 So here I have with me today Dr. Martin Keller who is the Director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the United States and Martin is here in Australia on a visit to the Energy Change Institute and he's kindly agreed to talk to us today about a number of the key issues. So Martin let me just start off by talking about your role as the Director. You obviously see many different new technologies in your laboratories and maybe you could tell us a little bit about some of the key technologies that we need to keep an eye on looking into the future. So Ken, first of all let me say thanks for hosting me here. I had a wonderful visit here to this campus, a tremendous amount of tours and great discussion with a lot of very brilliant scientists so I'm really enjoying myself here a lot. So as you mentioned I think there's a lot of really nice technologies on the horizon. When I look into this for example in the solar areas what is the next generation of different solar materials so we're having a very large program in in pair of skites and I know that your university also working a lot on this new molecules which could completely change the way we're doing solar panels in the future by combining this with new manufacturing technologies such as roll to roll or even spray on. It's very early in the research so we still don't know exactly how this will go but this type of technologies can have the way to revolutionize the way we're looking at solar panels in the future. In wind as another example there's a lot of very exciting developments happening where we're looking at this how can we even build higher wind towers which will require a brand new way of making them and so what we're working on is can you make them on sites so instead of putting them on railroad cars or big trucks to transport them from their manufacturing place to your site could you do it on site and this would enable us to go to higher hub heights which then at least in the US would open up wind to all 50 states so overall I think there's a lot of big innovations coming forward and I think we need to continue to drive them forward. And so with all these new renewable technologies as we sort of drive the decarbonization process forward what do you see as being the key issues as we approach a very large percentage of renewables in the electricity sector? So when you go to a deeper penetration of renewables sooner or later we will hit this that we need storage I mean there is there the interesting thing is right now within the community there is this discussion at what level do you need storage when you go to deeper penetration of renewables and right now I'm seeing this that it's getting extended out where a couple of years ago people said oh we might need it when you go to 30-40% and now is it 50-60% is it even higher it's not completely clear because we are learning also to work with different ways to control and the load and upgrade and manage this so but sooner or later I feel when you go to really deep penetration that storage will be one of the big things we have to get a handle on and also new control systems to work with the grid the grid will become bi-directional where we send the electrons back and forth and this is a big change from where we are right now. Right and so you know we can see a decarbonization pathway to 50-60 maybe 80% but what about the last 20% is that going to be really hard will we need to still rely on large thermal generators whether they're nuclear coal gas and if we do will we then need some way of offsetting that through growing biomass or through carbon capture and storage or other other techniques? I think it's the verdict is still out there so I think a lot of people right now would argue that the last 20% will be very hard but my argument over says well it's it's when you look at this how much we have right now we have even a long way to go to go to 80% so I think the point is let's approach this level and then we will see beyond that but right now the opinion is that the last 20% might get hard and very expensive suddenly having also the issue about seasonal variations and storage which is another problem but they said what if we go a very different direction that we see that we having our over production that we are not saying well we only have exactly the electricity we need we might have much more electricity available which we then use electricity and funnel it into other products so that's why I say we don't know at this point because if if we're seeing the trend continuing which I think we do in making solar and even more cheaper you might reach this level that we on purpose have an over production and then taking the electrons and funnel them into different products such as hydrocarbons or hydrogen as an example. Right and so let's say we achieve the 100% decarbonisation of the electricity sector then how can this also feed into the other sectors we need to decarbonise like transport and industrial processes these sorts of things is this what you mean by looking at other products? Yeah because I mean when you look at the way and in the energy sector where we're emitting CO2 the electricity generation sector is a very important one they said industry and transportation is equally as important and this is sometimes some of these areas like long haul transportation, airplane ships, heavy duty trucks it's very hard to imagine that we can electrify them this means there will be a need for something like long hydrocarbons in the long future and the question is how do you get to them in a sustainable way and in transportation in hydrocarbons will we gain them from biomass which is probably the closest to reality but even there we need to do some more research could it be that we do synthetic fuels from new molecules we regenerate out of electricity such as hydrogen and then combine this with CO2 and do fissure drops to go to hydrocarbons it's not clear how we will solve these issues but it's very clear we need to decarbonize not only electricity generation but also transportation and industry which is a lot of process here. Right and so a lot of people might argue that you know we have seen pretty much the development of much of the technology we need we've got solar panels we've got wind turbines we have these other storage mechanisms like batteries and pumped hydro so we're kind of at the point where we can see where these are leading so is it true to say then that kind of we're at the point where we don't need to do much more research and development or do you think that actually we're still always on the path of R&D and innovation in order to achieve these goals? So my argument is that we're just at the beginning so when you see we're reaching so-called great parity with some of these technologies but this is it would be a tremendous mistake in my opinion to stop the innovation right now we're just at the beginning we continue to have to drive this forward because you know when you look historically I was making the example on automotive when we had the first cars which were better than a horse we didn't stop innovating we continue to drive this and nowadays these days our cars are much more than just a transportation mechanism from A to B they are your entertainment system they're having all your heated seats and very soon we will all have autonomous driving I would say that in the energy and renewable side we are just at the model T we now now reaching this where we have great parity to a lot of degrees but I think we will continue to drive this to to change this the cost will come further down I could see in the future that the way we are buying electricity at our homes might be completely changed very similar perhaps what you're seeing on your cell phones when you originally bought minutes and now you have a service plan so we have to continue innovation it would be a tremendous mistake to stop at this level and indeed I think that means that there will always be a role for institutions like ours which basically fundamental research and development organizations which have a social license to achieve these goals so I think this this is a very exciting future and thank you very much today Martin Kelly for sharing it with us okay thank you very much thank you