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22. Offshore Wind Power Floating in its Industrial and Technological Dimension
- Author:
- Michel Cruciani
- Publication Date:
- 07-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
- Abstract:
- Europe has become a frontrunner in fixed offshore wind. Can this success story be replicated with floating offshore wind, a technology that would lift the sea depth constraint and thus open up wider market opportunities? This research study looks at the main success factors for this emerging industry.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Energy Policy, Electricity, Renewable Energy, and Wind Power
- Political Geography:
- France and European Union
23. China’s Quest for Blue Skies: The Astonishing Transformation of the Domestic Gas Market
- Author:
- Sylvie Cornot-Gandolphe
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
- Abstract:
- China’s gas industry has been moving into a new era. China’s natural gas demand has skyrocketed amid a state campaign that encourages coal-to-gas switching. In just two years, China added 75 billion cubic meters (bcm) to global gas demand, the equivalent of the UK gas market, the second largest European market. Despite steadily rising, Chinese gas production has not been able to cope with such a huge increase in demand and gas imports have also surged.
- Topic:
- Security, Climate Change, Energy Policy, Gas, and Renewable Energy
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
24. Addressing China's Exported Emissions
- Author:
- Amy Namur
- Publication Date:
- 12-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- East-West Center
- Abstract:
- Once known as the world's top carbon polluter, China has recently recommitted itself as a leader in sustainability and renewable energy. Moving to fill the gaps left by the United States at the Paris Climate Talks, China has ramped up its renewable energy commitments, including plans to cap its CO2 emissions, drastically increase forest stocks, and expand its non-fossil fuel market share to 20 percent, all by 2030. This move has been highly favorable for Chinese diplomatic relations with its Southeast and Pacific Island neighbors who have labeled climate change as a top priority. Domestically the extensive health impacts of air pollution in China has rallied public opinion against the pollution industry, making the move to green energy both a wide berth of support. While still the highest CO2 emitting country in the world, China has made significant investments in renewable energy development and currently leads the planet in renewable investments abroad. China’s domestic commitment to sustainability has been ambitious; however, meeting these goals has created one of the biggest energy paradoxes of the 21st century.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, and Carbon Emissions
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
25. Supply and Demand in a Time of Changing Geopolitics and a Changing Climate
- Author:
- Aspen Institute
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- The Forum on Global Energy, Economy & Security is an annual conversation to discuss global energy markets, crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas supply and demand, midstream, shale development, geopolitics, energy security, and environmental topics. The forum features Aspen’s time-honored moderated roundtable discussion format which, while each session is introduced by brief presentations, stresses dialogue between participants rather than conference-style speaker presentations with question and answer only. The forum is enhanced by an informal atmosphere and a not-for-attribution rule that encourages new thinking, dissenting opinions, and frank discussion.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Natural Resources, and Renewable Energy
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
26. Brexit and Renewables in Scotland
- Author:
- Nicola McEwen, Aileen McHarg, Fiona Munro, Paul Cairney, Karen Turner, and Antonios Katris
- Publication Date:
- 10-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- UK in a Changing Europe, King's College London
- Abstract:
- This briefing paper considers the extent to which renewables in Scotland are shaped by the policy responsibilities and decisions of multiple governments: the Scottish government, the UK government and the EU. The paper explores the significance of EU membership in shaping Scottish renewables and considers the likely effects of the UK’s exit from the EU. Despite limited constitutional power, promoting renewables has been a key priority for successive Scottish governments, central to both its environmental and economic policies. While the main policy drivers rest with the UK government, stakeholders in Scotland place importance on the EU regulatory framework, EU funding and finance, multinational cooperation and long-term strategic thinking in supporting the development of renewables in Scotland. The briefing identifies varying levels of concern among key stakeholders with regard to the impact that Brexit may have on renewables in Scotland. Many expect policy continuity, irrespective of the UK-EU relationship. Others are fearful of the uncertainty surrounding access to the EU internal market, access to project funding, access to labour and expertise, and added costs and delays in supply chains in an industry heavily reliant on kit from the EU. The biggest impact of Brexit to date has been the dominance of the issue on the political agenda, leaving little space for policy development in other areas, including energy. In addition to the regulatory, financial and trade challenges it may generate, Brexit has also reignited the debate on Scotland’s constitutional future, creating further uncertainties for the future of renewables.
- Topic:
- Government, European Union, Constitution, Brexit, and Renewable Energy
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom, Europe, and Scotland
27. Decarbonization in the V4 countries: renewables goals in draft National Climate and Energy Plans
- Author:
- Matus Misik
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Issues: Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs
- Institution:
- Slovak Foreign Policy Association
- Abstract:
- he European Commission asked all member states to submit their draft National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) by the end of 2018. Rooted in the Governance of the Energy Union regulation, the plans are intended to guide member states to help achieve the EU’s climate and energy goal, including the 2030 ones, by proposing national targets and roadmaps tailor-made for each country. As the 2030 goals are binding at the EU level, the national plans can be viewed as part of the Commission’s efforts to make member states responsible for achieving common goals and preventing them from blaming each other for not reaching these within the deadline. The present paper examines the NECPs of the Visegrad Four countries, focusing on their national targets for renewable energy sources, which are considered to be both crucial to and one of the most problematic aspects of the decarbonization process. It argues that by using the existing legal framework (Renewables Directive) as the benchmark for evaluating the NECPs, the Commission is pushing countries into increasing their 2030 national renewable targets. The ex ante nature of the assessments is another novel approach undertaken by the Commission and is aimed at strengthening its position vis-à-vis the member states and the supranational dimension of European integration in energy policy.
- Topic:
- Energy Policy, Regional Cooperation, European Union, and Renewable Energy
- Political Geography:
- Europe
28. Brown Coal Mining in the Czech Republic – Lessons on the Coal Phase-out
- Author:
- Lukas Lehotsky and Mikulas Cernik
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Issues: Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs
- Institution:
- Slovak Foreign Policy Association
- Abstract:
- The article offers an overview of coal production policies in the Czech Republic – the third-largest coal consumer in the EU and a post-communist country struggling to take decisions over the future of the coal phase-out. It developed its phase- out policy in the early 1990s to address the destruction of the local environment. However, since then no steps have been taken in relation to phase-out. Instead, coal production stakeholders have attempted to maintain the coal lock-in and to reverse phase-out. The article begins by discussing the factors that have led to the ambiguity. It then places the discussion over the future of phase-out within the wider context of a just transition, and offers insights into the Czech case which may prove useful to other countries considering transitioning away from coal.
- Topic:
- Energy Policy, Natural Resources, Mining, Renewable Energy, and Coal
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Czech Republic
29. Power of the River: Introducing the Global Dam Tracker (GDAT)
- Author:
- Johannes Urpelainen, Wolfram Schlenker, and Alice Tianbo Zhang
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center on Global Energy Policy
- Abstract:
- Dams are a major source of electricity globally, with hydropower generating 16 percent of the world’s total electricity and 71 percent of all renewable electricity in 2016. Many developing countries possess great untapped hydropower potential. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is estimated to have tapped less than 8 percent of its hydropower potential. Proponents of dams praise them as a source of low-carbon electricity, estimated to reduce annual emissions by about 2.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Dams also provide wide-ranging benefits in terms of flood control, irrigation, navigation, and job creation. But harnessing the power of the river comes with concentrated costs, from fragmenting the river system and destroying natural habitat to triggering ecological hazards and displacing millions of people. As the world is undergoing an energy system transformation toward renewable sources to combat climate change and meet emission reduction targets outlined in the Paris Agreement, understanding the costs and benefits of dam construction has important policy implications. In this project, the authors compiled a global geospatial database of dams, the GDAT, to enable rigorous research on the costs and benefits of dam construction. The project was motivated by the absence of a comprehensive, reliable, real-time, easy-to-use database on global dam construction. Such data could allow policymakers to make informed decisions on the use of hydroelectric power in the future, based on systematic evaluations of the costs and benefits of hydroelectric dams along the dimensions of energy access, climate change mitigation, water supply, ecological preservation, and population displacement. Below is a summary of findings: Globally, the authors identify 36,222 dams that are spatially concentrated along major river basins in Asia, North America, South America, and Europe. Compared to two widely used datasets, AQUASTAT and Global Reservoir and Dam (GRanD), GDAT has not only 144 percent and 419 percent more dam observations, respectively, but also more comprehensive attribute information, such as completion year, geographic location, main purpose, and reservoir and generation capacity. Dams are used for a variety of purposes, with considerable heterogeneity across continents. Worldwide, dams are mainly used for irrigation and hydroelectricity, representing 34 percent and 25 percent of the data, respectively. There are notable differences in the distribution of dam completion year across continents. While most developed countries in North America, Europe, and Oceania have witnessed a decline in dam construction since the 1970s, developing countries in Africa, Asia, and South America are experiencing a continued increase in the number of dams currently planned or under construction. GDAT makes three important contributions: First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior effort has been made to consolidate official records with existing datasets such as AQUASTAT, GRanD, and World Resources Institute (WRI). By collecting and compiling primary data from administrative sources and secondary data from existing databases, the authors have offerred the most comprehensive geo-referenced data on worldwide dam construction to date. Second, through extensive cross-checking and manual validation, the authors fill in important data gaps on key attributes and correct erroneous observations in previous datasets. Third, existing datasets are often static and not frequently updated. Efforts are underway to develop a framework for making the data collection and compilation process easily reproducible, so that it can be updated on a reasonable time interval to facilitate intertemporal analysis. Upon publication of academic research papers, the authors are planning to release the entire dataset and documentations to the public, free of charge.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Water, Displacement, Electricity, Renewable Energy, and Dams
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, and North America
30. A Tale of Three Coal Markets Common Challenges and Unique Attributes of U.S., Chinese, and Indian Markets
- Author:
- Jane Nakano and Sarah Ladislaw
- Publication Date:
- 03-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- The United States, China, and India together constitute about 70 percent of global coal consumption and 64 percent of global coal production. Each country is an important contributor to the global coal supply and demand picture and yet each stands at a very different stage in its relationship with coal. The history of coal in the United States is predicated on a long-term decline in its share of the electricity fuel mix, but deep regional socioeconomic ties give the fuel an outsized role in national energy politics. Coal makes up 15 percent of the total U.S. energy mix and 30 percent of the electric power mix while the power sector accounts for about 90 percent of coal use in the United States. Over the years, electricity demand has flattened thanks to strong efficiency gains. Moreover, the abundance of inexpensive natural gas and rapid decline in renewable energy costs have significantly diminished the competitiveness of coal-fired power generation. Unlike in China and India, the U.S. coal fleet is in contraction as a wave of retirements is underway, with little evidence of reversal, indicating that the current downturn appears structural and not cyclical. After a recent period of decline and bankruptcy for the U.S. industry, a political movement to revitalize the coal sector has emerged from the current presidential administration. Notwithstanding the renewed political support, however, the regulatory uncertainty clouds a future pathway for a coal power resurgence. The notion of economic and energy security benefits long associated with the use of coal has effectively disappeared in one of the largest producer and consumer markets for coal in the world. China is far and away the largest coal consumer and has built coal-fired power generation capacity at an unprecedented rate over the past couple of decades. As it enters a new phase of development, China seeks to reduce the role of coal in its economy both to mitigate the environmental impacts of coal production and use but also to harness its domestic power consumption to drive its competitive advantage in things like solar, wind, and nuclear power generation. China has concrete targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ambitious plans, such as a nationwide emissions trading system, that can influence the pace and scope of shift in its power supply mix. Despite these government targets and the ongoing industrial structural reform that can reduce coal’s dominance in the electric power sector, the trajectory for coal use remains significantly subject to the future of state-owned enterprises and economic liberalization. In contrast to the United States and China, India is a fast-growing market for coal where economic development and universal energy access goals often override concerns about environmental pollution and climate change. India also sees enormous opportunity in renewable energy development—for the positive environmental attributes, the potential commercial opportunities, and the ability to lessen reliance on imported sources of energy like oil, gas, and coal. The Indian central and state governments have set up ambitious policies to foster a greater share of renewable energy in the electric power mix. The growth in renewable power-generation capacity shows early indications that renewables as an indigenous resource have the potential to challenge not only coal’s economic advantage but also its energy security value propositions as an indigenous resource, warranting close attention for some potentially valuable lessons for power-sector management in other developing economies where renewables increasingly beat out coal. How India will calibrate its desire to phase out coal imports despite the quantitative and qualitative issues its domestic supply has is another issue with major implications for both global coal markets and the future of its power supply mix, particularly solar and wind. Even as each market navigates a unique set of circumstances surrounding the role of coal-fired power generation, the availability of midstream infrastructure looms large as a universally important determinant of the competitiveness of coal resources, and thus the fuel hierarchy. Railways are the dominant mode for transporting coal in China and the capacity constraints continue to intensify, disadvantaging domestic resources to imports. Midstream is also a major topic in the United States, where a lack of west coast export terminals limits the U.S. ability to take advantage of continued demand growth in Asia. Low utilization rates also reflect the headwinds facing coal-fired power generation in all three countries. For example, U.S. coal-fired power generation experienced a 20 percent decrease in coal fleet utilization rates and a 12 percent decrease in the generation capacity from 2015 to 2016. Also, while China is expected to add another 200 GW of new coal-power capacity by 2020, the utilization rate of 47.5 percent for the thermal power fleet in 2016 indicates a complex nexus between capacity investment and power demand in the country, where the capacity growth does not give a solid indication of electric power output or fuel consumption. The local air pollution and climate implications of coal-fired power generation in each country also depend on the age of their fleet and capital stock turnover. The perceived future direction of coal in each country impacts the willingness of investors to upgrade or build new, more efficient plants. Whereas the ever-weakening coal-power demand in the United States is diminishing investor appetite for new coal plants with higher efficiency, lower emissions (HELE) technology, the capacity expansion in China is enabling the modernization of its fleet that includes more HELE plants. The pace and scope of modernization for India’s coal fleet, which is much younger yet remains low efficiency and high emissions today, will be an important indicator for its future emissions profile. Lastly, various noneconomic forces at play can generate a tension between the needs of a changing electricity market and the political-economic pressures of expanding coal-power capacity. The coal sector enjoys a powerful narrative on its socioeconomic benefits like jobs and tax revenues for coal-mining communities, but enabled by technology advancements, the emerging focus on values like flexibility in the power sector has elevated attributes of many alternative sources of electricity, including renewables and natural gas in the United States. Likewise, the Chinese expansion of coal capacity appears to be misaligned not only with the projected level of power demand growth but also with government efforts to expand alternative sources of electricity, thus raising the risk of stranded or severely underutilized coal plant assets.
- Topic:
- Energy Policy, Natural Resources, Renewable Energy, and Coal
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, India, and Asia