About a year ago Shell released the Sky Scenario. Sky is designed to explore a challenging but technically possible pathway to achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement, reaching net-zero emissions from energy use by 2070 and an 85% chance of limiting global surface temperature warming to below 2°C in 2100. The scenario also showed the additional action required to limit warming to 1.5°C in 2100 (with a 50% probability). It’s an optimistic vision – effectively involving the “rewiring” of the global economy in just 50 years – but one which is possible technologically, industrially and economically.
Along with the Sky story came a detailed spreadsheet with much of the data behind the scenario available for analysis. Now, that data is available in an online tool to allow for simple selection, extraction and viewing. In addition, Sky highlights and key milestones are also presented through charts and graphs.
For example, say you wanted to look at the development of hydrogen as an energy carrier for heavy industry in Europe. That data can be extracted in three simple steps;
- Select Europe from the world map.
2. Select Total Final Consumption as the topic of interest.
3. Select Heavy Industry as the subtopic.
And then a chart will appear showing the final energy split for heavy industry in Europe through to 2100 in the Sky scenario. In this case, hydrogen consumption is the pink bar and it can be seen growing in the second half of the century, partly replacing some remaining coal and natural gas consumption. This could be hydrogen in iron ore smelting, a process now just staring development.
A comparison chart can be added, for example showing how European heavy industry compares with Africa. The charts will be set to the same scale for easy visualisation. In the Sky scenario it can be seen that African heavy industry exceeds the energy consumption of its European counterpart in about 2060, with hydrogen consumption growing rapidly.
Another feature is the Signposts interactive tool, allowing exploration of key events and signposts, by region, as CO2 emissions shift over time. The chart below illustrates CO2 emissions for China and the cursor is highlighting the expansion of wind power to over 1,000 GW by 2043.
To find out more, just explore the interactive tool on the Shell Scenario website.
You can also join Wim Thomas, Chief Energy Advisor on 10th April 11.00am (BST) / 12.00 (CET) for a webinar on Sky and provide a virtual tour of the new online tool. Please also share this invitation to others who might find the content useful and interesting.
Click here to register to this webinar
How do you consider the potential contribution of deep (6 – 10 km), hot dry rock (HDR) geothermal ? Do you ? If not, why not ?
If, and when, we can bore deep enough, cheap enough — probably using new technology such as “Electro Pulse Boring”, pioneered by researchers at NTNU (NO), CH, RU — with enough drill rigs working worldwide, we could “disrupt and transform” the energy industry, to become at once:
> Benign: CO2-emission-free (CEF), greenhouse-gas-emission (GHG) free
> Inexhaustible
> Affordable: competitive in price and cost — including external costs
> Baseload
> Firm and dispatchable
> Storage inherently free, low-cost, or unnecessary: in the case of deep HDR geothermal, leave the heat in the ground until needed
> Resilient, when subjected to adverse acts of God and man
> Probably more cyberattack resistant than the electricity grid
> Unobtrusive infrastructure; mostly underground; aesthetically welcome
> Relatively safe: acceptable risks in the spectrum of dangers, locally and globally
> Equitable: rather free of monopoly potential
> Distributed: minimizing transmission and distribution infrastructure
> Nearly ubiquitous on Earth
Probably a $ 100 million R&D&D program would develop EPB to about TRL 3 – 5, to allow evaluation of its technical and commercial potential.
If promising, let’s deploy a million drill rigs, install 100 million HDR geothermal energy plants, to run the world on geothermal-source electricity plus hot water for district heating and cooling systems (DHCS).
See our work at: http://www.leightyfoundation.org/earth.php
Thank you.