Engineers leading The Field in clean energy solutions come together for a special event presented by Kevin Fong at the Victoria And Albert museum, london. Hello, im 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 worlds leading engineers. Now, the Climate Catastrophe threatens All Of Us. But these engineers are at the forefront of providing our world with real solutions. Applause. Please welcome henry snaith. Hes professor of physics at oxford, and through his engineering of low cost photovoltaics, henry discovered a thin film of 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. Shesjoining us by Video Link from north carolina, usa. Kristian Eikeland Holmefjord is here from norway after braving 10 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, were going to start with talking about where we are now, and i wanted to start with you, danielle. So, before we get started 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 whats 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 Worlds 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 . Thats 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, lets talk a bit about solar here. Solar panels use silicon. Can you explain how that technology works, and what its limitations are in helping us reach the Goal Danielle just outlined 7 so, silicon is a semiconductor. Thats the material thats used to absorb sunlight and generate electricity in a solar cell. It works by absorbing sunlight, particles of sunlight, that we call photons, they carry energy, theyre absorbed in the silicon and what they do is give electrons in that silicon extra kinetic energy, the energy from the photons transferred to the electrons, and those electrons, with that energy, can move around and theyre freed from the lattice theyre freed from being bound and localised. And thats the current, in essence, those moving electrons, that if we contact the silicon on either side we can extract in an external circuit and generate current and voltage from the material. Now, in terms of the limitations, if we look at whats the optimum efficiency a single Solar Absorbent Material could be, like silicon, they top out at about 25 . Thats really the practical limit for an actual Solar Panel with todays silicon technology. So, im hearing 6 , 7 , 8 from danielle. Im hearing 20 from you. Were not quite at that 85 . And all of this energy we generate needs storing, doesnt it . So, kristian, i know that youre a man of the fjords and boats and ships have been a constant thread throughout your life, even before you became a marine engineer. So, 90 of the Worlds Trade travels by sea, as well as 3 of the Worlds Greenhouse gases, its estimated nearly half A Million people die prematurely every year from the Air Pollution created by ships. Your company created the worlds first fully electric ship, a battery operated ferry which has travelled the equivalent of eight times around the equator since it was launched in 2015. But what are the challenges in scaling that up to ships that actually circumnavigate the globe . One of the key challenges i there is being able to fit that amount of energy or batteries you need inside a vessel. What weve done now, we started with the smaller vessels, the vessels that go back and forth a lot, such as this ampere ferry, j that ferry in itself has the same amount of| battery as 25 teslas. And thats not a lot of battery, but its enough to go back and forth across a Fjord And Charge every time you go back and forth. Now, this is fairly unique to ferries, going back and forth, and a lot of larger ships are travelling longer distances. So you need to scale up the battery, becoming more power dense inside a vessel, and then you also need to look at other energy. Solutions, youre looking at hydrogen based fuel coming off the energy from wind or solar, and then you employ| both the batteries and the Fuel And Fuel cells together. Thank you. Now, danielle, i want to come back to you to hear about your latest prototype Wind Turbine, the Haliade X, unveiled in 2019. It is a monster of a machine, this thing. And i want you to describe for me its scale and efficiency, and how you get it to work. So, the Haliade X is the worlds most powerful Wind Turbine in operation today. Its offshore, it has a iii megawatt capacity, and the rotor so, the distance from Blade Tip to Blade Tip is 220 metres. So each blade is longer than the wingspan of the largest aircraft in the world. Each spin of one of those blades can power a typical household for more than two days. So, a typical Wind Farm can power about A Million households. And so this is incredibly important in terms of being able to move to more Wind Power, more efficient offshore wind, and with every one of these turbines that goes out, youre saving about 52,000 metric tons of c02, which is like taking 11,000 vehicles off the road. Wow, that is pretty, pretty impressive. Henry, look, i want to turn back to solar for a second. Perovskite is the material youve been working on. What is it, how does it work, and why is it such an improvement and such a possibility for the revolution of Solar Power . Perovskite is a crystal structure. One of the unique aspects of them is because theyre composed of three different ions, we can actually change the composition of these ions and that changes the optical properties and electronic properties of this material. This means instead of using a single material to absorb The Sunlight, we can actually tune the perovskite to absorb in different regions and stack these materials on top of Each Other. Now, this stacking of Solar Cells on top of Each Other we call Multi Junctions, and the simplest Multi Junction is a tandem cell, two Solar Cells on top of Each Other. And the perovskite we tune to match perfectly silicon. It absorbs only the visible light and we let the silicon absorb all the infrared. And in doing that we actually fundamentally improve the efficiencies. If we made a perfect perovskite on silicon tandem cell, that would top out at about 45 . So weve fundamentally lifted the ceiling. And if we went one step further to anotherjunction, triple junction, three junctions, that would top out at just above 50 . So what perovskite does is lift the ceiling for potential efficiency and gives us a new path forward to go to higher and higher efficiency. So, i mean, substantial gains in efficiency here. How close is this really to being a real technology . Is this now, or this is far flung future . This is very near term. You cant go out today and buy perovskite Solar Cells, but were building a Production Line at the moment. Were 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 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. Its a challenging road ahead. Theres a lot of scale that needs to happen from the industry, and we all need to embrace it, and embrace this change. The technologys there, but if it doesnt get employed and deployed, then its 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 Cant Waste Energy in any form of action. I so when the energy is. Going to be challenging to harvest at large scale, were 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. Theres 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 solutions that are good for the individual, but the biggest challenge ahead of us isnt technology, its public acceptance. Its support for improved permitting and collaboration on changes to ensure that Migration Patterns for birds are known, and we dont site Wind Turbines in those areas or Wind Farms in that space. But there cantjust be a wholesale rejection of this technology because of the threat of something that would be negative. That collaboration is the real opportunity for us to work together. So its a partnership, really, its you delivering the technologies that make the future possible, and us adopting them and making the right choices to protect us from this growing threat. Thank you so much. Were going to move to questions now. This is the engineers clean energy. Weve been discussing the future of solar energy, Wind Power and electrical storage, and im going to ask who would like to ask a question of any of our clean energy engineers. Hi, im ajay gambier, iworkjust around the corner at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the environment at imperial college. I i would like to ask, i is it a surprise to any of you that we are now in this world where we are seeing i cost competitive clean energy that can compete with fossil. Fuels, or was that, in your mind, an inevitability, and if so, why . Im going to offer that to danielle. So, danielle . Thank you, yes. I think it was inevitable, and one of the reasons why most in this space would say that is that we can see these Learning Curves of Cost Reduction over time, over decades of time. In solar, in wind, in battery, in most technical arenas, where the certain doubling, for example, the volume of this Technology Being put out into the world comes out with a Cost Reduction. So each curve will have a different rate of learning. Solar was a 24 learning curve rate, meaning for every doubling of solar Power Volume out in the world, itd be 24 reduction in cost. And as you continue to see Volume Increase in these technologies you will continue to see Cost Reduction. Thank you so much, danielle. So we are now going to go to scotland, to alastair, who has a question about nuclear energy. Alastair . Hello, Today Weve got representatives of wind and solar, which are often portrayed as the two examples of clean energy. But there are still huge challenges with the amount of land required and Energy Storage required challenges which arent faced by existing nuclear power technology, something i would argue we really need to prioritise. I wonder if you think nuclear should form a key part of the clean energy mix, and should be a large part of the discussion today, and if not, how do we ensure we invest in and choose the most effective technologies that are going to make the biggest difference to stopping Climate Change . Im going to give that one over to kristian here. Nuclear, its a fair point, isnt it . Weve talked about wind, weve talked about solar, weve talked about ways of storing, but nuclear is here, and could do thejob. Why arent we talking about that . Well, the major worst Case Scenario is something that we always look at, and Worst Case on a Solar Panel installation, lets say, i very Worst Case could be a house burning down. Worst case on a windmill could be it tipping over. And crashing something. Worst case. And im not saying we dont. We engineer a lot of good safety barriers, safety solutions, but Worst Case is still a massive Nuclear Reaction. There are, however, being done tremendous Effort And Work on looking at nuclear options where that is not the Worst Case. So the effort being done there is going to bring nuclear towards a more realistic Part I of that energy mix, but i think weve seen so many of thesej worst Case Scenarios happen that the public acceptance to it is going to take a long time. You need a long time to be i fully sure that the worst Case Scenario is no longer a Nuclear Reaction that scales up in a massive meltdown. Thank you. And henry, i have to briefly dive out to you because i know you used to formerly well, you still identify as a physicist, albeit recently youve seen the light and come over to engineering. What do you think about nuclear . Why did you go for Solar Physics rather than Nuclear Physics . Well, on a personal note, i considered nuclear fusion, i considered working in fusion rather than solar at the outset, but itjust seemed too much of a long term challenge, still too far off really mainstream use, and it remains today. Nuclear fission works, works well. The big challenge is actually one of economics. It doesnt compete on cost. They have to be massive national projects firstly have to be done at scale, you cant do a small nuclear plant, its gotta be a large one, what do you think about nuclear . Why did you go for Solar Physics rather than Nuclear Physics . Well, on a personal note, i considered nuclear fusion, i considered working in fusion rather than solar at the outset, but itjust seemed too much of a long term challenge, still too far off really mainstream use, and it remains today. Nuclear fission works, works well. The big challenge is actually one of economics. It doesnt compete on cost. They have to be massive national projects firstly have to be done at scale, you cant do a small nuclear plant, its gotta be a large one, theyre big long term projects and they dont compete on cost. The cost of electricity from nuclear is the only technology that keeps going up, so the plants are getting safer and safer, but with that, the cost is actually increasing, so it will cost a lot. Then you can ask the question, well, even though it costs a lot, do you still need it . Because we can do it. Another challenge with nuclear is it produces constant power very well so doesnt actually do so well at offsetting peaks and troughs of solar and wind. So, my slightly biased opinion is we need to generate most of our power from solar and wind certainly hydro where its in existence and then use production of hydrogen or fuels and Power Gas fired turbines if we need them. If they can fill the gap for winter power, for instance, in the uk where we use the stored hydrogen, use that as a power source. So its traditional power stations, but using green hydrogen as the power source. Thank you. Im going to look for another question in the room here at the V A. Hi, My Name Is Shivika from imperial college. I just want to know about the future regarding the airborne Wind Turbines. What do you think that in the near term there is a future for airborne because google investing in airborne Wind Turbine system, weve seen one first Wind Turbine system in germany. So what is the future of that technology . So, weve had land, weve had sea and now were asking about air turbines. Im fascinated to hear the answer to this. For those who havent heard about this concept the airborne based Wind Farms are essentially like kites or tethered aeroplanes that are released up into the very high atmospheres, essentially at a very high altitude. They circulate and move around in the sky and generate electricity through their motion. Generally theyre much more costly than traditional wind or solar, and theres the challenge of taking an efficient Power Off of that kite or aircraft. So i think there will be a niche for this. Certainly i dont want to depress anyone� s ideas about going after new technologies, but its very much a smaller opportunity in terms of new potential Cost Reductions and scale. Thank you. And were now going to go to indonesia, a question about geothermal energy. Yes, in indonesia theres a lot of volcano. So, how is the potential to tap energy from this volcanic chain, from the island, from sumatra for power, and what is the risk of injecting water to get steam from the Magma Inside . So i think. Oh, this is an interesting question, isnt it, about the ultimate Energy Store here, really, other than The Sun. You know, geothermal energy, kristian, this is really the mother of all batteries in many ways. So, what is its potential and why, really, havent we spoken about it much today . Well, it definitely has i geographical potential. So the locations where it. Exists and is easy to enter into and harvest, so, for instance, iceland| is a great Example I of geothermal power. They are very close to that. And, as you say, in indonesia, theres a few different. Geographical places that are well suited and those i will employ that geothermal power, but it will be i a challenge to get it up to a scale where that power also is transmitted to all. Other places in the world. So having Solar Panels, Wind Power located more spread Around The World compared to what you have with geothermal power. So i think well see more and more geothermal power on the various locations where its possible to have it. The risk is, as you mentioned, its a challenge, an engineering challenge, to handle that amount of Heat And Amount of energy, but its still fairly solvable, its solved in a lot of power plants, so i think well see| more and more of them, i but the scale is really hard. Its hard to scale that up to cover huge Amount I of the Worlds Energy needs. Youll cover percentages, but youre not going to cover 100 of the world. The world is a big battery, but its hard to harvest it. | thank you so much. Im going to come back to the room here at the victoria Albert Museum and see if there are any questions. And theres one over to my right there. Thank you. Jane sutton from the royal academy of engineering. Just on your point about balancing demand. A few years ago, there was a lot of chat about a european Super Grid to share renewable electricity, and weve even had a presentation from somebody who was looking at a global Super Grid. Do you think thats possible . Would it be helpful to balance demand in different parts of the world . I actually want to let danielle Take That one. A global Super Grid sounds like your sort of scale with your quarter of a kilometre Wind Turbines. Yes, thank you. What do you think . Im so glad this question was asked because thats one of the. Theres actually two components to the rollout of a significant scale of Renewable Energy that we havent talked about. One is the ability to balance those demand changes over time and balance the geography and the Weather Patterns over space by connecting more of our regions together. So the Super Grid idea, evenjust regionally connecting within a continent, gives us so much more Flexibility And Resilience and reliability of our grid and reduces the total amount of capacity that we need to have installed, because were seeing variation that we can tap into if The Sun is not shining here, the wind is blowing there. If its very hot and sunny here, youve got hydropower or Wind Power, in another region. Connecting us will be a very big part of that. The second part thats quite related is demand response. So how can those who are transmitting and distributing this electricity get signals back from industry or homes that they can, without the user noticing, reduce the load, either change the turn off the Defrost Cycle of the freezer for 15 minutes, not even noticeable. 0r reduce the temperature of a cooling. These are the types of responses that we are going to have to get used to, its not central hub and spoke, were all part of this new electrical system together and having us connected and having there be signals going both ways from generation to load is going to be a part of making it a more efficient global system ultimately. Thank you so much. I think that that is it for questions from the audience, both here in the v a In London and from Around The World. Thank you so much for those questions. I have one of my own to finish with. Very, very briefly, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the gauntlet that is laid down before us of 85 Renewable Energy to be met in the future kristian . Im optimistic we will reach it, but it will require sacrifices in a lot of aspects of, well, Public Acceptancel and the technology we need to develop to solve it. Thank you. Henry. And im, you might argue, over optimistic. Firstly we shouldnt just aim for 85 , itll be 100 by 2050, and i see that very feasibly happening. Weve got 20 years of continued learning, 30 years by 2050. By the time we get there, the cost of electricity will be so much cheaper than todays cost, including storage and redistribution, that actually well see a Step Up in wealth across the world and many other places coming up to the levels of wealth that were used to in the uk, so i actually see this as a massively exciting transition. Its a daunting change, but if we embrace it, actually, this is the next transition, next Step Advancement for society and Well Being for humankind. And for the last word, danielle. So i would say i am very optimistic, knowing that prices will continue to come down, there will be more people with access to energy, living better lives, bringing more people out of poverty, because, not in spite of, this Growing Amount of Renewable Energy. Creating more jobs, internationally. My only reservation would be that there are so many people in the world who either think this is purely a technology issue, which is separate from their life, or something that they dont need to think too much about or be a part of, and as i mentioned before, the biggest challenge is how the public accepts how we manage to lobby our governments and we think about the priorities that we want to make in our society. And thats it from the engineers clean energy here at the Victoria And Albert museum In London. On behalf of the bbc world service, our partners, the Royal Commission For The Exhibition Of 1851 and All Of Us here, a huge thank you to our brilliant engineers, kristian Eikeland Holmefjord, Danielle Merfeld and henry snaith. Applause. Hello there. County tyrone in Northern Ireland was the warmest part of the uk on monday. And over the next few days, generally, its going to be the western side of the uk that sees the highest temperatures and the best of The Sunshine. The High Pressure is still in charge of our weather, so essentially it is fine and dry. Coming in off the North Sea, though, there is this cloud thats pushing towards Northern England and eventually it will work towards parts of wales and it could produce a few spots of drizzle, some mistiness over the hills. Mist and fog patches and scotland and Northern Ireland will lift, The Sunshine comes out and south of our cloud will get some sunshine across more so than parts of england, as well. Lets move northwards though into the northern aisles. Cloudy skies here, certainly pegging back the temperatures. But elsewhere in scotland, many places enjoying lots of sunshine. Temperatures in the west getting up to 2a or 25 degrees. Sunshine for Northern Ireland, higher temperatures in the west of the country, more cloud than for Northern England and particularly as you head towards them north midlands, lincolnshire affecting mid and north wales. South of that, sunshine, stronger wind through the English Channel affecting the South Coast of england. Many parts of the country and to stay with some sunshine, still some cloud in central areas, more cloud into the northeast as well. That is where we will see the Weather Front approaching as we head into wednesday. Still got High Pressure in charge, mind you. Still some stronger winds as we head to wednesday across more southern parts of england and through the English Channel. We still have this cloud in central areas drifting down perhaps across the midlands, wales, maybe even a little further south, allowing more sunshine in Northern England, Northern Ireland, and in scotland away from the northeast. Typical temperatures around about 21 degrees or so. But higher temperatures again across Northern Ireland, Western Scotland and this time in cumbria. Maybe not quite as warm in yorkshire and headingley, but should be dry for Day One of the third test. But more cloud and a cooler feel certainly, i think, for day two on thursday. That is because we will have a strong wind coming off the North Sea behind this Weather Front here, which is more a band of cloud than anything else that will stretch its way down towards wales and the southwest. That cloud tending to break up through the day. But with the stronger winds down to its eastern side of scotland and particularly eastern england, we will have more Cloud Feeding in here, much cooler on thursday, down to the North Sea coast, up to 15 or 16 degrees. Its out to the west that well see the best of the temperatures and the best of The Sunshine. Welcome to Bbc News im David Eades our top stories. Eight days to the Evacuation Deadline in afghanistan but can foreign troops stay longer . The taliban suggests it wont allow it. That is a clear violation, one thing. Secondly, about consequences, it is up to our leadership how to proceed. G7 leaders prepare to discuss what would happen next if the Rescue Operation is not complete by The End of the month. If their timetable extends even by a day or two, that will give us a day or two more to evacuate people. Because were really down to hours now, not weeks. Lebanon turns to iran to help with an acute shortage of fuel, as the country continues to spiral from one crisis to another