Evaluating carbon removal: Integrating technical potential with environmental, social, governance criteria, and sequestration permanence.

Climate modeling suggests that achieving international climate goals requires a reduction in current CO emissions by over 90%, with any remaining emissions to be addressed through carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions. Sixteen CDR strategies are evaluated by integrating technical potential, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria, along with sequestration permanence. This evaluation, conducted by ENGIE's scientific council using an interdisciplinary Delphi panel methodology, proposes a "quality" measure for each technology.

Systemwide energy return on investment in a sustainable transition towards net zero power systems.

The Glasgow Climate Pact articulated the vital importance of renewables in reducing emissions on the way to net-zero pledges. During the power sector transition, foreseeing conditions affecting the plausibility of pathway options is crucial for specifying an optimal system development strategy. This study examines the net energy performance of nine decarbonisation global energy transition scenarios until 2050 by applying a newly developed systemwide energy return on investment (EROI) model.

Climate and biodiversity impacts of low-density polyethylene production from CO and electricity in comparison to bio-based polyethylene.

Plastics are essential materials for modern societies, but their production contributes to significant environmental issues. Power-to-X processes could produce plastics from captured CO and hydrogen with renewable electricity, but these technologies may also face challenges from environmental perspective. This paper focuses on environmental sustainability assessment of CO-based low-density polyethylene (LDPE) compared to bio-based LDPE.

Photovoltaics at multi-terawatt scale: Waiting is not an option.

25% annual PV growth is possible over the next decade.

Contextualizing the scope, scale, and speed of energy pathways toward sustainable development in Africa.

Faced with interrelated challenges of climate change and energy crises, Africa's future energy system orientation could be steered toward sustainable development. In this study, we contextualized diverging fossil fuels-dominated and renewable energy-based pathways toward sustainable development in Africa. A novel and sophisticated techno-economic energy modeling tool is used to describe the scope of the pathways in high geo-spatial and full hourly resolution for Africa covering the entire energy system.

The role of renewables for rapid transitioning of the power sector across states in India.

Recent events like heatwaves and abnormal rainfall are a glimpse of the devastating effects of human induced climate change. No country is immune to its effects, but a developing country like India is particularly vulnerable. This research, for the individual states of India, explores the technical feasibility and economic viability of a renewable transition pathway for the power sector.

Assessment of lithium criticality in the global energy transition and addressing policy gaps in transportation.

The forthcoming global energy transition requires a shift to new and renewable technologies, which increase the demand for related materials. This study investigates the long-term availability of lithium (Li) in the event of significant demand growth of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for supplying the power and transport sectors with very-high shares of renewable energy. A comprehensive assessment that uses 18 scenarios, created by combining 8 demand related variations with 4 supply conditions, were performed.

Assessing the potential for renewable energy powered desalination for the global irrigation sector.

By 2050, it is estimated that the annual cereal production would need to increase by about 140% and total global food production increase by 70%. Meanwhile, total water withdrawals for irrigation are projected to increase by 11%. In contrast, poor management of existing water resources, pollution and climate change has resulted in limited freshwater resources.

Radical transformation pathway towards sustainable electricity via evolutionary steps.

A transition towards long-term sustainability in global energy systems based on renewable energy resources can mitigate several growing threats to human society simultaneously: greenhouse gas emissions, human-induced climate deviations, and the exceeding of critical planetary boundaries. However, the optimal structure of future systems and potential transition pathways are still open questions. This research describes a global, 100% renewable electricity system, which can be achieved by 2050, and the steps required to enable a realistic transition that prevents societal disruption.

Electricity system based on 100% renewable energy for India and SAARC.

The developing region of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) is home to a large number of people living below the poverty line. In future, providing affordable, universally accessible, reliable, low to zero carbon electricity in this region will be the main aim. A cost optimal 100% renewable energy system is simulated for SAARC for the year 2030 on an hourly resolved basis.

Hydro, wind and solar power as a base for a 100% renewable energy supply for South and Central America.

Power systems for South and Central America based on 100% renewable energy (RE) in the year 2030 were calculated for the first time using an hourly resolved energy model. The region was subdivided into 15 sub-regions. Four different scenarios were considered: three according to different high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission grid development levels (region, country, area-wide) and one integrated scenario that considers water desalination and industrial gas demand supplied by synthetic natural gas via power-to-gas (PtG).