Report suggests renewables can meet half of global energy

BRUSSELS, Belgium, January 31, 2007 (Refocus Weekly) Renewable energy and energy efficiency can meet half of the world's energy needs by 2050, but time is running out, warn the European Renewable Energy Council and Greenpeace.

“Contrary to popular opinion, a massive uptake of renewable energy and efficiency improvements alone can solve our global warming problem,” explains the report, ‘Energy Revolution: A Blueprint for Solving Global Warming.’ “All that is missing is the right policy support from the President and Congress.”

“It is not only economically feasible, but also economically desirable, to cut U.S. CO2 emissions by almost 75% within the next 43 years,” it adds. “These reductions can be achieved without nuclear power, and while virtually ending U.S. dependence on coal.”

“The bad news is that time is running out,” and a “fundament of setting targets for the renewables industry is that these targets clearly show the way ahead and therefore they need to be set” by sector for electricity from green power, space conditioning from green heat and green fuels from biofuel. The report was released as the European Commission prepares its Renewable Energy Roadmap, to be adopted in coming months.

“At a time when governments around the world are in the process of liberalising their electricity markets, the increasing competitiveness of renewable energy should lead to higher demand,” it explains. “Without political support, however, renewable energy remains at a disadvantage, marginalised by distortions in the world’s electricity markets created by decades of massive financial, political and structural support to conventional technologies and the failure to internalise environmental and social costs in the price of energy.”

“Developing renewables will therefore require strong political and economic efforts, especially through laws that guarantee stable tariffs over a period of up to 20 years,” it continues. “At present, new renewable energy generators have to compete with old nuclear and fossil fuelled power stations which produce electricity at marginal costs because consumers and taxpayers have already paid the interest and depreciation on the original investments. Political action is needed to overcome these distortions and create a level playing field.”

“As past experience shows, only a clear, transparent and ambitious target could deliver investor confidence and stimulate measures that are necessary to reach the target,” it states. In 1997, the EU set an overall target to double the share of renewables to 12% by 2010 but, for years after, the growth of renewables was sluggish in countries without policies and targets. Only in 2001, when a green power directive was adopted for electricity with concrete national targets, was there a “real uptake and a change of promotion mechanisms” in member states and the resulting growth of wind and solar “is one of the most significant success stories in European industry.”

The report was commissioned from the German Aerospace Centre and the Worldwatch Institute served as a technical consultant for the U.S. portion.

While supplies of all fossil fuels are becoming scarce and expensive, “the reserves of renewable energy that are technically accessible globally are large enough to provide about six times more power than the world currently consumes – forever,” it notes. “Renewable energy technologies vary widely in their technical and economic maturity, but there are a range of sources which offer increasingly attractive options.”

“The climate change imperative demands nothing short of an energy revolution,” the report explains. “At the core of this revolution will be a change in the way that energy is produced, distributed and consumed.”

Members of EREC include the European Photovoltaic Industry Association, European Small Hydropower Association, European Solar Thermal Industry Federation, European Biomass Industry Association, European Renewable Energy Research Centres Agency, European Wind Energy Association, European Biomass Association and European Geothermal Energy Council.


Click here for more info...

Back to contents...