The
paperback
by Bill Gates How to Avoid a Climate
Disaster: The Solutions we
Have and the Breakthroughs we Need,
Vintage Canada, 2022 came out for fall
reading. The problem is set out in the Introduction.
Importantly, the
book looks at our shared world problem – not
just Canada or the US. The world adds
52 billion tons of carbon dioxide, CO2, to the
atmosphere per annum, causing temperature
rise. Temperature rise causes climate change
with potentially
catastrophic consequences. To stop climate
change, the CO2 per annum must be
reduced to zero. Gates applies a combination
of existing technologies but calls
for key breakthroughs. The first chapter
explains why the goal must be zero,
the second tells why getting there will be
difficult, and the third gives discussion
questions on climate change. Chapters 4-8
apply the Gates approach to
successive human activity areas. Chapter 9
looks at adapting to climate change,
10, the role of governments. In Chapter 11. He
gives his plan, and in the last
chapter suggests what “we” can do. The
combination of all this could be zero net
CO2 added per annum by 2050. Introduction
The
introduction
acknowledges the difficulties. The book gives
the changes needed
in producing electricity, in manufacturing,
travel, agriculture and homes. Simplistic
suggestions are exposed. For each activity
area the book tells us the cut in
tons of CO2 per annum that must be made. In
the end the book claims that a
series of specified technological
breakthroughs could, despite the difficulties,
get to zero emissions by 2050. It is a useful
contribution. Chapter 1, Why
Zero? Additional
greenhouse
gases increase temperature rise and these
gases stay around for
thousands of years. Increase in emissions
means “net increase” because some equilibrium
of gas production equal to gas removal is
presumed for pre-industrial times. Gases
other than CO2, like methane, can cause even
greater warming, if shorter lived.
Scientists talk of CO2 equivalents. The point
is, it will get hotter, and that
will make it harder for humans to survive and
thrive. Storms, floods and
droughts become more extreme. Oceans rise.
Even a little warming globally means
a lot of climate change. Just 1 C is huge and
1.5 C is a limit recommended by
the UN Climate Panel. The two responses to
change are adaptation and mitigation.
The book focuses on mitigation, getting
additional CO2 to zero per annum, and even
putting back some of the added CO2 accumulated
where nature had safely put it. But
for the latter adaptation is already
important. Chapter 2, This
will be hard. Dependency
on
fossil fuels is so pervasive it can be hard to
grasp. Plastics, polyester clothes
and the fertilizer to grow breakfast cereal
all come from petroleum, a fossil
fuel. Even an electric bus might use
electricity made using a fossil fuel. Wood
and paper mean more trees cut down and more
carbon released. Cement-making releases
CO2. So many things are made from steel and
plastic - planes, trains, cars and
appliances. Fossil fuels are cheap, easy to
transport, have a huge established industry
and come at prices that don’t reflect the
damage they cause in climate change, pollution
and the environmental degradation left by
their extraction. Time
is
running out. Globally, standards of living are
rising and with that come demands
for cars, roads, air-conditioners,
refrigerators and the power to run them. The
energy used and CO2 produced per person will
go up. Building the infrastructure
for green energy – making wind turbines, solar
panels, electricity storage – will
release more greenhouse gas. And the
population is still growing, so that urban
growth is expected to double by 2060, mostly
in newly developing countries like
China, India and Nigeria. Morally the lower
income people must be allowed to climb
the ladder. So the challenge is to get to zero
net emissions while they climb. The
time to do this is short. However, the history
of previous transitions in
sources or energy like coal to oil and oil to
gas has always taken many decades.
Renewables have only just begun. And the
earlier transitions were driven by economics
– not climate. Better technology also helped
make a transition to gas in the US. Some
technologies
take time.
Cars got 4 times
as efficient on gasoline use between 1908 and
2021. Solar panels converted 15% of
sunlight reaching them to electricity in 1970,
now it’s 25%. Size of industry matters
and the huge fossil energy sector has
incredible inertia. Huge initial capital
costs mean investors expect an energy plant to
run for 30 years. Energy is a business
with low tolerance for any risks: people
expect their lights to go on. There are
concerns about disasters with respect to
nuclear plants. Designing new nuclear plants
is hard because US regulations are outdated
and they effect corporate behaviour.
Regulations consider gas engine efficiency and
air pollution rather than getting
electric cars on the road. Plus, the
priorities and positions change with the 4-
or 8-year US election cycle. Current rules and
regulations can only achieve a
5% drop in projected US emissions by 2030 –
significant but not zero. There
isn’t
a strong consensus on action to stop
disastrous climate change. The missing
consensus is on spending the money necessary
to get breakthroughs to get to
zero emissions. Some prefer money for health
and education. Gates argues if we
don’t spend on getting to zero emissions, very
bad things will happen. Some argue
we have the tools we need to respond now.
Gates disagrees. We have only come part
way and hence his chapters 4-8. Finally,
global cooperation is extremely difficult
-- especially when costs will be involved.
That’s why the 2015 Paris Agreement
was so important, even if the cuts in
emissions were inadequate. In
sum,
something gigantic never done before must be
done faster than anything
similar – breakthroughs in science and
engineering; a public consensus to push
a transition that will not otherwise happen.
The energy system must change
completely. Chapter 3. Five
Questions to Ask in Every Climate
Conversation. Gates
needs
context for new information and ideas and his
questions are a means of
creating that. They tie a discussion to the
challenge: 1.
How
much of the 52 billion tons are we talking
about?
The question gives a sense of the
usefulness
of taking a car off the road or of trimming
airline emissions by 17 million
tons per year. The airline cut is roughly 0.03
percent of the 52 billion and
only useful if it leads to more. Breakthrough
Energy, a research funding body
Gates founded, only funds projects that could
remove at least 500 million tons
when successfully and fully implemented. 2.
What
is your plan for cement? Making
steel
and cement releases a huge 10% of global
emissions per year. Getting to
zero means getting rid of the following
contributions:
Making things (steel, cement, plastics)
29%;
Plugging in
(electricity) 26%;
Growing things (plants, animals) 22%;
Getting around
(trains, planes, cars etc.) 16%;
Keeping warm & cool 7%. Electricity
can
do more. With clean electricity, electricity
produced without greenhouse gases,
one could shift from hydrocarbon fuels for
factories, home heating/cooling and
getting around. But alone electricity is 26%.
The emissions are from five
activities. They must all go to zero. 3.
How
much space do you need? Power density is
the amount of land space a power
source like solar panels requires for its
power in watts per square metre of
land: Fossil
fuel
500-10,000
Nuclear
500-1,000 Solar
5-20
Hydropower (dams) 5-50 Wind
1-2
Wood/Biomass
<1 Note
solar
needs less space than wind. 4.
How
much power are we talking about? The scale of things
is energy, watts, or power per second.
The world’s largest power station, the Three
Gorges Dam in China can produce 22
billion watts (gigawatts). A home is in the
zone of kilowatts; a city in the
gigawatt zone. The demand for power: The
World
5,000
gigawatts
The USA
1,000
gigawatts Mid-size
City
1 gigawatt
Small
Town
1 megawatt Average
US
house
1 kilowatt Choosing
the
power source is complex. Nuclear runs 24/7
until it must be shut down for
maintenance and refuelling. Wind and solar
vary with the amount of sun and wind
so that on average they work for 30% of the
time. They need supplements. However,
the land area of space required is always
important. 5.
How
much will it cost? Most zero carbon
solutions seem more expensive than
fossil fuels because the the prices we cite
for fossil fuels don’t reflect the
environmental damage they inflict. This is a
challenge to the pricing of carbon,
but it makes fossil fuels seem cheap. Gates
calls the cost difference to achieve
zero carbon as a Green Premium. The Premium
depends on what you’re replacing and
what you’re replacing it with. A gallon of US
jet fuel is $2.22, advanced
biofuels are ~$5.35 and the Premium is
therefore $3.13. Sometimes the green source
is cheaper. Replacing a gas furnace and air
conditioner with a heat pump in Houston
saves 17% on energy costs. But there is always
a lag in adopting newer
technologies. Green premiums are a moving
target. Although the US and Europe may
be able to pay a Premium, it is less likely
that India, China, Nigeria and Mexico
can pay. Low
Green
Premiums means these are the zero carbon
options to be promoted now. High
Green Premiums means these zero-carbon options
call for research and
development spending to reduce the premiums.
The premiums measure differently from
tons of CO2 per annum to be removed. They tell
the cost of using a zero-carbon
tool now. They indicate where innovation might
make the biggest impact on reducing
emissions. There isn’t a zero-carbon way to
make cement. As an exercise we can look
at the cost of removing the CO2 from the air
by “DAC” or direct air capture. Gates
thinks $100 a ton or $5.2 trillion for 52
billion tons – and this amount is for
each year. However, the technology isn’t ready
and if it were it would be an inefficient
way to go. Summing
up:
1. Convert tons of emissions to % of 52
billion tons; 2. Remember solutions
for all 5 activity areas; 3. Kilowatt = house,
Gigawatt = mid-size city, 100s
of Gigawatts = big country; 4. Consider space
needed; 5. Think Green Premiums
and affordability for less wealthy countries. Chapter 4. How we
Plug in. (26% of 52 billion tons per
year.) This
chapter
aims to show what it will take to keep getting
all the things we like
about electricity, a cheap source of energy
that is always available, deliver
it to more people, and do that without carbon
emissions. In the US, electricity
first came from hydropower, water from dams.
Building dams displaces communities
and wildlife. Covering carbon with water can
lead to methane production. Dams
are fixed. Fossil fuels are moveable. So
growth in electric supply after WWII
used fossil fuels. Electricity was cheap
because fossil fuels were cheap. And
indeed, fossil fuels provide 2/3 of the
world’s electricity. In
the
US the green premiums are modest using wind,
solar, and nuclear, and coal
and gas fired plants that have carbon capture.
Gates notes that his aim is not
to use only renewable energy sources but to
get the emissions to zero. For this
he estimates the green premium for an average
US home would be around $18
monthly. The kilowatt-hour is the unit for
energy used on an electricity bill.
A typical US household uses 29 kilowatt hours
per day. The US is lucky; Asia
and Africa, not. China has cut the cost of
coal plant electricity and seeks to
sell that elsewhere and those recipient
countries will find coal the cheapest.
Solar works for remote areas, but to deliver
large amounts of cheap always
available electricity coal wins – and it will
be a disaster for the climate. When
gas
plants have to buy gas endlessly to generate
electricity, a green premium seems
strange when wind and solar energy come free.
It’s because fossil fuels are so
cheap. Some countries just don’t have good
renewable resources. There’s a
demand for reliability of electricity supply.
Wind and solar generators are
intermittent. Using a battery for night time
triples the cost of solar. Then there’s
the increase in cost of solar for winter
compared with summer. Alternatively,
if one sets up enough solar to supply for
winter, one has a surplus of
generation in summer that drives down the
revenue that a town gets from the
electricity. This is difficult for the town
trying to pay for its solar panels.
Also, fossil fuels can be delivered to
generating stations near urban areas that
can distribute the electricity, whereas wind
and solar generate where they are and
require electricity transmission to urban
areas for use. There isn’t one US
power grid; there is a patchwork of many
grids. Good long distance transmission
lines could help enabling solar power from
sunny areas to reach areas that are
colder and darker in winter. To get to zero
emissions will require using as
much solar and wind as can be built and that
there is space for. Making
carbon-free
electricity can be helped by creativity, and
Gates’ investments in
Breakthrough Energy go to things like nuclear
fission. It has problems: expense;
deadly if human error occurs; convertibility
for weapons use; and the waste is
dangerous and hard to store. Gates thinks the
nuclear fission reactor can be
improved. Nuclear fusion is promising but a
decade from supplying electricity
to users. Fusion is better than fission in
fuel, the safety of the process, and
waste storage. But getting the process to go
is a huge engineering challenge. Offshore
wind
generators have less intermittent winds and
can go nearer to cities on shore
for ease of transmission. This has a lot of
promise and several countries are
developing it including the UK and China as
well as various states in the US. Geothermal
relies
on hot rocks far below the surface that occur
in certain places. It depends
on finding a place and digging a deep well.
Although geothermal is not a major
contributor,
Gates thinks its well worth trying to get more
emission-free power. Storing
electricity
on a big scale is hard. Gates invests in novel
kinds of batteries
for better scale. Then there’s pumped hydro,
in which water is pumped to an
uphill lake when there is a surplus, to
generate electricity by its fall back
down the hill when demand goes up. Presently
the scale of pumps is low in the
US. Alternatively, water might be pumped
underground under pressure and then released
to drive a turbine. Electricity can heat
material when cheap or in surplus and
then this heat can generate more electricity
when needed. Cheap
hydrogen
could be a gamechanger for storing electricity
because hydrogen is key
to the fuel cell battery, in which a chemical
reaction produces electricity
plus water. Solar or wind power electricity
could produce hydrogen that could be
stored under pressure and then produce
electricity via a fuel cell on demand.
However, a lot of research is underway to get
this scheme to work, work efficiently
and at low cost. Capturing
carbon
involves a process of making electricity as it
is done now but sucking out
and storing the carbon before it hits the
atmosphere. Plants that use this
technology are few, expensive, and can deal
with a 90% maximum of the CO2. DAC,
direct air capture, is a much bigger challenge
to make a meaningful contribution. Using
less
electricity is something Gates is sceptical of
but he concedes trying to get
up to 100% clean power is worth every effort
-- using all the electricity that wind
and solar farms can produce and also trying to
reduce electricity demand wherever
possible. Chapter 5. How we
Make Things. (29% of 52 billion tons
per year.) The
amount
of concrete used is enormous and the use is
growing in places like China
-witness the incredible growth of Shanghai -
and elsewhere as more people earn
more, have better homes and better health. And
its not just concrete. Steel is
used for buildings to reinforce concrete, and
glass is used for all those high-rise
windows. The big three of the things we make
are concrete, steel and plastic. Steel
requires
pure iron and just the right small amount of
carbon. Iron does not
come pure but with oxygen as iron oxide. To
produce steel, one heats iron ore
to 1700C with oxygen and coke – a form of
carbon. But there is an unwanted
by-product – CO2. Making 1 ton of steel
releases 1.8 tons of CO2! It’s done
this way because iron ore and coal are
available and cheap. Concrete
requires
gravel, sand, water, and cement. The cement
needs calcium and that
comes from calcium carbonate – limestone.
After burning the limestone one gets
calcium oxide but also CO2 and 1 ton of
calcium oxide comes with 1 ton of CO2. Right
now, China is the biggest user by far. But the
roughly 4 billion tons a year globally
are expected to continue since as China’s use
falls, other countries will be building.
The
over
2 dozen kinds of plastics now commonplace
arrived in the mid-20th century.
They all contain carbon, usually in
combinations with hydrogen and oxygen.
Plastics come from coal, oil, or natural gas.
Plastics are stable – they take
hundreds of years to degrade, making them a
major environmental problem. At
least the carbon won’t go into the atmosphere.
At
this
point Gates leaves out other major
manufacturing – fertilizer, aluminum, glass,
and paper, as he turns to where the emissions
come from: 1. Using fossil
fuels to make electricity, 2. Using fossil
fuels to heat a manufacturing process
– like steel making, 3. The process of
manufacturing, itself, produces a
greenhouse gas – like cement making and steel
making make CO2. Gates
argues
that right now one cannot stop making steel
and concrete, so the only
viable way to cut emissions is carbon capture
- and carbon capture is
expensive. Ethylene
(plastic)
costs $1,000 per ton, and releases 1.3 tons
CO2 per ton made. The
price after carbon capture is $1,087- $1,155
per ton, a green premium of 9-15%. Steel
costs
$750 per ton, releases 1.8 tons CO2 per ton
made. The price after carbon
capture is $871 - $964 per ton, a green
premium of 16-29%. Cement
costs
$125 per ton, releases 1 ton of CO2 per ton
made. The price after carbon
capture is $219-$300, a green premium of
75-140%. Gates points out the consumers
buying plastic bottles or a new car might be
unaffected, but it is corporations
that buy cement and steel. A city official
getting bids will go for the lowest
price unless there is an incentive otherwise.
Businesses will pay a premium if
the law requires it, their customers demand it
and their competitors are doing
it. The gap is innovation needed in the
manufacturing process. One idea of Microsoft
and McDonalds is to inject the CO2 back into
the cement before use at a
construction site. The hope is to cut
emissions 33% Another idea uses seawater
and CO2 captured at power plants to make
cement – potentially cutting emissions
70%. For
most
else, a key is a good supply of reliable clean
electricity that already is
used in ¼ of global manufacturing.
Electrification uses electricity to replace
fossil fuels in manufacturing processes. An
example being tried uses
electricity to break iron oxide into pure iron
and oxygen. Adding carbon to the
iron then makes steel with no CO2 produced.
For plastics, it may be possible to
make the plastic in such a way that it locks
away the carbon and so prevents
CO2 release in the long term. Of course,
instead of finding ways to reduce
emissions in manufacture, ways could be sought
to use less manufactured stuff –
recycle more and find ways to use less energy
doing so. For example, buildings
and roads could be designed to use less steel
and concrete. In
sum:
1. Electrify every process possible. 2. Get
the electricity from a decarbonized
grid. 3. Use carbon capture to remove
remaining emissions. 4. Use materials
more efficiently. Chapter 6. How we
Grow Things. (22% of 52 billion tons
per year.) What
experts
call the sector “agriculture, forestry and
other land use” goes from raising
animals and growing crops to harvesting trees.
In this sector the bad emissions
are methane (28 times more potent than CO2)
and nitrous oxide (256 times more
potent). Feeding a growing global population
is important so cutting these emissions
matters. Agriculture has already benefitted
from innovations in the 70s that
developed varieties of wheat and other grains
that provide more food per acre, with
the result that yields tripled. And the world
will need 40% more food by 2100 –
and maybe more. This is because as people get
richer they eat more meat and 2 calories
of feed grain are needed to give us 1 calorie
of chicken to eat; 3 calories of
feed to give us 1 calorie of pig; and 6
calories of grain to give us 1 calorie
of beef. Most countries are not consuming more
meat than they used to – China is
an exception. The problem is that if we
produce the food to feed 10 billion
people by today’s methods it will drive up
food- related emissions by two
thirds. There is also the risk of using arable
land to produce biofuel rather
than food crops – driving up food prices and
pushing people to poverty and
malnutrition. Gates
turns
to where the emissions in this sector come
from and how they can be
reduced. Cows have four stomach chambers and
one ferments grass producing
methane that the cow gets rid of in burps and
occasional farts. This accounts
for 4% of all global emissions. Methane
production is limited to cows, sheep,
goats, deer and camels. Another source of
greenhouse gas emissions is animal poop
that releases, when it decomposes, nitrous
oxide, methane, sulphur and ammonia.
About half these emissions come from pig
manure and the rest from cow manure. The
amount
of cow methane depends on where the cow lives.
In North America and
Europe cows get better feed and veterinary
care and produce less methane. Improved
breeds, cross breeding, best practices and
making better feeds available at
lesser cost could reduce emissions and at the
same time help poor farmers make
more money. As for manure handling, the
farmers of rich countries have
techniques to get rid of manure that produce
fewer emissions. Making these techniques
more affordable could improve the odds of
driving the emissions down. Cutting
meat consumption and using taste-alike
products like Beyond Meat can help. They
use less land and water. At present artificial
meats come with hefty green premiums
– costing 86% more. As more get onto the
market that will come down. There is
also lab production of meat by growing cells
but it is very expensive to do. Food
waste
is not only a problem of creating waste; tt
can lead to methane
production. The most important solution is
behavioural, but technology can help.
There is research on edible tasteless coatings
that extend the shelf life of
fruits and vegetables. Research on a smart bin
aims to help concerned
householders track their throw-away habits. Without
synthetic
fertilizer the world’s population would be less
than half its present size, because fertilizer
gives plants essential nutrients including
phosphorous, potassium and nitrogen.
Plants grow if there is nitrogen. Before
synthetic fertilizer, people used
manure. But there’s a rub. Microorganisms in
the soil don’t fix nitrogen unless
they have to. If they detect some nitrogen
present, they stop making it. Artificial
fertilizer has that effect on the
microorganisms. Also, to make the artificial
fertilizer requires ammonia. Making
that requires heat which means burning fossil
fuels and emitting greenhouse
gases. Then there is moving it to where it’s
stored and then used; it’s put on
trucks and tractors burning fossil fuels.
Finally, less than half that falls
onto fields ends up in plants. The rest causes
pollution or ends up in the air
as NO, a powerful greenhouse gas. Fertilizers
were responsible for 1.3 billion
tons of greenhouse gases in 2010. There are
challenges to making fertilizer without
emissions and capturing the gases associated
from applying it. Among the
research is work to develop bacteria that can
be added to soil to fix nitrogen
even when some is already present, reducing or
replacing the nitrogen in fertilizer. All
the
above accounts for 70% of emissions in
cultivating and raising. The remaining
30% is mostly deforestation – loss of half a
million square miles of forest per
year. It happens in different places for
difference reasons. In Brazil, pasture
for cattle. In Africa, it’s to clear land to
grow food. In Indonesia, it’s for
palm trees for palm oil. Gates wants synthetic
palm oil, but he notes deforestation
is a political and economic rather than
technical problem. The appealing idea
of planting trees comes with complexity: Thus,
one
would need to plant 50 acres of trees in the
tropics to “cancel out” the CO2
emissions of one American, or 25 million
square miles for all Americans. Trees
are good in many ways but they are not a
solution to the world’s CO2 emissions. Chapter
7. How we Get
Around. (16% of 52 billion tons per year.) The
burning
of fuels in cars, ships and planes, etc. emits
CO2 that’s contributing
to global warming. Gasoline and related diesel
and jet fuel are both
extraordinarily energy rich and cheap. To get
to zero emissions the fuels need
to be replaced by something energy rich and
cheap. Notice that travel emits
less than making things, plugging in and
growing things. That’s true globally.
But in the US, transportation is the number 1
source of emissions. And the need
goes beyond getting rid of the 8.3 billion
tons of CO2 produced annually by
transportation
now, because, globally, transportation is
going to keep increasing towards
2050. A lot of transportation emissions come
from rich countries that have
reached peak production so the growth is from
developing countries: China, India
and others. Where
do
the fuel emissions come from? Passenger cars
account for about 50%, garbage trucks,
trailer trucks and buses 30%, cargo and cruise
ships 10% and airplanes 10%. There
is
an alternative to the gasoline car – the
electric car. The cost has been reduced
slightly as bigger more cost-effective
batteries have emerged. But there is
still a green premium that Gates estimates at
some $1,200 per annum – large but
manageable for many. Gates expects battery
prices to fall, but in the end the green
premium depends on the relative costs of
electricity and gasoline in a particular
country. In addition, charging the electric
car takes time whereas filling a
tank with gasoline is very quick. And avoiding
emissions only works when the
electricity is produced by green processes,
not by burning fossil fuel! There
have
been attempts to use other liquid fuels, but
early ones like ethanol from
corn are not emission free. Advanced biofuels
can just be added to an existing
engine. Presently they have a green premium of
around 100%. Electro fuels use green
electricity to, for example, produce hydrogen
from water. There is not enough
green electricity to make hydrogen on a large
scale, and the green premium is
over 200%! Garbage
trucks
and buses can use the electric vehicle model
that works for cars. But
for heavy 18-wheel transport trucks the weight
of batteries and recharging
frequency become problems and the electric
vehicle model does not really work. There
remain the bio fuels and electro fuels, with
the 100% and over 200% respectively
green premium. Gates drops the possibility of
moving to smaller lighter electric
transport trucks that carry less cargo, so
that for the 18 wheelers, the only
options are high green premium bio and electro
fuels. Regarding
ships
and planes, the electricity option is not
presently feasible for cargo
planes. It’s the same issue as for 18-wheel
transport trucks. The weight of
batteries needed to carry a big weight of
cargo over a distance is problematic.
A Boeing can carry 296 passengers at 650 mph
for almost 20 hours; that is 3
times as fast, 6 times as long and 150 times
as many people as today’s prototype
electric plane. So, the best hope is to
develop bio or electro fuels, and the
green premiums are respectively 140% and 196%.
The same is true for cargo
ships. The best conventional container ships
now carry 200 times the cargo of either
of the two present electric ships and can run
routes 400 times longer. Unfortunately,
conventional ships currently run on cheap
“bunker fuel” so the green premiums
are 325% for advanced biofuel and 601% for
electro – and shipping accounts for
3% of global CO2 emissions. The
four
ways to reduce transportation emissions are 1.
Travel less. 2. Use less carbon
intensive materials in vehicle manufacture. 3.
Use fuels more efficiently and
legislate that beyond cars. 4. Switch to
electric power and alternative fuels. Lowering
green premiums can be helped by creative
government policies – like phasing out
fossil fuel vehicles, and generating clean
electricity. And Gates wants us to
consider nuclear power for container ships –
as some navies now do for big ships.
It Is important to work towards advances in
bio and electro fuels with an eye to
reducing the high current green premiums. Chapter 8. How we
stay cool and keep warm.
(7% of 52 billion tons per year.) Just
a
century after the first air conditioning unit,
90% of American homes have
some type. A/C and related electricity
generation will continue to be a key
contributor
of CO2. Wider global A/C use is now growing
and will continue into the next
century. Worldwide sales rose 15% in 2018
alone. Worldwide electricity demand for
cooling is projected to triple by 2050. That’s
bad for the climate because much
of the electricity used is made by fossil
fuels emitting CO2. Although much of
the thinking around making more, greener,
electricity applies, there are things
that can be done now. Most
people
don’t buy an energy-efficient air conditioner.
The typical A/C unit sold
is only 1/2 as efficient as what’s widely
available and 1/3 as efficient as the
best models. Buyers need to know, because the
cost of running the 3 times more
efficient model is clearly lower! So advisory
labelling on energy use is
important. And many countries don’t set
minimum efficiency standards. Measures
like these could reduce energy demand for A/C
by 45% by 2050. Sadly, there is
another danger in A/Cs. Some still use “F” or
fluorine gases which are significantly
bigger atmospheric warmers than CO2! However
in 2016, 297 countries did commit
to reducing use of F gases in A/C by 80% by
2045. Although
A/C
is the largest home user of electricity
globally, the honour of largest
energy consumer in American homes goes to
furnaces and water heaters. Energy
for heating is more than home furnaces. We
heat water for showers and dishwashing
as well as industrial processes. And there is
always winter in many places around
the globe when there is less sun for solar and
there are days without wind for wind
power. Furnaces and water heaters count for a
third of today’s emissions from
buildings. We don’t decarbonise buildings by
cleaning the electricity, but the
response is similar to cars: electrify what we
can – getting rid of gas furnaces;
and develop clean fuels for the rest. For
A/C
and furnaces, electricity can have a cost
saving – a negative green premium!
Replace a furnace and air conditioner with an
electric heat pump. In all but
the coldest climates, one can pump heat from
the outdoors into a house to warm
it. In summer, one does the opposite. For
several US states, Gates shows the
cost reduction (negative green premium!!)
ranges from 17% to 27%. So why isn’t
everyone doing it? In part this is because
furnaces get replaced slowly. Also in
part it is a legacy of out-dated regulations
intended to encourage gas use for water
heaters and furnaces instead of the then less
efficient electric ones. So
having regulations for current situations is
important. As a result, going
electric will take more time and one would
likely have to wait for 2035 to take
gas furnaces off the market. Worldwide, fossil
fuels provide 6 times more
energy for heating than electricity. Gates
says this is another argument for
searching for efficient bio fuels and electro
fuels. The
chapter
ends noting that it is possible to build green
provided one will pay a
green premium, and Gates cites the Bullitt
Center in Seattle that stays warm in
summer and cool in winter and has
superefficient elevators. It is a building
that can at times generate 60% more solar
energy than it consumes. It is linked
to the city grid and can draw on that at night
especially in cloudy periods.
Much can be done to improve building energy
efficiency without going all the
way. Regulations can facilitate that. Chapter 9.
Adapting to a Warmer World. While
the
world works to reduce emissions, climate
change is underway, with sea
levels and flood plains changing. We must
rethink where our homes and
businesses go as land disappears. Power grids,
seaports and bridges must be shored
up, and mangrove forests planted as a buffer
against storms. Gates
keeps
in mind the agricultural people in poverty in
Asia and Africa. One family
has jumped from 1 cow to 4 on their 2-acre
land thanks to a milk chilling plant
that could buy and distribute their milk. One
family served as a training point
on raising healthier vaccinated livestock. In
Kenya 1/3 of the population works
in agriculture. Worldwide there are 500
million small holder farms and 2/3 of
the people in poverty work in agriculture.
They produce remarkably few emissions!
But there’s a dilemma. As people go up the
ladder, as their cattle increase, so
do emissions. We need innovations so the poor
can improve their lives without
making the climate any worse. And any of the
major climate events are
devastating for the people struggling to live
on the edge of poverty – the crops
die, you can’t afford seeds. Perhaps
the
worst impact of climate change in poor
countries will be to make health
worse - increasing rates of malnutrition and
death. That can be helped by trying
to improve health for the poorest by boosting
primary programs of malaria
prevention and vaccinations for diarrhea and
pneumonia and for other diseases
like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. To
avoid malnutrition, food production will need
to double or triple in regions where
the poorest live. Here, it’s not a question of
putting money into electric cars
but of increasing money in vaccines. Africa
produces 2% of global emissions. The
Consultative
Group for International Agricultural Research,
CGIAR, is a network
that develops better crops and better animal
genetics. The CGIAR member
in Mexico was behind the crops of the
last green revolution. Drought resistant maize
is a current example. Its adoption
in Zimbabwe has led to 500 pounds more yield
per acre. New types of rice that
withstand drought are spreading in India, and
scuba rice can survive under
water for two weeks in the event of flooding.
Then there are programs with smart
phones that help farmers identify pests.
Ground sensors and drones help farmers
decide how much water and fertilizer their
crops need. One
of
the recommendations of the Global Commission
on Adaptation is to increase
funding to CGIAR; another is to help farmers
manage risks, that is, to diversify
to avoid a one-crop wipe out. A third is to
focus on the most vulnerable - the
women farmers. Finally, governments need
policies and incentives to increase
yields and reduce emissions at the same time. Gates
offers
three general steps on adaptation to global
warming: 1.
Reducing
risks: climate-proofing
buildings and infrastructure,
protecting wetlands, and encouraging people to
relocate where necessary. 2.
Preparing
for and responding to emergencies: better
weather forecasts and early warning, teams
of first responders and a system for early
evacuation. 3.
Recovery:
services like healthcare and education for
displaced people,
insurance to allow rebuilding at all income
levels, and standards such that what
is rebuilt is more resilient than before. He
gives
key points; -
Cities need
to change the way they grow. They house
half the people on earth with 3/4 the world
economy– often on former floodplains,
forest or wetlands that could have dulled the
impact of storm waters and protect
from drought. Computer modelling could help
planners, with respect to expanding
sea walls, improving storm
drainage etc.
Building a bigger better bridge once could
save rebuilding a bridge twice. -
Restoring and
protecting natural defenses like
forests and watersheds can bring payoffs.
Examples come from Niger, Mexico and
China. Mangroves in coastal areas can reduce
storm surges, prevent coastal
flooding and protect fish habitats. Planting
them is cheaper than building
breakwaters. -
More drinking
water will be needed as lakes
and aquifers shrink or get polluted.
Desalination technology needs lots of
clean energy and dehumidifiers show promise.
But efforts to drive demand down and
supply up. -
Making the
funding of adaptation projects an
attractive investment may be helped by
including climate change risks in pricing.
Some governments and companies do this. On
costs,
the Global Commission on Adaptation is
spending $1.8 trillion over 2020-2030
and expects a return of $7 trillion in
benefits. It’s 0.2% of world GDP. The
benefits are detrimental things that don’t
happen or the good things that do –
like maintaining the improved lot of many
people in poorer parts of the world. Beyond
economic benefits, the moral
obligation falls on those who produced global
warming to play a big role in
fixing it. Talk
of
tipping points brings wilder ideas like
geo-engineering that Gates is supporting
in research while preserving a wary eye for
potential negative impact at the
local level. Playing with the upper atmosphere
to cause global cooling does not
sound attractive. Chapter 10. Why
Government Policies Matter In
the
1950s Europe and the US responded by
legislating to stop smog that affected
health. In 2014 China took measures to deal
with air pollution. Regulating
energy is helping: electrification, energy
security, fuel efficiency; economic
recovery after the Great Recession. Today
governments can make rules on how
much carbon factories, power plants and homes
can emit. They can invest in
research. They can fix what markets cannot –
the hidden costs to the
environment in carbon products. When
governments buy things someone can decide to
go for the green product. 1.
The
investment gap Without policy
intervention there’s no guarantee that
the company selling a green electron will make
money. Energy companies spend
little, 0.3% revenue, on R&D. Government
policies and financing will need
to close the gap where we need to invent
zero-carbon technologies. When it is
clear a company can make money, the private
sector takes over – as happened for
the internet and GPS. Although R&D can
work on its own, it is better in combination
with demand-side incentives. 2.
Level
Playing Field Green premiums need
to get to zero. That can be done
by making fossil fuels reflect the damage they
do in the prices we pay for them
– by carbon tax or cap-and-trade that
encourages green alternatives. 3.
Overcome
Non-market Barriers Homeowners stick to
gas heating rather than cheaper
electric heating because they don’t know about
alternatives. Landlords don’t
get more efficient appliances because they
pass energy bills onto tenants. Government
information helps. 4.
Up
to date standards Government policies
on concrete making use can include
the latest on getting carbon emissions down in
the cement manufacture. 5.
Plan
a Just Transition A massive shift to
zero carbon involves winners and
losers. Transition to making a living from
something other than fossil fuels will
involve local situations and local leaders as
well as federal financing. 6.
Do
the hard as well as the easy Easy things like
driving electric cars and getting
more power form solar and wind are important
but the hard things must also be
tackled: electricity storage; clean fuels;
cement and steel manufacture; and fertilizer
– with investment for innovation. 7.
Work
on Technology, Policy, and Markets
Simultaneously “Markets” refers to
investors and financial markets
that will finance companies to make new
inventions. To get off fossil fuels all
3 areas must be worked simultaneously. It is
not enough to just issue a policy
for zero emission cars if there is no
technology and no company willing to make
them. Having a device to remove CO2 from a
coal plant exhaust is little use
without incentives for the plant to use it. If
there is a breakthrough on a
liquid fuel then efforts would be on markets
to get its use to a global scale. Solar-
and
wind-generated electricity are not the full
answer to needs but they give
evidence that new technologies, as they
develop, can become very competitive in
price - even lower than the carbon
alternative. Chapter 11. A
Plan for Getting to Zero Getting
to
zero net emissions by 2030 is unrealistic, and
going part way with some reductions
by 2030 could interfere with going the whole
way by 2050. Goals for 2030 must
be milestones towards a 2050 grand goal. They
must be things setting themselves
up for a zero in 2050 like: 1. Going all out
to deliver zero carbon electricity
cheaply and reliably; 2. Electrifying as
widely as possible vehicles, industrial
processes and heat pumps – even in places
relying on fossil fuels for
electricity. Every breakthrough in generating,
storing and delivering clean
electricity moves closer to zero emissions.
The law of supply and demand calls for
both an increase in the supply of innovations
and creating demand for them. They
must be cheap enough for middle income
countries. A. Expanding
innovations Gates
suggests
areas: Hydrogen production
without CO2 Grid scale
electricity storage for a season Electrofuels Advanced biofuels Zero carbon cement
and steel Plant- and
cell-based meat & diary Zero carbon
fertilizer Next generation
nuclear fission Nuclear fusion Carbon capture Underground
electricity transmission Zero carbon
plastics Geothermal energy Pumped hydro Thermal storage Drought tolerant
and flood tolerant food crops Zero carbon
alternative to palm oil Coolants without F
gases He
suggests
4 actions: 1.
Quintupling
clean energy and climate-related R&D for 5
years. Current clean
energy R&D is $22 billion, the NIH budget
is $37 billion so 5 x current is
in the right zone for an effective outcome. 2.
Make
Bigger Bets on High-Risk High-Reward Projects. The
Private Sector should fund low risk ventures.
Governments as best working on bigger things –
as they did with the Human
Genome Project. 3.
Match
R&D with Greatest Needs. A
hoped-for practical outcome is not
inconsistent with basic study. The SunShot
Initiative aimed to bring down the cost of
solar energy to $0.06 per kilowatt within
a decade. 4.
Work
with Industry from the Beginning. Having
both
government and industry involved can speed up
the innovation cycle. B. Accelerating
Demand for Innovations Innovations
need
to be tested out on scale and costed out,
costs pushed down, supply chains
built, and consumers need to get comfortable
with them. ·
Use procurement
power. Governments
buy
large quantities, so they are well placed to
help technologies into the
market at low cost. The bureaucrats who buy
need an incentive to look for green
products. ·
Create incentives to
lower
cost and reduce risk. Governments
can give others incentives to go
green; tax credits and loan guarantees can
reduce green premiums. Governments
need to be technology neutral – favouring
anything that works rather than a preferred
direction, and flexible so as to benefit a
range of types of company. ·
Build the
infrastructure
that will get the technology to market. Governments
at all
levels need to get infrastructure built –
transmission lines for wind and
solar, charging stations for electric
vehicles, pipelines for hydrogen and for
captured CO2. ·
Change rules so new
technologies
can compete. Market rules
must face present day needs to
allow new technologies to compete – like
advanced biofuels and low CO2 cement. ·
Scaling up. Electric
energy
production needs clean scaling up as other
technologies like electric
cars scale up. ·
Put a price on
carbon. Whether
cap-and-trade
or simply pay, the cost of carbon must be
there to remove green
premiums. ·
Clean electricity
standards.
Electrical
utilities must get increasing percentages
of their power from green sources – and all
types of green including nuclear
and carbon capture. ·
Clean fuel standards.
The
clean
fuel could power cars, buildings and power
plants. For transportation
this would accelerate electric vehicles,
advanced biofuels and other low carbon
solutions. ·
Clean product
standards. Governments
can
start this in their own procurement programs.
This can then extend to all carbon-intensive
goods on the market, including imported goods. ·
Out with the old. It
will
be necessary to retire inefficient
fossil-fueled equipment from power
plants to automobiles. C. Who goes first Local
governments
are good on building energy efficiency,
deciding whether buses and police
cars are electric, building local
infrastructure for electric vehicles and waste
management. State or Provincial governments
regulate electricity, planning, roads
bridges and what they are made of. National
governments set rules for electricity
markets, pollution regulations, and standards
for vehicles and fuels. They have
procurement power. They should make it a goal
to get to zero emissions by 2050,
make plans to get there and ensure green
premiums are reduced so that middle
income countries can get to zero. In
the
US, the Federal Government is the biggest
energy funder, has the most scope,
and has national reach, especially for new
technologies. Tapping private
capital in the US will be important, and
extending the investment horizon
needed by climate is important too. States can
test policies like carbon pricing
and building energy standards and they can
work in regional alliances. Cities
can work on emission standards and
electrification. Lowering the green premiums
that the world pays is not charity. It is an
opportunity to make scientific
breakthroughs that can give birth to new
industries and new companies, creating
jobs and reducing emissions at the same time. Chapter 12. What
Each of Us Can Do. The
citizen
has a voice and can make calls, write letters
and attend town hall
meetings. And the voice is important locally
as well as nationally. And run for
office. Also, consumers have influence: just
choosing an electric car or home heat
pump is more effective as manufacturers get a
message that there is a market
for this stuff. That way manufacturers make
more and prices go down and the
green premiums sink. Sign up for green
pricing. Reduce your home emissions. Buy
an electric vehicle. Try a plant-based burger.
Employees and shareholders can
push companies to do their part. They may even
work together to solve the
toughest problems. Companies can set up an
internal carbon tax. This pushes for
new products from the labs that can reduce a
green premium somewhere. Or
companies can set a priority in R&D for
low emission solutions. Companies
can be an early adopter of a green or greener
technology and can play a part in
policy making. Helping innovators get past the
first feasibility testing is
useful. Gates
knows
these things are polarised and he hopes that
people can find ways to work
in favour of things they can support rather
than opposing things they don’t
like. And he urges presenting evidence. He
remains an optimist. He knows what
technology can do and what people can do.