Clean Fuel Sources Could Create $27trn Global Energy Market by 2050, Says Expert

Emmanuel Addeh 

The search for cleaner sources of energy couldcreate a $27 trillion market opportunity for manufacturers across the world by 2050, an expert with the International Energy Agency (IEA), Tae-Yoon Kim, has argued.

 Kim’s comments coincided with concerns raised by the African Refiners and Distributors Association (ARDA) over Africa’s growing population vis-à-vis  the demand for energy and the infrastructure needed to process renewable sources of energy.

But the IEA expert who spoke at the 2022 ARDA Virtual Storage and Distribution workshop on the theme: ‘‘Africa’s Road to Net Zero Emissions,’’ during the virtual event said that Nigeria and other Sub-Saharan African countries will provide a significant share of the world’s mineral resources that are critical to clean energy technologies.

He stated that fuel cells, electrolysers, battery packs, wind turbines and solar PV modules, expected from solid minerals like copper, cobalt, manganese, graphite, platinum, chromium, bauxite and others would spur cleaner energy technologies and a new industry for Africa.

Kim noted that Africa’s expansive land and abundant natural resources provide potential for production of low-carbon hydrogen from renewables at cost-effective prices.

“Without rapid progress on economic diversification, global energy transitions are set to take a heavy toll on the export revenues of key producers,” he argued.

Also speaking on the projected exponential growth in population in Africa, Executive Secretary, ARDA, Anibor Kragha, noted that fossil fuels demand and products imports would grow over the next two decades in Africa.

He stressed that a sustainable transition to cleaner fuels was imperative to addressing public health issues, insisting that coordinated storage and distribution investments were required to deliver Africa’s energy transition plan.

Executive Director, CITAC, Elitsa Georgieva, in her remarks, noted that the inability of Africa to meet half of its demand for Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), petrol and jet A1 fuel, kerosene, gasoil, fuel oil and others locally, amidst growing population remained worrisome. 

She noted that while technologies like electricity and biofuels like ethanol are yet to be developed and proven at scale for cooking, LPG remained an existing viable solution in the transition to fully renewable and emissions-free energy solutions.