Minding the Gap aka How the F*@k do we cross the chasm in climate change.

The Rockefeller Foundation recently published this chart estimating 8,700 terawatt-hours (TWh) “Green Power Gap” the clean energy capacity that must be built across 72 countries by 2050 if we hope to achieve both our global development and climate goals.

Its a big ask.

Roughly double the entire total current annual energy generation in the US.

Thats the bad news.

How, on (a rapidly heating) earth could we do this?

I'll have a go.

TLDR:

We got this. Phase out. Energy Security = Climate Security = Food Security = Political Security.

Efficiency: The Primary Energy Fallacy

Few understand the profligacy of burning the greasy, gassy, sooty remnants of dead stuff.

Over 2/3rds of the energy generated from fossil fuels is wasted.

Mainly as heat.

Thats right.

67%.

Wasted.

The same reason electric cars have wild acceleration and low operating costs is the same reason the decarbonisation challenge is less fearful than at first glance.

Electric cars use 85% – 90% of their energy for vehicle movement, compared to internal combustion engine cars that convert just 17% – 21%.

Imagine that level of improvement.

The world over.

If we can get better at efficiency (which electrification inevitably has us do) then we only have to replace 1/3 of the energy we currently expend in fossil fuels.

Light bulbs beat candles every time.

So much waste in this chart.

If only there was a massive, infinite (for our purposes) clean energy source that turned up for work each morning ....

Collection: Everything Under The Sun

If there is one chart that sums up our inability to predict the future and our ability to ditch fossil fuels, it's this one.

Even the most ardent sun seekers didn't see this sunrise.

Solar is eclipsing all other energy sources.

Exponential.

Renewable energy has suddenly become the largest source of new power generation.

So much free energy.

If only we had somewhere to store it...

Storage: The LiOn Age

"The price of batteries might go below $50kWh in the next few years." That matters as batteries can help us overcome big problems like grid stability and, (alongside heat pumps) domestic heating/cooling issues while removing the necessity for 'leap of faith' applications of hydrogen fuels.

But sadly there are parts that batteries won't reach.

No battery can power a large container ship right now -both are too heavy. But the shipping industry is responsible for the carriage of 90% of world trade and 3% of global emissions.

So we need new technologies to scale up fast. Through short term capture measures such the brilliant work at Seabound medium term, less polluting methanol replacements fuels such as Methanex Corporation and long term carbon free ammonia applications like those at Amogy we could one day eliminate emissions from shipping.

If only we had a versatile hydrogen energy vector that burned as a clean fuel...

Decentralisation: The Centre Will Not Hold

Covid, the Russian war on Ukraine and the cost of living crisis have helped us to appreciate the true security costs of convoluted global supply chains and dirt cheap exports from petro-states.

Like the primary energy fallacy this isn't talked about much, but there are big savings to be made straight out the gate in the post oil world.

In maritime, mentioned above, - 40% of shipping cargo is moving oil gas and coal.

That's not a typo.

There are quite a lot of these crazy fossil fuel addict paradigms.

Here's one: Solar and wind has basically become too good, too fast. So we are in negative electricity territory. The grid can't store. We are wasting renewable energy.

Proud to say the UK has this one by the scruff of the neck with the government taking over the electricity system operator and Octopus Energy leading the way in tariffs that help with balancing.

There is still a long way to go. But it's working. And in the UK we see the near total collapse of coal.

This is what a fossil fuel dying looks like.

But lets not get too excited just yet. Here's another crazy addict paradigm.

Today Europe won't buy Russian fossil fuels. But Russia is a major exporter of fossil fuel made ammonia.

So, for a while, Europe tried to not buy ammonia from Russia.

But, as you remember, food prices went nuts and Europe quietly backtracked. In fact Russian imports of urea into the EU rose from 1.1 million metric tons (t) in 2021 to more th 1.5 million t in both 2022 and 2023.

Urea is an ammonia derivative, using energy to turn ammonia in to urea makes it easier to transport long distances.

So Europe won't take Russian fossil fuel.

But it will take ammonia made from Russian fossil fuels, burn more fossil fuels to turn it in to urea, then even more to distribute it around Europe.

As the CEO of fertiliser company Yara rightly put it "fertiliser is the new gas"

Energy Security = Climate Security = Food Security = Political Security

To decarbonise we must decentralise and to decentralise we must decarbonise. If we do both we democratise monopolised industries and de-risk each of these areas.

As added bonuses, in a solar powered world we not only have somewhere to bring up our kids, we also no longer have to do business with despots.

This starts with a critical chemical like ammonia - a no regrets use case for clean hydrogen that replaces grey product, while disrupting the fossil fuelled corporate incumbents.

This all costs money.

But starting with small scale applications like flared hydrogen from existing industrial processes, stranded solar assets and the curtailed wind that the grid is not yet ready for, we can make a solid start. Wasted energy today can be turned in to something useful tomorrow.

By and large, batteries have transport and heating covered. Green molecules can fill the gaps. We don't need 'hydrogen powered' much. We need decarbonisation. Green for grey. In terms of practical use cases the hydrogen economy is more like the ammonia economy.

Whether through predatory delay, and regulatory capture by fossil fuel companies, or through our under-appreciation of the efficiencies of an electric world, we are lost. Cowed and timid of a transition with little practical downside and immeasurable long term upside.

Yes- the grid needs updating.

Yes- there are short term costs associated with change

Yes- electrification in industry will need new technologies and dedication.

And yes, negative electricity prices in some places are highlighting the stress fractures in a myopic system used to chucking away money on fossil fuels rather than investing it the grid.

But are we going to take the industrial incumbents at their word?

Are we going to leave climate change as a problem for our kid's generation?

When the animals are gone and it is too late

Really?

Us?

The same crew who put people on the moon, who beat Hitler, who are finally quitting smoking.

This is another exciting challenge.

This is another war for survival.

This is another nasty habit we can kick.

Lets not sell ourselves short.

Our failure to pay the true cost of fossil fuels to date, or take in to account the inefficiencies of centralisation or benefits of electrification, our failings with grid balancing, reassessing our dependency on oppressive regimes, these are forks in the road, not road blocks.

Energy Security is Climate Security is Food Security is Political Security.

As we understand the relationships between these four we see that an improvement in one is an improvement in all.

The upsides begin to compound.

We follow the light.

We worship the sun.

We catch the wind.

Batteries for everything possible, green molecules for everything else.

Decarbonised, Decentralised production, democratised access, deep, long term grid investment. This is the way.

Maybe I am being glib.

And there will be a lot of grey men in grey suits who will tell me how the transition cant be done just like people lined up round the block to tell us that nano-catalytic ammonia wasn't doable.

Until we made it.

That the Haber-Bosch process that consumed 2% of global energy with 1% of global emissions was the only way to make ammonia at scale.

Until it wasn't.

In two and a half years hard graft at Nium with 10 brilliant people we built a lab, built a team and built 'the smallest ammonia plant in the world'.

A decarbonised decentralised source of fertiliser food and carbonless fuel that can be fed by water and air, and powered by the sun. We are in deployment discussions with clean energy companies across 6 continents with two pilots agreed.

A good start, for an upstart, start up.

Maybe we are doomed to a fossil fuel future- fighting over the scraps of whats left on an uninhabitable earth.

Or...

Maybe we made a carbon free future seem harder than it is.

Maybe vested interests helped us with that.

After all.... "In general it is not the owners of stage coaches who build railways..."

And maybe, just maybe, through understanding the true opportunities and true costs across sun, wind, storage and security- a regenerative future of abundance and renewal is closer than we think.