welcome to me sophie shevardnadze a world that's dependent on oil gas and coal is becoming a thing of the past with renewable energy becoming cheaper and more widespread every year. but is solar and wind power as reliable as it is clean well we talked to mean the director general of the international renewable energy agency. a warming planet and the drive to car pollution is giving the new blue energy as we search for a way to shake off our fossil fuel addiction completely renewable energy has become more affordable than ever so will our reliance on extracting fossil fuel slowly become a thing of the past how reliable is older wind hydro for generating vast amounts of

energy and what are the hidden dangers of a green future. and not i mean director general of the international renewable energy agency thanks a lot for being with us today it's great to have you on our show thank you pleasure so tell me something where oil and gas and coal exciter a systems are already in place right power plants where pipelines oil rigs whether a new a bill and what we have is pretty much just wires in the great. so when the costs of doing everything from scratch be enormous i mean how much would it cost to actually equip the world to do or nubile not that much. there is a misconception what we're doing is ripping out everything then changing everything overnight but the fact is that renewables are now in transform it transformation of the industry of energy how energy is produced distributed managed and the imperative is really to. one is the decoupling as an imperative so we live in

a carbon constrained world and the current energy system we have is not taking us to the limits that we cannot afford to pass without get to strive for change and the second is that renewable energy today the technology that it provides provides clean accessible electricity and energy that is now having an important business case around it so it's actually generating wealth employment and growth in more and more countries around the world well we're going to get to that here's a number well let me give you a couple of numbers came in the last three years in a row the majority of new capacity addition to the world's electricity system has come from renewable energy that's a combination of solar wind hydro geothermal and biomass three years in a row it's in the majority. we project that if we have the right investment pathways to twenty thirty we have done a global road map for renewable energy that we can reach around thirty six percent renewable penetration in the system by twenty thirty. we just did

a major study for the g twenty in preparation for the next g twenty summit on the globalization and that basically created a consensus around the major energy agency's that you can actually achieve ninety percent of the decoupling a zation you want if you accelerate the growth of renewable energy and energy efficiency that's happening last year the in total investment in renewable. energy generation was three hundred twenty billion dollars the year before three hundred sixty billion dollars it's today a two trillion dollar industry and we're seeing growth projections that are exponential so what has to happen will we have to wait until there's actual shortage of oil and gas for investors to shift and mass and invest in the renewables there's no shortage of oil and gas and we don't expect one to happen anytime soon but there was a very famous oil minister once said the stone age didn't and because we ran out of stone. and the oil age we're not in because we run out of oil one of the most

interesting things about this whole transition that we see happening is how many oil economies are positioning themselves for the energy economy of the future which is not going to be entirely based on fossil fuels it's going to be increasingly renewable it's going to be increasingly decentralized and it's going to be increasingly managed to the communications by big data by digitalisation the grids and so on so it's going to be a very different world so you feel like there's going to be newer choice like people will have to turn to renewables it's not going to like one major cause why everyone is just shifting there is a reason we have to shift and that reason has to do with carbon emissions and the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere and if you want to believe ninety nine point nine percent of the reputable scientists of this world there is a climate change trend and we have a carbon budget that we cannot afford to exceed by twenty fifty because we will

lead to unknown consequences but serious ones so that focuses the mind but the reality of what is happening is that the business case and the technology and around renewables has changed remarkably in a decade. in less than a decade the cost of solar photovoltaic cells you know the solar panels that you see everywhere has fallen by about eighty percent we are projecting that it's going to fall another sixty percent in the next take it so the costs are coming down and the business case is improving the investment climate is there and it's really taking off i mean do you have all my oil industry in my gas interest really you really think they're going to go down without a fight and you really think they care so much about the emissions not all of them do but in russia. russia is a major hydrocarbon economy it's a global leader in hydrocarbons russia's interested in the noble's. i had

a very interesting quote from one of the senior officials that i met which is look we know that there's a global transformation happening we either have to be in the vanguard or we have to spend a lot more money catching up later on so we would rather be in the vanguard of what is happening understand the technology and be part of this momentum these are great words but i still don't understand how countries that are completely dependent economically on you know fossil fuels like the gulf states or norway or venezuela or nigeria they really do not going to give up their economic like livelihood right i mean based in abu dhabi. headquarters. it's a very progressive oil based economy they've just launched their new energy strategy to twenty fifty. the objective of their energy strategy for twenty fifty seventy percent decouple musician of their economy and forty four percent renewable

energy in their power generation by twenty fifty now currently it's you know over ninety percent hydrocarbons. but they're started talking about is that they see an economic advantage to investing in renewable power generation which is now by the way the cheapest source if where you have good potential it's the cheapest source of power generation but they're looking at their hydrocarbon resources for higher value what it uses in future but chemicals and others so you know the whole conception that hydrocarbons are only for burning for energy is wrong because they're actually high value. resources we can use them in very different ways what absolutely is that with oil low oil prices with a drop of the prices we have instability and economic difficulties in the countries which are based on which are largely based on oil industries so do you feel like if there's going to be a shift there is going to be instability. well this is one of the very interesting

things we've started to look at now because we believe that as the world of energy changes energy is so fundamental to economic activity social life and so on that there have to be political or geopolitical implications for what this change is going to be if we switch from oil pipelines and gas pipelines than oil tankers to electricity interconnections between countries based on renewables one of the geopolitical implications one of the security implications so that's one set of issues the other is that in any major economic disruption that's created by technology there has to be change and instability but you know the resilience of the country depends on how you drop to that look at this whole discussion on coal. coal is not dying in the u.s. because of fake environmentalist's who want to stop coal coal is dying because it cannot compete with us. employment is dying because of automation. and the future

for oil for coal in terms of energy doesn't look like it's very rosy so how do you adapt to that you know part of that is the gas strategy because gas is much lower carbon but the fact is that if you look at the major utility scale investments in solar and wind and geothermal the electricity prices are coming in at below gas prices today so i'm thinking solar and wind they're probably good for low emission but what happens when there is no wait what happens if it stops when it stops to lowick i know recently in australia they had to reopen the fossil fuel plant because they couldn't generate enough wind energy well you're not going to have only one thing you know the systems of the future to be resilient are going to have to be multi-dimensional so we're going to have a mix of sources i visited recently a transmission region in eastern germany they've integrated forty five percent

renewables in their system variable renewables from wind and solar with absolutely no disruption to the system and they do it because they're interconnected with other transmission regions they have a connection to the hydro power in sweden and whenever there are fluctuations they are able to manage that by bringing in new sources of energy but the other part of this is that they have perfected weather forecasting so they can tell twenty four hours in advance exactly how much wind or some they're going to have at any particular time with a ninety seven percent degree of certainty so the planning is there it's and you're going to have hybrid systems but you don't have to manage them intelligently so the same go for the sun network for instance because i'm thinking all right. we have let's say seven pm sunsets and it peaks at noon but people usually consume most of the energy after seven pm when they come home and when it's night right so how does solar networks as to how it's supposed to deal with it say pick consumption hours

when there is no sun if you have and there are always solar if you have only sort of you have a problem if you don't have storage. part of the part of the solution to solar intermittency is storage the cost of batteries and the innovation around batteries is improving exponentially there's a lot of money going into it you've heard of the gigafactory of tesla in the u.s. where he's really investing in trying to bring down the cost. china has twenty of those factories japan is investing in the koreas investing in them so around the world there's a lot of r. and d. happening on storage to reduce the cost of storage that you have much longer periods using solar wind stability but the other is that you know you're going to combine solar with wind or with hydro or with other clean sources and you will have the ability if you visit a modern control room of a transmission system operator they have a huge wall and in real time you see exactly what sort of electricity is coming

into the market at any any time the market has become very sophisticated for buying and selling electricity and it's a very resilient system so i think that those technical challenges or challenges of the past i wouldn't take a short break right now when we're back we'll continue talking to. dr general of the international renewable energy agency discussing what the future holds for the global energy states and. here's what people have been saying about redacted in night it's yours is actually just full on awesome well the only show i go out of my way to launch you know

a lot of the really packs a punch at least yampa is the john oliver of party americans do the same we are apparently better than food nothing's better said i see people you've never heard of love redacted the night i'm president of the world bank so they can go write me seriously send us an e-mail. in case you're new to the game this is how it works not the economy is built around corporate perforations from washington the washington post media the media. and voters elected businessman to run this country business because. you must it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before.

and we're back with ed not i mean the director general of the international renewable energy agency discussing how renewables are transforming the outlook for our planet's future welcome back to the show right so. when farms ok they may be a source for clean energy but they destroy habitat and they sort of destruct their migration pattern of birds for instance and then you have the smaller farms and they occupy huge amount of land so also destroying nature you have hydro that destroys day ecosystem around it sam so i'm wondering is clean energy are really that environmentally friendly it's remarkable how the other good grades of coal the

ones we're talking about the environmental impact of renewables it's stunning to me . it's not to say that there are no environmental impacts there is virtually no industrial activity that you're going to be engaged in that has no impact on the environment but what you can say in terms of energy and power generation renewables have the smallest environmental footprint of any generation technology that you have i mean said that there are important issues with wind especially in the past with the older design of the turbines where there was a lot of vibration noise. you had the issue with birds. especially migratory species there's been tremendous development since them. there's a very sophisticated way of assessing migratory routes and siting wind farms in the future so we try to minimize that kind of impact but the reality is if you look at the wind farms in the us which are quite substantial there are more birds killed on

the highways of florida by cars than they are by the entire windmills. in the united states so you have to put that little bit into perspective the other is that you know the big producers have invested in very interesting new technologies you have radar systems now and some of the really tall big turbines that are able to detect oncoming flocks of migratory species of birds and shut down the turbine until the bird spots so all of these improvements are happening so it's not to say there's no impact impact is being reduced on solar you know you can put solar on rooftops this very little environmental impact that you put solar in dry areas where there's a lot of solar radiation but there's no agriculture or anything like that so the foot sort of footprint is not that huge i think the footprint in solar is more in the production and disposal of modules at some point in their life than what

happens with the chemicals and heavy metals that are contained in that and we're working on trying to see how we can have a recycling program around solar modules for the future. i want to talk a little bit about biofuels because that's also a controversial topic let's say ethanol because that's the most famous one in the news right now it's made out of corn and its production inflates prices devore it's farmland so should corn be used for food over feel. it depends on the resource in the moment. in the past it's been negative so i think you know there is a consensus that the use of corn for ethanol has been a little bit wasteful in terms of the resource. there was also a huge concern at the time when we had food crisis in the world that the competition between food and fuel or was creating a situation of risk for populations that were dependent on food aid for example

a lot of the cone produced in the u.s. doesn't go for ethanol and the surplus is actually used for food aid in developing countries so there has been this debate we believe that first generation of conflict between food and fuel is more or less over because we now have a second generation of technology. which is basically using crop residues. using forest waste crop waste food waste to generate biofuel at lower cost and that technology cellulosic the technology is beginning to become economic not whenever the price of oil is low biofuel is not competitive which is more or less the case right now if oil prices start to go high biofuel becomes competitive for transportation so it's a very market driven sort of thing. another huge thing is obviously the carbon emissions never one so worried about it so if governments want zero carbon energy

why have they turned to nuclear energy nuclear is expensive and dangerous. it requires huge investment in infrastructure more than renewables oh yes much much more you see that there's a difference between nuclear and renewables in that you can switch renewables on and off at no cost once you have built a nuclear plant and they get it running you're not going to be shutting it down to take you three four days to shut it down and so you think it's going to have the plants already there the infrastructure is there but it's very inflexible it's there in a few countries and some of those countries that had it are already phasing it out you know look at germany there's a popular movement against nuclear. there are some countries that are making the choice and that's their strategic decision but nuclear cannot become the main source of any system because it's a very inflexible. source it can become a kind of base load for part of it and it's a clean it's

a low low carbon technology and we shouldn't discount it but i think that the safety concerns around it are really pressing in people's minds so you mentioned germany and we know that third of its energy now already comes from renewables but we also know that its emissions have risen by ten million tons that's a lot so i'm just wondering playing devil's advocate but you're probably correct me switching to renewable energy doesn't necessarily mean dropping carbon emission energy decision making is very complex it involves economics society politics there's no linear route so while germany is probably one of the world leaders together with china and a few other countries in renewables. they have to make decisions that are going to impact. industrial growth that are going to impact the coal belt of the country and what happens to employment there they have to make choices between different

generation technologies at different points. you know paradoxically they have a lot of gas generation that was mothballed while they used to call. but but none of this is linear what we see as a long term trajectory is that coal is going to fall off more and more in germany. i was there a few days ago and i was told that thirty percent of lignite is not going to be discontinued over the next year or so call use in the german electricity system is going to fall off more and more over the coming years i think the optimum makes we're going to see that between renewables and other thing via gas from cow dung that's going to be a really effective source of energy but that's been there for a while i mean maybe a producer were discussing this in ninety three we're read an article about it i mean it's been around for decades so why haven't farmers sexually switch to cull power right now some do. there are some countries where it's quite advanced in

india for example a lot of coding and you know people are using this for energy generation in my country in kenya. there's quite a lot of bio gas being produced in certain areas but it's a very so far very small scale technology and in places where you have alternatives people don't invest in this so for example in in russia you have massive biogas potential but because natural gas is so cheap and so widely distributed it's all a question of economics so if the economics sort of right if it's if there's an economic case for it for the household or the investor they will do it but if the if the case is not there it doesn't work and also i mean it's a fact that the renewable energy is more common in rural rural areas. what does the hat what what does have what has to happen for cities to be adjusted to

renewable energy there are so many visionary cities today that are moving very strongly in the direction of sustainability in renewable energy. so of course you cannot install acres of solar panels or huge wind when farms in the middle of cities but what it cities can do is have their procurement policies favor the procurement of renewable electricity over others that gives a very strong signal to investors and that's happening in many places you know san francisco coover. there are cities in the u.s. which are actively doing this there are big companies in the u.s. based in the cities who are actively preferring renewable energy procurement over others so this provides a signal to the investors in power generation from renewables to invest more power generation increases the cities said with renewable electricity but there are other ways of doing it also and in the future would be going to see more and more rooftop

solar in most countries. with this decentralized system what we need is a grid system that's able to connect all of this understand what is happening with the electricity generation from the centralize units be able to buy power to the grid or power from the grid to the household that has sort of installed and this mob system would allow sort of demand side management is a very intelligent way of managing energy which would reduce the impact of energy but also i feel like the biggest problem will be how to change people's perceptions on new technologies because you know people like you who are explaining it so wonderfully on your ten fingers you guys are more of an exception at this point may be that the majority in the future but like let's say going to electric could be one way but you know buying a car is a huge thing for most of the people so they're going to think twice whether to invest in a normal car or an electric car because even big cities even visionary cities they

don't have the facility to charge your car every where you want to go and you know take big journey is going to be so difficult with an electric car i think tesla is beautiful but if i had to choose i probably go for something else. i'll tell you well you know let me say first of all transportation is the big issue i think the issue of power generation from renewables that's a done deal that's going to be the wave of the future. vehicles where the majority of carbon comes from is going to be the challenge but look at what is happening tesla is you know kind of leading visible think. is this wonderful visionary was these ideas about what he wants to do in the future which are incredible but i was talking to the minister of energy of china recently met him at a meeting in germany. and he told me that they currently have about half a million electric vehicles on the road just over maybe but they're expecting to

have in the next ten years five million china's automobile industry is growing the interesting thing about china which is so big on r. and d. they're not spending any money on r. and d. on the internal combustion engine they're putting all of the r. and d. dollars in looking at the new platforms and the new technologies for the electric vehicles of the future this is going to be the wave of the future they're cleaner. there are lists noisy there's less service and the engines are more efficient but use electricity more efficiently and these are great cost because the separation is much better than internal combustion also so you're not sacrificing anything but we get to scale is really the challenge that we're looking at so if you were to look at a future which source a renewable energy do you see most promising globally solar solar is the one that's growing fastest at the moment so it so we're doomed in russia and the know it's into i mean southern russia by the way if you can do solar in germany you can

do solar in russia one there's a very interesting experiment in the arctic circle using solar in the arctic because you have six months of sun in the arctic so it's remarkable where you have radiation you can have solar it doesn't matter about heat. but solar right now is winning but wind is also very cheap and there are years that wind is winning we already have hydro which is the base of much of. but geothermal i think has a lot of potential in the future holds thank you very much for this very interesting insight well maybe ten years time let's see how things have changed in the world we're talking to the director general of the international renewable energy agency has got any possibilities the green energy sources are opening up for the world that's it for this edition of the next time.

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