A Clean Energy Revolution is Underway

A clean energy revolution is underway all over the world. As an example amongst many, and according to Algerian media, solar-generated electricity in private habitations or business premises is now feasible in technical and financial terms.  “Installation of a solar system to supply electrical power is now affordable, even for middle-income families”, explains the Director of the Center for development of renewable energies (CDER) to the Algerian Press Service.

Sadiq Khan to kick start a ‘clean energy revolution’ after London mayoral win was the title of SOLAR POWER PORTAL back in May 9, 2016.  Excerpts of this article are noted below as:

London was recently ranked the worst city in England and Wales for its use of renewable energy in a study by think tank Green Alliance, which found that just 0.05% of electricity consumption in the capital was met by renewables.

It also found that less than one per cent of its households were equipped with PV panels, which is the worst proportion of solar roofs in the 20 largest cities in England and Wales by population.

A report published before the election by a coalition of environmental groups called for the new mayor to increase London’s solar capacity tenfold by 2025, rolling out solar across an area equivalent to around 200,000 London rooftops.

Meanwhile, a clean energy revolution is underway per the World Economic Forum announcement in its article published in collaboration with The Conversation on May 4, 2017.

The authors are Andrzej Ancygier, Climate Policy Analyst, Lecturer, New York University and Markus Hagemann, Researcher Energy and Climate policy, Utrecht University.

We reproduce here the said article for its quality and comprehensiveness make a must read for all concerned.

The image above is titled The most progressive field in the power sector is renewable energy and is f REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissie.

A clean energy revolution is underway. This is why

In 2016, more renewable energy was added to the global grid than ever before, and at a lower cost. A global energy revolution is clearly underway.

What catalysed this transformation?

In our latest study, Faster and Cleaner 2: Kick-Starting Decarbonization, we looked at the trends driving decarbonisation in three key sectors of the global energy system – power, transportation and buildings.

By following the emission commitments and actions of countries, we examined what forces can drive rapid transition through our Climate Action Tracker analysis.

It turns out that, in these fields, it has taken only a few players to set in motion the kind of transformations that will be necessary to meet the Paris Agreement’s target of keeping the global temperature increase to well below 2˚C, ideally to 1.5˚C, over its pre-industrial level.

Renewable energy on its way

The most progressive field in the power sector is renewable energy. Here, just three countries – Denmark, Germany and Spain – were able to show the way and start an international shift.

All three introduced strong policy packages for wind and solar that provided clear signals to investors and developers to invest in these new technologies. Renewable energy targets and financial support schemes, such as feed-in tariffs, were central to them.

By 2015, 146 countries had implemented such support schemes.

Next, we established that the United Kingdom, Italy and China, along with the US states of Texas and California, pushed bulk manufacturing of solar technology even further and provided the kinds of economies of scale that led to this massive increase in renewable capacity globally.

Between 2006 and 2015, global wind power capacity increased by 600%, and solar energy capacity increased by 3,500%.

Image :  Climate Action Tracke

Solar is projected to become the cheapest energy generation source by 2030 in most countries. In some regions, renewables are already competitive with fossil fuels.

Information released this month by the United Nations Environmental Programme and Bloomberg New Energy Finance confirms that, in 2016, the rate of renewable take-up rose yet again, with clean energy providing 55% of all new electricity generation capacity added globally. This is the first time there was more new renewable capacity than coal.

Investment in renewables doubled that of investment in fossil fuels. Yet clean power investment dropped 23% from 2015, largely because of falling prices.

To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, we need to fully decarbonise the global energy system by mid-century. That means the historic trends in the energy sector – 25% to 30% annual growth in renewables – must continue for the next five to ten years.

This will require additional policies and incentives, from increased flexibility in the energy system to new regulatory and market approaches.

Electric vehicles poised to take off

A similar trend is beginning to transform the transportation sector. In 2016, more than one million electric vehicles were sold, and new sales continue to exceed projections.

Again, our research tells us that it took only a few players to kick off this trend: Norway, the Netherlands, California and, more recently, China.

Their policies focused on targets for increasing the share of electric vehicles for sale and on the road, campaigns to promote behavioural change, infrastructure investment, and research and development.

The European Union saw sales of electric vehicles pick up in 2013. And in the US, their market segment grew between 2011 and 2013, slowed down slightly in 2014 and 2015, and bounced back again in 2016.

China’s market took off a little later, in 2014, but sales there have already surpassed both the US and the EU.

Though, to date, it lags behind the renewable power sector, the electric vehicle market is poised to see a similar boom. Current sales numbers are impressive, but we are still far from seeing a transportation transformation that would allow us to meet the Paris Agreement targets.

For the world to meet the upper limit of 2°C set in Paris, half of all light-duty vehicles on the road would need to be electric by 2050. To reach the 1.5°C target, nearly all vehicles on the road need to be electric drive – and no cars with internal-combustion engines should be sold after roughly 2035.

To get us going down that path, more governments around the world would need to introduce the same strict policies as those adopted by Norway and The Netherlands.

Buildings come in last

The third sector we examined is buildings. Though higher energy efficiency standards in appliances are really starting to curb emissions, emissions from heating and cooling buildings have been much more difficult to phase out.

There are proven technological solutions that can result in new, zero-carbon buildings. If designed correctly, these constructions are cost-effective over their lifetime and can improve quality of life.

In Europe and elsewhere, there are some good initial policies on new building standards that make new constructions more environmentally friendly, and some EU states – the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands among them – are also beginning to mandate that older buildings be retrofitted.

Still, the rate of retrofitting falls well short of what is required to substantially drop building emissions.

Innovative financial mechanisms to increase the rate of retrofitting buildings, along with good examples of building codes for new constructions, would go a long way to drive adoption of these technologies.

And, as our study showed, only a handful of governments (or regions) would need to make a move to kick-start a transformation. It worked for energy and transport – why not buildings, too?

The more governments work together sharing policy successes, the bigger the global transformation. With collaboration, we can meet that 1.5°C goal.

 

 

15th World Forum on Sustainable Development in Paris

The transition energy guarantor of global security . . . 

The one day 15th World Forum on Sustainable Development in Paris ended on March 13^th, 2017 in the presence of many personalities from the world’s governments, politics, business, academic experts in energy.

I want to first thank the President of the World Forum of Sustainable Development for his kind invitation and for allowing me to put my view forward in an intervention, as an independent expert. It followed on that of the Algerian Minister of Energy who has objectively presented his vision of Algeria’s.  Utopia aside, fossil fuels such as gas, still have time to go as the main source of energy at least until 2030. But governing is anticipating, it is up to Governments to deal with the new and irreversible global energy changes notably those enshrined in the agreements of the COP21 in Paris and signed off a year later at the COP22 of Marrakesh in order to prepare the necessary energy transition.

It is a strategic mistake to reason as in the past on a linear energy model of consumption.

As far as energy engaging the security of Nations is concerned, the strategy of renewable energy must form part of a clear and dated definition of a new model of energy consumption based on an Energy Mix by evaluating resources to achieve all objectives that have to prepare the industries of the future. These will be based on the new technologies related environmental industries, object of the new economic revolution that is anticipated to be in 2020/2040

 Strategy for the Energy of the Future 

Photovoltaic solar energy refers to the energy recovered and converted directly into electricity from the sunlight by photovoltaic panels. It results from the direct conversion into a semiconductor of a photon to electron. In addition to the benefits associated with the low cost of maintenance of the Photovoltaic systems, this energy fits perfectly for isolated sites and whose connection to the electric grid is too expensive.

Solar Thermal energy is the conversion of solar radiation into heat energy. This transformation can be used directly to heat a building, for example or indirectly (such as the production of steam for turbo-alternators and thus get electrical energy). Using this transferred heat through radiation rather than the radiation itself, these modes of transformation of energy differ from other forms of solar energy as solar cells such as Photovoltaic cells..

By definition, wind energy is the energy produced as a result of the action of wind on specially designed turbines to generate electrical power.

Average solar irradiation in African countries, according to IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency) is between 1,750 kWh/m²/year and 2,500 kWh/m², nearly double that of the Germany (1150 kWh/m²) which has an installed photovoltaic farm of 40 GW (a photovoltaic capacity 20 times greater than that of Africa).

The load factor of any photovoltaic systems would be much higher in Africa than in European countries. And by end of 2015, Africa had 2,100 MW of installed solar photovoltaic plant, 65% of this capacity is concentrated in South Africa and 13% in Algeria and 9% the Reunion.

In the past two years, the continent has more than quadrupled its capacity in photovoltaic farming but this would remain still modest in the light of the great African potential because some 600 million Africans do not have access to electricity.

According to the Agency, this energy would be competitive today with currently used fossil fuels, whether in the case of important plants or isolated micro-grids (as well as home systems). According to IRENA, the investment of large photovoltaic power plants in Africa costs decreased by 61% since 2012 and possible a decrease of 59% of these costs over the coming decade.

These currently are nearly $1.3 million by installed MW (the world average for photovoltaic is around $1.8 million per MW/h according to IRENA). IRENA highlights the fact that photovoltaic energy presents for Africa a decentralized and “modular” solution (with facilities of a few to several tens of MW) for rapid electrification of areas not connected to power grids.

According to experts, it is true that the energy needs of Africans are limited to a few KW/h per capita per year, for mainly electric lighting. Electrical power networks are rare in Africa; therefore there could be no possibility of economy of scale. Africans pay 2 times more expensive power than Europeans do. It’s always more interesting to have cheap electricity.

But industrial development requires great levels of power and heat specially. Photovoltaic source of energy is certainly more suited to small off-grid installations and for some African countries but industrial production would require this to be combined with heat production.

Renewable energy expansion would be part of the professed Energy Transition.

The transition may be defined as the passage of a civilization built on energy essentially fossil, polluting but abundant and cheap, to a civilization where energy is renewable, rare, expensive but less polluting and aimed at the eventual replacement of energy (oil, coal, gas, uranium) stock by energies of flow (wind, solar).

Energy transition refers to subjects other than techniques, such as those related to societal problems. It is a move towards an Energy Mix as justified by the scarcity of resources, thus the urgency of a new model of consumption on a global scale which poses the problem of energy efficiency, and a social consensus, today’s technical choices engaging society in the long term: how much is this transition, how much is it worth and who will be the beneficiaries?

It was necessary to first make few remarks on the current approach to development of renewable energy.  We must target priority projects which contribute the most to the achievement of the objectives. Without any decision between the Photovoltaic and Thermal, we would discuss solar heat that seems suitable in the regional program of the South. Algeria that has significant potential in this area can become between 2020 and 2030 an exporter. The lack of knowledge of the field could not explain the selected program.

Indeed, wanting to test all technologies before opting does not seem to be the right approach. This would hide all studies that have been used including the studies in question had been carried out in collaboration with key research centres in the USA, as the ENREL, as regulators of solar technology: the DLR (Germany) and CIEMAT (Spain). The Kramer Junction plant works in the USA since 1980 with a capacity of 300 MW on the same technology that was used in Hassi R’Mel, Algeria.

Solar towers in Spain have been proven for many years. This is to identify the parameters of different technology assessment. With GTZ (Germany) the decomposition of the value chain by component and by cost helped to set a realistic integration of 70% for the solar heat rate. Manufacturers of solar thermal converge with this rate, while also according with the level to export electricity to Europe. Indeed Europe will need to import 15% of its needs by 2030 that is the electrical equivalent of 24 GW or the equivalent of 50 billion M3 of gas per year.

The study has also defined the conditions:- a stable political framework, a sustainable local market the size of 250 MW/year and a market that is open between the countries of the Maghreb.  Technologies must correspond to the most important value potential allowing a rate of integration, the greatest creation of jobs, offering the best match with the electricity market and finally, the most important technologies with the greatest potential for cost reduction up to competitiveness with fossil fuels.

The technology partnership and integration generally appeal to private companies. The risk is too great for an investor to agree to be put under the control of a public company.

Transition based on Realism 

It is therefore to identify the real actors and have a strategic vision based not on utopia but on realism as it is generally believed that laws and changes in organizations would not solve the foundations of problems, the political actors are therefore essential, referring to the political and social base. As far Algeria is concerned, I warned the Government and particularly SONATRACH of a suicidal adventure that could involve the security of the country, if these were to engage in massive investments in conventional hydrocarbons whereas the world at this time would undergo between 2020 and 2030 a major shift in energy consumption.

The Government that was misled in the past into believing that $90/100 per barrel would be the market price of oil, must at all costs avoid to reason about a model of linear consumption. It is that large firms in the U.S., in the European and Asian International spheres are reportedly investing massively, preparing the future in other alternative energy segments. Also, future profitability must register for the deposits between a fork of $40/55 and for marginal deposits between $60/70 before despite the recent report of the IEA on a possible barrel at above $80/90

What are the axes for the energy transition of the 2017/2025/2030 Algeria?

• The first axis, would be to improve energy efficiency with new technology; energy consumption whether at the household level and / or the economic sectors referring to the policy of the currently widespread subsidies source of wastage that should be targeted for energy products. The Algerian Government would be bound to reflect on the creation of a National Chamber of Compensation that would be charged to coordinate all inter socio-professional and inter-regional equalization.
• The second axis would be for Algeria to decide on investing upstream for new discoveries. But for the profitability of these deposits, it will depend on price at the international level and the costs,.
• The third axis, Algeria planning to build its first nuclear plant by 2025 for peaceful purposes, in order to meet its soaring electricity demand.
• The fourth axis, would be the option of Shale Oil/Gas (3rd global reserves according to international reports) introduced in the new law of hydrocarbons from 2013, folder that I have the honour to lead on behalf of the Government and handed over in January 2015. In Algeria, in order to avoid positions decided for or against, a broad national discussion, because we cannot minimize the risk of pollution of aquifers in the South of the country where as a semi-arid country, the problem of water is a strategic issue in the Mediterranean and African level.
• The fifth axis would be the development of renewable energy by combining Thermal and Photovoltaic whose global costs of production decreased by more than 50%. Algeria has decided to apply the resolutions of the COP21 and 22, about global warming. But effective action cannot be designed by a Nation on its own. It will involve wide consultation with especially between the countries of the South Mediterranean and the Maghreb because for the Maghreb including Algeria, water resources are vulnerable to changes in climate. Water and its management problems would definitely affect the future of all these countries.

With more than 3000 hours of sunshine a year, Algeria has what it takes to develop the use of solar energy in a win-win partnership.  For this purpose, the CREG (regulatory agency) issued decrees to accompany the implementation of the program of Algerian of development of renewable energy in the context of the implementation of a national fund for energy efficiency (FNME) to ensure the funding of these projects and grant loans at subsidized interest rates and guarantees for loans made from the banks and financial institutions.

By 2020, it is expected that the installation of a total power of about 2,600 MW for the national market and a possibility of export of the magnitude of 2,000 MW and by 2030, it is expected the installation of a power of nearly 12,000 MW for the national market as well as a possibility to export up to 10,000 MW.  According to the CREG, Algeria plans to launch a tender for investors for a mega project of 4,050 MW Photovoltaic solar power plants, soon split into three lots of 1,350 MW each and backed by the construction of one or more factories of manufacturing equipment and components of solar power plants.

Development of electric interconnection between the North and the Sahara (Adrar), will enable the installation of large renewable energy plants in the regions of In Salah, Adrar, Timimoun and Béchar, and their integration into the national energy grid system. If these achievements were effective, apart from the problem of funding with budgetary tensions, the country would have by 2030, 37% of the installed capacity of electricity for domestic consumption from renewable sources.

In conclusion, economic dynamics alter the balance of power throughout the world also affect the political compositions within States as well as at regional and nationwide areas. Energy, in particular, is at the heart of the sovereignty of States and their security policies.

As I had to sustain it in various international conferences of mine and recently in a long interview by the American Herald Tribune of January 28^th, 2016), co-development, and collocations, which cannot be limited to economics, including cultural diversity, can be the field of implementation of all the ideas at the level of the Mediterranean basin as to hopefully turn it into a shared Lake of peace and prosperity.

In the interest of both the Europeans and all of the southern Mediterranean populations, borders of the common market, of Schengen, of social protection, would be the borders of the environmental requirements of tomorrow.  These must be along a line south of the MENA region for a lasting peace, where Arab, Jewish and all other ethnic populations have a thousand-year history of peaceful coexistence.

In these moments of great geo-strategic upheavals, the African continent with very strong potential, would have to face up to significant challenges in the 21st century, such as rivalries between the major powers, USA/China/Europe for its control, whilst by 2040, it will have a quarter of the world’s population and perhaps drawing the growth of the world economy. This is subject to good governance and of the primacy of the economy of knowledge and the struggle to lower global warming which hits it hard by the preservation of its environment. In this context, the development of renewable energy is the guarantor of the coverage of needs and energy security of humanity. –

 

Written in Paris on March 14th, 2017 by Professor, Expert Dr Abderrahmane Mebtoul, Director of Studies Department of Energy 1974/2008  –  ademmebtoul@gmail.com

At the 15th Forum of Sustainable Development “The Mediterranean and regional borders” on Monday, March 13^th, 2017 at 9, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, Paris 75008, FRANCE.

See also recent contributions of Pr Abderrahmane Mebtoul on MENA-Forum.com

• Facing Energy and Geostrategic Global Changes, Sep 19, 2016,
• OPEC’s Informal Algiers Meeting, Sep 26, 2016 and
• World Energy Congress at Istanbul, Oct 10, 2016.

 

The Construction of Tall Buildings Industry in the GCC

In our previous article on Architecture of Tall Buildings published on April 13, 2015,  we elaborated on this segment of the construction of tall buildings industry in the GCC and its evolution.  Far from questioning the ‘raison d’etre’ or the real need for such structures, we would like to make here as close to reality a statement of what has been achieved on the ground last year.

Abraj Quartier-Commercial Towers picture (Credit to UDC) is featured above.

Indeed, in 2016, a record of 128 buildings were completed worldwide, according to the the Chicago-based council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH)’s Year in Review: Tall Trends of 2016.

It says :

Dubai’s twisting Cayan Tower named among world’s best new skyscrapers

While Africa has yet to see a 200-meter-plus completion since 1973, the Middle East ended the year, for the second time, with nine such completions. This continues a steady trend of completions in the region, but pales in comparison to its all-time high of 23 in 2011, a spike that was attributed to a global post-recession recovery in tall building construction. 2016 was the first year since 2006 that the Middle East has not seen the completion of a supertall (300-plus-meter) building, but one should be wary of assuming that this is indicative of a regional swing away from the supertall height threshold. Optimistic projections show as many as nine supertall buildings completing in the Middle East in 2017.

In an unusual turn, the United Arab Emirates did not have the greatest number of completions in the region for the year. That accomplishment belongs to Qatar, which saw four towers completed in 2016. The UAE followed with just two completions, and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain tied with one completion each. The tallest building to complete in 2016 in the Middle East is Regent Emirates Pearl, a 255-meter tower in Abu Dhabi that twists along its height at a rate of approximately 0.481 degrees per floor. The tower was featured in the online version of the CTBUH Tall Buildings in Numbers study.

Consequent to the reduction in petro-Dollars revenues, a certain slowdown has been noticeable in the region’s construction industry dynamics.  Qatar nevertheless led last year the region in building tall towers. The report states that in 2016 that country has managed and for the first time to lead the region by completing four tall buildings.

This report however mentioned that in a decade no “super tall” buildings (300m+) did come to be built anywhere in the region.

Worldwide, China led with 84 projects of tall buildings completed closely followed by the USA follows with seven and South Korea with six.  Indonesia is fourth with five buildings and the Philippines and Qatar coming up with four towers each are fifth.

This slowdown in the MENA where last year no ‘super-tall’ towers as per the local media were produced, was commented by the CTBUH as this doesn’t mean the era of tall towers is over for the Middle East.

Abu Dhabi’s Burj Mohammed bin Rashid named best tall building in Middle East and Africa

Speaking to the National, a UAE daily, earlier this month, one financial expert explained this state of affairs.

“Previously, this region hadn’t been quite so sensitive as to whether numbers stacked up. It’s been a case of build it and they will come, but as liquidity tightened the numbers needed to work.”

And that :

“One should be wary of assuming that this is indicative of a regional swing away from the super-tall height threshold. Optimistic projections show as many as nine super-tall buildings completing in the Middle East in 2017.”

Santiago Calatrava’s Dubai Creek Harbour World’s tallest observation tower project

The Future is Not in Fossil Fuels

An article published on Tuesday, January 3^rd, 2017 by Common Dreams and written by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer is reproduced here for its interest to all concerned in the MENA region countries about the Peak-Oil theory being concretised under our eyes and that renewable energy would eventually replace all fossil oil based energy production.  The author asserts rightly that the Future is Not in Fossil Fuels  and that “Solar is also creating jobs at an unprecedented rate, more than in the oil and gas sectors combined, and 12 times faster than the rest of the economy.” (The above Photo is by David Goehring/flickr/cc)

 

Global Economic Realities Confirm, the ‘Future is Not in Fossil Fuels’

While oil and gas companies falter, ‘renewable energy has reached a tipping point,’ says World Economic Forum expert.

 

Underscoring the need for a global shift to a low-carbon economy, a new report finds a record number of U.K. fossil fuel companies went bust in 2016 due to falling oil and gas prices.

The Independent reported the analysis from accounting firm Moore Stephens which found “16 oil and gas companies went insolvent last year, compared to none at all in 2012.” And the trend was not unique to the U.K.—a year-end bankruptcy report from Texas-based Haynes and Boone LLP showed there have been 232 bankruptcy filings in the U.S. and Canadian energy sector since the beginning of 2015.

“As the warnings from climate science get stronger, now is the time to realize…that the future is not in fossil fuels,” Dr. Doug Parr of Greenpeace U.K. told The Independent. “It’s also time for government to recognize that we should not leave the workers stranded, but provide opportunities in the new industries of the 21^st century.”

Those opportunities are likely to come in the renewable energy sector, as the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced (PDF) in December that solar and wind power are now the same price or cheaper than new fossil fuel capacity in more than 30 countries.

“Renewable energy has reached a tipping point,” Michael Drexler, who leads infrastructure and development investing at the WEF, said in a statement at the time. “It is not only a commercially viable option, but an outright compelling investment opportunity with long-term, stable, inflation-protected returns.”

Quartz reported last month:

In 2016, utilities added 9.5 gigawatts (GW) of photovoltaic capacity to the U.S. grid, making solar the top fuel source for the first time in a calendar year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s estimates. The U.S. added about 125 solar panels every minute in 2016, about double the pace last year, reports the Solar Energy Industry Association.

The solar story is even more impressive after accounting for new distributed solar on homes and business (rather than just those built for utilities), which pushed the total installed capacity to 11.2 GW.

And as Paul Buchheit noted in an op-ed published Tuesday at Common Dreams, “solar is also creating jobs at an unprecedented rate, more than in the oil and gas sectors combined, and 12 times faster than the rest of the economy.”

But it remains unclear how these trends will develop under an incoming Donald Trump administration.

As Moody’s Investor Services reported Tuesday, under Trump’s fossil-friendly cabinet, “U.S. energy policy likely will prioritize domestic oil and coal production, in addition to reducing federal regulatory burdens.”

In turn, according to Moody’s:

Increasing confidence in the oil and gas industry’s prospects will spur acquisition activity among North American exploration and production (E&P) firms, Moody’s says. Debt and equity markets are again offering financing for producers seeking to re-position and enhance their asset portfolios after a lull. [Merger and acquisition activity] will also pick up in the midstream sector. At the same time, integrated oil and gas firms will continue to improve their cash flow metrics and leverage profiles by cutting operating costs, further reducing capital spending and divesting assets.

Even so, the oilfield services and drilling (OFS) sector is in for another tough year, with continued weak customer demand, overcapacity, and a high debt burden.

Bottom line, wrote Buchheit, is that with the rapid expansion of solar power, Trump has “the opportunity to make something happen that will happen anyway, but he can take all the credit, with the added bonus of beating out his adversary China.”
“Unfortunately, Trump may not have the intelligence to recognize that he should act,” Buchheit wrote. “And the forces behind fossil fuel make progress unlikely. But there is plenty of American ego and arrogance and exceptionalism out there. We need some of that ego now, just like 60 years ago, when the Soviet accomplishments in space drove us toward a singular world-changing goal. Then it was the moon. Now it’s the sun.”

 

Carbon emissions pricing and taxing

In “The Arab world could be a DECIDING FACTOR in the fight against CLIMATE CHANGE”  article written by Martin Heger and Maria Sarraf, it was noted that  175 parties having signed the Paris Agreement in April 2016 in New York City, it was not enough. It matters not only how many countries signed the document, but also how many countries ultimately join the Paris Agreement by ratifying it. Only once the Paris Agreement is ratified, does it become operational and legally binding.  In the meantime as per the article elaborating on how the world whilst looking to the MENA region for the next COP, we believe that apart from the commendable effort of honouring the MENA with leading the world, things need to take a more practical stance such as in this instance, moving on to the financing or the kick off of it of the Agreement by country to country taxing any of their Carbon emission.  This is the subject of our other selected article.  It is reproduced here for its obviously inherent argumentation.  Carbon emissions pricing and taxing would be a mandatory step towards the full implementation of what was agreed in Paris and ratified in New York.  Would Marrakesh confirm all that?

As the Paris Agreement becomes reality: How to transform economies through carbon pricing

By Laura Tuck

The remarkable pace at which nations of the world have ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change gives us all hope. It signals the world is ready to take the actions we need to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. We know, however, that delivering on Paris comes with a high price tag, and that we need to help countries not just transition toward renewable energy but unlock the finance needed to get there.

Amid the enormous challenge ahead, I want to emphasize the transformative economic opportunity that putting a price on carbon pollution presents.

Many governments across the world now make polluters pay for their CO2 emissions through carbon taxes and emissions trading systems. The money generated through these efforts — about $26 billion in 2015 — is modest, but on the rise (up 60% from 2014).

As a price on carbon emissions becomes a reality for more people, governments are confronted with the nice-to-have challenge of figuring out what to do with the revenues.

One option is to use the revenues to offset other taxes, such as those on income earned or business profits. Another is to support government spending in chronically underfunded areas such as health, education and infrastructure. And a third is to use the funds to support clean technology development. What option countries pick will depend on the local context, and requires deliberation.

However, after I participated in a ClimateWeek panel discussion on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly several weeks ago, I’m concerned that not enough governments, particularly in middle and low income countries, are aware of the transformative potential presented by carbon pricing. Rather than view it as an additional cost, governments, business and citizens can think of carbon pricing as a way to structure their economies for the future.

Canada’s Quebec province has been among the first movers in putting a price on carbon emissions, and the outcome is impressive. The province has raised $1.2 billion from carbon credit auctions, and by law, 2/3 of the revenues are used in the transportation sector.

The result after 2.5 years, said Minister of Environment David Heurtel is that Quebec is “now seeing the development of the entire value chain of the electric vehicle sector.” Lithium for batteries is being mined sustainably from northern Canada; the fourth largest hydro power company in the world, Hydro-Quebec, is developing battery technology; Canadian aluminium is being used to build vehicles; and charging stations have cropped up across the entire province.

This pace and type of transformation may sound atypical, but at the World Bank, we’re seeing pick-up in middle income countries, and interest from low-income countries as well.

China currently has seven regional ETS schemes that cover 18 % of the country’s population, and intends to launch a national ETS next year. Once active, the national ETS will be worth $50 billion.

The Indian company Mahindra & Mahindra has introduced carbon pricing internally in an effort to reduce emissions and increase ‘green revenues’ through business lines focused on adapting to and mitigating for climate change. A quick stocktaking within the company identified some $400 million in green revenues through its solar, micro-irrigation, and green building businesses.

In such a context, Anirban Ghosh, Vice President for Sustainability, said that carbon pricing “helps [Mahindra] move into actions which either bring down cost, or enable green revenue.”

Through our own work at the World Bank, we’re seeing interest from low-income countries: Côte d’Ivoire recently joined the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, and commissioned a feasibility study to assess the potential impacts of a national carbon tax. And Ethiopia is collaborating with us on a study that assesses the impacts of climate mitigation instruments in low-income countries.

Bracing for the impacts of climate change and reducing emissions to help slow down global warming are important issues. But so too is the tremendous window of opportunity that an effective carbon pricing policy provides.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna of Canada has been a big champion of carbon pricing, and said that “it’s going to open up huge markets for business. Because once you have other countries stepping up and saying ‘we’re moving towards a cleaner future,’ you’re going to see innovation and investment.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Don’t forget to watch the video stream of the panel, and also take a look at the Carbon Pricing Leadership Panel’s Executive Brief on using revenues from carbon pricing.

 

Masdar City: “the world’s most sustainable city”

Here is an article written by Susan Lee ,  Research Fellow, University of Birmingham and published by The Conversation on September 19th, 2016.  It is about a master piece that is to date the unequalled Masdar City: “the world’s most sustainable city”

We republish it with The Conversation.com good courtesy and our thanks. 

Welcome to Masdar City: the ultimate experiment in sustainable urban living

Ten years ago in the United Arab Emirates, a new settlement was started from scratch, with the aim of becoming “the world’s most sustainable city”. Masdar City was designed to be zero-carbon and zero-waste, home to a population of 40,000 people, with an additional 50,000 commuters, in an area of six square kilometres. Today, it’s playing a crucial role in the development of sustainable design and technology.

Around the world, access to a reliable and plentiful energy supply is becoming increasingly critical. Urban populations continue to grow and demand even more energy. At the same time, vital resources such as water are becoming increasingly scarce, and rising levels of CO₂ and a warming global climate are adding to the stress on the Earth’s system.

All of this means that Masdar’s function as a test bed for innovations in fuel efficiency and renewable energy is more important than ever before. As part of a recent study, my colleagues and I took a closer look at the new technology on show in Masdar. Here’s what we found.

Going for green

The streets and buildings of Masdar City are specially designed to be energy efficient. In line with traditional Arab design, Masdar City’s shaded paths and narrow streets are designed to create a pleasant space for walking in the region’s hot climate. Its buildings are only five stories high, lining narrow streets with rooftops covered with solar panels, while street-level “solar canopies” provide shade for pedestrians.

The entire city is oriented north-east to south-west, to benefit from cool winds at night and to minimise the incoming heat during the day. The main buildings – the Siemens Building, the IRENA Building and the Incubator Building – are highly insulated and energy efficient, with three quarters of their hot water produced using solar energy. They also have angled facades to minimise the amount of glare and heat from the sun.

Inclined to save energy. claudionapoli/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

For transport, the city currently uses 13 “personal rapid transit” (PRT) carts, or driverless pods. These ferry commuters from a car park at the city’s outer edge to the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, which uses Masdar as a “living laboratory” to conduct research on sustainable urban development.

There are also a number of electric vehicles available for public use, which run on a 16kWh lithium-ion battery with a maximum speed of 130km per hour. These can be recharged at charging stations throughout the city. Electric buses also provide access for residential areas.

Sustainable technology

Masdar City is home to some of the most advanced solar energy technology in the world. Perhaps the most ambitious project is SHAMS 1, a stand-alone 2.5km², 100MW Concentrated Solar Power plant. This plant was built about 100km from Masdar, at an estimated cost of US$600m (£453m). It is one of the largest of its type in the world, and displaces 175,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually – equivalent to the emissions of 29,000 UK homes.

The SHAMS 1 plant generates electricity from the sun’s heat. But Masdar City is also supplied by another 0.2km², 10MW solar plant, which uses photovoltaic technology to turn the sun’s light into energy. What’s more, there’s a 1MW photovoltaic panel on the roof of the Masdar Institute, while the solar panels atop the Masdar headquarters generate 340,000kWh per year – enough to power 94 average UK homes.

Feeling the heat.

Other initiatives include a solar cooling project to lower the temperature inside buildings, and a geo-thermal cooling project, which involved digging two wells reaching 2.5km deep, one for drawing hot water, and one for re-injecting the water after the heat has been extracted.

A 45m-high wind tower in Masdar City takes inspiration from traditional Arab technology. It produces a cooling effect, by directing hot air up and out of its surrounding area, as well as bringing cooler air from above down to the surface. Also, a 100kW thermal power plant is being established, which will convert solar energy into thermal energy through a set of reflective mirrors.

Power usage in Masdar City is monitored through one management system, and portrayed through a series of screens inside the buildings. There are no light switches or taps in the city – all of these features are controlled by motion sensors, to prevent waste.

Inspiring cities

Despite Masdar’s many successes, there is still room for improvement. It needs to establish more permanent residents who can contribute to its growth and development. What’s more, further work is required on transportation, as technology in electric cars has advanced rapidly, and has in some ways superseded the pods.

Behind the times? claudionapoli/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

And while Masdar City has enabled the development of state-of-the-art, energy-saving buildings and exciting new technologies in a hostile, arid environment, not all of the solutions on show would work for other cities. For one thing, it’s costly: the Abu Dhabi government has committed US$15 billion (£11.3 billion) to the project. What’s more, while Masdar City started with an empty site, established cities have to work around existing infrastructure.

Even so, as the global climate changes, warmer summers are expected to become more likely, so any case studies which show how buildings can be modified to mitigate the heat will be useful. In this way, and many more, Masdar City will continue to provide other cities around the world with inspiration to help them become more robust, resilient and sustainable in the face of global challenges.

Will Saudi Arabia’s plans for a new city be successful?

BBC News  asked in a TV programme one evening of February 5^th, 2016 this question: Will Saudi Arabia’s plans for a new city be successful?

The show went on to elaborate how Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) is one of the most ambitious construction projects in the world and that would have made sense at a time when oil was $100+ a barrel.  A premise of an answer could be found to a certain degree in the location of this new town, i.e. on the western seaboard as opposed to the oil rich eastern one.

KAEC location

McKinsey published this article written by the same Fahd Al-Rasheed interviewed by the BBC’s Stephen Sackur in the above mentioned programme.  Slight but noticeable different stance could be discerned.

Learn from the past, build for the future: Saudi Arabia’s new city on the Red Sea 

By Fahd Al-Rasheed

To build a city from scratch, create a solid economic foundation.

Three millennia ago, Akhenaten began construction of the Egyptian city of Amarna—perhaps the first example of planned urban infrastructure in recorded history. Within a decade of Akhenaten’s death, Amarna was abandoned—ancient evidence that building infrastructure and convincing people to use it are two fundamentally different challenges.

Building an economic infrastructure

King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) is the world’s largest privately funded city. Located about 100 kilometers north of Jeddah on the coast of the Red Sea, KAEC is a public–private partnership with the government of Saudi Arabia; it is built with private capital, independently of oil revenue. KAEC is an image of what Saudi Arabia could look like without hydrocarbons: a trade and logistics gateway offering companies access to a fast-growing regional market of 620 million people.

KAEC is master planned to accommodate a population of two million people over an area of 181 square kilometers—about the size of Washington, DC. Today, around 25 percent of the total area is either developed or under development. KAEC could be home to about 10,000 people by the end of the year. By 2020, 40 percent of the planned area will be developed, and the population should be around 50,000 people.

KAEC was conceived to attract new industries to the city by meeting latent demand within Saudi Arabia, which is the largest economy in the region. For example, 80 percent of Saudi Arabia’s pharmaceuticals are imported; KAEC therefore encouraged leading pharmaceutical companies to establish operations in the city. Today, pharmaceuticals is one of its fastest-growing clusters.

More than 100 global and local companies are setting up operations in the city in nonoil industries, including pharmaceutical, automotive, logistics, and consumer goods. One European oil company operates a blending plant for its lubricants business in the city; a carmaker is assembling commercial trucks; an air-conditioner firm is getting ready for production and exports. Next year will see the addition of a bonded zone and sophisticated warehousing operations.

An integral part of KAEC’s economic model is the construction of trade and logistics infrastructure. The city operates King Abdullah Port, a deepwater port and the first in the region to be built entirely with private capital. The port now has the capacity to manage 3 million containers a year. This will increase to 4.5 million by the end of 2016 and 20 million by the time it is finished in 2025.

The port is connected to the national road network to facilitate transportation, thus attracting companies that need improved access to the Saudi market. The port is also adjacent to the city’s Industrial Valley light-manufacturing zone, allowing companies to ship raw materials in to their manufacturing plants and ship product out, either to the Saudi market or the broader region.

This economic infrastructure creates jobs and thus growing demand for residential and civic infrastructure, such as housing, schools, healthcare facilities, and recreation. KAEC builds this civic infrastructure to scale.

The “ghost cities” developed elsewhere are an eloquent example of the risk of building for long-term end use without an economic base. Facilities that lie idle until the population expands to support them are expensive to maintain. In a private-sector model, however, facilities must be economically viable almost from the outset to mitigate maintenance costs. Infrastructure is built to meet near-term projections and then expanded as the economic cycle gains momentum.

KAEC’s main medical center at the moment, for example, is a secondary-care facility providing emergency support, general medicine, laboratory services, and a rotating schedule of specialist clinics. There is insufficient demand for a full hospital in the city today. If built, it would be largely mothballed until the population expanded to accommodate it. Hospital construction is a project for the future.

Building a social infrastructure

A significant challenge with planned cities is creating spaces in which people want to live and interact while keeping the city affordable, particularly in Saudi Arabia, where there is a shortage of affordable housing. It is one thing to build a city that works. It is another thing to build one that lives.

Ultimately, the residents themselves will add color and vibrancy as they begin to define the space in which they live—opening boutique businesses, creating cultural neighborhoods, and initiating community-led programs. KAEC’s residential communities are built to encourage interaction, incorporating green spaces, community centers, cycle paths, and ready access to the city’s recreational facilities.

Social infrastructure also needs to adapt to emerging and future technologies. KAEC is constantly updating its master plan to adapt to the fact that technologies that were prohibitively expensive a decade ago can be installed today at low cost. The original master plan has evolved to incorporate advanced fiber optics, smart-utility networks, and a wide array of sensors to manage city operations.

Technology is also profoundly changing the relationship that people enjoy with their cities and city administrators. Citizens of KAEC can report municipal issues directly to the city management via a dedicated app, allowing information to be acted upon quickly while reducing the time and cost of providing essential community-care services. A central incident-control room monitors more serious issues such as traffic accidents and petty crime, coordinating the emergency and security services through a real-time city-information system.

Technology will be a major factor in city planning far into the future. The adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs), for example, could have a profound impact on urban design. What will it mean to be able to significantly decrease the number of vehicles on the roads? What do AVs mean for residential spaces? To commuters? To parks and pedestrian areas? These are among the many questions that KAEC is working through today. The widespread use of AVs may be a decade or more away, but planning a new city requires thinking at least that far ahead.

Amarna is an object lesson in the dangers of building cities on little more than a political whim. Every city needs a reason to exist. It’s not enough to build infrastructure: cities need to compete economically and be attractive to all kinds of people. Those that fail in these respects will, like Amarna, disappear into the deserts of history. By focusing on creating and maintaining a sustainable economic cycle, KAEC is applying the lessons of the past to build for the future.

About the author(s)

Fahd Al-Rasheed is the managing director and group CEO of King Abdullah Economic City.

Quest for a ‘Smart’ City

How do we keep air clean, our carbon footprint low, the population healthy and the environment ‘green’?  Queried E&T in their Quest for a ‘Smart’ City definition has exposed the damning evidence of energy and environmental dangers . . .

A rapidly growing global population means that we will need to exploit a space’s potential, whether it is taller sustainable buildings, innovative waste management, or better renewable processes.  One of the biggest priorities when creating a smart city is to keep it eco-friendly and for us to work towards a cleaner, greener future.  We need to look at sustainable buildings – according to interactive platform Urban Hub, about 250 million new housing units will be required before 2030 in the 12 most populated countries, which account for 61 per cent of the global population.

According to TechRepublic.com there are key technologies that make a smart city work.

Here are the top 6 :

1. Smart Energy
2. Smart Transportation
3. Smart Data
4. Mart Infrastructure
5. Smart Mobility
6. Smart IoT

In the meantime, in the light of the above and in the spirit as it were of the new Gulf countries cultural trends, steps are taken to provide affordable housing within the framework of the concept of Smart City.

Al Barayeh

Al-Barayeh, a smart city project in Kuwait won first rank in Gulf region as reported by the local media and KUNA back in February 2016.  This smart city environmental project, designed by Kuwaiti engineer Faisal Al-Jehaim, won first rank in the best environmental project prize in the Gulf region.  The prize was offered by the 19^th Gulf Engineering Forum, organized by Kuwait Society for Engineers in Kuwait.

It works in decreasing energy consumption rates as well as using its alternatives, and works in fulfilling a high quality of life that cherishes sustainability elements, including the social and economic environment, he said.

This city will be ready to be inhabited in three years, to welcome a total of 85,000 people and will server all of their daily basic needs and means of transportation as it will reduce usage of cars, including a metro station. – KUNA.

Gulf Business published this article written by Robert Anderson on the latest news on Smart City development and it is reproduced here for the benefit of our membership and readers generally.

Kuwait reveals plans for smart, environmentally friendly city. 

Kuwait has unveiled plans for what is claimed to be the first smart and environmentally friendly city in the Middle East.

South Saad Al-Abdullah city has been designed to accommodate 400,000 people over an area of 59 square kilometres with more than 30,000 housing units, according to state news agency KUNA.

The government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Korea Land and Housing Corporation to conduct a feasibility analysis of the project and form a joint company with the Public Authority for Housing Welfare for design, construction and operation.

The new city will be 40km west of the centre of Kuwait and is estimated to cost $4bn, according to reports earlier this year.

It is described as including an internet network that will connect all of its inhabitants with public services.

Solar cells are also being considered to power the project and the overall design is described as avoiding ‘visual pollution’ by forcing inhabitants to use specific colours for buildings.

Restrictions on building design and construction materials may also be imposed.

Implementation is expected to begin in February 2017.

The Kuwaiti government plans to provide 120,000 housing units for citizens annually over the next decade, according to KUNA.

Other major projects include South Mutla, which will house 400,000 citizens with 30,000 housing units. Building of infrastructure and roads for the project is expected to cost KD 288m ($954.7m).

 

Nationalities investing in 2016 Dubai

149 nationalities invest $15 billion in 2016 Dubai . . .

Dubai has over these recent years acquired a deserved notoriety of most attractive business centre of the MENA south east region and as such, it does pull in a great deal of worldwide investment in as diverse a range of sectors as it can locally offer.  This article examines the  Nationalities investing in 2016 Dubai,  is however not only interested in the investors country of origin but also in the levels of investments.

Dubai is well known these days by all, that retail and all related trade, storage, transportation, etc. are its greatest forte and as a matter of consequence, property of all estate type has become as put by Sultan Butti Bin Merjen, director general of the Dubai Land Department (DLD), who was heard saying :  “The Dubai real estate market has managed to maintain its robust appeal this year and is now emerging as one of the foremost property investment destinations in the world, bolstered by the decline in some regional economies and serious challenges faced by other countries around the globe.  The diversity of the investor base reflects the extensive ranges of different products offered by the real estate sector in Dubai, along with the quality and trust that investors place in its national economy.”

In effect, property is obviously the most apparent and the DLD reported that in the first half of 2016, a total value of foreign investment in the Dubai real estate market reached more than $7.6 billion, in as much as 14,314 investments from 149 different nationalities.

GCC citizens in 8,000 transactions, contributed $5.9 billion to the Dubai property market.  UAE’s nationals were of course made the greatest number, with their transactions totalling $3.9 billion through 4,543 operations.

Citizens of Saudi Arabia came in at second place with transactions aggregating $1 billion from 1,946 investments.

Kuwait nationals, with 743 investments worth more than $272 million were followed by Qataris, Omanis and Bahrainis in that order.

Indian nationals, by far the most predominating ethnic group of the GCC’s came in top of the investor table, making more than $1.9 billion worth of property purchases from 3,656 transactions.

The British were listed second with a total of approximately $1 billion worth of property resulting from 2,010 deals, while Pakistani investments were third with $816 million, arrived at from 2,073 transactions.

Arab nationals from outside the GCC invested more than $1.9 billion into Dubai’s real estate, with 7,577 investment actions made by 16 different nationalities.  Jordanians were ranked first, with investments of over $407.6 billion through 765 transactions followed by Egyptians with a total of $372.3 billion in 710 transactions and Lebanese at over $271.7 billion in 423 transactions.

Desert Rose City

Sustainable Desert Rose City . . .

Time out Dubai and all the online and paper mass media reported yesterday that Dubai was about to launch the development of what is labelled a Desert Rose City; an eco-city spread like a field of giant pansies of 5 purple edged white petals.  From the provided pictures, it looks as if each pansy shades some sort of a housing cluster.

This development is in accordance with the Emirate’s green building policy and in line with its urban approach to a sustainable growth.  The integrated new town springing out of the desert, will offer plots, villas together with all social, health, shopping and leisure facilities, etc.   Mosques, academia services, gardens and technical and support amenities are also proposed, all running on renewable energy.

Auto-recycling of waste is omnipresent which together with all roofs mounted solar panels, generating clean 200 megawatts electrical power, will make this new agglomeration a smart city that is fully sustainable.  Officials were heard mentioning that “75% of the city would be dedicated to housing.”  Before adding that “The first phase is expected to welcome 160,000 inhabitants in an area of more than 14,000 ha.”

The proposed city will dispose of its own public transport and communications systems.   Recycling water planned to supply more than 40,000 cubic metres of potable water.

The construction of the city will make extensive usage of Green Building materials and latest assembly techniques as per the current worldwide trends.

In effect, the whole City project follows the universal green building movement of today.  Using the innovative technologies that are being developed these days will most probably put this city at the avant-garde  of the movement and possibly will enable it to keep pace with the increasing shift towards sustainability.

It is all about integration of biodegradable and renewable materials in the construction of buildings as a paramount priority in this development.  Natural paints, recycled steel, insulated concrete block-working, natural woods sidings will shape and finish all buildings.

All buildings are zero-energy with wind micro-turbines, bio-fuels and minimal H.V.A.C. hardware.

Use of water conservation systems to efficiently manage water consumption, rainwater recycling, greywater reutilisation, smart landscaping and on-site sewage treatment will be detailed in the production documentation.  Moreover, low-emitting windows glazing with thermal framing for low heat gain will be specified.

Such buildings types as generally used for the Flower City will certainly not come cheap but their running costs as tempered by the thorough low energy use in lighting, cooling costs of buildings and maintenance generally would aggregate to a reasonable overall budget.  Most importantly, it is the Desert Rose City’s impact on the environment that is   expected to be minimal.