Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
BOX 4
Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change
Mitigation (SRREN)
In 2011, IPCC produced a 1075-page special Spe-
cial Report on Renewable Energy Sources and
Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN, 2011), in-
tended to assess current knowledge about possi-
ble contributions of six renewable energy sources
to the mitigation of climate change by reducing
total greenhouse gas emissions: bioenergy, direct
solar energy, geothermal energy, hydropower,
ocean energy, and windpower. It notes grow-
ing energy demands worldwide, together with a
rapid expansion in the use of renewable energy
(RE) sources in recent years, and it projects that
widespread growth will continue. It inds that
global technical potentials for renewable energy
are not a constraint on continued growth in RE
use. Issues include higher levelized cost of RE
from many sources than existing energy prices,
although costs are generally declining; challenges
of integrating some RE systems into current ener-
gy supply systems, related to such issues as scale,
although integration is proceeding successfully in
some cases; and supportive policy environments,
complicated by the diversity of RE sources and
systems. Finally, it notes that research to date on
climate change impacts is very limited, the main
current concern being about water availability for
hydropower and some bioenergy systems.
change and hydropower and wind production in particular (SRREN, 2011: See Box 4).
As the relative share of solar and dedicated biomass for energy production increases it
is anticipated that these sectors will continue to demand beter data and forecasting to
inform project planning and inancing.
4) TOWARD AN INTEGRATED PERSPECTIVE
Although it is customary to consider climate change implications by energy supply
sector, many issues and options reach across sectoral boundaries and call for inte-
grated modeling and analysis. Examples include bioenergy, which is rooted inrenewable
energy supplies but provides fuels to the liquid fuel industry and to thermal electricity
generation, and renewable energy development and conversion; and integrating mitiga-
tion and adaptation in energy strategy development. One important starting point for
such integrated analysis is the set of perspectives and electricity supply; water issues,
which cross boundaries between oil and gas use, tools of the integrated assessment re-
search community, which is supported by DOE's Oice of Science.
Sustainable trajectories for bioenergy development and use
Integrated assessments of sustainable bioenergy futures - afecting supplies for trans-
portation fuels, electricity generation sources, and industrial and modern building
heating -- have not yet considered changes in climate parameters extensively, although
there has been some analysis of CO
2
concentration in the atmosphere as a factor afecting
