Blown away: 70% of Europe’s new power generation comes from renewables

The bulk of new capacity in 2011 came from solar and not wind power. According to an official EU roadmap for green energy wind farms will become the biggest source of electricity in the bloc by 2050, outstripping both coal and nuclear power.

Coal use could fall to very low levels it is predicted and gas would be the “bridging” fossil fuel until around 2030 or 2035.

The implementation of so-called clean coal power generation, crucial to the coal industry, is facing headwinds in Europe.

The International Energy agency said in its World Energy Outlook released in November, widespread deployment of more efficient coal-fired power plants and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology could boost the long-term prospects for coal, but there are still considerable hurdles.

The agency says more efficient technology for new coal power plants would require relatively small additional investments, but improving efficiency levels at existing plants would come at a much higher cost.

The IEA says If CCS is not widely deployed in the 2020s, an “extraordinary burden” would rest on other low-carbon technologies to deliver lower emissions in line with global climate objectives.

Today only two small pilot projects in Germany and the US exist and a $4.8 billion project in the UK, which would be the world’s largest appears to be going nowhere.

While clean coal is failing to make an impact, MINING.com reported in November supply shortfalls of rare-earth elements over the next two decades put at risk the EU’s ambitious plans to expand the production of solar, wind and green transport technologies.

According to the EU’s Joint Research Centre, solar will require half the current world supply of tellurium and 25% of the supply of indium, while Europe’s wind energy programme which is supposed to power all of the continents 240 million households within 20 years need a steady supply of neodymium and dysprosium.

China controls 95% of the globe’s rare earth output and last year produced more solar panels than the rest of the world combined.

Read more about rare earth and green technology here and about recent declines in rare earth prices here.