The ‘Energy Transition’ Has Arrived. It Won’t Be Smooth

The world is changing its entire system for producing and using energy, and it’s a bumpy ride. The “energy transition” now underway will replace the very base of the global economy — fossil fuels — with clean power sources that don’t warm the climate, such as solar and wind. It’s a delicate, decades-long switch that’s sometimes compared to rebuilding an airplane midflight. And while the transition has created investment and jobs worldwide, it has delivered shocks as well. European electricity prices jump, for example, when winds slack off. California flirts with blackouts in heat waves because old, gas-burning power plants are shutting down faster than renewable energy sources can replace them. And some industries, like airlines, can’t run on electricity, for now. While the new energy system could one day be more reliable than the old, there’s a variety of reasons why the transition is proving so difficult, and will take so long to complete. These are some of them.

We need better ways to store wind and solar energy. Utilities worldwide, for example, are plugging lithium-ion batteries into the electricity grid, relying on supersize versions of the same technology inside mobile phones. But those batteries typically run for just four hours before needing to be recharged. Newer types of batteries can last hours longer — but they still can’t power the grid for days or weeks.