The powerful promise of Earth’s harshest places | Lei Zhang

0:06You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Clean energy visionary Lei Zhang says clean energy is bringing about an age of possibility. In this talk, he brings us to the Gobi Desert, a massive desert that stretches across northern China and southern Mongolia, where one of the world's largest green hydrogen projects can be found. He shares how this and other barren landscapes hold more energy reserves than the world consumes today and reminds us all to get a little more creative. Where others see emptiness, he sees abundance.

0:47My favorite place is in the Mongolia Gobi Desert. It's most Mars-like in the planet. Barren and empty. Wind blows all year round. Sandstorms happen often. In the winter, temperature is as low as minus 40 degrees. In the summer, it reaches 40 degrees. It's useless.

1:25But it's my most favorite place. I come to Gobi with a belief. I believe this could be the new space for our civilization.

1:44When people see useless, barrenness, emptiness, I see abundance. Abundance. If you look at the barren desert, It is filled up with abundant renewable energy, strong wind, and shining sun. They are infinite and never end. I found out the important equation between energy and our prosperities. 2 ,000 years before the Industrial Revolution, our global GDP only grew five times. Why? Because we are only able to use five times energy. Natural energy, agriculture then transferred to muscle power. Since Industrial Revolution, our global GDP expanded a hundred times because we are using a hundred times more energy.

2:56So abundant fossil fuel energy has been turned and creates forces to drive the machines, create materials like steel, create fertilizer to improve the food production. Today, it's even creating tremendous intelligence for humanity. So how can we unlock such a big potential from desert to push humanity to a next level of prosperity? Because when our solar radiation is able to meet our entire annual demand of energy it is free and it is green. In front of Gobi, we have to solve three challenges. The first one, how can we capture the rough and the raw wind energy? Just as steam engine is able to turn coal energy into motion, we end up with a wind turbine to capture wind energy to turn into electricity.

4:25Most importantly is to really design the wind turbine is able to survive in extreme wind conditions in the desert. Secondly, how can we build avoiding to build a long-distance or 1 ,000-mile transmission lines, which is costly and extremely expensive. We end up with the largest off-grid renewable system by integrating wind turbine solar panel storage with AI orchestrations. Okay, then the last remaining challenge. How can we utilize such abundant locally made electricity? We end up with a solution to build net zero industrial park, which is going to produce energy intensive products like batteries, and the green hydrogen and ammonia, those green molecules.

5:36Why green ammonia? One ton of green ammonia is able to hold 10 ,000 kilowatt hour electricity. Most importantly, the green molecule is so important for us to decarbonize our economic system. It's the most difficult, hard-to-obay segment. The green hydrogen is going to be used to make green steel, to make natural chemicals, to make green aviation and shipping. So, what's about today? Just right in the heart of Gobi Desert, the first natural industrial park has been built. It is totally off-grid, 100 % by renewable energy. It is making the state-of-art battery. But most importantly, it is the lowest cost of battery among our individual production base.

6:45Why? Because it's tremendous, free, abundant renewable energy.

6:55And we are also building in the desert the largest green hydrogen project in the world. 1.5 million ton green hydrogen and green ammonia. The first phase, 300 ,000 ton, is commissioning now. We are not supposed to build the largest. Our goal is to make it the cheapest To make green hydrogen as cheap as green Why the cost is so vital? Because history told us This 100 times energy growth Is the result of cost reductions In order to unlock these tremendous renewables, we have to make renewable energy much lower than fossil fuel. There are two forms of energy. One is electron. One is a molecule. Today, renewable has already won the battle against electricity.

8:11So renewable energy is much lower on making electricity But there's still another battle It's green molecule It's about two or three times expensive Than green molecule from coal and gas We have to make as cheap as possible Have this cost parity to the grid So we should redesign the entire energy system And redesign the equipment Then reduce costs significantly So first, we designed AI-regulated wind turbines Which is able to capture more energy While reduce costs significantly Secondly, we are also designing the world's first hybrid energy storage system by combining lithium battery with supercapacitor.

9:17It's able to support the grid with much less cost. And we are improving the efficiency of electrolyzer by innovating membranes and electrodes significantly. In order to make the construction work in the desert much easier, much cheaper, we designed a modular prefabricated hydrogen plant, which made the construction work in the desert as easy as stacking Legos. And we are also developing AI physical models, starting from predicting weather, wind, and solar to manage grid automatically. So today, we are already achieving the lowest cost of green hydrogen and green ammonia in the world. But there are still some gaps.

10:28I believe within three years, by 2028, we are able to make such cost parity to grade. Why I'm so convinced. If you look at last 20 years, the cost of wind and solar has been reduced 90%. For the last five years, the cost of energy storage has been reduced 90%. At the end of the day, the green electricity will still be the majority cost of green hydrogen. So by combining the significant improvement on the electrolyzer and the hydrogen factory, we are for sure to achieve such a cost parity. By the time we are achieving cost parity to grade for molecules, It is going to be a milestone for our humanity because we are going to remove the last bottleneck which is preventing us to unlock tremendous renewable energy.

11:41It's the last bottleneck. It is going to open the gate to tremendous new possibilities. Just imagine. Now, as we repeated in the history, within the next 100 years, if we are able to use 100 times more energy, how the world will look like? We are going to harvest the superintelligence with AI data center everywhere. We are going to desalinate seawater and turn the desert into green oasis We are going to remove poverty even by producing our food and protein in the basement we are going for sure to reverse climate crisis by taking carbon from the air and turning it into building materials. And we are even able to make interstellar traveling as a daily routine.

13:06So where's the answer? The answer is just right in the heart of the desert. From Sahara in Africa to Middle East, from Australia to Gobi, there are a hundred times energy than what we need. It's infinite, green, and free. It's up to our technology. So, ladies and gentlemen, this natural transition is not a costly burden for us. It is indeed the one and only pathway for us, for our humanity, to achieve a new great prosperity. Thank you. Thank you.

14:13That was Lei Zhang speaking at TED Countdown Summit, Nairobi in Kenya in 2025. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar and Tonsika Sarmanivon. It was mixed by Christopher Fazey-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.