- 10 hours ago
Where our energy comes from? why we should care about energy? Energy transitions that are underway. The energy revolution is unstoppable as solar and wind installations hit record levels in 2025. In this video, we break down the surge in global solar capacity, wind power expansion, battery storage growth, and clean energy investment, and how countries like China, the United States, and Germany are accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels. Discover why falling battery prices, utility-scale storage, electric vehicles, and renewable energy deployment are reshaping the global power system faster than expected.
“大加速”（The Great Acceleration）是指自20世纪中叶以来，在廉价化石燃料的驱动下，人类活动、人口增长及资源消耗所呈现出的爆发式激增。
化石燃料驱动的激增：第二次世界大战后，全球国内生产总值（GDP）、能源消耗和碳排放量均呈指数级增长。煤炭和石油作为主要的能源基础，支撑了这一前所未有的碳排放增长与人口激增。人类的影响力已将地球推离了相对稳定的“全新世”，使其进入了一个被称为“人类世”的新地质时代。
新一轮能源革命：当前时代正经历着一场向绿色能源转型的“反向加速”——通过交通与供暖系统的电气化，逐步取代化石燃料。全球在太阳能、风能及电池储能领域的投资规模迅速扩大，已超过了对传统油气基础设施的投入。向可再生能源转型不仅能提升能源安全，还能保护电网免受全球地缘政治动荡的冲击。
“大加速”（The Great Acceleration）是指自20世纪中叶以来，在廉价化石燃料的驱动下，人类活动、人口增长及资源消耗所呈现出的爆发式激增。
化石燃料驱动的激增：第二次世界大战后，全球国内生产总值（GDP）、能源消耗和碳排放量均呈指数级增长。煤炭和石油作为主要的能源基础，支撑了这一前所未有的碳排放增长与人口激增。人类的影响力已将地球推离了相对稳定的“全新世”，使其进入了一个被称为“人类世”的新地质时代。
新一轮能源革命：当前时代正经历着一场向绿色能源转型的“反向加速”——通过交通与供暖系统的电气化，逐步取代化石燃料。全球在太阳能、风能及电池储能领域的投资规模迅速扩大，已超过了对传统油气基础设施的投入。向可再生能源转型不仅能提升能源安全，还能保护电网免受全球地缘政治动荡的冲击。
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TVTranscript
00:04Across the last 50 years, humans have set a blistering pace of technological progress
00:12and scientific discovery. We've crossed the boundaries of our solar system, made machines
00:22that can learn, harness the power of the sun, and built life from scratch. We've become
00:34a force to rival nature. It's a period like no other in history, where human endeavour
00:41has changed everything, from the way we live and work, to the Earth's natural processes.
00:49As we race toward the future, we must examine the journey. This is the Great Acceleration.
01:0150 years ago, a devastating oil crisis kicked off an energy revolution.
01:08Oil became so expensive, any alternative became cheaper.
01:12The world set course to kick the costly habit of burning fossil fuels.
01:18I think that was a very key point in waking up the public.
01:21With the urgent new threat of a changing climate, the drive to unleash the power of the sun, earth,
01:29and wind has accelerated into a race for humanity's survival.
01:34That has been an amazing transformational change for society.
01:37But has it happened fast enough to secure our future?
01:52At the beginning of the 1970s, the Western world was blissfully unaware of their vulnerability
01:59to an energy crisis.
02:03Fossil fuels were a huge driver of the modern economy, automobile, modern transport, and global commerce.
02:09So the world was completely dependent on fossil fuels up to the 1973 oil crisis.
02:15It was cheap, never-ending, it fuelled our economy, it fuelled our leisure, it fuelled our lifestyles,
02:22and it determined our urban planning.
02:25Suddenly, we couldn't take that for granted.
02:28In October 1973, the Western world woke up to an oil shock.
02:34The most dominant source of energy was no longer cheap and readily available.
02:41Gasoline has become too precious a commodity to be wasted,
02:44and the possibility of running out or having some mechanical failure is just too extreme for most motorists.
02:50Motorists have been asked to keep to a 50-mile-an-hour speed limit,
02:53and panic buying of gasoline has worsened the situation.
02:57So the oil shock was actually a political act by the Arab countries of OPEC,
03:02the oil exporting petroleum countries.
03:05And they were protesting the West support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War.
03:10And they initiated an embargo of some of the key states that were involved.
03:15So the Netherlands, Japan, the UK and the United States.
03:18For everyone else, the price went up about 70%.
03:22The effect of the oil crisis was immediate and transformative.
03:27For the US, accustomed to a gas-guzzling lifestyle, it was a major readjustment.
03:34It is clear that the nation will experience some fuel shortages this winter,
03:39and perhaps over the next few years.
03:42So the price of oil quadrupled overnight as a result of this embargo.
03:46You had almost immediately the government stepping in to rationalise oil
03:51and put into place measures to conserve fuel economy.
03:57For the first time, the US government began a major push towards energy conservation.
04:04The energy crisis is now touching the lives of millions of Americans.
04:09And just as the people of this country are doing their part to meet this crisis,
04:14now it is time for the federal government, your government,
04:16to do its part by enacting legislation.
04:19A nationwide 55-mile-an-hour speed limit was imposed to conserve fuel.
04:26Different states brought in their own severe cutbacks.
04:32Oregon banned Christmas lighting.
04:34Alaska only ploughed half of their car parks to encourage carpooling.
04:38And you had a licence plate system,
04:41so odd-numbered licence plate could only drive on odd-numbered days.
04:44In the Netherlands and Denmark,
04:46the public took to car-free Sundays,
04:49roller-skating, horse-riding and cycling down the main highways.
04:54It left a lasting impression on the transport system,
04:58as cycling became seen as a viable option for commuting.
05:02But it was no picnic in the park for Northern European countries,
05:06which relied almost exclusively on oil for heating.
05:10You had, in some countries, prison sentences
05:13for those who use more than their electricity ration.
05:16The UK Prime Minister encouraging people
05:19to heat only one room in their house to conserve.
05:27The 1973 oil shock didn't just affect the price of oil.
05:33Inflation soared and the Western economy plunged into recession.
05:37But it wasn't all bad news.
05:39As many countries realised the extent of their dependence on oil,
05:44a new way of thinking emerged,
05:46which delivered important benefits for decades to come.
05:55The first oil crisis ended six months after it began.
05:59But its legacy was a new wave of energy innovation.
06:04Innovation that would prove crucial in later years.
06:08I think there's really two lessons that came out.
06:10One was our economies are very fragile in the sense
06:13that they're very dependent on a few countries
06:16that controlled the flow of oil.
06:18But also that we had done a very poor job of innovating.
06:23We hadn't even begun to explore
06:25what is now considered in most parts of the world
06:28as a really standard story.
06:29And that is, if you invest in being clever about energy,
06:33you can dramatically reduce the cost.
06:37The oil shocks of the 70s were dramatic
06:40in terms of sharpening the pencils and the minds
06:43of people working in energy, particularly energy efficiency.
06:46It was a one-time shock to the system in a good way.
06:56Over the coming decades,
06:58the new drive toward energy efficiency led to many changes,
07:03including a redesign of how houses were built.
07:08Before this crisis,
07:09we had very energy inefficient houses throughout the West.
07:13Single pane windows, leaky drafty doors,
07:16not a lot of insulation unless you were in that type of climate.
07:19So double glazing, triple glazing, inert gas glazing,
07:22building efficiency, insulation methods and so on.
07:25And you add to that the improvement in efficiency
07:28of heat pump air conditioning systems and hot water systems.
07:33So we're talking about a revolutionary change.
07:41There were also bright ideas around lighting.
07:45In 1976, the spiral fluorescent bulb was invented,
07:49an energy efficient lamp that could be used in residential buildings.
07:55The idea of replacing Thomas Edison's incandescent bulb took decades,
08:00but ultimately people realized that a light bulb is actually a very inefficient space heater
08:07where 10% of the energy comes off in the form of light.
08:11That led to radical rethinking that ultimately moved through compact fluorescent bulbs,
08:19so-called twisty bulbs, which save 60 or 70%,
08:23to LED lights that can save more than 90%.
08:26It can last 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs,
08:30and not only save you huge amounts of money,
08:33but ultimately do things that lights couldn't do before.
08:40The move towards energy efficiency was coupled with a desire to find new energy sources entirely.
08:47Countries like France, for instance, embarked on massive nuclear power construction.
08:5480% of electricity generation in France is by nuclear power plants.
09:00In the US, Nixon launched Project Independence,
09:04a commitment to become completely independent from foreign energy sources within a decade.
09:10This legislation is urgently needed to meet the current crisis
09:15and to assure that we, the United States,
09:18can become self-sufficient energy by 1980
09:22and not be dependent upon any other country for our energy needs.
09:27Though the US failed to become energy independent,
09:31the initiative promoted to promote other resources such as natural gas reserves.
09:37Even oil companies, concerned about their future,
09:41pushed forward with their own alternatives for making money.
09:45Exxon, one of the world's biggest oil companies,
09:49which later put substantial effort into discrediting climate change science,
09:53patented the world's first rechargeable lithium-ion battery in 1976.
10:01Lithium-ion was a huge breakthrough
10:03and it gave the world very compact batteries,
10:07batteries with a high energy density and a reasonably low weight.
10:11that allowed us to have iPhones and portable computers
10:16and all the things that we rely on in our daily life.
10:19So there has been an amazing transformational change for society.
10:25Renewable energy technologies received a major boost in research funding in the 70s.
10:30In the year after the oil shock,
10:33a young scientist called Martin Green
10:35began his groundbreaking research into solar power.
10:39When I got a job at the University of New South Wales in 1974,
10:43I started the photovoltaic program there.
10:46And yes, it was a direct result of the oil shock.
10:53Solar cells weren't a new invention,
10:56but back then prices were astronomical.
11:01It was regarded as a technology with a lot of potential.
11:05Cells had already been used on spacecraft since 1958.
11:09And then in the early 70s,
11:11people started seriously thinking about what you needed to do to them
11:15in terms of costs to be able to use them terrestrially.
11:19The laboratory Martin founded in Australia
11:22became the world's leading solar cell research group.
11:26So we got our first world record in 1983.
11:29That was when we made the first 18% efficient cell.
11:32And then we just gradually increased it incrementally
11:35till we got up to 25% in 2008.
11:39And we held the record for 30 of the last 35 years.
11:43While Martin's lab pushed forward with their research,
11:48a Danish-born adventurer named Hans Tholstrup decided he would show the world
11:53just what could be achieved on the power of sunshine.
12:01It's the world's first long-distance journey by solar power.
12:04And the idea is to prompt further research
12:06into what might be a means of transport in the future.
12:11In 1982, he drove more than 4,000 kilometres from Perth to Sydney
12:17in an odd-looking vehicle called the Quiet Achiever.
12:21It was the first solar-powered car to cross a continent.
12:26He'd gone across Australia in something that looked a bit like a bathtub
12:29with a solar panel on top of it.
12:31During that expedition, he'd got the idea of staging this race
12:35to publicise solar and electric vehicles as well.
12:39And it's been extremely successful.
12:41Five years later, in 1987, Hans encouraged others to join in,
12:47launching the World Solar Challenge.
12:49The first race drew 23 competitors from Europe, America, Asia and Australia.
12:56The World Solar Challenge will take these well-tanned races
12:593,000 kilometres to Adelaide along some of Australia's emptiest road.
13:04It's never been done before, so no-one knows what's going to happen.
13:07As it grew in size each year,
13:10the race drove serious research interest in electric cars.
13:18Honda got involved in electric vehicles through that race,
13:22and other companies like Toyota and even GM.
13:25They developed a lot of the ideas that are now going into electric vehicles
13:29through that race.
13:33As governments became more concerned about their dependence on oil,
13:38a new public awareness of the planet's finite resources also emerged.
13:44Scientists, environmentalists and policy makers united in a clean, green energy push.
13:51This was the beginning of solar and wind, really getting that investment by the state and by industry.
13:56It gave the world a critical head start to face an even greater threat, yet to be fully appreciated.
14:08A number of pollution shocks of the 70s led to a growing movement of concern about the planet
14:15and about the ecological limits that the planet faces.
14:18Of course, the awareness of the greenhouse problem and climate change,
14:22even though the ideas have been around for 100 years,
14:25the awareness of that came a little later.
14:31By the time the world began looking for alternative energy in the 1970s,
14:37huge amounts of carbon had already been released from the burning of fossil fuels.
14:42As levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere climbed higher,
14:46climate scientists warned of a looming catastrophe,
14:50and the energy revolution slowly turned into a race to save life on Earth as we know it.
15:01On June 23, 1988, as Washington was in the grip of a severe heatwave,
15:08a historic Senate hearing took place.
15:12Senior NASA scientist Dr James Hansen testified that the Earth was warmer
15:18than at any time since instrumental records began,
15:22with 99% confidence that this was due to rising greenhouse gas emissions
15:27from the burning of fossil fuels.
15:31I think that was a very...
15:33The public and the politicians and so on.
15:35There were scientists before then trying to raise the alarm bells that,
15:38hey, we think that raising CO2 and changing other parts of the system
15:42is going to destabilise the climate.
15:44Hansen testified this warming was likely already increasing
15:49the frequency of severe weather events like heatwaves.
15:52It made national headlines.
15:55He said very clearly, I think we can actually see it now.
15:59We can see changes in the climate now in the 1980s.
16:04And indeed, when we look back, we could.
16:05We were seeing the early stages of climate change back then.
16:11Within four years of Hansen's testimony,
16:15almost every nation had signed the United Nations Framework on Climate Change.
16:20Their commitment to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations
16:24at a level that would avoid dangerous climate disruption.
16:28This meant turning away from carbon-rich fuels like coal and oil.
16:33The main staples of electricity production, heating and transport.
16:40Back then, less than 3% of the world's energy
16:43came from renewable, zero-emission technology,
16:47mainly from hydropower schemes.
16:50Solar and wind were just a tiny fraction of that mix.
16:59The wind generator industry really took off in the 80s and 90s
17:02and has been growing exponentially at 10 or so per cent per year.
17:08Large-scale wind farms began to spring up across the world,
17:13with Denmark leading the way.
17:15In 1991, Germany introduced feed-in tariffs
17:20tariffs for renewable energy producers,
17:22giving them the incentive to sell back clean power to the grid.
17:27By 2019, they were generating close to half their total electricity
17:32from renewables, mainly from wind turbines.
17:37If you have good wind farming country,
17:40it's a wonderful income for a farmer
17:43and can often rival the income directly from farming operations.
17:47It's not only the money we want to make a future for our kids,
17:51maybe here on the farm if they want,
17:53and, yeah, you can have a good lifestyle here.
17:57Just over the last two decades,
18:00wind energy has increased more than 20-fold.
18:03It now generates more than 4% of the world's electric power.
18:08For a long while, solar power was left in the shade,
18:12but its acceleration in recent years has been phenomenal.
18:19Solar photovoltaics is just catching wind now
18:22in terms of global annual production of energy.
18:27They are a wonderful combination
18:29because often when it's sunny it's not windy
18:32and often when it's windy it's not sunny.
18:34So the combined output from a wind and solar system
18:38is more stable than is the output of either separately.
18:43Solar PV is now the fastest growing form
18:47of power generation technology in the world.
18:51And Martin Green has been a major player in this change.
18:56His labs developed a breakthrough solar cell
18:59that's now dominating the global market.
19:03The structure that has taken over the world
19:05is called the PERC PERC cell.
19:08So it's got quite a PERC-y acronym, so it's stuck.
19:12I drew my first PERC cell in 1983,
19:14so that's probably the date of invention.
19:17But we made our first efficient one in 1988
19:21and did our first paper reporting it to the wider world in 1989
19:25when we got a new world record.
19:30The PERC cell allowed greater light absorption
19:33and internal reflectivity,
19:35helping to push up efficiencies
19:37and drive down costs for solar cells.
19:40When you shine light on a solar cell,
19:42it excites electrons in the material to a higher energy state
19:45and you want them to stay up in that excited state
19:48for as long as possible.
19:50So you've got to do very special things to the surface
19:53to prevent it acting as a mechanism
19:56for those electrons to relax back to their ground state.
19:59So we found ways of doing that.
20:02Despite the breakthrough,
20:04the PERC cell gathered dust for many years
20:07before hitting the market.
20:09I was one of the leaders of that development.
20:12It sat for 25 years
20:15before it was taken up by industry in about 2012.
20:19So it's been an extremely rapid uptake since 2012.
20:23But in 2018,
20:24there was more manufacturing capacity worldwide
20:27for the PERC cell than any other technology.
20:30The PERC cell could be half of the solar federal take industry
20:34at a global level
20:35and will probably go to two thirds over the next few years.
20:44With such wide scale production and installation of solar PVs,
20:49the price has plummeted,
20:51dropping more than 90% in a decade.
20:54And that's helped it reach a very important milestone.
20:58Along with wind power,
21:00solar has now become competitive with coal.
21:03So a lot of countries and cities now
21:06get their electricity supply through power purchase agreements
21:10where they call for 10 companies
21:11that want a bid to supply electricity for a 20-year period.
21:16The most recent bid in Chile,
21:19the solar bids came in three times lower
21:21than a bid for a coal-fired plant.
21:24Of all the fossil fuels,
21:27coal has been the least expensive for its energy content,
21:31but produces the most emissions.
21:34The fact that renewable energy can now match its price
21:37means the transformation of the electricity grids
21:40could potentially happen very quickly.
21:44You know, the good news is there's still more to come.
21:46The cells are going to get cheaper.
21:48You know, last year they decreased by 30% in price
21:50and this year they'll probably go down by at least 10 or 20%.
21:56In Australia, a hundred percent of new generation deployment
21:59is wind and solar.
22:01Nobody is putting in new gas or new coal.
22:03At a global level,
22:04the most deployed new generation technology
22:07is solar photovoltaics.
22:09Wind is number two.
22:11Gas is number three.
22:12A long way behind.
22:13And coal is a long way further behind at four.
22:17What we're seeing, particularly in Australia,
22:20which has the highest percentage of households
22:22with solar photovoltaics on its roof,
22:24we're starting to see people who are doing it themselves.
22:28We see communities who band together
22:30and construct their own photovoltaic systems,
22:35including small businesses
22:37who are putting in place photovoltaics
22:40in cooperation with households.
22:43I think it's going to be something that a lot of people
22:45are going to do over time.
22:48In fact, when we were getting ours put in,
22:50a neighbour down the street saw what was happening
22:51and he's actually got one put in as well.
22:54So I think when people hear about it
22:56and they understand how it works and what it does,
22:59I think everyone's going to want one.
23:10While it all sounds like incredibly good news,
23:13the figures on emissions have been incredibly bad.
23:17Instead of declining,
23:19the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere keeps rising.
23:23That's because the rise in global energy demand
23:26is outpacing the growth of renewables.
23:28And much of that demand has been met by oil, gas and coal.
23:36Today, fossil fuel use contributes about 70% of global emissions.
23:42And that's not only the pollution from power plants like coal and oil plants,
23:46but also the petroleum we use in our vehicles.
23:49And then about a third, 30% or so,
23:53of our emissions comes from destroying the planet through land use change.
24:00And from our very meat-intensive diet.
24:05At this point in time, the world is woefully behind the game
24:10in terms of addressing climate change.
24:12The rest of the world currently is dominated by the big emitters in China
24:18and the European Union and the United States.
24:21However, by far the largest proportion of the world's population
24:26and the largest growth potential in emissions
24:29is, of course, around the equator
24:31where all the developing countries are located.
24:36In India, also one of the biggest emitters,
24:40around 200 million people still have no regular access to electricity.
24:46The country has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world
24:50and most of their energy needs are met by coal and oil.
24:54But that's rapidly changing, with a big push into solar and wind.
25:00And I think anyone who opens a new coal mine
25:02aimed at the Indian coal market is going to go broke.
25:06With new economic incentives,
25:08it's possible other developing countries
25:11may skip their fossil fuel phase altogether.
25:16And these countries have a choice.
25:17They can follow the fossil fuel path
25:20and then go to renewables after they've had a fossil fuel era.
25:23I think it's far more likely that they'll go directly to renewables
25:26as they develop their economies.
25:31Most of the projections into the future are just like the climate.
25:34They're linear. Emissions going up and so on.
25:37But in fact, our society's very complex systems
25:40and we can undergo rapid changes.
25:42And it is conceivable that we can reach
25:44a social, psychological tipping point
25:47where we say, we've got to change
25:49and we've got to change our societies fast.
25:52Individual demand can change remarkably quickly.
25:56And when demand changes, industry responds.
26:00Coal is really like whale oil.
26:02I mean, it's an outdated, archaic technology.
26:04We have much better alternatives
26:06and the world is increasingly moving in that direction.
26:16As electricity positions itself as the global fuel of the future,
26:21with the potential to provide power for heating, industry and transport,
26:26a lot needs to be done to ensure the security of the grid.
26:30It will need to deal with higher loads of fluctuating energy production
26:34alongside a huge rise in demand.
26:37So what is required to make a stable 100% renewable electricity system
26:42is demand management and storage
26:45and strong interstate high-voltage transmission lines.
26:49The reason for the transmission lines is that it smooths out local weather
26:53so that bad weather here is compensated by good weather somewhere else.
27:00In one decade, South Australia jumped from just 15% renewable electricity to more than 50%.
27:08It hasn't been without consequences.
27:12In September 2016, a ferocious storm damaged electricity infrastructure, plunging the state into darkness.
27:21Wind farms were blamed for a cascade of network failures.
27:25Their rover-sensitive protection mechanisms unable to cope with sudden voltage dips.
27:34As the debate about renewables grew volatile, the head of Tesla, Elon Musk, weighed in.
27:40He promised he could fix South Australia's grid problem within 100 days by building the world's largest lithium-ion battery.
27:49So we're talking about something that is more than three times as powerful as the next biggest battery installation in
27:54the world.
27:56It switched on in 2017.
28:02Within a few months of operation of that battery, it became quite clear that the battery was far superior
28:10to the current methods of dealing with short-term energy fluctuations,
28:14which had been gas and similar systems, fossil fuel-based.
28:18So batteries are able to deal with sub-second to 15 to 50-minute short-term glitches.
28:27The battery proved its worth over its first year of operation, saving $40 million in grid stabilisation costs,
28:36helping prevent blackouts and slashing energy prices.
28:43But the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow.
28:48And for longer-term storage, batteries can't go the distance.
28:53That's where technologies like Pumped Hydro might be able to step in.
29:00Pumped Hydro is a 100-year-old storage technology
29:03and it's about 97% of all energy storage around the world.
29:08When there's excess solar and wind,
29:10then the turbine runs backwards as a pump
29:13and water is pumped from the lower to the upper reservoir.
29:16And when you want that energy back in the middle of the night
29:18or when the wind stops flowing,
29:20the water comes back down through the pipe,
29:22through the turbine to recover that electricity.
29:26Andrew Blakers has analysed locations across Australia
29:30where Pumped Hydro could provide storage for the grid
29:34and has identified 22,000 potential sites.
29:38If only a fraction were used,
29:40he estimates that transition to 100% renewables
29:44could occur within two decades.
29:47What's important to understand is that these sites would be almost all off-river,
29:51no river in sight,
29:53and the water that is used goes round and round a circle.
29:56So there's a small amount of water lost by evaporation,
29:59but the annual water consumption through evaporation
30:03is a very, very small fraction of the water abstracted for agricultural purposes.
30:15As the grid turns green,
30:17it's facing a rapid expansion in future demand
30:21from industry, buildings and transport
30:23as they all electrify their fuel sources.
30:26To spread the load, researchers are looking at ways
30:30to match demand with supply in a flexible way.
30:34There's huge potential in providing what we call demand-side response,
30:38which is to change the demand from discretionary uses,
30:43uses which people don't need to have at that particular time.
30:46For example, washing their clothes, washing their dishes, heating water.
30:51Demand-side response means the ability to switch on and off multiple loads
30:55across hundreds of thousands or millions of customers
30:58in a way that can manage the stability of the grid
31:01without reducing the service that's provided to customers.
31:13Over the last decade, as appliances and homes have become smart
31:17and connected to the internet, consumers have the potential
31:21to play an important active role in energy security.
31:25The internet of things is a huge enabling technology for this.
31:28We're starting to see, for example, the ability to control appliances.
31:33Of course, this can be done in relatively old-fashioned ways,
31:35switching them on and off.
31:36But if we're to do it in a much more sophisticated way
31:39through remote control, through artificial intelligence,
31:42then we will need the internet of things, low-cost means,
31:45of both sensing temperature, sensing demand,
31:49switching appliances and fixtures on and off at will,
31:52as determined by algorithms.
31:57Decentralised power producers could be operated
32:00by a single control system or virtual power plant.
32:04The system would not just integrate appliances and adjust demand,
32:09but also tap into storage devices like a home battery,
32:13charging and discharging according to fluctuations.
32:17It becomes an integrated part of the grid,
32:20just the same as a hot water system storage does,
32:22just the same as the solar energy pre-cooling for air conditioning does.
32:26We'll be able to support the grid by discharging from the battery
32:31back to the grid during times of peak.
32:41Globally, only a small percentage of new car sales are electric,
32:45but the transition away from petrol-powered vehicles
32:48is gaining momentum.
32:50Car manufacturers are set to invest up to $300 billion
32:55in electric models over the next decade,
32:58and the huge batteries in these cars
33:00could offer one of the most flexible storage loads on the grid.
33:05The most important revolution waiting in the wings
33:07is the electric vehicle revolution,
33:09so we will have a situation where people will often have a vehicle
33:13parked either near their house, near their work,
33:17which could actually form part of a grid-integrated solution.
33:22Cars are parked about 90% of the time,
33:25and this means their charging schedules
33:27could be optimised to match changes in wind and solar generation,
33:31as well as provide power back to the home when needed.
33:35So we have an opportunity to completely transform
33:38and integrate the transport and the stationary energy sector
33:42through grid-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-grid technologies.
33:47People are currently spending $10,000 for a 15 kilowatt-hour battery,
33:51whereas we're about to see 40 to 80 kilowatt-hours of battery
33:55sitting in the garage.
33:56You have that equation, you think,
33:58well, it makes much more sense to use the batteries in the car
34:00rather than to have a standalone smaller battery on the house.
34:06At the forefront of renewable energy storage systems,
34:10batteries will be in utilities, factories, cars, offices and homes.
34:16Batteries will be everywhere.
34:18But that can create new problems of its own.
34:21By 2025, lithium demand is expected to increase more than fivefold.
34:28Availability isn't that amazing.
34:30If everything goes into lithium-ion batteries,
34:33you know, if you have electric cars all over the world,
34:36power stations all over the world,
34:38you're starting to hit supply constraints.
34:40If supply becomes an issue, cost will go up
34:44and they're already expensive.
34:46Lithium batteries have another major drawback.
34:49If they catch fire, they're nearly impossible to put out
34:52and release toxic gases when they burn.
34:56Lithium is a metal that cannot just burn in oxygen,
34:59but it also, once it's burning, can react with nitrogen.
35:02So, the unreactive part of air.
35:07So, researchers around the world
35:09have been looking for alternative battery systems
35:12to solve these problems.
35:15We looked into an alternative around 2015
35:19and set up a new company called Gelion, so gels and irons.
35:23In 2015, Thomas Mashmeyer's team developed their breakthrough battery,
35:28an older battery chemistry of zinc and bromine with a new twist.
35:32The battery employs a gel instead of liquid
35:36and delivers several advantages over lithium.
35:40First up, it cannot catch fire, which I think is very important
35:43when we use the batteries inside buildings, in the basements of buildings, etc.
35:47The chemistry is best suited for daily charge, discharge cycle,
35:52and effectively the battery self-repairs itself in that process.
35:56So, it stays young for a very long time.
35:59If I want to recycle, I can just open the battery up
36:02and wash out the electrolyte and reuse it.
36:06And there's no wastage and there is no toxicity.
36:12Although safer, there are still challenges.
36:16The Gelion batteries are around 80% bigger than lithium-ion technology
36:21for the same amount of energy stored.
36:24So, that means they're not suitable for all uses.
36:28We are not good for a racing car,
36:31but we are brilliant for any solar storage
36:34that is just in a house, commercial, industrial, utility scale,
36:39solar lampposts.
36:41They're very good for that.
36:43Because zinc and bromine are more abundant elements,
36:47that helps lower costs, an important factor for scaling up storage.
36:54Zinc's available all over the world, very nicely distributed.
36:57And bromine is, of course, in seawater.
36:59So, the effluent of desalination plants full of bromine,
37:03I can get it from there.
37:04Of course, I can run them with solar power.
37:07So, you can see there's a nice cycle to one's thinking.
37:10They're going to be a lot cheaper than anything out there.
37:13We're thinking about half the price to a third of the price
37:17of the cheapest batteries right now.
37:19And that will totally change the energy paradigm.
37:24It allows us to use power and store power in a decentralized fashion.
37:29It'll make small villages, towns, shopping centers
37:32much more autonomous from the grid.
37:42Thinking about energy systems in a holistic, circular way
37:46is a fundamental part of how researchers are approaching
37:51the redesign of buildings and communities
37:53to reduce their carbon footprint across all sectors.
37:59Energy efficiency is still a key part of that transition.
38:04So, I would say that energy efficiency,
38:07which was the really first exciting wave
38:09of changing the energy economy, is still job one.
38:13No matter how green your source is,
38:16you have to be efficient about its use,
38:17or you simply waste money and waste carbon emissions.
38:25Sydney hosts a building that's world famous for its green design.
38:31Central Park.
38:33It's an old brewery reconstructed as a residential, commercial and retail centre,
38:39which has its own electricity generating plant in the basement,
38:44avoiding the wastage from sending energy across long transmission lines.
38:49Giant mirrors track the sun and redirect light to lower levels.
38:54But the most striking feature is the principal building's living green walls.
39:01The plants are an aesthetic element as well as an important cooling element.
39:07So, they help to provide thermal mass for the building.
39:11They help to cool the building through evapotranspiration from the plants themselves.
39:17It's a new feature which people are starting to recognise the importance of green roofs and green walls.
39:23The building captures and recycles water from different sources,
39:28including rainwater from roofs, stormwater, sewage, irrigation and drinking water.
39:34The plant is capable of producing a million litres a day.
39:39As we build more buildings, have more asphalt, have more concrete pathways and so on,
39:44we need to try and reduce that heat load.
39:46Getting water into the landscape, getting greenery into the landscape is part of that picture.
39:49So, the biggest concentration of humans on the planet is in cities.
39:54And the more we think about that not as a problem, but as an opportunity to reuse materials,
40:01to repurpose waste for energy generation, to think about that human footprint,
40:07we change how we can conceptualise cities.
40:10So, cities as really ecosystems of energy, not only in terms of the buildings,
40:17but more and more efficient transit systems, connecting buildings in terms of their needs.
40:25One building has a big need for water.
40:27Another building has a need for energy and tying them together,
40:29so they can become part of that urban ecosystem.
40:35By decentralising power production and storage, water storage, even food production,
40:41cities can make big energy savings.
40:44A lot of our research tends to indicate that cities could probably cut their food and energy diet by about
40:52half.
40:53It's no longer the case that all of the food, water energy has to come from tens to hundreds of
41:00miles away.
41:02Now we can think about urban agriculture, where we grow plants on the roof of buildings,
41:07often without soil, and we cut out those food miles or food kilometres of the process.
41:14We have everything we need to meet our targets and to not only reduce the growth in emissions,
41:19but to ultimately bring them down.
41:21So, it's a question of turning our institutional systems, our political systems,
41:27and changing the rules of the game, usually, to remove the barriers to implementing these things.
41:34The share of renewables may be rapidly increasing,
41:38but critics believe they still don't have the capacity to meet our rising energy demands,
41:45and that other low-carbon energy sources need to be in the mix,
41:50ones that provide steady baseload energy.
41:54Some experts argue the only real candidate for that role is nuclear.
42:05When the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan at the end of World War II,
42:09the world witnessed the extraordinary power of nuclear fission,
42:14a chain reaction that released such extraordinary energy entire cities were wiped out.
42:20The fear of its destructive powers and toxic waste has always been a barrier to the growth of nuclear power.
42:27However, some environmentalists, scientists and policy makers still believe it has a role to play.
42:41Conventional commercial nuclear power really came out of the World War II effort.
42:45And in the United States, the first commercial reactor was in the early 1950s,
42:52and started a boom of building the nuclear plants that we see around the world today.
42:59Around 11% of the world's electricity is currently generated by nuclear fission.
43:06Nuclear fission is the radioactive breakdown of the nucleus of heavy elements,
43:11like uranium, thorium and plutonium.
43:14It releases high amounts of energy and no carbon.
43:19Unlike renewables, nuclear power provides steady baseline energy.
43:25But it does result in deadly radioactive waste.
43:30It's also a technology which in terms of price and performance has proven really challenging.
43:37And while the best nuclear plants themselves can be very efficient to operate,
43:43the nuclear system, if you include both the mining and the end-of-life issues,
43:49has been both risky and has been very costly relative to the newer entrants, the renewable technologies.
44:04Large-scale accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima have dominated negative press about nuclear.
44:12Yet the environmental damage and deaths from nuclear energy pales in comparison to fossil fuels.
44:20Studies estimate that air pollution from fossil fuel emissions cause millions of deaths each year
44:27through stroke, lung cancer and heart disease.
44:31That's not including the toll from climate change.
44:36Current research is looking at clever ways to overcome the costs and hazards associated with current nuclear power plants.
44:45A number of very exciting new technologies, so-called liquid metal reactors,
44:51molten salt reactors, small modular reactors that we can build many more of
44:57and hence learn more by building each one.
44:59And all of these have a role in the so-called next generation to ideally produce cheaper,
45:06more efficient and safer and more robust reactors than we have today.
45:12Despite the advances, most countries are turning away from nuclear fission as cheaper gas and renewables become available.
45:21But nuclear refuses to die.
45:24Waiting in the wings is another technology that could potentially solve all of the world's energy problems.
45:31With little waste, maximum power and an abundance of fuel.
45:36It's nuclear fusion.
45:38That's a technology option that offers incredibly exciting, I would argue,
45:44the most exciting technology options of any of our energy systems except for solar,
45:50which after all is fusion just 93 million miles away.
45:55Fusion is the reaction that powers the sun and lights our world.
45:59It uses the most common element of the universe, hydrogen.
46:05Instead of splitting a heavy nucleus like in nuclear fission,
46:09nuclear fusion involves the nuclei of two hydrogen atoms using under intense heat and pressure to create helium.
46:18And in the process, releasing huge amounts of energy.
46:23So I'm a physicist and I started my study of energy systems by really looking at fission and fusion.
46:30And fusion is the one that I come back to again and again as the really exciting opportunity.
46:34Because the fuel, widely available through seawater,
46:38the technology that looked like it was 50 years away, would always be 50 years away,
46:43is now getting dramatically closer.
46:46If they can find a way to do it, just 11 pounds of hydrogen could generate the energy equivalent
46:52of more than 56,000 barrels of oil.
46:56But there's a well-known joke about nuclear fusion,
46:59that it's the energy source of the future and it always will be.
47:03The technological challenges of achieving a sustained reaction are so great,
47:08scientists have tried for decades to make it work without success.
47:12The temperatures to make fusion work are tremendously high,
47:17higher than we see on the surface of the sun.
47:19While the temperature looked like a problem early on to maintain that,
47:24it's actually a question of magnetic confinement.
47:28The temperature itself is only incredibly hot for a very small volume,
47:33but keeping the density high enough, which keeps the temperature high enough,
47:37is a function of this magnetic or so-called inertial confinement.
47:43Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab have been at the forefront of fusion research since 1951,
47:51building the first successful fusion reactor in the 1980s.
47:55But like every other reactor built so far, it consumes more power than it produces,
48:01and can't sustain nuclear fusion for more than a few seconds.
48:10Today, the problem with fusion is very simple, and that is you need to push together very tightly the fuel
48:19in a plasma and keep it there.
48:22Every time you push on one side, it pushes out somewhere else.
48:25So the challenge is smart, fast-responding magnets so that as the fusion blob moves,
48:34the magnetic field can also move to then keep it compact enough to maintain the fusion process.
48:41Calculations suggest if you scale up the machine, fusion can be sustained.
48:47That's why 35 countries have united to build the world's largest magnetic fusion device
48:53without actually knowing whether it will work.
48:57Construction began in the south of France in 2010,
49:00and the reactor may switch on at the end of 2025.
49:04It's the world's most ambitious and costly energy project.
49:09It is a billions-of-dollar effort,
49:12an international partnership to build a large-scale reactor,
49:17and there's no risk beyond the financial risk
49:21to get this technology on the table.
49:24The reactor consists of a doughnut-shaped chamber
49:28where hydrogen gas will be heated to 150 million degrees
49:32under extreme pressure, creating a plasma.
49:36Under these conditions, hydrogen atoms will fuse, emitting heat,
49:40which is captured by the chamber walls.
49:43It's this heat which can be used to produce steam and electricity.
49:48Thousands of engineers and scientists across the world
49:51have contributed to the design of ITER.
49:53The number of small and interesting fusion companies,
49:58from those that are truly start-ups
50:01to those that are partnerships by big universities and by states,
50:05have finally got fusion to the point
50:08that I'd been hoping for for a long time.
50:13ITER will be more than eight times the plasma volume
50:17of the largest machine operating today.
50:19The reactor will still only be experimental
50:23and not produce commercial electricity.
50:25But if it works, it will pave the way for future fusion power plants,
50:30and the benefits could be enormous.
50:34Fusion, unlike fission, has very few waste materials in terms of the fuel.
50:41We're using seawater, we're using hydrogen as most of the fuel.
50:45The biggest waste issue is that we have radioactive components.
50:50The mixture of metals and ceramics that come out of those fusion reactors,
50:54but it's a tiny volume of waste compared to the radioactive materials
50:58that comes out of the fission process that we deal with today.
51:03Scientists are now beginning to apply deep learning,
51:07artificial intelligence algorithms to the problem of nuclear fusion,
51:11hoping to develop new solutions.
51:14If the plasma can one day be harnessed and reduced in size successfully,
51:19it may provide power which no fuel on Earth can match.
51:24And the idea right now of small-scale fusion systems
51:29that essentially take that compacted plasma
51:33and direct a bit of it out of the device
51:36means that everything from powering rocket ships
51:39to airplanes to tankers and vehicles are all possible.
51:44But we are still a ways away
51:46because we don't have enough players in the fusion area,
51:49and the mixture of very, very high-tech magnets
51:53and other ways to confine that plasma,
51:56that's really where fusion needs its biggest advances.
52:02In the meantime, hope revolves around the rapid upscaling of renewables
52:07and the electrification of the world's rapidly rising energy demands.
52:13Whether the transition happens fast enough
52:16to avoid catastrophic climate change will soon become clear.
52:20Our energy story today is really one of a brief wave of innovation,
52:27largely since the late 1970s,
52:29having not gotten us all the way to the clean energy system by far,
52:33but recognizing what the opportunities are.
52:36And while as a physicist, I recognize the many areas of solar and energy storage
52:42that we need to work on,
52:44it's really a story of willpower,
52:46and that if we don't find ways to push on the social side, the policy side,
52:52we make the clean energy transition virtually impossible.
52:57The rapid pace of the positive developments gives me some hope.
53:03I think it's a race against time.
53:05These technologies are right here, right now,
53:07and they will enable the transition to 100% renewables,
53:10which we need to do very soon.
53:13Winning the energy race means a win for the entire world,
53:17not just humanity.
53:20Life as we know it depends on our quick transition
53:24away from fossil fuels
53:27and towards new, clean technologies.
53:31As the fabric of our blue planet transforms before our eyes,
53:37the stakes today are higher than ever.
53:46The rising demands for food, water and materials have pushed resources to the limit,
53:51and waste is piling high.
53:53Next week, the Great Acceleration explores the new wave of innovation
53:58to make more out of less.