According to a recent study by an energy systems specialist at Aarhus University in Denmark, the European Union’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and support a 1.5°C limit on average global warming will require the continent to install 400 gigawatts of new solar and wind per year between 2025 and 2035, ramp up hydrogen production, and develop viable carbon capture technology.
According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s EurekAlert! news service, the analysis published last month in the journal Joule indicates that the additional expenditure to accomplish 1.5°C would be less than the cost of permitting global warming to reach 2°.
According to Marta Victoria, an associate professor of energy systems modeling and solar photovoltaics at Aarhus’ Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, the study reveals that “we can achieve the aim of the Paris accord, but there is a price to pay.” A 2°C scenario may get away with a lower yearly investment rate in energy transition technologies, but “if we assume that the 2°C option suffers from more catastrophic climate change impacts, the economic repercussions of this will surpass the costs of the 1.5°C option,” according to the report.
Energy efficiency, zoning, urban form adjustments, support for transit, walking and bicycling, and other policies that would permanently cut energy consumption appear to be absent from Joule’s abstract. It estimates a social cost of carbon of €120 per tonne for a 1.5 to 1.6°C route or at least €300 per tonne for a 1.5°C budget to be “cost optimum.”
The yearly objective of 400 GW “aligns nicely with the Danish Government’s ambition of four times more wind and solar energy by 2030,” Victoria stated, “but the goal also applies to other European nations.” However, it is significantly in excess of Europe’s previous maximum annual renewable energy deployment of 50 GW.
According to EurekAlert!, “the deployment of renewable energy will lead to full electrification of European society,” with sectors such as aviation, shipping, and freight transport having “a tremendous demand for green fuels and chemicals with a high energy density.” Victoria identified hydrogen as a storage technology that will aid utilities in balancing networks with a strong reliance on distributed renewables, and she described meeting the Paris objectives as “nearly impossible” without working CCS technology.
