Nuclear has a core position as a sustainable EDVHORDGVXSSO\EXW will not displace wind or solar as the future main power supplier. “
any technology on the near horizon that could compete with the cost and simplicity of PV technology. And it continues to improve, which means more energy per panel at less cost, with reliability and resulting longevity meaning we can expect each panel to last 30 years on average. Wind is less clear but equally vital. The technology is more complicated and less suited to high volume manufacture, and thus incremental gain continually introduced is more difficult than with solar. Project economics are also less compelling, and there are signs of some project developers being less enthusiastic than they were, certainly for offshore wind projects. But, in areas of less solar resource, wind is the very definite next best option. There are significant disparities in clean energy capacity across regions. What do you think are the key challenges and opportunities in addressing these global differences? In a perfect world, developing nations would skip over the fossil fuel power age and go right to renewables, building a grid optimised around the variability these technologies have. To do this, however, they need to raise finance and bring to the table bankable projects with low-risk profiles and good payback characteristics. Instability and historical biases in these areas make this difficult with international financial institutions, and we need to get creative with
how we blend-finance or put guarantees in place to make projects more widely investable. If we can pull that off, then we’ll be in good shape as feedback from a senior financial panel at COP29 suggested money was available for investable projects. I think the situation in the developed world is very amenable to renewables, as they represent the most cost-effective power generation option in very many cases. The challenge there is politics, and whether governments and political parties have the will and long-term vision to play their part in addressing climate change within their critical infrastructure. The integration of renewables into existing energy grids remains a challenge. What innovations or policy changes do you believe are critical to overcoming these obstacles? I don’t think that’s really the case. We could build out grids in a way that allows very large renewable capacity to dominate the generation side. Technologies exist to deal with most of the challenges, but we need continual improvement in them and volume demand to come into the supply chain to make these technologies viable. Perhaps the biggest outstanding issue is long term / inter-seasonal storage, but there are options like chemical storage or compressed gas storage - and for the right sites more pumped hydro – and these all need further consideration.
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THE FUTURE OF ENERGY
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