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Can Renewables Power the World? The IPCC Thinks So
The IPCC foresees swiftly expanding alternative energy, defines cookstoves as "renewable" and omits nuclear
By Nathanial Gronewold and ClimateWire | May 10, 2011 | 18
UNITED NATIONS -- The world's leading climate change research organization issued a report yesterday that has renewable energy boosters cheering, as it foresees substantial growth in alternative energy sources over the next 40 years.
But the conclusions reached by that report's authors are colored with multiple caveats and uncertainties not captured by initial media coverage. And what the group chooses to identify as "renewable energy" incorporates one controversial practice while leaving others out.
Namely, the coalition of climate scientists includes traditional wood-burning in poor households' cookstoves as an example of renewable energy, though many experts say this is one of the leading causes of deforestation in the world. The IPCC also chose to ignore nuclear energy in its latest assessment, potentially raising the ire of industry supporters who have in the past celebrated nuclear for emitting no greenhouse gases.
At the close of a gathering of government representatives in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its first-ever detailed analysis of alternative energy technologies and their potential role in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.
The "Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation" by the IPCC's Working Group III is 1,000 pages of detailed analysis of how renewable energy usage can expand to 2050, summed up in a heavily distributed 26-page "Summary for Policymakers," a draft of which was leaked to the press early. ---deleted--- ---[rest of article at Scientific American]----
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