tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/low-carbon-energy-15506/articleslow-carbon energy – The Conversation2024-01-25T16:18:26Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2216932024-01-25T16:18:26Z2024-01-25T16:18:26ZSwimming pools could slash bills by harvesting heat from servers – here’s how to make it work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571458/original/file-20240125-23-j7stsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More swimming pools could soon be heated using excess heat emitted from data centres in more than 150 UK locations</span> </figcaption></figure><p>My teenage son regularly complains about his room being too warm, even during winter. While the rest of the house is at a comfortable temperature, the video game PC he plays emits a significant amount of heat. </p>
<p>A high-spec computer like his typically has a power of more than 800 watts. That’s enough to <a href="https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/water-heating">boil one litre of water</a> from room temperature in less than eight minutes. So at scale, computer data processing centres are a massive, and predominantly untapped, source of heat or thermal energy. </p>
<p>A new project run by UK tech firm Deep Green is recapturing some of this heat and using it to warm swimming pools. In March 2023, the company connected <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/14/innovative-heat-tech-save-england-swimming-pools-from-closure">Exmouth Leisure Centre’s</a> 25-metre pool in Devon to an onsite data centre, slashing their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/15/energy-innovation-could-heat-150-uk-swimming-pools-after-200m-investment#:%7E:text=In%20Exmouth%2C%20the%20swimming%20pool,edge%20over%20traditional%20data%20centres">heating bill by 60%</a>. </p>
<p>Now, that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/15/energy-innovation-could-heat-150-uk-swimming-pools-after-200m-investment">pilot is scaling up</a> and 150 public swimming pools could soon be recycling excess heat and cutting their energy bills at the same time. </p>
<h2>The power of data</h2>
<p>The potential to improve energy efficiency is huge. Just like my son’s computer, each data centre produces excess heat from huge servers that work around the clock. Depending on their size, data centre buildings contain thousands, and sometimes <a href="https://www.racksolutions.com/news/blog/how-many-servers-does-a-data-center-have/#:%7E:text=To%20summarize%2C%20a%20data%20center,servers%20in%20a%2052U%20Rack.">millions</a> of computer servers arranged in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAYZU4A3w0">rows of special IT racks</a>. </p>
<p>Just as individual computers need high-speed fans and heat sinks on components such as microprocessors, data centres rely on cooling towers to dissipate excess heat to the surrounding environment. That cooling accounts for about <a href="https://www.device42.com/data-center-infrastructure-management-guide/data-center-power/">50% </a> of total electricity consumption in data centres.</p>
<p>There were approximately 10,978 data centres <a href="https://brightlio.com/data-center-stats/#:%7E:text=The%20global%20data%20center%20market%20is%20massive%20and%20growing.,%3A%20Cloudscene%2C%20Datacentermap%2C%20Statista">worldwide in 2023</a>.
With increasing online connectivity, expansion of AI applications and cloud services, many <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-68028666">more data centres</a> will be needed in the future. </p>
<p>In 2022, global data centre electricity consumption was between 240-340 TWh, according to the <a href="https://www.iea.org/energy-system/buildings/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks">International Energy Agency</a>. This is vast given that the UK’s total annual energy consumption was about <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/323410/domestic-electricity-volumes-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/">275 TWh</a> in the same year. In the Republic of Ireland, for example, data centres consumed <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpe9l5ke5jvo">20% of the total electricity consumption</a> in 2022. </p>
<h2>Successful storage</h2>
<p>Heat emitted from data centres can be harnessed to improve energy efficiency and profitability and water is an ideal heat storage medium. We already use water-filled radiators to heat buildings. That’s because water has high thermal capacity and can store more heat than the same volume of air could. </p>
<p>There is a growing awareness of the need to reuse <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/recapturing-excess-heat-could-power-most-of-europe-say-experts">excess heat in cities</a> to reduce the impact on the environmental. Public swimming pools offer one ideal solution. </p>
<p>With huge quantities of pool water and showers that need heating, plus huge air-filled spaces within the buildings that must be warm, swimming pools are an ideal consumer of data centre heat. These facilities are also normally open daily beyond the hours of 9am to 5pm, hence swimming pools use much more hot water and need heating for longer than office buildings.</p>
<p>With the recent increase in energy prices, many swimming pools are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/15/energy-innovation-could-heat-150-uk-swimming-pools-after-200m-investment">suffering financially</a> and would be struggling to increase prices due to the cost of living and energy poverty. In fact, across England, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/12/england-has-lost-almost-400-swimming-pools-since-2010">85 swimming pools have been closed</a> since 2019, mainly due to financial reasons. </p>
<p>Economic difficulties due to rising energy prices could have a potential negative public <a href="https://www.swimming.org/swimengland/more-tier-four-areas/">health effect</a> due to the lack of swimming pool facilities driven by high energy costs. So the successful use of waste heat from data centres to heat swimming pools could have many benefits. </p>
<p>If higher temperatures of water are needed than what cooling systems in data centres could provide, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778823008861?via%3Dihub">heat pumps</a> could be used to upgrade the temperatures to levels suitable to provide hot water and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261917315830?via%3Dihub">efficient heating systems</a>. </p>
<p>A typical heat pump in this configuration could produce water at temperatures at <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a8033fae5274a2e87db874d/Domestic_High_Temperature_HPs-_FINAL2.pdf">around 60-65°C</a>. For saunas and steam rooms, where the required temperature above water’s boiling point, electric heaters could provide an additional boost. </p>
<p>How can this play a role in transitioning towards a low-carbon future?
We need to design infrastructure that brings sources of waste heat closer to the facilities that demand heat. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610217307890?via%3Dihub">My team’s research has shown</a> that this could save energy and money, particularly in the case of integrating water in flooded coal mines with waste heat from gas engines to provide extremely efficient heating systems. </p>
<p>So data centres need to be built near facilities that can consume excess heat, such as pools, sports centres and other public buildings with a high demand for space and water heating. To implement that, we need <a href="https://www.danfoss.com/en-gb/about-danfoss/news/cf/danfoss-google-microsoft-and-schneider-electric-join-forces-in-new-innovation-hub-to-accelerate-green-transition-of-data-centres/">better communication</a> between council authorities, businesses and communities that can help expand the scope of this technology. For a seriously streamlined system, we need more forward-thinking urban planning. </p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amin Al-Habaibeh receives funding from Innovate UK, The British Council, Royal academy of Engineering, UK Research and Innovation and the European Commission. </span></em></p>Computer data centres produce vast amounts of heat that often gets wasted - now that’s being harnessed to warm swimming pools and improve overall energy efficiency.Amin Al-Habaibeh, Professor of Intelligent Engineering Systems, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1104962019-01-29T19:12:07Z2019-01-29T19:12:07ZWhen the heat hits: how to make our homes comfortable without cranking up the aircon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255979/original/file-20190128-108351-1hlxj3x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lochiel Park in Adelaide was Australia’s first large-scale attempt to create homes that use near net zero energy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Berry</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Summer in Australia seems to bite harder each year. Adelaide set a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/24/australia-heatwave-adelaide-breaks-its-all-time-heat-record-hitting-466c">record maximum temperature for the nation’s capital cities of 46.6°C</a> last week and there have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-stubborn-high-pressure-system-behind-australias-record-heatwaves-110442">extreme heatwaves</a> around Australia. The challenge to remain at a comfortable temperature in our homes is unprecedented.</p>
<p>Early European design influence used shade and ventilation strategies. The wrap-around veranda and classical <a href="https://theconversation.com/sublime-design-the-queenslander-27225">Queenslander</a> are examples that respond to the harsh Australian summer. This design response was typically paired with behaviour like children playing under the lawn sprinkler, or sleeping under the veranda to catch the evening breeze.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-rising-air-con-use-makes-us-hot-and-bothered-20258">rise of air conditioning</a> has moved us away from climatically and culturally sensitive ways to deliver comfort during extremes. For many, the press of a button provides superior and controllable comfort. This has led to high energy and energy infrastructure costs, especially when used in peak heatwave periods. It also <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-two-decades-to-avoid-the-most-damaging-impacts-of-climate-change-104409">increases carbon dioxide emissions, which are driving climate change</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/buildings-produce-25-of-australias-emissions-what-will-it-take-to-make-them-green-and-wholl-pay-105652">Buildings produce 25% of Australia's emissions. What will it take to make them 'green' – and who'll pay?</a>
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<h2>Design for climate</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/getting-practical-with-push-for-zero-carbon-homes-5301">Low-energy and zero-energy homes</a> can reduce energy demand and environmental impact. They can also <a href="https://theconversation.com/low-energy-homes-dont-just-save-money-they-improve-lives-81084">improve liveability</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/sustainable-housings-expensive-right-not-when-you-look-at-the-whole-equation-60056">affordability and the health of occupants</a>. </p>
<p>These homes represent a modern reinterpretation of design for climate, based on the science of energy and materials. Such homes are a marriage of passive solar design, building material characteristics and technologies to reduce energy use and provide energy on site.</p>
<p>In this context, recently published <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.12.008">research conducted in South Australia</a> asks: are we unlearning coping strategies used to actively manage our thermal comfort? We interviewed householders of the <a href="https://joshshouse.com.au/star-performers/lochiel-park-adelaide/">Lochiel Park</a> green village in Adelaide to explore individuals’ housing histories to understand the changing relationship between the occupant, the building and the resultant energy use.</p>
<p>Lochiel Park was Australia’s first large-scale attempt to create homes that use near net zero energy in a net zero-carbon precinct. The <a href="https://renewalsa.sa.gov.au/projects/lochiel-park/">homes</a> are rated a minimum 7.5 <a href="http://www.nathers.gov.au">NatHERS stars</a>. They have double glazing, ceiling fans, solar water heaters, solar PV, energy-efficient appliances and energy-feedback displays. All of these features were, and remain, well above the requirements of building regulations.</p>
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<p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/getting-practical-with-push-for-zero-carbon-homes-5301">Getting practical with push for zero-carbon homes</a></em></p>
<p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/sustainable-housings-expensive-right-not-when-you-look-at-the-whole-equation-60056">Sustainable housing’s expensive, right? Not when you look at the whole equation</a></em></p>
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<span class="caption">Solar PV and water heating are standard on Lochiel Park houses, but like many features of low-energy homes are not required by Australian building regulations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of South Australia</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The research revealed occupants had used a wide range of practices to adapt to extremes in their previous houses. They discussed strategies like sleeping downstairs, in well-vented hallways, or outside under the veranda where it cooled down more quickly at night. Typical behavioural responses included active management of homes like closing curtains and blinds to shut out the sun, fixing temporary shade-screens or opening the house to gully breezes each evening.</p>
<p>The introduction of the air conditioner changed buildings and lifestyles. Single-room air conditioners redefined strategies: instead of sleeping outdoors, residents might drag mattresses into the lounge room. No longer did the local swimming pool look as inviting. As one resident put it: “… I’m not going to go outside in the heat to get in the pool.”</p>
<p>External shading or heavy drapes were no longer seen as necessary. Venetian blinds and other lightweight window furnishings became popular. Active operation by opening and closing windows, doors and curtains became less important. </p>
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<h2>Relearning almost-forgotten strategies</h2>
<p>New generations of families grew up in an environment where they did not need to learn those previously essential active coping strategies. The move to a purpose-built low-energy home, designed to include active participation by occupants, has reintroduced some of these almost-forgotten coping strategies. </p>
<p>However, they have been placed in the contemporary context of societal perceptions of public safety. For example, one householder noted:</p>
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<p>You’d sleep outside of a night. Do that now, you might not wake up in the morning.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-safe-is-australia-the-numbers-show-public-attacks-are-rare-and-on-the-decline-110276">How safe is Australia? The numbers show public attacks are rare and on the decline</a>
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<span class="caption">New research on Lochiel Park looked at what households are doing to cope with heatwaves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Berry</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>For some, the homes held the promise of “perfect comfort” without the need for cooling. The research finds that moving to a “low-energy” home has reduced, rather than eliminated, their active involvement. </p>
<p>Data from monitoring temperature and energy use show that Lochiel Park homes perform significantly better than most other dwellings. The houses are only 7.5 stars out of a 10-star NatHERS scale, however, so their investment has not afforded occupants year-round “perfect comfort” without the need for adaptation or active heating or cooling.</p>
<p>Tracing the housing histories of residents has revealed an ongoing dynamic of coping with extremes and trying to create a comfortable indoor environment. Comfort has been transformed from being mostly an achievement of the householder to an outcome of technology and, more recently, to an attribute that occupants expect their building to provide.</p>
<p>It remains to be seen if and when net-zero-energy homes will replace the current housing stock. What is clear is that even in high-performance housing residents still have a role in creating a comfortable temperature and coping with extremes of climate. </p>
<p>A key concern is the high risk that “unlearning” traditional comfort practices increases our vulnerability and reduces adaptive capacity to heatwaves. As we saw last week with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-25/extreme-heat-for-victoria-melbourne-hottest-day-in-a-decade/10748330">rolling blackouts hitting more than 200,000 homes</a> in Victoria, relying on air-conditioning creates challenges for our energy networks during extreme weather. The impact on emissions makes this reliance doubly problematic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Trivess Moore has received funding from various organisations including the Australian Research Council, Victorian Government and various industry partners. The research presented in this article was funded by the Australian Technology Network of Universities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graeme Sherriff is Associate Director of the Sustainable Housing and Urban Studies Unit (SHUSU) at University of Salford. This piece of work was supported by internal University funding.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Berry receives funding from various government and industry organisations including the CRC for Low Carbon Living. The research presented in this article was supported by the Australian Technology Network of Universities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aimee Ambrose does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Air conditioning changed both building design and people’s active management of home temperatures. A return to houses designed for our climate can keep us comfortable and cut energy use and emissions.Trivess Moore, Lecturer, RMIT UniversityAimee Ambrose, Reader in Energy Policy, Sheffield Hallam UniversityGraeme Sherriff, Research Fellow in Urban Studies, University of SalfordStephen Berry, Research fellow, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/937752018-04-09T10:42:55Z2018-04-09T10:42:55ZWhy nuclear fusion is gaining steam – again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213650/original/file-20180406-5572-pr43m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The coils winding facility building in France, where a global effort to build the ITER fusion energy reactor is underway</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/provence-france-july-31-2017-iter-724596454?src=kvVCIuBuZZiT0uluwF0bEA-1-23">Rob Crandall/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Back when I studied geology in grad school, the long-term future of energy had a single name: nuclear fusion. It was the 1970s. The physicists I studied with predicted that tapping this clean new source of electric power by forcing two nuclei of hydrogen to combine and release massive amounts of energy, might be 50 years off.</p>
<p>Four decades later, after I’d left my career of research and writing in the energy industry and begun a second career as an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dCRySjIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">author and a professor</a>, I found myself making this same forecast with my own students and readers. In what had become an ironic cliché, fusion, it seemed, would forever haunt a distant horizon. </p>
<p>That seems to be changing, finally.</p>
<p>Thanks to advances in physics research, materials science and supercomputing, scientists are <a href="http://www.lindau-nobel.org/where-is-fusion-research-today/">building and testing</a> multiple fusion reactor designs. About a dozen <a href="https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10042-Private-sector-companies-are-firing-up-the-fusion-race">fusion startups</a> with innovative ideas have the private investment they need to see what they can achieve. Still, it’s too early to break out the champagne, and not only for technical reasons.</p>
<h2>Underwhelming breakthroughs</h2>
<p>One problem is that a breakthrough in the lab doesn’t guarantee innovation or success in the marketplace because energy is very price sensitive. Also, fusion illustrates how few things can erode faith in a new technology like an imminent “breakthrough” that fails to materialize.</p>
<p>First, there was the <a href="https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/cold_fusion_01">cold fusion</a> debacle in 1989, when two scientists went to the media with the unverifiable claim they had achieved room-temperature fusion and were ostracized by the scientific community, sullying the image of this energy source as a real option. </p>
<p>Then, scientists hit a milestone in 1994 when the test fusion reactor at Princeton set a new record for peak power of 10.7 megawatts, which The New York Times said at the time was “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/08/science/princeton-fusion-reactor-sets-a-power-record.html">enough to power 2,000 to 3,000 homes momentarily</a>, meaning roughly a microsecond. Scientifically, that event had great importance, though it was topped in 1997. Yet it hardly promised a power reactor just around the corner.</p>
<p>Along the way, the tendency of scientists and journalists to hype real progress toward fusion, whether it’s to attract funding or readers, has undercut public support in the long run.</p>
<p>Today, in fact, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lockheed-claims-breakthrough-on-fusion-energy1/">various</a> media <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/1211/Fusion-breakthrough-explained-What-are-quarks-again">reports</a> continue to suggest a rash of fusion breakthroughs.</p>
<h2>Real advances</h2>
<p>Has there truly been some progress? To an impressive degree, yes. But mostly in terms of scientific and engineering research. If there is yet again another claim announcing that the world is now finally closing in on the solution to all energy problems, then myth is being sold in the place of truth.</p>
<p>Many scientists are drawn to both fission, the power source in today’s nuclear reactors, and fusion, because of the spectacular amount of energy they offer. The main fuel for fission, Uranium-235, has 2 million times the energy per pound that oil does. Fusion may deliver up to <a href="http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae534.cfm">seven times that or more</a>.</p>
<p>The fuel used for <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/">fission</a> is extremely abundant. The same goes <a href="https://www.iter.org/sci/fusionfuels">for fusion</a>, but without any long-lived dangerous waste. For fusion, the fuel is two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, the first of which can be extracted from seawater and the second from lithium, whose resources are <a href="https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mcs-2017-lithi.pdf">large and growing</a>.</p>
<p>Hence, the failure to pursue these colossal non-carbon sources might well appear to be colossally self-defeating.</p>
<p><a href="https://nuclear.duke-energy.com/2013/01/30/fission-vs-fusion-whats-the-difference">Fusion</a> is hard to harness, though. In stars, which are made of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94tReSbyPYc">plasma</a>, a high-energy state of matter in which negatively charged electrons are completely separated from positively charged nuclei, fusion takes place because of immense gravitational forces and extreme temperatures. </p>
<p>Trying to create similar conditions here on Earth has required fundamental advances in a number of fields, from quantum physics to materials science. Scientists and engineers have made enough progress over the past half century, especially <a href="https://www.euro-fusion.org/fusion/fusion-conditions/">since the 1990s</a>, to make so that building a fusion reactor able to generate more power than it takes to operate seems viable within two decades, not five. Supercomputing has helped enormously, allowing researchers to <a href="https://phys.org/news/2015-11-fusion-edge-supercomputer.html">precisely model</a> the behavior of plasma under different conditions.</p>
<h2>Reactor types</h2>
<p>There are two reasons to be optimistic about fusion right now. Two big fusion reactors are built or being built. And fusion startups aiming to build smaller reactors, which would be cheaper, easier and quicker construct, are proliferating. </p>
<p>One of the two big reactors is a donut-shaped <a href="https://www.iter.org/mach/Tokamak">tokamak</a> – a Russian acronym for a Soviet invention made in the 1950s that was designed to confine and compress plasma into a cylindrical shape in a powerful magnetic field. Powerful compression of the deuterium-tritium plasma at extremely high temperatures – as in about 100 million degrees Centigrade – causes fusion to occur.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-fusion-the-clean-power-that-will-take-decades-to-master-41356">ITER</a> (Latin for "the way”) is a collaboration between the European Union and the governments of India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, China and the U.S. This consortium is now spending more than US$20 billion to build a giant tokamak in <a href="https://www.iter.org/org/iterinfrance">southern France</a>. By 2035, it’s slated to generate 500 megawatts while operating on just 50 megawatts. Meeting that goal would essentially confirm that fusion is a feasible source of clean energy on a large scale.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"979625598929817600"}"></div></p>
<p>The other is a more complex, twisted donut <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-03-germany-fusion-device.html">stellarator</a>, called the Wendelstein 7-X, built in Germany with the same objective. Bends in its chamber twist the plasma so that it has a more stable shape and can be confined for greater lengths of time than in a tokamak. The 7-X cost about $1 billion to build, including site expenses. And if things go according to plan, it might be able to generate a significant amount of electricity by about 2040. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"980937386183090183"}"></div></p>
<p>Meanwhile, nearly a dozen startups are designing new kinds of reactors and power plants they say can come online long before and far more cheaply – even if the requisite technology isn’t there yet.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.cfs.energy/">Commonwealth Fusion Systems</a>, an MIT spin-off still tied to the university’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and partially funded by the Italian oil company Eni, aims to create especially powerful magnetic fields to see if fusion power can be generated with smaller-sized tokamaks. </p>
<p>And <a href="http://generalfusion.com/">General Fusion</a>, a Vancouver-based venture Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is backing, wants to build a <a href="http://generalfusion.com/technology-magnetized-target-fusion/">big spherical reactor</a> in which hydrogen plasma would be surrounded by liquid metal and compressed with pistons to cause a burst of fusion. Should that work, this energy would heat the liquid metal to generate steam and spin a turbine generator, producing massive amounts of electricity. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"972108265202028545"}"></div></p>
<h2>Rich enough</h2>
<p>With lean operations and clear missions, these startups are nimble enough to move rapidly from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/technology/start-ups-take-on-challenge-of-nuclear-fusion.html">drawing board to actual construction</a>. In contrast, <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1031934/2013-iter-management-assessment.pdf">multinational complications</a> are costing ITER time and money.</p>
<p>Since future energy needs will be vast, having different fusion options available could help meet them however long they take. But other sources of non-carbon power are available.</p>
<p>That means fusion proponents must convince their funders around the world it is worth continuing to support this future option when other non-carbon sources, like <a href="https://www.iea.org/publications/renewables2017/">wind and solar power</a> (and <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx">nuclear fission</a> – at least outside <a href="https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/us-nuclear-generating-statistics">the U.S.</a>, <a href="http://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/japan-nuclear-power.aspx">Japan</a> and the <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/others/european-union.aspx">European Union</a>) are scaling up or expanding. If the question is whether it’s worth making a big bet on a new non-carbon technology with vast potential, then the rapid growth of renewable energy in recent years suggests they were the <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/ny-times-funding-for-fusion-better-spent-on-renewable-sources-of-energy-that-are-likely-to-be-c6ea8398eaba/">better gamble</a>.</p>
<p>Yet if the roughly <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/wei2017/">$3.5 trillion invested in renewable power</a> since 2000 had all backed fission, I believe the advances in that technology would have led all remaining coal- and oil-fired power plants to have disappeared from the face of the Earth by now.</p>
<p>And if that same money had instead backed fusion, perhaps a working reactor would now exist. But the world’s wealthy nations, investment firms and billionaires <a href="http://fs-unep-centre.org/publications/global-trends-renewable-energy-investment-2017">can easily support</a> fusion research and experimentation along with other options. Indeed, the dream of fusion power now seems certain to neither die or remain merely a dream.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott L. Montgomery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As fusion becomes more technically viable, it’s time to assess whether it’s worth the money because breakthroughs in the lab don’t guarantee success in the marketplace.Scott L. Montgomery, Lecturer, Jackson School of International Studies, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/741702017-04-17T19:51:02Z2017-04-17T19:51:02ZThe ‘clean coal’ row shouldn’t distract us from using carbon capture for other industries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165177/original/image-20170413-25901-1ez4ed.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Has carbon capture and storage been tarnished by its association with the coal industry?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACoal_Mine_Carbon_Capture_Technology.png">Peabody Energy/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the February blackouts in South Australia, the Australian government has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/government-interested-in-carbon-capture-tech-frydenberg-says/8284682">increased its interest</a> in carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS). However, in Australia and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/uk-must-move-now-on-carbon-capture-to-save-consumers-billions-says-report">elsewhere</a>, CCS is closely associated to so-called “clean coal” technologies. The media sometimes treats them as <a href="https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/02/trump-is-very-wrong-about-clean-coal/">one and the same thing</a>.</p>
<p>Given the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053.600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/">negativity</a> with which the <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-losing-the-argument-on-energy-according-to-poll-73378">general public</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/ultra-super-clean-coal-power-weve-heard-it-before-71468">expert commentators</a> view “clean coal”, this confusion is distracting attention from other sectors where CCS can make a unique and substantial contribution.</p>
<p>CCS <em>is</em> vital for “clean coal”. Even the most efficient coal-fired power plants emit <a href="http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/57187.pdf">huge amounts of carbon dioxide</a>. Unless these emissions are captured and stored in rock formations thanks to CCS, meeting climate targets with coal power is <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/TechnologyRoadmapHighEfficiencyLowEmissionsCoalFiredPowerGeneration_WEB_Updated_March2013.pdf">impossible</a>.</p>
<p>But here’s the thing: carbon dioxide can be captured from any large-scale source. This means that CCS has a valuable role to play in other industrial sectors – as long as clean coal’s bad reputation doesn’t drag CCS down with it.</p>
<h2>Other industries</h2>
<p>About half of the <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/TechnologyRoadmapCarbonCaptureandStorage.pdf">global potential for CCS by 2050</a> has been estimated to lie in industry. Some sectors like synthetic fuels and hydrogen production may not grow as predicted. But others such as cement, steel and ammonia, are here to stay.</p>
<p>Several recent <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial-decarbonisation-and-energy-efficiency-roadmaps-to-2050">UK reports on industrial decarbonisation</a> argue that CCS brings emissions reductions beyond the <a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/tackling-climate-change/the-science-of-climate-change/setting-a-target-for-emission-reduction/">50% needed by 2050</a> required in most sectors and countries.</p>
<p>For cement in the UK, the report argues, efficiency and other measures could deliver a roughly 20% emissions reduction by 2050. But adding CCS could bring this figure to 54%. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the British steel industry could cut emission reductions by 60% compared to 34% without CCS. For UK chemical manufacturers, these figures are 78.8% versus 34%. These processes often produce a high-purity stream of carbon dioxide that avoids the costly capture methods used for power applications. </p>
<p>So why aren’t industries like these the stars of carbon capture and storage right now?</p>
<h2>Money and hype</h2>
<p>Unlike the power sector, which is under pressure to reduce emissions, other high-carbon industries currently have little incentive to pay the estimated cost of <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/TechnologyRoadmapCarbonCaptureandStorage.pdf">US$50-150 per tonne of carbon dioxide captured</a>. Carbon pricing has been hard to introduce even far below such levels.</p>
<p>However, if CCS is to be deployed by mid-century, concept demonstration and confirmation of suitable storage sites needs to start now, and on a wide enough scale to deliver useful emissions cuts. Other strategies may be needed to incentivise it.</p>
<p>CCS was <a href="http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/667/">first mooted in 1976</a>, but it only <a href="http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/2005gleneagles/communique.pdf">caught world leaders’ attention</a> in the mid-2000s. However, over the past decade its popularity seems to have waned, perhaps because of the “clean coal” issue. </p>
<p>In 2005, <a href="http://www.bine.info/fileadmin/content/Publikationen/Projekt-Infos/Zusatzinfos/2007-12_praesentation_zero_emission_power_plants.pdf">WWF joined Europe’s CCS platform</a>, and the following year the environmentalist George Monbiot <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/sep/30/featuresreviews.guardianreview6">described the technology as crucial</a>. </p>
<p>But over the ensuing ten years, as a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.09.001">“hype process” around CCS for clean coal developed</a>, industrial CCS was largely ignored. At its peak in 2007, proponents announced some 39 CCS power projects, most of them coal-fired, aiming to capture an average per project of 2.2 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide per year. </p>
<p>Yet by early 2017, only two large-scale power projects have been completed around the world: <a href="http://leaderpost.com/business/energy/carbon-capture-project-what-went-wrong-and-right">Boundary Dam</a>, capturing 1Mt per year, and <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-s-largest-carbon-capture-plant-to-open-soon/">Petra Nova</a>, capturing 1.4Mt per year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161381/original/image-20170317-6109-1twg51j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161381/original/image-20170317-6109-1twg51j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161381/original/image-20170317-6109-1twg51j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161381/original/image-20170317-6109-1twg51j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161381/original/image-20170317-6109-1twg51j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161381/original/image-20170317-6109-1twg51j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161381/original/image-20170317-6109-1twg51j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161381/original/image-20170317-6109-1twg51j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Number of carbon capture and storage projects by type since first concept. Mature refers to projects in sectors in which capture is routinely commercial, such as in natural gas processing. Immature refers to projects in sectors where capture is not the norm, including power generation, steelmaking, and certain chemicals. The share of power generation projects among immature is highlighted.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cynicism around the technology has grown, with the Australia-founded Global CCS Institute recently being described as a “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-21/clean-coal-cheaper-than-renewable-energy-says-lobby-group/8288620">coal lobby group</a>”. Unfortunately for CCS, the focus has been mostly on the <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/energy-security-from-clean-coal-ccs-csg-what-could-possibly-go-wrong-57541/">gap between announced and successful “clean coal” projects</a>, rather than on its contribution to industrial emissions reduction.</p>
<p>Last year, Emirates Steel Industries completed its <a href="https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/projects/abu-dhabi-ccs-project-phase-1-being-emirates-steel-industries-esi-ccs-project">steelmaking CCS project</a>, which now captures 0.8Mt of CO₂ per year. </p>
<p>Australia will soon be host to the world’s largest CCS development, at the <a href="https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/projects/gorgon-carbon-dioxide-injection-project">Gorgon LNG Project</a>, which will store 4Mt a year from 2018. </p>
<p>Steel, gas-produced ammonia and other industrial products will be fixtures of the 21st century, whereas coal-fired electricity has no such certainty. Economies that <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-australia-can-function-reliably-while-moving-to-100-renewable-power-73199">aspire to 100% renewable energy</a> will have no room at all for coal, “clean” or otherwise.</p>
<p>Even if our electricity and transport were to become 100% renewables-based, there will be parts of the economy where <a href="http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/04/29/carbon-capture-and-storage-will-it-ever-work/">greenhouse emissions are hard to eliminate</a>. It is important that the unpopularity of “clean coal” does not distract from the importance of CCS in decarbonising other industries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alfonso Martínez Arranz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Carbon capture and storage gets a bad rap from its associations with ‘clean coal’. But the technology could prove vital in cutting emissions from other industries like steel, cement and chemicals.Alfonso Martínez Arranz, Lecturer, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/563772016-03-22T04:28:23Z2016-03-22T04:28:23ZWhy low-carbon urban development in African cities makes economic sense<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115457/original/image-20160317-30227-nru728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Low-carbon initiatives in cities like Rwanda's Kigali can help citizens to deal with the harsh effects of climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>East Africa is home to some of the world’s fastest growing cities, with the urban population increasing by <a href="http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/Publications/Files/WUP2014-Report.pdf">4.35% each year</a>. Cities like Kampala, Kigali and Dar es Salaam are growing <a href="http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/">ten times faster</a> than many cities in Western Europe, North America, Japan and other wealthy regions of the world.</p>
<p>Some of these fast-growing cities are also among the world’s poorest. When South Sudan achieved independence in 2009 its capital, Juba, had only 1km of paved road. The largest slum in Africa is found on the periphery of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Somalia’s Mogadishu, Burundi’s Bujumbura and Juba remain extremely violent places.</p>
<p>The pace of urbanisation and high incidence of poverty pose a serious challenge for East African policymakers. Inadequate urban infrastructure is facing further stress from rapid population and economic growth. This has resulted in the rapid growth of informal settlements on the edge of cities. The settlements are under-serviced, lacking basics like clean water, adequate sanitation and modern energy. Their residents are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.</p>
<p><a href="http://climatesmartcities.org/sites/default/files/Economics_of_Low_Carbon_Cities_Kigali_FINAL.pdf">New research</a> conducted in the Rwandan capital of Kigali has identified a wide range of economically attractive investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency and waste management. This work, funded by the International Growth Centre, shows that East Africa can pursue more sustainable patterns of urban development without sacrificing economic growth.</p>
<h2>The economic case for mitigation</h2>
<p>The research identified a range of low-carbon measures available in Kigali that offer a return of 5% or more per year. These measures include:</p>
<ul>
<li>more energy efficient commercial and public buildings;</li>
<li>improved cooking stoves; </li>
<li>more efficient light bulbs;</li>
<li>rooftop solar panels;</li>
<li>electric motorcycles and bicycle lanes; and</li>
<li>electricity generation from methane captured in Kigali’s landfill.</li>
</ul>
<p>If all of these measures were adopted, the city could reduce its emissions by 39% by 2032, relative to business-as-usual trends. These investments would therefore more than halve the rate at which emissions will increase over the next 15 years. This suggests that cities in East Africa can meet growing demand for modern energy in a relatively climate-friendly way.</p>
<p>If Kigali successfully implements these measures, it would reduce its energy expenditure by US$173 million. This would allow the city to pay back any loans, with interest, within six years, while the investments would continue to generate annual savings for their lifetime. The challenge will be to mobilise the $920 million in capital expenditure needed to realise these opportunities.</p>
<h2>Wider benefits from low-carbon development</h2>
<p>The research only quantifies the emission reductions and monetary returns for investors. But low-carbon urban development offers <a href="http://2015.newclimateeconomy.report/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NCE2015_workingpaper_cities_final_web.pdf">much wider benefits</a>. </p>
<p>Establishing bike lanes and expanding bus networks could enhance mobility, improve air quality and reduce dependence on imported fuel. Improved charcoal stoves and greater use of solar lighting could reduce the risks of burns, improve indoor air quality and offer better light in people’s homes. Investing in methane capture for electricity generation could provide a new source of revenue for the city, which could be used to finance better waste collection. </p>
<p>The challenge for policymakers is to ensure that the potential co-benefits are enjoyed by the urban poor. If this can be achieved, climate action in Kigali could support more sustainable and more inclusive economic development.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115459/original/image-20160317-30247-12y0swt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115459/original/image-20160317-30247-12y0swt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115459/original/image-20160317-30247-12y0swt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115459/original/image-20160317-30247-12y0swt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115459/original/image-20160317-30247-12y0swt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115459/original/image-20160317-30247-12y0swt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115459/original/image-20160317-30247-12y0swt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115459/original/image-20160317-30247-12y0swt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s important that Kigali’s poor benefit from low-carbon initiatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>Interviews with Rwandans from national government, local authorities and businesses suggest that delivering these benefits will require action from policymakers.</p>
<p>For example, bus companies are willing to invest in expanding services, but need longer contracts with the city council to reduce the business risk. Entrepreneurs are looking to roll out <a href="http://www.ampersand.solar/">electric motorbikes</a> to Kigali, but they are concerned that these are not properly regulated under the city’s transport code. Households are eager to purchase <a href="http://www.plugintheworld.com/mobisol/rwanda/">solar home systems and water heaters</a>, but do not have the upfront capital and therefore need enabling financing mechanisms to help investment.</p>
<p>Policymakers must also take a strategic approach to support low-carbon investment. Most of Kigali’s current mitigation potential lies in the waste sector, because <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030147971530205X">using waste to generate electricity</a> reduces emissions both from the decomposition of waste and from consumption of fossil fuels. But in the future, emissions from buildings and transport will be responsible for a much larger share of Kigali’s carbon footprint – and it is much harder to retrofit these sectors with low-carbon options.</p>
<h2>Leapfrogging to sustainable cities</h2>
<p>For policymakers, these findings should be seen as both a warning and an opportunity. If urban growth is poorly managed, Kigali faces urban sprawl and high dependence on fossil fuels. But by pursuing low-carbon options today, policymakers can avoid being “locked in” to high emissions and energy bills. </p>
<p>Africa has famously leapfrogged landline telephones and <a href="http://theconversation.com/net-expansion-driven-by-mobile-presents-risks-and-opportunities-for-marketers-36722">jumped to mobile phones</a>. In the same way, cities like Kigali and Kampala can avoid dependence on cars by setting up good cycling and bus infrastructure, and minimise demand for air conditioners by constructing more energy-efficient buildings. </p>
<p>Responding to climate change is a challenge for cities all over the world. It is particularly complex in East Africa, where municipal governments are already grappling with rapid urbanisation and widespread poverty. But the potential benefits are immense. Hopefully the presence of a compelling economic case for mitigation will help to unlock the public, private and climate finance necessary for cities like Kigali to pursue low-carbon urban development.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56377/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Gouldson receives funding from the ESRC, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a range of international funders. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Sudmant and Sarah Colenbrander do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From an economic point of view, low-carbon plans in rapidly urbanising areas can have massive benefits for East African cities.Sarah Colenbrander, Researcher, IIED, University of LeedsAndrew Sudmant, Research Fellow in the Economics of Climate Smart Cities research programme, University of LeedsAndy Gouldson, Professor of Environmental Policy and Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Interdisciplinary Research), University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/519722015-12-10T16:51:24Z2015-12-10T16:51:24ZOn climate, developing countries need more than betting billions on clean energy breakthroughs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105150/original/image-20151209-15584-hzgn06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A solar-powered microgrid in India.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/4058016973/in/photolist-7bAp4T-ajWinE-7bDP95-7bAp4K-eMzno9-7bDP93-7VFQdp-7vZohy-7VK5rC-7VK5i9-7VFPEK-cbVVVm-7FHvkj-7bAp52-7bDUpo-7bDUp9-7bDUp5-7bAegP-7bDUpE-7bDUpu-2535v-97yu8b-ejyeVL-7VK5md-dywxTR-7bDP8S-bhuWaX-7bDP9b-cgiV1m-7915Fu-f1beW8-88DTrF-bVNkNu-bBQEX5-JcEY5-NiV8f-bVNkKo-9bBdFG-7VFPLR-aCDN4Q-ajRveE-eZwBQX-b4pMhr-dyQWa3-gDacLu-8nniUm-91zKSe-zPFGqs-253eu-GzhbP"> Abbie Trayler-Smith / Panos Pictures / UK Department for International Development</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the heads of state gathered in Paris at the beginning of the climate talks last week, there was much excitement over the launch of <a href="http://mission-innovation.net/statement/">Mission Innovation,</a> a program to “reinvigorate and accelerate public and private global clean energy innovation with the objective to make clean energy widely affordable.” </p>
<p>This was a welcome step and, frankly, long overdue – total public energy R&D expenditures of the major industrialized countries are <a href="http://wds.iea.org/wds/pdf/IEA_RDD_Factsheet_2015.pdf">still lower</a> than the peaks reached after the oil shocks of the 1970s. </p>
<p>Yet at the same time, it is symptomatic of the flawed global approach to address climate change. We move forward in some ways but sidestep the key issues – in this case, the provision of adequate and suitable support to developing countries to quickly begin a transition to low-carbon energy. The result is that we leave large gaps in our attempts to avoid dangerous climate change. </p>
<h2>What’s not to like?</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that elements of Mission Innovation will help broaden the pipeline of clean energy technologies in the future. This could be a great boon to climate mitigation efforts. </p>
<p>Measures call for:</p>
<ul>
<li>a doubling of public energy R&D expenditures of 20 major economies over the next five years </li>
<li>working with business and private investors to commercialize resulting technologies, including the establishment of the Bill Gates-led <a href="http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com/en/index.html">Breakthrough Energy Coalition</a> by a group of wealthy private investors </li>
<li>effective, efficient and transparent implementation</li>
<li>sharing of information about energy R&D efforts with the private sector and other relevant stakeholders.</li>
</ul>
<p>But given the long time required for technology innovation in the energy area, it likely will be well over a decade before we see any large-scale commercial application of the technologies developed through Mission Innovation. In fact, the joint statement itself seems to acknowledge this when it talks about being part of a “long-term response to the climate challenge.”</p>
<p>What’s missing from the technology discussions in the climate arena is a focus on a much more important and urgent issue: how to ensure that cleaner energy technologies available today are deployed quickly and at scale in developing countries. Moving their energy systems on a lower-carbon trajectory in the short term is critical because these countries need more energy to fuel their economies and are rapidly growing their energy infrastructure. </p>
<p>Although the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change obliges industrialized countries <a href="http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/items/6036.php">to take the lead</a> in combating climate change, they instead have invested much effort in getting developing countries to take on greater obligations. </p>
<p>Developing countries, for their part, have committed to undertake significant levels of climate action. These commitments were outlined before the Paris summit in their intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/paris-2015">submissions</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://civilsocietyreview.org/#info">Civil Society Review</a> of the pledges under the INDCs, as carried out by a large group of NGOs, indicates that developing countries, with their far more limited capabilities and resources, have pledged greater absolute mitigation (about nine Gigatons of CO2 equivalents) than the industrialized countries (~6Gt CO2-eq), in relation to the emissions projected for 2030. </p>
<p>Developing countries, in other words, have clearly risen to the challenge of contributing to the solution to climate change in the near term. </p>
<h2>But not so easy</h2>
<p>But the successful achievement of their ambitious goals will require large-scale implementation of low-carbon and other technologies, such as wind, solar and energy-efficient technologies. This, in turn, requires a range of activities before any new energy systems are actually installed. </p>
<p>For example, countries need to analyze options to understand which technologies and pathways are best suited to their specific national contexts. They also need to devise strategies to make suitable technologies available affordably and quickly. And then they need to manage the process of introducing these technologies into local contexts and eventually scaling up their deployment. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105152/original/image-20151209-15584-1fhg2pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105152/original/image-20151209-15584-1fhg2pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105152/original/image-20151209-15584-1fhg2pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105152/original/image-20151209-15584-1fhg2pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105152/original/image-20151209-15584-1fhg2pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105152/original/image-20151209-15584-1fhg2pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105152/original/image-20151209-15584-1fhg2pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105152/original/image-20151209-15584-1fhg2pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Traffic in Beijing: Moving away from fossil fuel power generation and transportation requires not only new technologies but new policies, financing and technical assistance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/so8/8161891893/in/photolist-dreQ72-gVsVyB-ier9H3-4xKD3c-FRErN-icw7GF-jZYBLL-63f8yT-kzcCoU-7Ve8zK-5b9cwS-9v62PU-dQtBCp-8FZz3j-6rjBFH-5WbduE-od31Ak-Q9k8f-q4bY24-qSRHW1-kywshv-4nLQGe-4g5QU9-nPxPaM-kNdkqV-qaBSe8-qEZHVC-2RrmZR-giCZYA-qsu6T3-8XSbF9-8tTfcu-5QFK86-qM8bGo-qY9iWZ-38AFF5-fxSJk8-nkSA3t-nYRmpT-wbFi7W-fNFkWg-dGd9Hm-Q2Guo-5netHt-J7uog-pFdweM-58n5eu-gmjYim-en5bTJ-eg7qgD">Safia Osman/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This requires not just technical and financial resources but also new policies as well as delivery models. And the needs are different at different stages of the cycle – from technology development to commercial demonstration, market introduction, and eventually broader diffusion.</p>
<p>To make matters even more complex, each technology – whether it’s a solar-powered microgrids or long-distance transmission lines – has different requirements in each country. </p>
<p>In other words, there is no simple “one-shoe-fits-all” approach to the successful implementation of climate technologies. </p>
<h2>Supporting the energy transition</h2>
<p>The problem is most developing countries do not have the capabilities to undertake this implementation by themselves. They will need assistance to ensure adequate planning and the speedy and effective implementation of clean energy technologies. </p>
<p>A recognition of this critical need led to the establishment the Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is intended to assist developing countries with technology solutions, implementation advice and capacity building.</p>
<p>Yet the CTCN is woefully underresourced and has struggled to raise funds for its operation. Its budget for 2016 is a mere US$18.6 million, of which $7 million has yet to be secured, according to officials. The Climate Technology Center (the hub that coordinates the response to developing country requests) has a total staff of eight. </p>
<p>Incredibly, the funding for the CTCN so far has not come through the UNFCCC channels but through bilateral channels such as Norwegian and Danish governments and the European Union. This creates long-term funding uncertainty and sometimes the imposition of specific conditions. This underresourced entity is supposed to help all developing countries successfully implement their climate technology plans. </p>
<h2>Comprehensive view needed</h2>
<p>So here we have, on the one hand, a situation in which we are talking about additional investments of billions of dollars in energy R&D for future technological options through Mission Innovation but, on the other hand, an almost utter disregard for enhancing the effectiveness of near-term climate technology implementation. </p>
<p>Forgotten (or ignored) is the <a href="https://unfccc.int/files/kyoto_protocol/application/pdf/indiafinancialarchitecture241208.pdf">text from the UNFCCC</a> that states that industrialized countries will commit “financial resources and transfer of technology” to developing countries. </p>
<p>There is, therefore, a real danger that developing countries will not be able to successfully implement their INDCs, which in turn further threaten our ability to meet our climate targets. (It should be noted that the sum total of the pledges under the INDCs are <a href="http://www.carbonbrief.org/un-report-climate-pledges-fall-short-of-cheapest-route-to-2c-limit">far from sufficient</a> to put us on the path even to a 2 degree Celsius global mean temperature rise above preindustrial levels.)</p>
<p>This situation, unfortunately, is par for the course in the climate arena. Many of the real needs of developing countries are not being given sufficient attention or appropriate levels of support – climate finance and adaptation are other examples. </p>
<p>Instead, industrialized countries are jostling for leadership in shifting the burden of mitigation and adaptation to developing countries rather than in taking aggressive climate action themselves. And they are shying away from providing suitable resources to developing countries to address or adapt to climate change. </p>
<p>And much of the action is outside the UNFCCC as with Mission Innovation, not in the multilateral process, as with the Technology Mechanism of the UN. It is not an “either-or” – we need both and the former cannot substitute for the latter. </p>
<p>One must still hope, therefore, that the Paris agreement will pay attention to providing adequate and appropriate technical and financial support through the UN multilateral process to help developing countries implement their own pledges. Frankly, there is no other choice, not if we are serious about the climate problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have not received any funding for the specific analysis in this article. But the article does draw on research done for a paper commissioned by the ICTSD (<a href="http://www.ictsd.org/themes/innovation-and-ip/research/technology-in-the-2015-paris-climate-agreement-and-beyond">http://www.ictsd.org/themes/innovation-and-ip/research/technology-in-the-2015-paris-climate-agreement-and-beyond</a>) as well as my other research efforts on energy innovation policy. </span></em></p>Developing countries need technical and financial aid to begin the transition to low-carbon energy now, not just pledges to invest in energy R&D with payoffs decades from now.Ambuj D Sagar, Vipula and Mahesh Chaturevdi Professor of Policy Studies , The Indian Institute of Technology DelhiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/429912015-06-10T04:10:06Z2015-06-10T04:10:06ZThe G7 is right to call for fossil fuel phase-out, but it can happen sooner<p>The G7 nations, at this week’s summit in Germany, have called for “a decarbonisation of the global economy over the course of this century”. Of course, this group of nations is among those most heavily in favour of strong climate action, but the opportunities for climate-friendly growth are everywhere.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.g7germany.de/Content/DE/_Anlagen/G8_G20/2015-06-08-g7-abschluss-eng.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=5">G7 declaration</a> supports a cut in global emissions at “the upper end” of the 40-70% range by 2050 recommended by the <a href="http://report.mitigation2014.org/report/ipcc_wg3_ar5_technical-summary.pdf">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)</a>, by “striving for a transformation” in energy production.</p>
<p>This call for decarbonisation is the right message, but on the wrong timescale. The low-carbon transformation needs to happen largely by the middle, not the end, of this century. </p>
<h2>Transforming energy</h2>
<p>The recipe for a low-carbon energy system has three essential ingredients, as set out in the <a href="http://climateworksaustralia.com/sites/default/files/documents/publications/ddpp_2014_report_executive_summary__0.pdf">global</a> and <a href="http://climateworksaustralia.com/sites/default/files/documents/publications/climateworks_pdd2050_initialreport_20140923.pdf">Australian</a> reports by the Deep Decarbonisation Pathways Project (of which I am a research partner). </p>
<p>First, achieve radical improvements in <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/energy-productivity">energy productivity</a> – the amount of economic output per unit of energy use. Most aspects of most economies are far below the energy efficiency frontier. You’re probably reading this in a building that uses far more energy than necessary, and you might have travelled there in a relatively inefficient car. And depending on what industry you work in, there is a fair chance that it uses outdated equipment somewhere within its operation.</p>
<p>Second, take the carbon out of the energy supply. Crucially, that means replacing coal and gas in the electricity sector (and other industries) with renewable sources and nuclear power, and using <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/carbon-capture-and-storage">carbon capture and storage</a> where feasible. </p>
<p>Third, shift any direct fuel use to decarbonised electricity, for example by adopting electric cars and electric heating. </p>
<p>Added to this mix is the need to improve various industrial processes, as well as forest protection and carbon uptake on the land.</p>
<h2>The toughest challenge</h2>
<p>A carbon-free energy supply may seem difficult to achieve. Today, the world’s energy system is <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/key-world-energy-statistics-2014.html">heavily based on fossil fuels</a>: coal and oil account for about 30% each of total energy supply, and gas for another 20% or so. Low- or zero-carbon energy sources together account for the remaining 20%.</p>
<p>And yet the transition can be made, and without great cost if it’s done in smart ways. It will require a big change in investment patterns, but concentrated in a very small part of the global economy. The key is the falling cost of clean energy sources, especially renewable power, which allows a steady phasing out of the existing high-carbon infrastructure. </p>
<p>Each ageing coal-fired power station that comes offline needs to be replaced with renewable power and <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/energy-storage">energy storage</a>. The estimates of <a href="https://theconversation.com/wait-and-pay-action-on-climate-change-is-cheap-delay-is-costly-40539">costs of reducing emissions</a> have fallen significantly over recent years. </p>
<p>It can be done, and indeed it needs to be done much faster than the G7’s time frame of “over the course of this century”. To meet internationally agreed climate goals, decarbonisation needs to happen largely over the next three to four decades. </p>
<p>Most of the carbon-intensive infrastructure in the developed world will come to the end of its lifetime during that period anyway. The key is to stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure, and to support accelerated turnover to clean technologies. </p>
<h2>Easy for the G7 to say?</h2>
<p>Among the various clubs of nations, the G7 is perhaps the most receptive to calls for climate change action. It comprises the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada. Of these, only Canada relies heavily on fossil fuel exports, and the United States sees an advantage to its natural gas industry as a transition fuel that is cleaner than coal. </p>
<p>What’s more, each of the G7 countries has domestic industries that will benefit from a global energy transformation. From electric cars to nuclear power stations to smart grids, low-carbon is a giant business opportunity. </p>
<p>In fact, this kind of declaration is something that China might well also be prepared to sign. China sees the need to act on climate change, it wants to limit the use of fossil fuels – which would also cut air pollution and import dependency – and sees its industries as potential leaders in the energy technologies of the future. </p>
<p>As Nick Stern and Fergus Green of the London School of Economics argue in a <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publication/chinas-new-normal-structural-change-better-growth-and-peak-emissions/">paper</a> released this week, China could reach its “peak CO<sub>2</sub>” by 2025 – meaning its emissions will begin to decline sooner than many have predicted. And where China goes, many developing countries are likely to follow.</p>
<p>These countries are likely to do so selectively: if low-carbon technology is desirable for development, governments will facilitate and support it; where traditional high-carbon options are cheaper and do not have large drawbacks they will continue to be attractive. </p>
<h2>Show them the money</h2>
<p>This is where climate finance comes in. The G7 nations have said that they remain committed to the <a href="http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf">pledge made at the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks</a> to scale up climate finance to developing countries to US$100 billion per year by 2020. Much of that would be for climate adaptation rather than energy investment, and even the full amount, if it eventuates, will pale in comparison to annual investment needs in the energy sector alone. Still, finance from developed countries could help bring down the cost of low-carbon technologies and help make “clean” investments happen.</p>
<p>It will be difficult for the G7 and other rich countries to agree formally on <a href="https://ccep.crawford.anu.edu.au/publication/ccep-working-paper/5565/splitting-difference-can-limited-coordination-achieve-fair">who should pay how much</a>, or even what to count as climate finance. But the commitment to provide climate finance itself may help, for example through decisions taken by government-backed development banks. </p>
<h2>A greener shade of growth</h2>
<p>The call for decarbonisation rest not on altruism but on forward-looking economic judgement. In international economic circles, the idea is taking hold that the economies of the future need to be less polluting and less materially intensive if growth is to be sustained. Economists are also realising that the low-carbon transition can itself can be a source of economic growth. </p>
<p>This thinking is elegantly captured in a report by the <a href="http://newclimateeconomy.report/">New Climate Economy</a> project. It recurs in flagship reports by the <a href="http://www.oecd.org/greengrowth/">OECD</a>, statements by the World Bank – such as Indonesian finance minister Sri Mulyani’s speech this week calling for “<a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2015/06/09/the-case-for-inclusive-green-growth">inclusive green growth</a>” – and the International Monetary Fund, which recently called for <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/np/fad/subsidies/index.htm">reform of fossil fuel subsidies</a>. </p>
<p>As this thinking gains momentum and the success stories emerge, attempts by fossil fuel producers to slow the speed of the transition will increasingly lose traction. The question then becomes how to best manage the transition, rather than whether it is possible or desirable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42991/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Jotzo is chief investigator on a research grant from the Australian government.</span></em></p>G7 leaders have pledged to help end the world’s fossil fuel use by the end of the century. It’s a laudable aim, but decarbonisation can and should be done by the middle, not the end, of this century.Frank Jotzo, Director, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400732015-05-21T20:02:53Z2015-05-21T20:02:53ZWhat’s missing from our climate pledges? Low-carbon R&D<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82487/original/image-20150521-17361-1n9vudv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Countries should make pledges to fund low-carbon research - such as developing solar technology - and development as part of global climate talks. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/salforduniversity/8658242550/">University of Salford Press Office/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Countries will bring specific targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to climate negotiations in Paris at the end of 2015. Some governments have <a href="https://theconversation.com/paris-2015-climate-summit-countries-targets-beyond-2020-38427">made initial pledges</a>, such as the US’s target of 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025. </p>
<p>But it is this same mechanism that failed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2009 Copenhagen Accord. Will it be third time lucky, or should the Paris conference try a different approach?</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2015.1037820">paper</a> recently published in the Journal Climate Policy, we argue that the negotiations should also seek to accelerate research and development on low-emissions technologies. These technologies might include: solar and wind, electric cars and fuel cells, batteries, nuclear power or carbon capture.</p>
<p>Pledges set in Paris should include specific support for research, as well as limits on greenhouse gas emissions. A panel of scientific experts – similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chance – might also be created to assist states to select research priorities and to monitor national research efforts. </p>
<p>States’ pledges to support scientific research should eventually be coordinated within an international innovation plan. </p>
<h2>Accelerating low-carbon innovation</h2>
<p>Mitigating climate change means reducing the carbon intensity of economies, with the goal of displacing fossil fuel use. Virtually <a href="http://www.iddri.org/Publications/Pathways-to-deep-decarbonization-Interim-2014-Report">every serious analysis</a> of climate change has concluded that technology policy must be used to accelerate the pace at which low-emissions innovations are brought to market. </p>
<p>The US <a href="http://arpa-e.energy.gov/">Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy</a> is probably the best known recent example of successful technology policy. Unusually, APRA-E has received bipartisan support under both the Bush and Obama administrations. </p>
<p>Governments typically fund research because it produces public benefits like reduced pollution and increased economic growth. These “positive externalities” can be ignored by the market, resulting in insufficient basic research. </p>
<p>This market failure needs to be corrected. For example, economist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ross-garnaut-237">Ross Garnaut</a> called for the global community to pledge US$100 billion each year to an international “Low Emissions Technology Commitment” in <a href="http://www.garnautreview.org.au/update-2011/garnaut-review-2011.html">reports prepared for the Rudd and Gillard governments</a>. Our proposal seeks to implement Garnaut’s plan by incorporating it into the <a href="http://newsroom.unfccc.int/">UN Framework Convention on Climate Change</a>.</p>
<p>Some people will worry that adding research and development to climate negotiations will distract from the urgent task of actually reducing emissions. After all, it’s easy to imagine governments using increased research funding as an excuse to drag their feet on emissions cuts. </p>
<p>Regrettably, with or without a pledge to support scientific research, it seems inevitable that Australia won’t commit to ambitious emissions cuts in Paris. So if advocates of climate action were to salvage long-term commitments to energy research from the negotiations, it would be arguably a significant victory. </p>
<p>In fact, even if there is no increase in spending, the kind of guaranteed long-term support secured by an international treaty would boost the efficiency of our research effort. This is because the general tendency for government priorities to change and for funding to stop and start is itself a major impediment to progress. </p>
<p>If other countries also commit to increased research, the global environment and Australian economy would both benefit from accelerated global innovation.</p>
<h2>A spoonful of research can help the climate policy go down</h2>
<p>Creating an effective international response to climate change is enormously difficult and the vicissitudes of politics mean there will always be some states that are more committed than others (think how the US position on climate change shifted between the Bush and Obama administrations). </p>
<p>One important challenge is to ensure that those states that resist ambitious emissions limits — these currently include Australia, Japan, India and Canada — do not undermine international action. </p>
<p>Our proposal seeks to take advantage of the fact that opponents of ambitious mitigation targets are sometimes willing to expand research investments. An international agreement that recognised diverse types of contributions would minimise the impression that some states were free-riders, and so might lift total contributions to both emission cuts and research.</p>
<p>Australians understand all too well how difficult it can be to build political support for climate policies that carry even a modest price tag. This is part of the reason why new technologies are needed. </p>
<p>Accelerated research, development and demonstration should reduce the cost of low-emissions energy systems. In the long-term this will boost the prospects for international decarbonisation. </p>
<p>Will governments accept our advice? Obviously some ideologues will reject any solution that expands state support for scientific research. </p>
<p>However, international pressure over climate change is mounting (particularly from the United States) and many governments of developed nations have painted themselves into a corner by rejecting or ignoring most of the mechanisms through which emissions reductions might be achieved. </p>
<p>Within Australia specifically, a focus on energy research could give the Prime Minister a smart, positive climate narrative that will make a productive contribution in both national and international debates. </p>
<p>What’s more, were the federal government to embrace one of Garnaut’s suggestions it might inch us a tiny bit closer to stable, bipartisan, science-based climate policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40073/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barry W. Brook receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the expert advisory committee of the SA Royal Commission on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle and the international awards committee of the Global Energy Prize.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Symons does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Countries will take emissions reduction pledges to international climate talks in Paris at the end of this year. Those pledges should also include funds for low-carbon R&D.Jonathan Symons, Lecturer in International Relations, Macquarie UniversityBarry W. Brook, Professor of Environmental Sustainability, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/405332015-04-21T20:12:38Z2015-04-21T20:12:38ZReport calls for emissions cuts, but plays down the opportunities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78742/original/image-20150421-9051-1mmyqez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C2%2C1780%2C1157&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scaling back coalmining is one way Australia could make big progress towards its emissions targets.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACSIRO_ScienceImage_174_A_Coal_Dredge.jpg">CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia should cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% below 2000 levels by 2025, according to a <a href="http://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/sites/prod.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/files/files/reviews/ret/2015draft/Australia%27s%20future%20emissions%20reduction%20targets%281%29.pdf">draft recommendation</a> released by the Climate Change Authority today. </p>
<p>Australia will need to put a solid emissions target for 2025 on the table for international credibility on climate change. The Authority’s recommendation is justified on principle but will likely be unacceptable to the government. </p>
<p>Meanwhile the Authority gives surprisingly little heed to the opportunities for Australia of a low-emissions economy, instead highlighting international emissions trading. </p>
<h1>The post-2020 target game</h1>
<p>Under the United Nations climate negotiations, all countries are called on to submit an emissions commitment for the period after 2020 in the coming months. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/paris-2015-climate-summit-countries-targets-beyond-2020-38427">United States, European Union and some other countries have already announced their targets</a> and China has announced the outlines of its contribution. </p>
<p>What would it mean for Australia to pull its weight? The Climate Change Authority, the independent statutory body to advise on emissions targets and policies, factored three aspects into its recommendation today: Australia’s relative capacity to afford action to reduce emissions, the nation’s responsibility to do so, and the effort required to meet the target. </p>
<p>Australia is right up at the top end of per person income, indicating strong capacity to act. </p>
<p>It is similar for responsibility: Australia emits the highest amount of greenhouse gases per person among the major developed countries. And add self-interest: as a country that is highly vulnerable to climate change, Australia has much to gain from global action.</p>
<h1>How hard is it to cut emissions in Australia?</h1>
<p>That leaves the question of effort. As Australia’s Ambassador for the Environment, Peter Woolcott, pointed out at a recent <a href="https://ccep.crawford.anu.edu.au/events/5318/australias-post-2020-emissions-target">public forum at ANU Crawford School</a>, views will diverge about “what Australia can realistically achieve given its unique national circumstances and characteristics, including its resource endowment, and economic and population growth”. </p>
<p>It is a fair guess that the government will point to Australia’s ample <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/13/tony-abbott-says-coal-is-good-for-humanity-while-opening-mine">endowment with fossil fuels</a>, relatively high population growth and the expectation of continued economic growth as justifications for going for a lower target than other countries. </p>
<p>The recommended 30% target translates into large reductions in per capita emissions and in the emissions intensity of Australia’s GDP. But as the Authority’s report shows (in Figure 3 of its report, see below), Australia’s per capita emissions and emissions intensity at 2025 would still be much higher than those of the United States and more than twice Europe’s, under their respective targets. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78734/original/image-20150421-9038-1cjh127.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78734/original/image-20150421-9038-1cjh127.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78734/original/image-20150421-9038-1cjh127.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78734/original/image-20150421-9038-1cjh127.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78734/original/image-20150421-9038-1cjh127.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78734/original/image-20150421-9038-1cjh127.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78734/original/image-20150421-9038-1cjh127.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78734/original/image-20150421-9038-1cjh127.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Climate Change Authority</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the world gradually turns away from emissions-intensive development, the national-interest case for such reductions strengthens.</p>
<h2>The coal question</h2>
<p>What about resource endowment, specifically the abundance of coal in Australia? </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/carbon-reduction-in-asia-will-punch/6408204">resources boom</a> is coming to a halt, and growth in mining and energy extraction will be slower than expected.</p>
<p>Energy use and emissions in resource industries will grow more slowly or tail off. The government’s most recent <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/emissions-projections">projections</a> of slower underlying emissions growth bear this out. </p>
<p>And most importantly, as a country with high coal use and relatively low energy efficiency, Australia has much more room to manoeuvre than other countries that do not rely so much on coal or where energy productivity is already much higher. Phase out coal and stop wasting energy, and we get big reductions in emissions. </p>
<p>A solid international commitment underpinned by clever policy could create many new opportunities for economic growth.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it is difficult to conceive that the government will decide on a target that is stronger in nominal terms than that of the United States. </p>
<h1>Australia can cut emissions deeply, cheaply, with benefits</h1>
<p>That is not to say that stronger cuts are out of reach, either technically or economically. </p>
<p>Our recent study with ClimateWorks Australia on <a href="http://www.climateworksaustralia.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/climateworks_pdd2050_initialreport_20140923.pdf">Deep Decarbonisation Pathways</a>, which built on modelling by CSIRO and Victoria University, showed that Australia can cut emissions deeply and do so while maintaining strong economic growth. </p>
<p>The scenario gets Australia’s net national emissions to zero by 2050. That is on the basis of zero-carbon electricity supply drawing on Australia’s ample endowment and technical potential for renewables, shift from direct fuel use to electricity, and economically valuable improvements in energy efficiency and industrial processes.</p>
<p>Remaining emissions – many of them from agriculture and mining for export – are fully offset by carbon plantations. </p>
<p>For 2025, the modelling shows a one-third cut below year 2000 levels, and a halving to 2030. The estimated economic costs are modest and major changes in Australia’s economic structure would be unlikely as a result. </p>
<p>Reviewing the major reports produced over the last eight years in a <a href="http://www.wwf.org.au/?13220/Media-release-for-Emissions-report">report</a> for WWF Australia released yesterday, we found that the estimated costs of future emissions reductions in Australia fell in every successive modelling exercise. </p>
<p>A major reason is that the outlook for many zero-carbon technologies keeps improving and costs are falling. For example, the cost of solar cell power stations is now already only about half what the Australian Treasury projected it to be in the year 2030 in modelling done in 2008.</p>
<p>Add to that co-benefits from going to low-carbon technologies including less local pollution, <a href="http://www.vivideconomics.com/publications/energy-efficiency-and-economic-growth">economy-wide productivity benefits from energy efficiency</a>, and the possibility for Australia to gain a new comparative advantage in low-carbon industries of the future.</p>
<h1>Trading makes life easy – and might miss part of the point</h1>
<p>But the Climate Change Authority does not even call for most of the actual emissions reductions to be made in Australia. It sees international trading in emissions units as a legitimate and possibly large part of the overall contribution. </p>
<p>Modelling for its earlier <a href="http://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/reviews/targets-and-progress-review-3">report</a> has purchases of international units playing a decisive part in meeting future reduction targets. </p>
<p>As long as it is assured that such trading amounts to actual investment in emissions reductions in other countries where cuts can be achieved at lower cost, this is sensible. </p>
<p>But if international trade is used to avoid domestic transition towards a cleaner economy, this would mean missing out on broader benefits. </p>
<h1>Pie in the sky, yet really not so bold</h1>
<p>And so the Climate Change Authority’s recommendations are simultaneously more ambitious than the government will be prepared to accept, and not so ambitious by way of assuming that international emissions trading may mean no deep emissions cuts domestically. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, the central issue is not what number government picks, but what steps will be taken towards a lower-emissions economy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Jotzo is chief investigator of current projects at ANU funded by the Australian government and WWF Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Howard Bamsey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Climate Change Authority has recommended Australia cut greenhouse gas emissions 30% below 2000 levels by 2025. While sensible, the government is unlikely to accept, and the target misses bigger opportunities to cut emissions.Frank Jotzo, Director, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, Australian National UniversityHoward Bamsey, Adjunct Professor, Regulatory institutions Network, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389322015-03-19T09:35:09Z2015-03-19T09:35:09ZWhy is low-carbon energy innovation so slow? You can thank Economics 101<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75125/original/image-20150317-22297-wmpin9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The massive Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California was partially funded by a large Department of Energy loan guarantee yet the policy has been harshly criticized. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/greggman/15558088844/in/photolist-qPU5GW-qaFR3Z-r7kaVt-r7kaQt-r7k6gt-mE3qz2-pGPgM7-qDK4HU-oLETZG-pDc6Uq-pVHpBY-pz3Zsh-pz4V7R-oUDwPY-pPpsbb-pz3YP3-pRv278-pRv2pT-hc6XtC-nm6NQQ-mE3fkM-mE5121-mE53tL-mE3irB-mE3yhg-kWoVFT-kY3Fct-5sfXLS-9EUwt7-hSJ3EG-iZSrMt-o3Q5cT-nm6NfS-nm6P3y-nm4vBX-nkM8T4-nnQ22x-nm4w6T-p513jf-nm6PW7-rnd439-r7Wxz9-ftb46Y-ft8aPj-fsVGAn-mzQ7a5-g2QhDc-g2PLhm-gbbTRa-gbc5py">Gregg Tavares</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world needs a lot of energy. Global energy demand is expected to increase by 37% percent over the next 25 years, according to the International Energy Agency’s <a href="http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/publications/weo-2014/">World Energy Outlook 2014</a>. Meeting this demand without significantly increasing carbon emissions requires new energy technologies that involve low or no carbon dioxide emissions.</p>
<p>It is widely recognized that the government plays a critical role in advancing innovation and technology development. State and federal policies have driven deployment of <a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=20292">solar and wind power</a> as well as development of hydraulic fracturing, which <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/decades-federal-dollars-helped-fuel-141648115.html">helped spark a boom</a> in oil and gas drilling in the US.</p>
<p>In the future, many argue that we’ll need many more innovations. For example, the <a href="http://americanenergyinnovation.org/reports/">American Energy Innovation Council</a>, a group of high-profile business people, have called for a significant increase in the amount of government funding in research, development and demonstration (RD&D) of energy technologies. The group, which includes Bill Gates, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt and others, also proposed ways to better deploy federal research funds.</p>
<p>The report raises a question vital for the future: what government policies are most effective at accelerating energy innovations? A study of the economic forces in energy and environment, some of which are different than other industries, can help answer this.</p>
<h2>Where markets fail</h2>
<p>To start, it is important to understand that there are two fundamental market failures in the RD&D of clean energy technologies. A <a href="http://www.economicshelp.org/micro-economic-essays/marketfailure/">market failure</a> is a situation where the allocation of resources does not happen efficiently. These market failures lead to underinvestment in energy innovation by the private sector and provide justification for government interventions. Separate policy instruments need to be in place to deal with these different market failures.</p>
<p>When one company invests in research, it often leads to technology and knowledge that benefit society overall. That’s good for advancing energy innovation. But because other companies and users can take advantage of that knowledge, individual companies cannot capture the full value of investing in RD&D. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75127/original/image-20150317-22305-1vwfm8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75127/original/image-20150317-22305-1vwfm8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75127/original/image-20150317-22305-1vwfm8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75127/original/image-20150317-22305-1vwfm8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75127/original/image-20150317-22305-1vwfm8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75127/original/image-20150317-22305-1vwfm8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75127/original/image-20150317-22305-1vwfm8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75127/original/image-20150317-22305-1vwfm8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A car made by a 3-D printer (really) came out of a government program to develop light-weight and energy-efficient vehicles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy/16308248968/in/photolist-qbFqBE-r8GcUp-r6oXsA-qR8uDU-qRgguD-r8B4Hb-qRggog-r8GdmB-bmwrBb-bmwrJm-bmwqE1-9nmGCb-9niCrM-9nmG2h-9nmGuw-9nmFP1-9niDvg-qdmZcp-qR73jE-qR73fm-r8Gdta-r8xhn6-r6oWN9-qRewhF-qbTLeR-qR734E-r8xhax-r8GdCP-qbFqZ3-qR73hA-qR72X7-qRew3T-r8xhfc-r6oWLf-qRew2R-r8xhxB-qRevZr-r8xhwe-r8xgVV-qbTLb4-r6oWRL-r8B3ZY-r8B4z5-r8B4h1-r8xgLX-qbTLnX-r8Gd8k-qRgfMB-qR73bJ-bmxsy1">US Department of Energy.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, the <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/invisiblehand.asp">invisible hand</a> of the market produces too little innovation. The more basic and long-term is the research, the worse the problem tends to be. There are also additional market failures in the adoption and diffusion of innovation, as the cost or value of a new technology to one user may depend on how many other users there are.</p>
<p>Second, greenhouse gas emissions constitute an “<a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/externality.asp">externality</a>,” or unintended consequence, because the costs of climate change are borne by parties other than the emitters. Hence, current market prices for fossil fuels don’t reflect the full social cost of their consumption. With the “mispricing” of fossil fuels, the invisible hand of the market suppresses demand for alternative energy technologies that are substitutes for fossil fuel technologies.</p>
<p>To overcome the market failure in knowledge creation, the government needs to fund and invest in basic research and provide subsidies and tax incentives for corporate investment of RD&D in energy innovation. </p>
<p>Moreover, public support of costly and risky early-stage deployment and demonstration of alternative energy technologies is well justified. It is important to disseminate information about the operation, maintenance and incremental improvement of new energy technologies that currently might be more expensive and/or less reliable than existing ones. For example, a research program that achieves a better battery for storing energy on the electric grid could benefit all electricity users. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75126/original/image-20150317-22294-y53l5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75126/original/image-20150317-22294-y53l5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75126/original/image-20150317-22294-y53l5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75126/original/image-20150317-22294-y53l5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75126/original/image-20150317-22294-y53l5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75126/original/image-20150317-22294-y53l5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75126/original/image-20150317-22294-y53l5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Current US Energy secretary, right, has been advocate of the ARPA-E, a research agency formed to fund breakthrough energy technologies, such as this project to store more natural gas in vehicles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ARPA-E/Department of Energy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The government also needs to address the other market failure of the “mispricing” of fossil fuels. It may impose a tax on carbon or a “<a href="http://www.ieta.org/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26catid%3D54:3-minute-briefing%26id%3D205:cap-%26-trade-basics">cap and trade</a>” system that alters prices to reflect more adequately the environmental costs. Or it could enact a specific regulatory requirement (such as emission or performance targets) to correct the failure. Such policies would create a higher demand for low-emission technologies and provide incentives for private investment in climate-friendly technologies.</p>
<h2>Insights from other industries</h2>
<p>In a intriguing book titled <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo11668985.html">Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors</a>, experts on the history of innovation offered interesting insights about the roles that the US federal government has historically played in catalyzing innovation and technology development in a variety of industries including agriculture, chemical, life sciences, the computer and semiconductor industry, and the internet. They found there were three broad mechanisms through which government policies have served to accelerate innovation:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>provision of “substantial, sustained and effectively managed federal funding” for basic research</p></li>
<li><p>creation of a growing demand for innovation, either through procurement or through the market, and</p></li>
<li><p>encouragement of extensive competition and entry by newly founded firms.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Note that these industries, unlike energy, don’t face a severe market failure of climate and environmental externalities. Nevertheless, the government still played a critical role in stimulating demand, particularly in the early stages of technology development. Thus, it is all the more important to have policies to address the “mispricing” of fossil fuels to increase the demand for and induce private investment in low-emission technologies.</p>
<p>Moreover, history shows the importance of the government’s role in enabling vigorous competition and entry to stimulate innovation. This is particularly relevant for energy innovation. Combating climate change will involve development and deployment of many different technologies in a diverse array of sectors, varying from the electric grid to transportation and other industries. That’s why it is important for the government to foster rigorous competition, rather than pick “winners” and “losers” among technologies and companies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zhen Lei receives funding from National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>The world needs new energy technologies to meet global demand and slow emissions. Government plays an outside role in energy so what policies work best for innovation?Zhen Lei, Assistant Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.