Climate Change is driving this Energy Transition
Image credit here.
For many months now, I have been researching a broad range of energy topics because I'm captivated by the urgency and scale of our global Energy Transition - already in progress! And because the energy space is so broad, I have been looking for ways to focus on something far less than the whole. I don't have the energy to learn everything about energy.
One of the deeper and more complex areas I was hoping to steer away from was Climate Change, not because I wasn't interested in it but because I was confident that I could pursue my own renewable path without also having to dive into this adjacent - and similarly vast - problem space.
But I have come to realize that there is not only a direct and critical connection between them but that this Energy Transition is being spurred along by our current climate crisis.
Recognizing the problem
So much has already been written about climate change and this is not the place for another alarming primer. Instead, I will only summarize a few key points about the broader climate problem here. I will then connect these points to other observations to explain why it affects all of us and why it should matter.
The Earth's climate is changing, more rapidly than we previously thought.
It would appear that humans have been contributing to this for longer than we would like to admit.
It would also appear that our actions in pursuit of human progress, especially over the last century are accelerating the changes in the Earth's climate.
We have identified which specific activities are primarily responsible for accelerating these changes.
If we can agree that (relatively recent) human activity has been unnaturally accelerating the warming of our planet, then we might be prompted to ask if that’s something that should worry us. Is global warming really a bad thing?
Side note: We all learned in 8th grade science class that this is not the Earth's first period of significant climate change. But our schools spend less time explaining how us humans have been transitioning our energy resources over time on the planet.
The Earth has seen its share of global warming and cooling spells. Image credit here.
Bill Gates notes in his recent book that this is not our first energy transition:
“What’s more, the energy transition we need now is being driven by something that has never mattered before. In the past, we’ve moved from one source to another because the new one was cheaper and more powerful. When we stopped burning so much wood and started using more coal, for example, it was because we could get a lot more heat and light from a pound of coal than from a pound of wood.”
Why you should care
This is actually the easy part, I think.
The reason that this is meaningful is because the current course of those cumulative changes to our climate will make the Earth a far less hospitable for us humans and many other species that currently live on this planet. To put it bluntly:
Many of us will die prematurely from climate-related causes
Many of us will be forced to permanently resettle to another location on the planet
Many of us will have to change the way we live - for the worse
In future articles, I intend to write more about more far-ranging topics including Energy Poverty, Climate Migration and Climate Havens as these all play into this narrative. But the headlines from this year alone illustrate that our lives are already being impacted by droughts, floods, forest fires, tropical storms and more.
If none of these weather-related tragedies have hit close to home for you yet, consider yourself lucky.
It has become urgent
Another fact to consider: more of us are arriving on the planet every day. And increasingly, a greater percentage of this growing population is looking for the same modern conveniences that we have long enjoyed in countries like the US. Things like computers, cars, and air conditioning.
The majority of these conveniences require power, so as the demand for modern conveniences grows, so does the demand for power.
Traditionally, all that power has come from fossil fuels either directly, like the gasoline in our internal combustion cars or indirectly, like the electricity in our homes and buildings that is produced by burning coal and natural gas.
We have spent decades and billions of dollars figuring out how to reduce the costs associated with squeezing energy out of these resources so we can meet that expanding demand. This considerable investment in terms of time and money has made it difficult to introduce change. For example, a gas-powered SUV that is sold today is expected to be on the road for the next 15-20 years!
Connecting the dots
This is not an entirely original model but I have tried to couple these basic ideas in a way that shows the predicament we find ourselves in. We know the world population is growing. We know we need electricity or similar energy power to provide a better life for the population. But our current methods and resources are not the answer.
If the diagram is unreadable, I’ll outline the cycle here:
Our modern conveniences require power
That power is generated by consuming fossil fuels which release greenhouse gases
Greenhouse gases get trapped in the atmosphere and warm the planet
A warming planet is increasingly less hospitable for humans
Still, more humans are showing up on the planet every day
Most of these humans still do not have but will want modern conveniences
Transitioning our energy to change the cycle
There is one part of this snowballing(?) cycle that is alarming and should stand out: how harmful the current methods of energy production are for us and the Earth.
To solve for this, we must change the way we generate power. If we can agree that the growing population on the planet should increasingly have access to modern conveniences, we simply must find alternative clean and renewable ways to generate power - that's all!
If only it were that easy. Even if we stop emitting new greenhouse gases across the transportation, agricultural and industrial sectors, we still need to drastically reduce what is already there. More on that later too.
The Energy Transition is going to span decades. It will take billions, if not trillions of dollars to pull off. It will require creativity, innovation and risk taking but also empathy, justice, and cooperation. This is expected to dwarf the recent pandemic in terms of scale and urgency. I look forward to pitching in and doing my part.