We do have the energy.
The US spends enough energy on transportation that the entire world could have refrigeration.
The US spends 28% of total energy consumption on transportation. 93.33 Quadrillion BTUs x .28 / 3142 (BTUs per kWh) / 365 (days per year) = 22.8B kWh per day.
BEV vehicles are 5x more efficient than ICE vehicles.
We could have the same standard of living and just not use gas-powered vehicles and save ~22.8B kWh per day.
If I'm doing my math right, that's more than enough energy for 3B households to have refrigeration.
The problem isn't that we don't have enough energy.
The problem is that most of the world is really poor.
In the simplest of terms - you can't get much cheaper energy at scale than $0.10 per kWh. A lot of households are living on $2 per day. They can maybe afford 5% for refrigeration - but a refrigerator only lasts 7 years or so and costs $200+. That's another $0.08 per day. That's pushing 10% for refrigeration. I don't think they can afford it.
And when you're that poor - you're probably not going to be able to get electricity reliably for $0.10 per kWh...
When you're that poor, $0.18 = close to half the calories you need for the day. I don't think you can just shift that to refrigeration. What are you going to refrigerate anyway?
The US spends enough energy on transportation that the entire world could have refrigeration.
The US spends 28% of total energy consumption on transportation. 93.33 Quadrillion BTUs x .28 / 3142 (BTUs per kWh) / 365 (days per year) = 22.8B kWh per day.
BEV vehicles are 5x more efficient than ICE vehicles.
We could have the same standard of living and just not use gas-powered vehicles and save ~22.8B kWh per day.
If I'm doing my math right, that's more than enough energy for 3B households to have refrigeration.
The problem isn't that we don't have enough energy.
The problem is that most of the world is really poor.
In the simplest of terms - you can't get much cheaper energy at scale than $0.10 per kWh. A lot of households are living on $2 per day. They can maybe afford 5% for refrigeration - but a refrigerator only lasts 7 years or so and costs $200+. That's another $0.08 per day. That's pushing 10% for refrigeration. I don't think they can afford it.
And when you're that poor - you're probably not going to be able to get electricity reliably for $0.10 per kWh...
When you're that poor, $0.18 = close to half the calories you need for the day. I don't think you can just shift that to refrigeration. What are you going to refrigerate anyway?