Renewables: Growing Fast but Still a Rounding Error

Great article by David Roberts on GRIST. Roberts breaks down the National Renewable Energy Laboratory 2010 Renewable Energy Data Book. Great graphics to go with his report. 

Non-hydro renewables remain a small part of the U.S. energy story. More to the point, the sexy renewables -- solar, wind, and geothermal -- are a rounding error. Of the total energy consumed in the U.S. in 2010, solar was 0.1 percent and wind was 0.9 percent. Even with biomass, hydropower, and nuclear thrown in, low-carbon energy amounts to just 17 percent of energy consumed in the U.S.

And yet!

Seen from another angle, growth in renewables has been crazy-fast. From 2000 to 2010 in the U.S., non-hydro renewables have grown at a compounded annual average of almost 14 percent, even faster recently.

NREL: 2010 Renewable Energy Data Book

You can find the original report here.

R&D Is Good, Deployment Is Even Better

Google Phases Out Clean Energy R&D in Favor of Deployment

Buried at the bottom of an innocuous “spring cleaning” post on Google’s blog yesterday, the internet giant made a very important announcement: it will stop funding its Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) initiative.

But that’s not the whole story. And if you believe the headlines — “Google Abandons Renewable Energy Push”or “Are Google’s Green Days Over?” — you might think this is a negative development. But if you look at the details, it’s a story about how the company is adapting to a changing market and actually increasing investments in renewables.

Interesting article by Stephen Lacey on thinkprogress.org that clarifies Google's announcement that it is shutting down it's renewable R&D initiative. Google is not getting out of renewables but is instead shifting focus to deployment. R&D is good, deployment is even better. 

IPCC: Linking Extreme Weather and Climate Change

James Bradbury and Kelly Levin at WRIInsights.org provide a good summary of the five take home points of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest special report on extreme weather and climate change.

1. Extreme weather on the rise

2. Climate disasters are deadly and expensive

3. Warming world = more extreme world

4. Greenhouse gas likely causing some of these trends (italics added)

5. Adaptation and risk management needs to consider differentiated vulnerability and exposure

We need some caution on point 4: causation. IPCC authors give it "medium confidence" that global warming is behind some of the changes in extreme weather. Beware using this for headlines and political slogans at this point. 

The China Paradox

Can China make it to a clean energy economy in the long-term by rapid economic development based on coal in the short-term?

Not looking good according to a new EIA report:

But rapid industrial growth throughout China has outpaced the government's efforts to replace carbon intensive infrastructure with energy efficiency technology.

And

China achieved a 19.1% reduction in the energy intensity of its economy. But at the same time, overall emissions were up 33.6%, with emissions from building operation and transportation growing 41%.

"No reason now to be a skeptic."

The story of Richard Muller is making the rounds this week. Muller is a scientist at UC Berkeley and was a climate change skeptic who was hired and in part funded by Koch Foundation (the right-wing, climate change denying, billionaire Koch brothers) to find out if "mainstream" scientist were wrong about climate change. But after doing the research, he concluded that global climate chagne is indeed real. He makes no mention of human induced climate change, but urges a reduction in green house gas emissions as a worthy endeavor. 

He concludes, 

"And now we have confidence that the temperature rise that had previously been reported had been done without bias."

Welcome to the club.