The Renewable Energy Reality Check

[kristopher]

4. This study of predictions shows your sources are the least reliable of all available.

Last edited Thu May 23, 2013, 05:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Conventional Wisdom About Clean Energy Is Still Way Out of Date

“It’s not 1990 anymore.”

CHRIS NELDER: MAY 9, 2013

"We're fifteen to twenty years out of date in how we think about renewables," said Dr. Eric Martinot to an audience at the first Pathways to 100% Renewables Conference held April 16 in San Francisco. "It's not 1990 anymore."

Dr. Martinot and his team recently compiled their 2013 Renewables Global Futures report from two years of research in which they conducted interviews with 170 experts and policymakers from fifteen countries, including local city officials and stakeholders from more than twenty cities. They also reviewed more than 50 recently published scenarios by credible international organizations, energy companies, and research institutes, along with government policy targets for renewable energy, and various corporate reports and energy literature.

The report observes that "[t]he history of energy scenarios is full of similar projections for renewable energy that proved too low by a factor of 10, or were achieved a decade earlier than expected." For example, the International Energy Agency's 2000 estimate for wind power in 2010 was 34 gigawatts, while the actual level was 200 gigawatts. The World Bank's 1996 estimate for China was 9 gigawatts of wind and 0.5 gigawatts for solar PV by 2020, but by 2011 the country had already achieved 62 gigawatts of wind and 3 gigawatts of PV.

Dr. Martinot's conclusion from this exhaustive survey? "The conservative scenarios are simply no longer credible."

There is now a yawning gap between "conservative" scenarios and more optimistic ones, as illustrated in this chart contrasting scenarios published in 2012 by entities like the IEA and ExxonMobil with those offered by groups like the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (an international scientific policy research organization), Greenpeace, and the World Wildlife Fund...

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/conventional-wisdom-about-clean-energy-is-way-out-of-date?utm_source=Solar&utm_medium=Picture&utm_campaign=GTMDaily

There is a lot of negativity on this board and a great deal of it is aimed at the timetable for deploying renewables. The study in the OP confirms my own research on this topic - research that forms the basis for my outlook on what is coming down the pike for our energy future.

The thoughts I share on the our energy future are often termed "overly optimistic" (to use the most polite phrase), and inevitably the person holding that view will buttresses their argument with the IEA or EIA numbers. I hope this post gives some food for thought for those who misuse the word Cornucopian to let me know they think I'm being unrealistic. One particular poster, in fact, just loves to use the EIA, BP and IEA numbers to create graphs reflecting his feelings of gloom and despair.

Let's recap the numbers above:
..."projections for renewable energy that proved too low by a factor of 10, or were achieved a decade earlier than expected"

in 2000 International Energy Agency saysin 2010 wind power will be at 34 gigawatts;
actual level was 200 gigawatts.

1996 World Bank estimate for China by 2020:
9 gigawatts of wind and 0.5 gigawatts for solar PV
China in 2011 has 62 gigawatts of wind and 3 gigawatts of PV (and they are just getting started - k)

10 years ahead of schedule and wind is 7X+ while solar is 6X. How much do you think they will exceed World Bank predictions by the time 2020 actually gets here?


So when you look at charts like this:


Or tables like this:


Remember who has a record of poor predictions. That isn't saying we are going to address this threat as fast as we need to, but at least let's start the discussion about what we are going to do with a realistic eye on what is good analysis and what isn't.