of ukraine selenski won a landslide victory in last month's election despite having no political experience he said his 1st test was to tackle the conflict with moscow in the east of the country. you're watching the news coming up next the 1st part of our documentary life currents how will we satisfy our hunger for energy in the future i'll reach a will be with you with another news bulletin that's tough the next hour thanks for watching. and for. language courses. video and audio. anytime anywhere.

and some 7600000000 people live on earth and a 1000 more are born every hour most of us consumer electricity around the clock. to. step out of his own i have is a vision of an all electric world that where no one uses oil or gas to heat their homes it's only electricity that's generated from renewable sources or as it's estimated that are like tricity needs will double by 2050 will wind and solar power be able to meet this demand. that's kind of a sky behind us does so hard to wind and solar power on the cheap is to energy sources today no one can deny that no. and so on they cause

a lot of problems you need to see that. that's scientists on the sun doesn't shine at night sometimes the wind doesn't blow and there needs to be an energy source that's reliably available at all times of the push of a button so to speak that's only conventional sources like coal and natural gas can do that because lies. around 85 percent of global energy production comes from fossil fuels but the reserves are finite. and even worse oil coal and gas are the biggest climate killers. who really didn't want to we do with the emissions budget to prevent climate change getting out of control the studios are going to get it. how can we save our climate is nuclear energy the future is on its own so corsica sun is our great nuclear fusion furnace it works beautifully so it makes you wonder could we

use it directly to us who haven't tried that yet. morocco is a country with very little fossil fuel 95 percent of its energy comes from imports . electricity is still a luxury commodity here. we're in the oasis village of fent. so hussein devoid invites us into his home. he shows us what electricity means for him and his family. the 4 of them have about $100.00 euros a month disposable income so they have to save money there are almost no electrical appliances in the house they're too expensive. many things are still done by hand.

they cook with gas. a gas canister costs just $4.00 euro's and it lasts usually more than a month by comparison electricity costs $15.00 euros a month. but they don't want to do without it completely new to this to see activists only see the electricity as very important to us and. people in the village want to watch t.v. i'm challenged. and they want to watch football they need. to see the shows you see the way as you see people stop. just a few kilometers away from the traditional berber village and you're in a completely different world. the world's largest solar power plant is currently under construction in the desert town of. half a 1000000 parabolic reflector so have been installed on the edge of the sahara. the

high tech plant will expand 5 fold over the next few years. we have the potential renewable energy sources in rocco mainly the sun. all the power produced by this solar plant will go to moroccans as on us you're not looking to buy 2030 we want to cover 52 percent of our electricity consumption with a friend knew a ball energy. across an area of $650.00 football fields the reflectors will be constantly directed towards the sun using computers. it hardly ever rains here so it's an optimal occasion for capturing sunlight and. really. we can't even produce electricity when the sun goes down with the thermal energy storage system. this is. it loses chemical salt compounds that can store heat

energy at a temperature of $100.00 degrees celsius was you know it's a great way to produce electricity after sunset. if this is. the newer plan. which is arabic for light can still produce electricity for 3 hours after sunset. the aim is to increase this period to 7 hours. because you've been mono we expect the nor one plant to generate $160.00 megawatts of electricity per year that would enable us to supply $600000.00 people. 98 percent of morocco's rule areas are connected to the national grid which means the solar power can reach even the remotest areas like the oysters village a fit. but the government has to subsidize the energy costs electricity is so expensive that most people can't afford. a development aid

project has also given village residents here in the oasis access to low cost water . a while in the village and also uses solar power. mean. if you want to bundle so nice we have a good set of policies to here in transports the water from the bottom to the top it's to shoot because over a need is this some. borneo. a light bulb here cost the equivalent of $50.00 euro cents. and energy saving lamp cost $70.00 euro's too much for the devoted family. the only important thing for them right now is to get electricity. they don't care where it comes from as long as it's cheap. the world bank and other european lenders have invested 2200000000 euros in the

moroccan solar power plant. morocco is becoming a pioneer in the energy revolution. this high tech project is already setting an example for other countries. egypt tunisia and saudi arabia are planning to build similar solar power plants the vision here is to harness the abundant sunshine in the sahara and export electricity to europe. in theory solar radiation alone could easily meet the needs of the entire human race. constantino its blue horse is a professor of energy technology in zurich he knows the potential of solar power in the long fish to get a little far out perform wind power in the long term to me but if i was when i was

quicker to become competitive against the other energies and it's still cheaper than solar. but solar power has huge potential it's constantly getting cheaper and fast well and it can be installed almost anywhere with relatively little resistance from the public doesn't bother people there are no moving parts and no noise. but central europe doesn't even have half the sunlight hours of north africa. will sunshine be the new luxury raw material of the future. could it make barack obama rich. diesel ended these are the countries that have some are ones that can sell solar power very well for the teeth to produce energy they need investors to build solar plants for and then this question is who are these investors are they the developed industrialised countries because i'm worried they'll try and take the lion share for themselves because it's a question of power politics and perspective from polity power perspective it.

providing the whole world with solar power from the desert was also a vision of the desert tech project. it launched in 2009 but never came to fruition. it lacked the necessary european cooperation. there's also no power like from africa to europe which would be technically possible but would mean very high investment costs for all countries involved. in the different countries have different priorities of us feel what we're now seeing from various european projects is that some countries simply don't have the financial resources. in the least and that if indeed they're still in financial crisis or they still have a much lower level of economic development to viciously go there it is very hard to convince them to make investments when they have 30 percent unemployment. and

there's no coordination with the e.u. has to do a balancing act between including the nations in decision making and the kind of top down decisions that. are now out from top down into i do. is wind up better energy source the massage. we move from the sunny south of morocco to the windy north of germany to the baltic sea. leaving from barker of harbor we board a ship that takes mechanics out to the baltic one offshore wind farm. the 115 meter high wind turbines are located 16 kilometers off the shore. when does currently the most promising renewable energy after solar power more and more wind farms are being built especially at sea long as a cop loves his job as a wind turbine mechanic but it's not without its challenges. it's optics and it's buried it's not always the same it's like you've got electrics mechanics hydraulics

you have a bit of everything. on the floor we sail out we have to train to make sure we're able to work at heights and we do survival training. about even standing with her mom so what happens if the ship sinks how do we behave in the water with a survival suit a life jacket without a life jacket it can happen when it's one of us there so you don't need to be scared you just need to respect your environment to get. the space. for them. lars and his colleagues have 8 hours of work ahead of them at dizzying heights a sensor in a wind turbine has stopped working they need to find the fault and repair it. every hour working at sea cost $3.00 times as much as on land but offshore wind turbines generate twice as much electricity. the old boy got on. harvesting wind is more efficient at seeing you only make up kind of no

obstacles like lorries or hills so the wind blows mostly i'm kind of the end i get better from the turbines because there are no cross currents i wind is constant in the same direction for a long period you know lies and lows like the gusts you hear blowing against your house you don't get out over the sea so it's better for the materials up and over the years is consistent winds give you a higher energy you need a new board and i think. the mechanics always climate turbine in pairs in case one of them needs help it's switched off while they work on it for safety reasons so it can't harvest power during that time. it's to september october after september or october we don't do maintenance it's almost as if you we have a limited period in summer say for 5 months where we try to do all the necessary work there also official requirements we fulfill in that time he suggests on the ladders and crane systems so that our yields are highest from september on morris

when the autumn storms go out and later during the spring stories so we need the systems to work then and not require maintenance. this offshore wind farm cost $200000000.00 euros every single part had to be brought here on special ships $21.00 turbines produce on average enough electricity 450000 homes every year. the huge wind turbines stand on steel tube foundations that are rammed into the seabed up to 30 meters below the surface. the turbines still sway noticeably in the constant wind. destruction gonchar there really wobbles sometimes when they get it if it keeps wobbling for too long you get seasick as me happens to me too i get queasy i suspect float. the electricity providers control center is located 16 kilometers

away on land all the company's renewable energy sources are monitored here including the baltic one wind farm. employees are in radio contact with the mechanics outside at all times and they know which wind turbines are faulty and which are not. they can also see when ships sail through the wind farm without permission. they say there are no collisions with migratory birds as environmentalist. helps cornish to there are cranes in geese which migrate in autumn but i don't think they pass through these routes here . these authorities checked this before the wind farms weren't proved migration routes don't cross the bridge farms with these of in parks. after 3 or 4 years we've established that wind farms aren't harmful to the environment so

that they can actually have a positive effect for example the great artificial reefs that are very popular with marine life and you get on the fish use them as breeding grounds and feeding spots with stones that are laid down contains food for all kinds of a secret child with. the offshore wind farms will continue to expand in the north sea and baltic sea. but there are still problems with wind power it's not always available when you need it and the electricity can't be stored for long. so as a result wind energy with billions goes to waste better infrastructure is needed to

use it more efficiently. plans for a gigantic wind island are already under way at the headquarters of electricity grid operations for tenet in berlin. for most. and that you have to think big it's not about providing just one platform for each individual wind farm operator we need to develop the infrastructure together that's how we came up with the idea of a win diamond as a mitten off the north sea the water's not that deep in the middle of the north sea you could build an artificial island there with an airport hotels and ports. and there'd be converter stations that collect the electricity and transported to germany denmark norway england or the netherlands. and that has the huge advantage that you can over produce because you can send it in different directions to one. second advantage is the huge cost savings

offshore is expensive because you have to constantly go out there by boat or helicopter. every working hours 3 times more expensive these are cost the same and it's possible to reduce these costs with this kind of communal infrastructure. siemens executive centric nika says networking is key for the future of green energy. one of his responsibilities is energy management in asia. and is in the tradition of the senate but in germany the electricity produced in the north sea and baltic sea is actually needed in the south one of us with these and that's a bone if we don't build networks we have a big problem so as a business when the energy worth over a 1000000000 euros is produced in the north sea that's never used for profit to take a shot that's good news 1st we didn't fund just one place if the electricity price

falls or even goes into minus then we are obliged to switch off wind farms to reduce their output. it's a little we do that from here. this usually happens on the days around bank holidays because you like president consumption is lower. so the output can and has to be reduced to this little bit chills was and was. right. when turbines aren't in operation it might not be because there's no wind there might already be too much green energy the plan is to put it to good use in the future. to bone we're building more and more connections to england norway portugal and france to optimize the network as an example if you angle it has a time difference of just one hour but it means televisions they are go on at a different time to ours so we can optimize the electricity consumption between these 2 countries. the exchange of electricity between germany and norway is also to be improved

a project called north link is installing one of the biggest power lines in europe . a 516 kilometer long underwater cable will transport norwegian hydro power to germany in exchange for german wind and solar power. indeed different sections of the cable have gradually been in storms in 20192020 will install the land cable and by 2020 the north wing interconnector will be in operation going to the modeling to keep. the underwater cable starts in vista and the german state of. it stretches from northern germany through the north sea to 20 and norway. it can supply more than 3600000 homes in germany with renewable energy.

the north of the connection should also make supply more reliable and improve grid stability. the extra capacity in the norwegian hydro power plants could also be used to store excess energy produced by germany. this would also help norway during dry spells. you know they can have some fields called the norwegians to use a lot of electricity 5 times more than germany on average and are there every 7 years or so it's very dry and norway is and when it's dry and the prices go up and the prices were lower in germany we could export either solar or wind power and it could also come from other neighboring countries or to come on.

a similar project is causing controversy within germany. the plans you'd link connection would transport wind power to the southern german states. but it's now on hold having faced fierce opposition from the public. our next stop is china. this land of super lettuce is also the frontline in renewable energy. at 3000 kilometers it has the longest power cable in the world it's home to the largest hydroelectric power plant it's the biggest fault of all take cell producer and now it has the world's 1st solar highway. as china rose to become the world's 2nd largest economy its demand for energy soared. it now consumes more energy than any other country in the. us you know and it was not

a few years ago china was still one of the great environmental centers but you know the economy grew but china had very little oil or natural gas and you know they mostly have coal gun and the air pollution in beijing and shanghai was extremely high hopes that it was when china decided it wanted to change it's now on the 13th 5 year plan to create more beautiful healthier environmentally friendly china which is you know it's been said knuckle down and focused on going down the renewable route and that is the no problem with renewable energy though of us and it is that it usually isn't where the people are now and again my sense in china is they have lots of sun and water 3 or 4000 kilometers away from cities and before that i told them a few 1000 but that doesn't bother them why they decided to produce renewable energy there and transported 3000 kilometers to cities like shanghai eventually but i 1000 kilometer it's a look thing in the state of the shanghai. china

built the world's biggest hydroelectric power plant about 700 kilometers from shanghai. the 3 gorges dam. annually it produces the same amount of electricity as burning nearly 50000000 tons of coal. the hydroelectric power is transported thousands of kilometers to the big cities through high voltage cables. because it is of the woman then a whale while on the way to generating 100000000000 kilowatt hours. think that's enough energy to supply beijing for 11 years. they will be. the easiest. use of what is to produce this amount it would normally take $340000000.00 tonnes of traditional culture the will of allah that it is or every year our plant helps reduce coal consumption in china by 340000000 tonnes. of help

to reduce c o 2 emissions by 95000000 times yes on electricity is transferred to locations within a 1000 kilometer radius of the thick of little ones it. is hanging in. the 3 gorges dam is 185 meters high and 2309 meters long it took $18000.00 workers 17 years to build this mammoth construction at a cost of around 75000000000 dollars. so you know the water flows through this opening into the plant and passes through the hydroelectric system also into generators rotate with incredible force under the immense pressure from the water this converts hydraulic energy into mechanical energy which is then transported our ports which turns a system of rotors and that's what eventually combats the energy into electricity

as in good. in china projects are decided upon by the government alone. this helps to explain the determination of the chinese. some have also on some have been to construction work on the 3 gorges dam began in 1913 when the final touches were finally as law in 2009 it took 17 years until the final decision people in china already had plans for the dam 100 years ago in 2018 months the dream became a reality by humans. the. long term thinking is the asian way something china really allows itself to do is set a strict framework there's enormous competition between the companies it's not like the government says companies today does that in company b. does that the framework is set and it applies for 20 to 30 years.

that means the economy can adapt the competition is harsh there are winners and these win is a big could look so it's a security measure to stop the investments disappearing in 10 years or so because the framework has changed. to. the losers in this mega project where the almost 2000000 residents who were evicted from their homes along began see river to make way for the dam. some of them relocated far away. many did not receive compensation and were left unemployed after the forced resettlement. 13 towns were destroyed in the dams week. china is huge but it's cities are densely populated. to make

space for green electricity scientists have devised a solar highway. so poorly that one of the big disadvantages of solar power is the space you need to set up the modules. and that space is hard to find in china's overcrowded cities. only the streets after some potential. now a foreman tom. foreman of all in a typical chinese city streets take up about 40 percent of the usable space that's a huge resource wins it about it's also right next to where we live and use electricity. to get the city streets could be turned into producers of green energy or they could be used immediately by the surrounding areas so. the world's 1st solar highway is on the ring road surrounding the eastern chinese

city of. the panels cover an area of 5800 square meters and should be able to generate 1000000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. enough to supply 800 households. tell you more than me. our current energy yield on the roughly one kilometer test section that was injured on cross 2 lanes on the highway. don't supply a medium sized housing complex with electricity. so sure there are more than 4000000 kilometers of road in our country. or let's. imagine if we paved over 2 lanes with photovoltaic transfer this bullshit. that. forward it would generate more energy than the whole country does right now. and the 50 percent more. better go. but these futuristic streets aren't easy to

build. the photovoltaic covering has to be strong enough to withstand traffic and still let sunlight through there are still setbacks. and sure enough they ship it out save. lives week. to solve this problem we worked with manufacturers who specialize in making solar modules designed to withstand earthquakes and other stress factors and sure one way it's. china has a lot of overloaded trucks on a problem. to particular. because. that's. now imagine a world where the roads themselves store energy to refuel the cars.

curteous a lot like the electricity grid would become a giant charger we could use on the highway. it's again all this technology would change transport fundamentally wash. water totally change the transport of the future. european cities also want to build solar highways but it will be some time before the technology is fully developed and the concept works properly. green energies are on the rise but lignite also known as brown coal is still the world's main energy source for generating electricity because it's independent of the weather. around $9000000000.00 tons of coal or mind every year without it many countries would not have a reliable electricity grid especially if they don't use nuclear energy. the ghats

by the mine is in the lignite mining area of germany's rhineland region 1500 people work here in shifts around the clock. there are 6 power shovels some of the biggest in the world to collect brown coal day and night. to call this transported on to conveyor belts over 100 kilometers long and on the trains which take it into the nearby power plant to be converted into electricity. they thought and you believe my 90 to 95000000 tonnes of lignite every year on that field last year that generated 74000000 kilowatts of electricity and covered around 13 percent of germany's demand and therefore help to guarantee supply in other words we supplied some 23000000 homes. since 2011 germany has taken 10 nuclear power stations off the grid with 7 more to follow . the electricity generated by sun and wind is not enough to. compensate.

green energy takes priority when electricity is fed into the grid but if there isn't enough then coal fired power stations must do what's necessary to ensure power is available at all times. i need to make sure we employ meteorologists who systematically and continuously evaluate and track weather patterns which as i might say something like look bad weather is approaching that's moving over east germany the wind turbines in elms one might fail because there's too much wind you got something to make you know you might have to turn them away from the wind. so much so if you think his son and his niece so we urgently need conventional energy and it's to make sure the power plant is connected to the grid within half an hour it seemed perfect spot on that side. coal fired power stations will need to become more flexible in the future the most

modern ones can reduce their output by almost half within 30 minutes. older less flexible stations are closing down. it used to be about output producing as many megawatt hours as possible in the future energy market it will be about generating electricity the minute you need it . ignite the myths around 1150 grams of c o 2 for every kilowatt hour making it one of the most environmentally harmful energy sources. natural gas produces about a 3rd as much c o 2 is called. so is gas a good alternative. and how can we phase out lignite entirely. we need

a plan on how fast can we replace coal and want with. what the next 10 years will be about which we can't wait until everything is solar when we don't want to power and wind so we need to make a switch from coal to gas from call the of god it will make a big change in the next 10 to 20 years that's which alone will save more than half the c o 2 emissions from coal fired power stations if there are gas fired power stations but they're not profitable yet. switzerland and austria also import cheap electricity produced in german coal powered plants. and the electorate is product 2 on how the c o 2 prices for electricity production aren't high enough for the e.u. sets the price per ton of c o $2.00 emitted but it's only around 3 euros per time and you have to improvise from that i want you need is a price more like $100.00 euros per tonne. in places then coal fired power stations

would automatically not be competitive anymore how to live it to gas and renewable energy is a good new that is put on the. internet in the. if we could store clean wind and solar energy could it be a way to switch to green energy. the found hope for institute for chemical technology in southwestern germany is home to germany's largest redux flow battery . here researchers want to find out if villages or companies could reliably supply themselves with electricity without being connected to the grid. consumers would produce their own energy and store it in their own large scale batteries. and here in quantity in vinge we store the wind power as direct current but we

understand we feed it into the battery that is new. to special wind turbine it's the 1st one that allows us to feed direct current into a mass storage unit without converting it. actually could supply up to $1000.00 homes each with 4 people. we could supply a whole village or an industrial park as all the canals closed off and this is the kind of magnitude we're imagining for this battery in these ago isn't something that is a but really. the 2 megawatt battery system can provide around 10 hours of electricity for the institute in fact there's almost self-sufficient with these wind turbines be conceivable for private households take this is totally it's possible if you had a very large storage battery with very high capacity you could charge it in the spring with the wind and then use it over the summer and autumn and then charge it

back up during the autumn storm us you know that we can. but it's not a viable option yet. it's costing me i get it and it costs a lot more money to store this large amount of electricity and such a big storage unit. the storage space has to be huge to cover the long 5 or 6 month summer period and i had several 100 megawatt hours the amount for just a few households wouldn't be worth it it's much cheaper to buy it from the grid so feel good to go. cost is still the biggest issue for battery storage on this scale it's just too expensive for private use. the 2nd problem is that renewable energy can't be stored for very long without huge losses. and with some to the top when you're talking days or weeks or even months then you can't avoid chemical changes like power to heat but

mainly politic gas that reduces efficiency if you mean. you lose 50 or 60 percent. during the conversion change from the electricity you put 10 back into the electricity you use this is with a biased woman. the aim is to use more renewable energy and to move away from nuclear energy but could we use nuclear power in a different way. after all the sun gets its energy from nuclear fusion. at the max planck institute in codswallop the vendor 7 x. fusion device is being used to test whether nuclear fusion could work in a power plant. this is just i don't know you it's a new primary energy source it's an energy source that people don't use yet it's

a recreating the process that happens in the sun without some very basic physical process that releases the energy as it's you know the fight conditions in the sun can't be created on earth they're far too extreme it was certainly extreme deserves and that's why they're better up there in the middle of the sun on earth we try to create a much friendlier conditions but it was the same process of generating energy. researchers are trying to gain energy from the fusion of 2 atomic nuclei in a power plant. on earth they fused to hydrogen atoms which released large amounts of usable energy. one gram of fuel could be used in a power plant to produce 90000 kilowatt hours of energy. the same combustion heat as a lemon tons of coal. just in time of conflict it's a thermal power plant and it's a gas about if you but it's an oven that uses a fusion of nuclei and not the chemical combustion of ghana's gossip that he but

it's still a gas oven and it generates heat which is used to create steam and the steam power is turbines and they drive generators for times you don't have to be in between the heat can be used elsewhere like for heating homes for example if i'm a high it's. on the downside nuclear fusion is expensive and complex. the project in cost followed cost 1000000000 euros and will require decades of research. but in return he could deliver an energy source that solves. all of our energy problems. got cancer that's why it emits no c o 2 at all and locked up and there are no storage issues and if there's no nuclear waste that would have to be stored in a protected for a very long time you don't but it is nuclear technology and. radiation protection one must be provided as highs almost as long as you adhere to the radiation protection and everything's under control and there can be no major disasters to go

get serious they're just not physically possible for us in this country can't get out of hand and i can tell you exactly why then does this last night was this then gas stopped it is in such a delicate state to nick us bringing it up to these high temperatures is so difficult that if you make the slightest mistakes it cools down and goes out. any human error or technical error which just automatically shut the whole thing down guns up shuttle. the research project has taken over 20 years and it will be 3 more decades before this type of nuclear fusion is ready for commercial use. i need to know if it's one for a generation of research plants still needs to be built we have the big flagship project in southern france which follows a slightly different principle but is ultimately a fusion plant by digging up and we still need another generation of plants to demonstrate that this power plant principle works and then we'll build the 1st

prototypes explant side then we'll be in the middle of the 21st century and it's a role for me to disable notes. the electricity of the future will have to come from renewable sources if we're to combat the destructive forces of climate change . every step in this direction is a step toward saving the planet or we're . said the wishing table full of big cars means bus a few lines and bugs. but we can't do without insects knew had attacks on their lives and related to give us some counseling as does every nice woman i mean just

chemicals so that he can hear the sweet buzz again move. him 30 minutes w. . the revolutionary women of sudan their eventing against the corrupt elite and standing up to freedom democracy and women's rights act defining on the front lines come up be achieved so far. they break down the gender stereotypes khuda streets cool images on. i'm not laughing at the germans well i guess sometimes i am but most am laughing with you but i have been thinking deep into the german culture of. nudity been

picked miss grammont day oh here you go it's all out who i am no i'm right oh join me i mean the japanese of course. this is good news coming to you live from but in last year he was a comedian and now he's the president created or she wanted ordered a lot of news events he has promised to be the new titles he wants all his plans of how he believed the many challenges facing the country being born live talk correspondent in kiev also coming up. chinese smog for make up for when it

is dealt a fresh blow from the united states as texas shine goodness is cutting ties with the competent.