Solar, wind and energy storage provide unlimited energy forever without greenhouse emissions, smog, strip mining, fracking, oil spills, oil-related warfare, radioactive waste, nuclear accidents or nuclear-weapons proliferation. They have low requirements for materials, land and water. They provide the cheapest and most reliable energy in history, with the lowest environmental and social impact. And they offer the highest resilience in the face of war, trade war or pandemic. The faster we get to 100% renewable energy the better. In this talk I will describe technology, economics, policy, politics and propaganda relating to rapidly eliminating fossil fuels at around zero net cost.

Andrew Blakers (AO FAA FTSE FRSN) is Professor of Engineering at the Australian National University. He was winner of the 2024 Clunies Ross Technology Innovation Award. He was joint winner of the 2023 Queen Elizabeth Prize for PERC solar cell technology, which has cumulative panel sales of US$200 billion and is mitigating 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions through displacement of coal. Prof Blakers engages in analysis of 100% renewable energy systems based on wind and solar photovoltaics supported by storage for which he was joint winner of the 2018 Eureka Prize for Environmental Research. He and his team developed a global atlas of 0.8 million off-river pumped hydro energy storage sites. He is an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering.