Elon Musk says converting the globe to fully sustainable energy will need $10 trillion in investment, but continuing to rely on fossil fuels will cost around $14 trillion.
The CEO of Tesla Inc. said in their Master Plan Part 3 published Thursday that a massive build-out of solar-panel factories and metal refineries is required over the next 20 years to deliver renewable power generation and electricity-storage capacity to power the global economy entirely with carbon-free energy.
The white paper expands on Musk’s vision for a world without fossil fuels, which he initially laid out during last month’s investor day. “Earth will transition to a sustainable energy economy,” Elon Musk declared at the Austin event. “And it will occur during your lifetime.”
Tesla envisions improved grids powered by wind and solar, worldwide arrays of battery farms and underground hydrogen caverns to store energy, a retooling of heavy sectors such as steel and cement production, and homes and businesses heated or cooled by heat pumps.
The alternative, continuing to generate oil, coal, and natural gas, Tesla claims, is more expensive, with charges totaling $14 trillion over the next two decades by 2022.
Tesla claims that an electrified energy industry necessitates less investment and material extraction than the current economy.
Musk’s proposed global energy system necessitates 30,000 gigatonnes of renewable energy generation and 240,000 gigatonne-hours of storage batteries. According to Bloomberg, renewable capacity will be 3,214 gigatonnes in 2021, with the stationary energy storage industry expected to have 1,432 gigatonnes of capacity by the end of 2030. That would be a big boon for cleantech companies like Tesla.
While a cleaner world’s $10 trillion investment cost is large, Musk claims it is only a fraction of the global economy’s $100 trillion and is fully possible over two decades.
“It would be 0.5% of the global economy over 20 years,” he told investors last month. “This is not a large number.”
Under Musk’s scenario, the global metals sector would experience a significant increase in demand. According to Tesla, a total of $502 billion in mining capital expenditure and $662 billion in refining expenditure would be required to generate the nickel, lithium, copper, and other materials used in batteries and clean-energy equipment.
The automaker claims that $10 trillion in investments will enable the world’s energy grid to transition away from fossil fuels. Totals include the initial investment and 20 years of 5% sustaining capital expenditure.
At peak levels, the world would need to dig up 3.3 gigatonnes (3.3 billion metric tons) of earth annually to extract the metals required to transition to greener energy sources. Tesla stated that by substituting aluminum for copper, total mass might be lowered because the former has far greater ore grades than the latter. In any event, it’s still significantly less than the 15.5 gigatonnes currently taken annually for fossil fuels, according to the report.
There is also a minimal chance that the planet would run out of critical metals, as just a portion of present resources are required, and increased demand will motivate explorers to hunt for new reserves.
As expired batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines are recovered for reuse, recycling will begin to meaningfully replace new metals supplied by 2040. Other elements will be phased out or reduced, including using copper instead of silver in solar panels, artificial graphite in batteries, and removing rare earth from wind turbines.
Tesla stated in the document, “The electrified and sustainable future is technically feasible and requires less investment and material extraction than continuing today’s unsustainable energy economy.”
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