Global Energy Outlook 2020: Energy Transition or Energy Addition?

Global energy consumption has grown rapidly over the past century, driven by an expanding population and increasing prosperity. Demand has risen for virtually all sources—coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear energy, and renewables. These “additions” to the global energy system reflect broadly positive trends of higher living standards, decreasing global poverty, and longer livelihoods. At the same time, rising fossil fuel consumption is the leading cause of global climate change and creates other major environmental challenges. To address these challenges, the global energy system will need to undergo a clean energy transition, whereby sources of energy that emit greenhouse gases are …

Global Energy Outlook Comparison Methods: 2020 Update

We update a harmonization methodology previously developed in 2015 to facilitate comparisons of long-term global energy projections issued by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), BP, Equinor, ExxonMobil, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Institute for Energy and Economics (Japan), the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Shell, and the US Energy Information Administration. Decisionmakers in the public and private sector rely on these projections to inform investments and policy, but comparing these outlooks on an apples-to-apples basis is not possible due to a variety of methodological differences. For example, the US EIA and BP’s exclude non-marketed traditional biomass, resulting in …

How Does Wind Project Performance Change with Age in the United States?

Wind-plant performance declines with age, and the rate of decline varies between regions. The rate of performance decline is important when determining wind-plant financial viability and expected lifetime generation. We determine the rate of age-related performance decline in the United States wind fleet by evaluating generation records from 917 plants. We find the rate of performance decline to be 0.53%/year for older vintages of plants and 0.17%/ year for newer vintages of plants on an energy basis for the first 10 years of operation, which is on the lower end of prior estimates in Europe. Unique to the United States, …

Cost of saving natural gas through efficiency programs funded by utility customers: 2012–2017

This study estimates the cost of saving a therm of natural gas from energy efficiency programs funded by utility customers during the period 2012 to 2017. Berkeley Lab researchers compiled and analyzed efficiency program data reported by investor-owned utilities and other program administrators in a dozen states representative of the four U.S. Census regions — Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Utah. Depending on the year, the dataset accounts for about 50 percent to 70 percent of annual national spending on natural gas efficiency programs.

The estimated cost of saving natural …

COVID-19 Impacts on the U.S. Solar Industry Factsheet

Like many American industries, the solar industry has been hit hard by COVID-19. Compounding issues, including supply chain delays, tightening of tax equity markets, homeowners’ financial concerns, shelter-in-place orders, and permitting challenges are all placing tremendous pressure on the industry. Without strategic government action, U.S. jobs and economic investment will suffer. With the right policies in place, the solar industry is poised to lead the U.S. out of this economic recession and create jobs for thousands of Americans.…

Temporary Reduction in Daily Global CO2 Emissions During the COVID-19 Forced Confinement

Government policies during the COVID-19 pandemic have drastically altered patterns of energy demand around the world. Many international borders were closed and populations were confined to their homes, which reduced transport and changed consumption patterns. Here we compile government policies and activity data to estimate the decrease in CO2 emissions during forced confinements. Daily global CO2 emissions decreased by –17% (–11 to –25% for ±1σ) by early April 2020 compared with the mean 2019 levels, just under half from changes in surface transport. At their peak, emissions in individual countries decreased by –26% on average. The impact on 2020 annual …

Downstream Oil Theft: Countermeasures and Good Practices

Downstream oil theft has become a global problem. Since most of the world’s energy systems still rely on oil, fuel smugglers are nearly always able to find markets for their goods. Moreover, since oil is not inherently illegal, it is generally an easy product to move, buy, and sell. Profits from oil theft are frequently used to fund terrorism and other illegal activities.

The new Atlantic Council Global Energy Report by Dr. David Soud, Downstream Oil Theft: Countermeasures and Good Practices, provides an in-depth look at how governments—from militaries to law enforcement officials—along with other stakeholders can anticipate and intercept …

Jumpstarting U.S. Clean Energy Manufacturing in Economic Stimulus and Infrastructure Legislation

In his 2016 campaign, candidate Donald Trump famously promised to revitalize American manufacturing and to pass major legislation to rebuild crumbling U.S. infrastructure. So far, in more than three years as President, he has done neither.

But in the face of the unprecedented COVID crisis, economic downturn and the worst unemployment since the Great Depression, many Democrats and some Republicans have begun to urge enactment of ambitious economic stimulus and recovery legislation, including a major infrastructure bill with a job-creating focus.

Properly structured stimulus and infrastructure legislation could help jumpstart U.S. manufacturing, which was already slumping badly under Trump throughout …

Corporate Case Study: Facebook’s Green Energy Goals Are Speeding the Transition of New Mexico’s Electricity Sector

The report—Corporate Renewables Case Study: Facebook’s Green Energy Goals Are Speeding the Transition Of New Mexico’s Electricity Sector—details how a Facebook data complex that broke ground in 2016, and that is now being expanded from 973,000 to 3 million square feet, has increased municipal revenues, created local jobs and driven Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) to speed the buildout of utility-scale solar and wind statewide.

“While the state of New Mexico gave Facebook ample taxpayer-supported incentives to build at Los Lunas, such incentives are not uncommon, and they don’t always work,” notes the report. “What sets the Los …

At Scale, Renewable Natural Gas Systems Could Be Climate Intensive: The Influence of Methane Feedstock and Leakage Rates

Renewable natural gas (RNG) is a fuel comprised of essentially pure methane, usually derived from climate-neutral (e.g., biogenic or captured) carbon dioxide (CO2). RNG is proposed as a climate friendly direct substitute for fossil natural gas (FNG), with the goal of enabling diverse natural gas users to continue operating without substantial infrastructure overhauls. The assumption that such substitution is climate friendly relies on a major condition that is unlikely to be met: namely, that RNG is manufactured from waste methane that would otherwise have been emitted to the atmosphere. In practice, capturable waste methane is extremely limited and is more …