The Molecular Love Story That Could Help Power the World | Olivia Breese | TED

The economic cost alone of the loss of nature and biodiversity

arising out of the unabated release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

is estimated at about 44 trillion dollars.

We need to reimagine the way the world produces,

consumes and prices energy,

and we need to do it now.

And so I'm here to tell you a love story.

The lovers in this story might seem mismatched,

but their love has the power to change the world

by reimagining the global energy system.

It's a story we all need to understand.

A story with a complicated meet cute,

but ultimately a simple resolution.

It's the story of an electron and a water molecule.

Now in order to truly empathize with my electron's narrative arc,

you need to know a bit about her,

her history, her personality.

Electrons have powered the modern world since the 19th century,

when scientists discovered that using magnets and coils of wire,

they could turn a flow of motion into electrons carrying energy.

That was just the beginning of our increasingly electrified existence.

Behind almost everything we do,

there are supply chains, refrigeration systems,

data centers and much, much more.

And so it's perhaps not surprising

that the global production of electricity alone

constitutes about 28 percent of total emissions of carbon dioxide,

because for much of that time,

electricity has been produced by burning fossil fuels,

which emit carbon dioxide as a byproduct.

But not our heroine.

She's a green electron.

Her energy comes from the sun, the wind, the tide.

An unlimited renewable resource

which produces electricity without emitting any carbon dioxide.

And there is good news here.

The share of green electrons in the global electricity system

is approximately 30 percent,

and it's rising rapidly.

So in that case,

addressing climate change should be easy.

We just need to electrify everything

and make sure that we have enough green electrons like her to power it.

No.

I identify very strongly with the green electron,

perhaps because I've spent virtually all my professional life

working to deliver her at the greatest possible volume

and the lowest possible cost.

But our green electron can't save the world on her own.

And that's why this is a love story and not a coming-of-age narrative.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Electrons can't save the world alone. Yep.

The world also needs molecules.

Now I think of molecules, if not as exactly opposite to electrons,

certainly as complementary.

If I were to ascribe a personality to a molecule,

it would be consistent,

reliable, self-contained.

Unlike electrons,

molecules are excellent at storing and releasing energy efficiently.

They're critical for industrial processes

which need the intense heat which comes from burning of fuel.

They're essential for long-distance shipping and aviation,

which need to store, transport and release energy efficiently.

But these sectors, which are critical to the global economy,

they can't be electrified efficiently.

And these hard-to-electrify sectors,

they currently equate to about 30 percent of total annual carbon dioxide emissions

because virtually all their molecules come from fossil fuels.

And until recently there wasn't a viable alternative

to obtaining those molecules from fossil fuels.

And so no credible route to net zero,

no possibility of reimagining the global energy system,

no world that runs entirely on green energy.

But …

here enters our second lover.

Our molecule of H2O.

Water.

Not a traditional pairing with electricity,

but as Emily Dickinson reminds us,

the heart wants what it wants.

(Laughter)

And so our love story goes like this.

The green electron and the water molecule meet.

They feel a spark. They fall in love.

And from that love is born a green molecule.

A molecule which can store and release energy

without any fossil fuels getting involved.

Or, if you prefer the scientific version:

using electrolysis,

the power of green electrons can be used to split water into its constituent parts,

oxygen and hydrogen,

leaving us with hydrogen, H2.

Hydrogen is an extremely flexible fuel.

It can be burnt to provide energy

for heat-intensive processes like steel production.

It can be synthesized with biogenic carbon,

nonfossil-based carbon,

to produce methanol,

and that methanol can be used to decarbonize the chemical industry

or as a fuel for long-distance shipping.

That methanol can be further synthesized into e-kerosene, jet fuel,

which raises the possibility of emissions-free long-distance aviation.

Or finally, hydrogen can be synthesized with nitrogen to produce ammonia.

So now surely I'm going to tell you that they all lived happily ever after,

like all the great love stories,

in a world that runs entirely on green energy.

But no.

Because at the current rate of progress,

of deploying, scaling up these technologies,

we are absolutely not on track to achieve a one-and-a-half-degree pathway.

But we are still writing this story.

We know that industry can scale up these breakthrough technologies

very rapidly

because at Ørsted, we’ve done this before.

In 1991, we installed the world's first offshore wind turbine,

so close to shore you could swim around it.

Back then, offshore wind was expensive.

It was widely considered to be uneconomically viable.

It was based on immature technology.

There was a lot of doubt about its long-term viability.

But we committed to bring down costs.

We optimized every component.

We worked with the supply chain

so that they could invest in their manufacturing capacity.

And as the European policymakers saw that we and the industry,

the progress that we were making on cost and on efficiency,

they reimagined the European electricity system

to put offshore wind as a critical pillar of it.

And the US and Asian markets --

like Japan, Korea, Taiwan and of course China -- have followed.

And now we need to take the green molecule on the same journey,

but much faster.

In May, we broke ground on Europe’s largest e-methanol plant,

in northern Sweden.

In 2025, when it's operational,

it will produce enough green methanol

to power one oceangoing container vessel.

We’re already planning the next, five to eight times the size.

In the US, on the Gulf Coast and all over the world,

developers like us are working with companies

who want to defossilize their operations to build green hydrogen projects.

But the global energy system cannot be defossilized by individuals,

even those in love.

Not by individual projects, no matter their scale,

not by individual companies.

Even whole countries acting alone

cannot transform the global energy system

away from one which is dependent on fossil fuels.

Until now, the price of fossil fuels

has not reflected the true cost

of the unabated release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

It does not reflect the costs of adaptation and mitigation

to a changing climate.

And so those costs, they fall on all of us.

Inevitably, they fall on us inequitably.

And that must change.

Too often, the costs of defossilization,

whether of companies, cities, countries,

is dismissed as too expensive.

And yet, if the price of fossil fuels reflected their true cost,

the economic imperative would be to seek out the defossilized version.

The economic imperative would be

to scale up these solutions we already have at hand.

A world which runs entirely on green energy,

it's not a luxury,

it's a necessity.

(Applause)

And so to come back, finally, to my love story.

In the UK, where I'm from,

there's a moment in the wedding ceremony

which recognizes the importance of communal action.

It’s my favorite moment every time,

because it reflects the fact that marriage is an intensely private act.

But families, families of all kinds,

it's a societal endeavor, it's a product,

it's a component of society,

just like my love story.

And so in this, the story of the electron and the water molecule

who meet, fall in love, who produce the green electron,

who has the power to reimagine the world's energy system.

I believe that they and therefore we

can live happily ever after,

but only, as in the marriage ceremony,

only with the support of their family and friends.

In the UK, the traditional response to the question,

"Will you support and uphold the newlyweds now and in the years to come,"

is, "We will."

And for our lovers?

Will we?

Their family and friends?

Government? Industry?

Society? Consumers? Voters?

Will we support and uphold them?

We need to.

We must. We will.

Thank you.

(Applause)