prrm - 3rd ed

Net Zero by 2050. Rev. 6 Chapter 1 — Two Roads

Copyright © Ian Sutton. 2021. All Rights Reserved.

CHAPTER 1 — TWO ROADS

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This chapter provides a background to Net Zero programs: what they are, why they are needed, and how they can be achieved. It is suggested that there are two roads ahead of us. The first road — ‘Overshoot’ — assumes that we face intractable problems and predicaments and that society is heading toward serious trouble, possibly the collapse of many of the systems and technologies that we currently take for granted. The second road — ‘Technofix’ — assumes that alternative energy technology, along with a commitment from all parts of society to making an energy transition will enable us to maintain something close to our current lifestyle. The chapter shows how fossil fuels, particularly crude oil, possess a combination of qualities that no other energy source provides, thus explaining the difficulties of finding an adequate replacement. Also introduced in this chapter is the concept of an ‘Age of Limits’; climate change interacts in very complex ways with many other predicaments, including resource depletion, biosphere destruction and over-population. Leadership is needed — not only from governments, but also industry, NGOs and individuals. Energy and oil companies in particular can make a invaluable contribution to a path forward. Their skills to do with energy and project management will be vital. This chapter concludes by suggesting that these is a third road forward — a road that lies between Overshoot and Technofix. No one knows what the future holds, therefore it our responsibility to take those actions that can help reduce the impact of climate change.

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The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2005, and 7 of the 10 have occurred just since 2014.

(Lindsey and Dahlman, Recent Temperature Trends 2021)

The only people who think you can have infinite growth on a finite planet are mad men and economists.

Anon.

. . . the most important sentence ever written is just terrible—clunky and jargon-filled . . . it may turn out to be the grammatical unit that saved the world.

Bloomberg Green There are many books, articles, web pages and blog posts to do with climate change. This book is not one of them. The fact that the climate is changing is accepted, as is the fact that human activity is the cause of that change. The question now is, “What can we do about it?” The following quotations are taken from the August 2021 report from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2021). (Attachment B provides background to some of the more important IPCC reports.)

It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered. Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades. Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in the ocean, ice sheets and global sea level

(The 1.5°C and 2°C figures refer to the extent to which global temperatures exceed the pre-industrial baseline.) Some critics maintain that the IPCC, which is a United Nations body, is to too cautious, and that the impact of climate change is more serious than they project. If valid, this criticism does mean, however, that the IPCC cannot be accused of being alarmist.

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“Net Zero by 2050” is a catchy phrase that says that we need to reduce net emissions of greenhouse gases (principally carbon dioxide and methane) to zero by the year 2050, just 28 years from now. This is an extraordinarily ambitious goal. Achieving it will require an unprecedented degree of cooperation and commitment world-wide from governments, companies, industries, communities and individuals. Whether we can reach the goal is. to say the least, dubious. So far, we have not lived up to the promises made in the past. But we have to try. Because, when it comes to climate change,

It is worse, much worse, than you think. (Wallace-Wells 2019)

Therefore, as Stuart Brand, author of the Whole Earth Catalog, famously said,

We are as gods and might as well get good at it. (Brand 1968)

The first drafts of this book had the sub-title “Technology for a Changing Climate”. The focus was on evaluating alternative energy sources that could replace fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). Technology remains an important part of this book because it has to be part of our overall response. However, technology by itself is not the answer; first people and organizations have to be persuaded that action is needed, and, even more difficult, they need to understand that some degree of sacrifice is also needed. Technology does not sell itself.

BOOK STRUCTURE

The book is organized into the following seven chapters and six Attachments.

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Chapter 1 Two Roads (this one) None of us know what the future holds. When it comes to climate change, and related issues such as resource depletion and biosphere loss, we know that we are already in trouble, and that things are going to get worse. But we don’t know how much worse. There seem to be two roads ahead of us. The first road is the one none of us want to be on — it leads to massive loss, even the collapse of civilization. The second road recognizes that the coming years are going to very difficult — there is no going back to the “old normal”. Nevertheless, technology and commitment may help us achieve an acceptable “new normal”.

Chapter 2 Realities The topic of climate change generates an enormous amount of misunderstanding, wishful thinking and virtue signaling. This chapter describes some of the realities of the world that lies ahead of us. If we are to come up with effective responses, we must face these realities.

Chapter 3 The Shape of Net Zero As we move from fossil fuels to other sources of energy, our energy infrastructure will go through some fundamental changes. This chapter examines what those changes might look like.

Chapter 4 Alternative Energy This chapter provides an overview of some of the alternative sources of energy that are being developed and implemented. Detail to do with many of these sources is provided at our web site.

Chapter 5 Geoengineering If our efforts to contain global warming are ineffective there will be increased interest in efforts to contain the damage. One of these efforts — carbon capture and sequestration — is already being applied on a small scale. Other options, such as putting reflectors in space, could have many unanticipated consequences. They also raise profound social and ethical concerns.

Chapter 6 The Path Forward There are no easy answers to the climate change dilemma. Indeed, there may be no effective answers at all. We are entering a new world. We cannot return to the early 1950s — that world is in the rearview mirror. However, we must do our best to find ways of slowing down climate change and minimizing its impacts. This chapter provides some suggestions as to how individuals and organizations can respond.

Chapter 7 The Net Zero Professional This final chapter provides some thoughts as to how individuals can adopt a career path for a rapidly changing world.

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Attachment A Roads Not Taken The text of two poems used in the book. They are Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken and W.B. Yeats’ The Second Coming.

Attachment B IPCC Reports The IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is a United Nations body that publishes authoritative reports on climate change. Some of the more important reports are described in this Attachment.

Attachment C The 300-Year Party The last three centuries have been like no other. We have lived exuberantly on the store of energy provided by coal, oil and natural gas. Now the party is over; we have reached limits for these resources and we have treated the atmosphere like an open sewer. It is time for a new way of living.

Attachment D IEA Net Zero by 2050 The International Energy Agency has published a detail report on how to achieve the Net Zero goal. Its report is analyzed in this Attachment.

Attachment E The Energy Cliff This Attachment provides a description of basic terms such as ERoEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) and Jevons’ Paradox.

Attachment F A Personal Journey The theme of the first chapter is to do with selecting a road to the future. This Attachment provides an overview of my own journey.

A CHOICE

In his well-known poem The Road Not Taken Robert Frost is faced with a choice. The road that he is walking on diverges. Each of the roads ahead of him looks about the same, so which should he take?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler

(The full poem is provided in Attachment A.) Those looking for responses to the climate change predicament recognize Frost’s dilemma. We have to make choices and, once a choice is made, there is no possibility of back-tracking and starting again. There simply is not enough time. So, what are the two roads? In the following sections they are described as ‘Overshoot’ and ‘Technofix’.

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OVERSHOOT

Someone asked me I had plans for the fall. It took me a moment to realize they meant “autumn”, not the collapse of civilization.

A redditor

Humanity’s urgent and primary challenge is what ecologists call “overshoot,” the predicament of any species that grows beyond the capacity of its environment. Wolves overshoot the prey in their watershed, algae overshoot the nutrient capacity of a lake, and humanity has overshot the entire capacity of Earth. Global heating, the biodiversity crisis, depleted soils, and disappearing forests are all symptoms of ecological overshoot. All paths out of overshoot (genuine solutions) involve a contraction of the species and a decline of material/energy throughput. There are no exceptions.

(Wyler 2021)

By collapse, I mean a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity over a considerable area, for an extended time.

(Diamond 2011)

The first of the two roads that we look at is ‘Overshoot’. Those who travel this road face a bleak and forbidding journey. They believe that there is little that can be done to avert climate catastrophe — therefore most of our efforts should be to do with adaptation and learning to live in a new and scary world. Travelers on this road assume that events are unfolding quickly and that it is too late to prevent catastrophic changes that will take place within the lifetimes of most of the people reading this book. The following quotation is representative of this point of view.

. . . prior to 2030, I suspect that there is a greater than 50% chance of a global economic meltdown and multi-bread-basket failure (2 or more of the 5 main grain growing regions of the world failing in the same year) resulting in further civilizational collapse and several billion or more human beings dying. This is almost certainly unstoppable, unpreventable.

(Dowd, Overshoot: Where We Stand Now 2021)

The seminal text for the ‘Collapse’ way of thinking is William Catton’s book Overshoot (Catton 1982). The book was published in the year 1982; Catton himself died in the year 2015. He starts with the following words,

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Today mankind is locked into stealing ravenously from the future. That is what this book is about.

He discusses the concept of “carrying capacity”. For most of human history the earth has had the ability to support a stable human population of around 1 billion. To use a currently fashionable word, human society was sustainable. Its only source of energy was from the sun. However, once Europeans started to control a new hemisphere, and once humanity in general learned how to exploit buried energy in the form of coal, oil and natural gas, the world’s population grew rapidly to its prevent level of nearly 8 billion. However, there is no longer any new territory to exploit, the fossil fuels are irreversibly depleted, and we have filled the environment with our waste products — particularly CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere. Consequently, like yeast in a wine jar, we have overshot our resource base and we have poisoned our environment; we have exceeded our carrying capacity. (The manner in which we have used fossil fuels to overshoot our resource based is illustrated in Attachment C — The 300-Year Party).

Problems and Predicaments

One Catton’s most important observations is to do with the distinction between problems and predicaments. Problems have solutions, predicaments do not. When faced with a problem we can come up with a solution that makes the problem go away. When faced with a predicament we can respond and adapt, but we cannot make it go away.

Climate change is a predicament. It does not have a solution; it cannot be made to go away; we cannot return to the world of the 1960s. Much of the damage that we have already inflicted on the climate and the world’s ecosystems cannot be repaired, at least on a human timescale. Climate change is not just in the future — it has already happened, it is taking place now, and it will continue into the indefinite future. In other words, climate change is not a problem, it is a predicament. It is this distinction between problems and predicaments that has caused so much mis-communication with regard to climate change, and related topics such as Peak Oil. Most of us want to return to the energy-abundant world of the decades following the Second World War. We express this desire either by denying that the climate is changing, or by proposing unworkable solutions that will take us back to those perceived good old days. Neither option is realistic. The world of the future is going to be different from the past and from what most people hope for.

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Resource depletion is another predicament. Once we have taken oil out of the ground, or water from an aquifer then those resources are gone for ever — they will not be replaced on a human time scale. Collapse always follows overshoot. More than 40 years ago Catton recognized that, if we failed to act, that we would suffer the consequences of our own overshoot. Well, we have failed to act and we do seem to entering a period of decline. We are heading toward the state sometimes referred as TEOTWAWKI: The End of the World as We Know It. Whether our current decline will lead to collapse remains to be seen (it also depends on how the word “collapse” is defined).

Limits to Growth

Cover for the First Edition of Limits to Growth

In the 1970s a group of scientists working within a non-profit organization known as the Club of Rome published the book Limits to Growth. The following (updated) chart is taken from that publication (Meadows and al. 1972). I have added the vertical date lines.

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Figure 1.1

Limits to Growth

Models such as this are not intended to be accurate predictions of the future. They merely provide a feel for how the future may look. Also, back in the 1970s there was less understanding than there is now about climate change and of tipping points. Nevertheless, given that the chart was developed so many years ago, it does provide a defensible picture as to our current condition. Some of the insights that it provides with regard to what the world may look like in the year 2050 include the following.

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• Population Peaks at 8 billion around the year 2050. This seems surprising since we have become accustomed to the “population explosion”. Nevertheless, population in many developed countries such as Italy and Japan has leveled out and is declining, so this forecast may turn out to be reasonably accurate. In the model the population declines due to food shortages and the health effects of pollution.

• Pollution The model suggests that pollution may peak before the year 2050. In the 1970s they were not aware of how serious the impact of climate change would be. Nevertheless, the drastic reduction in industrial output may indeed lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. (However global temperatures will continue to increase due to the greenhouse gases that we have already dumped into the atmosphere.)

• Resources The chart suggests that, by the year 2050, available resources will be a small fraction of what they are now.

• Food Production On a per capita basis this will be less than a quarter of what it is now.

• Industrial Output This is also drastically reduced by the year 2050.

To reiterate, charts such as these are not intended to be used as detailed predictions — none of use know what the future holds. But they make it clear that the future is not simply a linear continuation of the past. In particular, the mind-set of continuous growth and expansion will no longer provide a valid picture as to what the world will look like two or three decades from now. Exile

John Shelby Spong (1931-2021)

Bishop John Spong of the Episcopalian church compared our situation with that of the Hebrew people who they were driven into exile by their Babylonian conquerors nearly

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3,000 years ago. Spong was referring to the practices of the church in his time, but his image of exile illustrates the way many people feel about climate change (Sutton, Exile to Babylon 2021). Spong said,

Exile is never a voluntary experience . . . One does not leave one’s values, one’s way of life, or one’s defining beliefs voluntarily.

That comment certainly applies to climate change. None of us want it to happen, yet it is happening, like it or not.

Exile is not a wilderness through which one journeys to arrive at a promised land. Exile is an enforced dislocation into which one enters without any verifiable hope of either a return to the past or an arrival at some future desired place.

We don’t know where climate change is taking us, nor do we know what the future will look like. All that we can be sure of is that it will be profoundly different from today’s world. The Hebrew people were able to return, but their old world was gone for ever. It is important for those who are developing responses to climate change to acknowledge this feeling of exile, otherwise there will always be a temptation to latch on to solutions that aren’t really solutions. (Sutton, Opinion: An opportunity for a leader on climate change 2021). But it is equally important to recognize that there is life after exile. Like the Hebrew people all those years ago we don’t know what the new world will look like, or even who will be living in it, but we should not just give up. We should press forward with responses and adaptations as best we can.

TECHNOFIX

The second road forward is ‘Technofix’. On this road, we presuppose that technology and human ingenuity can help us develop responses to the challenges that we face. (Chapters 3 and 4 discuss some of the technological options, ranging from those that are well-established, to others that are still futuristic.) It would be naïve, however, to assume that we will be able to continue with BAU (Business as Usual), regardless of which technologies we choose to invest in. For example, it is too late to avert many of the consequences of climate change (indeed, some of them are already in the rear-view mirror). Nevertheless, those who travel this road maintain that there is still time to prevent the worst-case scenarios from happening.

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The IPCC takes this position in its most recent (2021) report.

. . . limiting human-induced global warming to a specific level requires limiting cumulative CO2 emissions, reaching at least net zero CO2 emissions, along with strong reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions Strong and sustained reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases, could quickly make air quality better, and in 20 to 30 years global temperatures could stabilize.

Note that the IPCC is not promising that we can maintain our current way of living. Indeed, they seem to be saying that the next two or three decades will be increasingly difficult, and only then will conditions stabilize. In spite of all these concerns, in this book we follow this second road, i.e., we look for technical responses that can help alleviate the climate change challenges, either by slowing down the rate of change, or by mitigating the impact of those changes. However, technology by itself is not going to achieve anything. It has to be accompanied by a full-bore commitment from governments, industries, communities and individuals. Even those who believe that the Overshoot road is the better choice can reasonably act as if they are on the second road. After all, although the climate models are increasingly accurate, the truth is that no one can predict the future accurately — there are bound to be surprises. The models are no more than models of reality. One surprise could be that some technical response turns out to be much more effective than anyone anticipated. Also, Mother Nature could spring a surprise. For example, the dust from a major volcanic eruption could create severe global cooling. So, it makes sense to “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst”.

NET ZERO BY 2050

In its 2018 Global Warming of 1.5°C report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2018) the IPCC came up with the following “memorable” sentence.

In model pathways with no or limited overshoot of 1.5°C, global net anthropogenic CO₂ emissions decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 (40–60% interquartile range), reaching net zero around 2050 (2045–2055 interquartile range).

(my emphasis)

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Of this statement, the journal Bloomberg Green says,

Like most statements the IPCC sets down, the most important sentence ever written is just terrible—clunky and jargon-filled . . . it may turn out to be the grammatical unit that saved the world. If not, it'll be remembered as the last, best warning we ignored before it was too late.

From the IPCC report we get the phrase ‘Net Zero by 2050’. Because it is so pithy and memorable it has been embraced by organizations around the world as a mission statement. The term has created an easy-to-understand target, and so it has been widely adopted. Yet there is nothing inherently special about the words ‘Zero’ or ‘2050’. Climate change is an on-going process — it is not an event that takes place at a singular point in time. The climate is going to change based on our actions and on natural events, not on our slogans or mission statements.

PROGRESS TO DATE

The IPCC 2018 report makes e it clear that the climate was changing and that, if the nations of the world failed to act, the consequences could be disastrous (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018). Hence governments almost universally signed on to the Paris Agreement, as described in Attachment B. Yet, in the words of the old English proverb, “Fine words butter no parsnips.” What matters are results. And in that regard things are not looking so good, as can be seen in the following three charts. The first chart shows the rate at which we have been adding CO2 to the atmosphere. In the year 1950 the value was around 5 gigatons (billion metric tons) per annum. The annual emissions rate has steadily increased since that time to a value that is close to 40 gigatons annually in the year 2021. The rate of increase has been steady and inexorable. Even events such as the economic slow down in the year 2020 caused by the pandemic did not cause the trajectory of the curve to change much.

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Figure 1.2

CO2 Annual Emissions

Also shown on the chart is a dashed red line that starts at the year 2021. It tells us how quickly emissions must decrease if we are to reach the Net Zero target by the year 2050. This is, to say the least, a formidable challenge. The next chart is known as the Keeling Curve. It shows how the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has risen since the 1950s. The initial 1956 value was 316 parts per million (ppm). It has risen steadily since then; it is now 411 ppm. CO2 concentrations have headed steadily upward over a three-generation time span. The emissions and CO2 concentration curves match one another well.

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Figure 1.3

Atmospheric CO2

Overlaid on the Keeling Curve are the names of some of the IPCC reports and international conferences. (The letters ‘COP’ stand for ‘Conference of the Parties’.) These reports and meetings seem to have had no impact on the CO2 trajectory. The third of the three charts shows how atmospheric temperatures have risen during the last 60 years (Lindsey, Climate Change: Global Temperature 2020). The temperature increase trails the CO2 and emissions curves because there is a lag of many years between the time CO2 is emitted and when it affects the atmospheric temperature.

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Figure 1.4

Global Temperatures

Taken together these three charts paint a dire picture. We are rapidly adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere in spite of all the admonitions from international bodies. Our actions have not matched our words. If we do not find ways of generating energy without the use of carbon-based fuels then climate change will lead us into a world where entire ecosystems will collapse and human civilization in its current form may be threatened — all within the lifetime of many people living now.

UNIQUENESS OF CRUDE OIL

There are thousands of books, articles, web pages and blog posts that advocate for new, clean sources of energy that can take the place of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). Why? Why is it such a struggle to come up with a winner — an energy source that is an obvious replacement? Some of these alternative energy sources are described in Chapter 4. They all have attractive features, but they all run into the same difficulty: they cannot substitute for the unique blend of features provided by fossil fuels, particularly crude oil which is portable, safe, economical and energy dense. This reality may explain why national governments have been so ineffective in transitioning their economies to alternative energy sources. They know that it cannot be done without sacrifice. And politicians know that a call for sacrifice will likely lead to them quickly becoming ex-politicians. The following Table identifies the features of fossil fuels that make them so attractive. This Table is then used in the subsequent chapters of this book to evaluate the features of alternative sources of energy. These analyses demonstrate that none of the alternatives possess the unique features of fossil fuels, particularly crude oil.

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Table 1.1

Unique Properties of Fossil Fuels

Cost Safe Environ-mental

Energy Density (MJ/kg)

Always Avail-able

Dispatch-able

Port-able

Feed-stock

Ren-ewable

GHG Emiss-

ions

Crude Oil

Y Y Y Y (42-47)

Y Y Y Y N N

Natural Gas

Y Y Y N (42-55)

Y Y P Y N N

Coal Y Y P Y (17-25)

Y Y Y Y N N

Meanings of the shaded colors are as follows:

• Green — an attractive feature that will be difficult to replace.

• Blue — a marginal feature.

• Red — a negative aspect of the fuel.

Cost

Fossil fuels are cheap. It is true that they often receive subsidies and tax breaks. Nevertheless, even without these subsidies, oil, gas and coal provide extraordinarily good value. Not only are fossil fuels cheap, their costs have remained low over the years. The chart shows the price of crude oil in U.S. dollars normalized to the year 2021. The price has fluctuated a good deal on an annual basis, thus making it difficult to detect long-term trends. However, it appears as if the price of crude oil has increased on average by about 1% annually since the year 1950.

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Figure 1.5

Crude Oil Price

For many years we have been using crude oil at a much faster rate than new sources are being found and developed. Therefore, it is likely that the cost of oil will increase in future years. Nevertheless, at current prices it is difficult for alternative fuel sources to compete with fossil fuels on cost alone. It is true that the costs of wind and solar have declined rapidly, and may well decline more in coming years. However, if these new sources of energy had to stand alone their costs would soar. They rely on the use of fossil fuels for their manufacture, transportation, maintenance and the distribution of the energy that they produce. They also crucially rely on electricity generated by coal and gas to make up for the fact that they are not “dispatchable”, as discussed below. Safe

Regardless of the source, concentrated energy always has the potential to be dangerous if released in an uncontrolled manner. Fires, explosions, electric shocks, and exposure to toxic chemicals come with the territory. The hazards to do with fossil fuels are well known, but they are also well understood and controlled. Safety always needs to be managed, but the fossil fuels do not present a special challenge in this area.

0.0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0

120.0

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020

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Environmental

In the context of the discussion in this chapter, the term ‘environmental’ is distinguished from climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. As with safety, fossil fuels create environmental hazards. Examples are air pollution, oil spills in the oceans and the disposal of coal ash. These hazards are generally well understood and are controlled through a wide array of environmental rules and regulations. Overall, the environmental impact of fossil fuels is manageable. (Coal has been rated as marginally acceptable due to the solid waste problems that it creates.) Energy Density

One of the most important benefits of fossil fuels, particularly oil, is the amount of energy that is packed into small volume. The energy density for oil, gas and coal are provided in megajoules per kilogram. This value varies depending on the composition and quality of the resource (the heating value of different types of coal is particularly variable). However, in general the energy density of fossil fuels is much higher than alternatives such as solar, wind or ammonia. Always Available

One of the most important features of fossil fuels is that that are always available. This is in contrast to in contrast to alternative energy sources such as solar and wind that are only available on an intermittent basis. Dispatchable

Not only is fossil fuel power always available, it is dispatchable. This means that it can be turned on and off in response to customer demands; it can be ramped up and down quickly. This is a critical capability that other energy sources do not provide. Intermittent energy sources such as solar and wind are only partially dispatchable. Other types of energy supply may be always available, but they cannot be quickly ramped up and down. Currently fossil fuels are providing what amounts to a free subsidy to other power sources, particularly solar and wind. Coal and gas-fired power plants can quickly change their output to match changes in the power provided by these intermittent sources. This is a subsidy because there is a cost associated with keeping the fossil fuel plants ready-to-go at any time. If and when renewable sources provide the bulk of the grid’s energy, the fact that they are not always available or dispatchable will be a critical drawback. (Evidently, this is already a problem in the United Kingdom. Solar and wind power have been installed, but a shortage of natural gas means that there are likely to be cut backs (Watkins 2021).)

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Portable

Fossil fuels are portable — they do not have to be converted to electricity before their contained energy can be transferred to another location. This feature is particularly important with respect to transportation. Natural gas is given a ‘P’ because, although it can be moved from one place to another, it can be difficult and expensive to transport. It needs either a large pipeline with associated compressors, or it has to be liquefied, transported and then regasified at its final destination. Chemical Feedstock

Depending on its composition and on market demands, around 10-15% of a barrel of oil provides feedstocks to the petrochemical industry where the thousands of products, ranging from fertilizers to plastics to medicines, that provide the foundation of modern life, are manufactured. Renewable

Fossil fuels are not renewable on a human time scale. At present there seem to be sufficient supplies of coal, oil and gas. But they are finite resources — they cannot supply energy indefinitely. Alternative sources are needed. Hence these square are colored red and fall into the ‘N’ category. Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases (GHG) when burned. They are the primary cause of global warming. Therefore they all fall into the ‘N’ category for this item.

AN AGE OF LIMITS

Climate change is not our biggest problem; overshoot is. Global warming is but a symptom of ecological overshoot.

Richard Heinberg We introduced William Catton and his book Overshoot at the start of this chapter. He understood that overshoot is a systems issue. When a species over-populates its environment the systems that support that species break down, forcing a severe cut back in the population. Therefore, any attempt to solve just the climate change problem will be ineffective if other parameters are not considered. Indeed, such an effort could be counter-productive — the “solutions” to climate change could make the overall system degradation worse. For example, a wholesale switch to a new form of energy could result in a “carbon pulse” that makes global warming worse and that leads to extensive biosphere destruction resulting from the massive mining of ores needed to make the metals needed for the solar panels.

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Climate science itself incorporates many sub-specialties such as meteorology, oceanography, physics, chemistry and computer modeling. This means that climate scientists in one area may not understand how their work interacts with findings and

analyses in other areas. However, the fundamental problem is not to do with the climate per se. Climate change is happening because we insist on using ever-increasing quantities of energy to sustain economic growth, and we are unable to find an adequate substitute for fossil fuels. The climate change predicament is merely a symptom of an energy predicament. In other words, climate change is part of an overall ‘Age of Limits’. The sketch shows just a few of the factors that make this Age of Limits. There are many more.

Figure 1.6

Age of Limits

Credit: Ian Sutton

Other topics that could be added to the sketch include politics, economics, history, anthropology, psychology, sociology, oceanography, project management, and philosophy. Each element interacts with the others, often in ways that are difficult to

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understand, or even identify. With regard to climate change the following are just a few of the factors to consider.

• Resources As we use up the easily accessed resources (the low-hanging fruit) so we have to spend an ever-increasing proportion of our energy on finding and developing new sources of energy. This leads to the issue of declining Energy Returned on Energy Invested (ERoEI), described in Attachment E — The Energy Cliff. Also, the need to find and exploit new resources means that additional quantities of CO2 and other greenhouse gases will be emitted into the atmosphere.

• Population As the world’s population increases, the need for energy increases, so more CO2 is dumped into the atmosphere (assuming that per capital rates do not change significantly).

• Economics Most of the proposed solutions to climate change are expensive. Furthermore, many of them do not generate sufficient revenue to justify their investment, so government subsidies are needed. (Some expensive programs such as carbon capture and sequestration generate no revenue at all.) As we have seen, no single alternative energy source provides the economic benefits of crude oil, which is energy dense, portable, flexible and low cost.

• Biosphere Destruction of the biosphere affects the climate in many ways. For example, if the world’s great rain forests are destroyed then this natural CO2 sink is lost.

• Environment Generally, climate change programs help reduce other environmental problems. But this is not always the case. For example, solar panels and wind turbines take up a lot of land space and they generate electronic waste when they reach the end of their operating life; nuclear power generates waste that will create health hazards for generations.

It is human nature to create categories in order to make sense of the world. But it is important to realize that categories such as ‘environment’ are labels that we create. In reality there is no such thing as the ‘environment’ that is distinct from anything else in the world. Therefore, we cannot address an environmental problem on its own. Any environmental “solution” has multiple ripple effects and feedback loops. The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) talked about “categories of understanding”; the principles of the human mind which necessarily are brought to bear in attempting to understand the world in which we exist. Only by doing so can we attempt to understand “things in themselves”).

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Systems Interactions

The last point to do with the environment raises another difficulty. Eric Sevareid once said,

The chief cause of problems is solutions

He was referring to events such as the prohibition on alcohol sales that led to the creation of the Mafia and organized crime. The same idea, sometimes called the Law of Unintended Consequences, can be applied to climate change responses. For example, there are about 1.4 billion gasoline and diesel-powered automobiles on today’s highways. Replacing them with electrically-powered vehicles is a worthy goal. But the effort involved — mining the steel for the cars, building the factories, digging up the rare earth minerals needed for the sophisticated electronics, trashing the old cars — would generate an enormous amount of CO2. The solution could be worse than the problem, as discussed in the next chapter under the topic of ‘Carbon Pulse’.

Each proposed technological response to climate change needs to be evaluated not just on its own merits, but also for its impact on other climate change responses. This can be very difficult.

Tipping Points

There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (attr.)

The projections for most climate change models show smooth and gradual changes in the atmospheric temperature and other parameters, therefore the timing and consequences of future changes are predictable. But sometimes we go through times when the world seems to suddenly shift into a new place. In other words, we experience tipping points. The COVID-19 pandemic is an obvious and recent tipping point. Within just a few weeks the “Old Normal” disappeared to be replaced with a new way of living that has yet to reach a “New Normal”. There are many potential tipping points to do with climate change. For example, the Arctic Ocean and northern tundra are warming faster than other parts of the planet and could create a tipping point. The potential tipping point with regard to the ocean is known as the Blue Ocean Event (BOE). Ice in the ocean reflects a large amount of the incoming sunlight. As the ice melts due to global warming the resulting blue ocean

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waters absorb much more of the energy in the sunlight. Hence the ocean warms up more quickly, which means that more ice melts, and so on. Eventually, and quite suddenly, the Arctic Ocean becomes ice-free in the summer months. This can have effects on ocean currents around the world, leading to devastating droughts on the other side of the globe. The second Arctic-related tipping points is to do with what are known as the methane clathrates that are located at the bottom of the ocean and in the tundra. As temperatures rise these clathrates break down to release methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas, thus accelerating the rate at which temperatures increase, thus causing more methane to be released, and so on. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the “clathrate gun”. Both the BOE and clathrate events are happening now. What is not known is whether either could create a sudden and irreversible shift in atmospheric temperatures.

LEADERSHIP

There is increasing awareness that action — urgent action — is needed to address climate change and its associated predicaments. In response, many individuals, academics and small non-profit organizations have tried to provide leadership, mostly by raising awareness. However, there is only so much that these small players can do. Leadership from large organizations is needed. Such leadership can come from governments, industry and large non-profits.

GOVERNMENTS

As we saw when looking at the chart of atmospheric CO2 as measured at the Mauna Loa observatory, it is clear that government bodies have failed to provide the needed leadership. In spite of the many conferences and reports CO2 concentrations have risen inexorably, often in spite of the fine words uttered by national leaders. In spite of this frustrating track record, it is vital that governments commit to addressing climate change. Only they have the authority and budgets to make a significant difference at a global level.

Sacrifice

One reason that governments are unable to take effective action is that any meaningful response to climate change requires that individuals, at least in the richer nations, live a simpler lifestyle that is not so energy-profligate. This puts elected officials in a tough position. Any politician who calls on his constituents to make a sacrifice is likely to soon become an ex-politician.

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Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

It is possible that a politician will rise up to lead the world in the manner that Winston Churchill did in the early stages of World War II when events were going badly for Britain. He or she would need to deliver a speech such as Churchill did in those dark days.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.

The Green New Deal

In the year 2019 the newly elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, supported by colleagues in the Senate, submitted a Resolution entitled A Green New Deal to the United States House of Representatives. Her Resolution was modeled on President Roosevelt’s New Deal, enacted in the mid-1930s which proposed ‘relief, reform and recovery’ from the Great Depression. She called for a similar restructuring of our economy and social structures in response to the resource and ecological crises that we face —

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particularly climate change. Tinkering at the edges is not sufficient — radical actions are called for.

Although her Resolution did not get far it did have the effect of forcing elected officials and the public at large to look briefly at the need for far-reaching action in order to respond to the predicaments that we face.

The Green New (GND) Deal is both aspirational and unrealistic. It is aspirational because it grasps the seriousness of the ecological crises that we face and because it proposes radical solutions. Unfortunately, the GND is also unrealistic for the following reasons.

1. It requires a political commitment that simply does not exist — not just in

Congress, but among the public at large. Maybe the GND would have been more effective had the sponsoring politicians spent more time pre-selling it.

2. Roosevelt’s original New Deal focused just on the United States. For the Green New Deal to work, other nations, particularly China and India, will have to participate. Although both of those nations are developing alternative energy programs, neither appears to be developing its own Green New Deal.

3. The GND is not practical in terms of engineering, thermodynamic, financial, or project management. For example, it proposes to replace fossil fuels with renewable forms of energy. In fact, fossil fuels will always be needed, even in a world of windmills and solar panels. Alternative energy sources are not going to be a full substitute for fossil fuels.

4. The proposal talks about achieving its goals in just ten years. This is so unrealistic as to distract from its seriousness.

5. The GND has much too broad a reach. Instead of confining itself to climate change and the need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels — extraordinarily ambitious goals in their own right — it puts forward even more largescale goals to do with social justice and income equality.

6. Perhaps the biggest drawback to the GND is that it does not call on anyone or any group to make any type of sacrifice — it assumes that we can have our climate cake and eat it. There is an unspoken assumption that, if we take the actions proposed, then we can continue with our present lifestyle — indeed, we may even be able to improve it. The GND fails to acknowledge that any serious climate change program will call for some degree of sacrifice in our current standard of living — at least for people in the more wealthy nations.

It is easy to be cynical about politicians and their promises. We take the attitude that they will say anything to get elected, then, once in office, they will proceed to do whatever suits them. But we probably need to recognize that they themselves do not understand the nature of the dilemmas that we face. They generally state that the solution to our problems is to grow the economy. Yet growth seems to have slowed down, or even

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stopped, so they are forced to use financial engineering to goose the growth rate, usually by creating more debt for future generations to pay. But nothing seems to working as expected — the politicians do not know what to do. Many citizens also recognize the limitations of present-day politics, but neither can they put their finger on the problem. What few politicians realize is that the economy is running into physical and thermodynamic limits, and that climate change represents one of those limits.

INDUSTRY

Credit: Shutterstock

Industrial companies, particularly those in the energy and oil businesses, are often perceived as being on the wrong side of climate change. They manufacture the fuels that we burn so, it is argued, it is they who are to blame for climate change. This point of view conveniently forgets that we are all the customers of those oil companies — they produce gasoline, diesel and other fuels because we ask for them. Although these companies do have some explaining to do, they are also in a position to provide badly needed leadership. They will do this not because they want to be the good guys or because they are driven by a moral imperative. They will provide the leadership because they want to stay in business in a rapidly changing commercial environment. They can also show leadership because they have the skills and knowledge that are going to be badly needed in the coming years. For example, the President of Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), Vicki Hollub, now describes her company as being a ‘carbon management company’ — not an oil company, or even an energy company. Her goal is for Oxy to achieve net zero emissions. Such talk from an oil company executive would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. Now it is commonplace.

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Vicki Hollub (1960- )

CEO Occidental

Ultimately, I don’t know how many years from now, Occidental becomes a carbon management company and our oil and gas would be a support business unit for the management of that carbon.

No doubt Ms. Hollub wants to do the right thing by society. But another motivation behind her actions is that she wants Occidental to succeed in a rapidly-changing world.

The world’s carbon budget is finite and running out fast; we need a rapid transition to net zero. We all want energy that is reliable and affordable, but that is no longer enough. It must also be cleaner. To deliver that, trillions of dollars will need to be invested in replumbing and rewiring the world’s energy system. It will require nothing short of reimagining energy as we know it. This will certainly be a challenge, but also a tremendous opportunity. It is clear to me, and to our stakeholders, that for bp to play our part and serve our purpose, we have to change (Looney, Getting to net zero 2020).

Bernard Looney (1970- )

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A Kodak Moment

Climate change and the need for new sources of energy means that many companies will be faced with their ‘Kodak Moment’. The phrase was originally used in Kodak advertising for the capturing of a rare or special occasion on (Kodak) film. In recent years the term has also come to describe a situation in which a company fails to respond to structural changes in its industry such that the company eventually falls into bankruptcy. For most of the 20th century the Kodak company was a world leader in film photography. Then along came digital cameras (invented by one of its own employees) in the year 1975. Kodak management understood that digital cameras were going to replace traditional cameras. Indeed, the Kodak company introduced one of the first digital cameras to the market. (I know, I bought one, and it worked well.) However, management was unable to maintain revenues and profits from their existing film business while simultaneously moving out of that business. Hence, the digital camera world became dominated by new entrants such as Samsung and Sony. The Kodak company fell into bankruptcy within a surprisingly short period of time. In its early days Kodak had been innovative and was willing to sacrifice a currently profitable product line for a new technology. The company’s founder, George

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Eastman bet the company on change twice — once when he moved out of plate photography to rolls of film, and later when he moved to color. But, when faced with the need to reinvent itself a third time, management played an unsuccessful defensive strategy; they tried to make a gradual transition from film to digital. They went out of business in the year 2012.

Some of the reasons for Kodak’s failure to transition to a new technology base, as it had done twice before, included the following.

• Top management did not grasp the speed at which the world of photography was changing.

• Even when they did respond they did so half-heartedly, always trying to enhance the existing film business with digital rather than totally committing to a brand-new business.

• They were not willing to abandon the ecosystem of Kodak dealers that was central to their old business model.

In other words, management was never willing to gamble the company on new technology in the way that George Eastman had done.

Kodak is scarcely the only example of a company that failed to navigate a structural change. Other companies that experienced their own ‘Kodak Moment’ are the Smith Corona Typewriter Company and mail order companies such as Sears Roebuck. Other companies have, however, managed to adapt. Examples are Netflix and IBM.

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Engineering and Project Management

Credit: Bureau Safety and Environmental Enforcement

There is one area where large companies, particularly those in the oil and gas industries, can make a special contribution, and that is to do with engineering and project management. This idea is developed in more detail in Chapter 6 — The Path Forward. At this point it is sufficient to say that these companies are very experienced in the implementation of high-risk megaprojects such as commissioning massive offshore platforms to drill for oil in three miles depth of water. If we are to effectively address climate change and the related problems there will be a huge demand for people and organizations that know how to engineer and manage very large projects, and to bring them to completion in a short period of time.

Greenwashing

The term “greenwashing” is used to describe false or misleading information to do with a company’s environmental activities. For example, a company may put the word “recyclable” on a product’s plastic wrapping. But they do not make it clear if it is the product that can be recycled, or just the wrapping. With regard to climate change, people can become skeptical, even cynical, when they hear about an oil company declaring its green credentials and then investing heavily in the development of new oil fields. Moreover, many oil companies have actively supported and funded groups that actively deny the reality of climate change. Therefore, it is no surprise that the public image of these companies is less than sterling.

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To some extent, this tainted reputation results from historical activities that were acceptable at the time. For example, the following picture dated February 1962 is from advertisement for Humble Oil, now part of Exxon.

The advertisement was run at a time when climate change, if it was thought about at all, was a concern that we were entering a new Ice Age and that atmospheric temperatures were steadily falling. Nevertheless, the impression that the oil companies are actively opposed to climate change action remains. The public also needs to recognize that oil companies cannot just walk away from their existing business activities — they have a fiduciary and legal responsibility to provide a return on investment to their shareholders. ‘Net Zero’ cannot mean ‘Net Zero Profits’. These companies have to make money, even while they are fundamentally transforming the manner in which they conduct their business. This is, to say the least, a challenge. More fundamentally, oil companies only exist because the public has a demand for their products. If those companies were to stop all their activities the world’s transportation systems would come to a halt.

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A more accurate sign that a company is greenwashing is when it sets grandiose, long-term climate goals but does not take significant action in the short and medium-term (say, up to ten years from now).

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) operate independently of governments and commercial interests (although many of them do have ties to companies that fund them in one way or another, and some of them receive government funding). The United Nations defines an NGO as follows,

A not-for profit, voluntary citizen’s group that is organized on a local, national or international level to address issues in support of the public good.

NGOs can influence large numbers of people and generally have a high degree of public trust. Many of them have a humanitarian mission and a high degree of social responsibility. With regard to climate change, NGOs play a valuable role in telling the truth as to what is going on. Government bodies have to “be careful” in what they say because they could offend many large voting blocks. NGOs, however, can spell out the implications of climate change, regardless of how bad the news may be.

CAUTION

Credit: Pixabay

Books such as this are all about predicting the future. Yet, as Yogi Berra once famously said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” None of us know what the future holds. For example, how many experts in December 2019 predicted the following for the first half of the year 2020?

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• There would be an uncontrolled, world-wide pandemic leading to the deaths of more than two million people.

• There would be an associated massive economic recession, leading to the disappearance of thousands of small businesses, unemployment for millions and the near collapse of whole industries such as tourism.

• In the United States, statues erected in the 1890s in honor of generals who fought for the institution of slavery would be removed within just a few weeks following racial justice protests.

We need to be humble when it comes to making predictions. But, the fact that we cannot predict the future in detail does not mean that we are totally blind. The image below shows a fogged-up window. At first all that we see is a blur. But, on closer inspection, we see that there are railings, a river and hills in the distance. The harder we look the more we see.

So it is with the issues discussed in this book. Any attempt to make detailed predictions is a fool’s errand, but, if we work hard enough and if we are willing to face up to uncomfortable truths, then we can see roughly where we are headed. That being the case, we can develop realistic responses to the predicaments in which we find ourselves.

Modeling Limitations

The map is not the territory. Alfred Korzybski

Predictions to do with climate change come from sophisticated models and simulations. But a model is not reality, it is merely a limited representation of reality.

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There are always factors to do with the simulation that will be omitted or overlooked, or that will have a stronger or weaker impact than the modelers thought. With most modeling it is possible to test predictions against real world performance. Economists have models to do with money supply and inflation. They can evaluate the usefulness of those models by seeing what happens in real economies. Engineers use models in the design of equipment and structures. Once more, the effectiveness of the models can be checked against real-world results. Unfortunately, when it comes to climate change, modelers do not have the luxury of conducting real world tests to find out which approaches are the most effective. There is only one planet Earth so they cannot test the impact of say using ammonia as a fuel, and then re-running the test a second time using hydrogen as a fuel in order to see which works the best. A second difficulty to do with climate modeling is that the system that they are analyzing — the Earth’s climate — is extraordinarily complex and incorporates many factors, each of which can have a major impact on the model’s forecasts. These factors include items such as cloud cover, wind, land topography and ocean currents. A third difficulty is that models are created and run by human beings who may introduce bias without being aware that they are doing so. They may even deliberately tweak the model’s output in order to obtain the result that they, or their sponsors, wish to see. In Chapter 6 — The Path Forward — we look at the technique known as Wicked Problem solving as a means of addressing these complex challenges. Unanticipated Events

Another reason for caution is that the climate can be affected by unanticipated events. For example, were there to be a large volcanic eruption, the resulting cloud of dust and sulfur oxides would lead to atmospheric cooling, possibly for many years. Changes in solar activity can also cause sudden changes to the climate. Events such as these are difficult to predict, and yet they have occurred many times in the past. There is also the potential for human-caused events that are sudden and have a large impact, but that are difficult to predict. Issues that none of us want to think about — all out war, for example — could alter the climate in unknown ways in a short period of time.

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Imagination

Not long after the 9/11 attacks the then Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, famously said,

. . . there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.

Tom Friedman of the New York Times said of that event,

The World Trade Center is not the place where our intelligence agencies failed. It is the place where our imaginations failed.

In the context of climate change technology, the “known knowns” are technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines. They are well understood and well established. Nuclear fusion is an example of a “known unknown”. We know it exists, and roughly how it might help provide alternative energy. But there is still a lot about the technology that is not known. It is far from certain that it will ever add even one joule of energy to the commercial electrical grid. The ‘unknown unknowns’ are those technologies we have not even considered; we may not even know that they exist. Yet one of these could turn out to be a deus ex machina, some type of escape hatch. By definition these technologies cannot be described or analyzed in this book, since we do not know what they are.

Peak Oil

The need for caution when making predictions was demonstrated with respect to the topic of ‘Peak Oil’, an important component of the Age of Limits. Around the year 2010 the story seemed to be quite simple. There is only a finite amount of crude oil in the earth’s crust. We have used up the easily accessible sources of oil, so now we have to spend increasing amounts of money to find and develop new sources. We have to run faster and faster to stay in one place, as discussed in Attachment E — The Energy Cliff. Hence, it was assumed, the price of oil will steadily increase, and we will experience ongoing shortages and supply crises. Figure 1.5 — Crude Oil Price — shows what actually happened. Yet, although the price of oil did not rise as expected, production in the United States did reach a peak or plateau in the year 2018. It turns out that the real situation was

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more complex than the early models had predicted. Two factors, in particular, had not been considered in those earlier projections. The first was that investors in the United States would pump enormous amounts of money into the tight oil/shale oil business — mostly in North Dakota and Texas. This investment substantially raised world oil production (even though many of the investors never saw a profit). The second factor that was not discussed was the possibility that high oil prices would suppress the overall economy, thus forcing prices back down (Tverberg 2021). At the same time, oil companies were facing the problem of declining ERoEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested). This resulted in a Goldilocks situation — it is difficult to find a price of oil that is not too hot and not too cold, but just right. The lesson to be taken from the Peak Oil discussion is that, once more, making predictions is tricky. The world is a complex place — humility is called for.

THREE ROADS

Georg Hegel (1770-1831)

We started this chapter by outlining two possible roads forward as climate change starts to bite. The first road was ‘Overshoot’, possibly leading to gradual civilizational collapse. The second road assumed that we can find some technology that will allow us to maintain some form of Business as Usual. In fact, a more likely outcome is one that will feature partial collapse, but also some technological fixes. It will be what is sometimes referred to as an “Hegelian Synthesis” — an idea attributed to the philosopher Georg Hegel.

This way of thinking starts with a proposition or “thesis”. That thesis is negated with an “antithesis”. The two approaches are brought together to create a “synthesis” which has roots in both, but is not the same as either. We can use this concept to visualize what the oncoming world may look like. The “thesis” — the starting point — is the pre-industrial world, or, more specifically, the world that existed before we started exploiting fossil fuel resources, about 300 years ago. The “antithesis” is the world that we are living in now, but that is coming to an end. The “synthesis” is the world that follows. It could be a time

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of prosperity or it may be a time of great loss. We don’t know. All that we do know is that the new world will not be the same as either of its predecessors. Chapter 6 — The Path Forward — outlines some of the ways in which we may be able to develop a realistic future: one that is neither the end of the world, nor is it Business as Usual. Whichever road is chosen, the journey will require the involvement and participation from everyone: individuals, NGOs, companies and governments.

Which Road?

In the following chapters we will look at features of the third road. They include,

• Maintenance of current fossil-based prosperity is no longer possible.

• We need to find alternative forms of energy that help free us from resource and environmental constraints. However, no single alternative energy source fills that requirement all by itself. There is no ‘like-for-like’ replacement for fossil fuels.

• We need to accept that economic growth cannot continue. Such growth is taken for granted in our culture, but it is actually an unusual way of living that is based on the availability of fossil fuels. The future will involve a more modest way of living. For example, 40 years ago overseas vacations were a luxury. Now they are commonplace. It is likely that they will go back to being a luxury, and that most people will have to vacation close to home.

• We need to be pragmatic. This is not a time for ideology. The disputes to do with vaccination and COVID-19 shows how difficult it can be to persuade people to take actions that they don’t like. Persuading people to cut back their standard of living due to climate change and fossil fuel depletion will be a massive but necessary challenge.

prrm - 3rd ed

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