large-scale solar technologies. Solar power already benefits from the increasingly inexpensive production of photovoltaic (PV) collectors. This, in turn enables countries from China, India, the UAE and Malaysia to develop super large-scale solar farms.

The largest PV farm in existence at present is Xinjiang solar farm. With 5GW capacity this facility could power Washington DC for a year.

The scale and urgency of major renewables installations require global investment on a massive scale. Business and economic consultancy Bloomberg NEF reports that in 2023 the global energy transition investment, including renewables, hit $1.8 trillion in the year 2023 which is up 17 percent on the previous year, a new record and a financial trend that must continue.

Mega-solar farms are not the only opportunity. A truly international research network is piloting a novel massive PV concept in the USA. This involves incorporating solar tunnel covers (sunroofs) on existing motorways to generate energy. This system could be coupled to another recent development, power-induction cabling along the motorway itself (so called e-motorways or e- roads). Such induction systems are intended to power the electric vehicles of many types as they travel the e-motorway.

With induction comes the end of range anxiety and an answer to the power needs for e-trucking.  It has been confirmed that motorway sunroof technology has the potential to cut global carbon emissions by 28 percent.  Members of the Association of Civil Engineers have audited the figures from this concept, and agree they are realistic and even possibly understated. The development of induction motorways has been tested in prototype projects in Sweden

Such dramatic innovative technologies will depend on reliable solar energy levels, and so what criteria can identify regions suitable for such advanced developments? These criteria are already available in initiatives like the Global Solar Atlas, comprising maps of solar and wind potential which provide planners with holistic data to identify the best regions for development.

The Global Solar Atlas shows New Zealand to have significant wind potential advantage because of its extended coastline; and mega solar potential in its drier and sunnier regions including the Canterbury Plains, Central Otago, East Cape, Northland, and others.

Solar energy will need to be incorporated efficiently together with other energy supplies in a sustainable national grid. The recent planned development of a major solar farm at Ruakaka is a substantial development. Also, expanding solar developments across the South Pacific are an obvious response for island states seriously concerned about future inundation caused by climate warming. The completion of a major solar farm in Tonga is the first of many such projects in the Pacific.

Taking a more global perspective, the equatorial regions of the Middle East and Asia, South Africa, Egypt and the drier northern regions of West Australia and Queensland are definite prospects for massive solar investment and development has started already. South Australia has been able to supply 100 percent of its own energy demand and even export surplus solar energy to the neighbouring state of Victoria. Also, solar energy from PV farms in the wheatbelt and Pilbara regions in Western Australia help meet its energy demand.

A prospective mega solar economy creates new categories of jobs and skills. The United States, United Kingdom and Australia have each expressed concern that the limited supply of qualified works could create a bottleneck in the growth of power from renewables. An easy prediction is that global demand for skilled workers in renewables is an exceptional opportunity for younger generations to be part of the solution to climate change.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has reported in 2023 that global employment in renewables surpassed that in fossil fuels in 2022. This growth in renewables was led by solar PV, electric vehicles, and battery manufacturing. Forbes has reported the transition from coal jobs to renewables jobs will probably be smoother than anticipated, as some former coal miners have found employment in the renewables sector. Other reports from Scotland indicate 80 percent of fossil fuel workers are keen to undertake retraining in renewables.

On the political front, there is rising international concern that the incoming Trump Administration will reverse climate initiatives introduced by his predecessor.

However, Bloomberg Law observes that the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rule and the historically small House majority may prove a challenge to the passage of major disruptive environmental and climate legislation.

[Sigmetnow]

South 🇦🇺 Australia is a role model of what you can achieve in just 17 years!
1/16/25, https://x.com/alex_avoigt/status/1880033727725859261
⬇️ 

—-
Cumulative global battery energy storage capacity, in gigawatts.
1/17/25, https://x.com/sawyermerritt/status/1880278978726097174
⬇️ 

[morganism]

(i always liked the road/canal covering, some local tribe just got funding to do it here in SW USA, and there is a huge canal in AZ. Great for evaporation too.  Induction roadways scare me cuz of CME's and defense security concerns. Nuc is same concerns. Why i like tunnels and HSRail. There are still air cushion/half pipe that can be roofed over for wildlife corridors and solar.)

[gerontocrat]

The US EIA has issued US energy production and consumption tables to October 2024
Graphs produced from US EIA data are 12 month trailing average

Wind+solar energy is 2.7% of US Primary Energy Consumption and 15% of US electricity consumption.

Coal+Natural Gas+Petroleum Products compose 85% of  US Primary Energy Consumption.

CO2 emissions are reducing, but in the last 12 months by just 1% (20% from the 2005 maximum).