Over 2 million have watched my Green Energy Webinar! "Next 20 years will determine future of humanity": predictions for 40 years. Massive scaling green tech. Race for solar, wind v coal, oil, gas. Climate emergency. Futurist Keynote for Enel Green Power

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Future GreenTech, Sustainability Keynote Speaker

My keynote starts 42 minutes into the video

In December 2018, I gave a keynote via Webinar for Enel Power. They say it was watched live by over 800,000 on several platforms, and by June 2019, it had over 1.4m views on just one platform alone, by March 2024, that had risen to 1.8m. The core messages are even more urgent and relevant today. My physical audience in the room was 25 global influencers from every part of the world, all with popular blogs / followings on green tech and alternative energy. A massive global social media campaign took place in the run up to the Webinar.  Here are the key messages....

* "How AI Will Change Your Life - A Futurist's Guide to a Super-Smart World" - Patrick Dixon's latest book on AI is published in September 2024 by Profile Books.  It contains 38 chapters on the impact of AI across different industries, government and our wider world, including impact of AI on the energy industry, sustainability, green tech innovation and reducing global CO2 emissions.

Key messages are these:

1.  Without any further green tech innovation, just rolling out to global scale on the technologies we already have, we have all the tools we need to make a dramatic difference to energy production, decarbonising our future world.

2.  Solar power could easily power all of our needs for the next 1000 years, with rapidly falling costs - and next-generation solar panels will be twice as efficient.

3.  Wind power will also play a significant role.

4.  Watch out for High Voltage Direct Current smart grids (HVDC) which are able to transmit power over 5000kms with very low power loss.  I have sat in a room where the head of the National Grid for Russia was in conversation with the head of the National Grid for China, talking about ways to power each other's nations using these grids. 

5.  Power storage will be sorted out - because the stakes are so high.  Storage is of course a major key to fully utilising solar and wind.  10% of the entire energy capacity of Australia is used for only 5 days a year - the hottest days - and the rest of the year it sits there doing nothing.  So no surprise then that Tesla is building such vast batteries in the country, to enable all those old and costly back up power plants to be closed down.  Other innovative methods include air compression into huge salt caverns and using power to convert CO2 into methane gas to store back underground.

6.  The expected boom in electric cars will place major pressures on energy companies but also provide new energy storage possibilities - think about a million vehicles all plugged into the grid at night, absorbing power at times of low demand, and since most remain plugged in during the day, at various points providing a surge of additional energy as needed (for which car owners are paid as energy providers).

7.  Green power will radically change energy markets - it's already happening.  In Germany and Queensland Australia recently there were days when there was so much wind and solar power available that energy companies were actually paying large companies to consume power.  That's cheaper than free energy!  If you own solar panels on your roof or a small wind turbine on your land, and have paid off the loans then you are already enjoying free power.  

8.  In Europe and America, gas is likely to be part of the energy mix for several decades, partly to help balance demand.

9.  Green tech innovation was slowed down for several years by the economic crisis in 2009-11, together with the flooding of global markets by cheap oil and gas.  This was result of several things:  

a) US national security policy since 9/11 to be independent of so-called rogue states for energy, and to become a net exporter. 17 years later, America became the world's largest oil producer, overtaking even Saudi Arabia, thanks to vast scaling up of shale technology.

b) Saudi Arabia difficulties in balancing government spending and revenues, resulting in them pumping more oil.

c) Russia heavy dependency on gas exports, even more so with collapse of currency following sanctions as a result of tensions over Crimea and Ukraine.

d) Iran sanctions being lifted, so allowing a massive ramping up of their own production.

10. Companies around the world are rapidly decarbonising their own production and energy use, and this will continue to accelerate because of the desire to save costs, protect environment, satisfy shareholder and customer concerns, and comply with government regulations.

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