Could the growth of renewables indicate a new ‘golden rule’ | Stuff … – Stuff.co.nz

JULIE ILES

Last updated05:00, April 2 2017

SUPPLIED

A Carbon law could get us off fossil fuels, but is it possible?

University of Melbourne researchers have proposed using aroad-map to curb carbon emissions by using a "Carbon Law"to half emissions every decade and move away from fossil fuels entirely by 2050.

Their paper was published inScienceas a peer reviewedpolicy forum article.

The authors based the "Carbon Law"on the 'golden rule' of the computer industry called Moore's Law, which referred to the 40 year trend of microchips doubling the amount of transistors every two years, and running faster as a result.

Transistors are minuscule electronic switches that allow computers to process information.Transistorshave gotten consistently smaller and faster over the past 50 years, something first predicted by Intel co-foundGordon Moore in 1965.

READ MORE: *Rod Oram: Kiwis losing the carbon race

This pace made computer processors the unicorn of disruptive innovation, and unless a similar rate is adoptedby decarbonisation strategies, the world is not going to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement.

Authors said the trajectory of the "Carbon Law" would see the end of coal between2030-2035 and the end of oil between 2040-2045.

But neither Australia nor New Zealand have committed to policy plans that will cut their emissions by 50 per cent in the next decade.

New Zealandhas committed to a 30 per centemissions reduction by 2030, and Australia committed to a 28 per cent reduction, both of which would require significant changes to the generation mix.

Yet even a larger targets has not seen changes in the demand for renewables.

Tilt renewables stated in its Investor Day report, "Ambitious state-based renewable targets have yet to trigger meaningful long-term demand for renewables."

The International EnergyAgencyprojectsthat the world demand for fossil fuels will continue to grow in the medium term due to a range of factors, such as projected growth of road freight and aviation, and the lack of cost-effective substitutes for fossil fuels in those sectors.

AnMBIEspokesman said,"It's clear the world must progressively transition to low carbon energy, but fossil fuels are expected to continue to play a significant role in meeting domestic energy security and global energy demand for some time yet."

New Zealand'sshare of electricity generated from renewables reached 88 per cent in the December 2016 quarter.

TheMBIEspokesman said schools, hospitals, and industries were still dependent on natural gas andcoal and transport and heating sectors still had a larger proportion of non-renewable energy than electricity.

Authors of the study called for an ambitious exponential roll-out of renewables, ramping up technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and rapidly reducing agriculture and deforestation emissions.

Lead author and director of the StockholmResilience Centre JohanRockstromsaid,"We are already at the start of this trajectory. In the last decade, the share of renewables in the energy sector has doubled every 5.5 years. If doubling continues at this pace fossil fuels will exit the energy sector well before 2050."

ButUniversity of Cambridge Emeritus Professor of Technology Michael Kelly said that was "literally utter nonsense" that lacked economic reality and engineering integrity.

"Disruptive innovation is being overused, the point is it's not disruptive - the whole thing about the renewables, wind, solar inparticular -everybodysaid in 1974 'We've got to have renewables to get off oil because of the oil crisis' and went flat out and it hasn't got anywhere If this paper had been printed 20 or 40 years ago we would now have ample empirical evidence to show that it would simply not work."

Kelly said that when it came to disruptive innovation, Moore's Law was the exception, not the rule.

"Innovation is a very double edged sword, because you can always tell when innovation has happened but it's very hard to plan for innovation," he said.

-Sunday Star Times

Follow this link:

Could the growth of renewables indicate a new 'golden rule' | Stuff ... - Stuff.co.nz