Author: Samuel Carrara

Preview of World Energy Outlook 2018 – IEA

Preview of World Energy Outlook 2018 – IEA

Next edition includes special focus on electricity, producer economies, and the role of innovation Source: Preview of World Energy Outlook 2018 As I wrote in the previous posts, the World Energy Outlook released annually by the International Energy Agency (IEA) is the world most authoritative overview on the energy sector. The report is published in November, but in the past weeks the IEA anticipated some key topics that will be explored in depth in this year’s issue: so let us…

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America Joins With Canada And Japan To Promote Nuclear Power – FORBES

America Joins With Canada And Japan To Promote Nuclear Power – FORBES

At the 9th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM9) meeting today, a new nuclear innovation partnership, called “Nuclear Innovation: Clean Energy Future (NICE Future), was announced under the leadership of the United States, Canada, and Japan. Source: Countries Launch a Nuclear Innovation Initiative under the Clean Energy Ministerial Is a new nuclear rise to come? The US, Canada, and Japan are leading an initiative that might be highly impacting on the future energy landscape: let us monitor how this will evolve. More…

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WITCH modeling meeting – Renewables

WITCH modeling meeting – Renewables

As I discussed in a couple of posts in the past weeks (here and here), I am still working on refining the new modeling of Variable Renewable Energies in WITCH in order to make the MERCURY version of the model fully compatible with the master version. Yesterday we had the WITCH internal modeling meeting, where I presented the progress of my work: you can find the presentation here. Still a lot of work to do, but step by step…

Air conditioning use key for global electricity demand growth – IEA

Air conditioning use key for global electricity demand growth – IEA

New IEA analysis shows urgent need to improve cooling efficiency as global energy demand for ACs to triple by 2050 Source: Air conditioning use emerges as one of the key drivers of global electricity-demand growth “The issue is particularly sensitive in the fastest-growing nations, with the biggest increase happening in hot countries like India – where the share of AC in peak electricity load could reach 45% in 2050, up from 10% today without action.” These figures are really impressive!…

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Renewables never die…

Renewables never die…

Yes, I have still been working on the implementation of the renewable module in the master version of the WITCH model… Technical issues are numerous and an optimal code configuration is yet to be found. One of the most problematic aspects is that the convergence is very slow, so sometimes up to an hour, or even more, is needed just to check the impact of one small change. But honestly, the most problematic aspect is that I really hate this…

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Progress on global energy goals slow, but strong gains in countries show promise

Progress on global energy goals slow, but strong gains in countries show promise

The world is not on track to meet the global energy targets for 2030 set as part of the Sustainable Development Goals Source: Progress on global energy goals slow, but strong gains in countries show promise In 2015, the United Nations launched the 2030 Agenda and its relevant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the aim of addressing the global socio-economic challenges over the following fifteen years. SDG7 is the goal referred to energy: ‘Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and…

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Electricity, oil, and natural gas 2017 – IEA

Electricity, oil, and natural gas 2017 – IEA

Source: Key Electricity Trends 2017, Key Oil Trends 2017, Key Natural Gas Trends 2017 At the beginning of the year, I had published a post regarding the trends in 2017 for coal as depicted by the International Energy Agency. In the past days the IEA released similar reports concerning the status of electricity, oil, and natural gas, so I thought it could be nice to share these documents in order to have a complete picture including all the main energy…

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System integration, storage, and grid in WITCH – Additional work needed

System integration, storage, and grid in WITCH – Additional work needed

Talking about Deliverable D1.1, I had mentioned the work needed to align the WITCH version developed for the MERCURY project by Marco, Simone and me with the official version of the code (that we normally call “master”). Simone took care of this activity, which seemed to have been completed. However, in the last weeks some technical issues arose. The problems are not related to the quality of the new modules and their integration in the master version of the model…

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Solar PV learning in Integrated Assessment Models – Advancements

Solar PV learning in Integrated Assessment Models – Advancements

After completing the reporting activity concerning the first year of my Marie Curie project, in the last days I went back the solar PV activity, about which I wrote many posts in the past months. In these days I mostly worked on WITCH, indeed, since in the analysis of the results I had found a small inconcistency in one scenario, which I had to re-run. However, I also started analyzing the replies to the comments that the other teams progressively…

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In 2017 carbon emissions rose for the first time since 2014 – IEA

In 2017 carbon emissions rose for the first time since 2014 – IEA

Fossil fuels accounted for over 70% of the growth in world energy demand last year Source: Global energy demand grew by 2.1% in 2017, and carbon emissions rose for the first time since 2014 About one year ago, commenting on the trend in carbon dioxide emissions in a similar post in the News section, I wrote: “The stop in the global emissions growth appears consolidated at this point: now the goal is to reverse the growing trend of the past…

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