Slow uptake of cleantech

Clean energy technologies are not being deployed quickly enough, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned on the launch of its annual report.

The report, Tracking Clean Energy Progress, is being presented at the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) summit in London.


“We have a responsibility and a golden opportunity to act,” said IEA deputy executive director ambassador Richard H. Jones. “Energy-related CO2 emissions are at historic highs; under current policies, we estimate that energy use and CO2 emissions would increase by a third by 2020, and almost double by 2050.”


If no action is taken, these increases are likely to send global temperatures at least 6°C higher, he warned.


But rapid leaps forward in technology are possible, says the report. The IEA cites the progress made in solar panels for homes and businesses, which have seen costs drop 75% in as little as three years in some places driving a 42% growth in the sector. Onshore wind has also seen average annual growth of 27% over the past decade.


However, not all clean energy technologies are on track. One of the pet hopes of the IEA - CCS, has not been able to make any progress. And enough is not being made of the ‘hidden fuel’ – energy efficiency, it adds.


Technologies are available but need to be tested adequately before being deployed. After the big brouhaha over CFLs now there is a growing groundswell against the technology and its mercury contaimination. After all a good T5 tubelight is any day better, we are being told after we brought them down to replace with CFLs. Deployments of renewables is not without its share of problems. Conservation and efficiency would seem the best bet for now.

Tech or policy?

Talk clean energy and one of the major difference of opinion comes when you talk of technology - is it already there? Again, is technology the silver bullet, or policy?

Current energy technologies are not enough to reduce carbon emissions to a level needed to lower the risks associated with climate change, New York University physicist Martin Hoffert concludes in an essay in the latest issue of the journal Science.

In order to avoid the risks brought about by climate change, steps must be taken to prevent the mean global temperature from rising by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Current climate models indicate that achieving this goal will require limiting atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations to less than 450 parts per million (ppm), a level that implies substantial reductions in emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Current energy technologies are not sufficient to reduce carbon emissions to a level advocated by scientists. Energy sources, such as solar and wind electricity, are not adequate to achieve "massive market penetration," which requires utility-scale systems that can store intermittent supplies of power until they are needed. Two, reliance on carbon-emitting fuels is once again growing.

Broad investment will be crucial to enabling basic research findings to develop into applied commercial technologies. Carbon taxes and ramped-up government research budgets could help spur investments. But developing carbon-neutral technologies also requires, at the very least, reversing perverse incentives, such as existing global subsidies to fossil fuels that are estimated to be 12 times higher than those to renewable energy. That is something we have also been saying for some time now, as also most experts. Are there no listeners?