"Economies do not need barrels of oil, tonnes of coal or cubic metres of gas; they need mobility, heat, light, refrigeration, data processing and industrial production."
This is exactly the same paradigm shift or acknowledgement that led us to revolutionize thd broadband space in the mid-90's. People only asked for channelized type services (ISDN, T1) because that's what the telco's offered while making huge profits on established regulated infrastructure.
We said "Nope, people don't want 64 kbps, they want to connect data, voice, and even video". So we built an ATM/Ethernet Fibre optic network instead and delivered 10 Mbps for the same cost as 64 kbps. The customer routers were actually cheaper because they were more simple.
This infrastructure topology laid the groundwork for the high-speed data y'all enjoy today. U R welcome.
Sorry to post twice as it looks like "fan boying" but there is a direct example central to the essay theme (which was very good, so there's your fan-boy plug).
How to double your grid capacity without doubling the plant size? (Wires, stations, etc). HVDC Topology Overlay (HOT).
Increasing electricity capacity into populated regions are usually constrained, and expensive, at the bulk energy and regional transmission level. The high voltage part no one ever sees unless passing by a substation. (Like Danbury, CT where the local nature trail literally runs right along the substation fence). If the bulk energy transmission can be superseded with a core HVDC system delivering twice the capacity - for a number of reasons, some of it complex - the existing AC components can be repurposed to deliver twice the capacity to the regional transmission system.
The distribution system is upgraded on a local as-needed basis. These are much smaller and more capital planning flexible endeavors. HVDC can run in underground cable systems so more overhead transmission lines are not necessarily required.
Good summary. One topic I miss is the active management of fossil liabilities. There is an enormous base of fossil industrial sites (refineries, platforms, chemical plants, steel plants etc) that will have to be cleaned up when their usefulness ends. Avoiding the facing up to that liability becomes a reason to drag on operations or to dump clean up in the public lap. To avoid disruption of the transition requires active management and policy. To ensure clean up costs are paid for by poluters, are incorporated into fossil finances and to avoid “ghost plants” that stay active because ending activity is even more costly than stopping.
It's inferred a bit, but far from completely, in the use less material and retire fossil fuel plants sections.
One aspect that many analysts aren't taking into account with critical minerals supply and recycling over the coming decades is how much metal has gone into fossil fuel infrastructure and transportation. That's all going to be unlocked. We'll be strip mining old facilities as we shut them down.
But this short list isn't cleaning up all the messes humans have made of the world, just the ones that are causing climate change or can alleviate it. I don't consider a brownfield site as nearly as much of an issue as a working fossil fuel plant. Local problem, not a global one. Yes, we need to remediate brownfield sites, but that's separate from climate priorities.
Understand. I am thinking of a case in The Netherlands where a single steel plant was expected to incur a EUR4Bn clean up bill. (Too high for scrap metal to pay for) The unclarity on who would foot that bill became a major item in the discussion on its future. We have a lot of refineries, platforms, chemical plants etc. But they are treated as ‘forever assets’ and thus nobody needs to make clean up reservations. On existing plants this introduces a risk of undesires prolongation. With all new fossil assets there is today talk about stranded assets (their investment value not realized), but clean up would complety kill the economics from the start. A pointed correction in accounting rules could go a long way. Kind regards
Changing our diets to eat less meat and then reforesting the land freed up surely deserves to be on the list. Its the easiest solution available to us as individuals and would improve our health as well.
If you think that getting eight billion people to stop doing something pleasurable with high nutritional value voluntarily is easy, then please, explain the mechanism for achieving it in under five hundred years.
Skip the large grid dynamic. Microgrids and individual generation are key.
Direct atmospheric sequestration is an absolute must. They're at least one dozen entities doing so for under $1,000 per ton. Given that quality carbon fiber is worth $40,000 per time and the endless formation of structural possibilities with high quality carbon is the greatest economic opportunity in the history of legal tender. Not only that, it's an absolute must. We've added over 4 trillion tons of carbon to the atmosphere. Only one trillion the less than the great dying, the largest of the previous five mass extinctions. Oh yeah, one little caveat. It took 40,000 years for thar 5 trillion tons.
"Economies do not need barrels of oil, tonnes of coal or cubic metres of gas; they need mobility, heat, light, refrigeration, data processing and industrial production."
This is exactly the same paradigm shift or acknowledgement that led us to revolutionize thd broadband space in the mid-90's. People only asked for channelized type services (ISDN, T1) because that's what the telco's offered while making huge profits on established regulated infrastructure.
We said "Nope, people don't want 64 kbps, they want to connect data, voice, and even video". So we built an ATM/Ethernet Fibre optic network instead and delivered 10 Mbps for the same cost as 64 kbps. The customer routers were actually cheaper because they were more simple.
This infrastructure topology laid the groundwork for the high-speed data y'all enjoy today. U R welcome.
Sorry to post twice as it looks like "fan boying" but there is a direct example central to the essay theme (which was very good, so there's your fan-boy plug).
How to double your grid capacity without doubling the plant size? (Wires, stations, etc). HVDC Topology Overlay (HOT).
Increasing electricity capacity into populated regions are usually constrained, and expensive, at the bulk energy and regional transmission level. The high voltage part no one ever sees unless passing by a substation. (Like Danbury, CT where the local nature trail literally runs right along the substation fence). If the bulk energy transmission can be superseded with a core HVDC system delivering twice the capacity - for a number of reasons, some of it complex - the existing AC components can be repurposed to deliver twice the capacity to the regional transmission system.
The distribution system is upgraded on a local as-needed basis. These are much smaller and more capital planning flexible endeavors. HVDC can run in underground cable systems so more overhead transmission lines are not necessarily required.
Great explanations in here 👍🏽
Very nice summary.
How about adding good old, many techniques of end-use driven demand side management for energy efficiency improvement?
Electrification powered by renewable is the massive efficiency win. Everything else pales by comparison and is mostly subject to Jevons Paradox.
https://briefing.tfie.io/p/fabric-first-trap-electrification-wins
Good summary. One topic I miss is the active management of fossil liabilities. There is an enormous base of fossil industrial sites (refineries, platforms, chemical plants, steel plants etc) that will have to be cleaned up when their usefulness ends. Avoiding the facing up to that liability becomes a reason to drag on operations or to dump clean up in the public lap. To avoid disruption of the transition requires active management and policy. To ensure clean up costs are paid for by poluters, are incorporated into fossil finances and to avoid “ghost plants” that stay active because ending activity is even more costly than stopping.
It's inferred a bit, but far from completely, in the use less material and retire fossil fuel plants sections.
One aspect that many analysts aren't taking into account with critical minerals supply and recycling over the coming decades is how much metal has gone into fossil fuel infrastructure and transportation. That's all going to be unlocked. We'll be strip mining old facilities as we shut them down.
But this short list isn't cleaning up all the messes humans have made of the world, just the ones that are causing climate change or can alleviate it. I don't consider a brownfield site as nearly as much of an issue as a working fossil fuel plant. Local problem, not a global one. Yes, we need to remediate brownfield sites, but that's separate from climate priorities.
Understand. I am thinking of a case in The Netherlands where a single steel plant was expected to incur a EUR4Bn clean up bill. (Too high for scrap metal to pay for) The unclarity on who would foot that bill became a major item in the discussion on its future. We have a lot of refineries, platforms, chemical plants etc. But they are treated as ‘forever assets’ and thus nobody needs to make clean up reservations. On existing plants this introduces a risk of undesires prolongation. With all new fossil assets there is today talk about stranded assets (their investment value not realized), but clean up would complety kill the economics from the start. A pointed correction in accounting rules could go a long way. Kind regards
Changing our diets to eat less meat and then reforesting the land freed up surely deserves to be on the list. Its the easiest solution available to us as individuals and would improve our health as well.
If you think that getting eight billion people to stop doing something pleasurable with high nutritional value voluntarily is easy, then please, explain the mechanism for achieving it in under five hundred years.
Skip the large grid dynamic. Microgrids and individual generation are key.
Direct atmospheric sequestration is an absolute must. They're at least one dozen entities doing so for under $1,000 per ton. Given that quality carbon fiber is worth $40,000 per time and the endless formation of structural possibilities with high quality carbon is the greatest economic opportunity in the history of legal tender. Not only that, it's an absolute must. We've added over 4 trillion tons of carbon to the atmosphere. Only one trillion the less than the great dying, the largest of the previous five mass extinctions. Oh yeah, one little caveat. It took 40,000 years for thar 5 trillion tons.