More New Energy Needed Now

What ‘transition’? Renewable energy is growing, but overall energy demand is growing faster

Weizhen Tan, November 3, 2021 (CNBC)

“The world wants to “transition” away from fossil fuels toward green energy, but the difficult reality is this: Dirty fuels are not going away — or even declining — anytime soon…[The] global supply of renewables will grow by 35 gigawatts from 2021 to 2022, but global power demand growth will go up by 100 gigawatts over the same period…Countries will have to tap traditional fuel sources to meet the rest of the demand…

click to enlarge

Global electricity demand is set to rebound strongly, jumping by close to 5% this year and by 4% in 2022…[The amount of electricity generated from renewables will increase] by 8% this year and more than 6% in 2022…[But] renewables are expected to be able to serve only around half of the projected growth in global demand in 2021 and 2022…[The] amount spent on oil and gas has declined as prices collapsed in 2020 and the industry faced growing pressure to move away from dirty fuels. Total spending [fell below the 2019 level in 2021 to] a little more than $350 billion…

click to enlarge

Transition-related spending is gradually picking up, but remains far short of what is required to meet rising demand…[and that] shortfall will only widen as economies reopen and travel resumes…[and lead to] sharp rises in prices for natural gas, coal and electricity…[Getting the world on track for net-zero emissions by 2050] would require clean energy transition-related investment to accelerate from current levels to around $4 trillion annually by 2030…That would mark an increase of more than three times the current investment… click here for more

click to enlarge

Tweet