The Sower's way. Quantifying the Narrowing Net-Energy Pathways to a Global Energy Transition

TL;DR

This paper models energy transition pathways emphasizing the importance of initial energy investments, fossil fuel phase-out timing, and technology energy return, to balance climate goals with economic needs.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model accounting for upfront energy costs and phase-out strategies to identify feasible renewable deployment pathways.

Findings

Optimal renewable installation rates range from 0.12 to 10.4 TWp/year.

Early fossil fuel phase-out requires higher renewable deployment.

Energy return on investment critically influences transition feasibility.

Abstract

Planning the appropriate renewable energy installation rate should balance two partially contradictory objectives: substituting fossil fuels fast enough to stave-off the worst consequences of climate change while maintaining a sufficient net energy flow to support the world's economy. The upfront energy invested in constructing a renewable energy infrastructure subtracts from the net energy available for societal energy needs, a fact typically neglected in energy projections. Modeling feasible energy transition pathways to provide different net energy levels we find that they are critically dependent on the fossil fuel emissions cap and phase-out profile and on the characteristic energy return on energy invested of the renewable energy technologies. The easiest pathway requires installation of renewable energy plants to accelerate from 0.12TWp/year in 2013 to peak between 6.6 and 10.4 TWp/year, for an early or a late fossil-fuel phase-out respectively in order for emissions to stay within the recommended CO2 budget.