Irish Examiner view: This may be the dawn of the clean energy era

Irish Examiner

3 days ago

Even five years ago, we might have looked at the head of the UN saying 'the sun is rising on a clean energy age' with the shining hope it deserved. It wasn't blind hyperbole last week.
Some 90% of renewable energy projects are now cheaper than their fossil-fuel equivalents.
A surge in solar adoption has been important, and the huge focus on low-carbon manufacturing from China has played a significant role. This should probably be seen as dovetailing with the country's policies around control of the materials vital for green energy.
And yet, in the face of the continuing rise in global temperatures, the struggle to encourage accelerated adoption of EVs (bearing in mind the vast number of petrol and diesel vehicles still on the roads), and a US administration that is turning the clock back on renewable energy, one might almost see António Guterres's statement as a pyrrhic victory.
Still, we could look at this in five years and comment on a remarkable turnaround.
Guterres is right to point out that a great deal of energy insecurity revolves around fossil fuels, and so they are susceptible to the price shocks that accompany wars, invasions, and other geopolitical events. He said:
'There are no price spikes for sunlight,' he said. 'No embargoes for wind.'
Let us look on his speech last week with the positivity it deserves. When it comes to hope, like the Irish phrase says: 'Níl sé marbh fós.'
It isn't dead yet, even if it is a faded shade of what it once was.
Real battles are for resources
History might, to adapt Jacob Field, seem like one bloody thing after another, but it seems to have been an endless resource grab. For example, the ceaseless scramble for raw materials led to the carving up of Africa by European imperial powers in the 19th century and the same of the Americas from the 15th century on.
Water is likely to be a future issue, but right now the flashpoints centre around things like rare earths (vital for semiconductors) and minerals that are essential for modern technology and green energy.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), subjected to what we would now class as crimes against humanity by Belgian interests in the 19th century, is as important to minerals as Saudia Arabia has been to oil. The EU has been working to secure contracts there.
America, however, has been improving its position, attempting to capitalise on ongoing violence sponsored by DRC's neighbouring countries such as Rwanda.
This as Donald Trump still harbours ambitions of annexing the mineral-rich Canada and Greenland, as well as securing a treaty with Ukraine that allows for US exploitation of its mineral wealth. All that, though, still leaves every country trailing well behind China.
China, having spent the last few years greatly expanding its influence through its belt and road initiative, has extensive footholds in Africa now, between mining contracts and loans to fund infrastructure. It has mining operations around the world, and some 60%-80% of minerals — including cobalt (batteries) and uranium — are within its orbit.
This has been seen as a security threat by some Western powers, and the thought is not without merit (even if some Western countries would do the same if they could). What if China simply cut off Western access to the minerals under its control? Or hiked all the prices? How long would existing supplies for advanced and everyday technology last? China has typically taken the long — some would say very long — view when it comes to economics.
It may well be the manufacturing hub of the world, but that doesn't mean it couldn't simply outwait the countries that have outsourced their manufacturing industries to its cities.
We live in a globalised world, despite the best efforts of some, and the phone in your hand or pocket with the cobalt in its battery serves as a reminder of just how delicate it is and how interconnected we all are.
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Making dreams come true
When it comes to connections, despite our own travails at home, it is good that we, as a country, still remember that there are those with greater needs than our own.
As reported by Imasha Costa in today's edition, there are now six children's homes in Sri Lanka that have been funded by Irish people. All are named after the towns that support them.
Initially founded by Wicklow-Wexford TD Brian Brennan, these began in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami that devastated swathes of Asia.
They have since grown in number.
While Sri Lanka itself has its dangers — Costa notes in a first-person piece that emigration is common, extreme poverty is endemic, and she herself was injured in an attempted robbery there in 2023 — it is something of a balm to know that there are oases of calm for children.
The country faces significant economic and political challenges, yet some of the boys and girls who have spent time at the homes have gone on to bigger and better things.
They are described as 'exceptionally talented … they have incredibly massive dreams'.
Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí.
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