“2100: An Energy Odyssey” might not achieve the popularity of its Oscar-winning 1968 predecessor, but it is a film that should be made. A child born today has a high chance of being alive, even a president, plutocrat or professor, by the end of the century. What world of energy and climate do we want them to inherit?
Most traditional forecasts, such as those by Opec, the International Energy Agency (IEA) or BP, run to 2050. That is not so far away now: time enough only to fit in two or at best three cycles of spending on energy megaprojects, or to bring a new breakthrough technology from the laboratory to commercial reality. Pretty soon, these august bodies are going to have to extend their horizons to 2060 or beyond.
What we do today matters for 2100. The first oilfield in the Middle East, Masjed-i Soleiman in Iran, is still producing today, 117 years later. The first working solar panel was developed 71 years ago. The world’s oldest nuclear power plant, in Switzerland, is expected still to be operating in 2040, when it will celebrate its 71st birthday.
Big pieces of energy-using infrastructure may hang around even longer: the Skerne railway bridge in England turned 200 this year. And our climatic footprint is heavy: if we do nothing about it, up to 40 per cent of the carbon dioxide released today will linger in the atmosphere for thousands of years, heating our distant descendants.
Much is unimaginable about the technology, society, politics or economy of 2100. But some things are quite predictable. Barring a colossal war, pandemic or environmental collapse, biotech breakthrough, or our replacement with robots, the global population will be between 10 and 11 billion people.
The world will have warmed between 1.9 and 3.7°C, unless the climate turns out to be much more sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions or, on the optimistic side, new technical and policy breakthroughs clean up quickly. It will continue warming. And we will be running the full gauntlet of climate consequences – melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, furnace-like heatwaves, more violent storms, the disturbance of crucial ocean currents, the annihilation of coral reefs and tropical rainforests.
The people of 2100, their computers and robots, will consume much more energy than today. Bringing modern energy to everyone in the world is the first order of business: about 730 million people, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, still did not have electricity last year. Globally, the use of energy will become vastly more efficient, but the fall in its effective cost will spur new uses.
Some of these are apparent or emerging today: ubiquitous artificial intelligence and automation, delivery drones, outdoor air conditioning for hotter climates, a huge expansion of desalination, and indoor and vertical farming to take the pressure off land and water resources. Only a little more futuristic are the large-scale production of synthetic materials, electric air taxis within cities, hypersonic flight allowing travel within hours to any part of the planet, and routine space tourism and work. Other novel needs can also be conjured up.
How will we meet this greatly expanded energy demand? Environmentalists and energy professionals have converged on a world dominated by renewables – mostly solar, wind and hydropower, perhaps with a dash of geothermal – within a few decades. Labs have already demonstrated solar panels twice as efficient as today’s models. Solar harvesters will be everywhere: on building walls and windows, in paint, vehicles and clothes.
Greatly improved batteries will ensure a steady electrical supply through the night and seasons. Space-based solar power will probably make an appearance in the 2040s, generating with higher efficiency and near 24-hour output. Electricity transmission through high-voltage direct current over thousands of kilometres is feasible today, but promoters of intercontinental cables will be disappointed by how much politics continues to obstruct them.
Enthusiasts see a much larger role too for nuclear power, perhaps through small modular reactors. Electrification of end-uses – heat-pumps for warming chilly countries, electric heat for industrial processes – will gain steadily.
The renewable boosters, though, should be prepared for a surprise. By the 2040s, if not earlier, practical fusion reactors should be a reality. They will quickly take over the job of centralised, large-scale electricity generation.
Performance, cost and cleanliness will make battery cars, lorries and short-range aircraft ubiquitous by 2050 if not well before. The EU’s recent decision to water down its ban on new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 will seem quaint, like clinging to horse-drawn carriages.
But molecules will still be needed. Even the best batteries will not take a ship or plane across continents. Oil and gas will still be extracted in large quantities in 2050, and probably in smaller but not negligible amounts in 2100. The Middle East and a few other spots will dominate that remaining hydrocarbon production.
Every tonne of carbon dioxide they release, though, will be captured, or accounted for and removed elsewhere. Traditional petroleum will be supplemented by synthetic fuels made from hydrogen, or by artificial or engineered lifeforms.
Large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to undo past releases and mop up unavoidable residual emissions will be a major industry from about 2040. The IEA shows a need to remove about 7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually in the second half of the century. If achieved purely technologically, this would consume about 50 exajoules per year, or about 8 per cent of current world primary energy use, a large but not absurd figure.
In a decade, it will be yet clearer that we are nearing the precipice of disastrous climate change. Environmentalists hate the idea of geo-engineering – but it is inevitable that by the 2030s, someone will try it on a large scale. They will inject particles into the upper atmosphere to diminish the sun’s rays slightly, slowing global heating, but with other, perhaps unforeseen, climatic and political effects.
We can, and hopefully will, choose to do this wisely and collaboratively. By 2100, people will not be reckless amateurs like today, tinkering with a global climate and biosphere we hardly understand. We will be planetary stewards. It is for our children and grandchildren to take on the responsibility we have shunned.
