Green Energy Plays a Growing Role in the World
But Has a Long Way to Go to Realize Its Valuable Potential
Overview
Enthusiasm for renewable energy opportunities resonated through
the sessions of the September '96 Washington Summit on Protection
of the World's Climate as participants considered the two billion
people in the world who lack power off the grid and the many options
they could be using to satisfy their needs. Public/private partnerships
could speed applications of alternative sources of energy such
as wind and solar. International R&D projects could show ways
to save on lighting and heating, and to make machines run more
efficiently. With much more aggressive development and prodding,
products and processes could take advantage of economies of scale,
and green energy prices would begin to fall. An opportunity exists
for a grand bargain, and countries could begin to achieve their
economic goals.
High return projects do exist, some governments have made forceful
efforts and there is a strong move for reform, privatization and
attempts to bring inflation down. For instance, the World Bank's
Enterprise Housing Divestiture Project will cut heating costs
30 to 40 percent so residents can afford their utility bills.
Payback will be made in two to five years.
As various nations begin to take advantage of the many opportunities,
niche markets will open up in both developed and developing countries.
India produces two million two-stroke electric scooters a year.
A PV electric scooter is cost competitive and, produced in volume,
would have a huge market. Two and three-wheel vehicles in the
non-industrial world could give a large boost to transportation.
Roofing shingles are already very competitive energy generators
, have the near term potential to penetrate mass markets in the
US and Japan and show great potential for off-grid regions.
Barriers to many alternative energy markets are institutional
lending practices and lack of consumer financing. Uganda wants
to go solar and can't get the money; India has a frightening power
shortage and sees no way out but large scale expansion of conventional
fossil fuel plants. There are huge opportunities for scaling up
projects and underwriting them. Good things can happen fast, according
to Nevillle Williams, a nonprofit solar developer, who channels
capital where opportunities exist. The fall in prices of renewable
technology has arrived just in the nick of time.
The World Bank's Global Environment Facility has a budget of
$200 million a year to develop a number of programs to remove
barriers to renewable energy and encourage efficiency technologies.
It is looking at more energy efficient equipment for refrigeration,
air conditioning, cooking and irrigation; production of home electricity,
village mechanical water-pumping, building heating and cooking,
water heating and lighting. Other programs include solar thermal,
advanced mass turbine, fuel cells, coal gassification.
The Summit focused on the countries which account for about 60
percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, but so far most of
the industrialized nations can only boast of plans or good intentions
for limiting emissions. Only Germany and the UK among the countries
making presentations expect to stay within the Climate Convention's
goal of reducing CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000.
And the UK acknowledges its success is partly due to the government-mandated
switch from coal to gas, with a little assist from a recession.
China and India admit their heavy reliance on coal far into the
future, and Mexico is projected to continue its heavy reliance
on oil. However, the exciting advances in renewable technologies
offer an effective route to cheaper energy.
Europe is more willing than the US to acknowledge that even small
climate changes may have a big effect on society, and European
banking and insurance industries have expressed concern. A Dutch
White Paper examining an array of European scenarios foresees
CO2 concentrations still rising in 2050 with climate already changing.
Since prices of fossil fuels are likely to remain low, renewables
will constitute only a small share of energy use for decades.
But a study of European economies has shown that CO2 emissions
can be lowered in the region without raising costs. Because of
the high priority on economic growth which will lead to a significant
rise in energy consumption, CO2 emissions can be stabilized "only
with strong conservation action and a shift in fuels. An immediate
worldwide response is essential."
Looking at the rest of the world, Brazil has the greenest energy
system with 60 percent of all energy consumed consisting of renewables
(mostly hydropower). Mexico has the potential for solar and wind
power which would be of great benefit to five percent of its population,
but its heavy dependence on oil makes it unlikely to shift to
renewables any time soon. Although it has cities full of cars
producing local pollution, few effective steps have been taken
to improve air quality. Japan, also heavily dependent on oil,
may find it impossible to achieve 1990 levels of emissions even
by 2030 if total consumption continues to grow at one percent
a year. But major industrial producers have given high priority
to limiting greenhouse gases and various measures are being considered.
Russia is in third place (just behind China) as a worldwide emitter
of greenhouse gases, but it sees the possibility of stabilizing
emissions by 2010. Along with Germany, it looks forward to the
feasibility of joint implementation.
Solar technologies elicited the most intense interest at the
Summit, and had a strong boost from keynote speaker Peter Goldmark,
President of the Rockefeller Foundation. Two US companies joined
forces in 1995 to manufacture and sell PV (solar electric) modules,
develop solar-powered electricity generation facilities and sell
their energy in the world market. India was chosen for the first
joint venture because of its large amount of solar radiation.
Roof-top shingles are a very promising subset of this technology:
in Japan, the US and in direct sales to retail or wholesale customers
in the developing world. The single biggest barrier to their use
is lack of information about them, according to a DOE spokesman.
Progress in green energy activities in countries around the world
that account for about 50 percent of spending on renewables are
described below.
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