Icarus’ Legacy — Episode 1 — Energy Transformation and Climate Change

(Google Doc version more suitable for PC and Tablet is here)

I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, “don’t try to fly too high,’ or whether it might also be thought of as “forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.

Stanley Kubrik

My name is Andrea, and I have three teenager children.

I’m here, now, writing this because I know we (as humans) are facing an existential problem, with climate change, but hey! How do you explain it to teenagers who live in London, and are lucky enough to worry about sports, video calls, mobile phones and video games? Am I the only one finding it difficult?

Documentaries about shrinking ice caps and forest fires, disastrous floods and expanding deserts won’t do the job either: “They are very sad, but they are so far from us — what caused those problems? Corrupt politicians? Greedy old people? Consumerism? Certainly not us?”

How do you explain climate change to teenagers, so they want to be part of the solution? (we are all part of the problem)

Oh no, it is TOTALLY about us — whether we like it or not, it all starts with rich countries and what has fuelled their growth over the past century — and how in the name of our lifestyle, this has accelerated over the past few decades.

ENERGY! They get it

Energy! That’s easier to explain — it is everywhere, in a car, an oven, a light bulb, a shower, a television, a computer, a phone, an aeroplane, and it takes energy to build everything we use and consume, and often waste. We need to focus on the SOLUTION, instead of arguing about the culprits, and Energy is a big part of the solution.

Energy production and use are responsible for 73% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the direct cause of climate change.

It’s a lot!

That’s a good starting point to discuss what WE can do about it. No, I’m not going to tell my kids that they can change the world. But I want to explain how the world is expected to change, with everybody’s help, so we can do our part.

Only by learning and understanding we can make sense of what our role is.

In this episode you will find a brief explanation of why climate change is important and why it needs a solution NOW. In the following episodes we will focus on the energy sector: how it works and how it needs to transition to clean and renewable sources, including our role as citizens.

If we agree that we and our children are Icarus, then the dilemma is not whether a change is needed, but how to do our part.

Let’s go!

There’s an old bridge we need to cross before it collapses

The only constant is Climate Change

The Paris Agreement on climate change aims to limit global warming for this century to below 2’C, preferably 1.5’C, compared to pre-industrial levels. It entered into force in November 2016, following ratification from the vast majority of countries, including the majority of GHG emitters. 189 of the 197 signatories have formally approved the agreement, as of December 2020, and started to plan and implement their path to compliance.

Reducing GHG emissions entails much more than energy production and use, and depends on areas such as agriculture (e.g. emissions from livestock and fertilizers), food production processes, land use and deforestation, soil health and biodiversity, freshwater pollution and ocean chemistry, industrial processes, waste and construction.

Climate Change measures also look at mitigation plans, as some effects are already with us, and more are inevitable, including raising water levels, extreme weather events like wildfires, hurricanes and floods, destruction of natural habitats and ecosystems, and impact on communities, especially in the poorest countries. Things will get worse before we are given a last chance to stabilize our world.

Emissions from human activities are the main culprit for climate change, and energy production and use is the main contributor to these emissions, hence the focus on energy.

Over 110 countries have pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050 or earlier and China recently committed to achieve net zero before 2060.

By 2050 the world population is expected to grow to 9.8 billion people. Billions of people are expected to be taken out of poverty or significantly improve their living standards in the same timeframe — consider that as of 2020 nearly 1 billion people still don’t have access to electricity, and 3 billion people have to burn solid fuels for cooking.

Increasing population and improving living standards will need to be supported by a continued, large increase in global energy production, which is predicted to grow by 50% over the next 30 years.

This is the sense of the bridge in the title for this section: we need to move people to a better life, and while on the one hand there’s A giant clock that is ticking, the long march has started:

The challenge of zero

Tetris has very simple rules: turn and guide the pieces as they fall, to fill and clear the rows from the screen;your game is over if your pieces reach the top of the screen

1. Pace of GHG emissions generated every year: speed of pieces coming to the screen. If we keep the current speed, it will soon be game over, as we cannot clear rows quickly enough
2. Requirement for a collective strategy: we need to deploy the pieces all around our screen, to complete the rows. A strategy where key players don’t collaborate, will also mean game over
3. Objective of the game: do not fill the entire screen — do not reach critical levels of GHG in the atmosphere. New emissions should be matched by our ability to clear emissions from the atmosphere. The screen has been filling up quickly in recent times!
4. The more the screen fills up, the more difficult it is to clear rows: with higher GHG levels, most measures will be ineffective, and it will be more difficult to avoid a catastrophic impact on humanity. We need to revert the trend now
5. Ability to remove emissions: ability to complete and clear rows from the screen. More forests, better soil management, as well as new carbon capture technology can help
6. Different pieces: we cannot just work with long pieces or L pieces. We need to be able to work with all the pieces involved including the tricky ones, or we will fail

We face an incredible challenge: reverting historical trends of growing global emissions, and reducing it down to net zero, while we produce all the additional energy required by developing populations.

The game is on: pieces are falling from the sky and piling up on the ground

The energy sector will require a radical transformation in how we produce and supply energy, and in how we consume it in all areas of our society. We need to move to clean and renewable sources, while increasing efficiency and reducing waste, using all the possible technologies at our disposal.

We must be able to maneuver all the pieces and close all the gaps

What does “net zero emissions” or “carbon neutrality” mean? It means that any GHG emissions from human activities (such as carbon dioxide, CO2, and methane — it is inevitable to generate some emissions) must be offset and counterbalanced by equivalent capture of CO2 from the atmosphere, whether this is done through natural means, like forests, soil and oceans (carbon sinks), or from artificial processes like carbon capture and storage.

And there’s no way to avoid playing this tetris

To be clear, for net zero to be feasible, most of the emissions should not be produced in the first place, because the natural ability of our planet to capture CO2 is very limited, and other capture technologies are very expensive. Scientists reckon that we should reduce them by at least 90% before 2050 from 1990 levels to reach net zero, while the remaining 10% could be captured in different ways.

Strategy #1: Slow down the falling pieces

We are all players

So it must be a concerted action to reduce emissions and remove as much CO2 as possible from the atmosphere. It is important that we all familiarize with the issues and solutions in the energy sector, as we, citizens, workers, consumers, are an important part of this transformation, and we can accelerate and stimulate change with our everyday choices.

Strategy #2: Accelerate your game, man

To make sure this is effective against Climate Change targets it also depends on how quickly we can reduce emissions year-after-year, as ultimately, the greenhouse effect is the result of the total emissions released and present into the atmosphere. The quicker we take action, the easier it will be to reach our targets.

All the Tricks at our Disposal

Game Plan

Most countries are working hard at translating long term pledges into more practical objectives and plans for this decade, as slowing down climate change crucially depends on immediate action.

We can be so clever if we all play together

Many of these objectives are related to the energy sector, including the generation of 100% of electricity via renewable sources by 2030, phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles in favour of electrical vehicles and the production of hydrogen and biofuels at scale.

In the meanwhile research is going ahead at unprecedented speed in all green sectors, reducing costs, improving efficiency, making change more palatable: more efficient photovoltaic panels, batteries that are quicker to charge and cheaper to produce, larger wind turbines for offshore farms, green and cheaper hydrogen, gas networks, vehicles and industry processes that can utilize hydrogen, special drills for super-deep geothermal energy boreholes.

The recent Climate Ambition Summit , marking the 5-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement and paving the way to the COP26 saw 70 world leaders renew and improve their pledges, including the following:

• The EU-27 to cut emissions by 55% before 2030 respect to 1990 levels
• The UK to cut emissions by 68% before 2030 respect to 1990 levels
• China to produce 25% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030
• Many other countries to accelerate decarbonization respect to previous 2030 pledges
• UK, France and Sweden will immediately stop international financial support for fossil fuels initiatives
• Pakistan and Israel to stop building new coal power plants
• Finland, Austria and Sweden brought forward their net zero pledge to 2035, 2040 and 2045 respectively (from 2050)

But we should never lower our guard when vital promises are made

“Paris court finds France guilty of failing to meet its own Paris climate accord commitments”

The Administrative Tribunal in Paris ruled in February 2021 that France had fallen short of its promise to reduce greenhouse gases under commitments made in the 2015 Paris Agreement, and was “responsible for ecological damage.”. The court called the proceedings the “first major climate trial in France.”

We can still win

hooray!

We are at a tipping point in the energy sector transformation towards clean and renewable sources. It is gaining momentum, it’s not considered an option any more, it is not only a requirement, but also desirable, obvious, a massive opportunity for the global economy and, while complex in the given timeframe, doable with existing technologies.

2021 can be a crucial year to define more concrete plans and see an acceleration of processes to reach the ambitious targets. This is supported by many facts, including:

• The scale of the recovery funds made available by the largest world economies specifically towards the “green economy”, in an attempt to heal the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 crisis. The EU alone is making in excess of €600bn available to its member states (30% of the overall €1.8tn recovery fund is specifically dedicated to fighting climate change).
• The acceleration of commitments taken by many countries for net zero emissions and 100% renewable electricity, including the recent pledge from China to reach net zero by 2060. The EU-27 countries, USA, UK and China represent over 50% of GHG global emissions and now all have a net zero pledge.
• The effect of the USA coming back to the climate-change table as a primary actor, as a key priority of the new administration after the 2020 elections
• The preparation happening ahead of the COP26 conference in Glasgow in November 2021, to be hosted by the UK in partnership with Italy, where countries are detailing their pledges and formalizing their short and medium term action plans.
• The increased convergence of global finance towards sustainable (ESG) investments, and away from fossil fuel economies. And reaping the benefits of doing so
• The continuously reducing costs in the space of renewable energy, technology and production, and specifically for solar, wind and hydrogen, which will be key actors in this transformation
• The growth of the electric vehicles market thanks to reduced production and ownership costs, and to new policies that effectively will put combustion engines out of market within the next decade, and aid the transformation of the transport sector
• The increased awareness of the impact of energy use for climate change which is bringing new standards and policies in residential and commercial buildings and in industrial processes, leading to greatly increased efficiency

Like Icarus should have better gown a pair, of wings

We should feel positive about the opportunity ahead of us — we can finally see a convergence of global awareness and pledges from most major countries, funding and alignment with economic interests, and we basically already have all the technologies we need in the short-medium term.

Now we need to translate all this into concrete actions (I repeat: Now) to build success stories that can be used as blueprints for emulation and improvement around the world.

This great challenge will require numerous disparate well concerted strategies (there’s no silver bullet) therefore prioritization and timing of measures is essential. In this way we can use our resources and time, by addressing the areas that can deliver the largest benefits, and that can enable additional transformation down the line.

This conversation

What are the main sources for energy generation? Which sectors consume more energy? What is the historical trend with the different renewable sources, what is the role of electricity and hydrogen in the transformation, and what are the most important clean energy opportunities?

While trying to answer these questions I realized how difficult it was to get access to up to date, clear, detailed and reliable data, research and analysis, and then to interpret it, reconcile it and put it into the broader context.

Initially this was an effort to collect links to the most important sources with latest and accurate data and analysis, but then it was clear that if I didn’t write a narrative across all the different stories, I would fail to connect the dots and make sense of where we stand and where we need to go.

I hope you will find this overview useful. It is by no means complete, but it should be accurate enough, from a high-level perspective. I added as many reliable references as I could, so you can go deeper, keep up to date, and build your own story, so you don’t have to believe mine.

In the next episode I’ll tell you about History, Trends, and if and how the past can help us prepare for the future