The way the world generates energy could look very different by 2050. By that point, most of our road vehicles could well be running on batteries. Industries will have converted to use renewables more or less completely. TSMC, which makes chips for the many companies who do not own their fabs, committed last summer to having its entire operations run on green energy by the middle of the century even though each fab can easily consume 100MW.
On the surface, flight looks to be in the same situation. The UK aviation sector has committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. But flight is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise fully. When it comes to large, long-haul aircraft, no one has zero-emission aircraft in their sight before 2050. For many flights, net-zero has to come about through carbon accounting even though electric flight is already a reality. You just have to be on a plane that is not going very far.
Analysts such as IDTechEx chairman Peter...