Negativity surrounding the energy transition is never hard to find, from reports warning new technologies aren’t being developed fast enough to meet Net Zero, to ongoing funding, regulatory and scaling concerns.
But the future may be brighter than we think, delegates attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos heard today.
“You have people leaving landing rockets and saying ‘I want to go work in energy,’” said Bob Mumgaard, Co-Founder and CEO, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in a panel on ‘Deploying Advanced Energy Tech Faster’. “You look at portfolios, they are full of people bringing skills from other fields – that’s very exciting. The energy sector is actually the hardest to get into, so I think we’re going to see a pipeline fill, and in around 10 years from now, a whole bunch of technologies to pick from.” He said sectors such as fusion provide a completely new technological stack and business model.
Hans Kobler, CEO and Founding Partner, Energy Impact Partners, agreed that there is an incredible amount of talent entering clean energy, with the industry attracting the smartest people from business schools and engineering departments. “Once we unleash the creativity, hopefully we find good ways that won’t harm the environment,” he said.
Sophie Hermans, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Climate Policy and Green Growth of the Netherlands, emphasised the importance of “clear and stable” regulations in supporting climate and energy goals, attracting talent and marrying physical and digital infrastructure.
“It’s important to set targets but also make sure there is enough space for creativity and innovation, so the best technologies can be realised,” she said. “With hydrogen, for example, we need the backbone in place so we can transport it.”
A WEF report identified 78 million additional jobs will be created by 2030. The biggest driver of job creation (and displacement) is technology. Within a generation, there will be 50% more workers in emerging markets, and the transition to a green economy will provide five-times more jobs than they will displace.
Kimberly Budil, Laboratory Director, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, considered the major developments now underway with AI and supercomputing.
“We are in an interesting inflection point, both in the scale and capability of the machines and the architectures that we’re using and the tools we can apply,” she said.
“AI hits the innovation stack in three ways – it can look at data at a pace and scale that humans can’t do; the second is experimentation, which can be controlled by AI models and make decisions; and the third part is the relationship between manufacturing and what you make.”
“The tools are so different and powerful – things like additive manufacturing, the capability actually changes what you can think about making. So we can innovate on the technology side at a pace that wasn’t accessible to us even a decade ago.”
