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Pictures - 1553103951083-W1V5 - Power Generation in Global Energy Demand PDF
Pictures - 1553103951083-W1V5 - Power Generation in Global Energy Demand PDF
Arash FARNOOSH
Overall, electricity consumption only accounts for one fifth of our final energy demand today.
But over the last 25 years, global electricity consumption doubled, while primary energy
demand increased by only 60%. This trend will probably continue in the future, driven by the
Why have coal and natural gas been dominating the power generation mix?
Because in most cases, they have proven to be quite reliable, rather flexible and
economically competitive means of production. If you take a look at the graph next to me,
showing recent data for the full life-cycle cost for producing one megawatt-hour of electricity,
you can see that coal and natural gas were the least expensive fuel at the beginning of the
study.
These countries still rely heavily on coal for producing electricity, 67% of the generation mix
in China, 76% in India. Expanding the power production with the same resources will make it
impossible to maintain temperatures in line with the Paris Agreement objective.
If we take a look in more detail, coal emits approximately 1 ton of CO2-eq. per megawatt-
hour produced, roughly twice the amount emitted with natural gas. We hence have an urgent
need to decarbonize our power generation mix, either by shifting towards less carbon-
intensive means of production, such as nuclear or renewables, or by adding carbon capture
& storage technologies to carbon emitting installations.
To sum up what we just talked about : electricity is an essential energy carrier for many
applications. But power is CO2 intensive, it represents 20% of our energy use but is
responsible for 40% of CO2 emissions. Moreover, electricity consumption is expected to
grow in the future: 1 billion people still lack access to modern energy today, and global
electricity needs are growing. So it is essential to decarbonize the electricity mix to mitigate
the risk of climate change.
This task comes with many challenges, as we will discuss in the next videos. Before that, I
will explain you the electricity chain, and the various means of power generation.