As far as we are currently able to judge, our best chance to halt the further escalation of the climate crisis through decarbonization of the economy depends on electricity and electrification. Given the current horizon of technological expectations, electric power and electric technology offer us the best chance of reconciling the insatiable desire for energy with the stretched and frayed environmental envelope.
Climate Change= weather, sun spots and volcanos have more impact tan the entirety of human years. The higher CO2 the better for plants and life. This ridiculousness, wind turbines polluting and killing wildlife and the mining of battery elements and the disposal of spent car batteries are more harmful to our planet than nuclear and clean burning plentiful gas. Open your eyes.
This is factually wrong on so many levels. Look at the climate over the last millennia then overlay this with our usage of fossil fuels, then think again why there is this correlation and check for possible alternative causes (your sunspots and volcanoes, among others). The result will be clear and stark: A hockeystick of greenhouse gas concentrations and temperatures that cannot be explained except by our abundant usage of fossil fuels.
And: Simply because we cannot control sunspots and volcanoes does not mean that we should not act where we can: In our own behaviour.
Chris Wright of Liberty Energy has listed five terms that are interfering with an intelligent discussion of the issues at hand regarding climate change: 1) “climate crisis” , 2) “carbon pollution”, 3) “clean energy”, 4) “dirty energy”, and 5) “energy transition.
There is no “climate crisis”. This is hyperbole. This is not to say that CO2 does not impact the climate. “Climate crisis” -- used in the first paragraph -- is a politically-charged term that does not lead to rational solutions. “Carbon pollution” is absurd. There are three essential elements to life: water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is a greenhouse gas that supports life on earth and, in concentrations in the atmosphere, blocks outgoing infrared radiation, as do other greenhouse gasses, including water vapor. Is water vapor a pollutant?
The use of the term “clean energy” implies that wind and solar have no carbon dioxide footprint. This is patently false. And the use of the term “dirty energy” is another politically charged term implying that using hydrocarbons for energy creates significant pollution. This is objectively false. As Vaclav Smil has written about, all energy systems have trade offs. Wind and solar have positive attributes -- and negative environmental consequences as well, especially land use, but also, CO2 emissions necessary to produce them in the first place.
And finally, the concept of “energy transition” is highly misleading. Modern society cannot function without hydrocarbons. Society needs energy security, energy affordability, and environmental sustainability. It’s a balancing act, each with tradeoffs.
I am disappointed to read such a politically-charged piece by Adam Tooze who otherwise is a very accomplished writer.
You appear to be saying "crisis", in the context of climate change, at least, is a pejorative term that stifles rational thinking. I hear it as a honest and compelling assessment of the current state of affairs, the solution to which depends inextricably on political action.
"Originally, crisis denoted 'the turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever.' Now it most commonly means 'a difficult or dangerous situation that needs
serious attention.' "(Merriam-Webster)
Given that the slow deterioration of climate quality since the late 19th century, and that the rate is accelerating to a point beyond our means to reverse it (if there ever were such means), and any attempt at a solution is inextricable from political action, what term would you use?
The climate "patient" has been unwell a long time. All evidence points to the development of an acute disease. The climate is now in crisis. It's time to inform its caretakers about this turning point, in plain language, no punches pulled, and hope they have the will to act.
Flinching from the term, "Climate Crisis", is equivalent to irrational denial of the facts.
Liberty Energy is a "leading North American oil field services firm" and Chris Wright is its CEO. Hardly the pinnacle of unbiased commentary in this regard.
On your argument against "clean energy", having up front carbon costs for setting up wind and solar doesn't take away from the fact that they are much "cleaner" than, say, a coal powered energy plant, which itself has setting up costs. Of course, if you contend that there is simply no such thing as CO2 pollution in the first place, all this becomes rather moot.
Stephen Hawkings, just before he died I think, had calculated that if mankind continued to raise electricity consumption at the present pace, the globe will be glowing by 2600.
'Climate change' is an archetypal scare for humanity: people originally 'emigrating' from Africa were possibly chased away because of harsher climate, Egyptian culture in the Nile valley was following the former Sahara turning into desert, and so on. It seems to me we are easily scared of 'climate change', so we forget to ask for a time scale of 'sustainable'. We go for any technical solution appearing, and don't notice that mostly solutions generating money for someone seem to proliferate. Changing habits is more difficult than buying a Tesla.
He did say that - but in the context of his theory of multiple parallel and habitable universes.
At the time, Hawking was part of an initiative planning to develop ultra-fast light-powered spacecraft that could reach "Mars in under an hour, Pluto in days, and Alpha Centauri in +/- 20 years,”
Thank you for your reply. Then the context seems to be divided in one visionary and speculative side, and one rather down to earth countable side. I don't know the numbers, but use and production of electricity is still releasing heat, and new technologies like carbon free steel here in Sweden, is requiring vast amounts of electricity. The electricity consumption of search engines is still hidden from the private consumer, but in connection to private worries about other consumption it might be important to know one day. And the electricity consumption of humanity as a whole has still a lot of basic needs to fill, so that the overall use of electricity might well be accelerating faster than before.
No matter how much we de-carbonize nations like India will keep on burning oil and coal for the coming decades. Just look at their live Air Quality Stats, these high numbers are there due to transport and energy generation , every day all year round.
More people die every year from poor air quality from the burning of wood and animal dung for cooking. Replacing these kitchen fires with electricity - even coal-fired - will save many more lives than those saved by reduced air pollution from coal-fired power stations.
After reading this article and clicking over to #24 for a read, it appears the emphasis stays on bringing poorer nations / people up to a higher level of consumerism, while greatly reducing the carbon / greenhouse gas output of those and all nations. Bringing a nation's GDP up, and therefore raising the population's per capita annual income merely guarantees the production of more consumer goods which raises energy consumption in both the manufacturing country and the consumer country. How is this a path to sustainable climate? Yes, the development of networked electrical grids to allow more growth and an acceleration of that growth is necessary to building nations, if they are to follow the agricultural - natural resource exploitation - manufacturing - industrial - then finance path to G status. One major hurdle that will remain in the path to this New Eden is the embedded corruption native to most of these 2nd / 3rd world countries. Ultimately, the world continues rely on finding ways to bleed more and more money from the taxpayers of the richest countries for the ultimate benefit of a select few in each of the poverty stricken countries in question, with practically no accounting for the trillions of dollars that have already been and will be spent to "raise their standard of living".
Energy production, energy distribution, and ENERGY SALE have been the backbone of the world's economies for 130 years. The populations of the world's richest nations have become prisoners to those systems, just as those in the developing nations are soon to become, but at least they'll finally have a microwave, 75" Television, and agreat internet connection.
It's not consumerism which is driving developing country economic development but wealth-generation to pay for better schools and health systems and reliable electricity generation etc. You're focusing on the wrong issues by talking about consumerism.
Thank you for your reply. Wealth generation: Land/Resources, Labor, and Capital (MONEY) combined in such a fashion as to produce an excess of product over and above the costs of production commonly referred to as PROFIT. This process requires CONSUMERS. Wealth generation is a mult- tiered structure which invariably is accelerated by MARKETING of said productions. The Labor market acquires food, clothing, electricity, water, transportation, etc, by transferring their portion (wages, commissions, salaries of the cost of production to other producers.
The creation of better schools, which in theory brings better industry through higher education requires more capital, labor, resources which DO NOT have any immediate return (LIQUIDITY). To ignore this very large, very necessary component is at best naive, especially in light of AT's informing us that the higher the standard of living, the higher the carbon emissions, and that after a certain point, the emission footprint grows rapidly.
It is surprising that China still has social media presence as going green while building within China and outside (ex. Pakistan) 3x more coal plants than rest of the world combined. It reminds me of what “The Rock” says...”It’s doesn’t matter what you think”, China is Not a green country.
(1) Now that most of the cost of producing intermittant renewables and batteries is in components, especially minerals, and there will be shortages of these for decades, there is unlikely to be much decline in the cost of renewables. Indeed prices are going up, in part because of high energy costs.
(2) The absolutely colossal level of materials required for solar, wind, and batteries requires a 40-70 fold increase in mining. This is never going to happen as the environmental consequences will be unacceptable.
(3) The only plausible route to net zero with respect to both costs and what the public will accept is dramatic expansion of nuclear energy.
(4) This is technically easy and cheap provided regulations governing nuclear power become rational. At present they hugely increase the cost of nuclear power by valuing a life lost to radioactivity as being at least 100 times more valuable than a life lost to air pollution.
(5) The main obstacle to this is our exaggerated fear of radioactivity. Only when out fear of climate change exceeds our fear of radioactivity will we do what is needed to phase out fossil fuels.
It is amazing how much faith Prof. Tooze has in the power of technology to save the climate crisis (and capitalism). The world needs to “double this in the next 20 years”, and soon it will be “triple that in the next 10 years”, etc., without mentioning the problem of finite ecological sources and sinks…
Of course more investment are needed, but the climate crisis is not a simple balance sheet problem. More investment into renewables are welcome, sure, but any approach that does not consider demand-side solutions, i.e. sufficiency, is bound to fail.
Progress on the supply side, such as increased renewables, increased efficiency, etc., can only do so much when the underlying problem causing the climate and biodiversity crises is “our” excess consumption of energy and materials required to nurture a capitalist economy that needs to grow of perish of a slow or rapid death…
Anthropocene: the moment when humans stopped fearing catastrophes, and became one on their own.
You might try reading Vaclav Smil's book THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS and Nate Hagen's REALITY BLIND, or even Roger Pielke's substack, before pontificating about the global energy system and electrification.
In other words, "sustainable energy" has been tried for several years and the CO2 level is still rocketing up, now 420 PPM. The modern 2023 task is to cease emitting CO2 and at the same time, take care of the persons affected by the emission reductions.
Climate Change= weather, sun spots and volcanos have more impact tan the entirety of human years. The higher CO2 the better for plants and life. This ridiculousness, wind turbines polluting and killing wildlife and the mining of battery elements and the disposal of spent car batteries are more harmful to our planet than nuclear and clean burning plentiful gas. Open your eyes.
Why do wingnuts love them some nuclear and hate every other alternative to fossil fuel?
This is factually wrong on so many levels. Look at the climate over the last millennia then overlay this with our usage of fossil fuels, then think again why there is this correlation and check for possible alternative causes (your sunspots and volcanoes, among others). The result will be clear and stark: A hockeystick of greenhouse gas concentrations and temperatures that cannot be explained except by our abundant usage of fossil fuels.
And: Simply because we cannot control sunspots and volcanoes does not mean that we should not act where we can: In our own behaviour.
Chris Wright of Liberty Energy has listed five terms that are interfering with an intelligent discussion of the issues at hand regarding climate change: 1) “climate crisis” , 2) “carbon pollution”, 3) “clean energy”, 4) “dirty energy”, and 5) “energy transition.
There is no “climate crisis”. This is hyperbole. This is not to say that CO2 does not impact the climate. “Climate crisis” -- used in the first paragraph -- is a politically-charged term that does not lead to rational solutions. “Carbon pollution” is absurd. There are three essential elements to life: water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is a greenhouse gas that supports life on earth and, in concentrations in the atmosphere, blocks outgoing infrared radiation, as do other greenhouse gasses, including water vapor. Is water vapor a pollutant?
The use of the term “clean energy” implies that wind and solar have no carbon dioxide footprint. This is patently false. And the use of the term “dirty energy” is another politically charged term implying that using hydrocarbons for energy creates significant pollution. This is objectively false. As Vaclav Smil has written about, all energy systems have trade offs. Wind and solar have positive attributes -- and negative environmental consequences as well, especially land use, but also, CO2 emissions necessary to produce them in the first place.
And finally, the concept of “energy transition” is highly misleading. Modern society cannot function without hydrocarbons. Society needs energy security, energy affordability, and environmental sustainability. It’s a balancing act, each with tradeoffs.
I am disappointed to read such a politically-charged piece by Adam Tooze who otherwise is a very accomplished writer.
You appear to be saying "crisis", in the context of climate change, at least, is a pejorative term that stifles rational thinking. I hear it as a honest and compelling assessment of the current state of affairs, the solution to which depends inextricably on political action.
"Originally, crisis denoted 'the turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever.' Now it most commonly means 'a difficult or dangerous situation that needs
serious attention.' "(Merriam-Webster)
Given that the slow deterioration of climate quality since the late 19th century, and that the rate is accelerating to a point beyond our means to reverse it (if there ever were such means), and any attempt at a solution is inextricable from political action, what term would you use?
The climate "patient" has been unwell a long time. All evidence points to the development of an acute disease. The climate is now in crisis. It's time to inform its caretakers about this turning point, in plain language, no punches pulled, and hope they have the will to act.
Flinching from the term, "Climate Crisis", is equivalent to irrational denial of the facts.
Liberty Energy is a "leading North American oil field services firm" and Chris Wright is its CEO. Hardly the pinnacle of unbiased commentary in this regard.
On your argument against "clean energy", having up front carbon costs for setting up wind and solar doesn't take away from the fact that they are much "cleaner" than, say, a coal powered energy plant, which itself has setting up costs. Of course, if you contend that there is simply no such thing as CO2 pollution in the first place, all this becomes rather moot.
Great article AT!
Stephen Hawkings, just before he died I think, had calculated that if mankind continued to raise electricity consumption at the present pace, the globe will be glowing by 2600.
'Climate change' is an archetypal scare for humanity: people originally 'emigrating' from Africa were possibly chased away because of harsher climate, Egyptian culture in the Nile valley was following the former Sahara turning into desert, and so on. It seems to me we are easily scared of 'climate change', so we forget to ask for a time scale of 'sustainable'. We go for any technical solution appearing, and don't notice that mostly solutions generating money for someone seem to proliferate. Changing habits is more difficult than buying a Tesla.
He did say that - but in the context of his theory of multiple parallel and habitable universes.
At the time, Hawking was part of an initiative planning to develop ultra-fast light-powered spacecraft that could reach "Mars in under an hour, Pluto in days, and Alpha Centauri in +/- 20 years,”
Thank you for your reply. Then the context seems to be divided in one visionary and speculative side, and one rather down to earth countable side. I don't know the numbers, but use and production of electricity is still releasing heat, and new technologies like carbon free steel here in Sweden, is requiring vast amounts of electricity. The electricity consumption of search engines is still hidden from the private consumer, but in connection to private worries about other consumption it might be important to know one day. And the electricity consumption of humanity as a whole has still a lot of basic needs to fill, so that the overall use of electricity might well be accelerating faster than before.
No matter how much we de-carbonize nations like India will keep on burning oil and coal for the coming decades. Just look at their live Air Quality Stats, these high numbers are there due to transport and energy generation , every day all year round.
https://aqicn.org/map/india/
Note: Red numbers usually mean visibility is limited to 1000 feet.
More people die every year from poor air quality from the burning of wood and animal dung for cooking. Replacing these kitchen fires with electricity - even coal-fired - will save many more lives than those saved by reduced air pollution from coal-fired power stations.
After reading this article and clicking over to #24 for a read, it appears the emphasis stays on bringing poorer nations / people up to a higher level of consumerism, while greatly reducing the carbon / greenhouse gas output of those and all nations. Bringing a nation's GDP up, and therefore raising the population's per capita annual income merely guarantees the production of more consumer goods which raises energy consumption in both the manufacturing country and the consumer country. How is this a path to sustainable climate? Yes, the development of networked electrical grids to allow more growth and an acceleration of that growth is necessary to building nations, if they are to follow the agricultural - natural resource exploitation - manufacturing - industrial - then finance path to G status. One major hurdle that will remain in the path to this New Eden is the embedded corruption native to most of these 2nd / 3rd world countries. Ultimately, the world continues rely on finding ways to bleed more and more money from the taxpayers of the richest countries for the ultimate benefit of a select few in each of the poverty stricken countries in question, with practically no accounting for the trillions of dollars that have already been and will be spent to "raise their standard of living".
Energy production, energy distribution, and ENERGY SALE have been the backbone of the world's economies for 130 years. The populations of the world's richest nations have become prisoners to those systems, just as those in the developing nations are soon to become, but at least they'll finally have a microwave, 75" Television, and agreat internet connection.
It's not consumerism which is driving developing country economic development but wealth-generation to pay for better schools and health systems and reliable electricity generation etc. You're focusing on the wrong issues by talking about consumerism.
Thank you for your reply. Wealth generation: Land/Resources, Labor, and Capital (MONEY) combined in such a fashion as to produce an excess of product over and above the costs of production commonly referred to as PROFIT. This process requires CONSUMERS. Wealth generation is a mult- tiered structure which invariably is accelerated by MARKETING of said productions. The Labor market acquires food, clothing, electricity, water, transportation, etc, by transferring their portion (wages, commissions, salaries of the cost of production to other producers.
The creation of better schools, which in theory brings better industry through higher education requires more capital, labor, resources which DO NOT have any immediate return (LIQUIDITY). To ignore this very large, very necessary component is at best naive, especially in light of AT's informing us that the higher the standard of living, the higher the carbon emissions, and that after a certain point, the emission footprint grows rapidly.
It is surprising that China still has social media presence as going green while building within China and outside (ex. Pakistan) 3x more coal plants than rest of the world combined. It reminds me of what “The Rock” says...”It’s doesn’t matter what you think”, China is Not a green country.
Some further considerations.
(1) Now that most of the cost of producing intermittant renewables and batteries is in components, especially minerals, and there will be shortages of these for decades, there is unlikely to be much decline in the cost of renewables. Indeed prices are going up, in part because of high energy costs.
(2) The absolutely colossal level of materials required for solar, wind, and batteries requires a 40-70 fold increase in mining. This is never going to happen as the environmental consequences will be unacceptable.
(3) The only plausible route to net zero with respect to both costs and what the public will accept is dramatic expansion of nuclear energy.
(4) This is technically easy and cheap provided regulations governing nuclear power become rational. At present they hugely increase the cost of nuclear power by valuing a life lost to radioactivity as being at least 100 times more valuable than a life lost to air pollution.
(5) The main obstacle to this is our exaggerated fear of radioactivity. Only when out fear of climate change exceeds our fear of radioactivity will we do what is needed to phase out fossil fuels.
It is amazing how much faith Prof. Tooze has in the power of technology to save the climate crisis (and capitalism). The world needs to “double this in the next 20 years”, and soon it will be “triple that in the next 10 years”, etc., without mentioning the problem of finite ecological sources and sinks…
Of course more investment are needed, but the climate crisis is not a simple balance sheet problem. More investment into renewables are welcome, sure, but any approach that does not consider demand-side solutions, i.e. sufficiency, is bound to fail.
Progress on the supply side, such as increased renewables, increased efficiency, etc., can only do so much when the underlying problem causing the climate and biodiversity crises is “our” excess consumption of energy and materials required to nurture a capitalist economy that needs to grow of perish of a slow or rapid death…
Anthropocene: the moment when humans stopped fearing catastrophes, and became one on their own.
"the problem of finite ecological sources and sinks" ~ how quaintly Ehrlichian
You might try reading Vaclav Smil's book THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS and Nate Hagen's REALITY BLIND, or even Roger Pielke's substack, before pontificating about the global energy system and electrification.
Good recommendations, but Smil's book is titled "How the World REALLY Works."
Here is a link to a 9 year old sustainable energy book. http://www.withouthotair.com/c1/page_15.shtml
I quote the book, and remember this is nine years ago: "These possibly-safe emissions
trajectories, by the way, involve significantly sharper reductions in emis-
sions than any of the scenarios presented by the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), or by the Stern Review (2007)."
Returning to 2023, I propose "We" are nearly a decade over due for getting going on the cessation of fossil fuel CO2 emission."
My recent writing on this question is: https://www.lowco2america.com/2023/01/reducing-global-co2-by-limiting-air.html
In other words, "sustainable energy" has been tried for several years and the CO2 level is still rocketing up, now 420 PPM. The modern 2023 task is to cease emitting CO2 and at the same time, take care of the persons affected by the emission reductions.