For decades, arguably for the entirety of human history, those with control over coal, oil, gas, and even steam and wood dictated the pace of global development, currency flows, cities’ locations, production costs, national boundaries, and the determinants of war. That assumption is now obsolete.

Nikolai Kardashev, in 1964, presented a model classifying three types of energy—planetary (available on the planet), stellar (from the stars), and galactic (from our galaxy). Let’s take the first. Our civilisation consumes only a miniscule 20 terawatts (TW) of the 173,000 TW the sun delivers to us every day. The rest is reflected, absorbed or dissipated. However, our vastly improved grasp of various technologies is changing the equation substantially. The combined impact of a convergence of technologies is getting us to an inflection point that could potentially lead us to an age of energy abundance.

Solar power now generates electricity at the lowest marginal cost imaginable—cheaper than coal, gas, or nuclear sources in most markets. Solar’s diurnal rhythm is complemented by wind energy, with nightly and seasonal generation. Hydroelectric power provides reliability and grid stability, acting as a ‘mechanical battery’ for load-balancing and inertia. Battery storage—spanning lithium-ion, sodium-ion, gravity storage, flow batteries, and emerging chemistries........

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