The Economic Competitiveness of Renewable Energy: Pathways to 100% Global Coverage

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 The Changing World

We are living in a world of fundamental changes: since industrialization started with the steam engine in the 1770s by James Watt we have experienced phenomenal growth in many areas. Let’s take the global population as an example, which grew from 1 billion in 1800 to 3 billion in 1960 and to more than 7 billion today. Energy consumption grew from 3 PWh (10¹² kWh) in the mid 1800 to ~150 PWh today, CO₂ emissions grew from ~0.2 Gt (billion tons) in early 1800 to ~30 Gt (fossil and other) today. The mentioned increases between 1800 and today are an impressive factor of ~7, ~50 and ~150 for the global population, energy use and CO₂ emissions, respectively.

Until the 1970s, there was only little concern over whether there should be any worries about the finiteness of resources. This changed after the first serious publication on energy and material scarcity in form of the report “Limits to growth” by the Club of Rome in 1972 [1-1] and, coincidentally, the first oil price shock in 1973. Until recently, only concerned individuals and dedicated organizations highlighted the finiteness of traditional primary energy sources – now the IEA (International Energy Agency) points to the same fact in their latest World Energy Outlook. An atmosphere of change has evolved, due to concerns over climate change which will ultimately have a dramatic impact on the human population and which is caused by increased CO₂ concentration mainly by burning fossil ...