The International Energy Agency (the IEA) is hopelessly biased against renewable energy both in terms of the projections of future energy development it has made and also in the way it frames the statistics about energy supply.
I remember sitting through several annual presentations on the IEA renewables projections at the Australian National University a few years back. Frankly they were, even then, obviously and embarrassingly simply wrong.
As a little sidebar about matters here in Australia, you may have heard that the right-wing Liberal/National Coalition opposition are (pretendingly seriously) proposing a fleet of nuclear reactors, to be operational in ten years (hope you didn't injure yourself laughing at that)...oh and, as no private capital will go near it, finances by the taxpayers (for you lot in the UK, that would be like Thatcher wanting to nationalise the railways).
Every time rational, evidence-based problems are raised by expert and impartial bodies such as the CSIRO and the Climate Council the Coalition shriek about politicisation. But the one I really love (that they never mention) is that even Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA, when interviewed by the strenuously right-wing Australian Financial Review, said that, much as he generally supported nuclear, it simply didn't add up for Australia, either financially or technically.
That's how insane energy policy discussion cam become...
I knew about the laughable solar predictions, but I di not realized they counted primary energy for the electricity generation from nuclear and fossil fuels. This is insane! Thanks for flagging it.
I don't know if the solution is to kill the IEA, it mostly responds to what governments ask. We just need to continue to lobby our individual governments - and keep on building renewables. The reality of a better energy system will eventually prevail
Given the energy conversion losses you draw attention to, and given that much of our grid electricity involves such (probably unacknowledged) losses, are you able to say whether EVs charged from the grid really do save CO2 emissions? If not, when do you think the break-even position will be reached?
If you want to talk about conversion losses, the losses involved in refining activities are large, even before we consider the 70-80% losses when used in internal combustion engines. Electricity by comparison has very low losses
Thanks David - excellent article!
I remember sitting through several annual presentations on the IEA renewables projections at the Australian National University a few years back. Frankly they were, even then, obviously and embarrassingly simply wrong.
As a little sidebar about matters here in Australia, you may have heard that the right-wing Liberal/National Coalition opposition are (pretendingly seriously) proposing a fleet of nuclear reactors, to be operational in ten years (hope you didn't injure yourself laughing at that)...oh and, as no private capital will go near it, finances by the taxpayers (for you lot in the UK, that would be like Thatcher wanting to nationalise the railways).
Every time rational, evidence-based problems are raised by expert and impartial bodies such as the CSIRO and the Climate Council the Coalition shriek about politicisation. But the one I really love (that they never mention) is that even Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA, when interviewed by the strenuously right-wing Australian Financial Review, said that, much as he generally supported nuclear, it simply didn't add up for Australia, either financially or technically.
That's how insane energy policy discussion cam become...
I knew about the laughable solar predictions, but I di not realized they counted primary energy for the electricity generation from nuclear and fossil fuels. This is insane! Thanks for flagging it.
I don't know if the solution is to kill the IEA, it mostly responds to what governments ask. We just need to continue to lobby our individual governments - and keep on building renewables. The reality of a better energy system will eventually prevail
So for fossil fuels the IEA report energy consumption not useful energy output - curious!
Similarly, in the FES, NESO ignore the energy from ground or air moved by a heat pump and just use electricity consumption not thermal energy output
David,
Given the energy conversion losses you draw attention to, and given that much of our grid electricity involves such (probably unacknowledged) losses, are you able to say whether EVs charged from the grid really do save CO2 emissions? If not, when do you think the break-even position will be reached?
If you want to talk about conversion losses, the losses involved in refining activities are large, even before we consider the 70-80% losses when used in internal combustion engines. Electricity by comparison has very low losses