I don’t know if you’ve noticed but a new trend seems to be emerging in the energy space. Specifically, in the so-called low-carbon space. More specifically, in the media coverage of the low-carbon space. I call it the cope trend. Blame Twitter.
Consider the UN’s Antonio Guterres’s recent outpouring of anti-oil tweets.
These are just the most recent and the underlying message in all of them is the same: things are not turning out the way we want them, so we’re coping aggressively.
Now, you’ll say that Guterres is nothing but a figurehead for the transition camp and that’s a fact but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be paying attention to what he says. Because of that underlying message.
The same message came from the CEO of Ørsted a few days ago. This time, it was dressed as a demand for more subsidies from the UK for a new offshore wind project. The world’s largest offshore wind project, to be precise.
You know how the UK and the EU cheerfully tell us that they’ll make energy cheap by locking in long-term prices for wind and solar with contracts for difference? Right. So, apparently, according to Mads Nipper, that wouldn’t work for the companies making the wind and solar. Because they wouldn’t be able to turn in a profit.
Let me quote the FT: “But he added that the electricity prices the UK government offers to developers are not high enough to absorb surging costs and ministers may struggle to secure the rapid capacity growth they need to hit climate targets.”
Surging costs? What surging costs? Wasn’t it the IEA’s Fatih Birol who just said this month that “Solar and wind are leading the rapid expansion of the new global energy economy. This year, the world is set to add a record-breaking amount of renewables to electricity systems – more than the total power capacity of Germany and Spain combined”?
Why yes, it was. After which he proceeded to say that “The global energy crisis has shown renewables are critical for making energy supplies not just cleaner but also more secure and affordable – and governments are responding with efforts to deploy them faster.”
You have to wonder if the forecasters, such as Birol, have any communication whatsoever with the companies involved in making those forecasts materialise. It seems the answer is no, based on the above vastly different takes on the future of wind and solar. Or perhaps they are not so vastly different.
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