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eridani

(51,907 posts)
Thu Apr 16, 2015, 04:23 AM Apr 2015

World now adding more renewable energy than fossil fuel energy

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/fossil-fuels-just-lost-the-race-against-renewables




The race for renewable energy has passed a turning point. The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. And there's no going back.

The shift occurred in 2013, when the world added 143 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity, compared with 141 gigawatts in new plants that burn fossil fuels, according to an analysis presented Tuesday at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance annual summit in New York. The shift will continue to accelerate, and by 2030 more than four times as much renewable capacity will be added.

"The electricity system is shifting to clean,'' Michael Liebreich, founder of BNEF, said in his keynote address. "Despite the change in oil and gas prices there is going to be a substantial buildout of renewable energy that is likely to be an order of magnitude larger than the buildout of coal and gas."

The price of wind and solar power continues to plummet, and is now on par or cheaper than grid electricity in many areas of the world. Solar, the newest major source of energy in the mix, makes up less than 1 percent of the electricity market today but will be the world’s biggest single source by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.
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World now adding more renewable energy than fossil fuel energy (Original Post) eridani Apr 2015 OP
Important to note that these are additions caraher Apr 2015 #1
True, but the point is that we are headed in the right direction eridani Apr 2015 #3
Every time I see one of these articles GliderGuider Apr 2015 #2

caraher

(6,276 posts)
1. Important to note that these are additions
Thu Apr 16, 2015, 07:03 AM
Apr 2015

Looks like additions to electricity capacity from fossil fuels level out at a level of about half the current rate of increase. Which still means increasing carbon emissions, etc. until retirements of legacy generation begin to exceed the rate at which we add fossil fuel generation capacity.

It doesn't matter so much that the stuff on the right is taller than the stuff on the left. What matters is the scale of the stuff on the left plus what happens to the fossil-fueled electricity we have already.

eridani

(51,907 posts)
3. True, but the point is that we are headed in the right direction
Thu Apr 16, 2015, 07:09 PM
Apr 2015

Whether it is enough remains to be seen.

 

GliderGuider

(21,088 posts)
2. Every time I see one of these articles
Thu Apr 16, 2015, 07:25 AM
Apr 2015

I always see the word "capacity" being used, with nary a mention of capacity factors. Let's try this one more time:

The capacity factor of wind and solar is only a third or less than that of fossil fuels.

According to BP, from 2012 to 2013 the amount of additional electricity generated broke down like this:

Wind: 106 TWh
Solar: 30.7 TWh
Geothermal: 33.3 TWh
Hydro: 98 TWh
Nuclear: 14.5 TWh
Fossil: 110 TWh

Meanwhile, the amount of CO2 put into the atmosphere (which is the point of the exercise, right?) increased by 630 million tonnes.

It will be interesting to see what the 2014 numbers look like. They'll be out in a couple of months.
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