Editors: | F. Kongoli, S. Kobe, M. Calin, J.-M. Dubois, T. Turna |
Publisher: | Flogen Star OUTREACH |
Publication Year: | 2018 |
Pages: | 154 pages |
ISBN: | 978-1-987820-90-4 |
ISSN: | 2291-1227 (Metals and Materials Processing in a Clean Environment Series) |
Global GDP projections for the 21st century have been updated recently. The newly developed shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) in 2016 represent a set of widely diverging narratives; they show that in 2050, the loss in global GDP between SSP5 will mean Taking the Highway (fossil fuels development) dominated growth path vs. the Taking the Green Road (Sustainability) path, which means a totally renewables originated energy sourcing of 2%. The global GDP is projected to be in the range of $200 to $300 trillion, which could mean a calculated loss of 4 to 6 trillion USD. When considering the total stock market capitalization of fossil fuel companies today is about $5 trillion and the GDP of 2016 was $75.6 trillion USD, the need of a viability analysis on the economic sustainability of fossil-fueled development emerges.
Further, if action is taken to tackle climate change and to keep temperature rise under 2°C, most of the coal, oil, and gas reserves will have stay in the ground. The technological development of renewables-sourced power generation in meeting merchant market requirements is dizzy, backed by ground progress within the latest RES power supply auctions. Lithium and Vanadium Ion batteries, hydrogen storage, and many other storage technologies provide promising progress, whereby settlement of further technological challenges is still needed. This paper addresses how the Renewable Energy Sources stand and perform in the market on merchant basis, and how their future is expected to evolve under free market conditions.