Category: Russia

The speedy deployment of renewable power worldwide is set to lead the largest annual increase in new renewable capacity ever, a report released on Thursday said. Renewable power capacity is expected to increase by a third this year and will continue to rise next year, primarily due to a stronger push by governments amid higher fossil fuel prices and energy security concerns, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its latest Renewable Energy Market update. The Paris-based group said there would be a significant surge in the global addition of renewable capacity, with a record-breaking increase of 107 gigawatts (GW) expected in 2023, resulting in total renewable capacity of over 440 GW worldwide. That is 24% more than projected six months earlier and double what the world added in 2019. Furthermore, projections indicate that total global renewable electricity capacity will reach 4,500 GW, equivalent to the combined power output of China and the United States, by the following year. China is expected to account for nearly 55% of global additions of renewable power capacity in both 2023 and 2024, consolidating “its position as the undisputed leader in global deployment,” the IEA said. In 2022, China accounted for less than half of all new renewable power capacity worldwide.  By 2024, the report projected that China will deliver almost 70% of all new offshore wind projects globally, as well as over 60% of onshore wind and 50% of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects.  An infographic showing China’s renewable capacity increase between 2017 and 2024. Credit: IEA. According to the IEA, the “dynamic expansion” is also occurring elsewhere in the world’s major markets.  In Europe, many countries boosted their renewables to reduce their reliance on Russian natural gas after the invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis.  In the United States, the wind and solar PV markets experienced a decline last year due to trade restrictions and limitations in the supply chain. However, these markets are anticipated to rebound significantly, with an estimated growth of approximately 40% expected in 2023. In India, renewable capacity expansion in both 2023 and 2024 is attributed to the accelerated deployment of onshore wind, hydropower, and distributed solar PV systems.  “Solar and wind are leading the rapid expansion of the new global energy economy,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said. “This year, the world is set to add a record-breaking amount of renewables to electricity systems … The global energy crisis has shown renewables are critical for making energy supplies cleaner, more secure, and affordable – and governments are responding with efforts to deploy them faster.” Birol said more robust growth faces challenges, including the “need to upgrade and expand power grids to ensure we can take full advantage of solar and wind’s huge potential.” According to the report, solar PV additions will account for two-thirds of this year’s increase in renewable power capacity and are expected to keep growing in 2024, with high electricity prices driving faster growth of rooftop panels. Meanwhile, wind power additions are forecast to grow by almost 70% year-on-year in 2023 after a slow couple of years. The faster growth is mainly due to the end of COVID-19 restrictions in China and recovering supply chain issues worldwide. The IEA said that compared to solar PV, wind turbine supply chains are still not growing fast enough to match increasing demand over the medium term due to rising commodity prices and continued supply chain challenges, resulting in some reduction in profit for manufacturers. Edited by Mike Firn.

Wind and solar reached a record 12% share of global electricity generation in 2022, up from 10% in 2021, with China leading in both sectors, a report by an independent think tank said Wednesday. Solar was the fastest-growing source of electricity for the eighteenth year in a row, rising by 24% year-on-year, according to the fourth Global Electricity Review released by Ember, a U.K.-based energy and climate research group. The global growth in wind and solar power was primarily driven by rising use in China, which accounted for 37% of the worldwide increase. Solar’s share of global power output last year was 4.5%, or 1,284 terawatt hours, up from 3.7% in 2021. A terawatt hour is equal to 1 trillion watts of power for one hour. Meanwhile, 312 terawatt hours of wind energy were added to global electricity generation in 2022. It means wind now contributes to 7.6%, or 2,160 terawatt hours, in the international power mix, up from 6.6% last year, an increase of 17% year-on-year. Ember said 2022 is “a turning point in the world’s transition to clean power.”  “2022 beat 2020 as the cleanest ever year, as emissions intensity reached a record low of 436 gCO2/kWh [grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated], “the report said. The data revealed that China emerged as the global leader in solar, generating 418 terawatt hours of electricity, accounting for 4.7% of the country’s total electricity. The report said about a fifth (or 55 gigawatts) of all the solar panels installed globally in 2022 were on China’s rooftops, driven mainly by an innovative three-year policy called “Whole-County Rooftop Solar” that started in 2021. Wind power stations of German utility RWE, one of Europe’s biggest electricity companies are pictured in front of RWE’s brown coal fired power plants of Neurath, Germany, Mar. 18, 2022. Credit: Reuters China also retained its position as the world’s largest wind power generator in 2022, with a 9.3% wind share in its electricity mix.  Denmark took the lead in wind generation by percentage share, with 55% of its electricity coming from wind power alone, while Chile topped the list of countries with the highest share of solar energy, with 17% solar in its electricity output.  In the U.S., the share of wind and solar in total electricity generation increased from 13% in 2021 to 15%, or 644 terawatts hours, in 2022. Around 60% of its electricity still comes from fossil fuels, with a large chunk coming from gas, followed by coal. 80% of the rise in global electricity demand was met by new wind and solar generation in 2022, said the report that collated 2022 electricity data from 78 countries, representing 93% of global electricity demand.  “Electricity is cleaner than ever, but we are using more of it,” the report said.  The combination of all renewable energy sources and nuclear power represented a 39% share of global electricity generation last year, a new record high. The power sector is the most significant global contributor to planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions.  China, the largest CO2 emitter due to coal Among the top 10 power sector emitters, China led the world by three times more than the U.S., the second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter. Ember said China produced the most CO2 emissions of any power sector in the world last year since coal alone made up 61% of China’s electricity mix, which is 17 percentage points fall from 78% in 2000, even though in absolute terms, it is five times higher compared to the start of this century. At 4,694 million metric tons of CO2, China accounted for 38% of total global emissions from electricity generation. However, China alone accounted for 53% of the world’s coal-fired electricity generation in 2022, which showed a dramatic revival in appetite as new coal power plants were announced, permitted, and went under construction dramatically in China.  “China is the world’s biggest coal power country but also the leader in absolute wind and solar generation,” said Małgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, the report’s lead author and Ember’s senior electricity analyst.  “Choices being made about energy in the country have worldwide implications. Whether peaking fossil generation globally happens in 2023 is largely down to China.” Li Shuo, a senior policy advisor for Greenpeace in East Asia, said China is “the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to the global power sector.” “China has no doubt been leading global renewable energy expansion. But at the same time, the country is accelerating coal project approval,” Li said, adding such a dichotomous relationship “won’t carry the country far to truly decarbonize.” Coal power remained the single largest source of electricity worldwide in 2022, producing 36%, or 10,186 terawatt hours, of global electricity.  In 2022, coal power rose by 108 terawatt hours, a 1.1% increase, reaching a record high,  largely attributed to the global gas crisis triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war and the revival of coal-fired power stations to meet demand by some countries. Coal use for electricity rose in India by 7.2%, in the E.U. by 6.4%, in Japan by 3.1%, and in China by 1.5%. Gas-fired power generation fell by 0.2%. Overall, that still meant that power sector emissions increased by 1.3% in 2022, reaching an all-time high of 12,431 million metric tons of CO2, the report said.  Without renewables, it is estimated that power sector emissions from fossil fuels would have been 20% higher in 2022. Last year may have been the “peak” of electricity emissions and the final year of fossil power growth, with clean power meeting all demand growth this year, according to Ember’s forecast. According to modeling by the International Energy Agency, the electricity sector needs to move from being the highest emitting sector to the first sector to reach net zero by 2040 to achieve economy-wide net zero by 2050.  This would mean wind and solar reaching 41% of global electricity by 2030, compared to 12% in 2022.  Edited by Mike Firn.

A criminal cyber spy group believed to be backed by the North Korean government poses as journalists, academics and experts to trick its victims into giving out information that can be used for espionage. It also spoofs websites of legitimate organizations to trick targets into giving out information that can be used in cybercrimes the group carries out to fund itself, according to a new report that tracked the cyber attackers’ operations over five years. Google Cloud’s cybersecurity subsidiary firm Mandiant classified the group, which it calls APT43 and which it has been monitoring since 2018, as a “moderately-sophisticated cyber operator that supports the interests of the North Korean regime.”  The designation of the group as a “named threat actor” indicates that Mandiant’s cyber analysts had enough evidence to attribute activity to a specific group. APT stands for “advanced persistent threats,” which the firm says are groups that “receive direction and support from an established nation state.” APT43 has also been called “Kimsuky” or “Thallium” by other firms, which have their own naming conventions. Mandiant believes the firm could be part of North Korea’s main foreign intelligence agency. “APT43 has demonstrated it can be quite fluid at adapting to the needs of the regime and shifts their targeting accordingly,”  Gary Freas, a senior analyst at Mandiant, told RFA. According to the report, APT43 conducted espionage against South Korean and U.S.-based government organizations, members of academia and think tanks that deal with North Korean geopolitical issues, and engaged in cyber crime to steal and launder crypto currency. Impersonating experts APT43’s most common attack involves impersonating experts or journalists in spear-phishing emails with the goal of getting information out of its victims.  In this scheme, the attacker poses as a reporter or a think tank analyst to collect intelligence, including by asking experts and academics to answer questions on topics related to North Korea. Often the attackers pretend to be people who are well known in their field to develop rapport with others in the field before asking them to provide strategic analysis on specific subjects. People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on North Korea firing a ballistic missile over Japan, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, October 4, 2022. Credit: Reuters In a sample example provided in the report, an attacker pretended to be a journalist with an email address ending in “@voanews.live,” which is similar to the “@voanews.com” addresses used by journalists working for U.S news outlet Voice of America.   The email requested a reaction to an Oct. 4, 2022, North Korean ballistic missile launch that flew over Japan, including asking the recipient if it meant that another North Korean nuclear test could be imminent, and if Japan might increase its defense budget or pursue a more “proactive” defense policy. Because the focus of these types of attacks is often North Korean security and nuclear development, Mandiant believes “with moderate confidence” that APT43 operates under the Reconnaissance General Bureau, or RGB, North Korea’s main foreign intelligence service. “Campaigns attributed to APT43 are closely aligned with state interests and correlate strongly with geopolitical developments that affect Kim Jong-un and the hermit state’s ruling elite,” the report said. “Since Mandiant has been tracking APT43, they have consistently conducted espionage activity against South Korean and U.S.organizations with a stake in security issues affecting the Korean peninsula.” Mandiant also noted that it detected a shift in the group’s activity between October 2020 and October 2021 toward targeting the health care sector and pharmaceutical companies, likely to gather information to support a North Korean response to COVID-19. This indicates that the group adapts to changing priorities of the North Korean government. “The kinds of questions we’re seeing them ask when they commission papers and when they ask for interviews are very much about potential responses to different stimuli,” Jenny Town, director of the Washington-based Stimson Center’s 38 North Project, during a discussion about APT43 in a podcast hosted by Mandiant.  “And really, [they’re] trying to better understand how different actions might be perceived, presumably to help them better decide where red lines are,” she said. Emails indicate objectives Town, who has herself been targeted by APT43 and impersonated by them when they target others, said that the emails can show what North Korea’s goals might be. “The questions they’re asking make a lot of sense and give us a sense of the kinds of things they might be thinking of doing as well,” she said. “It’s always been really interesting to see the evolution and what they’ll ask different people.” Freas said that the questions in the emails often show North Korea’s intent. “Whenever APT43 goes after people, pretending to be a reporter or prominent analyst, they ask questions that are so specific to the regime’s priority intelligence requirements that they show us their hand,” he said. “This gives us good insight into what’s going on in the closed off nation and that data is very insightful to security vendors and for people that are trying to investigate this.”  Town said that other experts have come to consider it an indication of their success in the field when they are impersonated by what seems to be North Korean cyber attackers.  APT43 has also been known to target organizations for information about sanctions items that are banned for export to North Korea, the report said. During the same podcast, Mandiant analyst Michael Barnhart said that APT43’s methods tend to work on older victims. “Some of the younger folk aren’t so [eager] to click on a suspicious link, and so you might not get them quite there,” said Barnhart. “You’re looking at kind of an older crowd that probably has a little less cyber hygiene.” ‘Good at what they do’ “What this group lacks in sophistication they make up for in volume,” said Freas. “It is unique to see the success they are having with such widely known and frequently leveraged techniques.” Freas explained that APT43 extensively researches people they can spoof…