Courtesy of Foreign Policy, commentary on how rich-world advocates are pushing outlandish green scenarios that will keep Africans poor.

At the 2023 Africa Climate Summit, a coalition of 500 activist groups called for an immediate global fossil fuel phaseout and demanded a “new 100% renewable energy system” capable of meeting “all African energy needs with renewable, socially and environmentally sound, people-centred renewable energy.”??

The view that all sectors—electricity, transportation, industry, and agriculture—can rapidly and feasibly shift to an energy system that is fully powered by 100-percent renewable electricity and fuels has become commonplace among climate advocates, often coupled with the claim that renewable energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels. As early as 2017, various academics and nongovernmental organizations declared that all regions of the world are poised to decarbonize electricity by 2050 “for lower system cost than today.” The global energy transition, they say, “is no longer a question of technical feasibility or economic viability, but of political will.”

A new solar farm may indeed be cheaper than a new gas turbine power plant today, when viewed in isolation. But that does not make renewables more affordable in the real world. That’s because energy costs depend on the entire system supplying fuel and electricity around the clock, including the backup power plants required when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. Operating on 100 percent renewable energy requires energy to be stored, transmitted across regions, and converted to hydrogen and other fuels, using costly early-stage technologies such as long-duration batteries, hydrogen electrolyzers, home battery systems, or direct carbon capture from air.

No matter what advocates and policymakers say, these cheap, renewables-only scenarios remain theoretical and unproven even for wealthy countries, apart from a lucky few already blessed with bountiful hydroelectric or geothermal resources. It is even more difficult for poor countries, where big claims about renewables’ affordability (and the idea that poor countries can simply leapfrog from energy poverty to a 100-percent renewable system) reflect neither real-world costs nor the availability of technology.

Too often, climate advocates claim a consensus on the feasibility and affordability of 100-percent renewable power globally when such a consensus simply does not exist—certainly not among energy systems experts, when they consider real-world constraints. On top of that, most 100 percent-renewables studies simply do not acknowledge the additional challenges faced by poor countries. In these optimistic models, it is simply assumed that continent-spanning power lines will spring into existence. Clean technology costs are assumed to decline quickly and steadily. Vast battery networks appear, as do hydrogen and other renewable fuels sourced from excess electricity, making it possible to easily manage intermittent wind and solar generation. Solar farms and hydrogen hubs—a complex, high-cost technology—multiply across poor countries without any consideration for limited capital, missing infrastructure, or the absence of a large construction and engineering workforce.

In practice, all of these factors remain daunting constraints.

Explorations of the feasibility of 100 percent renewable energy in Africa are not just limited in their methodology, but also in number. A recent review paper lists only 54 research articles—out of 750 total—that look at fully renewable energy pathways for Africa, with the authors urgently calling for more Africa-focused work. Many existing papers are often limited in scope or sophistication and/or use generic cost and financing assumptions, making this sparse literature even less useful to planners in practice.

Only recently has some of this work included assumptions based on the realistic constraints facing poor countries. Even then, pie-in-the-sky assumptions about technology, finance, and other real-world factors are legion.

In particular, claims that it will be cheaper for African countries to use only renewable energy to grow their economies rather than a mix of fuels are unrealistic. Sophisticated research reportsassessing future clean energy systems for Europe, Japan, and the United States find that fighting climate change will require significant spending on new clean energy systems to replace fossil fuel infrastructure—with 100-percent renewable systems frequently ranked as the most expensive scenario of all. For these systems, costs are driven up by investments in infrastructure, storage, and transportation fuel technologies, most of which have yet to be demonstrated at scale. Papers claiming that an all-renewables future is a least-cost option for Africa generally ignore or downplay these costs or make other unrealistic assumptions.

Notably, many studies design scenarios whereby African countries decarbonize their entire energy systems by 2050, the very same net-zero target year that far richer countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan have set for themselves. Some analyses went even further by postulating 2030 as the target year for zero-carbon electricity systems in Sub-Saharan Africa or India. These papers are based on the notion that poor countries must commit to the same pace of climate action as the wealthy world. While at least 12 African countries aim for net-zero electricity systems by midcentury, these targets remain highly aspirational given limited capacity and financial resources, as well as technological constraints. Even if it were technologically feasible, there is also a demonstrated lack of interest from advanced economies in helping to bridge the financing gap.

Studies modeling 100 percent renewable scenarios can read like science fiction. For example, one paper modeling a renewables-only future for Africa by 2050—the sole study looking at the entire continent, according to a recent literature review—envisions that by 2035, the continent will operate enough renewables-powered carbon capture equipment to extract 38 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air per year and convert it into carbon-neutral methane and other fuels.