Speedheat Floor Heating Australia - Summary extract from the White Paper, Transitioning to a Renewable Energy Future

Summary extract from the White Paper, Transitioning to a Renewable Energy Future

The White Paper reveals that policies now in existence, and economic experience gained by many countries to date, should be sufficient stimulation for governments to adopt aggressive long-term actions that can accelerate the widespread applications of renewable energy, and to get on a firm path toward a worldwide “renewable energy transition”, so that 20 % of worlds electric energy production can come from renewable energy sources by 2020, and 50 % of the worlds primary energy production by 2050. There can be no guarantee this will happen, but the White Paper presents compelling arguments that show it is possible, desirable, and even mandatory.

In the history of human energy use, the White Paper records that sustainable resources were the sole world supply, even in nascent industrial development well into the 1800s, and that the world will necessarily again have to turn to sustainable resources before the present century is over. The fossil fuel period is therefore an “era”, not an age, and highly limited in time in comparison with the evolution, past and future, of civilizations and societies.

Accordingly, it is critical for governments to view what remains of the fossil fuel era as a transition. The window of time during which convenient and affordable fossil energy resources are available to build the new technologies and devices and to power a sustained and orderly final great world energy transition is short – an economic timeline that is far shorter than the time of physical availability of the “conventional” energy resources.

The White Paper argues that the attractive economic, environmental, security and reliability benefits of the accelerated use of renewable energy resources should be sufficient to warrant policies that “pull” the changes necessary, avoiding the “push” of the otherwise negative consequences of governmental inaction.

Fig1. Fuel Shares of World Total Primary Energy Supply, Year 2000. The growth of wind-electric installations between 2000 and 2002 as increased wind’s share of world total primary energy supply to 0.042 %. Wind is 0.7 % of world installed electric power capacity in nameplate rating, but closer to 0.2 % in power produced, because wind operates only about 30 % of the time at its full rating. This demonstrates how far the non-hydro renewables must go in order to assume a larger share of the world’s total energy and electricity production.Source: IEA,”Renewables in Global Energy Supply”, an IEA Fact Sheet, November, 2002

Fig. 2. A very well known scenario for a possible renewable energy transition, prepared by Shell International in 1996. World energy growth would increasingly be met by renewable energy resources, until, by about the middle of this century, more than half of the world’s energy needs would be met by the clean energy resources. This scenario shows that, to accomplish such a transition, contributions by renewable energy sources, even though small, must begin to emerge onto the world scene very early this decade. Source: Shell International Limited

ISES has been serving the needs of the renewable energy community since its founding in 1954. A UN-accredited NGO present in more than 50 countries, the Society supports its members in the advancement of renewable energy technology, implementation and education all over the world. Visit ISES for more information.

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