Will energy transition be fast enough, Economist?
Will energy transition be fast enough, Economist?
A daily chat about tomorrow / #33
E: Good morning, Photographer.
P: Good morning, Economist.
E: Yesterday was a good day.
P: Not just yesterday.
E: The news was published that in Germany, for the first time, more than 50 per cent of electricity was generated from renewable energy. More precisely: 52 per cent of the electricity consumed in the first half of 2023 was generated from renewable sources, an increase of three percentage points year on year.
P: Nice. What kind of renewable energy?
E: There are mainly two sources. About 42 per cent of the electricity generated by renewable energies comes from land-based wind turbines and 25 per cent from solar plants.
P: What about offshore wind?
E: Makes up only a small part. Less than a quarter of wind energy comes from offshore wind turbines.
P: Although there is so much space at sea.
E: The share of offshore wind energy will increase significantly in the near future. Recently the leaders of nine European governments pledged to work together to roughly quadruple the amount of offshore wind generation capacity in the North Sea and nearby waters by 2030 and to increase it by about tenfold by 2050.
P: What if the wind doesn't blow?
E: Then there is a problem.
P: Will we have no electricity at some times in the future?
E: Unlikely. There are two ways to solve the problem: a better network plus the ability to store energy.
P: Explain.
E: A network of high-capacity cables across Europe is needed - and currently being built – so, for example, power generated by nuclear plants in France can go to Britain or hydropower from Norway to Germany. Plus: Renewable energy sources require ways of storing power at times of excess generation and access to flows from elsewhere when there are power deficits.
P: You're thinking of hydrogen technology, right?
E: The future is on the way. Also at sea. An example: Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, a renewables investment firm, wants to build an island off Denmark that could include machines for making hydrogen from the wind.
P: Climate protection and prosperity can be two sides of the same coin.
E: That is my sentence, Photographer.
< silence >
P: What do you think, Economist, will technological change progress fast enough for the climate targets to be met?
E: Why not? History teaches us that if you allow people to search for new ideas, they will usually be found. People are smart. A lot of people are a lot smart.
P: And some people don't do well with grammar.
E: I'm not a teacher of the English language, I'm an economist.
P: Fortunately. Have a nice day, Economist.
E: Have a nice day, Photographer.
Future Economist and Contemporary Photographer sometimes go their own ways – the economist here, the photographer there.
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