Issue 14, 2024

Assessing the realism of clean energy projections

Abstract

Although pivotal in the climate change discourse, integrated assessment models (IAMs) often face criticism for their overly optimistic projections. In this contribution, we critically examine IAM limitations in the context of clean energy technologies and critical materials. IAMs project a very substantial increase in clean energy technology deployment by 2050. When considering diverse technology types and their material requirements – information missing from IAMs – we find that this may represent a substantial 571-fold surge in selenium demand and a 531-fold increase in gallium, figures that seem difficult to achieve. This challenges not only the capacity of material reserves but also the rate at which these can be produced. To address this gap, we propose establishing a direct link between industrial assets and required materials through simple constraints on material availability. We illustrate the capabilities of this approach by estimating the achievable clean energy capacities by 2050. We find potential shortages in the capacity developed for clean energy technologies compared to IAM projections that may result in deviations from the Paris agreement target by 0.06–0.95 °C. Therefore, incorporating material constraints and technological diversity into IAMs presents a valuable opportunity to enhance their predictive accuracy and guide evidence-based policymaking. Including these aspects in IAMs and decision-support tools will make them more useful in shaping a sustainable yet realistic energy sector.

Graphical abstract: Assessing the realism of clean energy projections

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 Feb 2024
Accepted
17 Jun 2024
First published
18 Jun 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Energy Environ. Sci., 2024,17, 5241-5259

Assessing the realism of clean energy projections

F. Rostami, P. Patrizio, L. Jimenez, C. Pozo and N. Mac Dowell, Energy Environ. Sci., 2024, 17, 5241 DOI: 10.1039/D4EE00747F

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements