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About where we are now, and i wanted to start with you, danielle. so, before we get going on the solutions, can we outline the challenge here? the international governmental panel on climate change has said that in order to avoid the worst ravages of the heating associated with climate change, we need renewable resources like solar and wind to provide 85% of global electricity by 2050. but where are we now, and what s the scale of the challenge that faces us? so, danielle, tell me a bit about how close we are to that 85% target? well, the good news is that wind and solar power have doubled in the last five years due to their plummeting costs. now, nearly one tenth of the world s electricity comes from wind and solar together. but if i think about it from the wind perspective, at roughly 8%, we have to get 40 plus, 40 50%. that s a huge leap from where we are today, to meet our net zero goals by 2050. so lots of work yet to do. let me turn to henry, let s ....
Together for a special event presented by kevin fong at the victoria and albert museum, london. hello, i m kevin fong, and welcome to the engineers: clean energy. we are here at the victoria and albert museum in london with a socially distanced public audience, a virtual audience from around the globe, and three of the world s leading engineers. now, the climate catastrophe threatens us all. but these engineers are at the forefront of providing our world with real solutions. applause. please welcome henry snaith. he s professor of physics at oxford, and through his engineering of low cost ....
You can t go out today and buy perovskite solar cells, but we re building a production line at the moment. we re talking about next year, the first cells and modules will be in production and start to be deployed in the world. so this is all fantastic, this is state of the art technology and engineering that is market ready or nearly market ready. so is the message that i should get that you are going to gallop to my rescue when it comes to climate change? that i can carry on with my life as i always have, and everything is going to be fine, because the engineers are going to sort it all out? henry, i want to start with you. is that what i should be taking away from this? that is not what you should be taking away, but you should feel encouraged that there can be solutions. but we all need to. it s a challenging road ahead. there s a lot of scale that needs to happen from the industry, and we all need to embrace it, and embrace this change. the technology s there, but if it doesn t get ....
Photovoltaics, henry discovered thin film solar cells made of perovskite. it could be a hugely significant discovery, as henry hopes it will eventually double the efficiency of solar power and halve the cost. danielle merfeld is an electrical engineer who is chief technology officer and vice president of ge renewables. ge is the biggest creator of wind turbines worldwide, and she and her team currently have over 40,000 wind turbines out in the field. she sjoining us by video link from north carolina, usa. kristian eikeland holmefjord is here from norway after braving ten days quarantine on arrival in the uk. kristian is at the forefront of efforts to develop battery powered ships as project director of fuel cells at corvus energy. wind, solar batteries, ships please welcome our panel. applause so, we re going to start with talking ....
Then it s not going to work. thank you. kristian? yeah, i think accepting - what is happening on that side, as henry mentions, is crucial. and then an aspect that. i would emphasise as well is that we have to look at wasting energy - as unacceptable. we can t waste energy in any form of action. i so when the energy is. going to be challenging to harvest at large scale, we re solving parts - of harvesting as much energy as we can in good ways, - and then we have - to use that energy as efficiently as possible. and before we open it up to questions, danielle, when it comes to the threat that climate change presents to us, who is going to do the heavy lifting? is it going to be the engineering or is it going to be the individuals? i think the biggest changes will happen at the country level. there s going to be a need for us, in terms of our public policy, to support these kind of technologies at scale. it will certainly develop and deliver lower cost ....