Sep 16, 2019
Even if oil prices have recovered from their plunge in 2014, this article argues that the oil industry is unlikely to return to the status quo ex ante. Two profound shifts in technology and markets are dramatically changing the longer-term outlook for the oil industry. In the short term, traditional producers will feel persistent pressure from the shale revolution, a disruptive technology that has altered the cost curve and elasticity of oil supply. In the medium term, the industry must confront a structural slowdown and eventual peak in demand owing to innovation and evolving consumer preferences, related in part to concerns over climate change. Together, these shifts reflect a new energy order in which oil is no longer an exhaustible resource, new trading patterns emerge, and oil prices exhibit greater short-term volatility amid a long-term declining trend. These new rules of the game force us to reconsider some of the theories and concepts of the international political economy of oil. We flag three key political effects from these market shifts: (1) key oil-producing states face economic and political turmoil; (2) the Organization of the Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) cannot influence the price of oil in the long term by cutting output; and (3) power is redistributed in the international system.
Sep 16, 2019
What is the relationship between political institutions and air pollution generated by the power sector? Here we focus on the association between democracy and power generated from coal, the most polluting of all fossil fuels. Using a new dataset on coal-fired power plants commissioned between 1980 and 2016 in 71 countries, we find that the relationship between democracy and coal varies according to the environmental Kuznets curve logic. Democratic political institutions at lower levels of economic development are correlated with increased commissioning of coal power plants, as governments seek to appeal to an electorate prioritizing economic growth and affordable energy access. As a country becomes richer, democracy comes to have a negative association with coal power, as clean air becomes a more salient issue for the public.
Sep 16, 2019
Given the size and growth prospects of the Indian economy, the Indian power sector plays a key role in the global effort to mitigate climate change. Here we use the January 2017 edition of the Coal Tracker database to understand the future prospects for Indian coal. Using improved lower and upper bounds for potential construction and capacity factors, we find that lifetime emissions over the next five decades from Indian coal-fired power generation could range from 18 to 39 gigatons. The single most important way to reduce these emissions is to reduce the average lifespan of plants, as neither falling capacity factors nor lower construction rates bring India’s power sector in line with the goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius. Our estimations show that reducing the lifespan of plants from 40 to 30 years alone can decrease cumulative CO2 emissions by approximately 12 gigatons, which is equivalent to saving 5.8% of the global carbon budget for the two degrees Celsius target.
Sep 16, 2019
Realizing the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 2 °C by the end of this century will most likely require deployment of carbon-negative technologies. It is particularly important that China, as the world’s top carbon emitter, avoids being locked into carbon-intensive, coal-fired power-generation technologies and undertakes a smooth transition from high- to negative-carbon electricity production. We focus here on deploying a combination of coal and biomass energy to produce electricity in China using an integrated gasification cycle system combined with carbon capture and storage (CBECCS). Such a system will also reduce air pollutant emissions, thus contributing to China’s near-term goal of improving air quality. We evaluate the bus-bar electricity-generation prices for CBECCS with mixing ratios of crop residues varying from 0 to 100%, as well as associated costs for carbon mitigation and cobenefits for air quality. We find that CBECCS systems employing a crop residue ratio of 35% could produce electricity with net-zero life-cycle emissions of greenhouse gases, with a levelized cost of electricity of no more than 9.2 US cents per kilowatt hour. A carbon price of approximately $52.0 per ton would make CBECCS cost-competitive with pulverized coal power plants. Therefore, our results provide critical insights for designing a CBECCS strategy in China to harness near-term air-quality cobenefits while laying the foundation for achieving negative carbon emissions in the long run.
Sep 16, 2019
Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, both national and subnational governments have been encouraged to submit Mid-Century Strategies, outlining how they would reach their deep decarbonization goals. However, research on the design and potential of these strategies has been very limited. To address this shortcoming, here we assess 13 such strategies – six national, seven subnational – in a comparative fashion. We find that the energy-economy-climate models underpinning these strategies are generally of high quality, though national jurisdictions generally performed better. However, most strategies are not plausible without significant changes to policy, and the industrial sector in particular presents a major limitation. The strategies are helpful in revealing this gap, but much works remains to be done for plausible mid-century decarbonization trajectories to become a reality. We also find that public input and societal participation in strategy building were a double-edged sword depending on the constellation of domestic preferences.
Governmental Mid-Century Strategies for deep decarbonization are underpinned by high-quality energy-economy-climate models
Governments’ proposed strategies require significant new policies, as even among jurisdictions that have an MCS, extant policies are insufficient to achieve deep decarbonization
No jurisdiction studied has yet put forward a plausible decarbonization policy for the industrial sector
Public input and societal participation can be a double-edged sword: they can increase durability of the strategy but also enable opposing forces to mobilize against ambitious changes
