By Redaction | November 9, 2026
Editorial note: this is a scenario, not a forecast. It extends current trends to 2046 under stated assumptions and flags where those assumptions could fail.
The premise
Imagine the 2040s energy map shaped less by climate pledges and more by physics and cost. Three forces drive it: huge, steady electricity demand from artificial intelligence and industry, fast urban growth in Asia and Africa, and supply chains that depend on fuels with high energy density. In this scenario, a country’s power depends heavily on its ability to secure firm, large-scale electricity and on its access to dense fuels for moving mass.
This is not a green world and not a fossil world. It is a mixed one, with each source used where it fits best.
Three tiers of energy
Tier 1: firm baseload for AI and heavy industry. Data centres and smelters need continuous gigawatt-scale power. In the West the scenario assumes growing reliance on nuclear, including small modular reactors, alongside gas. SMRs are still pre-commercial today, so the pace of rollout is an assumption. China and other large industrial economies are assumed to keep running coal and hydro as their backbone while also adding more solar, wind and nuclear than anyone else. Both of those facts are true at once in the 2020s.
Tier 2: solar and batteries for daytime and local use. Solar becomes the cheapest source almost everywhere, and in sunny regions it matches the daytime peak driven by air conditioning. Short-duration batteries, mainly lithium iron phosphate, smooth the evening transition and power city transport. In this tier solar is less a baseload provider than a fuel saver.
Tier 3: dense fuels for heavy mobility. Ships, aircraft and heavy machinery need energy that is compact by weight and volume. Batteries hold only a fraction of what diesel or jet fuel carries per kilogram, so they penalise payload and range on long hauls. The scenario therefore assumes liquid fuels remain central for long-distance shipping and aviation, with a growing share of LNG, methanol, ammonia and sustainable fuels. Electrification still advances quickly in cars, buses, rail and short-haul trucking.
The Saharan valve
The clearest example of this mixed approach is North Africa’s use of solar to protect its gas.
Algeria’s power system still runs overwhelmingly on gas, with gas above 95% of generation. The government’s target is 15 GW of solar by 2035, and early plants are only now coming online. By the scenario’s date we assume most of that target is met. On the arithmetic, a 15 GW fleet generates about 37 TWh a year, which replaces roughly 6–7 billion cubic metres of gas burned in power plants. That matches official talk of six to eight billion cubic metres.
The mechanism is not a perfect seasonal “valve.” Solar saves the most gas in summer, when cooling demand peaks and European prices are weaker. Algeria has little seasonal storage, so the saved gas is not literally banked for winter. Instead, the benefit is a larger year-round pool of marketable gas that can be sent through the TransMed and Medgaz pipelines, which have fixed capacity, to Southern Europe. Capturing winter premiums would need storage, flexible production or contracts built for it. The logic is still sound: using cheap solar to free gas for higher-value export is a good trade. The article’s earlier claim of Egyptian industrial supply should be dropped, since the grids are not connected.
On hydrogen, the scenario assumes the export route stays small. Electrolysis wastes roughly 40% of the input energy, the transport and storage chain adds more, and green hydrogen faces a heavy cost premium. A realistic version keeps a niche role for ammonia and steel feedstock rather than a continental hydrogen network. That outcome is not certain, and the SoutH₂ corridor shows serious effort is under way.
India’s insulation strategy
India’s approach in this scenario is to rely on domestic resources where possible. Coal remains a large security asset, since it cannot be cut off by sanctions or a blockade, while solar and nuclear expand alongside it. India’s population is about 1.47 billion today and is projected to be higher in 2046. The scenario assumes India’s multi-stage nuclear programme, including thorium, begins to scale, but that is a long-term bet and today’s programme is still early.
India has also acted as a price arbitrageur, buying discounted Russian crude, refining it at large complexes such as Jamnagar and exporting products. That trade is narrowing: to my knowledge the EU now bans products refined from Russian crude, and US tariff pressure has increased. By 2046 it may look very different.
What could change this scenario
- Batteries get much better and cheaper. Faster gains would pull trucks, short-sea shipping and even regional flights into electrification, weakening Tier 3.
- SMRs and large nuclear are delayed. Cost overruns could leave AI demand to be met by gas, coal and renewables with storage.
- Carbon pricing and trade rules tighten. Measures such as the EU’s border carbon tax could shift costs between regions.
- AI demand disappoints. If efficiency or economics slow data-centre growth, the Tier 1 story changes.
- Climate impacts and policy. Heat, droughts and political pressure could move the balance again.
Conclusion
The core point of the scenario holds up: energy systems scale on cost, reliability and density as much as on narratives. But a realistic map will be messier than a clean split into three tiers. Solar is already the fastest-growing source almost everywhere, coal and clean power are being added together in the biggest economies, and the real contest is over firm power and dense fuels. For Algeria, the sensible move is the one in this scenario: use solar to protect gas, then export the gas.
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