Batteries should replace half of all fossil fuels within the next two decades, according to Rocky Mountain Institute. Their report ‘X-Change: Batteries – The Battery Domino Effect’ ascribes this success to ‘a reinforcing feedback loop between market scale, cost, and quality’. Batteries will replace half fossil fuels by 2045, they believe, provided quality continues rising with costs coming down.
Evidence for Batteries Replacing Half Fossil Fuels
Rocky Mountain Institute advances five reasons that batteries will replace half fossil fuels as summarized by Europe’s Energy Post. We describe these five drivers briefly in the paragraphs that follow.
Battery Sales Are Tracing Classic S-Curves
Battery sales have been doubling every two-to-three years for the past thirty years. This has accelerated to 40% with the arrival of electric cars. This in turn has created an s-curve effect characteristic of disruptive new technologies.
Battery Costs are Falling as Quality Improves
Density, or energy storage capacity is a key measure of battery quality. The density of the best cells has improved five times over the past thirty years. Meanwhile, battery costs have plummeted 99% over the same period.
A Battery Domino-Effect Will Challenge Fossil Fuel Markets
The positive synergy of rising quality and falling prices will allow batteries to enter new markets. Consumer electronics, and two, three and four wheel transport were trailblazers. Shipping and aviation will inevitably follow.
Battery Growth Will Continue to Exceed Forecasts
Batteries will replace half fossil fuels steadily, as they keep overshooting classic forecast methods. They have been exceeding statistical modeling forecasts for decades. This is the typical pattern of superior technologies.
Global Warming Will Strengthen These Trends
The drivers of change will sharpen, Rocky Mountain Institute believes, as competing economic blocks tussle for top spot. Slow steady growth is no longer credible. Human ability and determination will see to that!
More Information
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