Thank you to Lord Adair Turner for joining us on Cleaning Up. Find out more about the Energy Transitions Commission at www.energy-transitions.org. And sign up to the Cleaning Up newsletter for free at cleaninguppod.substack.com.
Very stimulating discussion. The facts that come out as opposed to negative rubbish is a breath of fresh air. Thank goodness we have people of this calibre working and examining the issues. Thanks.
A big chunk of UK housing transitioned from solid fuels (coal in London) to gas. That was financed by householders. Householders did it when they renovated their houses. I see the same thing happening now: people upgrade to heat pumps (and underfloor heating) when they renovate.
You may be forgetting the role of the Clean Air Act 1956, which banned domestic use of coal in London and other cities. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956
Well i certainly don't think that the people in Burton have a lot of money to spend on renovation. Britain was a significantly wealthy country when they switched over front from cold to gas
@@MLiebreich I was born in London in the 60s and have lived most of my life here. The 70s and 80s was when most of the houses around me got central heating. This wasn't in response to the clean air act: people installed gas central heating because it was better. Smokeless fules (Coalite) was used if you wanted a real fire (or converted their fireplaces to gas). The 90s was when the great conversion to combi boilers started: mains water pressure and no cylinder required. These days people will start to upgrade to heat pumps.
Thanks for the discussion on solar PV becoming ubiquitous. I live in the USA in a state with many lakes. I would add the prospect of over water PV arrays. The installation could be floating or on poles. Much like agricultural PV, over water PV could be environmentally benifictial. Many here in the USA have not yet come to the realization that local electrical electrical production will drastically change how electricity is delivered.
@@Burtis89 Yes evaporation is a problem and PV coverage should reduce it.. There is even talk of putting PV over aqueducts. In southern Florida there is the lake, Okeechobee, which if partially coved with PV could make a big dent in electrical needs. If you google "Biggest Floating power plants" you get quite a list. The first being: "Dezhou Dingzhuang Floating Solar Farm: Located in Shandong, China, this 320 MW plant is part of the Huaneng Dezhou Dingzhuang Integrated Wind and Solar Energy Storage project." If new technology PV cells that are 40% efficient, just thing of how much electricity could be generated.
@@Burtis89 Yes, most likely. Also, shading the water inhibits algal growth. It also could increase fish populations and example being petroleum platforms.
@@jiminycricket9877 Yes, winters can be a problem. Wind energy might be higher. Solar PV panels set vertical seem to work well. Bottom line is that far northern locations might require energy imports. Canada has extensive hydroelectric.
There are other cell level savings to be had with Na chemistries, on all constituent parts of a battery cell, contacts, electrolyte, binders, anodes & cathodes. Lower temperature performance, easier thermal management, damage resistance are other advantages on the pack level
@@euphoriceulerNa+ Cells are over their lifetime more expensive in every aspect than LFP. They will be used in special niche products but not widespread.
Nuclear cannot possibly play ANY role in the future, it is a technology of the stone age that needs to be abolished as soon as possible. Just a few of many reasons: - All nuclear plants are thermal power plants, meaning they DIRECTLY add to the climate crisis by heating up the environment and if summers get too hot, they may even have to be shut down as was shown in France recently. - It takes very long to build a nuclear plant and they are always much more expensive than anticipated, see the one being built in the UK currently. - Although uranium is not a rare element, it is becoming increasingly expensive to extract it. Should the demand for it increase significantly because many more plants would be built, the cost for it would increase drastically. Besides, much of it comes from Russia and currently, there are reasons not to buy from Russia if I'm not mistaken. - No insurance is willing to cover any kind of nuclear plant which shows how dangerous it is. Should anything happen, all pay for it, no insurance will cover any of the cost. - Should an accident happen ("not likely, there may be one accident within 10,000 years" was claimed before the first plants were built, now we had several within a few decades), the consequences are drastic. Chernobyl "happened" in 1986 and it is STILL not safe to harvest mushrooms in southern Germany, 1,100 miles away from it and almost 40 years later because they are too radiocative for human consumption. Plus, the sarcophagus built on top of it will only last 100 years, what will replace that?
The connection between climate change and the energy transition is often troublesome as well. I would argue for the energy transition as a way for countries to be less dependent on other countries, an argument from autarky if you will, when in a debate with someone on the conservative/right. How could you be against less dependence on other countries/foreigners? This is in contrast with how I would argue with someone on the progressive/left. This would involve the more typical argumentation of preserving the planet ecosystem (and our viability on this planet), etc. etc.
I've long felt there is a MASSIVE disconnection between the issues of recompense for climate change related loss & damages in poorer developing nations and illegal/irregular immigration. Both these tend to be viewed and treated as separate issues. Overseas development budgets worldwide appear to have been suffering from cuts in recent years, and yet we see and hear screaming & yelling about the costs associated with 'stopping the boats' and asylum seekers accommodation. Well, if governments don't want to see costs continue to rise, and public discontent becoming an ever increasing issue at and in-between elections, then surely a substantial amount of joined up thinking and action is required. TBC: The aforementioned comment is not meant to minimise, ignore, nor overlook completely the impacts of war and other forms of instability that directly contribute to illegal/irregular migration.
New nuclear plants cost 10x more per MWh as Wind +Solar and Mega-Packs batteries and are a very complicated to built. WW the ratio on ivestments/GW is about 1 to 200. No chance. And nuclear works very badly with green power together.
Hi. Danish engineers said that. In 1980. 44 years ago. Thus our country promoted development of windmills, primarily, secondarily biogas (and forgot about solar...).
1:20:28 Adair Turner: "I am optimistic and I am becoming even more optimistic over time that we have a set of unstoppable technologies, primarily electric which, by 2070 or 2080, are going to take this world to something pretty close to a zero-carbon economy, with a huge set of side benefits as well. I think this is unstoppable. I am pessimistic, and in a sense, I've become still more pessimistic that the political inability to go fast enough, the counter arguments, the misinformation, mean that we will not get there fast enough, and my current estimate is we will probably warm the world by close to two degrees at best, and possibly higher, before we achieve this zero-carbon economy" Reaching these goals in ~50 years is without question much better than nothing, but there seemed to be no acknowledgement that 1.5 degrees (which we're at already) and rising is very bad, and 2.0+ will be catastrophic for some, mostly in the global South. Current levels of renewables development and buildout (and other decarbonization progress) are appreciable to be sure, but in historical context are too little, too late. We should have been where we are now, in 2024, back in 2000 at the latest. If necessary (i.e. if insufficiently briefed as to catastrophic nature of 2.0): [on youtube; search for title] Listen: 9:40-22:00 Listen: 47:45-60:00 No, Kurzgesagt, We WON'T Fix Climate Change - The Danger of Fake Optimism BadEmpanada May 29, 2022
Lord T is spot on in his estimate of where we are headed and house long out well take to get there. I've been saying the same things since at least 2018. Neither Lord T nor I are celebrating blowing through 1.5C and we are both perfectly aware of the consequences of reaching 2C of warning by 2100. I for one think it's more productive to discuss the world as it is, rather than endlessly wail about how it should be.
@@MLiebreich I was looking for an "acknowlegment that 1.5 degrees and rising is very bad, and 2.0+ will be catastrophic for some". To suggest that I was accusing you of "celebrating blowing through 1.5" (which I did not do) is to cartoon-ize my comment and, it would seem, to avoid the point. The mentions of 1.5 and 2.0 were in the context of much talk of optimism. Perhaps it would be good to indicate that being optimistic about 2.0 is not being too optimistic, if you get my drift. Further, it is amusing that the MERE PASSING MENTION of how things should be is interpreted as "endless wailing". By that standard, if someone were to beat you half to death, and then later you make a single complaint about it, you might be accused of "endlessly wailing" about the incident. "STFU! So your head just got bashed in -- so what? STOP COMPLAINING. STUFF IT."
Where I live in Australia I am not allowed to add solar panels to my existing ones as the grid cannot cope with the excess solar. Government needs to hold the energy suppliers accountable for preventing the growth of renewables. I am not prepared to have batteries added until the issue of thermal runaway is a complete non issue. Pretty sure that will occur within 5 years. Similarly an EV is not on the cards until thermal runaway is a non issue. Again, the technology exists and just needs to be rolled out. Perhaps I am over cautious but the amount of fires being caused by consumer lithium batteries is not acceptable.
The democratization of solar will overtake all these diversity discussions. Solar and batteries will eventually cover all energy generation requirements, which will anyway be much less because of the individual house installations which are not drawing from the grid.
~25:00 A lot of this will depend on how good the power grids are, in transmitting over long distances efficiently. I think some really huge improvements are very possible there.
@@ronaldgarrison8478 Let me do the calculation with Germany - every country is different of course - they need 8722 Exajoule, that is 2.4 Petawatthours. With electric energy you need 1/3 of that because electric energy use is so much more efficient or roughly 900 TWh. Currently they use 480 TWh. Until 2050 - when i demand everything must be fossil free - you need a 3% increas annually to get up to roughly 1066 TWh. 900 TWh with 166 TWh Reserve for the Dunkelflaute. We can repeat that with many other countries. The numbers change but 3% is the ballpark figure we need every year.
HI Michael, Thanks for another great episode, a really nice end to this series of 'Cleaning Up'. I'd not listened to your previous interviews with Lord Adair (I only started regularly watching the podcast about two series ago), and when he lost the 'hydrogen' drinking game that early in the episode - I was slightly worried on bias. But then you mentioned the 'primary energy fallacy' and we were on solid and interesting ground for the rest of the episode. I'm still in the Mark Z Jacobson / Saul Griffith camp in not being that convinced for the need for (more) nuclear, but as I'm living in a house in GB powered by solar and batteries during the spring/summer/autumn I'm well aware that we need a raft of sources in the lovely GB winter. Why not more tidal as a baseload? and we still have so many mineshafts, particularly in lower-investment areas, I do wonder if these could be re-used more for geothermal or ground-source community heat pumps (for example). I thought the conversation went up a level of interest at 108.11 talking about populism. The problem now is that we are not just in need of technological solutions that work - as we have entered a proper 'information' or 'misinformation war'. It could be argued this was always the case but Musk's buying of Twitter, and the ability to spread an 'alternative view of facts' is a weapon which has - and no doubt will continue - to slow down the necessary transition in certain areas (specifically social changes). Yuval Noah Harari has discussed deftly how more information doesn't automatically give us the 'truth' which is a completely different matter. I know you slightly 'dismissed' Tony Seba in a few episodes back, but I'd still like to see you interview (maybe) James Airbib from RethinkX as he's based in the UK rather than the states and I believe RethinkX work has been reasonably accurate on solar, wind, battery development and cost etc (though I agree their timelines/predictions on self-driving cars development / uptake is incorrect). Their research factors do include the ability of governments to 'pull positive' levers for change, and it would be interesting if the misinformation war has slowed down the 'S-curves' on uptake of new disruptive technologies. It's not possibly your 'zone of interest' but there's still so little mention of agriculture and diet shifts here - and without that, we could stop fossil fuels tomorrow and we will still overshoot well over 1.5. The 'woke war' used against renewables will be nothing compared to that battle. Rewilding as supported at Knepp Estate and reintroduction of species by Wildwood Trust would make a great addition to the biodiversity angle. Anyway - apologies for the long response. Keep up the good work - I look forward to the next series!. best wishes Michael
Michael, you touched on the [UK] review of the elecricity trading market and your previous interview with Greg Jackson. Would you consider a discussion, early in season 14 ahead of the government review, on the different ways the market could be reformed from the brutal marginal pricing. Preferably not by a propenent of one solution but a neutral analysis of the possibilites - you may need more than one interviewee! The pros of zoning pricing was covered by Greg but we didn't really hear the cons. [Amory Lovins: gosh, I remember reading his 1976 book way back when I was co-editing the scurilous "Undercurrents", good to see him still about - must go back to your earlier talk with him.]
@@MLiebreich Not if it means people can get behind something pro-actively that will bring down their bills. The prospect of lower bills will always be an incentive to listen harder on 'dry subjects' (you would hope)!🙂 Perhaps film that episode in a safari park!
- Great point on the power of flexible load for the future of industrial capacity, if the load is flexible you can buy electricity at its cheapest. It also boosts utilization rate of transmission tech, e.t.c. - Would have loved to see some debate on ridiculous overbuild of Solar & Wind vs (diversification of generation, storage tech) for dunkelflaute
E.g Extreme overbuild 10x overcapacity vs moderate overbuild (2X) + diversified generation (nuclear, geothermal, hydro, storage) what does that mean for least costs, resiliency to attacks (cyber, war, vandalism, unplanned outages), positive externalities, reliability/dunkelflaute
@@adeoluwaadejumo4034 I don't think anyone is suggesting 10x overbuild as a solution for Dunkelflaute. My own best guess is that we chip away at the problem until there really is only the Dunkelflaute left to solve, i.e. about 10 days per year, 2-4% of the time, and we just live with some unabated natural gas. Not perfect, but better than doing nothing while we debate the perfect solution.
Great episode except for the take on populism. No countering of disinformation will work when establishing the truth isn't the actual problem. Cynical indifference towards the truth is a response to the persistent cynical indifference of elites towards just social relations.
And your suggestion is what? I agree that the problem isn't establishing scientific insight, it's getting people to accept it when it's inconvenient to them or triggered by their tribe. It's also getting people not exaggerate for effect when they think people should be listening but aren't, because that makes things worse, not better.
For steel production and various chemical processes you could transform the CO and CO2 exhaust to usefull products by synthetic biology (example LanzaTech). An additional way to reduce climate gas emissions by a new and rapidly developing technology.
You can, and that would reduce emissions but not eliminate them. Fossil carbon would still end up in the atmosphere. I had Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of Lanzatech on Cleaning Up: th-cam.com/video/t43NPSNVsIQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6G7PL7fZ_Tcu6aBu
I watched this with interest but think if you want to make progress you must treat people who think differently with respect. I happen to think Dr Judith Curry and Dr Steven Koonin are very intelligent and well qualified climate scientists.
Lucky I listened all the way through, because I was going roast the hell out of him for that first excerpt without context. He saved himself by equivocating 😅
Beware academic silos. Electrification of electricity grids is the easy part of moving to a sustainable, net zero civilisation. The biggest challenge is food. Humanity cannot deliver on the Paris agreement without delivering the 30 by 30 SDG, and this cannot be delivered without a revolution in food production and consumption.
And I don't want you playing any role in choosing what my family put on the table. You eat what you like, tell other people what you eat, and if an acceptable proposition people might emulate you. Please don't plead to government to force things on the entire population against their will.
@@Delchursing You seem very angry about something, I'm not sure what, or why you are directing it at us. I'm not trying to tell you what to eat. A lot of the stuff I work on will help continue the long trend in harvesting more calories and nutrients from less land - which is the key to 30 by whenever - as well as removing emissions from the process. I suggest if that is something you feel passionate about, find a way to help, rather than being Mr Angry here.
Renewables are not working very well right now and any place that inverse heavily in renewable has an increase in electrical costs. I think burton will soon it going to rolling blackouts if they continue on the course they are on at the moment. Perhaps the technology will improve, but it's not doing it right now
True, the sun works even less every day. I must send a letter of complaint to the pope. I guess the pope is the acting vice president of god here on earth.
In 1989 I first heard the phrase "greenhouse effect". It was a big problem allegedly, from car fumes. They did not immediately ban motor racing. I knew from then that its not a real problem.
@@SuperSquark OK. Is that a "I'm not going to engage with any discussion" statement or would you be willing to look at research that explains the greenhouse effect and how we know where the main culprits come from? I have no problem pointing out some of the research, if that's helpful?
You make a good point. It was filmed in a serviced office, not much we can do about it. I'm building a new studio though, so by Q2 next year, expect the most scrumptious backgrounds...
Sad the price of solar has not dropped during the at night and when clouds appear ! Sad the cost of network transmission has increased. Sad we have seen wind calm for days/week at a time. Sad our rising domestic electric costs are making us uncompetitive. The point is despite the good Lord doing a good job, it is irrelevant when the strategy is wrong.
@@MLiebreich Maybe in 10 or 20 years time technology will be invented to allow cheap renewable and reliable energy to materialise. All this for a climate change hypothesis that is fast being demolished by the world's top physicists (though not by most so-called climate scientists). In the meantime we impoverish the lives of the younger generations for ideological reasons.
I'm not sure the list was supposed to be extensive. Both the speakers have links to the conservatives, so not sure this is some left-wing conspiracy and I suspect that both would be wary of left-wing extremism.
The issue being Net Zero is energy and electricity is around 16% of energy and solar and wind are 2% of total energy. Even is electricity were 100% renewable it would leave 84% of the energy needing replacing.
@@MLiebreich What I meant by that is the transition that some are claiming is not occuring. Recent figures show coal, for eample, has reached new high levels globally, driven mostly by China. The same goes for Gas and Oil.
@@stopthatluca Dig deeper. The trend in coal is a combination of OECD countries, where coal is falling off the grid, China, where its use is still being promoted as part of an economic stimulus, and the rest of the world, where it is still rising but not precipitously. So there is most definitely a transition and decoupling going on in the OECD. It will begin in countries as they get wealthier, but the challenge is to accelerate it rather than slow it down - or give up, as you appear to have.
Nothing is "the" way forward. Yes, electrification of rail is a way forward. Indian railways are now 94% electrified, and it is infuriating that in the UK and other countries electrification is found too difficult (or rather it does not tick the right boxes on the Treasury's cost-benefit analysis). Having said that, rural rail should probably be dismantled and the tracks used for roads or tourism. It's very hard to get enough volume onto rural rail to cover the costs, and demand can probably be much better met via buses.
Here in Southampton we couldn't electrify out bus fleet because we can't get enough electricity to the depot because the railway and other industry eats a lot of it and would need a big infrastructure upgrade. It's all infrastructure in time it will come I guess
Electric is half powered by gas, solar and wind are 2% of total energy in UK, new electrification changing from diesel to LNG that comes from the same barrel is only green washing.
Oh my god, how smug and out of touch with science. Net zero at 2080?! Are you kidding me?! Mr Lord should let us know what are his credentials on climate change. He’s a lord, that it? Not good enough 😊
AMOC slowing faster than models expect. Coal on the increase., emissions including CH4, NO, on the increase, tipping points like Arctic ocean no longer being a CO2 sink flipping. 2070-80 is fantasy land. Where's the honesty that for all the what might be, the certainty is economic collapse, population collapse, tragedy because we dare not admit the urgency, scale and route that would at least slow down horror? That'd entail managed energy and consumption contraction, prioritisation of the use of scarce resources not based on wealth wins but on resilience and adaptability.
You should publish your data. Because your view of the impact of net zero 2070-2080, which would be broadly consistent with 2C of warming by 2100, is not supported by the peer-reviewed science and differs considerably from the conclusions of the IPCC AR6. 2C is not a good outcome, but it is far from "certainty [of] economic collapse, population collapse, tragedy".
It's not fantasy land, it's keep business as usual and let me lie to your face about the reality. Solar and wind are 2% of total energy, he might be talking electricity and that's 16% of total energy which at least half is gas powered. The economy ignores the reality of the environment now and as long as people think money is valuable and not bank debt then we will keep going as per usual and see 3-4 c by 2100, we all know 1.5 is gone by and the acceleration is only starting, half the energy released in the last 30 years and half the carbon in the last 40, no-one has experience in this but I was watching something this morning, one warming period was considered quick and that was 6c in 20,000 years, we are 50-80 times faster, I think 80 was a fair number, so that would make 250 years. 6c in 2-300 years and all the ice left out in the open, that cools us down, they could see melt pulses of metres per decade. You'd think these would be the things discussed regarding our inability to change.
No one forgets geothermal. I'm an advisor to the world's leading closed loop geothermal company, Eavor. But you have to admit it is not (yet) scaling like solar power and EVs.
Geothermal energy could provide hot water or hot air as ground temperatures are 55 degrees or above most water does not need to be above this a 55 degree tap is hot to wash and heat to warm enough to most needs heavy industrial processes need much more heat solar mirrors are heating salt to 560 degrees giving the heat needed a head start to jet from 560 to what you need is less traditional energy intensive is solar has started warming for using less fuels of any kind that’s why multiple technologies will have to be rolled out
Thank you to Lord Adair Turner for joining us on Cleaning Up. Find out more about the Energy Transitions Commission at www.energy-transitions.org. And sign up to the Cleaning Up newsletter for free at cleaninguppod.substack.com.
Very stimulating discussion. The facts that come out as opposed to negative rubbish is a breath of fresh air. Thank goodness we have people of this calibre working and examining the issues. Thanks.
Thanks Peter. Or John.
A big chunk of UK housing transitioned from solid fuels (coal in London) to gas. That was financed by householders. Householders did it when they renovated their houses. I see the same thing happening now: people upgrade to heat pumps (and underfloor heating) when they renovate.
You may be forgetting the role of the Clean Air Act 1956, which banned domestic use of coal in London and other cities.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956
@@MLiebreichmaybe they need to push these regulations further then to speed it up 👍
Well i certainly don't think that the people in Burton have a lot of money to spend on renovation.
Britain was a significantly wealthy country when they switched over front from cold to gas
@@davidwestwater2219 You must be joking. I remember the 1970s, putting shillings in the meter.
@@MLiebreich I was born in London in the 60s and have lived most of my life here. The 70s and 80s was when most of the houses around me got central heating. This wasn't in response to the clean air act: people installed gas central heating because it was better. Smokeless fules (Coalite) was used if you wanted a real fire (or converted their fireplaces to gas). The 90s was when the great conversion to combi boilers started: mains water pressure and no cylinder required. These days people will start to upgrade to heat pumps.
Thanks for the discussion on solar PV becoming ubiquitous. I live in the USA in a state with many lakes. I would add the prospect of over water PV arrays. The installation could be floating or on poles. Much like agricultural PV, over water PV could be environmentally benifictial. Many here in the USA have not yet come to the realization that local electrical electrical production will drastically change how electricity is delivered.
Over a Reservoir would be a good shout to keep evaporation low?
@@Burtis89 Yes evaporation is a problem and PV coverage should reduce it.. There is even talk of putting PV over aqueducts. In southern Florida there is the lake, Okeechobee, which if partially coved with PV could make a big dent in electrical needs. If you google "Biggest Floating power plants" you get quite a list. The first being: "Dezhou Dingzhuang Floating Solar Farm: Located in Shandong, China, this 320 MW plant is part of the Huaneng Dezhou Dingzhuang Integrated Wind and Solar Energy Storage project." If new technology PV cells that are 40% efficient, just thing of how much electricity could be generated.
How about in northern latitudes?
@@Burtis89 Yes, most likely. Also, shading the water inhibits algal growth. It also could increase fish populations and example being petroleum platforms.
@@jiminycricket9877 Yes, winters can be a problem. Wind energy might be higher. Solar PV panels set vertical seem to work well. Bottom line is that far northern locations might require energy imports. Canada has extensive hydroelectric.
@15:35 Lithium is only 15% of the cost of a battery cell. Going to sodium isn't going to halve the cost of a cell.
No. But its going to reduce the demand for lithium. And lithium mining.
There are other cell level savings to be had with Na chemistries, on all constituent parts of a battery cell, contacts, electrolyte, binders, anodes & cathodes.
Lower temperature performance, easier thermal management, damage resistance are other advantages on the pack level
@@user-pt1ow8hx5lNo it does not reduce the demand for lithium mining. Sodium cells are a niche product.
@@euphoriceulerNa+ Cells are over their lifetime more expensive in every aspect than LFP. They will be used in special niche products but not widespread.
Nuclear cannot possibly play ANY role in the future, it is a technology of the stone age that needs to be abolished as soon as possible. Just a few of many reasons:
- All nuclear plants are thermal power plants, meaning they DIRECTLY add to the climate crisis by heating up the environment and if summers get too hot, they may even have to be shut down as was shown in France recently.
- It takes very long to build a nuclear plant and they are always much more expensive than anticipated, see the one being built in the UK currently.
- Although uranium is not a rare element, it is becoming increasingly expensive to extract it. Should the demand for it increase significantly because many more plants would be built, the cost for it would increase drastically. Besides, much of it comes from Russia and currently, there are reasons not to buy from Russia if I'm not mistaken.
- No insurance is willing to cover any kind of nuclear plant which shows how dangerous it is. Should anything happen, all pay for it, no insurance will cover any of the cost.
- Should an accident happen ("not likely, there may be one accident within 10,000 years" was claimed before the first plants were built, now we had several within a few decades), the consequences are drastic. Chernobyl "happened" in 1986 and it is STILL not safe to harvest mushrooms in southern Germany, 1,100 miles away from it and almost 40 years later because they are too radiocative for human consumption. Plus, the sarcophagus built on top of it will only last 100 years, what will replace that?
The connection between climate change and the energy transition is often troublesome as well.
I would argue for the energy transition as a way for countries to be less dependent on other countries, an argument from autarky if you will, when in a debate with someone on the conservative/right. How could you be against less dependence on other countries/foreigners?
This is in contrast with how I would argue with someone on the progressive/left. This would involve the more typical argumentation of preserving the planet ecosystem (and our viability on this planet), etc. etc.
I've long felt there is a MASSIVE disconnection between the issues of recompense for climate change related loss & damages in poorer developing nations and illegal/irregular immigration. Both these tend to be viewed and treated as separate issues. Overseas development budgets worldwide appear to have been suffering from cuts in recent years, and yet we see and hear screaming & yelling about the costs associated with 'stopping the boats' and asylum seekers accommodation. Well, if governments don't want to see costs continue to rise, and public discontent becoming an ever increasing issue at and in-between elections, then surely a substantial amount of joined up thinking and action is required.
TBC: The aforementioned comment is not meant to minimise, ignore, nor overlook completely the impacts of war and other forms of instability that directly contribute to illegal/irregular migration.
New nuclear plants cost 10x more per MWh as Wind +Solar and Mega-Packs batteries and are a very complicated to built. WW the ratio on ivestments/GW is about 1 to 200. No chance. And nuclear works very badly with green power together.
Hi. Danish engineers said that. In 1980. 44 years ago. Thus our country promoted development of windmills, primarily, secondarily biogas (and forgot about solar...).
1:20:28 Adair Turner: "I am optimistic and I am becoming even more optimistic over time that we have a set of unstoppable technologies, primarily electric which, by 2070 or 2080, are going to take this world to something pretty close to a zero-carbon economy, with a huge set of side benefits as well. I think this is unstoppable. I am pessimistic, and in a sense, I've become still more pessimistic that the political inability to go fast enough, the counter arguments, the misinformation, mean that we will not get there fast enough, and my current estimate is we will probably warm the world by close to two degrees at best, and possibly higher, before we achieve this zero-carbon economy"
Reaching these goals in ~50 years is without question much better than nothing, but there seemed to be no acknowledgement that 1.5 degrees (which we're at already) and rising is very bad, and 2.0+ will be catastrophic for some, mostly in the global South. Current levels of renewables development and buildout (and other decarbonization progress) are appreciable to be sure, but in historical context are too little, too late. We should have been where we are now, in 2024, back in 2000 at the latest.
If necessary (i.e. if insufficiently briefed as to catastrophic nature of 2.0):
[on youtube; search for title]
Listen: 9:40-22:00
Listen: 47:45-60:00
No, Kurzgesagt, We WON'T Fix Climate Change - The Danger of Fake Optimism
BadEmpanada
May 29, 2022
Lord T is spot on in his estimate of where we are headed and house long out well take to get there. I've been saying the same things since at least 2018.
Neither Lord T nor I are celebrating blowing through 1.5C and we are both perfectly aware of the consequences of reaching 2C of warning by 2100.
I for one think it's more productive to discuss the world as it is, rather than endlessly wail about how it should be.
@@MLiebreich
I was looking for an "acknowlegment that 1.5 degrees and rising is very bad, and 2.0+ will be catastrophic for some". To suggest that I was accusing you of "celebrating blowing through 1.5" (which I did not do) is to cartoon-ize my comment and, it would seem, to avoid the point. The mentions of 1.5 and 2.0 were in the context of much talk of optimism. Perhaps it would be good to indicate that being optimistic about 2.0 is not being too optimistic, if you get my drift.
Further, it is amusing that the MERE PASSING MENTION of how things should be is interpreted as "endless wailing". By that standard, if someone were to beat you half to death, and then later you make a single complaint about it, you might be accused of "endlessly wailing" about the incident. "STFU! So your head just got bashed in -- so what? STOP COMPLAINING. STUFF IT."
With solar and wind around 2% of total energy in the Uk, I think he might be talking about electricity which is less than 20% of energy.
Where I live in Australia I am not allowed to add solar panels to my existing ones as the grid cannot cope with the excess solar. Government needs to hold the energy suppliers accountable for preventing the growth of renewables. I am not prepared to have batteries added until the issue of thermal runaway is a complete non issue. Pretty sure that will occur within 5 years. Similarly an EV is not on the cards until thermal runaway is a non issue. Again, the technology exists and just needs to be rolled out. Perhaps I am over cautious but the amount of fires being caused by consumer lithium batteries is not acceptable.
The democratization of solar will overtake all these diversity discussions. Solar and batteries will eventually cover all energy generation requirements, which will anyway be much less because of the individual house installations which are not drawing from the grid.
If you've done the calculations on area, battery and transmission requirements then please share.
~25:00 A lot of this will depend on how good the power grids are, in transmitting over long distances efficiently. I think some really huge improvements are very possible there.
Yes, At least 2-3% every year.
@@wolfgangpreier9160 Sounds like a plausible figure, but how do you arrive at it?
@@ronaldgarrison8478 Let me do the calculation with Germany - every country is different of course - they need 8722 Exajoule, that is 2.4 Petawatthours.
With electric energy you need 1/3 of that because electric energy use is so much more efficient or roughly 900 TWh. Currently they use 480 TWh.
Until 2050 - when i demand everything must be fossil free - you need a 3% increas annually to get up to roughly 1066 TWh.
900 TWh with 166 TWh Reserve for the Dunkelflaute.
We can repeat that with many other countries. The numbers change but 3% is the ballpark figure we need every year.
@@ronaldgarrison8478 What improvements do you think are very possible?
HI Michael,
Thanks for another great episode, a really nice end to this series of 'Cleaning Up'. I'd not listened to your previous interviews with Lord Adair (I only started regularly watching the podcast about two series ago), and when he lost the 'hydrogen' drinking game that early in the episode - I was slightly worried on bias. But then you mentioned the 'primary energy fallacy' and we were on solid and interesting ground for the rest of the episode. I'm still in the Mark Z Jacobson / Saul Griffith camp in not being that convinced for the need for (more) nuclear, but as I'm living in a house in GB powered by solar and batteries during the spring/summer/autumn I'm well aware that we need a raft of sources in the lovely GB winter. Why not more tidal as a baseload? and we still have so many mineshafts, particularly in lower-investment areas, I do wonder if these could be re-used more for geothermal or ground-source community heat pumps (for example).
I thought the conversation went up a level of interest at 108.11 talking about populism. The problem now is that we are not just in need of technological solutions that work - as we have entered a proper 'information' or 'misinformation war'. It could be argued this was always the case but Musk's buying of Twitter, and the ability to spread an 'alternative view of facts' is a weapon which has - and no doubt will continue - to slow down the necessary transition in certain areas (specifically social changes). Yuval Noah Harari has discussed deftly how more information doesn't automatically give us the 'truth' which is a completely different matter. I know you slightly 'dismissed' Tony Seba in a few episodes back, but I'd still like to see you interview (maybe) James Airbib from RethinkX as he's based in the UK rather than the states and I believe RethinkX work has been reasonably accurate on solar, wind, battery development and cost etc (though I agree their timelines/predictions on self-driving cars development / uptake is incorrect). Their research factors do include the ability of governments to 'pull positive' levers for change, and it would be interesting if the misinformation war has slowed down the 'S-curves' on uptake of new disruptive technologies.
It's not possibly your 'zone of interest' but there's still so little mention of agriculture and diet shifts here - and without that, we could stop fossil fuels tomorrow and we will still overshoot well over 1.5. The 'woke war' used against renewables will be nothing compared to that battle. Rewilding as supported at Knepp Estate and reintroduction of species by Wildwood Trust would make a great addition to the biodiversity angle. Anyway - apologies for the long response. Keep up the good work - I look forward to the next series!. best wishes
Michael
Michael, you touched on the [UK] review of the elecricity trading market and your previous interview with Greg Jackson. Would you consider a discussion, early in season 14 ahead of the government review, on the different ways the market could be reformed from the brutal marginal pricing. Preferably not by a propenent of one solution but a neutral analysis of the possibilites - you may need more than one interviewee! The pros of zoning pricing was covered by Greg but we didn't really hear the cons.
[Amory Lovins: gosh, I remember reading his 1976 book way back when I was co-editing the scurilous "Undercurrents", good to see him still about - must go back to your earlier talk with him.]
I should do some writing on power markets and price signals. It's a pretty dry subject, TBH.
@@MLiebreich 😆
@@MLiebreich Not if it means people can get behind something pro-actively that will bring down their bills. The prospect of lower bills will always be an incentive to listen harder on 'dry subjects' (you would hope)!🙂 Perhaps film that episode in a safari park!
- Great point on the power of flexible load for the future of industrial capacity, if the load is flexible you can buy electricity at its cheapest. It also boosts utilization rate of transmission tech, e.t.c.
- Would have loved to see some debate on ridiculous overbuild of Solar & Wind vs (diversification of generation, storage tech) for dunkelflaute
E.g Extreme overbuild 10x overcapacity vs moderate overbuild (2X) + diversified generation (nuclear, geothermal, hydro, storage)
what does that mean for least costs, resiliency to attacks (cyber, war, vandalism, unplanned outages), positive externalities, reliability/dunkelflaute
@@adeoluwaadejumo4034 I don't think anyone is suggesting 10x overbuild as a solution for Dunkelflaute. My own best guess is that we chip away at the problem until there really is only the Dunkelflaute left to solve, i.e. about 10 days per year, 2-4% of the time, and we just live with some unabated natural gas. Not perfect, but better than doing nothing while we debate the perfect solution.
Great episode except for the take on populism. No countering of disinformation will work when establishing the truth isn't the actual problem. Cynical indifference towards the truth is a response to the persistent cynical indifference of elites towards just social relations.
And your suggestion is what?
I agree that the problem isn't establishing scientific insight, it's getting people to accept it when it's inconvenient to them or triggered by their tribe.
It's also getting people not exaggerate for effect when they think people should be listening but aren't, because that makes things worse, not better.
For steel production and various chemical processes you could transform the CO and CO2 exhaust to usefull products by synthetic biology (example LanzaTech). An additional way to reduce climate gas emissions by a new and rapidly developing technology.
You can, and that would reduce emissions but not eliminate them. Fossil carbon would still end up in the atmosphere.
I had Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of Lanzatech on Cleaning Up:
th-cam.com/video/t43NPSNVsIQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6G7PL7fZ_Tcu6aBu
@@MLiebreich That`s true. But it could/will be an additional piece in the puzzle.
If you got too much money? Please do it.
I watched this with interest but think if you want to make progress you must treat people who think differently with respect. I happen to think Dr Judith Curry and Dr Steven Koonin are very intelligent and well qualified climate scientists.
I do too.
I think They're oil industry shills . @@MLiebreich
is wind and solar still cheap when you add those 70% needed grid upgrades you mentioned to the cost?
Lucky I listened all the way through, because I was going roast the hell out of him for that first excerpt without context. He saved himself by equivocating 😅
Beware academic silos. Electrification of electricity grids is the easy part of moving to a sustainable, net zero civilisation. The biggest challenge is food. Humanity cannot deliver on the Paris agreement without delivering the 30 by 30 SDG, and this cannot be delivered without a revolution in food production and consumption.
And I don't want you playing any role in choosing what my family put on the table.
You eat what you like, tell other people what you eat, and if an acceptable proposition people might emulate you.
Please don't plead to government to force things on the entire population against their will.
@@Delchursing You seem very angry about something, I'm not sure what, or why you are directing it at us. I'm not trying to tell you what to eat. A lot of the stuff I work on will help continue the long trend in harvesting more calories and nutrients from less land - which is the key to 30 by whenever - as well as removing emissions from the process. I suggest if that is something you feel passionate about, find a way to help, rather than being Mr Angry here.
Till 2030 the EU will have x3 the GW green power capacities and then mostly of the time energy will be free (no cost).
It's like nature growing 3 potatoes (at low cost) and assuming this can feed a village. You'll have expensive potatoes, famine and social disorder.
Renewables are not working very well right now and any place that inverse heavily in renewable has an increase in electrical costs. I think burton will soon it going to rolling blackouts if they continue on the course they are on at the moment. Perhaps the technology will improve, but it's not doing it right now
True, the sun works even less every day. I must send a letter of complaint to the pope. I guess the pope is the acting vice president of god here on earth.
In 1989 I first heard the phrase "greenhouse effect". It was a big problem allegedly, from car fumes. They did not immediately ban motor racing. I knew from then that its not a real problem.
Hi, could you point me to the research that said that the greenhouse effect is a problem deriving solely from car fumes? Thanks.
@@mstach1 Dont thank me because I'm not going to.
@@SuperSquark OK. Is that a "I'm not going to engage with any discussion" statement or would you be willing to look at research that explains the greenhouse effect and how we know where the main culprits come from? I have no problem pointing out some of the research, if that's helpful?
I'm sorry, but I just don't like that wallpaper. I enjoyed everything else.
You make a good point. It was filmed in a serviced office, not much we can do about it. I'm building a new studio though, so by Q2 next year, expect the most scrumptious backgrounds...
Sad the price of solar has not dropped during the at night and when clouds appear ! Sad the cost of network transmission has increased. Sad we have seen wind calm for days/week at a time. Sad our rising domestic electric costs are making us uncompetitive.
The point is despite the good Lord doing a good job, it is irrelevant when the strategy is wrong.
Sad that you think the only way the world can be is the way it is today. Watch and learn.
@@MLiebreich Maybe in 10 or 20 years time technology will be invented to allow cheap renewable and reliable energy to materialise. All this for a climate change hypothesis that is fast being demolished by the world's top physicists (though not by most so-called climate scientists). In the meantime we impoverish the lives of the younger generations for ideological reasons.
No extreme left on the internet in their mind ? This is a problem .
I'm not sure the list was supposed to be extensive. Both the speakers have links to the conservatives, so not sure this is some left-wing conspiracy and I suspect that both would be wary of left-wing extremism.
The issue being Net Zero is energy and electricity is around 16% of energy and solar and wind are 2% of total energy. Even is electricity were 100% renewable it would leave 84% of the energy needing replacing.
There is no Net Zero Transition.
Watch and learn, if you have 50 years..
@@MLiebreich What I meant by that is the transition that some are claiming is not occuring. Recent figures show coal, for eample, has reached new high levels globally, driven mostly by China. The same goes for Gas and Oil.
@@stopthatluca Dig deeper. The trend in coal is a combination of OECD countries, where coal is falling off the grid, China, where its use is still being promoted as part of an economic stimulus, and the rest of the world, where it is still rising but not precipitously. So there is most definitely a transition and decoupling going on in the OECD. It will begin in countries as they get wealthier, but the challenge is to accelerate it rather than slow it down - or give up, as you appear to have.
Isn't electrification of provincial transport the way forward, e.g., the railways of West Yorkshire?
Nothing is "the" way forward. Yes, electrification of rail is a way forward. Indian railways are now 94% electrified, and it is infuriating that in the UK and other countries electrification is found too difficult (or rather it does not tick the right boxes on the Treasury's cost-benefit analysis). Having said that, rural rail should probably be dismantled and the tracks used for roads or tourism. It's very hard to get enough volume onto rural rail to cover the costs, and demand can probably be much better met via buses.
Here in Southampton we couldn't electrify out bus fleet because we can't get enough electricity to the depot because the railway and other industry eats a lot of it and would need a big infrastructure upgrade.
It's all infrastructure in time it will come I guess
Electric is half powered by gas, solar and wind are 2% of total energy in UK, new electrification changing from diesel to LNG that comes from the same barrel is only green washing.
Oh my god, how smug and out of touch with science. Net zero at 2080?! Are you kidding me?! Mr Lord should let us know what are his credentials on climate change. He’s a lord, that it? Not good enough 😊
2080 is 55 years into the future. You think we'll still be burning stuff to stay warm - what are you, a cave man?
He worked for McKinsey &Company which is the equivalent of a vampire squid. These aren’t serious people.
@ yeah nah - just Lord so and so was enough to stop listening 🤣
Dilusional
audio is out of sync for the first 5 mins
Would be interesting to hear you debate Brett Christophers.
I hate to say it, but he's a few years behind on his journey, I'm afraid it would be a frustrating conversation for me.
@@MLiebreich Might still be interesting/helpful for your audience!
AMOC slowing faster than models expect. Coal on the increase., emissions including CH4, NO, on the increase, tipping points like Arctic ocean no longer being a CO2 sink flipping. 2070-80 is fantasy land. Where's the honesty that for all the what might be, the certainty is economic collapse, population collapse, tragedy because we dare not admit the urgency, scale and route that would at least slow down horror? That'd entail managed energy and consumption contraction, prioritisation of the use of scarce resources not based on wealth wins but on resilience and adaptability.
You should publish your data. Because your view of the impact of net zero 2070-2080, which would be broadly consistent with 2C of warming by 2100, is not supported by the peer-reviewed science and differs considerably from the conclusions of the IPCC AR6. 2C is not a good outcome, but it is far from "certainty [of] economic collapse, population collapse, tragedy".
It's not fantasy land, it's keep business as usual and let me lie to your face about the reality.
Solar and wind are 2% of total energy, he might be talking electricity and that's 16% of total energy which at least half is gas powered.
The economy ignores the reality of the environment now and as long as people think money is valuable and not bank debt then we will keep going as per usual and see 3-4 c by 2100, we all know 1.5 is gone by and the acceleration is only starting, half the energy released in the last 30 years and half the carbon in the last 40, no-one has experience in this but I was watching something this morning, one warming period was considered quick and that was 6c in 20,000 years, we are 50-80 times faster, I think 80 was a fair number, so that would make 250 years. 6c in 2-300 years and all the ice left out in the open, that cools us down, they could see melt pulses of metres per decade.
You'd think these would be the things discussed regarding our inability to change.
Everyone forgets geothermal. And if you are limited on land because you're an island there's floating PV
No one forgets geothermal. I'm an advisor to the world's leading closed loop geothermal company, Eavor. But you have to admit it is not (yet) scaling like solar power and EVs.
Geothermal energy could provide hot water or hot air as ground temperatures are 55 degrees or above most water does not need to be above this a 55 degree tap is hot to wash and heat to warm enough to most needs heavy industrial processes need much more heat solar mirrors are heating salt to 560 degrees giving the heat needed a head start to jet from 560 to what you need is less traditional energy intensive is solar has started warming for using less fuels of any kind that’s why multiple technologies will have to be rolled out
Geothermal and heat pumps are expensive and don't make interiors very warm. People don't like them. Activist kooks think they are great.
They aren't.
Yes, you have lost the argument. Common sense has prevailed.
You may think so. But physics would disagree, and will prove you a chump.