It just seemed like the right thing to do

Back in the chain Gang

I've never exactly been a Player in the online climate science field, though have dribbled around the edges for some time and have occasionally received encouraging noises from scientists whose opinions I respect.

But in previous iterations, my blogs have received a few tens of thousands of readers, and, more recently, I have a steady readership when I post on Quora.

So, though it may be a small constituency, yet there may be some people who appreciate what I try to do online and it is for them, as well as myself, that I have decided to reopen the blog.

Why now? Mainly, because it feels as if Truth is under attack. Prejudice and dishonesty abounds and is sometimes rewarded. Decency is not in vogue, and being human matters less than being noisy/young/pretty/opinionated/a cat.

Which leads to my second reason: for some time I have been concerned that there is a moral issue in respect to climate science and future-casting in general which is being steadily eroded. And this issue is our treatment of, and respect for, each other as humans. 

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. It exists because many people think it important to remember the evil which can and has been done in our names, or with our consent. It is important.

As I spend more time than is healthy considering, analysing and speculating about our collective future, I am reasonably confident that our society is changing, not for the better. There is an ongoing and future injustice which, if the projections play out, represents a human harm, a level of suffering, which is not just comparable to the suffering of the holocaust, but on a scale so vast as to be almost unthinkable.

Seventy five years ago, there were people who saw what was happening in Europe, in Nazi Germany and elsewhere, a more virulent continuation of historic persecutions going back centuries, and they turned away. Some did not.

And this is why I have returned. If a vast, unspeakable crime against humanity is to be committed, it will not be with my consent, not in my name, and I will not ignore it or simply let it happen. I am opening a dialogue to people who understand the stakes in climate, politics, environmental and social Justice and injustices, and who believe that such depravity should not go unchallenged.

All this is very serious, but please don't be put off - I'll still sometimes make a joke.

The Legacy problem

This post addresses a key challenge in climate discussions - what kind of future do we want for our descendants and whether we have to choose the lesser of two evils if we are to prosper.

That we are capable of incrementally changing the nature of our planet for the future should now be acknowledged as a given. That our current action pathways are destructive and will, unchecked, almost certainly result in great harm, suffering, damage and destruction to Nature and ecosystems, human societies and the social stability of our society and cultures should also be acknowledged, though even at this level there are divisions among people.

What is unquestionable is that by necessity, in living our lives, we effect the conditions of future lives by default. We are laying down a legacy for our descendants.

The central questions of climate change action relate to the nature and pace of the legacy and the extent to which this legacy can be altered, to decisions about what kind of legacy is preferable. 

Opinions about the nature of what we can or should do are strongly connected to opinions about what the risks are, what the timescales are, and what kind of human society is desirable.

What is generally accepted is that Energy is a key component of both the problems and the answers. So we have to have an idea about what to do about energy if we intend to plot any future scenario.

As things stand, our society is dependent on access to reliable energy, whether it is electricity, gas, full for transport or industrial production. Energy is a part of what we now are and much of what we do. We collectively use a vast amount of energy to support the ways in which live and this creates the first problem: the infrastructure of supply is necessarily vast, much, much bigger than most people realise or understand.

Even if our chosen pathway incorporates plans to reduce overall energy use, the reality is that, if we are to sustain a culture comparable to that of the present we need to produce large amounts of energy in the future. One set of questions arise from the choices we make about how we make use of that energy and how we reduce current levels of consumption. A second set of questions revolve around the extent to which we want to sustain that culture or whether it would be better to permit a degree of regression.

Another set of questions, my focus here, is the practicality of oil and coal divestment and usage, against the practicality of renewable energy and, third, the practicality of nuclear power.

Though there are other energy matters which could be included here, these three options form the basis of possible future energy production.

I work in renewable energy and believe strongly that any relatively cost-effective renewable energy should be encouraged and supported in the vast majority of cases. But I have to acknowledge that even with a vast uptake of renewables for the next thirty years there is still likely to be a shortfall between what can be supplied and what will be needed, however well we improve our energy efficiency.

In the absence of a magic bullet to suddenly solve these problems (all current solutions are partial and specific to certain preconditions), we have to make a difficult choice about how our needs are to be supplemented. That choice is between fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

The time may come in the next ten, twenty years that neither of these is necessary, but that time is not now. Given that we must choose to develop one or the other in the timescale from the present out 25 years, we need to decide which of these represents the better choice in terms of legacy.

Some of the risks associated with Fossil are relatively well understood. The timescales are in question, but the problems are potentially existential, intolerably painful and, in general, unacceptable. Other associated problems are less certain but even worse in their impact. 

For me, the problems with nuclear power are all about legacy. As things stand we have not satisfactorily resolved the problems of what to do to avoid harm completely - after all, in these processes we are creating highly toxic and damaging materials which need to be managed (potential) for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

But I feel there is a fundamental difference: the legacy problems associated with fossil fuel use cannot be resolved - once they are in the system, we have no choice but to live with the consequences. In this sense, the legacy (including the uncertain elements) are bound in and unavoidable, unchangeable. What will be will be.

On the other hand, I think that the legacy problems and issues of nuclear energy can be resolved. Since the source of risk is physically constrained (a relatively small amount of highly damaging residue), there is at least the possibility of finding the means by which the legacy can be managed, since the solution is engineerable. Though dreadful in themselves, nuclear incidents are localised when compared to the harms stimulated by climate change from fossil fuel use. The side-effects (ecosystem failure, drought, famine, flooding) of the latter do not arise from the former.

Being a member of the Green Party, I tend towards the view that nuclear weapons have limited justification and the risks that they exist to manage are extremely uncertain. But there is a big difference between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.

So, here is the legacy problem - which of the two energy options is the lesser of two 'evils' for the next twenty five years, and for our legacy? We must assume that our descendants will be living with changes, some of which will be negative, but we must also assume that the direction of our decisions will make a difference to the kinds of threats they will face and the opportunities they have to find solutions.

In the absence of other practical solutions, I am inclined to suggest that nuclear energy is the lesser evil.

Odds and ends

Hydrogen has been an object of some research recently.

It is no magic bullet. Pres. Bush did it a great disservice by presenting it as the answer to the USA's energy problems many years ago. The expectation has stuck, though the aspiration was always highly suspect.

But R&D has continued, and there are numerous developments which suggest that creative approaches to energy requirements can (and already do) result in positive results for the climate.

In case anyone is wondering, I don't have the historic expertise of a Joe Romm, but I do think his prejudices are based on assumptions which no longer apply, in both engineering and sustainability terms. So here it is: the time has come to review the case for hydrogen within the greater energy debate and place it in context.

There are several reasons for doing this, but foremost is the recent announcement that the Tokyo Olympic village will, post Olympics, become a 'Hydrogen Town'. This is (broadly) an extended community whose varied energy needs are met primarily by hydrogen. Japan has already run a similar pilot project, in Fukuoka. There is an extensive plan for a project in Ulsan, Korea.

Alongside these civic developments are important ones in industry - Hyundai and Toyota both have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs, or FCEVs) in production. California (along with many European countries) is developing a hydrogen fuel network - albeit a bit slowly. But before we get carried away, this blog, being focussed on cars, makes relevant points in a nice style, pro and con, about using hydrogen instead of Gasoline (petrol) or batteries.

Don't be misled into thinking I am promoting hydrogen as a 'better solution' than renewable energy as things stand. But it seems clear to me that many promising and imaginative developments already exist which demonstrate the potential of using it into the future.

There are several features of hydrogen which I particularly like. 

First, assuming a renewable energy source to hydrolyse it from water, it is amazingly 'clean' in environmental terms. It has been observed that some people may resist 'hydrogen' because of a historic (and incorrect) association with hydrogen bombs. If this refers to you, please be clear, there is no connection whatsoever. Hydrogen as an energy storage and usage solution is incredibly clean and has no link with nuclear tech.

Second, it is a scaleable solution. Not only can factories produce it, or utility-scale energy companies, but domestic-scale plant is already available; that is, a solar or wind installation which can hydrolyse, store, distribute and manage it for an individual property. It is not cheap (yet), but as an off-grid, isolated community or property solution, it offers autonomy from dependence on an unreliable supply chain.

Third, it is flexible. It can be used to heat homes, power cars, drive trains or power stations, generate electricity or whatever.

Fourth, it is often generated from excess capacity in other systems, whether it is an industrial process or excess generated capacity of renewable resources. In other words, rather than being seen as an alternative to these, it should more properly be viewed as an 'additional bonus', in the sense that energy which has been generated but would otherwise be lost to the system ('dumped') can instead be stored in a readily useable form.

The difficulties I do have with hydrogen is that a great deal is already created and almost all of it is already processed and used, for example, in the UK, by BOC. Increasing hydrogen generation to point where it makes a difference to the global energy mix requires a very large uptake in technologies and opportunity realisation. This concern feeds into a more practical concern about current and future cost of energy, which cannot be ignored since it is on a scale which affects national economies.

The observant reader will note that there are projects in the Far East, Europe, Canada, but not in oil-rich countries like the UAE. The USA is an anomaly in that present needs are being met cheaply, but future energy security is a real issue of concern for planners and long-term strategists. There is certainly a limited will to expend resources in catching up with other countries, though should the technology and solutions prove viable, no doubt the USA will catch up rapidly.

My final though might properly be included much higher up the article, but for commercial reasons I am reluctant to discuss this in detail. The implementation of hydrogen fuel cells into rail infrastructure could be one of the more interesting, viable and sustainable solutions of all, but of this, more (maybe) later.

Virtuous Circles – a trillion dollar business opportunity that might help save Society

I was quite surprised the other day when an American friend, who is quite active on climate and environment issues, responded to my references to the Circular Economy with 'what's that?'

Since a good proportion of this blog's readers (by the analytics) come from the USA, and since it is anyway a growing, rather than a well-understood concept/practice, I thought a quick introduction might be helpful.

Because the idea is, to my eyes, an important one. As Walter Stahel, the person accredited with first defining 'cradle-to-cradle' industrial process models describes it, this is a paradigm shift in the way we not only do business, but also in the way we understand our relationship with the world as an economically active society.

The basic ideas behind it are summarised on wikipedia, here. The idea is that products and services are designed from the outset to cycle back into their own production processes, creating a system which replicates Nature, by turning what was once called 'waste' into 'reusable material'. It is a long way, almost the opposite to, the idea of a Consumption Economy, which takes resources, makes products (with built in redundancy), then dumps the cast-off.

Not only is a Circular economy (and businesses operating on circular economy principles) hugely better for the planet (since finite resources are used much more efficiently, vastly reducing the dependence on new resource exploitation), but it is also potentially hugely profitable, to the tune of perhap a trillion dollars added to the value of the Global Economy. This alone makes it worth exploring more deeply.

One of the current champions and leaders in the field is a foundation with an implausible central figure, the gamine, 5'2" heroine of global sailing, Dame Ellen Macarthur. There is a nice article on her and her work on euronews, here.

In 2010, this extraordinary person, having conquered the World's oceans and broken numerous records along the way, and having become the youngest Dame in modern history and a Companion of the Legion d'Honneur, put competitive sailing to one side and launched the Ellen Macarthur Foundation (here), designed to promote a Circular economy.

So, some basic resources for you, if your interest is piqued:

 http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/circular-economy/the-circular-model-an-overview

 This provides a summary of the main ideas and links to other material.

http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/business/reports is a core set of reports, compiled with McKinsey, giving detailed information and a considerable amount of inspiration - all three reports are free to download.

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/circular-economy is one example of a media outlet, The Guardian (UK), both supporting and informing on various initiatives and actions around the World.

The underlying principles are powerful enough that the EU, by 2012, announced that it would be looking at using these concepts to inform future policy decisions. Perhaps it is time in the USA for similar initiative and corporate engagement.

Why this, here, now? Because we are fairly clear that Business as Usual is a really, really, bad idea, for Nature, the environment, poor people, climate change, social order and the future of human society - and this is more than an idea, it is a considered and sophisticated new operating model for a sustainable and healthier society, which might help us turn the corner from what looks like an impending crisis, with real world examples, case histories, financial analysis and substantial corporate engagement.

Hopefully, this will have given you some reason to hope - yes, I think we do need an international agreement to mitigate CO2 emissions, but I also think that our resourcefulness and initiative will move us, step by step, towards the goal of a better kind of world, on the way.