Globally, the world is struggling to generate 22 trillion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity annually, mostly from sources that produce greenhouse gases. By 2030, the world is likely to need 31 trillion kWh a year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The first topic chosen by WGSI for discussion was energy, and the first gathering was to be known as the Equinox Summit (evoking notions of that pivotal point in time when change occurs). Organizers knew that no single gathering could address the complexities of the subject and that a “silver bullet” solution to growing energy needs was highly unlikely. So they focused on a vision for a lower carbon, more electrified future that could extract ideas from participants about the scientific and technical nature of electric power by concentrating discussion on the generation, storage and distribution of electricity.<\/p>\n
Why electricity? Because it is the world’s fastest-growing form of end-use energy consumption \u2014 and forecast to grow steadily: net electricity generation worldwide is forecast to rise by 2.3 percent year per year to 2035, while total world energy demand is expected to grow by 1.4 percent per year, according to International Energy Outlook 2010<\/em>, produced by the US Energy Information Administration (USEIA). In most advanced economies, electricity makes up the largest proportion of energy use. In the United States, for example, electricity accounts for 38.3 percent of consumption (made up of 48 percent coal, 22 percent nuclear, 18 percent natural gas, 11 percent renewables and 1 percent oil), again according to USEIA, while transportation accounts for 27 percent (mostly from oil). However, the continued high price of oil in the decades ahead will likely accelerate the trend for the electrification of transport so that by 2030, the use of electric power will represent an even larger proportion of world energy consumption.<\/p>\n By 2050, global primary energy demand is expected to almost double from 16.5 to 30 terawatts per year. Meanwhile, global trends in technology development, information access, personal mobility and urbanization are placing unprecedented demand on our electrical infrastructure. The challenge is to meet this demand without further altering our planet’s climate: more than 68 percent of our global electricity supply in 2008 was produced by burning fossil fuels, primarily coal and natural gas, releasing 11.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. Most of this CO2 will stay in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years, continuing to act as a greenhouse gas that warms the Earth and disrupts the climate patterns to which our civilization has been accustomed (figure 1).<\/p>\n Increasing our global electricity supply to meet this growing demand, while reducing carbon emissions, is a monumental undertaking. As noted thinker Vaclav Smil, a professor at the University of Manitoba and author of many books and papers on energy and environment, has said, “A non-fossil world may be highly desirable, but getting there will demand great determination, cost and patience.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the importance of achieving both goals has been recognized at the highest policy levels, including by the International Energy Agency, the UN Development Programme and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Yet many national commitments around the world to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases fall far short of those needed to limit climatic risks. And over the past decade, coal \u2014 the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel \u2014 has been\u00a0the fastest-growing global energy source, meeting close to half of new electricity demand.<\/p>\n By examining the generation, distribution and storage of electricity, Equinox Summit organizers hoped that meeting participants could focus their collective wisdom in key areas and provide meaningful contributions to the global energy dialogue with possible scenarios that\u00a0help address rising energy needs.<\/p>\n In June 2011, with the full conference framework in place, the Equinox Summit:\u00a0Energy 2030 <\/em>was convened. It brought together 40 leading innovators from science, policy, civil society and business along with young, emerging leaders from around the world to meld their diverse knowledge and creativity into strategies that could help redirect the global electricity system on a more sustainable trajectory.<\/p>\n Participants were prepared with advance information kits, orientation sessions and early discussions that delved into details of the need to expand power capacity, increase resilience and security, and improve the efficiency of the world’s electricity systems. The multiday conference inaugurated a unique collaborative process \u2014 known as the Equinox Process \u2014 to capitalize upon the multinational, multidisciplinary and intergenerational composition of the participants. Outcomes from the gathering would include an immediate Equinox Communiqu\u00e9 with their high-level, collective point of view. And after months of follow-up, an Equinox Blueprint would provide a more detailed summary of their ideas, including “exemplar pathways\u201d that may help stimulate the global energy dialogue with fresh, long-term thinking about how science and technology might most effectively be harnessed to help address one of the most complex challenges of this century.<\/p>\n The Equinox Process was, more specifically, built upon these four core ideas:<\/p>\n The summit brought together 40 participants from 17 countries for an intense series of discussions over five days. They approached issues in the generation, distribution and storage of electricity via three distinct groups, involving:<\/p>\n The Quorum \u2014<\/em>\u00a0A group of leading scientists asked to attend the meeting as exponents of particular technologies that they believed could make transformative contributions to our electrified future. This group provided the scientific foundations for the process.<\/p>\n The Forum<\/em> \u2014 Among the innovations of the Equinox Summit was the involvement of young men and women in their 20s, carefully selected from among emerging, international leaders in public policy, industry and civil society. The year 2030 will be their world, and during the summit their role was to help evaluate and drive proposals for their “exemplar pathways\u201d to help accelerate and maximize some of the technologies proposed by the Quorum.<\/p>\n Advisers \u2014<\/em>\u00a0This group included veteran entrepreneurs, policymakers and scientific leaders who contributed their experience to the discussions and pathway development, ensuring the ideas considered realworld practicalities and implementation challenges.<\/p>\n Current national commitments to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases fall far short of those needed to limit climatic risks. And over the past decade, coal \u2014 the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel \u2014 has been the fastest-growing global energy source, meeting close to half of new electricity demand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Guiding participants was a team of Equinox Summit organizers and contributors. Jatin Nathwani, director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, and Jason Blackstock, senior fellow for energy and the environment with the Centre for International Governance Innovation, were pivotal in this regard. Overseeing the effort, behind the scenes, was John Matlock, a director with Perimeter Institute who is experienced in a wide range of public, private and science communication\u00a0activities. A full listing of content team members, advisers, board and other organizers appears at WGSI.org.<\/p>\n Members of the Quorum \u2014 the scientists with expertise in potentially transformative technologies \u2014 were asked to pitch their ideas for how the technologies might help address both the imminent shortage of electricity and the urgent need to rely on low-carbon solutions. They were specifically asked to address four core considerations:<\/p>\n Quorum members were also asked\u00a0to address the current state of the art, including key shortcomings, limitations and challenges; the technology readiness level (TRL), and the anticipated TRL at project completion with target level of performance (including technical data to support this); key technical risks or issues associated with any R&D plan; a suggested manufacturing approach for scaling the technology and any scalability\/cost issues; the impact additional investment would have on the project, and how much might be necessary to achieve objectives, how the technology could be transitioned by 2030 to the next source of private or public funding and what additional investment would be required to achieve full commercial deployment.<\/p>\n As if this wasn’t enough of a challenge for one conference, WGSI founders were also keen to ensure public engagement, believing that the meeting would benefit from general public audiences at all plenary sessions, online streaming of most events and live broadcast of panel discussions. Although this is unusual for a science and technology conference involving highly detailed content, a strong science communication partnership between Perimeter Institute and TVO, Ontario’s\u00a0public educational media organization, made it possible. The two regularly collaborate on bringing together interesting minds and sharing important ideas with the world in clear and highly visual ways. TVO’s involvement became a key feature of the Equinox Summit, helping to energize participants. And the on-demand playbacks of the public activities continue to inform wider audiences on energy issues. Below is a list of the plenaries that kicked off each day’s discussions (box 1).<\/p>\n The mix of summit activities for participants included morning plenaries where technologies were pitched\u00a0(along with “benchmark videos\u201d outlining the obstacles faced in generation, storage and distribution), providing a foundation for the day, followed by private working sessions and breakout groups to examine finergrain details. Summaries from the groups were captured in the late afternoon as the public enjoyed an extra track of special lectures. The evening periods began with private working dinners to solidify the day’s findings and concluded with live broadcasts of The Agenda with Steve Paikin<\/em> in which various participants of the conference took part. Most closed working sessions through the daily schedule operated under Chatham House rules as, inside, were select journalists from Nature, Scientific American, the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, among others, who were free to report the discussions but not identify or reveal the affiliation of those speaking. The combination of\u00a0private and public events with science communicators all around was a motivating force for participants intent on converging on clear outcomes. And it was fascinating to see, away from the organized activities, so many spontaneous, invigorated and animated exchanges taking place throughout the institute’s interactive areas. For many of the senior authorities involved, the stimulating interaction they had with the Forum \u2014 “very, very bright young people,\u201d as one adviser described them \u2014 was the highlight of the summit.<\/p>\n When the summiteers began their journey, the global electricity challenge had been broken down into three distinct silos: generation, distribution and storage. Through their intense discussions emerged a clearer, more integrated way of making sense of the problem and thinking about potential solutions: a concept named the Low Carbon Electricity Ecosystem (see figure 2). This new approach highlights how a series of technological, economic and social innovations in different contexts can contribute to our thinking on transforming how society\u00a0approaches electrical energy use.<\/p>\n The concept of how to use the technologies discussed also shifted: it became clear that most of those systems considered \u2014 and those that showed the greatest promise \u2014 were often not innovations ready to deploy. Most of the proposed technological pathways needed to be further explored, developed, expanded or commercialized in order to be truly transformational. Some concepts had specific applications that might be niches, but would have a powerful impact; others were applicable depending on geography, climate and resource availability.<\/p>\n It’s long been known that energy from the wind and sunlight has great potential for low emissions electricity, but their variability and intermittency make them difficult to integrate into existing power systems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What became clear was that the Low Carbon Electricity Ecosystem concept could be applied to almost any\u00a0place in the world. And that the technological exemplar pathways were a toolbox that could be deployed according to local needs and abilities. These pathways \u2014 discussed by summit participants and elaborated upon in the resulting report, Equinox Blueprint: Energy 2030 \u2014 identify specific opportunities for transformative action and sectors of the energy problem that are amenable to improvement through science and technology. The summit’s findings describe existing barriers to that improvement and suggests how those barriers might be overcome. Each pathway includes not just technologies, but also a selection of possible policy prescriptions, interventions and action points that could help generate or accelerate change.<\/p>\n The Low Carbon Electricity Ecosystem became a simple way to provide coherence and structure to the exemplar pathways that the summit\u00a0participants came to propose, and the pathways themselves became avenues for imagining how to catalyze science and technology to help accelerate our global energy transformation.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/dasilva-fig1.jpg\")
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