Carbon Tracker-天空的极限—太阳能和风能潜力是全球能源需求的100倍（英文）-2021.5正文版.doc

The skys the limitSolar and wind energy potential is 100 times as much as global energy demandImage behindReportApril 2021THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 2021About Carbon TrackerThe Carbon Tracker Initiative is a team of financial specialists making climate risk real in todays capital markets. Our research to date on unburnable carbon and stranded assets has started a new debate on how to align the financial system in the transition to a low carbon economy.www.carbontracker.org|hellocarbontracker.orgAbout the AuthorsKingsmill Bond Energy strategistKingsmill Bond is the energy strategist for Carbon TrackerHarry Benham Senior adviserHarry Benham works mainly in energy transition roles as Chairman of the London-based think-tank Ember-Climate, co-founder of climate start-ups NewAutoMotive and Subak, and as a transition advisor to Carbon TrackerEd Vaughan Energy StrategistEd Vaughan is a Research Analyst for Carbon Trackers work on New Energy Strategies and the wider impact of the energy transition.Sam Butler-Sloss Research AssociateSam works in the Energy Transition team as a Research Associate. He studied economics at the University of Edinburgh, during which he co-founded the initiative Economists for Future.We are grateful for the advice of Amory Lovins in the preparation of this report.Cover image: Sarah Bond - 'Winds of Change' painting.Readers are encouraged to reproduce material from Carbon Tracker reports for their own publications, as long as they are not being sold commercially. As copyright holder, Carbon Tracker requests due acknowledgement and a copy of the publication. For online use, we ask readers to link to the original resource on the Carbon Tracker website.© Carbon Tracker 2021.THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 2021Table of Contents1Key findings .12Executive Summary .33How to classify renewable energy .133.1The renewable typology .133.2Which renewable energy drives change .143.3How renewable potential has grown over time .153.4How to compare renewables with fossil fuels .183.5Renewable and fossil fuel size .214Technical potential .264.2Solar PV .264.3Solar roofs .294.4Onshore Wind .304.5Offshore wind .334.6Total technical potential .365Economic potential .385.1Solar PV .385.2Solar roofs .425.3Onshore wind .435.4Offshore wind .445.5Total economic potential .456Political potential .466.1How much renewable energy do we need .466.2Solar and wind generation today .476.3Types of country .486.4Countries with limited renewable potential .497What happens next .517.1Countries figure out which is the best renewable resource for them .51THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 20217.2Cheap renewables get used in more ways537.3Incumbency barriers are crossed547.4Exponential growth continues557.5Fossil fuel demand falls577.6Other consequences of the rise of renewables578Appendix 1: Technical potential in context598.1Land requirement compared to fossil fuels598.2Compared to the two great energy transitions598.3Compared to the rise of other energy sources609Appendix 2: Technical potential by region62THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 20211 Key findingsThere is a huge new cheap energy resource available. With current technology and in a subset of available locations we can capture at least 6,700 PWh p.a. from solar and wind, which is more than 100 times global energy demand.The opportunity has only just been unlocked. The collapse in renewable costs in the last three years means that half of this solar and wind technical potential now has economic potential, and by the end of the decade it will be over 90% of it.Land is no constraint. The land required for solar panels alone to provide all global energy is 450,000 km2, 0.3% of the global land area of 149 million km2. That is less than the land required for fossil fuels today, which in the US alone is 126,000 km2, 1.3% of the country.People will take advantage of the cheap energy. Humans specialise in extracting cheap energy, and fast, as witnessed by the rapid development of shale gas. Now the opportunity has been unlocked, expect continued exponential growth of solar and wind deployment.The tide is coming in fast. The technical and economic barriers have been crossed and the only impediment to change is political. Sector by sector and country by country the fossil fuel incumbency is being swamped by the rapidly rising tide of new energy technologies.The fossil fuel era is over. The fossil fuel industry cannot compete with the technology learning curves of renewables, so demand will inevitably fall as solar and wind continue to grow. At the current 15-20% growth rates of solar and wind, fossil fuels will be pushed out of the electricity sector by the mid 2030s and out of total energy supply by 2050.There are four key groups of countries. They range from those with superabundant renewables potential, more than 1,000 times their energy demand like Namibia, all the way down to those with stretched potential of less than 10 times their demand like South Korea.Poor countries are the greatest beneficiaries. They have the largest ratio of solar and wind potential to energy demand, and stand to unlock huge domestic benefits. The continent of Africa for example is a renewables superpower, with 39% of global potential.Germany is a special case. Germany has the third lowest solar and wind technical potential in the world relative to its energy demand. The troubles faced by Germany are therefore highly unusual, and if they can solve them then so can everyone else.We enter a new era. The unlocking of energy reserves 100 times our current demand creates new possibilities for cheaper energy and more local jobs in a more equitable world with far less environmental stress.1THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 20212THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 20212 Executive SummaryWe summarise the report in 10 charts below and provide detailed calculation and sourcing in the rest of the document.2.1What is a Petawatt hour?In this report we use the Petawatt hour (PWh) unit as the primary metric for energy measurement. What then is a PWh? Energy modellers such as BP tend to measure electricity demand in Terawatt hours (TWh) per annum, and a PWh is simply 1,000 times as much electricity as a TWh. To give a sense of how much energy that is, there are some useful points of comparison: Total Japanese demand for electricity in 2019 was 1 PWh. Total global demand for electricity in 2019 was 27 PWh, so 1 PWh is about 4% of the global total. The largest oilfield in the world is Ghawar in Saudi Arabia. That produces 3.8 mbpd of oil which is just under 1 PWh p.a. of electrical energy.2. 1.1 There is a huge new cheap energy resource availableOur focus in this report is on the technical and economic potential of solar and wind. The numbers are enormous. The technical and economic potential of solar and wind is thousands of PWh a year whilst annual electricity demand is just 27 PWh1, and annual energy demand in terms of electrical energy is 65 PWh.21 Source: BP Statistical Review 20202 See below for a discussion on how to count fossil fuel energy. Given the huge amounts of renewables, this rapidly becomes an academic debate.3THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 2021FIGURE 1: SOLAR AND WIND POTENTIAL PWH P.A.Source: BP, Solargis, NREL, Jacobson, Carbon Tracker estimates.2.1.2 Solar and wind potential is far higher than that of fossil fuelsIf you compare the energy sources as a share of reserves versus a share of production you get a sense of the disparity between the two. Solar and wind are almost all the energy reserves, and fossil fuels are almost all the production.4THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 2021FIGURE 2: SHARE OF COMBINED RESERVES AND PRODUCTIONSource: BP, Jacobson, Carbon TrackerTo put the size of the renewable resource in context, consider the worlds largest oilfield of Ghawar in Saudi Arabia. Put up solar panels on the same space as Ghawar (280 km by 30 km), and most countries with that space would be able to generate as much energy in terms of electricity as Ghawar.3The difference of course is that only Saudi Arabia has a Ghawar, but almost every country in the world has enough space to generate 1 PWh p.a. of renewable electricity.2.1.3 The economic potential has only just been revealedThe technical potential was made accessible by developments in the decade after 2005, but it is only in the last five years that this technical potential has become economic. For example, we illustrate below our estimate of the share of the solar technical potential that is economic over time.43 This calculation is easily checked. The Aramco prospectus revealed that Ghawar in 2018 produced 3.8 mbpd of oil. Which is 198mt or 8 EJ of oil. Converted into electricity at 40% efficiency this is 0.9 PWh. The Ghawar oilfield is 280 km by 30 km, so 8,400 km2. Solargis tells us each square metre in Saudi Arabia can generate 0.19 MWh per annum of electricity, adjusted for spacing and local conditions. Thus the space above the Ghawar oilfield could generate 1.6 PWh per annum. The average square metre globally can generate 0.14 MWh per annum, so a Ghawar sized space would generate 1.2 PWh p.a.4 As explained below in more detail5THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 2021FIGURE 3: SOLAR: PERCENTAGE OF TECHNICAL POTENTIAL THAT IS ECONOMICALLY VIABLESource: Carbon Tracker based on data from BNEF, IRENA, Lazard2.1.4 There is plenty of landLand availability is not a major impediment to the rapid global deployment of renewables. Indeed, renewables require less land than fossil fuels. According to Solargis data, the total amount of land that is required to generate all our energy from solar alone is 450,000 km2, or 0.3% of the worlds land surface. Mark Jacobson, Professor of engineering at Stanford,5 has shown that if we deploy wind as well, we would need 0.2% of land for solar PV and 0.5% for the spacing between onshore wind turbines. The chart below shows what share of land would be required to produce all energy from renewables in a range of countries.5 Source: 100% clean, renewable energy and storage for everything, Jacobson, 20216THE SKYS THE LIMITAPRIL 2021FIGURE 4: SHARE OF LAND UNDER SOLAR REQUIRED TO GENERATE ALL ENERGYSource: Solargis, BP Statistical review, Carbon Tracker estimates2.1.5 People will rapidly take advantage of this massive new resourceThe clear lesson of energy history is that people tend rapidly to exploit cheap energy resources when they find them. So expect continued rapid exponential growth of solar and wind energy deployment, especially in light of the build back better movement and the continuous fall in the cost of solar and wind. What that means depends simply on the growth rate of the new technology. The growth rate of solar and wind over the last decade has averaged 21%, and in 2020 it was 19%. There is no evidence of a major slow-down in deployment, and every reason to imagine that growth will be maintained as costs fall and more countries realise what can be done.6We show below a chart of what this means at different illustrative growth rates. It does not take long to break though current levels of energy demand. For example, at a growth rate of 15%, it will take until 2037 for electricit