Australia swallows renewables, passionately

Many key leaders in the energy transition, like politicians, financiers, industrialists and technologists, openly express their "passion for renewables". Is passion a hindrance to sound judgment? This analysis of energy policy performance for both Australia and the world suggests it is. With standard policy assumptions about clean energy sources (renewables), statistical energy data for growth (solar and wind), and evidence-based targets for clean electrical energy requirements for replacing fossil fuels, the analysis yields a rigorous renewables growth performance indicator "time-to-target".

The results are starkly at odds with popular glowing commentary on clean energy growth. Australia's present policy uses "percent renewables" goals, the renewables contribution to total electricity supply. Historically, policy targets are consistently reached and progressively raised. They flatter true performance through omitting consideration of the fossil fuels used elsewhere than generating electricity.

This new "time-to-target" metric for Australia is 63 years. For global growth assessed the same way the "time-to-target" metric is 139 years. 63 years for Australia and 139 years for the world reflect the current realities of renewables growth rates. "Passion for renewables" leads to sloppy energy accounting. This is inexcusable from those responsible for securing the future of energy, so vital to global prosperity. They must adopt a more traditional sentiment: "Irrational passion for dispassionate rationality".

The energy transition, driven by the threat of global climate change, is probably the longest, slowest, most expensive, policy-driven infrastructure development program the world has ever seen. Some plans suggest it could take six times longer than World War 2, which lasted six years. And projected costs are huge. According to data from leading energy transition research and analysis business BloombergNEF, investment over the past decade has amounted to $US8.1 trillion.

The length of the energy transition has political ramifications. Just as in military conflict, there's an ever present need to drum up public and political support. Major transition stakeholders, like governments and the renewables industry, must continually express enthusiasm, confidence and a winning mindset. They exaggerate, they obscure. They make it hard to follow the transition's true progress. Even the usually cool calm scientists, technologists, engineers and business communities involved catch the mood. They seem to enjoy expressing their enthusiasm and "passion for renewables".

Is this a healthy situation? It raises doubts about objectivity and reliability in assessing policy performance. This is important. Energy is the single most critical input to global prosperity. Everything we own, everything we do, relies on energy. Proper objective analysis of energy policies is vital.

Let's start with Australia. For several years energy policy has been heavily based on government-set renewable energy targets and related stimuli and subsidies. Targets get raised and met. Now, early in 2024, we seem headed for a new target, 82% renewables. How will the electorate react? Here's a prediction. A typical response will be: "82 per cent! Wow, the end is in sight!". Targets have always been met. Policy success seems automatic. Surely we're on the right path. The end of fossil fuels is in sight, right?

Not quite. The steady drip of good energy news stories fed by governments and the renewables lobby is readily swallowed by receptive Australians. But they don't understand their true significance.

It's not just Australia. The whole world is "swallowing renewables". For example In January 2024 the International Energy Agency released its own exuberant version of global renewables news. Australians are in good company.

How does energy news look under cool scrutiny? I have looked at this before. Now there's an even greater need to get it right and develop valid objective measures of progress of the energy transition.

First, a brief background. Fossil fuels are to be phased out and replaced with clean energy delivered and used in the form of electricity. That electricity comes from so-called clean sources, defined by zero or low levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitted along the full generation chain. Australia has decided to base its clean energy policies on a group of clean sources commonly called renewables. The name refers to the contrast with the progressively declining resources of "non-renewable" fossil fuels. Australia's main renewables are solar, wind and hydroelectricity.

Sound policy must be based on energy quantities. Many different measurement units are used in the energy field. The most common are based on joules and watt-hours or their multiples, like petajoules and gigawatt-hours. Some energy units have traditional connections with particular energy forms. And some users have their favourite units. It shouldn't matter; all energy units are interchangeable and online calculators now make it easy to get one consistent set of units.

There is a common trap with units. Those unfamiliar with energy may fail to distinguish properly between energy and power. Energy is to power as distance is to speed. Progress of an energy transition must be followed with energy quantities, as a journey is with distance.

Many of Australia's official energy statistics (e.g. Australian Energy Update) are expressed in petajoules. One petajoule (PJ) = 10¹⁵ joules. Petajoule accounting yields convenient numerical values for Australia's electricity generation. The table contains data for seven years. Final data for 2023 are not yet available but the general patterns indicate that the 2022 set is representative.

The second row, TOTAL RENEWABLES, shows the steady progress of the energy transition and rise in renewables, both quantity and percentage. The bottom row gives the annual numerical growth increments. Noone seems previously to have noticed that growth has levelled off in the last four years at an average around 35 PJ per annum.

Renewables advocates have for years liked talking about "exponential growth". It's not true and is obvious nonsense. Solar panels don't breed. They are not rabbits. "Exponential growth" is a reminder of how over-excitement produces wishful thinking.

Proper clean energy planning needs a firm goal, a clean energy quantity that enables total replacement and elimination of fossil fuels. That's the target. And if growth follows the current pattern then the time taken to reach that target is easily calculated. Unfortunately that target, the ultimate policy goal, is still hypothetical and will remain so until all future clean routes for replacing fossil fuels, and their clean electricity requirements, are fully established.

However there's a less rigorous way to reach a usable estimate. It relies on understanding the relative proportions of fossil fuel used for generating electricity and for all other purposes. Take the 2022 example. Australian Energy Statistics, Table F, Section 26, Electricity supply, Fuels consumed tells us that in 2022 coal, oil and gas to the amount of 2020 PJ were consumed in thermal generation (power stations) out of a total Australian consumption of 5250 PJ fossil fuel. 5250/2020 = 2.6. Now assume that had renewables output reached 983.8 PJ (total generation for 2022) then 2020 PJ fossil fuels would have been "saved", its need obviated. The next step is speculative; 2.6 X 983.8 PJ (2558 PJ) clean electricity would obviate all need for fossil fuel; 2558 PJ renewables would have been the ultimate clean electricity target for 2022.

This is not a rigorous deduction. It's an informed guess. It will have to do until something better turns up. But it dramatically influences how one interprets energy policy progress. With a 2558 PJ clean energy target the present conventional "100 percent renewables", 983.8 PJ, falls far short. We have seen it cannot conceivably mean elimination of fossil fuels. The notional 100% target is a sham.

And that's the core problem with present "percent renewables" policy targets. They exaggerate progress, they mislead, they fail completely to account for the clean electricity needed to displace fully Australia's fossil fuel consumption. And Australia swallows them.

This reasoning offers a starting point for setting a more rigorous renewables growth performance indicator. Let's call it "time-to-target". Assume, based on recent growth rates, that in the starting year 2023 the renewables total was 352 PJ. Then, from above, assume a final clean electricity goal to eliminate fossil fuels of 2558 PJ and a steady growth rate from solar and wind of 35 PJ per annum. Also assume for simplicity (as well as to discourage wishful thinking) that all other parameters like economic growth and energy productivity remain constant.

Then the gap today stands at 2558 PJ – 352 PJ = 2206 PJ and with growth at 35 PJ/year the goal would be reached in 63 years. 63 years! What a stark contrast with the incessant glowing publicity for renewables growth! Is the comparison fair? That might be debatable. But the simple fact is that "percent renewables" targets alone completely ignore the fossil fuels that industrialised economies do not use to generate electricity. That's the basic reason for the huge disparity between renewables sentiment and renewables reality.

Now to the global case study. It uses a recent example from the International Energy Agency. The IEA was for decades the world's authoritative source and curator of trusted independent energy statistics and standards. In recent years it has assumed something more like a renewables activist role, promoting renewable energy globally.

In January 2024 the IEA released its report Renewables 2023. There was the usual ceremonial announcement with a set of breathless proclamations. Here are some headlines, verbatim:

• Massive expansion of renewable power opens door to achieving global tripling goal set at COP28.
• World added 50% more renewable capacity in 2023 than in 2022 and next 5 years will see fastest growth yet.
• The world's capacity to generate renewable electricity is expanding faster than at any time in the last three decades.

Note how, in comparison with the proposed new time-to-target metric, it is impossible to pin down exactly what these claims signify in terms of energy statistics. But they certainly give the impression of vigorous global growth. Maybe growth in the rest of the world is putting Australia to shame. But isn't Australia meant to be a global leader in renewables, a renewable energy powerhouse?

Let's see what global statistical data say, using the same framework and assumptions as above for Australia.

Solar and wind are the global growth drivers.

• 2022 generation (which was a world record) serves as the baseline.
• As for Australia, 2.6 times present total electricity generation is adopted as the future target for renewables output.
• Energy data come from the current authoritative source of global energy statistics (not the IEA), the Energy Institute's Statistical Review of World Energy which uses both exajoules (10¹⁸ joules) and terawatt-hours for its energy units. All original energy units are converted here to petajoules.

Here are the relevant global quantities:

• Total 2022 generation 104,994 PJ
• Total 2022 renewables generation 15,135 PJ
• Estimated future target for clean generation 2.6 X 104,994 = 272,984 PJ/year
• Gap to be closed by solar and wind growth 272,984 – 15,135 = 257,849 PJ/year
• Latest annual global growth for solar+wind, for the year from 2021 to 2022 1,850 PJ/year
• Period to close the gap at latest growth rate 257,849/1,850 = 139 years.

Well that's a relief. Australia is still well ahead of the world as a whole, 63 years time-to-target vs 139 years for the world.

But what really stands out here is the chasm between rhetoric and reality. The IEA wins the prize for rhetoric. And it's almost impossible to unravel the true meaning of the above IEA headlines from the jumble of numbers and units in its announcements.

To summarise, "energy transition" describes the process of switching all energy away from fossil fuels and towards other forms of energy that are clean. For most people that means renewables. At present "energy transition" expresses a hope, a work in progress. The transition has not been completed anywhere in the world. No household, village, town, city, state, province or nation, worldwide has, at least intentionally, eliminated its use of either fossil fuels or the products of fossil fuels they get from elsewhere. That doesn't mean it's impossible. Every component exists for generating the huge quantities of clean electricity needed. Photovoltaic solar energy converters, huge wind turbines, hydroelectric dams for storage or generation, electrochemical batteries – these favoured elements of the transition are all known and are elegant examples of modern science and technology.

However a "passion for renewables" seems to encourage sloppy energy accounting. Australia uses a faulty measure of progress, "percent renewables", which gives exaggerated impressions of progress. These kinds of lapses are inexcusable from those responsible for securing the future of energy, so vital to global prosperity. We need more objective measures of progress. Time-to-target is suggested here.

The transition faces other serious issues. While electricity is a fine choice as the main medium for delivering and using clean energy, the transition will rely on development of many new methods for "electrifying everything". This is an enormous technological challenge, too often trivialised by common misunderstandings of success rates in turning novel laboratory ideas into full scale commercial industrial processes.

Also the transition is not just about energy. It's about the end of fossil fuels. Some 7% of fossil fuel consumption is for "non-combustion" applications like plastics, petrochemicals, fertilisers and the like. Their carbon content may not immediately appear as CO₂ in the atmosphere, which might allow some delay in developing alternative clean processes based on electricity. But when the time comes those developments will be exceptionally difficult.

Finally here are a couple of hints for those responsible for delivering a real energy transition. Keep your passions in check. Deploy instead the famous "irrational passion for dispassionate rationality". And never promise more than you can deliver.