The number of electric cars, wind turbines or photovoltaic panels has been growing exponentially for many years, hinting at the possibility of a rapid energy transition. And yet these three technologies are still an ultra-minority. Decryption of the current dynamics.
In 2021, sales of electric cars, including plug-in hybrids, doubled compared to 2020, reaching 6.6 million units. Note that more than 50% of the vehicles sold were sold in China. The strong increase in sales since 2012 is confirmed. Between 2012 and 2021, the number of electric vehicles sold increased by 54 times, and by more than 5 between 2017 and 2021, an exponential trend with an average annual growth of nearly 50% per year. An impressive development. However, in 2021, electric cars represented only around 10% of the 66 million new vehicles sold in 2021 in the world.and compared to the total number of cars in the world (12.4 billion in 2020), electric vehicles represent only 1% of the total at the moment. So there is still a long way to go, knowing that road transport represents 12% of global emissions of greenhouse gases.
Exponential growth, but very slow deployment
Exponential growth is when the growth rate (in percentage) is constant and the absolute value added increases every year. For example, for a starting value of 100, an annual growth rate of 10% means an increase of 10 in the first year, 11 in the second, 21 in the tenth, 55 in the twentieth, etc. This corresponds to a doubling every 7 years. This is the type of growth that we heard a lot about during the Covid crisis, especially for the increase in the number of cases. The deployment of technologies, once they are available on the market, is also growing exponentially. In 2000, there was 730 million mobile phones in the world. 16 years later, there were 7.4 billion, as many as people on the planet. Over very long periods of time, this type of growth makes you dizzy. Moore's law, formulated on the basis of empirical observations by the co-founder of Intel in 1965 and then revised in 1975, postulates a doubling of the number of transistors on a printed circuit every 2 years - i.e. an annual growth of 41%. Growth maintained over almost 50 years, resulting in a multiplication by 25 million!
This is precisely the paradox of energy transition which combines the exponential growth of technologies and yet very long time scales. To stay under 2 degrees of global warming, it is necessary to divide our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 4 by 2050 - in less than 30 years. In their rapid deployment phase, nuclear power or even wind and solar power are experiencing increases in installed capacity of around 25-30% per year worldwide. This exponential growth stopped abruptly for nuclear power at End of the 1980s. In 2019, it represented only 4% of the world's energy.
Solar and wind power still represent less than 5% of the world's primary energy. In 2020, approximately 240 GW of capacity of renewable production has been installed in the world, 50% more than in 2019. Extrapolating the current trend would suggest that solar could represent 50% of global energy consumption in 20 years. Likewise, at the current rate, electric vehicles would represent nearly 60% of cars sold in 2030. And that's the point of tension between 2 visions of transition : the proponents of a transition Fast because it's exponential, and those based on past data seeing the transition as a necessarily very slow business.
transitioner=replace
A point that is often forgotten in these discussions is that the energy transition does not only require the deployment of low-carbon technologies, but also the stopping and replacement of existing technologies: a replacement and not an addition. As long as the new technology deployed represents only a few percent of demand, its development does not really compete with existing means of production. After a certain stage, it is necessary to close existing power plants, which may not yet be amortized, which leads to significant financial losses. A coal-fired power plant costs up to several billion euros, and is expected to operate for decades. An early closure represents a loss of profits for investors- and represents a failed asset.
Recall that there are approximately 2000 GW of coal-fired power plants installed in 2021 (8500 power plants), and that nearly 20% of CO2 emissions come from coal-fired electricity generation. Many countries have announced that they will no longer fund new coal-fired power plants abroad, and the Number of power plants planned or under construction has declined a lot in recent years. Nearly 500GW were still planned beginning of 2021. As many power plants are new or under construction, the question of the cost of their early closure arises. Meeting climate commitments would represent a total of 1400 billion dollars of stranded assets- nearly half in China and a quarter in India. La closure of existing power plants, or the reconversion of the automotive industry, also has consequences on employment that must be managed intelligently.
While it is important to maintain exponential growth for the technologies needed to decarbonize our economies, it is just as important to manage the replacement of existing technologies.