Electricity Humanity S Low Carbon Future Safeguarding Our Ecological Niche

Climate change is no longer deniable. Neither is the fact that greenhouse gas emissions due to human activities need to be mitigated. The question is how to rapidly transit to an increasingly low-carbon world while essentially sustaining the quality of life of the fortunate and providing better lives for the less fortunate.The challenge is to decarbonize both energy consumption and production with electricity at the core of energy systems.Perhaps Energia, a fictitious country whose 50 million inhabitants endorse climate change objectives and that embodies the energy mutations proposed by the authors, has the answers. Along with Energia, four families living in Africa, America, Asia and Europe who represent us, the consumer, set the stage for the book's discussions.On the user front, the presentation primarily focuses on energy consumption at home and for transport. On the energy production front, the focus shifts to the integration of renewables with fossil and nuclear energy. The book's coverage includes crucial systemic issues related to energy storage, electric power systems and multi-energy systems. In a dedicated chapter, the authors put forward their energy and environmental public policy observations and proposals, including a carbon fee scheme.Electricity is written for readers interested and concerned by the environmental and energy challenges we face, and who seek to participate, as well-informed citizens, in discussions on future energy-related options. The book provides a balanced, factual and unemotional presentation of readily available energy systems and technologies which, when widely deployed, can contribute, both short and long term, toward a low-carbon and electricity-centered world.

As more than half of the planet's CO2 is emitted in Asia-Pacific, there is no way around it: the region has to become a leader in the global fight against climate change, if we are to win it. This transition also presents one of the greatest investment opportunities of the coming decades. The region is the most vulnerable to desertification, flooding, and sea level rise, but also has most of the planet's people, megacities, and renewable energy capacity. The sky is the limit.This pivotal book explores the intersection of decarbonization, innovation, and Asia-Pacific. It provides a snapshot of initiatives by industry leaders and the public sector to reduce emissions. Through detailed technological analysis, case studies, and interviews of nine key industries, the authors highlight the emerging trends and commercial opportunities. The region must bring capital, technology, and policy together if we are to reach the most important milestone of this century: net zero by 2050.

Well-informed energy policy design is key to reaching decarbonization targets and keep global climate change under a 2°C threshold. In particular, low-carbon electricity provision for all is essential, as the IPCC shows that the most ambitious climate mitigation scenarios entail the electrification of most of our economy. Therefore, understanding the full scale of potential impacts from current and future electricity generation is required, in order to avoid “impact leakage”, i.e., increasing non-climate environmental pressure while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Life cycle assessment allows the evaluation of a product over its life cycle, and across a wide range of environmental indicators – this method was chosen to report on the environmental profiles of various technologies. Candidate technologies assessed include coal, natural gas, hydropower, nuclear power, concentrated solar power (CSP), photovoltaics, and wind power. Twelve global regions included in the assessment, allowing to vary load factors, methane leakage rates, or background grid electricity consumption, among other factors. With no exception, every electricity generation technology generates environmental impacts over its life cycle; and these impacts may vary widely with implementation site and other design choices. Proper energy policy should consider site-specificity by conducting lifecycle assessments that consider local conditions and potential prospective changes.

This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report (IPCC-SRREN) assesses the potential role of renewable energy in the mitigation of climate change. It covers the six most important renewable energy sources - bioenergy, solar, geothermal, hydropower, ocean and wind energy - as well as their integration into present and future energy systems. It considers the environmental and social consequences associated with the deployment of these technologies and presents strategies to overcome technical as well as non-technical obstacles to their application and diffusion. SRREN brings a broad spectrum of technology-specific experts together with scientists studying energy systems as a whole. Prepared following strict IPCC procedures, it presents an impartial assessment of the current state of knowledge: it is policy relevant but not policy prescriptive. SRREN is an invaluable assessment of the potential role of renewable energy for the mitigation of climate change for policymakers, the private sector and academic researchers.

With particular emphasis on plants, this thought-provoking text examines the implications of human influences on micro-evolutionary processes.

This white paper sets the Government's proposals for reform of the UK's electricity system to ensure that the UK electricity supply is secure, low-carbon and affordable. This is especially crucial as we face a number of unprecedented challenges in the coming decades including the threat to security of supply as existing plant closes; the necessity to decarbonise electricity generation; the likelihood for a rise in electricity demand and electricity prices are also expected to rise. Broadly the strategy's approach consists of four parts: long term contracts for both low-carbon energy and capacity; institutional arrangements to support this contracting approach; continued grandfathering, supporting the principle of no retrospective change to low-carbon policy incentives, within a clear and rational planning cycle; and ensuring a liquid market that allows existing energy companies and new entrants to compete on fair terms

Green Energy: Sustainable Electricity Supply with Low Environmental Impact defines the future of the world’s electricity supply system, exploring the key issues associated with global warming, and which energy systems are best suited to reducing it. Electricity generation is a concentrated industry with a few sources of emissions, which can be controlled or legislated against. This book explains that a green sustainable electricity system is one whose construction, installation, and operation minimally affect the environment and produce power reliability at an affordable price. It addresses the question of how to build such an electricity supply system to meet the demands of a growing population without accelerating global warming or damaging the environment. The green argument for conservation and renewable energies is a contradiction in terms. Although they produce no emissions, because renewable systems are composed of a large number of small units, a considerable amount of energy is required to produce, erect, and maintain them. This book is a response to that conundrum, answering key questions, such as: How can renewables be exploited to contribute the greatest energy input? Should coal be used for clean fuel and chemical production rather than for power generation? How quickly can we start to build the Green Energy system? The author has more than forty years of experience as an international journalist reporting on power-generating technologies and on energy policies around the world. Detailing the developmental history, and current state, of the global nuclear industry, he discusses the dire, immediate need for large quantities of clean, emission-free electric power, for both domestic and industrial uses. This book details how current technologies—particularly nuclear, combined cycle, and hydro—can be applied to satisfy safely the growing energy demands in the future.