My blog

Tag: renewables

  • Renewable Energy Tipping Point – A Powerful Shift in Investment

    Renewable Energy Investment, Dinesh Dhamija

    The world is witnessing a dramatic surge in solar energy generation, driven by falling costs and a newfound enthusiasm for renewables in China. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), clean energy investment is expected to double that of fossil fuels in 2024. “For every dollar going to fossil fuels today, almost two dollars are invested in clean energy,” says IEA executive director Fatih Birol. The figures are staggering: $1 trillion for fossil fuels compared to $2 trillion in clean energy, which includes renewables, nuclear power, electric vehicles, power grids, energy storage, low-emission fuels, and energy efficiency improvements.

    Solar Energy Growth and the Renewable Energy Tipping Point
    The cost of solar technology has plummeted by 30 percent over the past two years, leading to a rapid expansion of solar farms across China and the United States. In the first four months of 2024 alone, the US saw nearly 8GW of new solar capacity and an additional 1.8GW from wind energy. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reports that more than 99 percent of new US generating capacity during this period came from renewable sources. This impressive growth underscores the Renewable Energy Tipping Point, as the global energy market pivots towards cleaner and more sustainable options.

    As renewable energy costs continue to decline, this trend is expected to accelerate. Despite efforts by the oil, gas, and coal industries to influence policymakers and argue for the continued use of hydrocarbons, the economics of power generation increasingly favor renewables. The question arises: why pay more for an energy source that harms both health and the environment?

    Global Investment and the Future of Renewable Energy
    Global investment in low-carbon electricity is forecasted to reach $900 billion in 2024, ten times higher than the investment in gas and coal power generation. In the United States, renewable energy capacity is projected to surpass natural gas by 2027. This shift will highlight whether countries are committed to outdated fossil fuel generation or are embracing more progressive energy policies that benefit their citizens.

    This transition presents a curious challenge for politicians like Donald Trump, who have historically been anti-renewables. If Trump were to be re-elected in November, he would face a burgeoning boom in clean energy generation, potentially challenging his previous stances. The broader question remains: how will political leaders worldwide respond to this unstoppable trend?

    The Irrepressible Shift Towards Renewable Energy
    The IEA notes that investment in fossil fuels remains higher than desired, with oil and gas companies allocating just 4 percent of their investment budgets to clean energy, despite their claims of being part of the solution. The agency urges governments to adhere to its target of tripling renewable energy generation by 2030. This goal, while ambitious, is crucial for mitigating climate change and ensuring a sustainable future.

    While more can always be done, the undeniable and accelerating flow of funds into renewable energy has indeed reached a tipping point. Soon, it will seem absurd to invest in anything else. This shift not only marks a significant economic change but also signals a broader societal transformation towards sustainability.

    Dinesh Dhamija, who founded and sold the online travel agency ebookers.com before serving as a Member of the European Parliament, has since established the largest solar PV and hydrogen businesses in Romania. Dhamija’s career transition from travel to renewable energy underscores the potential for innovative leaders to drive significant change in emerging industries. His latest book, The Indian Century, is now available to buy on Amazon at The Indian Century.

     

  • Electrifying Europe from the Black Sea to Brussels

    Dinesh Dhamija

     

    Plans are afoot to connect Western and Eastern European with the Black and Caspian Seas via a 1200km-long cable, exporting renewable energy from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Romania.

     

    The ‘Highway of Green Energy’, as Romanian energy boss George Niculescu called it, will cost around €4 billion and deliver 1.3GW of electricity once it launches in the early 2030s. The engineering challenges of the project are daunting: it will be the world’s longest cable of its type, with 700km of the length installed under the seabed. It also depends upon Georgia and Azerbaijan both turbocharging their renewable energy generation and export capacity. There are security challenges, not least from the Russian navy, which could try to sabotage the undersea section. Even finding such a huge amount of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) cable is a major undertaking.

     

    On the plus side, the project promises to increase energy security for the whole of Europe at a time of anxiety over Russian energy exports. It adds to the momentum to develop renewable energy resources and to foster cooperation between nations in the region. Azerbaijan sees a huge renewable energy future for itself. President Ilham Aliyev talks of a potential 27GW of onshore wind and solar power and 157GW of offshore wind power in the Caspian Sea. In 2023 Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary signed an agreement to develop the project, with Armenia and Bulgaria later expressing their interest in collaborating. This was a diplomatic breakthrough, since Armenia and Azerbaijan spent 35 years locked in a territorial conflict, which was only resolved in 2023.

     

    The idea of Hungary helping to cut Russia out of European energy markets, given Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s support for Vladimir Putin, is surprising. Turkey could also have a role to play, both as a transit nation for the cable and as an energy market. As so often, the success of such projects is as much to do with politics as economics or energy. The 2023 agreement included a signing ceremony at which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis stood next to the Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, together with the Georgian, Hungarian and Romanian Prime Ministers.

     

    There were no firm commitments, no fixed budgets or timescales, just a vague plan to explore an idea. But it was a hell of a photo opportunity. What the plan underscores is a determination at the highest level of each country to pursue energy independence from Russia, while building an interconnected regional network and to invest in renewable resources.

     

    These are all laudable aims. Bring on the mega-cable!

     

    Dinesh Dhamija founded, built and sold online travel agency ebookers.com, before serving as a Member of the European Parliament. Since then, he has created the largest solar PV and hydrogen businesses in Romania. Dinesh’s latest book is The Indian Century – buy it from Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1738441407/

     

  • Letter from Australia: Ben Murphy on the coal debate

    Ben Murphy

    Sitting on this little red patch of dirt in the South Pacific Ocean, I’ve been trying to get some perspective on the craziness that’s upon us.

    How to make sense of the craziness in the news? One place to start is the global coal debate. The first thing to understand here is the basic difference between metallurgical (coking) coal for steel-making and other coals for energy production, concrete and paper manufacturing, to name only a few. Without this distinction the climate change discussion risks creating significant dangers, and the conversation around ceasing coal production will have an adverse effect on all of us. That’s because of these two coal sources is crucial to the existence of man kind.

    Let’s start with the basic question of where coal comes from. There are many varieties of coal in the world, ranging from brown coal or lignite to anthracite, also known as hard coal. All coal is formed when dead plant matter submerged in swamp environments is subjected to the geological forces of heat and pressure over hundreds of millions of years. Over time, the plant matter transforms from moist, low-carbon peat, to coal, an energy- and carbon-dense black or brownish-black sedimentary rock.

    That means there are two broad types of coal. In the first place, thermal coal makes up for about 65 per cent of all global coal production, also known as ‘steaming coal’ or just ‘coal’. This is widely used as the principal means of generating electricity in much of the world. It’s reliable and stable as a base load energy source and forms part of the energy cycle which includes nuclear, hydro, wind and solar energies to name a few. This is the source of much of the debate around finding renewable energy resources.

    But thermal coal must be distinguished from coking coal, also known as metallurgical coal. This is used to create coke, one of the two irreplaceable inputs for the production of steel, the other being iron ore. The property which really sets coking coals apart from other coals is its caking ability, which is the specific property required to make coke suitable for steel making.

    Now, coke is produced by heating coking coals in a coke oven in a reducing atmosphere. This is known as the caking process. This refined coking coal is then used in blast furnaces along with iron ore as the base minerals to make steel (pig iron).

    So, what will happen if those who win the argument and coal mining becomes phased out altogether?

    Well, in a world where coal-mining stops altogether, there would be an obvious and undesirable side effect: we would stop steel production. That would mean no more high-rise buildings, football stadiums, bridges, cars (Telsa included), trains, planes, air conditioning, computers, mobile phones, solar panels, wind turbines, power stations, refrigeration, hospitals, ambulances, shipping, recycling – and of course the needle used in the syringe that vaccinated you against the Covid-19 virus. It’s a scary but real prospect.

    Humans rely on steel, we have been making it for over 3,000 years. It’s in every facet of our lives and without it we stop. Transportation, communications, food production, economies and modern medicine rely on it. Take away metallurgical coal and you stop steel production.

    Here, we take a breath. There are smart minds looking to alternative fossil-free steel-making processes such as hydrogen steel which is gaining traction and significant investment as a future process. But realistically, we’re decades away from producing steel on anything like the scale we do today.

    Besides, so long as developing and emerging economies such as China, India and Indonesia are dependent on the production of steel – and so long as steel is heavily reliant on metallurgical coal and iron ore – it would seem the debate about stopping coal mining is in some sense a misguided one.

    It seems certain then that coal-mining will remain for some time to some degree. Thermal Coal and most non-renewable energy resources will be slowly phased down as we find and implement renewable alternatives. That’s a good thing, but it will take some time.

    If we agree that steel is important and therefore metallurgical coal must remain in our lives, then we have the parameters of a sensible debate. Perhaps we need to also start at the level of language by referring to thermal coal as ‘energy coal’ and ‘metallurgical coal’ as ‘steel coal’.

    The writer is the founding Director of AMC Supponor