A group of scientists have called for a "moonshot" renewable energy research program called the "Global Apollo":
They say they have generated interest from major nations in their plan for an investment of 0.02% of their GDP [about $150 billion over 10 years, and about the cost of the Apollo program in 2015 dollars] into research, development and demonstration (RD&D) of clean electricity. Their report, launched at London's Royal Society, says on current projections the world will exceed the 2C danger threshold of climate change by 2035.
The academics are led by the UK's former chief scientist Professor Sir David King. He told BBC News: "We have already discovered enough fossil fuels to wreck the climate many times over. There's only one thing that's going to stop us burning it – and that's if renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels. "Under our plan, we are aiming to make that happen globally within a decade." Another of the authors, former Cabinet Secretary Lord O'Donnell, told BBC News: "People never believed we could put a man on the Moon - but we did. People don't believe we can solve climate change - but we have no choice."
It complains that renewable energy has been starved of investment to a shocking degree, with publicly funded RD&D on renewable energy only $6bn a year – under 2% of the total of publicly funded research and development. The authors say this compares poorly with the $101bn spent worldwide on production subsidies for renewables and the $550bn "counter-productive" subsidies for fossil fuel energy.
Solar is the most favoured renewable source as the group says it has greatest potential for technology breakthroughs, and most new energy demand will be in sunny countries. The cost of solar has been plummeting and is already approaching competitive prices in places as different as Germany, California and Chile. But the authors believe next-generation plastic photovoltaics can to keep prices tumbling. They believe battery technology is improving fast – but think batteries and other forms of storage need to be massively developed to store intermittent renewable energy. The authors say much smarter software is needed to enable electricity grids to cope with the new sources of power. Some experts believe that energy technology has developed so fast that it simply needs further price support to keep volumes rising and costs falling. Others will complain that the Apollo group has done little to tackle the immense problem of replacing fossil fuels in heating.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday June 10 2015, @04:38PM
The "fossil fuels subsidy" meme is mostly a myth. The majority of the "subsidy" is actually a tax break provided to ANY company that processing domestic resources to produce goods. And if you look a the money actually provided across all types of energy sources, solar is already the big winner in dollars per TWh. The chart below is for 2013:
Direct subsidies per unit energy to US power generation technologies Subsidies (million 2013 dollars) TWh $/MWh Coal/Refined Coal 1085 1572 0.69 Natural Gas/Petroleum Liquids 2346 1033 2.27 Nuclear 1660 789 2.10 Biomass 629 57 11.04 Geothermal 345 165 2.09 Hydropower 395 266 1.48 Solar 5328 19 280.42 Wind 5936 168 35.33
For the US, I'd be much more interested in eliminating the ethanol mandates and subsidies. That's the "biomass" line above.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:13PM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2015, @10:14AM
i'm not a treehugger by any means (i derive most of my income from coal-fired power generation), but google 'fly ash'