A couple interesting notes from the IPCC #SR15 on what the 1.5C pathway means for electricity. Thread follows. Bear with me on the figures. The resolution in the report is crap and I couldn't find the underlying data to reproduce them, so I've annotated them. [1/5]
First clear thing is massive electrification. Electricity as % of final demand rises from ~20% to ~60% (!!) across all scenarios.
Different bars are temp scenarios decreasing in stringency from L to R:
<1.5C (blue)
1.5 low-OS (green)
1.5 hi-OS (orange)
<2 lo (red)
<2 hi (purple)
Different bars are temp scenarios decreasing in stringency from L to R:
<1.5C (blue)
1.5 low-OS (green)
1.5 hi-OS (orange)
<2 lo (red)
<2 hi (purple)
Second thing is emission intensity of electricity sector. Falling across all scenarios, but much quicker under 1.5C scenario (blue). Roughly zero across all scenarios by 2050.
Third is the changing sources of supply. Fossil w/o CCS is gone under 1.5C scenario. Solar is the big winner, followed by wind. Nuclear has large variance; big gainer in some pathways.
Lastly, and I find this really interesting, the prevalence of CCS is hugely dependent on which temp scenario. Very little role for CCS under the 1.5C scenario (blue); plays much bigger role in the 2C scenarios (red/purple).
Source for the (un-annotated) figures: report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_…
