Professors Eric Beinhocker, Doyne Farmer, and Cameron Hepburn published an opinion piece in Bloomberg that summarises the conclusions of a broad set of studies produced by INET Oxford researchers over the past several years. Key contributors to that research include Francois Lafond, Rupert Way, Matt Ives, and Penny Mealy. The article highlights our academic work showing that renewable energy technology costs have plummeted exponentially over decades following a learning curve, or “Wright’s Law”. In contrast, fossil fuels have not followed Wright’s Law and have roughly the same costs as they did over a century ago. The progress of renewable energy technologies down Wright’s Law learning curves is highly predictable and this has enormous implications for climate and energy policy. Namely, that a major, accelerated push to deploy renewables and drive out carbon emitting fossil fuels is likely to lower energy costs by trillions of dollars. So not only is a policy push on renewables necessary for the environment, but would be a big boost to the economy. This reverses decades of conventional wisdom that our clean energy future would cost more than our fossil fuel present.
Read the Bloomberg piece here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-23/biden-s-faster-solar-power-plan-will-make-energy-cheaper?srnd=opinion
In addition, leading environmental activist Bill McKibben recently posted an excellent summary of INET Oxford’s work in his blog The Crucial Years: https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/were-finally-catching-a-break-in
The working paper referred to in the Bloomberg piece and McKibben’s post can be found here: https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/files/energy_transition_paper-INET-working-paper.pdf
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