if you read the article you would realize that today with our energy use with waste 60% of it.. that's just stupid, with better technologies we can have an abundance of energy and use far less of it.. but we do not want to stop there we want the entire world to have more energy so they can enjoy the power of energy so that means we will end up using more energy in the future.. but the developed world will use less.. without reducing their comfort.. I have for example already done this transition and I have reduced my energy use from 80,000kwh per year when I was burning wood and gas and driving a fossil car to about 25,000kwh per year today. Is my life worse? Absolutely not, it is better, less polllution and I can do everything I did before with less noise all in all a better world.
The developed world is not the whole story, or even most of the story. Take another look at the tables. Today, there are a billion Africans who use hardly any energy. In 2050, there will be two billion. For their sakes, I hope their energy use rises to approximately today's European or Japanese level.
Efficiency is a secondary criterion. Important, yes, but not as important as availability.
Exactly but they do not need to go the same route as the developed world, I think Ethiopa is doing the right thing by banning imports of fossils cars now and will only allow electric cars, their grid is already 90% renewable and they are soon adding a massive new hydro electric powerstation to their grid - their plan is to also export electricity to neighboring countries. The main theme with Hannahs post here is that we can still provide energy but if we use efficient energy sources and not the wasteful fossil energy the total energy provided will be lower even if the demand is increasing.
Renewables is far more reliable than combustion of fossil fuels - that we need to always explore for more to extract and to ship -and eventually we will run out in a few decades - imagine having not transitioned to a new power source when you are running out of fuel - then why?? You need energy to transition to a new power source energy that we have today so it is about time - also for Africans we can give them energy far faster with renewables and far cheaper than going the old way with fossil fuels
I don't understand why anyone cares about energy efficiency. What does it matter at all, and how can you even compare the efficiency of a solar panel to the efficiency of burning coal? It's the ultimate apples to oranges comparison.
The reason people care about efficiency is right there in the title of this piece. “Global energy demand could be lower in 2050, despite the world getting richer.”
Energy is life and brings prosperity, so we should all want more of it. The demand projections are all based on government “stated policies “ which are not a reliable forecast of demand in a free economy. If one is concerned about carbon emissions to reduce climate impacts, we should be concerned about actual emissions, not energy use. Energy demand will increase, especially in areas like Africa which are at a large deficit now. Waste is bad, but is inevitable, and reducing energy use just to reduce waste is a baby/bathwater scenario. Increased automation, AI and robotics will need more energy, which can be clean and thus not harm the atmosphere. Letting Africans live in nice modern air conditioned buildings and drive electric cars instead of mopeds or bicycles would be a huge improvement that we should look forward to, not try to squash just because we want to have less energy demand.
The actual reason people care about efficiency is that it lowers costs. If you increase the efficiency of solar panels from 20% to 30%, then you only need two-thirds as many panels, two-thirds as much wire between them, two-thirds as much land, two-thirds as much installation and maintenance labour, and so on.
You are right that it makes no sense to compare the efficiencies of solar PV and thermal, though. What matters is cost. And that is how comparisons are ultimately made.
Fantastic look, Hannah Ritchie at the possibility that, like material usage of commodities, we may eventually reach “peak energy” usage as well.
I just wrote up a long piece looking at the thermal efficiency of engine technology since 1700, it’s incredible how much better we have gotten at harnessing energy over time. In terms of thermal efficiency:
~1710-Newcomen engine-1%
~1780-Watt engine-3%
~1810-Strong steam-10%
~1880-Steam turbine-20%
~1950-ICE-50%
~Today-Combined Cycle Gas Turbines-60%+
Further, each step along the energy “ladder” saw a significant reduction in pollutants and carbon emissions, from Coal to Petroleum to Natural Gas. There is no reason to think that we might not continue make progress in this regard in the future.
All these scenarios are taking a technology centric approach. for example, demand for energy for transport will fall because electric vehicles are 4 times more "efficient" than diesels.
Whilst that is part of the story, what about economics? Demand for energy will increase if the price falls. Demand for energy will fall if the price rises (which is less likely)
The optimistic view is that solar power will be (actually already is) so ridiculously cheap - when available - that demand should rise. Cheap electricity will fuel (wrong word?) a large rise in air conditioning use, but there is no reason this can't be met with solar power.
(@Dr Ritchie: The implications of 1TW of solar deployment per year is worth an article in itself)
The pessimistic view is that the big oil producers will insist on competing. As EVs reduce demand for oil, Saudi and Russia etc will just reduce the price of oil, meaning supply will stay the same.
As for miles driven - the biggest cost of motoring is the time wasted behind the wheel. If self driving cars arrive, that time could be put to good use. For example, sleep for an extra two hours on the commute to work; do your social media stuff for two hours on the way back?
As for solar prices: We already see this in Europe. Any sunny weekend day in the summer, European wholesale electricity prices are negative. And that is before the planned tripling of solar power by 2030., which will extend these negative prices to every sunny afternoon for eight months of the year. How to use this?
Reduce the price of oil? I think most oil companies are keen to keep the price of oil > $80 per barrel... the only way they can reduce price would be to increase production but with falling demand due to the transition to sustainable energy use will need less fossil fuel energy this will be a very difficult problem to solve for the fossil industry - I expect a lot of volatility for fossil fuels as we go through the transition
When demand falls, prices will fall at least down to the cost of production. The largest oil producer is the USA and OPEC has a hard time trying to increase cost now by cutting production because of US exports just rise to meet the demand.
It is not a fantasy it is happening in the rich world faster than everyone expected - and we will do the same for poorer countries I am sure they would like abundant and cheap energy
That's pretty disappointing for Africans, sub-Saharan Africans in particular.
I hope that this is a massive underestimate of African energy usage in 2050, for the sake of the well-being of Africans. Europe needs to do more to grow African economies.
Great book, but one exception. I worked in the Nuclear industry for decades and you just can't gloss over the waste issue. It is a critical item. As of today there is no reasonable way to rid the world of the spent fuel and low level waste, both of which are seemingly at the bottom of the list for solutions. I can see the spent fuel cask from the Connecticut Yankee station when I'm in my Kayak fishing in the Connecticut River. Does anyone think that's acceptable? Anyone have a solution? Let me hear it.
Excellent article... The focus seems to be reduction of energy use based on government efforts to decarbonize. My sense is that there will be a large reduction of energy use for three reasons:
1) Economic Incentives: It is cheaper/more economically efficient
2) Technological Acceleration: The innovation rate is rising rapidly.
3) Virtualization: As societies mature, more of the economy deals with non-physical goods.
AI and robots are going to increase energy demand. Population increase will soon become a decrease and that will slow demand. Jevons paradox means greater efficiency will increase demand as long as costs don’t stop it, and we keep hearing how solar, wind and batteries are always getting cheaper, new fusion/fission and geothermal sources will also mature soon enough. I see energy demand growing worldwide and that is good for everyone, as long as the externalities are compensated for.
You would be surprised how "dumb" our current systems around energy/ag are. It turns out a little bit of smarts and some robotics actually saves a great deal of energy overall. I expect that the trend will continue. A multi-ton bidirectional trip to your grocery store which is replaced with a small form factor robot.
Today, for advanced countries such as US ... energy usage/capita is falling rapidly.
This is possible but may not necessarily happen. Humans consume more if consumption gets cheaper. There was an article and thread by Ed Conway regarding this a few days back:
Great analysis, Hannah (as always) but I hope you are wrong that we'll be producing less energy globally.
https://www.mattball.org/2024/01/energy-abundance-is-most-important.html
if you read the article you would realize that today with our energy use with waste 60% of it.. that's just stupid, with better technologies we can have an abundance of energy and use far less of it.. but we do not want to stop there we want the entire world to have more energy so they can enjoy the power of energy so that means we will end up using more energy in the future.. but the developed world will use less.. without reducing their comfort.. I have for example already done this transition and I have reduced my energy use from 80,000kwh per year when I was burning wood and gas and driving a fossil car to about 25,000kwh per year today. Is my life worse? Absolutely not, it is better, less polllution and I can do everything I did before with less noise all in all a better world.
The developed world is not the whole story, or even most of the story. Take another look at the tables. Today, there are a billion Africans who use hardly any energy. In 2050, there will be two billion. For their sakes, I hope their energy use rises to approximately today's European or Japanese level.
Efficiency is a secondary criterion. Important, yes, but not as important as availability.
Exactly but they do not need to go the same route as the developed world, I think Ethiopa is doing the right thing by banning imports of fossils cars now and will only allow electric cars, their grid is already 90% renewable and they are soon adding a massive new hydro electric powerstation to their grid - their plan is to also export electricity to neighboring countries. The main theme with Hannahs post here is that we can still provide energy but if we use efficient energy sources and not the wasteful fossil energy the total energy provided will be lower even if the demand is increasing.
Renewables is far more reliable than combustion of fossil fuels - that we need to always explore for more to extract and to ship -and eventually we will run out in a few decades - imagine having not transitioned to a new power source when you are running out of fuel - then why?? You need energy to transition to a new power source energy that we have today so it is about time - also for Africans we can give them energy far faster with renewables and far cheaper than going the old way with fossil fuels
I don't understand why anyone cares about energy efficiency. What does it matter at all, and how can you even compare the efficiency of a solar panel to the efficiency of burning coal? It's the ultimate apples to oranges comparison.
The reason people care about efficiency is right there in the title of this piece. “Global energy demand could be lower in 2050, despite the world getting richer.”
Energy is life and brings prosperity, so we should all want more of it. The demand projections are all based on government “stated policies “ which are not a reliable forecast of demand in a free economy. If one is concerned about carbon emissions to reduce climate impacts, we should be concerned about actual emissions, not energy use. Energy demand will increase, especially in areas like Africa which are at a large deficit now. Waste is bad, but is inevitable, and reducing energy use just to reduce waste is a baby/bathwater scenario. Increased automation, AI and robotics will need more energy, which can be clean and thus not harm the atmosphere. Letting Africans live in nice modern air conditioned buildings and drive electric cars instead of mopeds or bicycles would be a huge improvement that we should look forward to, not try to squash just because we want to have less energy demand.
The actual reason people care about efficiency is that it lowers costs. If you increase the efficiency of solar panels from 20% to 30%, then you only need two-thirds as many panels, two-thirds as much wire between them, two-thirds as much land, two-thirds as much installation and maintenance labour, and so on.
You are right that it makes no sense to compare the efficiencies of solar PV and thermal, though. What matters is cost. And that is how comparisons are ultimately made.
Don't feel alone. Probably 99% of people in the world don't either. And that is the problem.
Fantastic look, Hannah Ritchie at the possibility that, like material usage of commodities, we may eventually reach “peak energy” usage as well.
I just wrote up a long piece looking at the thermal efficiency of engine technology since 1700, it’s incredible how much better we have gotten at harnessing energy over time. In terms of thermal efficiency:
~1710-Newcomen engine-1%
~1780-Watt engine-3%
~1810-Strong steam-10%
~1880-Steam turbine-20%
~1950-ICE-50%
~Today-Combined Cycle Gas Turbines-60%+
Further, each step along the energy “ladder” saw a significant reduction in pollutants and carbon emissions, from Coal to Petroleum to Natural Gas. There is no reason to think that we might not continue make progress in this regard in the future.
All these scenarios are taking a technology centric approach. for example, demand for energy for transport will fall because electric vehicles are 4 times more "efficient" than diesels.
Whilst that is part of the story, what about economics? Demand for energy will increase if the price falls. Demand for energy will fall if the price rises (which is less likely)
The optimistic view is that solar power will be (actually already is) so ridiculously cheap - when available - that demand should rise. Cheap electricity will fuel (wrong word?) a large rise in air conditioning use, but there is no reason this can't be met with solar power.
(@Dr Ritchie: The implications of 1TW of solar deployment per year is worth an article in itself)
The pessimistic view is that the big oil producers will insist on competing. As EVs reduce demand for oil, Saudi and Russia etc will just reduce the price of oil, meaning supply will stay the same.
As for miles driven - the biggest cost of motoring is the time wasted behind the wheel. If self driving cars arrive, that time could be put to good use. For example, sleep for an extra two hours on the commute to work; do your social media stuff for two hours on the way back?
As for solar prices: We already see this in Europe. Any sunny weekend day in the summer, European wholesale electricity prices are negative. And that is before the planned tripling of solar power by 2030., which will extend these negative prices to every sunny afternoon for eight months of the year. How to use this?
Reduce the price of oil? I think most oil companies are keen to keep the price of oil > $80 per barrel... the only way they can reduce price would be to increase production but with falling demand due to the transition to sustainable energy use will need less fossil fuel energy this will be a very difficult problem to solve for the fossil industry - I expect a lot of volatility for fossil fuels as we go through the transition
When demand falls, prices will fall at least down to the cost of production. The largest oil producer is the USA and OPEC has a hard time trying to increase cost now by cutting production because of US exports just rise to meet the demand.
You keep tra-la-ing past the political and social realities. "Strong decarbonisation" is a fantasy.
It is not a fantasy it is happening in the rich world faster than everyone expected - and we will do the same for poorer countries I am sure they would like abundant and cheap energy
That's pretty disappointing for Africans, sub-Saharan Africans in particular.
I hope that this is a massive underestimate of African energy usage in 2050, for the sake of the well-being of Africans. Europe needs to do more to grow African economies.
Great book, but one exception. I worked in the Nuclear industry for decades and you just can't gloss over the waste issue. It is a critical item. As of today there is no reasonable way to rid the world of the spent fuel and low level waste, both of which are seemingly at the bottom of the list for solutions. I can see the spent fuel cask from the Connecticut Yankee station when I'm in my Kayak fishing in the Connecticut River. Does anyone think that's acceptable? Anyone have a solution? Let me hear it.
Excellent article... The focus seems to be reduction of energy use based on government efforts to decarbonize. My sense is that there will be a large reduction of energy use for three reasons:
1) Economic Incentives: It is cheaper/more economically efficient
2) Technological Acceleration: The innovation rate is rising rapidly.
3) Virtualization: As societies mature, more of the economy deals with non-physical goods.
I just hope the governments don't get in the way.
AI and robots are going to increase energy demand. Population increase will soon become a decrease and that will slow demand. Jevons paradox means greater efficiency will increase demand as long as costs don’t stop it, and we keep hearing how solar, wind and batteries are always getting cheaper, new fusion/fission and geothermal sources will also mature soon enough. I see energy demand growing worldwide and that is good for everyone, as long as the externalities are compensated for.
Buzan,
You would be surprised how "dumb" our current systems around energy/ag are. It turns out a little bit of smarts and some robotics actually saves a great deal of energy overall. I expect that the trend will continue. A multi-ton bidirectional trip to your grocery store which is replaced with a small form factor robot.
Today, for advanced countries such as US ... energy usage/capita is falling rapidly.
This is possible but may not necessarily happen. Humans consume more if consumption gets cheaper. There was an article and thread by Ed Conway regarding this a few days back:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/opinion/vegas-sphere-energy-efficiency.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Yk0.Mmlf.fVFo0lGBE6tg&smid=url-share