Renewables meet energy realities in a recent International Energy Agency (IEA) report.
For anyone championing the renewable energy agenda, there is more light on the horizon; for energy realists, there’s a lot of business as usual.
In its inaugural World Energy Investment report, the IEA noted that global energy investment in 2015 was US$1.8 trillion. That’s down 8% from 2014.
Oil and gas continue to represent close to 50% of that investment, but the IEA pointed out that electricity investment hit a record US$690 billion, driven in large part by the US$290 billion that flowed into wind, solar and hydropower. Renewables, the global energy organization stated, “are reshaping the electricity system.” Investment in energy efficiency, up 6% in 2015 compared with 2014, is also helping reduce energy demand and pollution. That’s all good news for the world’s cleaner, more efficient energy system aspirations.
However, fossil fuels remain the world’s dominant energy sources and will for the foreseeable future.
While the energy role for fossil-fuel pariah coal is decreasing in Europe and other regions, its affordability and availability are increasing its investment appeal in rapidly accelerating economic engines like India. The IEA also pointed out that investment in renewable energy sources often requires additional funding in networks to integrate them into power grids.
It concluded that, while investment in renewables is rising, neither it nor the innovation in technology needed to achieve climate change and energy security objectives is rising fast enough.
The economic wherewithal to drive that innovation will continue to reside in fossil fuels. Canada can play a big part in powering that initiative, but only if its energy riches are allowed to reach world markets.
Despite what one-dimensional, anti-fossil fuel factions would have the world believe, oil, gas and coal are not only critical to the current global economy but also critical to helping the world migrate to cleaner forms of energy.
