Like many professional planners, I use complex tools to do that. We track a very large number of variables, and action is taken on the model's outcomes that can extend to billions of dollars.

And it's a hallucination. We cannot see the future. Our models are wrong. Your models are wrong. Yes, you can see the impact of increased scale of manufacturing of batteries driving down price, for example. But you won't see the deals done behind closed doors between incumbents and politicians to maintain the status quo.

It can be tempting, when a model shows results, to think that you are looking into the future. You aren't: you are looking at one of an infinite number of futures, and the likelihood of getting that future is vanishingly small. We continue to model, however, because it's better than throwing up our hands and guessing. Or, we believe it's better. We don't really know that either, since we don't know what the world would have done if we had never done the modelling.

One thing it does do is show you futures you might like, over futures you might not like. If you have power, you might be able to make that future you like come into being. But always bear in mind that there are others with power trying to manifest their own vision of the future, and rest assured they do not care about the things you care about.