Energie : papiers de recherche moissonnés (9/02/2018)

De l’énergie noire à l’énergie bleue /  Jean-François Frier et Séverine Michalak. Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS), novembre 2017, 17 p. (Programme climat, énergie & sécurité ; analyse #5) http://www.iris-france.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ProgClimat-Energie-bleue-nov-17.pdf

Six fois plus d’hommes consomment vingt fois plus d’énergie qu’il y a 135 ans lorsqu’a débuté la révolution industrielle, accélération si brutale qu’elle modifie la composition de l’atmosphère et l’équilibre chimique des mers par les émissions de CO2 résultant de la combustion effrénée des ressources fossiles. Loin de prôner une décélération, les 193 pays membres des Nations unies se donnent au contraire pour objectif d’offrir à tous les hommes dans les 15 ans à venir un niveau de vie proche de celui des plus riches. Les objectifs de développement durable (ODD) adoptés par le PNUD sont seuls à même de le permettre. Ils s’appuient sur un appel au développement des énergies neutres en carbone d’autant plus nécessaire que les ressources en hydrocarbures s’épuiseront dans les 50 années à venir et celles du charbon et de l’uranium dans un siècle. L’alternative nucléaire se révèle plus dangereuse encore pour le milieu si bien qu’il n’y a d’autre possibilité que de recourir aux énergies renouvelables (EnR). L’énergie solaire et l’éolien ont ouvert la voie sur les terres émergées mais se heurtent aux contraintes d’espace. Des technologies récentes qui ne représentent encore que 0,03% du mix énergétique mondial connaissent partout dans le monde une progression accélérée, parfois supérieure à 80% l’an, ce sont les Energies Marines Renouvelables (EMR)…

Panorama de l’électricité renouvelable en 2017. RIE ; SER ; Enedis ; ADEeF, février 2018, 51 p. https://t.co/Hdnp456dBk

Etat des lieux détaillé des principales filières de production d’électricité de source renouvelable, tant à l’échelle régionale que nationale.

Limited emission reductions from fuel subsidy removal except in energy-exporting regions / Jessica Jewell, et al., Nature, 554, pp. 229-233, 8 February 2018 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25467

Hopes are high that removing fossil fuel subsidies could help to mitigate climate change by discouraging inefficient energy consumption and levelling the playing field for renewable energy. In September 2016, the G20 countries re-affirmed their 2009 commitment (at the G20 Leaders’ Summit) to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and many national governments are using today’s low oil prices as an opportunity to do so. In practical terms, this means abandoning policies that decrease the price of fossil fuels and electricity generated from fossil fuels to below normal market prices. However, whether the removal of subsidies, even if implemented worldwide, would have a large impact on climate change mitigation has not been systematically explored. Here we show that removing fossil fuel subsidies would have an unexpectedly small impact on global energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions and would not increase renewable energy use by 2030. Subsidy removal would reduce the carbon price necessary to stabilize greenhouse gas concentration at 550 parts per million by only 2–12 per cent under low oil prices. Removing subsidies in most regions would deliver smaller emission reductions than the Paris Agreement (2015) climate pledges and in some regions global subsidy removal may actually lead to an increase in emissions, owing to either coal replacing subsidized oil and natural gas or natural-gas use shifting from subsidizing, energy-exporting regions to non-subsidizing, importing regions. Our results show that subsidy removal would result in the largest CO₂ emission reductions in high-income oil- and gas-exporting regions, where the reductions would exceed the climate pledges of these regions and where subsidy removal would affect fewer people living below the poverty line than in lower-income regions.

Offshore Wind in Europe: Key trends and statistics 2017. Brussels : Wind Europe, Feb. 2018, 38 p. https://windeurope.org/about-wind/statistics/offshore/european-offshore-wind-industry-key-trends-statistics-2017/

Wind energy has transitioned in the last decade from a niche technology to an industrial sector that provides Europe with clean, competitive and reliable energy. In the process Europe has built up a world-beating wind energy industry with turbine manufacturers that lead the global market, developers with an international footprint and unmatched research and innovation capability. This remarkable development has yielded considerable benefits to the European economy, generating revenue to local communities, creating tens of thousands of high skilled jobs and reducing Europe’s fuel import dependency…

Saudi Arabia: Shifting the Goal Posts / Bassam Fattouh. Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Feb. 2018, 6 p. (Oxford energy comment) https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/saudi-arabia-shifting-goal-posts/

While the market has been focused on short-term issues such as OPEC’s success in rebalancing the market in 2018; its exit strategy after the expiry of the deal; and the risk that the market over-tightens, OPEC and its dominant player Saudi Arabia have been keen to shift the market focus towards the longer term. The key message that emerged from the latest OPEC/Non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee is that producers shouldn’t limit their efforts to 2018 and instead should aim to extend the declaration of cooperation beyond 2018 in order to assure ‘stakeholders, investors, consumers and the global community that this is something that is here to stay’, and that producers ‘are going to work together’ within a longer framework for cooperation. The latest signal is a very powerful one as it signifies that Saudi Arabia is not only interested in the short-term rebalancing of the market, but is also keen to stabilise long-term expectations about long-run oil prices; and producer behaviour at times of increased supply and demand uncertainty and during structural transformation in the market. In a world in which many are expecting oil demand to peak in the next few decades, the monetization of oil reserves as quickly as possible is being presented as the only ‘rational’ policy for low-cost producers, if they are to avoid holding stranded assets or failing to maximize their long term revenues. This scenario, in which producers compete for market share, is extremely bearish for oil markets both in the long and the short term, as long-term expectations will eventually feed into short-term expectations. It is in this context that Al-Falih’s signal is important: it charts an alternative route in which oil producers would continue to cooperate and restrain output, even as the oil market becomes more competitive. While Saudi Arabia is charting for the market an alternative story based on cooperation with other producers lasting ‘decades and generations’, the challenges it faces are immense: maintaining cooperation in a more competitive world is very challenging and while producers have the incentive to cooperate, the cooperation between producers needs to take a different shape. For instance, producers should not only be concerned with low oil prices, but also be proactive when prices are too high, as high oil prices induce strong supply and demand responses. But this does not imply that cooperation is not possible or sustainable: As long as their economies are not diversified, the alternative of non-cooperation is also not sustainable. The market is yet to fully internalize the signal and will be looking closely as to whether the Kingdom will follow up with concrete steps to turn the signal into a credible strategy.

Danièle Revel

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: