There are many questions, still open, about the world of renewable sources: when will mass electric transport take off? When will batteries solve the problem of the laws of physics for everyone, in an extensive and economically sustainable way, by allowing the accumulation of electricity over time? How will the new world of energy self-produced by citizens spread? Will it help eradicate energy poverty, in Africa and beyond?
These are the questions that Valeria Termini, professor of political economy at the Roma Tre University, tries to answer in her new book “The Renewable World” (166 pages, LUISS University Press) which investigates the epochal change that characterizes our time.
The book will be presented in Rome next February 14 starting at 17pm, at the Institute of the Italian Treccani Encyclopaedia, Palazzo Mattei in Paganica, by two personalities of the caliber of Giuliano Amato and Enrico Giovannini with the coordination of Paolo Mieli and an introductory greeting by Massimo Bray. It will be an opportunity to discuss the economy and sustainable growth, two particularly current topics. The book was written together with Lorenzo Colantoni, a researcher at the Istituto Affari Internazionali and specialized in energy and the environment Romano Prodi edited the preface
Technological progress has pushed down the costs of solar and wind energy making them competitive with those of oil, coal and natural gas – which today represent the main source of energy – proposing a real alternative for generating electricity. For example, cheaper batteries enable the production of high-performance electric vehicles, encouraging consumers to switch from petrol engines to cleaner and faster cars. Just the quick growth of electric vehicles in turn it will lead to an increase in the demand for renewable energy, and which may lead to the end of the oil age.
Valeria Termini has returned to full-time teaching (she is also a senior fellow at the LUISS School of European Political Economy) after seven years on the recently concluded board of the Energy Authority. She is therefore one of the leading experts in the field. Her analysis goes so far as to give a precise indication: in thethirty years the great change will be accomplished and the economic dynamics and social adaptation will lead to a renewable world. This conclusion is reached not by ideological intuition but on the basis of economic analysis, careful study of data and a careful look at the evolution of institutions, especially in Europe where the process has started but also in Africa where clean energy will , finally, source of development.
In conclusion, capitalism does not live without growth but the solution to the problems of pollution is not in "happy degrowth": renewables will be the energy source of the XNUMXst century, with a significant impact on global societies and economies and already represent a bridge for a more sustainable future. The revolution triggered will be irreversible.
