A report published by McKinsey looked into the trajectory of the energy transition in the United States and Europe, providing a snapshot of the progress on renewables, batteries and heatpumps, as well as carbon capture and hydrogen.
McKinsey notes the progress has been made in the deployment of almost all of these technologies, especially renewables, the growth rate is not sufficient to meet 2030 targets.
When it comes to projects dealing with CCUS or hydrogen production, there seems to be an even greater risk of falling through, as many announced initiatives are either lacking a Final Investment Decision (FID) or facing lengthy regulatory approvals.
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In the case of carbon capture McKinsey says that the industry in Europe and the U.S. shows exponential growth, yet very few projects have evolved past the FID mark.
McKinsey published an infographic based on data gathered from the CCUS project tracker that shows the percentage of operational CCUS projects in the US and the 27 countries in the EU + Norway, Switzerland, and the UK:
While the number of projects active in this sphere is promising, the future of these initiatives remains uncertain, with final investments still pending.
Clean hydrogen production is another sector that has generated ambitious projects, with the EU having a target of 20 megatons of clean hydrogen supply by 2030 (10 produced domestically and 10 imported) and the US aiming for 10 megatons produced by the same year.
Data showed that both regions are falling behind on these targets, and production should increase approximately 25-fold in Europe and 20-fold in the United States in the following five years to be able to meet the 2030 deadline.
An infographic shows the progress in both regions:
As a general takeaway from the information laid out by McKinsey, it seems that there is a lot of action being taken in the right direction.
Still, to be able to meet all necessary climate targets on time, governments and the business community need to expedite and synchronize decarbonization efforts in the 5-year window ahead of us.
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