Conservatives and incumbents have predicted the end of wind and solar for decades. They are still wrong

It is sadly unsurprising that the federal Coalition is still warning that the lights will go out, businesses will close and the economy will collapse if Australia continues on the path to a renewable energy grid.

The reality is that they – and the fossil fuel incumbents that sit behind them and the right wing media that provide their echo chamber – have been predicting this for decades. And they are still wrong, and even more wrong now than they ever have been.

A stunning new report from the US-based RMI, once known as the Rocky Mountain Institute, shows why. The report, titled The Cleantech Revolution: It’s exponential, disruptive and now is stunning because of the glorious simplicity of their graphs.

These underline everything that the conservatives and the nay-sayers don’t want to admit about the transition to green energy – that renewables are cheaper, faster, cleaner and more efficient, and that the overwhelming force of new technology will overwhelm the obstacles the incumbents are desperately trying to put in their way.

The report is too detailed, and the great graphs too many, to repeat here. So I’ve chosen some of the most compelling, and would invite interested readers to click on the report to find out more. Some of the questions you may have about the pace, scale and reality of the green energy transition might be answered.

Probably the best way to start is with the graph that inspired the headline of this article, that the incumbents have been predicting the end of the green energy transition for decades, starting off with “it won’t work”, “it’s too expensive”, “the grid can’t handle the intermittency”, and – more recently – “permitting will stop growth”.

The report argues that the drivers of growth are more powerful than the barriers, and that’s because of the falling costs, the energy security of eternal renewables, the leadership from China, and a “race to the top” that will “overwhelm the fragile fossil fuel system” which wastes two-thirds of its primary energy and doesn’t pay for its externality costs.

• “The orthodox view of slow change is wrong,” the report says, noting how so many major institutions have and continue to vastly underestimate the growth of deployment and the speed of cost reductions.

“New clean technologies beat old fossil commodities because clean technologies’ costs fall over time on the learning curve, they are universal and they grow quickly,” the report says.

“Cleantech costs have fallen by up to 80 percent, while investment is up nearly tenfold and solar generation has risen twelvefold. Electricity has become the largest source of useful energy, and the deep force of efficiency has reduced energy demand by a fifth.”

There has been exponential growth in new technologies (see graph above), and they are being deployed quicker than anything ever before it (see graph below).

In fact, it notes, solar and batteries are “taking over”, with solar about to overtake every other type of capacity and battery storage about to leapfrog pumped hydro.

The stunning rate of deployment is significant, because cleantech costs fall by around 20 per cent for every doubling in deployment and capital is pouring into cleantech. “Getting to the first trillion of annual investment took decades; the second trillion will take only 4 years,” it says.

• It notes that solar generation is doubling every 2-3 years and battery storage every year. Even more significantly, the supply chain is already in place for enough solar and batteries to reach net zero.

The report goes on to note that sales of solar and battery storage will continue to show “super-fast” growth, and solar, wind and battery storage will continue down the “s-curve” on costs.

“Renewables will push out fossil electricity, electrons will push out molecules, and efficiency will reduce waste. In a typical X shaped pattern,” the report notes.

The other big change is electrification, which includes heat pumps, digitally automated devices, electric cars and electric trucks.

“The annual electrification rate is likely to more than double to 0.5% in 2030 as transport joins the party, and success in China drags up electrification rates elsewhere,” it notes.

• “Annual efficiency gains are likely to double from the 1.5% average of the past two decades to at least 3% as the result of the rising share of renewables, electrification, and a greater focus on end-use efficiency.”

There are a total of 84 pages in the report, mostly graphs like the one above. It is worth a read, just a reminder that you can find it here, but probably not in the Murdoch media, the AFR, or the briefing notes for Coalition MPs.