FIXING OUR AIR
I started these blogs – and the book that they are excerpted from- with the story of our air and what you’ve been breathing from the thousands of polluting cars on your streets. I hope by now you get the message; the world is shifting to electric and fast.
So, if all cars, trucks, planes and boats are going electric, why do we need to do anything else? Fully electric transport will greatly help reduce global CO2 emissions, not to mention give most of us cleaner air, but it doesn’t solve the climate crisis.
The world’s population is expected to reach over 10 billion by 2100 – and they will not be the same as today’s electricity consumers. With increasing global living standards, individual demand on electricity is going to increase tenfold. The number of cars on the road is predicted to reach two billion by 2040. Most of these cars, if not all, will be electric and have zero emissions, but the same cannot be said about their source of power generation, unless radical international change happens. To meet this insatiable appetite for energy, we must change, and change now.
The world is going through a fundamental transition phase from the era of fossil fuels to the era of clean renewable energy and electric cars. How will we make this transition? The good news is there is hope. The great green transition is already happening and accelerating with new technologies and concepts.
Currently, only around 10% of the world's energy is produced from renewable sources like wind, solar, hydro, wave and geothermal. Fossil fuel accounts for around 80% of our energy and nuclear just 2%. The single biggest issue with replacing fossil fuels with renewables is money.
Many technologies already exist, are proven and can replace fossil fuel-generated electricity. The problem is they are simply too expensive; the cost needs to drop dramatically before they can compete with fossil fuels. On top of this, renewables are inconsistent in their output, and therefore innovative and cheap storage solutions need to be advanced and scaled up.
Fossil fuels are simply too cheap. Gasoline is cheaper than orange juice in many countries. Global oil production from well to gas pump is well established and fairly efficient, notwithstanding the fact it's destroying our atmosphere; this can't just be replaced overnight.
Irrespective of solving today's problem, developing countries deserve the same opportunity that developed countries had to enjoy a wealthier, healthier lifestyle. However, right now, they're replicating the path chosen by western countries in the last century, namely advancing with the use of fossil fuels. Huge numbers of new coal plants are still being built around the world. This must stop immediately, but what's the alternative?
China for example, which has lifted itself from a largely rural poverty nation to an industrialized superpower, has more than tripled emissions since 1990 and even increased its emissions by almost 2% in 2020. This pattern has, and will, be repeated for almost every other developing nation unless action takes place urgently. Global fossil fuel use is accelerating, accelerating climate change. While 200 countries ratified the Paris Agreement and set targets to cut global greenhouse gas emissions at COP 26, many are now acknowledging the potential of hitting those targets is virtually impossible.
Earth’s carbon dioxide atmospheric levels are at their highest level for over 3.5 million years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Human activity and the increasing thirst for more energy, combined with population increases, means we're on a path to likely climate disaster despite the electric car revolution or advances in clean energy.
The world needs to be at net zero emissions by 2050, but right now that looks like a pipe dream. This does not mean all is lost, there is still time to take corrective action. An enormous human effort is required; the incredible achievement of Covid19 vaccination development is an example of what we can do when under pressure. As the saying goes “necessity is the mother of all invention” and clean energy is a necessity. The problem is everybody needs to accept the necessity and urgency now.
To fix our air and climate, three big things need to happen:
Firstly, we need to stop building fossil fuel power stations
Secondly, we need to massively increase investment in new clean-tech energy production to bring costs down
and Thirdly, we need to create cost-effective, innovative energy storage solutions
A Fourth, and less feasible move, is to advance technologies to capture carbon from the atmosphere.
Just like the dropping cost of battery production has made the electric car a viable alternative to internal combustion, so too will technologies in clean energy production make them a viable alternative to fossil fuels. The key question is how quickly this can be achieved as we are running out of climate time.
