How to Ensure the Energy Transition? - Energy and Climate: How to Achieve a Successful Energy Transition - page 122

In order to succeed, it will be necessary, besides technological progress,
to introduce creativity and innovation in all areas where energy is used,
transforming progressively the way of life itself.
It is therefore the project of a new society that we have to consider.
Implementing an acceptable evolution scenario
By using the four action points presented in the previous chapters
(reducing the consumption of energy, reducing its carbon content, man-
aging fossil fuel supplies, and capturing and storing emitted CO 2 ), it is
possible to satisfy world energy needs, while keeping CO 2 emissions
within acceptable limits.
In order to demonstrate that it is feasible, let us examine evolution
scenarios from now to 2050. The year 2050 represents a limit for any
present extrapolation and is also an important landmark for the global
CO 2 balance. It is at this date at the latest that we need to stabilise the
concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere (which requires, as it has already
been mentioned, an action plan to be started now).
Starting from the present level of consumption (considering 2006 as
the reference year), the BAU ('Business as usual') scenario, is obtained
by extrapolating the present trends. According to this scenario, world
energy consumption will double within less than fifty years, from
11.7Gtoe/year in 2006 to 22.7Gtoe/year in 2050. The major share
(80%) is still supplied by fossil fuels; coal represents 30% of the primary
energy supply, oil 32% and natural gas 22%. The corresponding
CO 2 emissions rise from 27.9Gt/year in 2006 to 52Gt/year in 2050.
This scenario is clearly intolerable. However, it is not the most pessi-
mistic one.
The second alternative (Alt) scenario aims to fulfil the same needs,
but with an emission level reduced to 14.5Gt/year in 2050, which is a
reduction factor of 3.6 when compared with the reference scenario (BAU)
(Figure 9.1).
The Alt scenario is obtained by acting upon the four points described
previously:
- Improving the energy efficiency results by 2050 in reducing by 44%
the annual energy consumption (when compared with the BAU
scenario), from a consumption of 22.7Gtoe/year to a consumption
of 12.6Gtoe/year.
- The total share of fossil fuels decreases from 80 to 59%.