How green is the energy revolution really?
Most people realise that we are in deep.
We hear a lot about the urgent need to get off fossil fuels.
I’ll do everything in my power to win the clean energy future.
So how are things going on this front?
We’re at this incredible inflection point.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has transformed the energy landscape in ways you might not expect.
Somebody asked me, “What does a wind generator sound like?” and I said it sounds like money to me.
What’s stopping the global energy supply from going fully green?
Show me this Frankenstein of a car you got here.
And how fast is the world moving towards this goal?
NOW&NEXT
HOW GREEN IUS THE ENERGY REVOLUTION REALLY?
It’s 8.00 in the morning and the climate campaign group Last Generation is preparing for another protest.
Translation: Let’s show our determination and of course communicate with the police as agreed.
These activists call themselves the Last Generation who can stop climate collapse.
Translation: Ok, the police are here already. Why is Last Generation Bavaria today? Because a Bararia climate and environmental protection is only paid lip service.
German authorities, like so many others around the world, have declared policies to reach Net Zero by the middle of the century. But these protestors are deeply frustrated by the pace of change away from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Translation: I’m so angry with the politicians, who just carry on and let us rush into this catastrophe.
Today their target is blocking one of Nuremberg’s busiest roads.
Translation: I have to live up to my responsibility and do everything I can to get in the way of this fossil madness.
And the group manages to shut it down for 45 minutes. These kinds of tactics aren’t popular with many. But the protestors insist they will not be deterred.
We managed to bring our peaceful protest onto the road. We will not to get stopped by the police or by higher repressions or anything else.
The group is part of a network of climate protestors using similar tactics. To make their message stick, they’ve glued themselves to roads, throwing fake oil over a Klimt and mashed potato at a Monet.
Lina Johnsen
Climate activist, Last Generation
We need to get off fossil resources by 2030. There is no negotiation, we need to get off by then, not 2045 as our government proposes right now. We waited way too long and this is a death sentence to society.
So, as leaders respond to climate change, is the world moving fast enough towards clean, secure energy?
Climate activists say things have been made worse by the global energy crisis.
Vladmir Putin: I decided to conduct a special military operation.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine presented a historic opportunity for green change but campaigners insist Europe failed to grasp it. Until Russia turned off the taps, it supplied Europe with more than 40% of its imported gas and about a quarter of its oil. And yet to plug this gap governments across Europe turned back to fossil fuels to keep the lights on.
Lina Johnsen
Climate activist, Last Generation
The government right now, they are fuelling the crisis by still subsidising fossil fuels by extracting more oil and more gas.
Translation: Hey, hey, all villages must stay?
In January 2023 the German village of Lutzerath grabbed global headlines with a mass occupation of a site where the government gave permission to expand a coal mine.
You are the change and you are the hope.
The fact Green Party ministers also backed the plant only fuelled anger.
Charlotte Howard
Executive Editor, The Economist
It really encapsulated some of the tensions that governments faced in reacting to Russia’s invasion, which was a desperate time and governments took desperate and controversial measures. Governments turned to fossil fuels in the immediate aftermath for a very simple reason, which was that they were available.
For the fossil fuel companies it was boom time again.
Charlotte Howard
Executive Editor, The Economist
You saw this big spike, particularly in oil and gas prices.
Extraordinary to see the levels that we’re getting for that wholesale gas price.
Another day, another petrol price record.
Charlotte Howard
Executive Editor, The Economist
Oil prices in June of 2022 climbed above $120 a barrel and then in natural gas the rise was even more extreme, so in August of 2022 prices were about ten times as high as they had been in the years leading up to the invasion.
Even coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel of all enjoyed profits many thought had long gone. After it seemed to peek in 2013, global consumption in 2022 passed 8 billion tonnes for the first time in history. So, does this mean the world will never find the will to shift to green energy fast enough?
Well, not necessarily.
Charlotte Howard
Executive Editor, The Economist
So you’d think hearing all of this that it has been a dire time for the energy transition. In the immediate aftermath of the invasion it seemed like the energy transition might slow down as governments turned to coal and natural gas but what we’ve seen instead is a real acceleration in investment in sources of green energy.
In 2022 globally, installations of rooftop solar panels rose by half with investment in solar and wind growing from $357 billion to $490 billion, exceeding investment in oil and gas wells for the first time. And in 2023 it’s predicted that total investment in clean energy will hit $1.8 trillion compared with $1 trillion for fossil fuels. Vladimir Putin’s energy threat to the West seems to have backfired. The war in Ukraine may have fast-tracked the global transition to green energy by as much as five to ten years. By sending fossil fuel prices soaring, Russia made renewable power look more appealing than ever.
Charlotte Howard
Executive Editor, The Economist
Oil and gas became really expensive and so other forms of energy look increasingly attractive, particularly in the long-term. And then governments are really interested in energy security, particularly domestic sources of clean energy because of this growing concern for over dependence on hostile government.
Diversifying away from Russia for fossil fuels and massive investment in renewable energy.
Around the world regions and governments have announced significant investments and partnerships.
President Biden: The Inflation Reduction Act was the biggest step forward on climate ever, ever.
Creating new, green manufacturing hubs and jobs in unlikely places.
Charlotte Howard
Executive Editor, The Economist
One of the remarkable things about recent years in the energy transition is you see parts of the world that formerly were dedicated to fossil fuels becoming something entirely different and there’s no place where this is more evident than the North Sea because it’s an absolutely enormous resources of wind and it’s relatively shallow which makes it easier to put in big turbines. In England, Hull has become a manufacturing site to help put these giant turbines together. Governments around the world want to create jobs and generate votes.
Although new green policies are accelerating big new investments, it’s not clear that politicians’ promises of green jobs will bear fruit at scale.
So what more needs to be done to get to Net Zero and is it being done? For a start, major bottlenecks in bureaucracy and infrastructure need to be eased to allow the new wave of renewables to plug in.
Alice Delahunty
President, UK Electricity Transmission, National Grid
It’s a phenomenal construction project and invisible to most people.
Deep beneath the streets of London that’s exactly what Alice Delahunty is working on.
Alice Delahunty
President, UK Electricity Transmission, National Grid
We’re about 30 metres below the surface here and this train is transporting the spoil from what’s come out of the tunnel boring machine.
She is overseeing a £1 billion project to rewire south London with a new 32 kilometre underground tunnel.
Alice Delahunty
President, UK Electricity Transmission, National Grid
So this is the forced air circulation down in the tunnel, so we have good air to breathe.
This makeover is essential if London‘s grid is going to cope with a surge in green energy supply.
Alice Delahunty
President, UK Electricity Transmission, National Grid
It’s a huge project, seven year construction project, deep under London basically to rewire it, so to replace what were aged cables with bigger, higher capacity cables, so it’s futureproofing the city against electrification of transport, growing electrification need, quietly just going on under the roads of the city without people realising.
But this is just one wire on a much bigger global circuit board. As wind and solar farms shoot up and fossil fuel power stations scale down, long queues to connect to the grid are leading green energy operators short fused.
To add to the challenge, by 2050 the world will need to generate much more electricity than it does today to hit climate goals, including more than double to hit Net Zero.
Alice Delahunty
President, UK Electricity Transmission, National Grid
Now we’re at this incredible inflection point where we have to completely reconfigure the grid to accommodate renewable energy and to make the clean energy transition.
More grid connections and less red tape could help speed up the global move to green energy by 25%. New ways are also needed to store the energy generated by renewables and to share it.
Alice Delahunty
President, UK Electricity Transmission, National Grid
Connecting into other countries plays a really crucial role as well because that means we can share our energy so when the wind is blowing here but there’s more energy needed in Denmark, we can send it that way and vice versa.
To do that more grids will need to be knitted together by cables known as interconnections.
Alice Delahunty
President, UK Electricity Transmission, National Grid
They’re incredible feats of engineering. They are laying these high voltage, direct current cables all the way through the sea and they land at either end in what are called converter stations which are almost sci-fi like pieces of equipment that turn that electricity back from direct current into alternating current, which is what we use in our homes and buildings, hospitals and businesses. So they’re a really key part of the energy transition.
Innovations like these could help role out more renewable energy but as the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow, the world will also need new sources of clean power.
The power of the atom.
Or old ones.
The greatest source of energy man has ever discovered.
Nuclear power, which went out of fashion decades ago, is now hoping for a makeover. In places like the Bristol Channel where Britain’s first new nuclear power plant in thirty years is taking shape. 10,000 people are working around the clock to get Hinkley Point C ready to switch on in 2026.
Tamer Al-Bishawi
Commissioning Director, Hinkley Point C
You can see we’ve got 52 cranes on site and Big Carl is the biggest crane in the world.
And Tamer Al-Bishawi is its commissioning director.
Tamer Al-Bishawi
Commissioning Director, Hinkley Point C
We’re building this power station so that we are able to generate 7% of the UK’s power by 2027.
Nuclear power produces hardly any carbon emissions and unlike wind or solar can run 24/7 to give grids the consistent base load they need. With the recent push for energy security across the globe, there are now fresh eyes on nuclear power.
Tamer Al-Bishawi
Commissioning Director, Hinkley Point C
The energy crisis and the war in Ukraine have had a real impact on the perception of nuclear power and it has highlighted the importance of being energy independent. Having the ability to build our own power stations will enable us to have that energy independence.
Nuclear power is much safer than energy produced by fossil fuels and even wind turbines but like many nuclear projects, Hinkley is over budget and behind schedule. Nuclear’s unpopularity, high upfront costs and long build times mean that the technology has gone rusty in western countries and that’s challenging for the clean energy transformation.
Tamer Al-Bishawi
Commissioning Director, Hinkley Point C
Having not built something for a long time, we’re having to develop and establish the capability in Britain that includes the supply chain and includes our people to be able to deal with all the challenges of construction of a massive, mega scale project like Hinkley Point C. Part of that is leveraging some of the experience from other countries, so in China for example, they are building power stations more frequently.
If the world is to get off fossil fuels one thing needs to happen for sure. The alternatives can’t just do good for the planet, they need to make good money too and there’s one place where the tycoons have always known how to get the most bang for their buck.
In the heart of Texas green jobs are booming.
The traditionally conservative state is leading the way for renewable energy across the nation.
The Loan Star state might not be the obvious place to find a boom in green tech but these days cattle generate $8 dollars per acre here compared with hundreds from wind turbines.
Somebody asked me, “What does a wind generator sound like?” and I said it sounds like money to me.
Texas is a staunchly Republican state where many remain sceptical about climate change, yet hard economics is transforming another big business traditionally linked to fossil fuels.
Kevin Emr
President, E-Muscle Cars
If we can bring the modern technology in these older vehicles it really lets you appreciate them and continue to use them into the future.
Kevin Emr’s company is giving classic American Muscle Cars a new lease of life by converting them to electric technology. Although these converted classic cars form a niche end of the market, he’s hoping to capitalise on the wider boom in electric vehicles.
Kevin Emr
President, E-Muscle Cars
The process is disassemble the vehicle, reassemble the vehicle with all the electrical components, then spend a heck of a lot of time wiring it all up and then lastly, getting it dialled in and tuned, which is what I’m doing today. 58.32, perfect.
They’ve been working on this replica 1965 Shelby Cobra for the last six months and now it’s finally time for rubber to meet road.
Kevin Emr
President, E-Muscle Cars
This is actually our first E-Cobra that we’ll be testing it here in the streets with. The car has passed all of its tests and we’re ready to rock and roll.
EVs, especially bespoke models like these, are not in the budget for most. However, sales of EVs have been turbocharged by the benefits they offer in fuel costs and convenience.
Kevin Emr
President, E-Muscle Cars
Alright. It’s very, very convenient to charge a car at home and it’s also very cost-effective, less than a third, give or take, on the cost to fill up a car with electricity than it is to fill it up with gasoline. The effect of that is, is a much green solution.
But not everyone around here is happy to do away with petrol.
Jim Biggerstaff
Show me this Frankenstein of a car you go here.
Old attitudes die hard.
Jim Biggerstaff
I grew up in the muscle car era in ’65 to ’68 in High School, if you wanted a hot, good-looking chick, you needed a hot, good-looking car, it was just that simple.
Continued growth in the EV market is central to a green future and here the numbers are encouraging. By 2025 EVs will make up a quarter of new car sales globally, putting a total of 77 million EVs on the road. This figure is set to rise to over 700 million in 2040, when an estimated three-quarters of new car sales will be electric. To get there, car makers around the world will invest $1.2 trillion by 2030.
Charlotte Howard
Executive Editor, The Economist
What’s really interesting in recent years is the surge in money going to electrify transport, which is now about as large as the level of capital going to wind and solar and so for a long time green cars, electric cars, were something that investors were excited about but hadn’t really hit the mainstream and now that’s changed.
But there are hazard signs ahead. EVs need batteries and batteries need lithium. The boom has thrown up environmental concerns about lithium mining in places such as the Atacama desert in Chile. In the broader picture, the world’s transition to clean energy could stall without the crucial minerals required. To boost the transformation to green energy some environmentalists will probably have to change their perspective.
Charlotte Howard
Executive Editor, The Economist
Historically environmentalists have specialised in not building stuff, so preventing companies from coming in and ruining for example a stretch of pristine wilderness. Now, the climate movement has to be about building stuff. That includes building things in areas that historically an environmentalist might have wanted to protect, like a desert. It includes big investments in mining, which remain emittive industries but you need those resources in order to speed the transition towards green energy.
And this is just one of many changes required to power the world towards the promised land of fully green energy. A journey that is still only just starting.
Charlotte Howard
Executive Editor, The Economist
So you have seen this enormous surge of investment in America, in Europe, in China, in India, this is all promising. It’s also not at the scale required and it’s late, the world is already warming so this is both a hopeful story because there’s lots of action and a reminder that much more needs to be done.
Hi, I’m Charlotte Howard, Executive Editor at The Economist. If you’d like to read more about the energy transition, please click on the link opposite and if you’d like to watch more of our Now & Next series, please click on the other link. Thanks for watching and don’t forget to subscribe.