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Although the transition to renewable energies will intensify the global competition for land, the potential impacts driven by solar energy remain unexplored. In this work, the potential solar land requirements and related land use change emissions are computed for the EU, India, Japan and South Korea. A novel method is developed within an integrated assessment model which links socioeconomic, energy, land and climate systems. At 25 80% penetration in the electricity mix of those regions by 2050, we find that solar energy may occupy 0.5 5% of total land. The resulting land cover changes, including indirect effects, will likely cause a net release of carbon ranging from 0 to 50 gCO2/kWh, depending on the region, scale of expansion, solar technology efficiency and land management practices in solar parks. Hence, a coordinated planning and regulation of new solar energy infrastructures should be enforced to avoid a significant increase in their life cycle emissions through terrestrial carbon losses. © 2021, The Author(s). Funding was provided by Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España (Grant No. MDM-2017-0714), Horizon 2020 (Grant Nos. 642260, 821105), Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universi-dades (Grant No. RTI2018-093352-B-I00) and Eusko Jaurlaritza (Grant No. PRE_2017_2_0139).

Producción Científica, Achieving ambitious reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG) is particularly challenging for transportation due to the technical limitations of replacing oil-based fuels. We apply the integrated assessment model MEDEAS-World to study four global transportation decarbonization strategies for 2050. The results show that a massive replacement of oil-fueled individual vehicles to electric ones alone cannot deliver GHG reductions consistent with climate stabilization and could result in the scarcity of some key minerals, such as lithium and magnesium. In addition, energy-economy feedbacks within an economic growth system create a rebound effect that counters the benefits of substitution. The only strategy that can achieve the objectives globally follows the Degrowth paradigm, combining a quick and radical shift to lighter electric vehicles and non-motorized modes with a drastic reduction in total transportation demand., European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no 691287 and 821105, respectively., Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project ECO2017-85110-R), Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project FJCI-2016-28833)

13 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables, 3 appendixes, supplementary data https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.110105, This paper reviews different approaches to modelling the energy transition towards a zero carbon economy. It identifies a number of limitations in current approaches such as a lack of consideration of out-of-equilibrium situations (like an energy transition) and non-linear feedbacks. To tackle those issues, the new open source integrated assessment model pymedeas is introduced, which allows the exploration of the design and planning of appropriate strategies and policies for decarbonizing the energy sector at World and EU level. The main novelty of the new open-source model is that it addresses the energy transition by considering biophysical limits, availability of raw materials, and climate change impacts. This paper showcases the model capabilities through several simulation experiments to explore alternative pathways for the renewable transition. In the selected scenarios of this work, future shortage of fossil fuels is found to be the most influential factor of the simulations system evolution. Changes in efficiency and climate change damages are also important determinants influencing model outcomes, This work was supported by the European Union through the funding of the MEDEAS project under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [grant agreement No 69128], With the funding support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S), of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI)

Uncertainties concerning fossil fuel resource availability have traditionally been deemphasized in climate change research as global baseline emission scenarios (i.e., scenarios that do not consider additional climate policies) have been built on the assumption of abundant fossil fuel resources for the 21st century. However, current estimates are subject to critical uncertainties and an emerging body of literature is providing revised estimates. Here we consider the entire range of revised estimates, applying an integrated assessment model to perform a likelihood analysis of climate change pathways. Our results show that, by the end of the century, the two highest emission pathways from the IPCC, the Representative Concentration Pathways RCP6 and RCP8.5, where the baseline scenarios currently lie, have probabilities of being surpassed of 42% and 12%, respectively. In terms of temperature change, the probability of exceeding the 2 °C level by 2100 remains very high (88%), confirming the need for urgent climate action. Coal resource uncertainty determines the uncertainty about the emission and radiative forcing pathways due to the poor quality of data. We also find that the depletion of fossil fuels is likely to occur during the second half of the century accelerating the transition to renewable energy sources in baseline scenarios. Accordingly, more investments may be required to enable the energy transition, while the additional mitigation measures would in turn necessitate a lower effort than currently estimated. Hence, the integrated analysis of resource availability and climate change is essential to obtain internally consistent climate pathways.

Producción Científica, Whether renewable energy sources (RES) will provide sufficient energy surplus to entirely power complex modern societies is under discussion. We contribute to this debate by estimating the current global average energy return on energy invested (EROI) for the five RES technologies with the highest potential of electricity generation from the comprehensive and internally consistent estimations of their material requirements at three distinct energy system boundaries: standard farm-gate (EROIst), final at consumer point-of-use (EROIfinal), and extended (including indirect investments, EROIext). EROIst levels found fall within the respective literature ranges. Expanding the boundaries closer to the system level, we find that only large hydroelectricity would currently have a high EROIext ~ 6.5:1, while the rest of variable RES would be below 3:1: onshore wind (2.9:1), offshore wind (2.3:1), solar Photovoltaic (PV) (1.8:1), and solar Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) (, MEDEAS project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme under grant agree-ment no. 691287, LOCOMOTION project, funded by the EuropeanUnion’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programmeunder grant agreement no. 821105

Producción Científica, Analyses proposing a high share of concentrated solar power (CSP) in future 100% renewable energy scenarios rely on the ability of this technology, through storage and/or hybridization, to partially avoid the problems associated with the hourly/daily (short-term) variability of other variable renewable sources such as wind or solar photovoltaic. However, data used in the scientific literature are mainly theoretical values. In this work, the actual performance of CSP plants in operation from publicly available data from four countries (Spain, the USA, India, and United Arab Emirates) has been estimated for three dimensions: capacity factor (CF), seasonal variability, and energy return on energy invested (EROI). In fact, the results obtained show that the actual performance of CSP plants is significantly worse than that projected by constructors and considered by the scientific literature in the theoretical studies: a CF in the range of 0.15–0.3, low standard EROI (1.3:1–2.4:1), intensive use of materials—some scarce, and significant seasonal intermittence. In the light of the obtained results, the potential contribution of current CSP technologies in a future 100% renewable energy system seems very limited., Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project FJCI-2016-28833), European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 691287

23 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables, 6 appendices, The transition to renewable energies will intensify the global competition for land. Nevertheless, most analyses to date have concluded that land will not pose significant constraints on this transition. Here, we estimate the land-use requirements to supply all currently consumed electricity and final energy with domestic solar energy for 40 countries considering two key issues that are usually not taken into account: (1) the need to cope with the variability of the solar resource, and (2) the real land occupation of solar technologies. We focus on solar since it has the highest power density and biophysical potential among renewables. The exercise performed shows that for many advanced capitalist economies the land requirements to cover their current electricity consumption would be substantial, the situation being especially challenging for those located in northern latitudes with high population densities and high electricity consumption per capita. Assessing the implications in terms of land availability (i.e., land not already used for human activities), the list of vulnerable countries enlarges substantially (the EU-27 requiring around 50% of its available land), few advanced capitalist economies requiring low shares of the estimated available land. Replication of the exercise to explore the land-use requirements associated with a transition to a 100% solar powered economy indicates this transition may be physically unfeasible for countries such as Japan and most of the EU-27 member states. Their vulnerability is aggravated when accounting for the electricity and final energy footprint, i.e., the net embodied energy in international trade. If current dynamics continue, emerging countries such as India might reach a similar situation in the future. Overall, our results indicate that the transition to renewable energies maintaining the current levels of energy consumption has the potential to create new vulnerabilities and/or reinforce existing ones in terms of energy and food security and biodiversity conservation, This work has been partially developed under the MEDEAS project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant agreement no. 691287

Producción Científica, A diversity of integrated assessment models (IAMs) coexists due to the different approaches developed to deal with the complex interactions, high uncertainties and knowledge gaps within the environment and human societies. This paper describes the open-source MEDEAS modeling framework, which has been developed with the aim of informing decision-making to achieve the transition to sustainable energy systems with a focus on biophysical, economic, social and technological restrictions and tackling some of the limitations identified in the current IAMs. MEDEAS models include the following relevant characteristics: representation of biophysical constraints to energy availability; modeling of the mineral and energy investments for the energy transition, allowing a dynamic assessment of the potential mineral scarcities and computation of the net energy available to society; consistent representation of climate change damages with climate assessments by natural scientists; integration of detailed sectoral economic structure (input–output analysis) within a system dynamics approach; energy shifts driven by physical scarcity; and a rich set of socioeconomic and environmental impact indicators. The potentialities and novel insights that this framework brings are illustrated by the simulation of four variants of current trends with the MEDEAS-world model: the consideration of alternative plausible assumptions and methods, combined with the feedback-rich structure of the model, reveal dynamics and implications absent in classical models. Our results suggest that the continuation of current trends will drive significant biophysical scarcities and impacts which will most likely derive in regionalization (priority to security concerns and trade barriers), conflict, and ultimately, a severe global crisis which may lead to the collapse of our modern civilization. Despite depicting a much more worrying future than conventional projections of current trends, we however believe it is a more realistic counterfactual scenario that will allow the design of improved alternative sustainable pathways in future work., Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project CO2017-85110-R), Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project JCI-2016–28833), MEDEAS project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme under grant agree-ment no. 691287., LOCOMOTION project, funded by the EuropeanUnion’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programmeunder grant agreement no. 821105

Producción Científica, A novel methodology is developed to dynamically assess the energy and material investments required over time to achieve the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources in the electricity sector. The obtained results indicate that a fast transition achieving a 100% renewable electric system globally by 2060 consistent with the Green Growth narrative could decrease the EROI of the energy system from current ~12:1 to ~3:1 by the mid-century, stabilizing thereafter at ~5:1. These EROI levels are well below the thresholds identified in the literature required to sustain industrial complex societies. Moreover, this transition could drive a substantial re-materialization of the economy, exacerbating risk availability in the future for some minerals. Hence, the results obtained put into question the consistence and viability of the Green Growth narrative., Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project no. FJCI-2016-28833), MEDEAS project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 691287

Producción Científica, The estimation of future energy demand is a key factor for the development of effective alternative policies towards a low carbon economy. This paper describes a novel method to estimate the energy demand in the new integrated assessment framework MEDEAS based on the projection of sectoral final energy intensities. The dynamic of each of the sectoral final energy intensity is broken down into (1) improvement in energy efficiency and (2) substitution of the final energy. The speed of changes in these factors depend on physical supply-demand unbalances in the market, climate mitigation and other energy saving policies and the perception of scarcity of the different economic agents. The simulated case studies in MEDEAS-World under the narrative of the Business-as-usual (BAU) scenario have allowed validating the model's robustness and showing the potentiality of its application., European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 691287, Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project FJCI-2016-28833)