Please visit my twitter account for more frequent updates

I admit that I haven’t written posts here very often, lately.

For more frequent updates (and my thoughts) on energy and ecology, please visit my twitter account.

https://twitter.com/parkhun 

Best,

HP

Countries by GDP per capita (in PPP dollars), estimated by IMF in October 2020

Gross domestic product per capita, current prices

(Expressed in GDP in PPP dollars per person)

Source: IMF. (2020). World Economic Outlook Database, October 2020 Edition. International Monetary Fund.

	1995	2000	2005	2010	2015	2020	2025
Macao SAR			58,907	96,639	109,014	58,931	140,447
Luxembourg	47,789	65,410	79,622	90,741	104,976	112,875	134,001
Singapore	35,130	43,833	58,717	75,294	86,975	95,603	115,445
Qatar	64,710	96,677	116,805	145,583	97,847	91,897	114,095
Ireland	19,816	31,957	42,619	43,920	68,860	89,383	112,201
Switzerland	33,996	40,537	47,143	54,927	64,275	68,340	78,445
Norway	36,534	46,042	55,851	60,767	60,190	64,856	78,375
Brunei Darussalam	66,423	68,194	76,650	80,660	62,922	61,816	76,480
United States	28,671	36,318	44,026	48,403	56,849	63,051	76,475
Hong Kong SAR	24,118	28,057	37,920	48,991	56,267	58,165	72,455
Denmark	27,367	33,751	39,769	43,199	49,265	57,781	70,345
Netherlands	25,692	33,566	39,085	45,269	50,419	57,101	68,924
San Marino				63,044	56,138	56,690	68,730
Austria	24,739	30,910	36,793	42,461	49,955	55,406	67,025
Taiwan Province of China	15,493	21,485	28,753	38,400	46,911	54,020	66,459
Germany	24,765	29,477	33,947	40,097	47,622	53,571	66,366
Iceland	20,980	28,027	36,658	39,366	49,109	54,482	63,657
Sweden	22,825	29,427	36,823	42,494	48,858	52,477	62,654
United Arab Emirates	87,593	102,898	109,065	67,123	62,748	58,466	61,855
Belgium	23,545	29,143	35,215	40,158	46,365	50,114	61,683
Australia	22,973	28,998	36,047	41,689	46,407	50,845	60,427
Finland	20,197	27,766	34,932	39,353	42,570	49,334	59,754
Malta	15,867	19,336	22,827	28,401	37,922	43,087	57,561
Canada	23,708	29,949	36,243	40,013	44,703	47,569	57,306
France	23,203	28,580	33,587	37,361	42,289	45,454	57,035
Bahrain	36,745	43,970	45,418	47,112	45,627	49,057	56,268
Korea	12,207	16,806	23,469	30,985	37,908	44,292	55,810
United Kingdom	21,016	26,553	33,314	36,134	42,522	44,288	54,780
Saudi Arabia	38,539	40,253	48,145	51,264	49,637	46,273	53,135
Czech Republic	14,175	16,914	23,118	28,007	33,933	40,293	52,916
Lithuania	6,851	9,704	16,513	20,615	28,824	38,605	50,899
Japan	23,751	26,956	31,776	35,149	40,448	41,637	50,071
Spain	18,393	23,905	29,218	31,594	34,939	38,143	49,797
Slovenia	13,511	18,032	23,938	28,178	31,647	38,506	49,708
Italy	24,341	29,242	33,593	35,402	36,870	40,066	49,467
Israel	17,040	20,965	23,523	29,066	35,488	39,126	48,618
Estonia	8,208	12,446	20,453	22,520	29,397	37,033	48,424
New Zealand	18,117	21,950	27,601	31,399	37,051	41,072	48,089
Cyprus	18,797	23,418	30,095	33,761	31,747	39,079	48,057
Kuwait	49,090	51,806	63,497	61,763	43,308	41,735	44,697
Poland	8,273	11,796	15,315	21,336	26,843	33,739	44,611
Portugal	15,987	20,675	23,677	26,635	29,669	33,131	43,923
Slovak Republic	9,740	12,427	17,867	24,843	29,938	32,184	43,063
Hungary	11,209	14,224	19,987	21,932	26,633	32,434	42,817
Latvia	6,029	8,873	15,583	17,715	24,724	30,579	42,002
The Bahamas	21,335	27,280	30,900	31,670	34,342	33,808	41,918
Puerto Rico	17,877	22,961	29,333	30,925	34,007	34,998	41,855
Romania	7,900	8,294	12,819	17,071	21,566	30,141	40,125
Greece	15,601	19,821	26,378	28,143	26,810	29,045	38,260
Croatia	9,685	12,641	17,406	19,748	23,011	27,681	38,042

Cost of Energy Comparison, Including Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE)—2020 Update

I updated the list in a new post for the year of 2020. Please move to the post cited below.

Park, H. (2021). Cost of Energy Comparison, Including Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE)—2021 Update. Energy and Ecology. http://j.mp/LCOE-2021

We need clean and low-carbon energy

We need ‘clean and low-carbon’ energy, NOT ‘dirty and low-carbon’ energy.

Why do we have to give up the ‘clean’ part, while we can keep it?

An Excellent 2019 Book for Studying Pathways to Achieve the Goals of the Paris Agreement

I found an excellent book for studying pathways to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Its contents are excellent, of course. In addition, it is an open access book (CC BY 4.0).

Before formally introducing the book, I want to make it clear: What are the goals of the Paris Agreement? The most important of the goals is:
"Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change"

I didn't read the whole book yet. But those figures and tables I've flipped through tell us reasonable but urgent conclusions.

The book:

Sven Teske. (Ed.). (2019). Achieving the Paris Climate Agreement Goals: Global and Regional 100% Renewable Energy Scenarios with Non-energy GHG Pathways for +1.5°C and +2°C. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. [Full-text at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05843-2]

Contents

1 Introduction.................................................... 1
Sven Teske and Thomas Pregger

2 State of Research............................................... 5
Sven Teske, Malte Meinshausen, and Kate Dooley

3 Methodology.................................................... 25
Sven Teske, Thomas Pregger, Sonja Simon, Tobias Naegler,
Johannes Pagenkopf, Bent van den Adel, Malte Meinshausen,
Kate Dooley, C. Briggs, E. Dominish, D. Giurco, Nick Florin,
Tom Morris, and Kriti Nagrath

4 Mitigation Scenarios for Non-energy GHG........................ 79
Malte Meinshausen and Kate Dooley

5 Main Assumptions for Energy Pathways........................... 93
Thomas Pregger, Sonja Simon, Tobias Naegler, and Sven Teske

6 Transport Transition Concepts................................. 131
Johannes Pagenkopf, Bent van den Adel, Özcan Deniz,
and Stephan Schmid

7 Renewable Energy Resource Assessment.......................... 161
Sven Teske, Kriti Nagrath, Tom Morris, and Kate Dooley

8 Energy Scenario Results....................................... 175
Sven Teske, Thomas Pregger, Tobias Naegler, Sonja Simon,
Johannes Pagenkopf, Bent van den Adel, and Özcan Deniz

9 Trajectories for a Just Transition of the Fossil Fuel Industry 403
Sven Teske

10 Just Transition: Employment Projections for the 2.0°C
and 1.5°C Scenarios............................................. 413
Elsa Dominish, Chris Briggs, Sven Teske, and Franziska Mey

11 Requirements for Minerals and Metals for 100%
Renewable Scenarios............................................. 437
Damien Giurco, Elsa Dominish, Nick Florin, Takuma Watari,
and Benjamin McLellan

12 Implications of the Developed Scenarios for Climate
Change.......................................................... 459
Malte Meinshausen

13 Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendations.................. 471
Sven Teske, Thomas Pregger, Johannes Pagenkopf,
Bent van den Adel, Özcan Deniz, Malte Meinshausen,
and Damien Giurco

Annex........................................................... 489

Cost of Energy Comparison, Including Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE)—2019 Update

I updated the list in a new post for the year of 2020. Please move to the post cited below.

Park, H. (2020). Cost of Energy Comparison, Including Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE)—2020 Update. Energy and Ecology. https://j.mp/LCOE-2020

Three takeaways from UNEP’s “The Emissions Gap Report 2018”

A few days ago, the United Nations Environment Programme released the latest version of its annual global climate action assessment, “The Emissions Gap Report 2018.”

I picked up three takeaways from the report:

(A) “Global peaking of emissions by 2020 is crucial for achieving the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement” ⋯ [Yet,] “global emissions are not estimated to peak by 2030, let alone by 2020.”

(B) ⋯ “this original level of ambition [of the current Nationally Determined Contributions] needs to be roughly tripled for the 2 °C scenario and increased around fivefold for the 1.5 °C scenario.”

(C) “If international cooperative initiatives [of Non-state and Subnational Actors] are scaled up to their fullest potential, the impact could be ⋯ up to 19 GtCO₂e/year by 2030. If realized, this would be instrumental in bridging the emissions gap to 2 °C pathways.”


Figure Above: Explaining takeaways (A) and (B).


Figure Above: Explaining takeaway (C).

Source: UNEP. (2018). The Emissions Gap Report 2018. Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). [Full-text at http://j.mp/UNEP-EGR2018]