https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127189944#post2
Generating electricity with low-emissions sources
Low-emissions sources of electricity – renewables, nuclear, fossil fuels with CCUS, hydrogen and ammonia – accounted for just over 40% of global electricity generation in 2024, up from around 30% a decade ago. Renewables were responsible for 32% of power generation worldwide, and nuclear for around 9%: there was also a very small contribution of less than 0.003% from fossil fuels equipped with CCUS.
Global installed capacity of renewables triples to 2030 from a 2022 baseline in the NZE Scenario, building on the strong momentum already seen in the power sector, and meeting the goal set at COP28 in 2023 (Figure 7.13). As a result, renewables expand from around one-third of total generation today to around three-quarters by 2035. Achieving this while maintaining electricity security means ensuring that investment in electricity system flexibility keeps pace. Having surged by over 80% in 2024, the installed capacity of stationary batteries increases 17-fold to 2035, average of 30% per year, reaching almost 2 900 gigawatts (GW) in capacity terms and more than 8 400 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in energy terms. In the NZE Scenario, investment surges in grid infrastructure, and around 30 million kilometres (km) of new transmission and distribution lines are added by 2035.
As variable renewables such as solar PV and wind account for a rising share of generation, dispatchable capacity plays a critical role to ensure electricity security. Long lead-times for nuclear limits its role in the near term, but installed nuclear capacity in the NZE Scenario increases 70% by 2035 from the current level, and by 2050 it is two-and-a-half times higher. By the 2030s, the nuclear industry delivers annual additions of around 40 GW per year (Box 7.3). Hydropower capacity also expands strongly, with generation increasing more than 1.5-times by 2050. Unabated fossil fuel plants are operated increasingly for flexibility and capacity adequacy, and consequently their installed capacity falls more slowly than their output across the Outlook period. Fossil fuel plants equipped with CCUS and plants fired with hydrogen or ammonia are also deployed, providing additional low-emissions dispatchable capacity.
Nuclear fission
will not be built fast enough, even to
triple capacity by 2050.
Reaching the tripling target by 2050 would require immediate efforts to scale up the nuclear industry in the 2020s to accelerate deployment in the 2030s and beyond, with annual deployment rates rising quickly in the 2030s to around 40 GW and being maintained throughout that decade and the 2040s. According to our analysis, this would lead to levels of global nuclear capacity additions never achieved before (Figure 7.14). This expansion would support a wide range of applications. Beyond its traditional role in the power sector, nuclear energy could contribute to water desalination and to low-emissions hydrogen production, for example. In the NZE Scenario, the pace of nuclear capacity additions is expected to slow after the mid-2030s, in line with other low-emissions technologies, as most electricity systems become largely decarbonised by then: as a result, capacity rises 2.5-times from the current level rather than tripling.
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