Fossil Fuels and Emissions Forecast To Continue To Rise – BP Energy Outlook

By Paul Homewood

 

This year’s BP Energy Outlook is now out:

 

 https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/energy-outlook.html

 

These are the highlights:

The speed of the energy transition is uncertain and the new Outlook considers a range of scenarios. Its evolving transition (ET) scenario, which assumes that government policies, technologies and societal preferences evolve in a manner and speed similar to the recent past, expects:

• Fast growth in developing economies drives up global energy demand a third higher.
• The global energy mix is the most diverse the world has ever seen by 2040, with oil, gas, coal and non-fossil fuels each contributing around 25%.
• Renewables are by far the fastest-growing fuel source, increasing five-fold and providing around 14% of primary energy.
• Demand for oil grows over much of Outlook period before plateauing in the later years.
• Natural gas demand grows strongly and overtakes coal as the second largest source of energy.
• Oil and gas together account for over half of the world’s energy
• Global coal consumption flatlines with Chinese coal consumption seeming increasingly likely to have plateaued.
• The number of electric cars grows to around 15% of the car parc, but because of the much higher intensity with which they are used, account for 30% of passenger vehicle kilometres.
• Carbon emissions continue to rise, signalling the need for a comprehensive set of actions to achieve a decisive break from the past.

Under the ET scenario, fossil fuel consumption continues to rise steadily from 11354 Mtoe in 2016, to 13308 Mtoe in 2040, an increase of 17%.

 

 

The biggest increases occur in Asia, mainly outside of China. Fossil fuel consumption in the US only falls slightly by 3%. And even in the EU, fossil fuels still account for 59% of primary energy in 2040.

 

 

 

Emissions of CO2 continue to rise till around 2030, after which they level off under the ET scenario.

 

 

The Evolving Transition scenario appears to be the most realistic one, and would reflect pledges made at Paris.

Some of the others look little more than make believe, and derive from BP’s comment in the highlights:

Carbon emissions continue to rise, signalling the need for a comprehensive set of actions to achieve a decisive break from the past.

 

Let’s take a closer look at some of the others:

 

1) ICE ban

This is an interesting one, and is defined as a worldwide ban on ICE car sales from 2040, along with regulations gradually increasing beforehand.

BP assume this will result in BEVs accounting for a third of all car sales in 2030, and two thirds in 2035.

Even though a few countries such as the UK and France are moving in this direction, a worldwide ban is surely pie in the sky.

Yet, even if it happens, it actually makes very little difference to CO2 emissions. BP’s explanation is that fuel efficiency will continue to improve in the intervening years anyway.

 

There is one other aspect to this though. BP assume that the electricity to power the additional EVs will come from renewable energy.

However, in general, energy from wind and solar is usually maximised by the grid, as it would obviously be silly to throw it away. This is certainly true in the UK, the only exception being when wind farms are paid not to supply when it is too windy.

In other words, any additional power needed, over and above what renewables can supply at any given time, would by definition have to come from dispatchable sources, principally fossil fuels.

Under this scenario, EVs may save little or nothing in the way of CO2 emissions.

 

2) Renewables Push

BP describe the assumptions behind this option:

The pace at which renewable energy penetrates the global power system depends partly on the size and persistence of government support. In the ET scenario, support for renewables is largely phased out by mid 2020s. We also consider an alternative scenario in which levels of government support per unit of capacity installed persists around current levels until 2040.

 

 However, again the emissions savings are disappointingly small:

 

This smaller improvement reflects that the ‘renewables push’ policy reduces carbon intensity only by supporting renewables, which has diminishing effectiveness as renewables grow within the power sector causing the cost of balancing intermittency issues to escalate

 

So, the more renewables you have, the more reliable electricity you have to provide as back up. Now who would have thought that?

It is interesting that high levels of subsidy are still needed until 2040 to achieve this higher level of renewable energy. We keep being told that wind and solar power will soon be competitive (well just over the rainbow it seems!). So why do they still need subsidising till 2040?

Even then, emissions in 2040 are still barely below what they are now.

 

3) Faster and Even Faster!

We’re really getting into Cloud Cuckoo Land here!

BP assume, for instance, that the power sector is almost entirely decarbonised by 2040 under this scenario.

To do this would need a sharp increase in carbon prices, which would then encourage greater use of CCS, as well as renewables. There would also need to be a “range of other policies”.

I see no prospect that any country will be prepared to cripple its economy in such a way. Even the lemmings in the EU don’t seem that stupid.

 

BP seem to be operating under a fundamental misunderstanding here.

They state:

Even so, the projected rate of growth [in emissions] is far higher than the sharp decline thought necessary to be consistent with achieving the Paris climate goals. This highlights the need for a more decisive break from the past than implied by the ET scenario.

As we know, although the worlds’ leaders preened themselves when they agreed to limit the increase in global average temperatures to “well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, the Paris Agreement never actually pledged to reduce emissions.

On the contrary, the individual INDCs, according to the UNFCCC themselves,  would result in emissions rising by 12% by 2030.

When faced with the suicidal cost of meeting supposed climate goals, the world backed away and decided that economic growth and standards of living mattered far more.

Why any government should depart from such highly desirable goals, and instead sail away into La La Land is beyond me.