29.05.2024
Source: Energy & Management Powernews
The global energy transition has accelerated in recent years and has also developed its own economic momentum.
This is the conclusion reached by the latest outlook on the global energy markets from the Bloomberg media group. The authors examine two scenarios of possible further development up to 2050. Both scenarios assume that energy demand and prosperity will continue to grow.
In the economic transition scenario (TS), historical trends are extrapolated: Energy efficiency would continue to increase and climate-friendly technologies would displace fossil fuels according to the rules of technical progress and competitiveness. Global emissions would fall by 27 percent in the TS by 2050. The temperature rise would reach 2.6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
The TS would not require any further political intervention or support measures, but would require clean technologies to gain access to the markets and be able to compete. The capacity for using renewable energies would then double by 2030 and quadruple by 2050. By the end of the decade, more than half of the world's electricity would be generated from renewables. Energy demand would increase by around a third by 2050, but could be met with the same primary energy due to higher energy efficiency.
Fossil fuels will not disappear completely
Two thirds of the CO2 reduction by 2050 is due to the transformation of the energy sector, which is continuing to decarbonize through solar, wind and nuclear energy. The second pillar of decarbonization would be the electrification of transport through electric vehicles (EV), the building sector and industry, which would contribute 15 percent to the reduction of greenhouse gases, 12 percent would be caused by efficiency gains. Global demand for electricity would increase by 70 percent in the TS by 2050. Despite this, electricity generation from fossil fuels without CCS would fall by 22 percent by 2030 and 39 percent by 2050. Nuclear capacities would grow by around a third by the middle of the century.
Fossil fuels would not disappear completely in the TS. Demand for natural gas will fall slightly over the next few years, but will increase again from the mid-2030s. Just over half of the need for more flexibility in the TS would be covered by battery, pumped storage and peak-load power plants, while demand management could contribute slightly less than half.
Renewables, electrification, CCS
Bloomberg contrasts this with the net zero scenario (ZS), in which emissions are no longer expected to increase. The energy industry would have to reduce its emissions by 93% by 2035, while renewable energy capacities would have to be tripled by 2030 and doubled again by 2040. From 2034, no more cars with combustion engines would be allowed to be registered and the entire vehicle fleet would have to be electrified by 2046.
From 2030, 3.9 billion tons of CO2 per year would have to be stored, while the CCS requirement would increase to 8.1 billion tons per year by 2050. For industry and transport, the production of green hydrogen would have to be ramped up to 390 million tons per year by the middle of the century. Greenhouse gases could then be reduced to zero by 2050 and the temperature rise limited to 1.75 degrees.
Bloomberg sees the biggest task in the CCS in the electricity sector, which would have to provide around half of the emissions reduction, followed by the electrification of industry, transport and the building sector, which would account for around a quarter. The remaining quarter of emissions would have to be eliminated through the use of hydrogen, biofuels, CCS and other technologies.
Emission reduction of crucial importance
It is crucial that radical successes in reducing greenhouse gases are achieved over the next ten years. The electricity sector is dominated by renewables, which could account for up to 95 percent of electricity generation in Australia and Latin America. In countries with a lot of nuclear power, such as France or Korea, Bloomberg expects a significantly lower share of around two thirds. Fossil fuels with CCS will continue to play a significant role. In Asia, the focus is still on coal, while in the USA it is more on natural gas.
The ZS scenario can be realized with nine key technologies, of which only nine are mature: renewable energies, electric cars, energy storage and energy grids. CCS, nuclear power, hydrogen, heat pumps and sustainable fuels, on the other hand, could not yet assert themselves on the market.
In total, around 215 trillion dollars would have to be invested for the accelerated transformation of the global economy (ZS) by 2050, "only 19 percent" more than for the TS scenario with 181 trillion. Measured against the 1.8 trillion dollars invested in clean energy last year, investments would have to be tripled in the coming years. In return, investments in fossil fuel energy production could be reduced more quickly.
Author: Tom Weingärtner
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