“Twenty years ago, in 2004, it took an entire year to install a single gigawatt of solar PV. By 2010, it took the world one month to install a gigawatt. By 2016, one week. Last year saw single days on which a gigawatt of solar PV was installed.”
After presenting his bear case a few of months ago, Michael Liebreich has just published his bull case on net zero: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-net-zero-will-be-harder-than-you-think-and-easier-part-ii-easier/
We wanted to highlight two key points he makes:
1 – Exponential growth:
“There are no limits to learning curves: doublings may slow as industries mature, but cost reductions never reach an end point. There is also no fundamental lack in the earth’s crust of the critical minerals needed for the transition. Taken together, this means that there are no fundamental limits to the penetration of clean energy technologies into the world’s energy system.”
2 – The Primary Energy fallacy
“But it is energy services, not Primary Energy Demand, that fuels human progress: we want everyone in the world to have light, mobility, heating and so on – and that does not mean everyone needs to have incandescent light bulbs powered by coal-fired power stations, petrol or diesel cars or gas-fired heating. Each time anyone uses the IEA’s Primary Energy Demand data as a metric, intentionally or not, they are inflating the importance of fossil fuels.”
In summary, there is no limit to the penetration of renewables into existing electricity production, and moving to a fully electric world means that overall primary energy demand will shrink significantly.
