IEA: FOSSIL FUELS WILL CONTINUE TO DOMINATE POWER SECTOR

Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
11/15/13

The future global demand for coal is uncertain because regional environmental policies vary in stringency, but coal will continue to dominate the power sector along with other fossil fuels through 2035—although they will represent a declining share of generation—according to a new report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that assesses the global energy market. The World Energy Outlook outlines a number of paths the energy market might take over the next two decades, and in its primary scenario suggests that coal use among OECD countries could fall by one-quarter, but could expand by one-third in India, China and other non-OECD countries.

“Globally, coal remains the leading source of electricity generation in the New Policies Scenario, though its share falls from 41 percent to 33 percent in 2035,” IEA said in a document accompanying the report. “Fossil fuels continue to dominate the power sector, although their share of generation declines from 68 percent in 2011 to 57 percent in 2035,” IEA said. “Coal remains the largest source of generation, with strong growth in non-OECD countries far outweighing reductions in OECD countries. Natural gas expands the most in absolute terms of any source, increasing in most regions. Coal-fired generation rebounds in the short term in the United States, reversing the recent coal-to-gas switch, as gas prices recover from very low levels. In Europe, gas-fired generation regains favor versus coal gradually on rising CO2 prices and the need for flexible capacity, but only gets back to 2010 levels after 2030.”

The report, released Nov. 12, finds that despite efforts to curb climate change, including President Obama’s Climate Action Plan and a Chinese plan “to limit the share of coal in the domestic energy mix,” energy-related CO2 emissions are expected to rise by 20 percent through 2035, with the long-term average temperature expected to increase 3.6 degrees Celsius—“far above the internationally agreed 2 °C target.”  The report also finds that carbon emissions from the power sector will “rise from 13 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2011 to 15.2 Gt in 2035, retaining a share of around 40 percent of global emissions over the period,” according to the accompanying document. It said expanded use of low-carbon technologies and increased efficiency will help slow the growth of CO2 emissions from the power sector. “The evolution of the power sector will be critical to meeting climate change goals, due to the sector’s rapid growth and because low-carbon alternatives are more readily available,” the document said.

Christoph Frie, secretary general of the World Energy Council, which recently published its own explorative scenarios and energy resource assessment, said in a statement that IEA’s report underlines the importance of carbon capture and storage technology. “The 450 parts per million CO2 goal cannot be achieved without CC(U)S. It is essential, therefore, that there are clear and unambiguous policy and institutional frameworks to support investment in this technology to justify its inclusion in roadmaps and carbon emission reduction strategies,” he said.