RMI CEO Jon Creyts shares project stories from Nigeria, China, Massachusetts, and India alongside the market data behind them, arguing that exponential growth in solar, batteries, and EVs is tipping the energy transition faster than forecasts predict. He also makes the case for energy efficiency and embodied carbon as the transition's most underrated levers.
00:00:04:08 - 00:00:36:24
Mike Collignon: But with no further ado, I want to introduce our first presenter, John Crites, the CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute RMI. In addition to just being a generally cool guy, John is an internationally recognized leader on global energy issues and climate change. Joining the organization in 2012, John has managed the strategy and execution of global research and collaboration activities in multiple senior positions at the organization, most recently serving as Chief Program and Strategy Officer.
00:00:36:26 - 00:00:56:01
Mike Collignon: Under his leadership, RMI has advanced market based solutions to transform the global energy system to secure a clean, prosperous and zero carbon future for all. So with that, John, thank you so much for being here today. And I, for one, am really looking forward to hearing what you have to say.
00:00:56:04 - 00:01:28:27
Jon Creyts: Thank you Sarah. It's such a joy to be here. Thanks to you and Green Builder Media for for 19 years, 19 years of really leading the industry and helping share that vision for for positivity and hope. And we're going to talk a little bit about positivity and hope, and specifically the tipping points that exist in the market that we all should be aware of, that when they add up, lead to a different vision for what's possible and how quickly we're getting there.
00:01:28:29 - 00:01:53:24
Jon Creyts: First off, let me just talk a little bit about my institution or am I? We're an independent, nonprofit organization of experts who work across disciplines to accelerate the clean energy transition and improve lives. We've been around about 40 years now. We're passionately nonpartisan and not ideal. And as a non-government organization, we have a mandate to promote the public interest in the public good.
00:01:53:25 - 00:02:20:00
Jon Creyts: So in doing that, we work for individuals, corporations, communities and foundations and government leaders around the world and always are trying to create that clean energy future for all. And that for all is hugely important to us. It means that we're advocating for a just energy transition, one that repairs the harms of the fossil fuel economy and equitably distributes the benefits of clean energy so that no one is left behind.
00:02:20:01 - 00:02:43:21
Jon Creyts: Especially the frontline communities, bear a disproportionate burden of the climate crisis while being denied economic benefits. So as far as our North Star, you know, all strategy starts with a goal. Ours is clear and it hasn't changed. We need to act quickly to avoid the climate catastrophe. And in order to do so, we must cut emissions in half by 2030.
00:02:43:23 - 00:03:12:20
Jon Creyts: And energy production and use specifically the burning of coal, gas and oil to power industries, buildings and transportation. Together, those account for 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That's why energy is our North Star. We know that energy is at the heart of the climate problem, but it's also it's also the key to the solution. So with that very brief introduction to RMI, I'm going to now talk through some of our team's latest insights on the energy transition.
00:03:12:20 - 00:03:41:26
Jon Creyts: And then we'll open it up to question and answer at the end. But first I wanted to share a few stories from my travels around the past year. I've been CEO for just over a year now and really show you some of the work that our team is doing across the globe. That gives us cause for hope. And I'm going to start by taking us first to Nigeria, where on a trip there last spring, I had the chance to meet the King of Mocha Town, situated on the edge of the grid right outside of Lagos.
00:03:41:28 - 00:04:09:23
Jon Creyts: Right? And four years ago, RMI worked with a local private developer, Neotropical Technologies Limited, to install 185 kilowatt solar mini grid with battery storage. So think about that as something, you know, roughly the size of what you would see on your local public library, for instance. We did that in collaboration with the local electric distribution company in Mocha Town, and they did it for profit, right?
00:04:09:24 - 00:04:35:26
Jon Creyts: They did it because there was an economic opportunity, the installation of that many grid in the town of 200 went transformed, live lives there, and the town went from having at most three hours of power every day to being able to keep lights on through the night. Suddenly kids were reading and studying past sunset. Storefronts stayed open and other work could go into the evening.
00:04:35:28 - 00:05:15:16
Jon Creyts: The mini grid also was used to power water purification. The bakery in a hotel, right? And so it changed the the whole outlook for the community. When I was there, though, just last year, there were some issues and I didn't realize it, but I was going to be put on the spot. Right. And the King, you know, told me how two ice boxes in the local convenience store had suddenly multiplied and become five ice boxes that an entrepreneurial arc welder had set up shop in town in order to repair farm equipment, that there were also 17 new air conditioners in town, and that, in fact, the town size had doubled from 200 to 400 people
00:05:15:16 - 00:05:40:26
Jon Creyts: in just over two years. Right. And so they wanted to understand what they could do and why it was they were short of power and we had to talk through that. Although the sun offers unlimited free power, the grid has to be expanded in order to support all the new energy. And so we made a plan to expand the size of the grid and indeed help that community continue in its economic growth.
00:05:40:29 - 00:06:12:04
Jon Creyts: Now, I want to shift from that very localized implementation to kind of thinking at scale, where I last summer I had the chance to go to China, and I visited the town of John Jocko on north of Beijing, which was the site of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. And there RMI convened a group of global experts from Europe, from Australia, from the US, from China to share best practices on how to run a high penetration renewable grid.
00:06:12:06 - 00:06:43:01
Jon Creyts: Now, John Jacko is it's in some respects an unremarkable city, right? It's about 2 million people. But it is remarkable for the fact that it runs on 100% renewable power, and it has clear skies and clean skies in the process. So here you're looking out from the top of the local grids, off grid operations center. And what you're seeing is solar and wind being, you know, kind of across the horizon as a proving ground for the rest of the country.
00:06:43:03 - 00:07:15:19
Jon Creyts: They developed some of the most sophisticated transmission technology to allow for load balancing between regions here. And the interesting thing is, China is taking this learning lab as a model for other areas of the country and is expanding it rapidly. So we've gone from kind of many grid implications and applications for local communities to macro grid capabilities that are starting to help us not just envision, but prove out the possibility of a highly electrified, high penetration renewable grid.
00:07:15:21 - 00:07:45:13
Jon Creyts: So let's let's go back to buildings, which of course green build is green. Builder media has been right in the middle of. And I want to talk about a location here in the United States where last last fall actually on November 1st, I was visiting Salem, Massachusetts and Salem, Massachusetts. On November 1st is after Halloween. So it's kind of I was post post cleanup on the North Pole after Christmas.
00:07:45:13 - 00:08:27:06
Jon Creyts: You could kind of imagine, and I was there specifically to showcase a new innovation with the state local energy office, with local contractors, with donors and public officials that we're all on site to see the future of net zero construction and what RMI had done there in partnerships with all of these entities, was to showcase how you could industrialize, retrofit technology and create dramatically reduced energy consumption through the use and applications of fully integrated panels that could snap onto the side of the building.
00:08:27:07 - 00:08:53:09
Jon Creyts: Right. So what you're seeing here is a picture of exactly the different mechanical packages that are attached to the building that include integrated heating and cooling. They include upgraded water and solar. They have super insulation, and we're attaching that to the side of the building quite rapidly. There was it only took about ten minutes to snap a panel on.
00:08:53:11 - 00:09:39:00
Jon Creyts: And importantly, this retrofit is being done without moving any of the tenants out, right? The final connections involve about four hours in each apartment in order to do so, but you can essentially industrialize the the retrofit of large scale multifamily, low income housing and beyond and do that in a way that meets people where they are that that supports grandma and grandpa and doesn't force them out of their apartment and in the process saves over 80% of their energy bills, which is a pure, you know, if you're in a low income housing project, that's a huge benefit that we're establishing in the process of also achieving climate goals.
00:09:39:00 - 00:10:04:15
Jon Creyts: So, you know, from the learnings in this project, we're expanding the supply chain, we're building out the capacity and the market in Boston. And we're looking at ways to expand across the country. And it's very easy to see how over just even the next year, we'll be able to take a site like this and go from within six months from planning all the way through execution, get a deep energy retrofit executed.
00:10:04:17 - 00:10:42:19
Jon Creyts: So that's that's the retrofit challenge. I want to rotate to one more place with you all and shift back to Asia and go to India, where RMI has been working with the largest developer here over the last four years, conceptualizing what an affordable net zero community looks like in India. This. This is a picture of Pallava city, which is a net zero community being built for 1 million people with passive cooling, with integrated green space, built to be monsoon resilient, not just for today but for 2050.
00:10:42:20 - 00:11:10:00
Jon Creyts: Right. It's a project that's being developed by Indians for Indians using the local labor pool at India. Costs for low and middle income Indians. Now this is a new build construction, and already 160,000 inhabitants have moved in. Right. They've got three phases of construction that's complete. What it's most you know, interesting for is it's an example of learning.
00:11:10:00 - 00:11:41:06
Jon Creyts: By doing that, in each phase, they've instrumented the buildings to understand the thermal footprint, the capacity of the building. They've surveyed all of the tenants to understand what's working and what's not, what they prefer. And so each different development phase represents a giant leap forward in construction technology, from choices of paints to how they use natural drafting within the buildings in order to create comfort without cost.
00:11:41:07 - 00:12:07:02
Jon Creyts: So these are real ways that we can see, you know, kind of the the world tackling not just the challenges of the energy transition, but also dealing with issues like lethal heat that are going to be much more prevalent in the global South and countries like India that are exposed to the worst consequences of climate change, and that that all is cause for hope.
00:12:07:04 - 00:12:31:01
Jon Creyts: So I've given you four vignettes, small and large, right, that are real signs of success and progress. And I started there because I wanted to give you stories that we could all latch on to and understand. The fact is, the prevailing narrative that you're all familiar with is that we're off track, right? We're off track when it comes to climate.
00:12:31:01 - 00:12:58:01
Jon Creyts: And I will say that's true, but there's more to the story. On one hand, we are seeing disastrous climate impacts and suffering devastating losses around the world disproportionately, mind you, by those who can least afford it. But also, new evidence is emerging that the planet's average annual temperature rise is already 1.5°C for the first time last year, we've hit that threshold.
00:12:58:04 - 00:13:25:25
Jon Creyts: So yes, we're deep in the climate emergency in every 10th of a degree matters. But at the same time, and this is the important point, right? At the same time, we know what the solutions are, and we're seeing exponential growth in these clean energy technologies, driven primarily by markets and economics, by innovation and competition. Competition. Right. We're reaching these positive tipping points much faster than expected.
00:13:25:27 - 00:13:54:20
Jon Creyts: And we need to recognize that because the headlines give much more attention to doom and gloom. Right. As my four examples demonstrate this transition, it's creating a better world in the process with cleaner air, with more employment, with brasiliense, with community. Right as all delivered as primary benefits. So I know I've said a lot there. Let me give you some of the grounding facts.
00:13:54:20 - 00:14:22:28
Jon Creyts: When we actually roll up the numbers and see what exactly is happening, because we're in a moment where exponential growth is possible and it's actually well underway in the power sector, for instance, solar and wind are now the cheapest form of new energy for 85% of people on the planet. When we look at cars just a few years ago, in 2021, in 20 cars sold globally was an EV.
00:14:23:00 - 00:14:49:21
Jon Creyts: Last year it was 1 in 5 cars. We're seeing exponential growth in batteries, you know, kind of which sit certainly within cars, but are also a critical enabler for the transition across the grid. And this is being driven by a combination of rising energy density or quality. At the same time that we're seeing falling costs as we bring each of these industries to scale.
00:14:49:23 - 00:15:16:13
Jon Creyts: And we're in the early stages of similar trends in heat pumps in hydrogen and other critical solutions. So let's dive into each of these in a bit more detail. Growth in renewables has been driven primarily by rapid cost declines. Over the past decade. We've seen a 60% reduction in onshore wind costs, 70% in offshore wind and 76% in solar.
00:15:16:15 - 00:15:46:10
Jon Creyts: This means renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels today, and importantly, not just cheaper than new fossil fuels, but cheaper than existing fossil fuel plants in many cases, right? In many places around the world, it's actually cheaper to install new solar and wind than it is to pay for just the fuel to operate a fossil plant. When this happens, we call it shut down economics, and it's the reason we see coal plants being rapidly decommissioned around the world.
00:15:46:12 - 00:16:13:15
Jon Creyts: We actually expect the cost for solar and wind to continue falling by another 25 to 50% by the end of this decade, and the IEA now estimates that will install as much renewable capacity over the next five years as the fossil fuel system has installed in the last 120. It's become clear that fossil fuel demand has peaked for electricity, right?
00:16:13:17 - 00:16:40:22
Jon Creyts: The world is rapidly responding to these improving economics, and the Global South is no exception. There are two. Cheap, clean power can fuel an economic boom in remote villages like Mocha Town, but also in major metropolises like Ho Chi Minh City. That's because this exponential growth is happening globally and in diverse parts of the world, as you can see in the examples here.
00:16:40:25 - 00:17:07:08
Jon Creyts: Countries in the global South have the opportunity to avoid the sunk costs, the physical risks, and the pollution from fossil fuel based systems and to quickly deploy renewable technologies. They're less hampered by legacy infrastructure, and they can immediately and locally distribute the benefits of clean energy. Keep in mind that countries in Africa, Latin America, South and Southeast Asia can be energy superpowers in the next energy economy.
00:17:07:15 - 00:17:46:01
Jon Creyts: And as cheap renewable power pushes in, electrification will deliver even more benefits. For example, with EVs, which are rapidly growing in market share today, seemingly in a chaotic pattern on the left here. But in fact, all these countries are following a very similar S-curve trend. They just started at different times, and change can be quick. Within a decade, new car sales can go from nothing to almost all new new sales, as Norway has proven, you know, the the rise of EVs does.
00:17:46:02 - 00:18:09:26
Jon Creyts: It has consequences and it means the end of the ice age or the internal combustion energy age. As EVs take over, we see that this happens quickly. In fact, internal combustion engine sales already peaked a few years ago and will likely continue their decline in the coming decade. As I mentioned, 1 in 5 cars sold last year was an EV.
00:18:09:28 - 00:18:43:21
Jon Creyts: By 2026, it'll be 1 in 2 cars, and China is almost there today. By the way, in 2030, roughly three and four cars sold will be an EV based on our projections. And around 2040, there's going to be very little demand left for from internal combustion engine vehicles worldwide that that is exponential change. And this is driven by prices, by consumer demand, by policy, but also increasingly by car brands themselves reinventing themselves as fully electric.
00:18:43:23 - 00:19:07:14
Jon Creyts: But the rise of the EV car isn't the only part of a larger story on the rise of batteries. Batteries themselves are on a meteoric rise in terms of market share, driven by ever improving costs and quality. Over the past 30 years, lithium ion battery costs have come down 99% thanks to the economy of economies of scale and innovation.
00:19:07:19 - 00:19:34:09
Jon Creyts: While energy density, which is really a key indicator of quality, has increased fivefold over the same time frame in the 1990s, batteries really could only work in very small applications on power electronics, where people could afford to pay for that high energy density. Then in the 2000, smaller vehicles such as mopeds started to be converted and were unlocked and cars.
00:19:34:09 - 00:20:02:03
Jon Creyts: And over the past five years, we've made amazing strides. Battery trucks are now rolling out, and the first electric plane and ship models are on their way as well. This combination of falling cost and rising quality leads to increasing battery sales, which creates a virtuous cycle. The higher quality and lower cost batteries become, the more they sell, and the more that we sell, the more the economies of scale and learning effects improve the cost and quality.
00:20:02:03 - 00:20:34:00
Jon Creyts: And that creates this virtuous cycle. That's been the driving engine of battery growth. Over the past 30 years. Battery sales have increased 33% per year on average, but are getting even faster now and are closer to 40% over the last decade. And those are only just getting started. As battery technologies scale in one sector, economies of scale kick in and battery costs and quality further improve, which allows batteries to tip the next sector.
00:20:34:01 - 00:21:00:10
Jon Creyts: The result is a domino effect of battery uptake. Electrified two and three wheelers and busses are already at more than 40% sales today. Cars are rapidly reaching that level as well and will be the biggest domino to fall. Light trucks and stationary storage are next in line. Heavy trucks will follow thereafter, and then we get to planes and ships as the longer term prospects.
00:21:00:12 - 00:21:26:29
Jon Creyts: To give you a sense of just how quickly the technology is developing. Just two weeks ago, cattle, which is the world's largest battery manufacturer, announced a new bus battery that has zero degradation over its first thousand charges. And as a result, they're offering a 15 year, 1 million Meyer mile warranty for it. Right. This is the level of technological innovation that's happening right now.
00:21:26:29 - 00:21:52:07
Jon Creyts: And as batteries grow, they're going to push in EVs and enable renewables to surge up. The result is a rapid decline in fossil fuels. Now I just mentioned cattle, which is a leading Chinese company. So let's look at the geopolitical implications of the energy transition for a moment. Technology revolutions happen once every 40, 40 or 50 years, right.
00:21:52:08 - 00:22:18:10
Jon Creyts: They're led by a central country, and they diffuse out from there. Chinese costs and deployment should be our frame of reference today to compete for the industries of the future, the US and Europe have to solve barriers to change like grids and regulations. China dominates production across clean tech markets today, but there's ample growth opportunity for the US and Europe to catch up.
00:22:18:12 - 00:22:47:29
Jon Creyts: Barriers to change are thus really just barriers to geopolitical power, and this competition will open up more opportunity for the global South. Competition between the leading regions is stimulating more investment in innovation, and will drive down the cost faster and further. That speeds up the technology transfer for the rest of the world, and hastens access to that technology where fossil fuel demand starts to decline.
00:22:48:02 - 00:23:22:02
Jon Creyts: But I also want to emphasize that cooperation has a key role to play, because we're facing this common crisis of climate change. And just as on a sports field, competition requires cooperation to establishing the league rules in the same way. On climate technology, we need to, as a united country and planet, involve each other in standard setting and technology transfer and trade so that the competition itself flourishes.
00:23:22:04 - 00:23:56:02
Jon Creyts: We've seen this kind of exponential change before. None of this, none of this is novel. This kind of disruption is well documented throughout history. During the Industrial Revolution, there was the rapid proliferation of railways, train transport, the telegraph and steam powered ships, and more recently, of course, in the information revolution. We've watched the internet, smartphones and social media take hold worldwide, and we're witnessing it now with solar, with electric vehicles, with batteries and beyond.
00:23:56:04 - 00:24:24:22
Jon Creyts: In each case, though, there have been skeptics and laggards, even even Henry Ford's lawyer told him that the automobile is a fad, but the horse is here to stay. But the superior technologies ultimately prevailed. The ones that were lower cost, the ones that met people. Would there be immediate needs? The leaders of the next energy economy are yet to be determined.
00:24:24:24 - 00:25:04:02
Jon Creyts: This time around, we can and must make sure, though, that we leave no one behind, that this transition is equitable, that it's inclusive and resilient, ensuring that clean energy benefits, developing and emerging economies is critical to meeting climate goals. We have a lot of work to do in unlocking capital investment and implementing solutions across the Global South, and in the process, we have to respect the fundamental right of communities and countries to shape their own pathways and to build the next energy system that meets them where they are and provides economic prosperity and security.
00:25:04:05 - 00:25:34:12
Jon Creyts: You know, the interesting thing is we as humans underestimate the pace of technology adoption. Despite the clear evidence behind the current trends, past trends of exponential growth, we seem determined to keep underestimating the pace of change year after year and expect everything to happen incrementally and linear. And that leads decision makers to underestimate year after year what's needed.
00:25:34:13 - 00:25:46:23
Jon Creyts: Which is a recipe for lost economic competitiveness. We're just not well-equipped as a species to think exponentially versus linear.
00:25:46:25 - 00:26:20:01
Jon Creyts: So what we really need to do, and what we're really talking about is shifting everyone's mindsets. Learning from our past and channeling that into motivation and a new sense of possibility and opportunity. That's the critical narrative that needs spreading. You know, we build to what we project, and if what we project isn't aligned in the end with what we need and what's economically the right way, we waste capital in the process.
00:26:20:06 - 00:26:46:17
Jon Creyts: Now, when you look and for the walks out there, right when we look at the fast and faster forecasts that are on this chart, we've used some advanced statistics to really think through what those are. And we those the fast represents the, the difference between or the pace represents the difference between what in mathematics is called the Gompertz curve and the logistics curve.
00:26:46:19 - 00:27:11:27
Jon Creyts: And when we back tested all of this data, like with the internet adoption, what we see is that the reality really tends to lie somewhere between these two scenarios. That's the world that we need to build to. This story of exponential growth and renewables is one of four key trends that will define the pace and scale of the energy transition in the coming decades.
00:27:12:00 - 00:27:43:06
Jon Creyts: Efficiency, peak fossil, clean growth and just transition. And we've really focused on clean growth so far. But I do want to call out efficiency in particular because it's such an important driver of pollution reduction historically. And it's going to remain so into the future. And when we actually put together efficiency and clean energy deployment, those two squeeze out future fossil demand, causing its use to peak and then decline.
00:27:43:06 - 00:28:10:22
Jon Creyts: And it and help us slow down the the potential overshoot against our 1.5°C goal as a planet. Implementing this transition in a just and equitable way is essential, right? And I do want to note that, you know, a durable solution involves everyone. And fundamentally, if we don't all the finish line together to a net zero world in 2050.
00:28:10:23 - 00:28:36:00
Jon Creyts: We all lose. So we're all vested in making this happen as well. But I do want to turn back to energy efficiency. And our efficiency has been a key driver in managing growth in emissions. But it's entirely underappreciated. Another way that we can think about efficiency is avoided energy. And for us at RMI, efficiency has been in our DNA ever since our founding 40 years ago.
00:28:36:03 - 00:29:08:13
Jon Creyts: Amory Lovins, our founder, coined the term the negative. And we remain committed to highlighting and accelerating the capture of this immense potential, because it's both the most affordable but also the most durable way of tackling climate, and because in the process, it makes investments in clean energy that much more impactful. By now, you've probably heard the double down triple up mantra that came out of Cop 28 in Dubai.
00:29:08:15 - 00:29:49:29
Jon Creyts: The relative scale of the carbon benefits of each of these are similar, right? When we think about doubling energy efficiency and tripling the capacity of renewables. So they're roughly the same scale. But efficiency itself, especially when we do it first again has that multiplicative effect of increasing the impact overall of any invested renewable capacity. When we look at the arc of energy history, each unit of energy is consistently generated more and more GDP over the past 50 years.
00:29:49:29 - 00:30:21:13
Jon Creyts: Since 1970, the productivity of each giga, joule, or unit of energy that we put into the system has doubled, right? We've created more economic value for each unit of energy that's enabled the world to get richer while losing less energy. We need to do the same thing with carbon now, right? Purchasing less energy costs money. So it only makes sense that over time, frugal engineers, businesses and consumers will find clever ways to bring more value from fewer inputs.
00:30:21:16 - 00:30:54:27
Jon Creyts: This simple observation is a key feature of energy history. From the beginning of the 19th century on, the average efficiency for a particular service has always improved for, for example, right since 1900, the efficiency of home heating is up four times and the efficiency of lighting is up 54. In the 1990s or 1970s. Amory Lovins showed that we'd see a large increase in efficiency that leads to a trend in energy productivity.
00:30:54:27 - 00:31:29:20
Jon Creyts: And he's right. Today, RMI contests, we're about to see another increase in energy productivity, thanks to the growth in clean tech, electrification and the wider end use efficiency. In the same vein as 50 years ago. Many industry experts don't see it coming. Now, before I wrap up, I want to take a moment to share an initiative that RMI is launching to measure and reduce embodied carbon, or the carbon in the materials we use, while also advancing energy efficiency in the built environment.
00:31:29:24 - 00:32:04:27
Jon Creyts: It's in partnership with Green Builder Media and it's called Home Builders Cap. We're very solution oriented here at RMI and we like to walk the talk. As many of you know, emissions from materials for new homes in the US as equivalent to the total emissions from some countries, RMI carbon free Buildings team launched home builders can to help home builders take the lead in understanding, measuring, reporting and acting strategically to adopt and scale profitable, low embodied carbon building practices.
00:32:04:29 - 00:32:34:22
Jon Creyts: I bring up this work in particular because energy efficiency, which I've just shared, is a major solution to the climate crisis that we haven't yet tapped to its fullest potential and embodied carbon. These two forces, they're not in opposition. They're solutions that address both, such as air tightness improvements. It's a win win scenario where airtight construction is an effective strategy for both improved energy efficiency with relatively low embodied carbon impacts.
00:32:34:25 - 00:33:07:03
Jon Creyts: We're delighted to partner up with Green Builder Media and many other partners and supporters in the building sector on this work. You can follow the QR code on the screen to learn more about home builders can and join our efforts, so elevating ourselves back up to 30,000ft, right? And taking a view of the energy transition from above, the combined impact of efficiency and the exponential growth in clean tech means that fossil fuels are going to get squeezed out of the system over time.
00:33:07:06 - 00:33:32:26
Jon Creyts: It's a changing of the guards in the energy system. The only question is, can this happen fast enough? Less efficient technologies can be out, competed by a more efficient entrance on running cost, both on the supply and demand side, new, more efficient technologies have emerged. The relative efficiency game over fossil incumbents ranges from 2 to 4 times, and we are indeed seeing this today.
00:33:32:27 - 00:33:49:25
Jon Creyts: Renewables, EVs and heat pumps are picking up exponentially, as I've shown. It would be a great historical anomaly if such efficiency gains would not transfer into a rapid technology change.
00:33:49:27 - 00:34:19:19
Jon Creyts: But the pace and the reach and the scale of this transition is up to us. History tells us that extraordinary transformations are possible and they happen faster than we think. But continued exponential growth in clean energy technologies isn't inevitable, and we need to drive similar exponential growth in heat pumps and hydrogen in plant based foods and restoration, reforestation in biodiversity protection and other solutions.
00:34:19:22 - 00:34:51:22
Jon Creyts: And we need to make sure that they reach everyone, everywhere. RMI mice co-founder Amory Lovins. He always says you can't depress people that into action. And he's absolutely right. All this, all this is possible, but it is going to require constant problem solving and innovation in technology and supply chains, business models and policy, and more. At RMI, we practice something called applied hope.
00:34:51:24 - 00:35:20:01
Jon Creyts: It's not enough to be hopeful in a passive sense. We have to will into existence that world that we so desperately want to need. And and when we do that together, we create a world worth being hopeful for in the first place. The energy transition is happening faster than you think. In Mocha Town and in Boston and Mumbai, and probably pretty close to you as well.
00:35:20:03 - 00:35:58:15
Jon Creyts: And when it all adds up, it's big and it's tipping markets. But we need more voices, yours and audience, audiences and the stakeholders you all reach talking about this exponential growth, acknowledging that it's really happening and amplify this louder, positive narrative of possibility and opportunity, that it's late but it's not too late, but later is too late. Thank you.
00:35:58:18 - 00:36:14:05
Sara Gutterman: Thank you very much, John. That and I did put into the questions or the chat box that if you do have questions please go ahead and send those in. Thank you to those who have sent them in. We're going to start off a couple of questions from Sarah first, and then I will get to some of our audience questions.
00:36:14:05 - 00:36:17:16
Sara Gutterman: So Sarah go ahead.
00:36:17:18 - 00:36:54:11
Mike Collignon: First of all, John, thank you so much for an inspiring and enlightening presentation. I always enjoy listening to you speak because every time I learn many new things, and today was not an exception. I really like what you have to say in terms of understanding the challenges, and I too have read recent reports that have confirmed that we have hit that 1.5 degree warming threshold, but that we also this exponential growth in markets is helping us reach those tipping points faster than expected.
00:36:54:13 - 00:37:24:29
Mike Collignon: So that's fantastic. You talk a lot about the global self and you talk about how. First of all, it's so imperative for them to leap frog fossil fuels and the level of fossil fuel adoption in terms of their infrastructure that, you know, kind of the West has incorporated in our history. Can you talk a little bit about who you see leading growth in the global South and how that plays out?
00:37:25:01 - 00:37:28:03
Mike Collignon: Is it Chile? Is it Brazil? What does that look like?
00:37:28:05 - 00:37:57:26
Jon Creyts: Yeah. Yeah. No. And this is super important. You know, there are 3.6 billion people, almost half the planet today, right, that don't have the energy they need or can't afford the energy that's available. Right. And so there's a massive energy thirst that exists out there. And if we meet all of that energy thirst through, you know, kind of a fossil intensive development, we're literally all cooked, right.
00:37:57:27 - 00:38:38:18
Jon Creyts: So we have to make sure that these technologies, these solutions all are the the the first solution pathway for these 3.6 billion not, you know, kind of the reserve path after the they trod through the well-worn path of fossil intensive development. As far as leaders out there, there is there a there's a lot happening in many countries. But I think, you know, you look at the economic growth and the pace of growth right now, and you have to look to India as being one of it is the fastest growing economy in the world right now.
00:38:38:22 - 00:39:18:01
Jon Creyts: It is an economy that is rich in solar, that is also greatly vulnerable to lethal heat, as I mentioned. And so it's created a political focus and a market focus that is enabling the very rapid transition. And so we're seeing all sorts of innovations there, and large scale solar development in grid scale storage and kind of built the build out of large scale pumped hydro facilities, for instance, in innovations around battery supply chains, specifically for EV adoption.
00:39:18:02 - 00:39:49:20
Jon Creyts: You know, when you look at the cost of a two Wheeler or three Wheeler operation in a city like Delhi, it's a quarter of the cost today to operate an EV as it is to operate an internal combustion engine. And so the economics are so strong that you've seen rapid, rapid development overall. And RMI is managed a partnership here with the Indian government on a program called Shunyi, which means zero in Sanskrit.
00:39:49:20 - 00:40:21:11
Jon Creyts: That's focused on how do we electrify vehicles faster and make sure that that kind of everybody benefits from these savings quicker. And already in two years of of operation, the they've achieved 500 million zero carbon deliveries of people and packages throughout India and garnered about 200 corporations that are all working in concert to build out supply chains and kind of elevate solutions.
00:40:21:11 - 00:41:09:29
Jon Creyts: So I, I do look at India as a place that has the internal capital, it has the entrepreneurial capacity, it has the great need, and it has the political motivation that it's starting to pace set there as well. You know, the second fastest growing economy in the world is Indonesia right now. And they are, you know, have been in the middle of discussions globally for the joint energy transition or the Just Energy Transition Partnership or jet P process, their earlier stage than India, but are thinking very much about how they industrialize in a way that feeds into and builds kind of supply chains where Indonesia can compete at the same time that they solve
00:41:09:29 - 00:41:43:04
Jon Creyts: their own problems of of green development and air pollution in the process. And so we're starting to see, you know, kind of their they're a large miner of nickel. They're starting to think about how exactly do they not just export products but build up the supply chain within within country there. There are others. Brazil has its own set of capacities and and opportunities that it's it's adding in.
00:41:43:06 - 00:41:57:13
Jon Creyts: But we are seeing more global South led solutions specifically for global South countries kind of emerge and benefit from this transition in the process.
00:41:57:15 - 00:42:35:00
Mike Collignon: Thanks, John. I have one more question, and then I'm going to kick it back over to Mike, because I know we have several audience questions. But as for my question, we know that that elections have consequences. And we have some major elections coming up in the US, in Europe, in India. And you did a masterful job of showing how market forces are driving demand for the adoption of solar and wind and batteries and EVs and other advanced electrification technologies and even energy efficiency technologies like pumps.
00:42:35:01 - 00:43:12:18
Mike Collignon: But clearly, if we're going to be able to scale at the pace that we need to, we are also going to need friendly regulations and policies. And so I know that that we all wish you had a crystal ball and could predict what would happen. But can you talk a little bit about what you think the implications are of the upcoming elections, and do they matter dramatically in terms of will they, if they go one way versus another way, will they impact the rate and pace of change?
00:43:12:18 - 00:43:18:21
Mike Collignon: Or do you feel like market forces are so strong that it doesn't really matter?
00:43:18:24 - 00:43:43:10
Jon Creyts: Yeah. That's a it's a great question. It's at the nut of so many conversations I'm having these days. Sarah, on on the geopolitics of the transition. You know, policies absolutely matter, right? There is no question. And when we think about kind of how to accelerate economics are important and the technologies that make that possible, we need to have the market support.
00:43:43:11 - 00:44:08:08
Jon Creyts: Right. So demand from the market that's pulling forward. And you need to organize that. We need to have policies that under that undergird and support those. And we need to have finance supporting those. And those four things are kind of what we need to put in sync in order to move the transition at scale. Policy is a it is at a fragile moment here.
00:44:08:10 - 00:44:34:25
Jon Creyts: And I think when we look at it, you know, roughly half the world's population is going to vote this year. So it's an election super cycle you know and more of the on you know, when we look globally there are autocratic options on many ballots right now. And we see overall a likely push toward a more conservative view toward the energy transition.
00:44:34:27 - 00:45:01:19
Jon Creyts: That that could, you know, without question, not just slow the energy transition, but also lead to additional support for the current incumbents within the energy economy that we have to be conscious of and aware of. You know, depending on what numbers you look at, somewhere between 1 trillion and $6 trillion today are used as subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.
00:45:01:20 - 00:45:25:07
Jon Creyts: Right. That's a massive it's a giant giant number, right. That that we look at that we're we're essentially putting our foot on the, the accelerator and the brake at the same time here that we've got to rationalize and manage some of that when we think about, you know, kind of election outputs, that is very much at stake right now.
00:45:25:09 - 00:46:02:09
Jon Creyts: And it's playing out in different economies around the world. The good news is, the more the economics showcase the jobs they showcase, the pollution reduction they showcase, the health benefits they showcase. In the end, some of the supply chain and technology dividends. The more this energy transition becomes a nonpolitical issue, right? It becomes supported by everybody. And right now, the big the danger and the frailty in this election is around so much mis messaging that exists out there.
00:46:02:11 - 00:46:21:19
Jon Creyts: That is coloring the view of how this this transition does indeed lead to much greater benefits, distributed much more equitably around the world, and therefore should be outside the realm of politics.
00:46:21:22 - 00:46:43:14
Sara Gutterman: All right, John, I got a couple of questions from the audience while we still have a few minutes. So I'm going to combine a couple of questions because I also have this on my mind. But it came in from two different people as well. And it's basically centered around resources. You know, what do we do to make the battery process more of a closed cycle?
00:46:43:15 - 00:47:01:24
Sara Gutterman: Because you'll have spent batteries at some point, but then also just acquiring the materials, the, the natural resources to make these batteries. How is this going to work when you have this exponential growth for a clean tech and batteries?
00:47:01:26 - 00:47:34:12
Jon Creyts: Yeah, Mike, this is again, this is at the center of lots of conversations. And at the center of geopolitics right now, it is the first thing. There are huge equity issues right around how we develop these new supply chains. I will say there are huge equity issues around our old supply chains too. And when we look at the bottom of materials, the the amount of material that we need to run a fossil economy versus a clean energy economy is about 300 times larger.
00:47:34:13 - 00:48:26:00
Jon Creyts: Right? So so think about shrinking the overall impacts of mining and, you know, logistics and transportation to a much smaller container here of impact. Now that doesn't mean that, you know, kind of cobalt mining in in the Democratic Republic of Congo or lithium mining, you know, in Latin America isn't going to have significant impacts. And we need to learn from, you know, kind of past experiences on how to equitably develop resources alongside the communities to ensure that that the dividend, not just the economic dividend, but the clean energy dividend, helps develop and grow local economies and in the process also ensures a safe and more secure world for everybody.
00:48:26:01 - 00:49:02:22
Jon Creyts: Right. That that is possible here, but it takes time. You know, we need to go go slow to go fast here and building up that that support. When we look at the numbers, we have plenty of all the materials that are required. That's not a constraint. Markets have responded very quickly from lithium, nickel, cobalt. You know innovation has taken many started to design many of the critical minerals out of the system as well, that are giving us lots of hope that that the market can solve this very quickly.
00:49:02:22 - 00:49:48:23
Jon Creyts: But we have to focus on that equity element and make sure that we support, you know, kind of just and, and thoughtful co-development with local partners every step along the way to make sure we don't create the same problems that we've we've made historically around resource consumption. The good news is, as you alluded to in your question, that this the prospects here for closing the loop and instead of having a throughput economy, having a circular economy are incredibly great here because the the materials are so valuable once you want to once you take nickel or cobalt or lithium and put them into a battery, you want to reclaim them.
00:49:48:23 - 00:50:17:11
Jon Creyts: And so the we have never been closer to actually snapping into focus a circular economy, because the economic incentives are aligned, the energy security and national concerns are aligned that once you bring that that those materials into your economy, you can keep them there and circle, you know, kind of reuse them rather than being dependent upon other countries to, to provide them in the future.
00:50:17:11 - 00:50:24:20
Jon Creyts: So that's important. All important dynamics and considerations for us here going forward.
00:50:24:23 - 00:50:36:24
Sara Gutterman: One more question. If I could, before we have to to wrap up, Judy wanted to know, are there similar efforts to homebuilders can for retrofits?
00:50:36:26 - 00:50:57:15
Jon Creyts: Yeah. So that is a great question, Judy. And it's one that when we look at the retrofit community, it hasn't galvanized here in the same way in the United States that it has in in Europe. And so that's an open area for.
00:50:57:17 - 00:51:06:10
Jon Creyts: Exploration and development here, especially linking kind of the, the.
00:51:06:12 - 00:51:26:19
Jon Creyts: The intensity of the carbon materials used in those retrofits. We haven't at RMI haven't tackled the retrofit market yet, but it's something that we'd be keen to exchange thoughts on and, and see if we can build momentum there for sure. Because it is.
00:51:26:21 - 00:51:42:05
Jon Creyts: A significant portion of what needs to be done, especially here in the United States. When we look at, you know, kind of the overall activities toward getting to a net zero building stock.
00:51:42:07 - 00:51:59:26
Sara Gutterman: All right. We are going to have to wrap it up there, John, because they want me to keep this train on schedule. But we could we could sit here and talk and have questions for probably another hour. So I want you to know that the audience was very much into your presentation. They really enjoyed it. They were very thankful for it.
00:51:59:27 - 00:52:05:04
Sara Gutterman: We are very thankful that you were able to join us today and share your insights. So thank you, sir.
00:52:05:07 - 00:52:06:07
Jon Creyts: Thank you Mike.