Getting to Zero: Deep Decarbonisation

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The speaker in this video, Jesse Jenkins, discusses the complexity of deep decarbonization of power. As renewables are deployed in larger quantity they begin to lose value. In turn, firm power sources gain value. The speaker discusses sources of low carbon firm power sources: nuclear, fossil with carbon capture, biomass, geothermal, and engineered geothermal using hydraulic fracking technology. He also discusses a high renewable grid that deploys seasonal storage in the form of pumped hydro, thermal storage, and power to gas. There's also an interesting bit where battery replacement of peaking power is good at first but starts to lose value as it is deployed in larger quantities.

The end of the presentation is interesting because his goal is a decarbonized power grid and he proposes a risk framework on how to pursue an energy technology portfolio to achieve his goal. He thinks it is more risky to pursue a high renwable scenario relative to a scenario that includes low carbon firm power sources. 

His team ran through over 1,000 energy portfolio scenarios but he doesn't know where we will end up because it depends on how cost structures evolve in the future.