Saturday, March 5, 2011

Public debate about 2050 Pathways

DECC is running a public debate, using the new 2050 Calculator, at blog.decc.gov.uk. The debate was opened by eight experts (Mike Childs, Friends of the Earth; Dustin Benton, Campaign to Protect Rural England; Prof Nick Jenkins; Mark Brinkley, Housebuilder's Bible; Duncan Rimmer, National Grid; Dr David Clarke, Energy Technologies Institute; Keith Clarke, Atkins; Mark Lynas, author), who presented and discussed their preferred pathways within the calculator. It's now open to the public to join in. In a couple more days, the opening panel will wrap up their conversation; it'll be interesting if they can achieve consensus on one or two pathways.

The panelists and their pathways

Mike Childs: demand highly curtailed and very high renewables
In Mike’s pathway, 20% of primary energy will be imported and emissions will be 80% below 1990 levels in 2050.
Mike’s pathway in more detail

Dustin Benton: demand highly curtailed and high renewables
In Dustin’s pathway, 33% of primary energy will be imported and emissions will be 81% below 1990 levels in 2050.
Dustin’s pathway in more detail

Professor Nick Jenkins: maximum electrification of homes and industry
In Nick’s pathway, 54% of primary energy will be imported and emissions will be 82% below 1990 levels in 2050.
Nick’s pathway in more detail

Mark Brinkley: lots of bioenergy
In Mark’s pathway, 66% of primary energy will be imported and emissions will be 79% below 1990 levels in 2050.
Mark’s pathway in more detail

Duncan Rimmer: mix of CCS, nuclear, renewables and all cars electrified
In Duncan’s pathway, 60% of primary energy will be imported and emissions will be 81% below 1990 levels in 2050.
Duncan’s pathway in more detail

Dr David Clarke: mix of CCS, nuclear and renewables
In David’s pathway, 56% of primary energy will be imported and emissions will be 81% below 1990 levels in 2050.
David’s pathway in more detail

Keith Clarke: high electrification of transport, homes and industry
In Keith’s pathway, 58% of primary energy will be imported and emissions will be 77% below 1990 levels in 2050.
Keith’s pathway in more detail

Mark Lynas: lots of geosequestration
In Mark’s pathway, 78% of primary energy will be imported and emissions will be 80% below 1990 levels in 2050.
Mark’s pathway in more detail

3 comments:

Alex De Maida said...

Dear Sir,
even assuming we are successfull to effectively electrificate both personal and collective transportation (including goods) with electrics/hybrids or trains, tram, etc...and home low temp heating/conditioning (or home cooking), I actually don't see any easy solution for high temperature heat for industrial or process heat; biogas or other form of biomass can help but obviously for an industrial country it's a very tiny role.

Thus, what abot high temp heat ?

Alexander Ac said...

What about the impacts of peak oil (i.e. volatile oil prices) on these scenario?

In 2050 there will we no oil in UK, so we have to make sure that built energy infrastructure can be maintained,

cheers,

Alex

Nick Cook said...

If you live in the States and own/drive a Tesla EV you can drive across the states for FREE. That’s right; there are enough FREE Tesla recharging stations to take you right across the states. I think it is unlikely that HFCVs are ever likely to catch up with this and all the negatives of EVs are continually heading in the positive direction.

A comparison, one year's (10K miles) motoring.
ICEV (Biodiesel car) – 2,000+ sq-m of arable land to grow biofuel crops
EV – 2 to 3 sq-m of CPV (Concentrating PV) solar panels in a desert
No brainer?