Nuclear power is expected to attract $1.3 trillion in investment between 2015 and 2040, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s most recent annual report on the energy industry, but there are “seismic shifts” in the works that will, essentially, rearrange the industry as we know it, the report says.
Some of the seismic shifts predicted in the report called New Energy Outlook (or NEO) 2015 are already known or are already suspected. In five bullet points, Bloomberg said the report points to huge shifts in the dependence on renewable energy sources, the efficiency of our appliances and where money will be spent.
The five bullet points are 1. Solar, solar everywhere; 2. The shift to private electricity generation and battery storage for homes; 3. An unexpected slowdown in demand expectations based on the improved efficiency of our appliances; 4. An over-zealous expectation that natural gas will bring the developed world away from a dependence on coal and 5. An inexorable rise in CO2 emissions that even increased dependence on renewable power sources will not reverse.
“Despite investment of $8 trillion in renewables, there will be enough legacy fossil-fuel plants and enough investment in new coal-fired capacity in developing countries to ensure global CO2 emissions rise all the way to 2029, and will still be 13 percent above 2014 levels in 2040,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
Among the report’s startling points, NEO 2015 says “some $12.2 trillion will be invested in global power generation between 2015 and 2040 with only 22 percent of that taking place in Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries, against 78 percent in the power hungry emerging markets.”
OECD countries, as they are commonly called, represent 34 of the most developed nations in the world – countries that have long represented the world’s concentration of industrial might, resource consumption and environmental impact.
NEO 2015, however, predicts that the concentration of new power generation will spread around the globe with a huge shift of investment and environmental influence.
Among the $12.2 trillion in investment, NEO 2015 says, coal will attract $1.6 trillion in new investment, gas will attract $1.2 trillion and nuclear will attract $1.3 trillion. That leaves renewable, which will account for two-thirds of the investment total over the next 25 years, the report says.
“BNEF's forecast sees onshore wind reaching 1.8TW globally by 2040, up five-fold, utility-scale PV 1.9TW, up 24-fold, offshore wind 198GW, up 25-fold, and "flexible capacity" (ways of balancing variable renewable sources on the grid, including batteries, demand response and fast ramp-up gas generation) reaching 858GW, up 17-fold. Nevertheless, even in 2040, fossil fuels will still account for 44 percent of world generation (down from 67% in 2014),” Bloomberg said.
The report predicts a cultural and technological shift of massive proportions that will change the focus from centralized power generation to include a “small scale solar boom … [represented by] worldwide capacity of rooftop, building-integrated and local PV [which will] soar from 104GW in 2014 to nearly 1.8TW in 2040 – a 17-fold increase."
“This will be made possible by a 47 percent crash in the cost of solar projects per megawatt, as conversion efficiencies improve and the industry moves to new materials and more streamlined production methods,” Bloomberg said.