Can the world rely on renewable energy? | Future Earth | BBC News

[Music] we start with a look at why our transition to a Greener future can mean dealing with the legacy of our past fossil fuels like oil and gas have been powering the world for decades but they often leave behind facilities that continue to pollute long after they've been shut down I traveled to America's forgotten oil country to meet the people sealing off our abandoned Wells on a cold day in Autumn these workers are helping clean up part of America's petroleum past old oil and gas Wells left abandoned for generations and they're not always where you

might expect when you picture oil country you probably think of the oil fields down in Texas but we are in a residential neighborhood in Upstate New York here just outside of Buffalo this abandoned gas well is being sealed off in the middle of someone's front yard we've had some wells that are literally feet from a house when they were drilled 100 to 150 years ago a lot of these houses didn't exist at the time so over time as as uh areas get developed you have structures and houses being built uh right up against them sometimes

it's part of the nation's fossil fuel Legacy just a couple of hours south in Titusville Pennsylvania likely the first modern oil well was drilled back in 1859 it sparked an oil rush across the region by the 1880s Pennsylvania Rock oil made up more than 3/4 of the global Supply but the boom eventually dried up and now decades later abandoned Wells like this are still polluted so this is an abandoned well it's one of hundreds of thousands scattered across the United States and every single one of them could still be emitting methane a greenhouse gas several

times more potent than carbon dioxide up until very recently um methane emissions was not that much of a concern and it's only been recent science that has shown how damaging methane actually can be so even Trace Amounts of methane that is leaking out of these Wells can be um pretty impactful to The Climate uh and so we're we're doing everything we can to be sure that we seal those up over beyond the rig here we have a freshwater tank plants is the CEO of plants and Goodwin a third generation oil services company and business is

an overdrive in 2021 a federal infrastructure Bill set aside some $4.7 billion for capping old Wells the most ever spent on the problem a few years ago nobody really cared about these orphan Wells so through various uh Avenues the government was able to come up with some money and inject that into each state to help solve this problem but the solution injecting concrete deep underground can be slow and sometimes dangerous so this well had some obstructions only 50 ft down uh in the well that we didn't know we were going to run into uh when

we entered it the challenge there is as you clean those obstructions out there could be significant gas pressure behind them so you always have to be mindful of Well Control uh so that you don't take a a large explosion or or kick up at surface and the scale of the problem is vast there are more than 120,000 documented sites stretching across the United States it's estimated the true number could be in the millions leaking nearly 3% of the nation's total methane emissions this year we're projected to uh successfully decommission somewhere around 150 to 200 of

these Wells but when we're talking about the problem of wells in the thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands obviously that's not going to quite get it done we're actively hiring more people we are buying more equipment um we're doing everything that we can in order to ramp up quickly um and address this issue cleaning up the pollution of the past creating a new green boom here where the last one went bust the people that drilled these Wells and the companies that drilled these Wells haven't been in business for 50 years or 100 years in

some cases and so now just kind of left with what's called their the the Legacy Wells um the legacy of 100 Years of unregulated oil and gas exploration now we're coming back and and trying to clean up and and do right by the communities that were affected by it all right let's talk more now about energy emissions and why cleaning them up could make a big difference here's the BBC's former science editor David shookman if you want to try to limit the rise in temperatures limit the explosion of extreme weather events that we're see seeing

being so destructive at the moment one of the best things that can be done is to limit the leaking of methane into the atmosphere the oil industry has been talking about this has been accused for years of allowing methane to escape into the atmosphere there are many other sources of it as well and the Hope has to be that at last people start to understand that the more they can limit the venting of methane The Escape of methane from leaky pipes for example the bigger the difference it'll make and it'll have a difference that's not

just significant in scale but also in speed we really now need quick action on climate change curbing methane will be a great way to do that so what will the energy of the future look like the good news is a lot of the technology that we need is already here wind and solar energy made up 12% of our Global electricity Supply in 2022 and that was a new record 2023 could be even higher that's thanks at least in part to solar plants built on a massive scale recently Paul Carter visited the largest solar plant in

the world on the edge of the Sahara Desert this is no a solar power station putting Morocco at the Forefront of pioneering renewable technology this is not an ordinary solar field panels with over 7,000 mirrors follow the Sun and I can hear lots of sounds at the moment it's quite Eerie is that the panels moving movement uh just with a small speed all these reflect the sun back at this dazzling Monument 243 M up this white hot Beacon can hit 1,000° C a liquid salt absorbs and transports this heat using it to produce Steam and

generate electricity on the ground while solar is used across the globe what's special here is the molten salt which retains energy 8 hours after dark even with all the progress that we've made on Renewables some energy experts say we're going to need more a lot more one report from the International Energy agency says the world should Tri Le its Renewable Power capacity by the year 2030 as part of a plan to limit global warming to 1.5° C and avoid the worst effects of climate change for more on where we're at and where we need to

go when it comes to Renewables I spoke with the ia's senior energy analyst Amy Bahar can you give us the good news on renewable energy what are you seeing in terms of global growth over the last few years we have been seeing record level new uh power plants being installed year after year uh last year there was again an important jump of 15% more uh capacity that's being deployed uh this is great policy makers are introducing new policies or implementing faster their existing policies and the costs are coming down now the iea has released a

report and it says that the world needs to Triple its Renewable Power capacity by 2030 in order to stay on track to meet our goals in the Paris agreement of 1.5° C warming tell me more about that tripling number and what needs to happen to achieve that goal we see that this tripling uh is ambitious but achievable uh and this ambition is will be defined by government's policies and how they approach and how they push this tripling capacity in the coming eight years basically now it's a very short period of time in order to solve

the challenges that is upcoming big or small Renewables can offer a solution and the government slowly discovered that it used to be climate change mitigation then energy security come into the picture and show the governments that actually deploying Renewables faster is a solution to energy security issues as well so in that sense I think Renewables have proven to be U resilient and offering solutions to the challenges that that the world is facing let's talk economics because for a long time Renewables were seen as more expensive than fossil fuels is that still the case I can

give you the the good news on this one especially for solar PV and wind which which account for majority of this tripling growth that we need they are in the majority of the countries not maybe most countries in the world they are uh cheaper than fosil fuel Alternatives uh both natural gas and coal so the cost discussion is almost over in my opinion Greening the world's energy Supply is obviously a a big challenge what gives you the biggest reason for optimism that we can do it in time the big optimism that I have uh first

of all is the costs because if they were not economically available in our hands the government or Society will have a different view uh on the clean energy transition this is an important turning point I think to a achieve this faster expansion of Renewables in that sense um governments are still behind Renewables not providing subsidies though more and more they are providing the framework a better framework that they can operate in rather than providing them cash so that's the thing that needs to continue because Renewables require a stable policy environment uh which many governments today

are able to provide and uh it is important that they keep doing it now to a city that's truly walking the walk when it comes to renewable energy you might know Burlington Vermont as the home of Ben and Jerry's ice cream but it's also the first US city to get 100% of its electricity from renewable sources and one of more than 40 cities globally the head of the city's electric company gave me the inside scoop I just want to start with this statistic which is really striking 25% of Burlington's energy came from renewable energy sources

just a decade later you're now at 100% renewable energy what changed how did you get to 100% Renewables yeah it's a great story uh for Burlington uh in 2004 we were 25% renewable the electric commission uh and the electric Department set a goal of moving to become 100% renewable but over the course of that 10year period Burlington electric was able to contract for different wind projects to increase its Reliance on hydrop power uh to start to add solar uh to its mix as well and in 2014 the last step uh in that process was purchase

of a local hydropower Dam called the wooki one that we now own and operate that was the last piece of the puzzle this is Vermont that we're talking about so obviously the sun doesn't always Shine the wind doesn't always blow are there days when it's difficult to close that Gap and power your City without having to resort to dirtier sources of electricity well it's exactly right that uh wind and soul are really important resources but they are variable resources so we rely on the ability to run our wood chip plant where we can store fuel

on site and dispatch it when it's needed and we definitely rely on hydr power increasingly we're going to see battery storage uh play an important role there as well you mentioned this wood ship plant it's often called biomass it's essentially burning wood to generate electricity that does come with its its own drawbacks its own impacts on on the environment how do you balance that what are the drawbacks when it comes to using biomass which I believe is is about a third of your electricity Supply we're using local wood residue and essentially when when Foresters are

going out and harvesting for other higher value operations to get wood for timber for furniture for construction there's leftover wood product tops and limbs diseased and damaged trees we're able to take that leftover product and use it for electricity um so that has a very different carbon profile than if somebody was going out and just clear cutting trees specifically for energy converting an entire city to 100% renewable electricity is not an easy task how did you go about getting the community on board what's been the reaction from citizens there in in Burlington Vermont so I

think that it's partly that we have a committed population that supports uh these types of initiatives and it's also that we're trying to do so in a way that's economically beneficial and hopeful you know hopefully that's replicable uh for other communities as well Burlington is a smaller City around 50,000 people how can what's been done there be scaled up and applied to much larger cities in the US we talk with other communities other community leaders uh from out of state even sometimes internationally uh we have folks who visit Burlington and one of the things that

I like to share is it's really important to start with a tangible goal and I think uh every Community has some uh renewable resources that they can utilize some effort that they can utilize towards Energy Efficiency there are now additional communities since we became 100% renewable that have joined us and we hope to have many many more the world continues to make progress on switching to renewable energy but some Industries face a tougher task than others one of them is the aviation industry and although air travel makes up around 2% of the world's energy related

CO2 emissions companies like Delta Airlines say they're working hard to find ways to decarbonize I caught up with Delta's Chief sustainability officer Amelia Deluga you know Aviation is really one of the hardest Industries to try to decarbonize I mean why is that and just talk us through some of the challenges that you're facing at Delta and in the industry as a whole so let's talk about the airline industry real quick I think it's important to Just note that we are two to three% of global greenhouse gas emissions today but as a hardto decarbonized sector that's

expected to grow as other Industries start to move towards net zero before 2050 so what makes us hard to decarbonize it's the singular fact that 90% of our impact on the planet comes from jet fuel and putting a battery pack on an airplane just physics means that isn't really doable and so our Solutions aren't as straightforward as say the automotive industry so what is that replacement is there a clear path right now to coming up with a fuel that will be a lot more sustainable than what airplanes currently use so when we think about the

future there are lots of things we can do as a company to be more fuel efficient and our airplanes are obviously more fuel efficient but that doesn't get you to to zero and so the answer is essentially sustainable aviation fuel or saff and sustainable aviation fuel is a liquid drop in fuel it's just like the jet fuels of today except for instead of coming from finite resources like fossil fuels it's coming from renewable sources could be bio or AGG based which is what you're seeing today in terms of used cooking oil um or potentially a

corn residue product but in the future just like other Industries it'll come from um synthetic sources but that are renewable and are infinite so things like hydrogen and carbon in the future is what will be our fuel source what's the timeline we're looking at here because there has been some criticism of the airline industry as a whole of saying look can you speed things up it's been it's been taking some time right it's fascinating because I've seen the industry really come together with a very clear call to action and so I think that's the positive

is that we're very United as an airline industry that we have these Net Zero Ambitions and we have a road map to get there we know what we need to do but the single biggest lever that we're going to have to pull is the creation of entirely new industry the sustainable aviation fuel and when we just root ourselves in the number even as Delta the task is it's daunting um but we are making progress for example I would just call out that year-over-year for the last number of years we've increased the use of sustainable aviation

fuel so that's positive right it's moving up every single year but the fact of the matter is this year we'll probably use about five million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel and that's all that we can get that's all that we can get our hands on and we need to get to 400 million gallons by the back half of this decade and that's still only 10% of a replacement for jetfuel I think the big thing is we want to be able to decarbonize and move to Net Zero not just for the sake of our own industry

but really for kind of the sake of the world the fact of the matter is we still all want to travel to see our friends see our families often you have to get on an airplane to do that what message would you give to people who feel this little bit of guilt or shame because they know that they're flying they know that that emits CO2 what message of Hope can you give uh for the future for people that want to continue to be able to fly on airplanes I think it's important to say we know

what we need to do to get to a net zero future that's the first thing and I think the second thing is we're doing everything that we can do today to bring down our impact on the planet and so while it may take us a little while to get to Net Zero have the confidence when you go through the travel experience that you are already seeing ways that we are starting to bring down our greenhouse gas emissions to bring down our footprint from single-use Plastics a couple other things that customers aren't always going to see

but they should be aware of is how we're operating our planes today are as already significantly more efficient than it was even a couple of years ago we're changing how we land how we navigate through airspace we're changing the weight that we put on board through our Galley carts or our servicing Provisions to try to reduce the weight that's on that airplane or try to operate more efficiently and so these are things customers you may not see when you're flying but just know every single day we are operating more efficiently than we did the day

before and that's already starting to move us towards a better future as we just heard there has been some progress on making air travel more sustainable like this Royal Air Force flight in 2022 now it was the first in the UK to be powered by cooking oil the 90-minute flight was also the first time that a military aircraft of that size flew on sustainable fuel the RF says waste-based fuels could lower carbon emissions by up to 80% okay now to something that may seem like science fiction Conjuring energy out out of thin air well two

scientists have developed a device that uses a natural protein and moisture in the air to generate a small continuous electric current and they think it could be a GameChanger I spoke to one of the scientists behind the project electrical engineer Jun Yao pulling electricity out of the sky I mean this is an idea that goes all the way back to Nicola Tesla in the 20th century right but you think that you might have figured this out today in the lab there's possibility for that although I think we have a way to go to scale this

up from the lab prototype device to a much larger device that can be deployed in the for example ambient environment what will it take to scale that up I understand that the current device can generate enough power to turn on one pixel of a TV screen that that's not a whole lot of electricity correct so if I mean you can't imagine the th air probably cannot boast in terms of energy density but I think it can boast in terms of volume because the entire Earth is covered with a very thick lay atmospheric uh humidity if

this does become successful Professor do you imagine this being used in our homes is this something that might power our refrigerator or our TV uh why not I think it probably it's it could be more attractive than solar panel because why the solar panel uh uh still competes uh with space or actually can it can be ugly right deploying on on the roof but imagine this this does not compete with uh any kind of existing space because humidity is 247 continues uh it's day and night it's everywhere and once we create energy it's also crucial

that we find ways to store it for that we go from air to sand and the world's first large scale sand battery I'm here in the municipal swimming pool in cankan Pai Western Finland this beautiful pool very barmy all year round but the heat that's in here comes from a rather surprising Source from Sand the sand in question sits inside this Silo in a power plant on the the edge of this small finished town it's the first commercial installation of a potentially important technology that works in a surprisingly simple way electricity from wind or solar

power is converted into heat which warms the sand up to around 500° C crucially the sand can keep this heat without loss potentially for months and finally if you've ever traveled on the London Underground then you know just how hot it can get down there but what if all that hot air could be put to good use well at one abandoned Tube Station it's being harnessed to heat buildings up above Jamie Morland discovered how it works everyone knows how hot the underground can get people crowded onto trains friction between the rails and wheels here they're

taking that heat and using it to warm up homes and businesses down there is the northern line and this used to be a passenger your walkway now when air is pushed through from the trains it goes up this ventilation shaft here which used to be where the lifts were the warm air is sucked up the ventilation shaft by a fan and this is the top of the ventilator shaft the air is pumped from here into these pipes above the ground the warm air heats the water in this tank and that hot water is pumped to

more than 1,000 nearby Council buildings such as homes Leisure centers and Morland Primary School who knew an abandoned chb station could reduce carbon emissions and make London more self-sufficient and before we go a quick reminder if you want to get more from future Earth delivered each week directly to your inbox sign up for the future Earth newsletter in it you'll find behind the scenes reporting from me the week's top climate stories and insights from our entire BBC climate change team I'm Carl nasman thanks for watching future [Music] Earth