Morgan Bazilian’s professional background begs the question: How does someone make a career like that? March 23, 2020.
The economics of alternatives to coal combustion, coupled with concerns about coal’s significant role in climate change emissions and air pollution, have put intense downward pressure on coal markets, especially in the United States. As coal power generation in much of the world is declining (China being the largest exception), there is renewed interest in how to sustainably, and effectively, use coal without combusting it. A non-exhaustive review of various possible uses for coal across the chemical and material sectors, is provided. March 2, 2020.
Achieving universal access to electricity by 2030 is a key part of the Agenda for Sustainable Development, and has its own Sustainable Development Goal, SDG 7.1. This is because electricity services are required for almost all aspects of a modern economy, from the cooling of vaccines to irrigation pumping, to manufacturing and running a business. The achievement of SDG 7.1 will require a thoughtful mix of policy, finance, and technology to be designed and implemented at scale. February 27, 2020.
A new Payne Institute Mines Energy Future podcast. Director Morgan Bazilian discusses the Payne Institute and Colorado School of Mines’ perspective on the global energy future. Highlights includes how the Payne Institute is influencing public policy through collaboration, partnerships, and a solutions oriented approach. February 26, 2020.
Payne Fellow Paul Deane writes about the dream of a globally connected power grid that was once the stuff of science fiction. But today with powerful computer software, open data and international collaboration the concept of a global grid is moving one step closer to reality. February 25, 2020.
This article is the second installment in a two-part series. Unit-cost solar electricity for less than two US cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) is the cheapest electricity in the world, but most of the recent ultra-low bids in the global solar market likely required the stars to align to breach this barrier. Using very high efficiency or bifacial modules in some of the sunniest parts of the world, combined with aggressive forward module pricing and system cost assumptions, a transparent and supportive national policy environment, and access to concessional terms for finance, taxes, land, or labor, has driven capital expenditures down significantly. February 25, 2020.
The Payne Institute and Project Canary announce a partnership with Bayswater Exploration and Production for continuous air emissions monitoring for its Colorado operations. Bayswater chose to engage with Payne and Project Canary because of the tremendous learning opportunity it provides them to know even more about improving the efficiency of their operations so that they can engage more effectively with the communities where they operate and the regulators who oversee their activities. February 24, 2020.
This article is the first installment in a two-part series. The global energy transition has reached an inflection point. In numerous markets, the declining cost of solar photovoltaics (PV) has already beaten the cost of new-build coal and natural gas and is now chasing down operating costs of existing thermal power plants, forcing a growing crowd of thermal generation assets into early retirement. Perfect comparability between dispatchable and non-dispatchable resources invites debate, but the cost declines in solar PV are irrefutable: the global average unit cost of competitively-procured solar electricity declined by 83 percent from 2010 to 2018. February 24, 2020.
The Payne Institute co-hosted a workshop with KAPSARC to encourage new research that examines the relationships between energy markets and geopolitical phenomena such as sanctions, diplomatic activity, and cross-border disputes. February 18, 2020.
The geopolitical landscape is likely to be significantly modified by the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable and low-carbon resources, both on the global and sub-national level, experts said during the University of Texas Energy Week’s second day of sessions. February 18, 2020.