Shell: What the World's Energy System Will Look Like in 2100

This month, Shell published the third edition of its Energy Security Scenarios report, a series in which it uses predictive modelling to forecast the future of the world's energy landscape.

In the document, which follows on from instalments in 2023 and 2025, the British energy giant includes three separate scenarios, which it calls 'Archipelagos', 'Surge' and 'Horizon'. Each of these models include different projections of how the planet's energy system will look by the year 2100.

The scenarios try to make sense of the moment the energy world finds itself in, where 80% of global power comes from fossil fuels but where the capacity of renewable sources has grown tenfold in the past decade.

It is not just the flux of the energy system itself that Shell factors into its analysis either. Each of the firm's different timelines synthesise all manner of externalities, including trade wars, AI and climate politics to paint three distinct pictures of the world at the turn of the next century.

Dr Mallika Ishwaran, who is Shell’s Chief Economist and a key member of the Shell Scenarios team, recently appeared on The Energy Podcast, which is produced by Shell, to speak about the company's methodology when creating the scenario reports.

“Scenarios are genuinely a multidisciplinary effort," she explains. "The process of developing the scenarios draws on, firstly, the knowledge and expertise in energy markets and energy modelling.

“It incorporates economics, whether that is the macroeconomic context for the scenarios or the economics around specific technologies, policies or behaviour changes.

“And finally it brings in the geopolitical lens that is so essential when thinking about energy. It is a combination of these different perspectives that provides a richness to our scenarios.”

In this article, we take a look at each of the three scenarios.

Archipelagos: When security trumps everything

The Archipelagos scenario imagines a world where countries retreat into themselves, one where trade disputes flare up, mineral supplies get weaponised and governments prioritise what they can control domestically over what might be cheaper or cleaner from abroad.

Global GDP hits roughly US$315tn by 2060 in this scenario and coal hangs around far longer than climate activists would like.

Archipelagos sees China racing ahead with solar deployment to cut its dependence on imported oil and gas, but elsewhere the transition stutters.

The document warns that in this world "priorities shift towards domestic resources and opportunism in trade, both of which tend to favour fossil fuel use".

This scenario always sees carbon capture struggling to get off the ground as funding evaporates.

By 2100, temperatures have climbed 2.5°C and fossil fuels still account for a quarter of global energy: an outcome that makes the Paris Agreement look like ancient history.

Surge: Could AI change everything?

Shell's Surge scenario tells a completely different story, one where technology companies become unexpected energy giants.

Their data centres devour electricity ‒ 5,000 terawatt-hours by 2050, roughly 8% of global supply ‒ forcing them to build their own renewable capacity.

These firms, flush with cash and expertise in supply chain management, start mass-producing solar panels, batteries and hydrogen equipment like they are assembling smartphones.

In this scenario, Global GDP balloons to US$400tn by 2060 as AI boosts productivity across all industries.

Small modular nuclear reactors come of age in the 2040s, first powering data centres, then factories and eventually even container ships.

China launches five nuclear-powered vessels in the late 2040s, and by 2090 the technology has taken over the shipping industry.

Despite higher energy demand overall, this world hits net zero emissions by 2080.

Temperatures peak at 2.1°C in the 2080s before edging down to 2.0°C by century's end.

The scenario shows that economic growth and climate action are not necessarily enemies if the right technologies mature quickly enough.

Horizon: The brutal arithmetic of 1.5°C

Horizon maps out what meeting the Paris Agreement actually requires, and it is not pretty.

Net zero by 2050 demands retiring perfectly functional power plants early, slapping high carbon prices on industry and banning petrol cars whether people like it or not.

Governments would need to tell citizens where they cannot build wind turbines, how much meat they should eat and which flights they should not take.

Even then, the world overshoots 1.5°C ‒ the world is already at 1.3°C and emissions have not peaked yet.

The scenario relies on capturing more than seven gigatonnes of CO₂ annually by 2050, compared with 50 million tonnes today, a 140-fold increase.

Europe's predicament stands out, however. The EU has legislated for net zero by 2050, but Horizon shows emissions in 2040 still above what Brussels has promised, forcing an uncomfortable reliance on international carbon credits.

The importance of rare earth minerals

All three scenarios bump into the same four obstacles: copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt.

Demand for copper alone triples to 60 million tonnes yearly by 2050 in Shell's Horizon scenario.

The problem isn't geological reserves but geopolitics since China controls much of the refining capacity, and new mines take 15 years from discovery to production.

Then there's India and Africa, home to 1.5 billion people today, potentially five billion by 2100.

If they follow China's coal-heavy development path, the climate maths falls apart entirely.

Shell's scenarios suggest these countries will leapfrog straight to solar and batteries, but Archipelagos shows how trade restrictions and funding shortfalls could derail that optimistic assumption.

The company stresses these are not forecasts, noting that "only governments can create the framework necessary for society to meet the Paris Agreement's goal".

What they do show however is how quickly plausible futures diverge depending on decisions made in the next decade.