The long, fun list of things we could do with unlimited clean energy – vox.com

Report on Abundant Clean Energy and its Role in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

Executive Summary

The transition to abundant, affordable, and clean energy presents a transformative opportunity to accelerate progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Historically, energy availability has been a primary driver of prosperity, yet its cost and environmental impact have imposed significant constraints. The rapid scaling of new clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, and advanced storage, offers a pathway to overcome these limitations. This report analyzes the potential for abundant clean energy to address critical global challenges related to food security, water access, climate action, and industrial innovation, while also considering the socio-economic challenges inherent in such a transition.

Advancing SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy as a Foundational Goal

The core of this transition is the achievement of SDG 7, which seeks to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. Current trends indicate a significant shift in the global energy landscape:

• Global investment in clean energy is projected to reach $2.2 trillion, encompassing renewables, grid modernization, energy storage, and efficiency improvements.
• In 2024, renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydropower constituted 92% of new electricity capacity added worldwide.
• The increasing deployment of clean energy is driven not only by environmental imperatives but by its growing economic competitiveness, making it a viable solution for expanding energy access and meeting rising global demand.

Achieving SDG 7 is the catalyst for progress on numerous other development goals, unlocking new potential for industry, agriculture, and human well-being.

Impact on Key Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 2: Zero Hunger and Sustainable Agriculture

Abundant clean energy can revolutionize the global food system, directly contributing to SDG 2 by enhancing food security and promoting sustainable agriculture.

1. Increased Agricultural Productivity: Powering the production of zero-emissions fertilizers and electrifying farm machinery can increase crop yields on existing land, reducing the need for deforestation (a key target for SDG 15).
2. Sustainable Food Production: Technologies like vertical farming, which require significant energy for lighting and climate control, can be scaled up to produce food year-round in or near urban centers, strengthening local food systems (contributing to SDG 11).
3. Innovative Food Sources: Precision fermentation and cultivated meat production, both energy-intensive processes, offer pathways to produce proteins with a fraction of the land, water, and emissions of traditional livestock farming. This directly addresses the environmental impact of agriculture, which accounts for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

Access to clean water, the focus of SDG 6, can be significantly expanded through energy-intensive technologies made viable by low-cost renewable power.

• Water Desalination: The primary barrier to large-scale desalination of seawater is its high energy consumption. Abundant, cheap electricity would enable coastal communities to secure a reliable source of fresh water, alleviating pressure on over-stressed rivers and aquifers and mitigating water-related political conflicts.

SDG 13: Climate Action

The transition to clean energy is fundamental to achieving SDG 13. Beyond emissions reduction, abundant energy enables large-scale carbon management and removal, which is critical for mitigating climate change.

• Decarbonization of Industry: Energy-intensive sectors like steel production can be decarbonized using point-source carbon capture technologies, which become more economically feasible with low-cost power.
• Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR): Technologies such as Direct Air Capture (DAC) and enhanced weathering require substantial energy inputs. Lowering energy costs is essential to scaling these solutions to remove gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere and work towards negative emissions.
• Carbon Utilization: Captured CO2 can be converted into valuable products, including synthetic fuels, polymers, and construction materials, creating a circular carbon economy that supports SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).

SDG 9 and SDG 11: Industry, Innovation, Infrastructure, and Sustainable Communities

A surplus of clean energy can foster innovation in industry and transportation, leading to more sustainable infrastructure and cities.

1. Sustainable Transportation: While passenger vehicles are electrifying, decarbonizing heavy transport like shipping and aviation requires synthetic fuels (e.g., hydrogen, ammonia). The production of these fuels is energy-intensive and depends on the availability of cheap, clean electricity.
2. Circular Economy: Achieving a true circular economy, as envisioned in SDG 12, involves energy-intensive recycling and reconstitution of materials like plastics. Low-cost energy makes these processes competitive with virgin material production, minimizing waste and resource extraction.
3. Digital Infrastructure: The growing energy demand from data centers and artificial intelligence can be met sustainably. AI, in turn, can optimize energy grids, improve weather forecasting, and accelerate the design of new materials, further advancing the clean energy transition.

Challenges and Considerations for Sustainable Development

While the potential benefits are immense, the transition to an era of energy abundance must be managed carefully to avoid negative consequences and ensure equitable outcomes, aligning with SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).

• Just Transition: The decline of the fossil fuel industry will lead to significant job displacement. Policies must be enacted to support affected workers and communities through retraining, retirement programs, and new economic opportunities, ensuring a just transition.
• Energy Equity: There is no guarantee that increased global energy supply will reach the 685 million people currently without electricity access. Concerted policy efforts are required to ensure that the benefits of clean energy are distributed equitably.
• Consumption Patterns: History shows that cheaper energy can lead to increased consumption and potentially frivolous use. Governance and societal choices will be critical in directing new energy capacity towards productive and sustainable applications rather than exacerbating inefficient consumption patterns.

Conclusion

The prospect of abundant, cheap, and clean energy offers a paradigm shift from an era of constraints to one of possibilities. By strategically harnessing this potential, humanity can make unprecedented progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, from eradicating hunger and ensuring clean water to combating climate change and building resilient, innovative industries. However, this future is not automatic. It requires deliberate policy, technological innovation, and a global commitment to ensuring that the benefits of this energy revolution are shared by all, creating a more prosperous, equitable, and sustainable world.

Analysis of Sustainable Development Goals in the Article

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 2: Zero Hunger

  The article extensively discusses transforming the food system through abundant clean energy. This includes increasing yields on existing farms with zero-emission fertilizers, developing vertical farming, and creating new food sources like precision fermentation and lab-grown meat, all of which are directly related to ensuring food security and promoting sustainable agriculture.

• SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

  The article addresses water scarcity by proposing widespread desalination as a viable solution enabled by cheap, abundant energy. It mentions that “desalination could be a primary source of water for some communities, allowing freshwater rivers and aquifers to recharge,” directly connecting to the goal of ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water.

• SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

  This is the central theme of the article. It focuses on the rapid scaling of clean energy sources like wind and solar, the importance of increasing energy access to improve prosperity, and the goal of making energy cheap and abundant. The text highlights that “a new generation of clean energy is providing vastly more power and rapidly scaling up.”

• SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

  The article links energy access directly to prosperity, stating, “How much energy a person uses is an effective proxy for how well off they are.” It also discusses the economic shifts resulting from the energy transition, including the creation of new industries and the “big dislocation in the job market” for workers in fossil fuel sectors, which relates to promoting sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth.

• SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

  The article is replete with examples of innovation driven by clean energy, such as upgrades to the power grid, new forms of energy storage, carbon capture technologies, synthetic fuels for shipping and aviation, and advanced materials. These innovations are key to building resilient infrastructure and fostering sustainable industrialization.

• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

  The article touches on making human settlements more sustainable by mentioning vertical farming that can produce food “nearer to major population centers or even within them,” and the electrification of transportation, which reduces urban pollution and improves quality of life.

• SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

  The concept of a circular economy is a key point, where abundant energy allows for the complete recycling of waste. The article envisions a future where “all of your garbage would break down into its constituent elements, destined to be reassembled into new shoes, cars, and refrigerators,” promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns.

• SDG 13: Climate Action

  A primary motivation for the clean energy transition discussed in the article is to combat climate change. It highlights that clean energy helps limit the “worst-case scenarios” and discusses technologies like carbon capture to achieve “negative greenhouse gas emissions” and “undo climate change on a planetary scale.”

• SDG 15: Life on Land

  The article connects advancements in food production to the protection of ecosystems. By making agriculture more efficient through vertical farming and lab-grown meat, the article suggests that “expanding farms will [no longer] continue to devour forests and wildlands.” It also imagines a future with “a nature preserve on land reclaimed from mines and farms, teeming with once-endangered animal life.”

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• Target 2.4 (under SDG 2): By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production.

  The article directly supports this target by discussing how clean energy can “get a lot more out of our existing farms” with zero-emissions fertilizer and scale up new techniques like vertical farming and precision fermentation to increase food production sustainably.

• Target 6.4 (under SDG 6): By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity.

  The article’s focus on desalination (“widespread desalination would allow the world to tap into that vast, currently undrinkable supply”) is a direct strategy to ensure a sustainable supply of freshwater and address scarcity, aligning with this target.

• Target 7.1 (under SDG 7): By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services.

  The article explicitly notes that “there are still 685 million people in the world who don’t have access to electricity,” highlighting the need for universal access, which the discussed energy abundance aims to address.

• Target 7.2 (under SDG 7): By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

  The article’s core argument is based on the rapid “deployment of wind and solar power around the world” and the fact that “Wind, solar, and hydropower accounted for 92 percent of new electricity capacity added worldwide in 2024,” directly reflecting this target.

• Target 9.4 (under SDG 9): By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies.

  The article discusses decarbonizing industrial processes like steel production through carbon capture and developing clean fuels (hydrogen, ammonia) for heavy transport like shipping, which aligns with retrofitting industries with clean technologies.

• Target 12.5 (under SDG 12): By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.

  This target is addressed by the vision of a future where cheap energy enables a true circular economy, allowing us to “close the loop, making, unmaking, and remaking everything we need with minimal extraction from the Earth,” thus substantially reducing waste.

• Target 13.2 (under SDG 13): Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning.

  The article mentions the global spending of “$2.2 trillion on clean energy” as a measure to “help limit climate change.” It also discusses deliberate actions like carbon capture to “begin to undo climate change,” which are large-scale climate change measures.

• Target 15.5 (under SDG 15): Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species.

  The article connects the transition away from traditional livestock farming to environmental benefits, noting that it would “solve so many environmental issues all at once,” including reducing land use. This directly contributes to reducing the degradation of natural habitats.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

• Indicator 7.1.1: Proportion of population with access to electricity.

  The article explicitly states, “In the year 2025, there are still 685 million people in the world who don’t have access to electricity.” This figure is a direct measurement used for this indicator.

• Indicator 7.2.1: Renewable energy share in the total final energy consumption.

  The article provides a clear metric related to this indicator by stating, “Wind, solar, and hydropower accounted for 92 percent of new electricity capacity added worldwide in 2024.” This shows the growing share of renewables in new capacity.

• Indicator 13.2.2: Total greenhouse gas emissions per year.

  The article provides specific data points for this indicator, mentioning, “The world emitted a record 53.4 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2024” and that “Humanity currently spews more than 40 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.”

• Implied Indicator: Greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector.

  Progress on sustainable agriculture (SDG 2) can be measured by emissions. The article provides a baseline: “agriculture accounts for one-third of humanity’s greenhouse gas output,” and fertilizer alone accounts for “5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases.”

• Implied Indicator: Cost of carbon removal technologies.

  The article implies a metric for measuring progress in climate action technology (SDG 13 & 9) by stating the current cost of direct air capture is “around $500 per ton” and the “goal is to get it down to $100 per ton or less.”

• Implied Indicator: Number of jobs in fossil fuel industries.

  To measure the social impact of the energy transition (SDG 8), the article provides a baseline figure: “There are almost 2 million people in the US working in coal, oil, and gas sectors.” Tracking this number would indicate the scale of the job transition needed.

4. Summary Table of SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Source: vox.com