‘Make or break’ moment for renewables targets, and other top energy stories

There is a “significant gap” between political announcements around renewable energy and the actual plans and policies countries have in place, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

If all UN Climate Conference announcements to date were to be fully implemented, a substantial CO2 emission gap would still need to be closed by 2050, according to the agency’s World Energy Transitions Outlook 2024. Global goals, agreed at COP28, of tripling renewable capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 are crucial for limiting global temperature rises to below 1.5C. But current national plans and targets are set to deliver only half of the required growth, IRENA says.

A robust global finance deal and the next nationally determined contributions – commitments countries make to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions due to be delivered in 2025 – are “make or break moments to keep 1.5C alive”, IRENA director-general Francesco La Camera said in a press statement.

A New Zealand start-up says it has created plasma in under two years and for less than $10 million, the Financial Times reports.

OpenStar said it had made and contained a plasma cloud at about 300,000°C for 20 seconds. Creating plasma is the first step towards nuclear fusion, and while much higher temperatures are needed to achieve that goal, the test was notable due to the unconventional design of the reactor, the FT says. OpenStar says its design – which turns the ‘tokamak’ design used by many other fusion projects “inside out” – could be faster to scale and commercialize than other.

Nuclear fusion has been described as harnessing the same reaction that powers the sun and stars on Earth. It offers the prospect of an “almost inexhaustible source of energy”, according to the World Nuclear Association. Fusion research is taking place across various projects around the world but its use as an energy supply is considered to be many years away.

Nuclear fission meanwhile – which splits a ‘heavy’ element to create energy, rather doing so by fusing two ‘light’ elements as with fusion – is having a moment. Tech giants Microsoft, Amazon and Google have all made commitments to use nuclear energy for their US operations.

The new report from the World Economic Forum, A Collaborative Framework for Accelerating Advanced Nuclear and Small Modular Reactor Deployment, discusses the merits of so-called SMRs. “SMRs are compact, reliable, versatile, require minimal land and have potential for standardized mass-manufacture production that can achieve the scale of deployment required to meet many clean power, heat and clean fuel production use cases for heavy industry, data centres and transport.”

To meet net-zero commitments and energy demand, nuclear new builds of multiple sizes and technology types will be needed, the report adds.

Developers have submitted plans for what would be the world’s biggest renewable energy project in Australia.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has cut its 2024 and 2025 oil demand growth forecasts again, the fourth downward revision in a row.

India is expected to rely on fossil fuels until at least 2040 and its oil refineries will become regional hubs that supply other countries, its oil minister has said.

The result of the US presidential election has had a negative impact on the country’s clean energy sector, according to the FT, with some developers putting projects on hold and investors dumping shares. However, many executives and analysts have told the paper that the economic case for renewable projects will continue.

Iran is implementing power blackouts as it struggles with a shortage of natural gas ahead of the winter. It is talking to neighbouring Turkmenistan about increasing imports.

Drought and floods are causing problems for hydropower production across Latin America. Almost half of the region’s electricity comes from water sources.

Norway’s government has reached a $1.6 billion deal with seven private investors to take over much of the country’s gas export network.

As global concern about climate change intensifies, China is undertaking significant measures to move its industrial sectors, including chemicals, steel and cement, towards sustainable development. These critical pillars of economic growth account for around a third of the country’s total carbon emissions. A new white paper from the World Economic Forum – Clean Power for Industry in China: Policy Enablers for the Industrial Sector – presents 10 policy options for consideration to scale up clean power deployment in the sector.

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