The growing interest and action in renewable energy appears to have finally gotten over the advance-and-retreat pattern that has characterized if the last several decades. In short, fossil fuel prices go up > R&D in renewables goes up as a result > fossil fuel prices go back down > R&D funding for renewables is cut. Climate concerns appear to have overcome this cycle and the advances in the technology and reductions in its cost make it increasingly compelling as an alternative.
Oil & Gas 2030: Let There Be Change by Accenture discusses how the oil and natural gas industry should respond to the challenges of an abundance of supply, the growing momentum toward decarbonization and the structural shifts in consumer behaviors. This is an excellent example of how an established field of business responds to a growing indication that it may be starting to become significantly less relevant, as it is used to being, to how society works.
Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development by The Rockefeller Foundation notes that “The world will strive to source more of its energy from renewable resources and may succeed, but there will likely still be a significant level of global interdependence on energy.”
The World in 2040: The future of healthcare, mobility, travel and the home by Allianz Partners notes that “…phenomenal and unexpected progress is being made in developing renewable sources of energy generation,” and that between 2011 and 2018, the price of solar voltaic panels, which capture sunlight and convert it into electricity, has fallen by 86 per cent, the cost of energy from offshore wind farms has fallen by 23 per cent, the efficiency of solar panels has doubled and the amount of power generated by a large wind turbine has increased by 40 per cent.
The 2022 Strategic Foresight Report by the European Commission describes the transformative nature of what it believes to be two transitions in progress - green and digital - how they can reinforce each other (known in the document as “twinning”), and that the greening of energy is a necessity for the digital transformation to become more energy efficient.
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