I started researching climate change in 2009. I was working as an energy analyst covering renewables–mostly solar, but a bit of wind power and biofuels.
The more I read about climate change and CO2 emissions, the more I became convinced that the discussion was horribly miscast. It was fairly obvious that temperatures were rising, as were our emissions of CO2 and it was pretty logical to look for a link between the two. Indeed, scientists had done that and were fairly convinced the link was there. I saw no reason then to dispute this–nor do I now. Climate change is real and we are a major contributor to the change. It seemed that my study of energy might cast a useful light on the subject.
But in terms of understanding what the impacts would be and what we could do to either prevent further changes or deal with any changes already happening, looking at CO2 emissions was not really helpful.
CO2 emissions, the end culprit for much of the damage we are causing, is itself caused by energy consumption. The world burns a ‘portfolio’ of fuels to power daily life. Some fuels emit more CO2 when consumed than others. Orienting this portfolio away from the more emissive fuels to the lesser (or non) emissive fuels seemed like an easier way of understanding both the problem and any potential solutions.
The worst fuels we can burn are firewood, which is still the primary fuel source for about 2 billion people, kerosene, which serves a similar number of people. Both fuels are dominant in the developing world.
Coal is next and the world uses a lot of it, both in the developed and developing world. Oil follows and is the fuel of choice for transportation and a lot of heating. Natural gas is much cleaner, in terms of CO2 emissions–it puts out about half as much CO2 as oil or coal and is often talked about as a ‘bridge fuel’ to help us clean up our mess while waiting for true renewables to dominate our portfolio.
Zero emission fuels are not exactly equivalent to renewables–hydroelectric power and nuclear power are zero emission, but are not counted as true renewables for various reasons, mostly political. Solar, wind and biofuels are the renewables of choice.
It was clear to me in 2009 that we could switch to a much cleaner portfolio of fuels. My calculations showed that it would take about 50 years and cost about $23 trillion US dollars. (Those figures have held up pretty well, if you adjust for inflation. I’m pretty proud of that.)
The real problem my research identified way back then was that all the big energy monitoring agencies seemed to be wildly underestimating how much energy we were going to be using in 50 years. The US Department of Energy estimated in 2010 (my research was taking quite a long time) that the world would consume about 800 quadrillion BTUs in 2040. My calculations showed a figure of about 965 Quads. My fear was (and still is) that we would not be preparing for a world with much higher fuel use and that would lead us by default into using dirtier fuels, as they are easier to extract and get ready for use. (Turns out that I was pretty close to right–the Department of Energy just updated their forecast for 2040 to 940 Quads.)
But my major point is that by focusing on fuels instead of emissions, we will find it far easier to plan the energy transition, far easier to measure our successes and failures, and far easier to assist the developing world in helping us deal with a problem that they sure as hell didn’t create–but whose help we desperately need in solving the problem.
Happy Wednesday, everybody! We will get there–my calculations also show that we will eventually solve this problem and well before we cause permanent or widespread damage to this planet. More on that later.
