The world’s dependence on the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy could cease to be a reality in just a decade, if a multidisciplinary collaborative effort is carried out, according to a study carried out in the United Kingdom. Benjamin Sovacool, director of the Energy Group at the University of Sussex, believes that the next major energy revolution could occur in much less time than anticipated compared to other major changes that occurred in the past.
In an article published in the journal Energy Research & Social Science , Sovacool analyzes the energy transitions that have occurred throughout history and argues that looking only at the past can paint an excessively bleak picture that does not necessarily have to repeat itself. This expert indicates that, for example, Europe took between 96 and 190 years to go from wood to coal , while electricity only needed 47 to 69 years to break through and become the usual fuel of daily life.
Following this reasoning, Sovacool believes that the future could be different because scarce resources , the threat of climate change, technological improvement and innovation could accelerate a global shift towards a cleaner energy future. And he mentions some examples of rapid energy transitions that are often overlooked by analysts. For example, the province of Ontario (Canada) completed its coal abandonment process between 2003 and 2014; Indonesia took just three years for two-thirds of the population to switch from kerosene stoves to LPG stoves Nuclear-powered electricity supply in France went from 4 to 40% between 1970 and 1982.
For Sovacool, all these cases have in common a significant government intervention together with changes in consumer behavior , often driven by incentives and lobbying from interest groups. That is why he believes that the dominant view that energy transitions are long and that they take decades or centuries to take place is not always true. Of course, being able to move to a new cleaner energy system would require major changes in technology, new political regulations, rates and user behavior.
