# Net-Zero Window Closing But Still Time to Get On Track

An episode of [Switched On](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469286286), 3 Jul 2024, 32 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/01a10738-3608-4dec-883c-ae3c00026b36/fbe68f11-b0ac-4820-8568-b1a200782826/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d114f63-833d-4b78-bbf5-ae3c00026b44

Each year, BloombergNEF’s New Energy Outlook develops and evaluates scenarios for the transition to a low-carbon economy. Delving into electricity, industry, buildings and transport, this flagship report outlines sector and country transition scenarios out to 2050. On today’s show, Dana is joined by co-host Tom Rowlands-Rees, BNEF’s head of research for North America, and guest David Hostert, Head of Economics and Modeling at BNEF and lead author of the New Energy Outlook. They discuss nine technological pillars that underpin the energy transition, and consider which of these are gaining traction or stalling. They also debate the value scenario exercises bring to those working in climate and energy when charting the path to a net-zero future. Complementary BNEF research on the trends driving the transition to a lower-carbon economy can be found at BNEF<GO> on the Bloomberg Terminal or on bnef.com Links to research notes from this episode: New Energy Outlook 2024 - https://about.bnef.com/new-energy-outlook/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switched on
[0:03] Speaker 1: the BNF podcast. The New Energy Outlook contains BNF's long
[0:08] Speaker 1: term energy and climate scenarios for the transition to a
[0:12] Speaker 1: low carbon economy. They're anchored in the real world, looking
[0:15] Speaker 1: at economics but ignoring politics, which can be a hard
[0:18] Speaker 1: thing to do in a year with so many elections.
[0:21] Speaker 1: It takes a full year across nearly all of benf's
[0:24] Speaker 1: teams to get it done. They look at electricity, industry
[0:27] Speaker 1: and buildings in transport as some of the key drivers
[0:30] Speaker 1: for this transition. We hope the research helps people think
[0:33] Speaker 1: about how the future might play out all the way
[0:35] Speaker 1: to twenty fifty as one planet on spaceship Earth and
[0:39] Speaker 1: also as individual countries. Today we have David Hastert on
[0:43] Speaker 1: the show. He is the global head of Economics and
[0:45] Speaker 1: Modeling at BENEF and I've asked tomerlands Reese to come
[0:48] Speaker 1: back as my co host so we can grill David
[0:51] Speaker 1: a bit and make him tell us why it is
[0:53] Speaker 1: important to think so far out into the future, as
[0:55] Speaker 1: well as a bit more about the nine technologies that
[0:58] Speaker 1: could make or break the low carbon transition and which
[1:02] Speaker 1: ones are succeeding, and which ones might need a bit
[1:04] Speaker 1: more work to put it lightly. If you like our show,
[1:07] Speaker 1: make sure to subscribe or give us a review. And
[1:09] Speaker 1: right now, let's listen to Tom and my conversation with
[1:13] Speaker 1: David about the New Energy Outlook for twenty twenty four.
[1:25] Speaker 1: So we're joined again today on Switched On with a
[1:28] Speaker 1: co host. So say hello to everybody. Tom, Hi, everyone,
[1:32] Speaker 1: and our guest today is David. So David, welcome to
[1:35] Speaker 1: the show.
[1:35] Speaker 2: Hey Dana, Hey Tom, it's great to be here. It's
[1:37] Speaker 2: like talking with old friends since we've been working together
[1:39] Speaker 2: for such a long time.
[1:41] Speaker 1: I agree, And we're here to talk about this year's
[1:45] Speaker 1: edition of the New Energy Outlook. And we're not going
[1:48] Speaker 1: to comprehensively go through the key findings. That's something that
[1:51] Speaker 1: someone can find from a webinar and is better supported
[1:53] Speaker 1: by a chart or two or twenty in any case.
[1:57] Speaker 1: But we're here to talk actually about scenarios generally and
[2:01] Speaker 1: also what we're trying to accomplish here with our neo report.
[2:05] Speaker 1: But when we're talking about the New Energy Outlook, why
[2:08] Speaker 1: is it that in this case, well laying the groundwork,
[2:10] Speaker 1: why is it a scenario rather than a forecast.
[2:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, so the new energy outlook is Bloomberg's Energy and
[2:18] Speaker 2: Climate scenarios. So it's a huge body of work that
[2:20] Speaker 2: brings together the work that our analysts do across the
[2:24] Speaker 2: different teams. So across being for we have three hundred
[2:26] Speaker 2: people and of those seventy you just involved with this project.
[2:29] Speaker 2: It's a huge exercise. And fundamentally, when you do these
[2:32] Speaker 2: big sweeping analysis you can do them in two ways.
[2:35] Speaker 2: You can either lock up a team of ten PhDs
[2:38] Speaker 2: in the room and they hash it out and they
[2:39] Speaker 2: tell the business what is the solution. But the way
[2:41] Speaker 2: that we've been doing it, which has been really good
[2:43] Speaker 2: for our internal alignment, is to say, let's bring everybody
[2:46] Speaker 2: on board and build the scenario together. And as the
[2:49] Speaker 2: listeners who work in any group have worked in any
[2:52] Speaker 2: big projects, know, having internal alignment is about the hardest
[2:55] Speaker 2: thing you can do. So once we have that, we're
[2:57] Speaker 2: able to build a bottom up, piece by piece picture
[3:00] Speaker 2: of how the energy transition can play out. When we
[3:04] Speaker 2: say that any transition, what we mean is the power sector,
[3:06] Speaker 2: We mean transport, aviation, shipping, road, transport. We talk about buildings,
[3:12] Speaker 2: we talk about industry, chemicals, cement, aluminium, and these emissions
[3:17] Speaker 2: together make up about two thirds of global emissions, so
[3:20] Speaker 2: it's a huge chunk of kind of man made emissions.
[3:23] Speaker 2: And our role as scenarios makers is to go out
[3:26] Speaker 2: and say, well, based on what we know today, based
[3:29] Speaker 2: on what we as being, what our teams know about
[3:32] Speaker 2: technology costs, about consumer uptake, about how decision making happens
[3:36] Speaker 2: to the process, what is a reasonable assumption of how
[3:39] Speaker 2: these sectors can evolve between today and twenty fifty in
[3:43] Speaker 2: our base case. And we can talk about scenario kind
[3:45] Speaker 2: of cases in a moment, and then what would this
[3:49] Speaker 2: have to look like if we wanted to get to
[3:51] Speaker 2: net zero. Scenarios can be explorative. They can just say well,
[3:55] Speaker 2: let's just see what the model tells us. We dial
[3:58] Speaker 2: in policies, soaris are a policy light. We take a
[4:02] Speaker 2: quait conservative view on policies in that they need to
[4:05] Speaker 2: be fully funded, they need to be have actual mechanisms
[4:08] Speaker 2: that affect prices, so not statements of intent, not kind
[4:11] Speaker 2: of lofty targets, but actual kind of mechanisms. And then
[4:14] Speaker 2: after that we say, well, let's just take as much
[4:16] Speaker 2: as possible look at what is the kind of a
[4:18] Speaker 2: cost based solution, What is an optimal set up here
[4:21] Speaker 2: like that that really is just in the money. And
[4:23] Speaker 2: once you let the play out, you start seeing some
[4:26] Speaker 2: very interesting things. And then yeah, and in the in
[4:28] Speaker 2: the natzero scenario, we then apply a carbon budget and say, okay,
[4:32] Speaker 2: now let's do the same thing the same demand. People
[4:34] Speaker 2: travel by air, they will want to go someday, they
[4:37] Speaker 2: come home, they turn on the kettle. How can we
[4:39] Speaker 2: deliver these same utilities the same final energy demand, but
[4:44] Speaker 2: in a way that doesn't emit carbon or emits less carbon,
[4:47] Speaker 2: and soo fundamentally, these are two scenarios. We have a
[4:49] Speaker 2: base case that is exploratory, and then we have a
[4:53] Speaker 2: NAT zero scenario that is normative. And yeah, the whole
[4:56] Speaker 2: act of scenario making in itself, you have to accept
[4:59] Speaker 2: that you'll definitely be wrong.
[5:00] Speaker 3: That's fine, Like, these are scenarios.
[5:02] Speaker 2: They're not forecasts, they're not what we necessarily believe will
[5:05] Speaker 2: actually happen. But what they can tell you is a
[5:08] Speaker 2: glimpse into a future that you can't just project based
[5:12] Speaker 2: on announcements. Because when you start modeling things, you start
[5:16] Speaker 2: finding new things and new surprising things, and you start
[5:18] Speaker 2: finding those tipping points that are so hard to predict right.
[5:22] Speaker 2: Things sometimes change slowly and then they change rapidly, and
[5:25] Speaker 2: we've seen that in the solar sector. We've seen that
[5:29] Speaker 2: in a way within the ev actually vehicle sector. So
[5:31] Speaker 2: there's a lot of kind of nonlinear stuff going on
[5:35] Speaker 2: that's just really really hard to just forecasts or predict.
[5:38] Speaker 2: And then in turn, our scenarios can then guide us
[5:41] Speaker 2: to come back to and say, well, okay, given that
[5:43] Speaker 2: we think that's going to be a higher of renewables,
[5:45] Speaker 2: let's just say that's a no regrets decision to more enneables.
[5:48] Speaker 2: What in turn is then needed to integrate them? What
[5:51] Speaker 2: are the kind of market designs that we need? What
[5:53] Speaker 2: does it actually mean to level the playing field? So
[5:55] Speaker 2: you can have an informed debate, and you know, in
[5:58] Speaker 2: a year's time we'll do another scenario, we'll find new things,
[6:01] Speaker 2: we'll adapt our of you, and this way we can kind.
[6:04] Speaker 3: Of slowly slowly cross the river.
[6:06] Speaker 2: Feeling the stones, as the famous Chinese proverb goes, can.
[6:10] Speaker 4: I just push back on this a little bit or
[6:12] Speaker 4: really probe it?
[6:13] Speaker 3: So?
[6:14] Speaker 5: Sebhen Best, who used to run Neo and at different
[6:19] Speaker 5: points in time, was everyone on this podcast's boss, although
[6:24] Speaker 5: weirdly never all at the same time, which is interesting.
[6:27] Speaker 5: This whole scenarios versus forecasts was his favorite little narrative
[6:32] Speaker 5: and any difficult question you ever asked him, Like you say, Seb,
[6:35] Speaker 5: you know, is there such a thing as free will?
[6:37] Speaker 5: And be like, oh, well, you have to understand the
[6:39] Speaker 5: difference between a forecast and a scenario. Like and by
[6:43] Speaker 5: the way, I am about to go and have coffee
[6:45] Speaker 5: with Seb after we finish this podcast.
[6:48] Speaker 4: We're all friends.
[6:49] Speaker 5: It's okay that I'm pulling him under the bus here,
[6:51] Speaker 5: But isn't that a bit of a cop out? I mean,
[6:53] Speaker 5: wouldn't it be much more useful if we had a
[6:55] Speaker 5: forecast like this scenario is it? Couldn't it be that
[6:59] Speaker 5: we just tried a little bit harder to make a
[7:01] Speaker 5: forecast like our scenario is? Like, really, can you explain
[7:05] Speaker 5: why a scenario is really useful?
[7:07] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[7:08] Speaker 2: No, thanks to Tom, and I appreciate the amount of
[7:10] Speaker 2: stank in that question that we're not trying so first up,
[7:17] Speaker 2: even putting together a scenario, you know, how however unreliable.
[7:22] Speaker 2: You think it requires a huge amount of work and
[7:25] Speaker 2: set up. So do you even get to the stage
[7:27] Speaker 2: where you have a scenario that's vaguely credible. That's that's
[7:30] Speaker 2: in itself as a huge step. The second is that
[7:34] Speaker 2: when you when you do these kind of forecasts, you say,
[7:38] Speaker 2: we want to be when we do this scenario, we
[7:40] Speaker 2: want to be really really sure about the next five years.
[7:42] Speaker 2: Right in scenario making you care about the next five years,
[7:46] Speaker 2: and then you have this kind of hot, steamy reality
[7:48] Speaker 2: where stuff happens, there's politics, there's policy, there's kind of
[7:52] Speaker 2: weird pandemics thrown in supply chain disruption. Things happen, So so
[7:56] Speaker 2: we want to be as right as possible on that front.
[7:59] Speaker 2: But then it's point you have to transition it into
[8:01] Speaker 2: this kind of cold modeling reality and where most of
[8:05] Speaker 2: the scenario work happens. And the team, if you think
[8:08] Speaker 2: about what do we spend most time on, it's that
[8:10] Speaker 2: interface between this kind of messy, hot reality and then
[8:14] Speaker 2: this cold modeling world. And when these two fronts meet,
[8:18] Speaker 2: you have thunderstorms, you just get a lot of messy interactions.
[8:20] Speaker 2: So so a lot of time is spent kind of
[8:22] Speaker 2: threading our forecast, which we do tom and you know
[8:26] Speaker 2: on a quarterly basis, we up at our renewables forecast,
[8:28] Speaker 2: we take it into consideration all of these things, but
[8:30] Speaker 2: at some points you have to thread in where you
[8:32] Speaker 2: go beyond what you know today, and then you come
[8:35] Speaker 2: into an even a bigger assumption than free will, which
[8:38] Speaker 2: is rationality. You have to make an assumption that to
[8:41] Speaker 2: a degree, we will take rational decisions. Because if you
[8:44] Speaker 2: start dialing in all the things we already know or
[8:46] Speaker 2: think we know, like you know, say, for example, vehicle
[8:49] Speaker 2: ev phase outdates Germany, it's a huge European car manufacturer.
[8:53] Speaker 2: They had a phase outdate for evs that got put
[8:56] Speaker 2: into question again, so policids. We thought, oh, surely Germany,
[8:59] Speaker 2: which in our G twenty policy rankings is one of
[9:02] Speaker 2: the highest ranking countries, very firm policies, very kind of
[9:04] Speaker 2: good track record. But there's walking back on these commitments.
[9:08] Speaker 2: When you dial all of these in and think they're
[9:09] Speaker 2: magically happen, you're just going to overshoot what happens, and
[9:12] Speaker 2: you just end as the correcting and adapting. So that
[9:15] Speaker 2: this is where I think no good forecast would be
[9:18] Speaker 2: good without becoming for policy, and I think us stepping
[9:21] Speaker 2: away from that and saying, look, we're not going to
[9:24] Speaker 2: look at that, we really look at the economics and
[9:25] Speaker 2: assume there's a level playing field already gives us more
[9:28] Speaker 2: insightful answers rather than seventy people kind of coming together
[9:32] Speaker 2: and guessing what they think is going to be the
[9:34] Speaker 2: right mix.
[9:36] Speaker 5: So we're imagining a world that could be real and
[9:40] Speaker 5: that we have is self consistent in the way we
[9:42] Speaker 5: think about it, and there's some useful insights we can
[9:45] Speaker 5: derive from that. So it's like it's maybe like nineteen
[9:47] Speaker 5: eighty four rather than Star Wars.
[9:49] Speaker 1: It's a world in the multiverse that you know, if
[9:52] Speaker 1: all certain things lined up to be true. But I
[9:55] Speaker 1: actually want to talk about the year that we go
[9:57] Speaker 1: out to. So this year twenty fifty is something that
[9:59] Speaker 1: everybody's really in the climate space when they're thinking about
[10:02] Speaker 1: emissions targets. We're really comfortable with talking about twenty fifty
[10:05] Speaker 1: like it's tomorrow, But it's not tomorrow. Maybe we would
[10:08] Speaker 1: like it to be further away. Would we think about
[10:10] Speaker 1: how quickly the entire economy needs to transition from an
[10:13] Speaker 1: emission standpoint. But when it comes to election cycles and
[10:17] Speaker 1: what any policy maker may really be thinking about in
[10:19] Speaker 1: terms of getting re elected or investors in how long
[10:23] Speaker 1: they're going to hold an asset or a position, or
[10:26] Speaker 1: any sort of investment that they're looking to see to
[10:28] Speaker 1: make a return on. It's much much nearer. So what
[10:32] Speaker 1: is it about twenty fifty? Why should those individuals be
[10:38] Speaker 1: looking at something so far into the future. Is it
[10:41] Speaker 1: the tipping points? Or is it something else?
[10:44] Speaker 2: We collectively get sucked into a debate where we have
[10:47] Speaker 2: a few kind of NOV starts that no everybody knows.
[10:49] Speaker 2: It's one point five. That's a NOV style that we
[10:53] Speaker 2: now have. It's twenty to fifty, and then if you
[10:55] Speaker 2: want to add a word, it's net zero. So all
[10:58] Speaker 2: of these dates in minds are self reinforcing. The range
[11:03] Speaker 2: for us to have a one point five degree outcome
[11:05] Speaker 2: is huge. If you look at the actual climate science
[11:08] Speaker 2: behind it, there's a huge range. It could be as
[11:10] Speaker 2: early as twenty thirty, it could be as late as
[11:12] Speaker 2: twenty sixty's. There's just a lot of uncertainty. The same
[11:14] Speaker 2: is with the year twenty fifty. That's not a date
[11:17] Speaker 2: set in stone. It is just a coerescing point for
[11:20] Speaker 2: us to think about the question and have a certain
[11:23] Speaker 2: common timeframe about it. I get stressed when I think
[11:25] Speaker 2: about twenty fifty. I get stressed when I think about
[11:27] Speaker 2: twenty thirty. But the point is not to get hang
[11:30] Speaker 2: up on these individual dates. The point is to say,
[11:32] Speaker 2: let's have a common frame and create a sense of urgency,
[11:36] Speaker 2: not panic, just urgency, because if we think about our
[11:39] Speaker 2: emissions curves in our net zero scenario, a lot of
[11:42] Speaker 2: the emissions that we save in the next five to
[11:44] Speaker 2: ten years are.
[11:45] Speaker 3: So much more worth, so much more.
[11:47] Speaker 2: Than the emissions that we save in the twenty forties.
[11:49] Speaker 2: I give you an example in our net zero scenario,
[11:51] Speaker 2: which is a one point seven five degree scenario, and
[11:53] Speaker 2: we can talk maybe why we didn't pick a one
[11:56] Speaker 2: point five degree scenario. In that scenario, the energy sector
[11:59] Speaker 2: reduces emissions ninety three percent by twenty thirty five, so
[12:02] Speaker 2: it is just around the corner. It's a very short time.
[12:05] Speaker 2: So in order to we need to think about twenty fifty,
[12:07] Speaker 2: because we need to think backwards about the technologies that
[12:09] Speaker 2: we need by them, or the types of solutions that
[12:12] Speaker 2: we need by then, and so that we can start
[12:14] Speaker 2: getting them up to speed, because these things take time,
[12:17] Speaker 2: and every year that we emit at peak emissions as
[12:20] Speaker 2: we're doing at the moment, we're losing time to enact them.
[12:24] Speaker 2: And that's why I think twenty fifty to one point
[12:26] Speaker 2: five are such useful narratives for everybody to keep in mind.
[12:30] Speaker 2: Behind that, the reality is much more complicated and much
[12:33] Speaker 2: more nuanced.
[12:34] Speaker 5: Can I just follo up on this question of twenty
[12:36] Speaker 5: fifty and you mention you're stressed about twenty thirty, and
[12:39] Speaker 5: you mention you're stressed about twenty fifty. I also imagine
[12:42] Speaker 5: you're stressed because you have to deliver a neo report
[12:44] Speaker 5: every year. This is like a huge amount of work
[12:48] Speaker 5: a cross BNF, but for you personally and your team individually.
[12:52] Speaker 5: And I know that you know every year we add
[12:55] Speaker 5: new nuances and features the analysis, but a lot of
[12:57] Speaker 5: the analysis is the same at its core, maybe with
[13:00] Speaker 5: different assumptions. So given the twenty fifty times scale, like
[13:04] Speaker 5: what differs year on year in the core analysis? What
[13:06] Speaker 5: new insights do we get?
[13:08] Speaker 4: Typically? Why are we doing this to ourselves?
[13:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a question that I get asked a lot
[13:13] Speaker 2: by my family. The value of doing it regularly is
[13:18] Speaker 2: that new information comes to light. That risk is that
[13:21] Speaker 2: actually the downside of redoing it every year can be
[13:24] Speaker 2: higher than the reward. The issue with more complexity and
[13:27] Speaker 2: more topics is apart from the fact that there's more
[13:30] Speaker 2: room for errors is also that you might lose of
[13:33] Speaker 2: the things that actually are matter, just because there's so
[13:36] Speaker 2: much complexity and so much interaction. So that's another thing
[13:39] Speaker 2: we're very mindful about to say, sure, we can add
[13:41] Speaker 2: more countries, add more feedback loops, more complexity. But some
[13:45] Speaker 2: of the strong messages that we've gotten from new they
[13:48] Speaker 2: have evolved over the years. They haven't necessarily changed radically,
[13:52] Speaker 2: but there is some new stuff like this. This year,
[13:54] Speaker 2: for example, we did much more work about the limits
[13:57] Speaker 2: of solar power, so we now have much more better
[14:00] Speaker 2: idea of what are the economic limits of sola wide?
[14:04] Speaker 2: Don't more batteries just help? And we're not in a
[14:06] Speaker 2: curious position where we, as Baniev have a lower solo
[14:09] Speaker 2: forecast than the IA, the International Energy Agency, And for
[14:13] Speaker 2: years that was the other way around. For years Baniev
[14:15] Speaker 2: was super bullish and soler the IA was catching up.
[14:18] Speaker 2: And now we're reversed. And this is again because you
[14:22] Speaker 2: keep looking at you you find these new dynamics that
[14:24] Speaker 2: tell you something new.
[14:26] Speaker 5: Maybe it's now a good time to ask the question.
[14:29] Speaker 5: My pop culture reference, so in the novel Foundation by
[14:34] Speaker 5: Isaac Asimov, which has recently been converted to a very
[14:39] Speaker 5: excellent series on Apple TV. The core character is this guy,
[14:42] Speaker 5: Harry Selden, who's a mathematician who invents this field of
[14:46] Speaker 5: mathematics called psychohistory, where basically he models everything and predicts
[14:50] Speaker 5: the future. In the series, he predicts the downfall of
[14:54] Speaker 5: the Galactic Empire and years of chaos, and then he
[14:57] Speaker 5: promotes this alternative scenario if he gets some funding to
[15:01] Speaker 5: go and set up a sort of a foundation hence
[15:04] Speaker 5: the name, with all the knowledge of humanity, he can
[15:07] Speaker 5: help usher humankind through those dark ages and have them
[15:10] Speaker 5: bounce back a lot quicker. And the thing I found
[15:13] Speaker 5: a bit ridiculous, and it kind of alludes to this
[15:15] Speaker 5: question of the challenge of forecasts. Is throughout the series,
[15:19] Speaker 5: like with unerring accuracy, a little hologram of Harry Selden
[15:22] Speaker 5: five hundred years after he's died pops up and he's like,
[15:25] Speaker 5: I guess you've just navigated this particular crisis.
[15:27] Speaker 4: This version of history.
[15:28] Speaker 5: That he's modeled includes his own interventions, and so therefore
[15:32] Speaker 5: he has a much better chance of getting it right.
[15:35] Speaker 5: I suppose what I'm saying is because our net zero scenario,
[15:39] Speaker 5: for example, involves a bunch of interventions. Are we I
[15:44] Speaker 5: suppose giving a map for policymakers around the world industry
[15:49] Speaker 5: to say, like, this isn't going to happen. But it
[15:52] Speaker 5: could be that this is a forecast of the future.
[15:55] Speaker 5: If you look at this and see the interventions you
[15:58] Speaker 5: need to make Like, is it like a circular logic
[16:01] Speaker 5: that we're offering to the market.
[16:03] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[16:03] Speaker 2: So what Asimov talks a lot about is kind of
[16:07] Speaker 2: questions of ethics and moral philosophy. And if the question
[16:11] Speaker 2: is kind of what does it mean? Then the kind
[16:13] Speaker 2: of ethical or moral question is what should we do?
[16:15] Speaker 2: So as as Beanie of what we try to do
[16:19] Speaker 2: is show like this is a here's an outcome that
[16:21] Speaker 2: makes sense just from a monetor perspective. You know, we
[16:24] Speaker 2: haven't factored in human health. We haven't factored in obviously
[16:27] Speaker 2: they're good implications for keeping temperatures slow, for human health
[16:30] Speaker 2: and migration and all these other well dimensions of well being.
[16:33] Speaker 2: But just from a kind of cost perspective, which is narrow,
[16:37] Speaker 2: here's a solution that just makes sense and it works,
[16:40] Speaker 2: and it works in the case of the power system
[16:42] Speaker 2: at an hourly level. And we looked at this in
[16:44] Speaker 2: great detail. This can work. We also then go and say,
[16:46] Speaker 2: here's a bunch of barriers that are in the way
[16:48] Speaker 2: that we didn't model in it before because we didn't
[16:50] Speaker 2: want to presuppose what will happen. I give you an example.
[16:53] Speaker 2: We need a lot of batteries in our scenario. These
[16:55] Speaker 2: batteries need metals. We know these critical metals and minerals
[16:59] Speaker 2: are in short supply, but we also believe that technology
[17:02] Speaker 2: change can help adapt some of them. So the amount
[17:05] Speaker 2: of cobalt, for example, which is say critical mineral that
[17:08] Speaker 2: is needed in matteries, the amount we forecast is needed
[17:10] Speaker 2: has come down every year, even though we increase of
[17:12] Speaker 2: battery focus every year, simply because battery chemistry is changed.
[17:15] Speaker 2: So we need to acknowledge that there's the technological change
[17:18] Speaker 2: can also remove some barriers. It's important to talk about them,
[17:21] Speaker 2: but it's also important, I believe, not to bake them
[17:25] Speaker 2: in too much into your model because you then don't
[17:27] Speaker 2: learn something. So when we think about these barriers, there's
[17:30] Speaker 2: also grids. There is kind of the amount of manufacturing
[17:34] Speaker 2: that we need. You need to look at these questions
[17:36] Speaker 2: and then you need to apply another lens, which is
[17:38] Speaker 2: the country level it's no good to have global scenarios.
[17:41] Speaker 2: You need to have country scenarios because countries is where
[17:44] Speaker 2: the action happens, where the policies happen, or the change happens.
[17:47] Speaker 2: And then you need to look at the country picture
[17:48] Speaker 2: and say, well, given these barriers, given this you know,
[17:51] Speaker 2: glorious future that could happen, what is it you should
[17:55] Speaker 2: be then thinking about. And then that's when it comes
[17:58] Speaker 2: to market design. So if we have a bunch of
[18:02] Speaker 2: zero costs or like low cost generators I'm running, that'll
[18:05] Speaker 2: do things to the power price. So you need to
[18:06] Speaker 2: think about these things. So we're not trying to be
[18:09] Speaker 2: normative in the sense of saying that here's the truth
[18:12] Speaker 2: by BNIF and and you know, if you follow this
[18:15] Speaker 2: map you'll find the golden treasure. We're trying to say,
[18:17] Speaker 2: here's like a rational future that we maybe can work towards.
[18:21] Speaker 2: And I said earlier that rationality is a huge assumption
[18:25] Speaker 2: in all of this, because energy policy has been anything
[18:28] Speaker 2: but rational.
[18:29] Speaker 1: This is a report really for techno optimists, and if
[18:32] Speaker 1: we're thinking about it, it's a story of technology and
[18:35] Speaker 1: economics that are associated with this technology. But this fundamental
[18:38] Speaker 1: premise that the right technologies at the right price are
[18:41] Speaker 1: going to lead us to this much lower emissions future.
[18:44] Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
[18:45] Speaker 2: And you can overlay behavioral change on that, and you know,
[18:49] Speaker 2: you can say, well, if I wanted to look at
[18:50] Speaker 2: my personal footprint, I should be doing this and this
[18:53] Speaker 2: and this and but fundamentally it's an optimistic view and
[18:56] Speaker 2: technology and an agnostic view and policy. Policy is a
[18:59] Speaker 2: very import important role to play as an enabler of this,
[19:02] Speaker 2: but it's not a driver of this scenario.
[19:04] Speaker 1: Well, And one of the things that's important when setting
[19:06] Speaker 1: a target of any kind is to kind of rally
[19:08] Speaker 1: behind a few things, to just still it down to
[19:12] Speaker 1: just a list in order for us to be able
[19:14] Speaker 1: to concentrate. For the same reasons that you're pointing out
[19:17] Speaker 1: that twenty fifty and twenty thirty and one point five
[19:19] Speaker 1: are really important things for us to see as benchmarks
[19:22] Speaker 1: that we start to create a narrative around.
[19:24] Speaker 4: So within this.
[19:25] Speaker 1: Report, you actually identified nine technologies that are make or
[19:29] Speaker 1: break for the low carbon transition. Within these nine technologies
[19:33] Speaker 1: that you've identified, some are getting a lot of traction
[19:35] Speaker 1: and some are doing less well. So let's talk about
[19:37] Speaker 1: first that basket of technologies that are how the wind
[19:41] Speaker 1: at they're back.
[19:42] Speaker 2: Let's say yeah, so when I mean we kind of
[19:45] Speaker 2: blockout it put it out. There's nine key technologies. You
[19:49] Speaker 2: could say it's ten, depending how you cut it. But
[19:51] Speaker 2: fundamentally there are two groups of technologies. And this becomes
[19:55] Speaker 2: very clear when you compare the uptake in our base
[19:57] Speaker 2: case and in our net zero scenario. The technologies that
[20:01] Speaker 2: are already doing well in our base case, which is
[20:04] Speaker 2: solar power, it's wind power, both offshore wind and on
[20:07] Speaker 2: shore wind. It's electric vehicles, it's batteries and its heat pumps.
[20:12] Speaker 2: So these are these are technologies that are already on
[20:14] Speaker 2: the app And if you look at the additional effort
[20:17] Speaker 2: that's needed to get in its zero, if you squint,
[20:20] Speaker 2: like if you stand back and squint, you can just
[20:23] Speaker 2: about see how that can work. Like, okay, we need
[20:25] Speaker 2: to double solar again, but you know this, we can
[20:27] Speaker 2: do this, Like we know how this can work. We
[20:29] Speaker 2: obviously need to massively ramp up evs, and we just
[20:32] Speaker 2: published our Electric Vehicle Outlook and they've seen some headwinds
[20:35] Speaker 2: in the short term, but still we know how this
[20:38] Speaker 2: can work. Where it gets more interesting is when when
[20:41] Speaker 2: you look at the technologies that are needed that we
[20:43] Speaker 2: see could be needed for and it's a transition that
[20:46] Speaker 2: are currently not in the money, whether they're just in infancy.
[20:50] Speaker 2: I'm thinking about the same aviation fuels. When we looked
[20:53] Speaker 2: at the kind of types of routes that are being flown,
[20:55] Speaker 2: the types of planes that are used on these routes.
[20:57] Speaker 2: When you go down the options, what is it that
[20:59] Speaker 2: actually can feasibly scale very quickly. You just left with
[21:02] Speaker 2: the sustainable aviation fuels, which is a drop in jet
[21:05] Speaker 2: fuel alternative, and we did a bunch of research looking
[21:08] Speaker 2: into the types of technologies and types of fuels that
[21:10] Speaker 2: could fill this cup. And then you end up with
[21:12] Speaker 2: a very narrow band of solutions that can be deployed
[21:15] Speaker 2: very quickly, but they also need to scale at a
[21:17] Speaker 2: level that is just exceeding current feedstock levels, so you
[21:20] Speaker 2: have kind of a scaling challenge. Then we have carbon
[21:23] Speaker 2: capture and storage, which also could play a big role
[21:27] Speaker 2: in across a number of different sectors, and this year
[21:30] Speaker 2: has come up higher than honestly we expected, and that's
[21:33] Speaker 2: to do with the maturity the technology and the fact
[21:36] Speaker 2: that it could be deployed quickly. But there too, there's
[21:38] Speaker 2: a huge scaling challenge. Then we have hydrogen, which this
[21:41] Speaker 2: year we actually downgraded our forecasts, so there's less hydrogen
[21:44] Speaker 2: our forecasts now than last year, simply because from our perspective,
[21:48] Speaker 2: the applications that hydrogen can play and have just become
[21:51] Speaker 2: much more clear. And then you have grids which need
[21:54] Speaker 2: to double in length, and then to make matters even
[21:57] Speaker 2: more complicated, these are not insular technologies. They are connected.
[22:01] Speaker 2: If you want sustainable aviation fuels, you need to have
[22:04] Speaker 2: clean hydrogen because aviation fuels need four times more hydrogen
[22:08] Speaker 2: than conventional jet fuels to crack. If you want clean hydrogen,
[22:12] Speaker 2: you need to have huge amounts of wind and solar
[22:14] Speaker 2: so they can produce a clean hydrogen. So each of
[22:16] Speaker 2: these individually is a failure point, but also collectively they
[22:21] Speaker 2: are connected. So we use this kind of pillar narrative
[22:23] Speaker 2: like pillar picture to show that they're all needed.
[22:27] Speaker 3: You don't can't just have one or the other.
[22:29] Speaker 1: And you specifically did not mention nuclear. Now is that
[22:33] Speaker 1: the mystery tenth one or is that a forgotten ninth
[22:36] Speaker 1: It just needs more?
[22:38] Speaker 2: Nuclear should not be forgotten like I didn't mention it
[22:42] Speaker 2: because I well, let's put it this way like if
[22:46] Speaker 2: you go to nuclear conferences these days, there's huge amounts
[22:48] Speaker 2: of exiety because now that we find we need a
[22:51] Speaker 2: whole host of solutions, nuclear is back on the table.
[22:54] Speaker 2: In our net zero scenario, we're tripling nuclear capacity and
[22:58] Speaker 2: we're also letting some degree of small modular reactors play,
[23:02] Speaker 2: in which people are very excited about. It is also
[23:04] Speaker 2: one of those technologies where a real scaler would need
[23:07] Speaker 2: a huge effort to even produce the manufacturing capacity.
[23:11] Speaker 5: This pillar framing, I really like it because it's really
[23:15] Speaker 5: kind of clear, and it also this division between the
[23:18] Speaker 5: maturing and the sort of the next wave pillars is
[23:21] Speaker 5: really clear. And what it makes me think of is,
[23:23] Speaker 5: I mean, we all started our careers in this space
[23:26] Speaker 5: at around the same time. I think we all got
[23:29] Speaker 5: involved because we cared about the environment. And I remember
[23:32] Speaker 5: back then is if you were working on an area
[23:35] Speaker 5: like wind or solar, it was sort of like you
[23:38] Speaker 5: were like purer than pure. There's like very little baggage
[23:42] Speaker 5: associated with those technologies compared to things like nuclear ccs,
[23:46] Speaker 5: sustainable aviation fuels, maybe heat pumps. To some extent, these
[23:50] Speaker 5: things that we've said are the maturing things, whereas now
[23:54] Speaker 5: with this framing. It feels to me like if you
[23:56] Speaker 5: jump into wind and solar. Yeah, maybe you're not going
[23:59] Speaker 5: to get your hands to see, but maybe it's more
[24:01] Speaker 5: like you're jumping on something that is already maturing. It's
[24:04] Speaker 5: like you're on the right bandwagon, but you're on the bandwagon. Whereas,
[24:07] Speaker 5: if you really want to crack the nut, if you
[24:10] Speaker 5: really want to make the difference, you're going to have
[24:12] Speaker 5: to go and help the deployment of and I'll read
[24:17] Speaker 5: them out again, nuclear, ccs, hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel, and
[24:21] Speaker 5: heat pumps. Would you agree with that read that this
[24:23] Speaker 5: is this is where you go if you're really hardcore
[24:26] Speaker 5: on the energy transition.
[24:27] Speaker 3: Yes, and no.
[24:29] Speaker 2: So I would agree that we should focus on the
[24:32] Speaker 2: problems that are hard, but the heart problems that aren't
[24:36] Speaker 2: necessarily technologies like individual clouds like hydrogen or ccs. They
[24:39] Speaker 2: are concepts like how do we how can we get clean,
[24:42] Speaker 2: reliable backup power? And then it's not about hydrogen per
[24:45] Speaker 2: se or.
[24:46] Speaker 3: Ccs, it's what is the actual solution.
[24:48] Speaker 2: So I think it's rather than coming from the technology
[24:50] Speaker 2: stampot is coming from what is what is the problem
[24:53] Speaker 2: we want to solve? Because there's a number of technologies
[24:55] Speaker 2: that for lack of cost data, for lack of kind
[24:58] Speaker 2: of just real world data we could model like direct
[25:01] Speaker 2: air capture, like long duration storage, like different types of batteries,
[25:05] Speaker 2: Like all of these are important. We didn't model them.
[25:07] Speaker 2: That doesn't mean they don't exist. They're more than nine pillars,
[25:09] Speaker 2: and we modeled twenty six different technologies. We could have
[25:12] Speaker 2: done fifty. So like if somebody says, I want to
[25:14] Speaker 2: look into advance to your thermal because I think this
[25:17] Speaker 2: is kind of a sleeping beauty that has to be awoken,
[25:20] Speaker 2: then that's that's great. So I think that's the first point,
[25:23] Speaker 2: like we shouldn't going to hang up about these specific technologies.
[25:26] Speaker 2: The second is on the pushback on what, in our
[25:29] Speaker 2: view are already mature solutions, but in the with the
[25:32] Speaker 2: wider world might not seen be seen that way. And
[25:35] Speaker 2: my personal experience, I don't know if you experiences as
[25:39] Speaker 2: well some is that in the last eighteen months there
[25:40] Speaker 2: just has been a lot of kind of concerted pushback
[25:43] Speaker 2: on things that we thought were already in the bag,
[25:46] Speaker 2: thinking about solar and kind of articles about the metals
[25:50] Speaker 2: impact the material, you know, lithium mines in Chile, thinking
[25:53] Speaker 2: about wind turbines and bird strike and they don't work.
[25:56] Speaker 1: And we've written articles there, yeah, and.
[25:58] Speaker 2: We've written plenty about it, and then yeah, but we
[26:01] Speaker 2: there's just because when we started, when when you and
[26:03] Speaker 2: I started, solar and wind were inconsequential, so they were
[26:07] Speaker 2: kind of odd and nice and weird. Now that they're
[26:10] Speaker 2: making a real impact and now they're really scaling, they're
[26:13] Speaker 2: treading on people's toes and and and these people are
[26:16] Speaker 2: not happy.
[26:17] Speaker 5: That's a really good point, and I think I think
[26:19] Speaker 5: I'm a really satisfying answer to my question, and so
[26:22] Speaker 5: I retract it. If anyone was scared off wind and
[26:25] Speaker 5: solar is not a bandwagon that you're jumping on. There
[26:29] Speaker 5: is still a fight to be fought there.
[26:30] Speaker 2: For the right and as the in the formal life
[26:33] Speaker 2: at being here, for setting the wind service, the wind
[26:35] Speaker 2: research service. So there's still plenty of things that that
[26:39] Speaker 2: can be done and can be done better. And also
[26:41] Speaker 2: like for these technologies to play nicely on the grid. Now,
[26:44] Speaker 2: if you are kind of an oddity and afterthought, then
[26:46] Speaker 2: it's fine to not be a good citizen on the grid,
[26:49] Speaker 2: But when you when when you are the dominant technology
[26:52] Speaker 2: and increasingly the UK and Denmark and other places. You know,
[26:55] Speaker 2: Texas and the US think that is the case. So
[26:58] Speaker 2: now there's a new new frontier to actually play nicely
[27:01] Speaker 2: on the grid.
[27:02] Speaker 1: So, given that none of the pillars are a foregone conclusion,
[27:05] Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about investment and whether or
[27:08] Speaker 1: not we're really seeing the levels of investment that are
[27:10] Speaker 1: required to reach any of the scenarios that we put forward.
[27:14] Speaker 2: One of the things we do, which again helps the framing,
[27:17] Speaker 2: is to think about in investment the investment requirements, and
[27:21] Speaker 2: what we do is we look at the capex which
[27:23] Speaker 2: has got capital expenders the initial investment needed for these technologies.
[27:26] Speaker 2: The uncomfortable news is that a lot of the technologies
[27:29] Speaker 2: that we need are CAPEX heavy, so they require a
[27:32] Speaker 2: favorit of upfront investment, but then their opic slide, so
[27:35] Speaker 2: the operational cost of running them is quite low. But
[27:37] Speaker 2: it's a different type of mobilization of money than like
[27:40] Speaker 2: a conventional fossil fuel energy system. So that means that
[27:43] Speaker 2: the energy transition has a kind of front loaded investment
[27:46] Speaker 2: need for a long term benefit, and that's a challenging proposition.
[27:49] Speaker 2: So in our base case scenario, investments keep rising and
[27:54] Speaker 2: I think they go up fifty percent by twenty thirty,
[27:56] Speaker 2: so it's not like a huge jump. Obviously, what we're
[28:00] Speaker 2: posing is quite radical from any we're saying renewables will
[28:02] Speaker 2: dominate the energy system. In our base case, that's already
[28:05] Speaker 2: a conclusion we can drop. But then in the net
[28:08] Speaker 2: zero scenario, the investment need goes.
[28:10] Speaker 3: Up by a factor of three four.
[28:11] Speaker 2: So we're not nowhere near the levels we need to
[28:14] Speaker 2: be investing, and we're not investing in the types of
[28:17] Speaker 2: solutions that we need to bring that about. So it's
[28:19] Speaker 2: not just wind and solar, it's also you know, this
[28:21] Speaker 2: whole basket of technologies that the pillars of the technology
[28:24] Speaker 2: pillars that we just talked about. So given that we
[28:26] Speaker 2: ran the numbers and we came up to a total
[28:30] Speaker 2: of one hundred and eighty one trillion dollars investment need
[28:33] Speaker 2: between today and twenty fifteen our economic transition scenario, which
[28:36] Speaker 2: is a base case, and then two hundred and fifteen trillion.
[28:39] Speaker 3: Dollars in our net zero scenary. Mind boggling numbers.
[28:42] Speaker 2: But if we break those down, what struck us was
[28:45] Speaker 2: that a on the demand side, like which is the
[28:48] Speaker 2: types of applications that demand energy mostly vehicles, buying electric
[28:53] Speaker 2: vehicles buying ice vehicles. It's almost the same spend in
[28:55] Speaker 2: those scenarios, and there's just a substitution going on on
[28:58] Speaker 2: a global level. There's a substitution going on between US
[29:00] Speaker 2: buying evs versus US buying conventional vehicles. And if we
[29:04] Speaker 2: believe that EV's got cheaper than net, it should be
[29:06] Speaker 2: about the same. The regional stories are a little bit different,
[29:08] Speaker 2: but globally it's the same. What's striking then, is that
[29:11] Speaker 2: on the supply side it is just an increase of
[29:14] Speaker 2: fifty percent between the two scenarios, so not a lot
[29:16] Speaker 2: in absolute terms, but the challenges that a lot of
[29:19] Speaker 2: these investments are simply not in the money yet because
[29:21] Speaker 2: we're lacking the route to market. We're lacking the kind
[29:24] Speaker 2: of mechanisms that bring this about. And I, for one,
[29:27] Speaker 2: I don't think at any point there's an issue here
[29:29] Speaker 2: that there's a shortage of capital. There's no shortage of
[29:32] Speaker 2: capital to want to support this. What's lacking is the
[29:35] Speaker 2: types of projects that are bankable and the route to
[29:38] Speaker 2: market for those projects. And then the third observation is
[29:40] Speaker 2: between one hundred and eighty one trillion, the two and
[29:43] Speaker 2: fifteen trillion. It's just a different of nineteen percent. It's
[29:46] Speaker 2: just like we were so surprised. We looked at we
[29:49] Speaker 2: lock the numbers, and with these scenarios, when you build them,
[29:51] Speaker 2: nothing is done until everything's done, so you need to
[29:53] Speaker 2: lock everything in and then you run the numbers and
[29:55] Speaker 2: then you look, oh, this is interesting. It's just nineteen
[29:58] Speaker 2: percent more. And what this means for from my perspectives
[30:00] Speaker 2: to say that they're so closed, if we added the opics,
[30:05] Speaker 2: probably it would be cheap virtual transition than not a transition.
[30:09] Speaker 2: And this is the kind of the next work we
[30:11] Speaker 2: want to do to figure out what is the best
[30:12] Speaker 2: way for us to run the all in cost and
[30:15] Speaker 2: then we can have a proper conversation and on all
[30:17] Speaker 2: these investment numbers, by the way, don't account for a
[30:20] Speaker 2: lot of indicators that we also care about. So we
[30:22] Speaker 2: care about human health, we care about the environment, like
[30:25] Speaker 2: the wide environment, we care about well being. So a
[30:27] Speaker 2: world where we spend one hundred and eighty one trillion
[30:30] Speaker 2: to get a two point sixty degree outcome and two
[30:33] Speaker 2: hundred fifteen trillion to get a well below two degree outcome,
[30:35] Speaker 2: it's pretty clear to me where we should go.
[30:38] Speaker 5: That is incredibly exciting and inspiring, because our net zero
[30:43] Speaker 5: scenario is like in a way, certainly to a cynic
[30:47] Speaker 5: would say that it's a fantasy, because we've just said,
[30:49] Speaker 5: what if, we're just we're just going to do it.
[30:51] Speaker 4: We're going to get to net zero by twenty fifty, whatever.
[30:53] Speaker 5: Happens, And then to learn that it only costs nineteen
[30:57] Speaker 5: percent more, and that's before we've taken into account various
[31:00] Speaker 5: things that would actually make the net zera scenari even
[31:03] Speaker 5: more economically favorable. I find that quite inspiring because it's
[31:07] Speaker 5: a very small price to pay, if any price at all,
[31:09] Speaker 5: for a planet we can live on.
[31:11] Speaker 1: And it's always nice to end a show on a high.
[31:13] Speaker 1: Thanks for joining Tom and me today.
[31:15] Speaker 5: Well, thanks for having me, guys, and I'm going to
[31:17] Speaker 5: go and have a coffee with Seb and tell him
[31:19] Speaker 5: the good news about the nineteen percent.
[31:29] Speaker 1: Today's episode of Switched On was produced by Cam Gray
[31:32] Speaker 1: with production assistance from Kamala Shelling. Bloomberg NEIF is a
[31:36] Speaker 1: service provided by Bloomberg Finance LP and its affiliates. This
[31:39] Speaker 1: recording does not constitute, nor should it be construed as
[31:42] Speaker 1: investment in vice investment recommendations, or a recommendation as to
[31:46] Speaker 1: an investment or other strategy. Bloomberg NIF should not be
[31:49] Speaker 1: considered as information sufficient upon which to base an investment decision.
[31:53] Speaker 1: Neither Bloomberg Finance LP nor any of its affiliates makes
[31:56] Speaker 1: any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness
[31:59] Speaker 1: of the information contained in this recording, and any liability
[32:03] Speaker 1: as a result of this recording is expressly disclaimed.

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