The world is currently filled with government-, corporate-, and billionaire-funded organizations advocating for a transformation of the energy system to “clean” and “abundant” renewables. In my post a week ago, I described the International Energy Agency — a consortium of governments (now 40+ of them, including all the major ones) originally formed in the 70s to combat the OPEC oil embargo of the time, but since transformed into a “a center of advocacy for elimination of fossil fuels from the world’s energy supply.” For today, here’s another one you may or may not have heard of — the Energy Institute. EI is a London-based advocacy organization set up under the UK charity laws. It appears to receive its funding largely from corporations and wealthy individuals. On its home page, it describes its mission as “creating a better energy future for our members and society by accelerating a just global energy transition to net zero.”
Let’s review the latest from these two groups.
In May 2023, the IEA issued a big Report (141 pages) with the title “World Energy Investment 2023.” They also put out a separate summary document called “Overview and Key Findings.” The main point of this Report is to document and celebrate the tremendous swing over the past decade in world energy investment, away fossil fuels and into “renewables,” particularly wind and solar. From the summary document:
The recovery from the slump caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the response to the global energy crisis have provided a significant boost to clean energy investment. Comparing our estimates for 2023 with the data for 2021, annual clean energy investment has risen much faster than investment in fossil fuels over this period (24% vs 15%). . . . We estimate that around USD 2.8 trillion will be invested in energy in 2023. More than USD 1.7 trillion is going to clean energy, including renewable power, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emission fuels, efficiency improvements and end-use renewables and electrification. The remainder, slightly over USD 1 trillion, is going to unabated fossil fuel supply and power. . . .
IEA provides the following chart to illustrate how investment in fossil fuels and related infrastructure has shrunk from the majority of world energy investment in 2015, to a rapidly diminishing minority in 2023:
To be fair, not all of the $1.7 trillion of estimated 2023 investment in what they call “clean energy” is in wind turbines and solar panels. Other charts make clear that the $1.7 trillion figure includes other things like grids, storage, and even nuclear. How much 2023 investment is going into just the wind and solar facilities for the electric power sector? This chart would put that figure at close to $700 billion:
Meanwhile, much of the investment in what they call “grids,” and all of the investment in storage, is being made to to accommodate the addition of wind and solar generation to the electricity supply system. Add most of the nearly $400 billion investment in “grids and storage” to the nearly $700 billion in “renewables,” and you get something close to or even more than $1 trillion per year. This amount is close to, or even more than, the total amount from the previous chart of investment in fossil fuels in all sectors (not just electricity generation).
And the massive investment in renewables has been going on for a while. According to the first chart above, the amount of investment in “clean energy” first exceeded the investment in fossil fuels in 2016, and the gap has widened greatly in more recent years.
So clearly fossil fuels must be fading quickly from the world energy picture. True? You won’t find the answer in this IEA Report. Therefore we turn to EI’s Statistical Review of World Energy, just released on June 26. (It appears that this Statistical Review is the annual publication previously issued by the oil major BP; EI has now assumed responsibility for the publication.) This Statistical Review contains comprehensive final figures for world energy production and consumption in 2022.
Things start out looking rosy for wind and solar. From the “five key takeaways” at the beginning of the press release:
The strong pace of deployment of renewables in the power sector continued, driven by solar and wind. 2022 saw the largest ever increase in wind and solar new build capacity. Together they reached a record 12% share of power generation, with solar up 25% and wind up 13.5%.
So, then, fossil fuel generation must be down? Actually, no. Pay attention to the spin:
Global electricity generation increased by 2.3% in 2022. . . . Renewables (excluding hydro) met 84% of net electricity demand growth in 2022.
In other words, the massive investments in wind and solar additions for electricity generation were not even sufficient to keep up with demand growth, let alone displace even a bit of existing fossil fuel generation. Even in the electricity sector, fossil fuels continued to grow. And the electricity sector is only about a quarter of primary energy consumption.
Here’s the big picture:
This content was originally published here.
