The most interesting things I found after 60 days of rapid learning in climate action

I started Decarb Diary as a place to publicly capture and share what I learn as I enter into a rapid immersion in climate, energy, decarbonisation, etc, over a 3-6 month period to find the most painful problems that I have the skills to help solve. Ultimately I hope this will lead to starting a globally scalable business that will have real impact in the world. Learn more here.

I'm about 60 days into my rapid upskill and I've read thousands of words, listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts/video, and spoken to dozens of people so far.

I've still got at least 30 days to go in my broader discovery phase to understand the industry and challenges

Last week I covered my eight key overall key insights about the transition (with separate articles/frameworks for each coming soon).

This week I'm covering the things about the industry I found interesting, surprising, or fundamental.

Key Industry Findings

• There is a skills shortage - electrical engineers will be at the heart of the transition, but we don’t have enough now, and we don’t have enough trainers to train new people.
• Nature doesn't waste anything; waste is a human invention driven by industrialisation and consumerism; the circular economy not only contributes to lower waste and emissions, but has economic and strategic benefits. One great example: 99% of EV battery material can be reused over and over forever - effectively an EV is a mineral resource.
• Renewable Energy is also a strategic asset - we can be less reliant on other nations, and we can keep renewable money here rather than send money overseas to import fossil fuels.
• The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol is a set of global standardised frameworks to measure and manage greenhouse gas emissions, usually organised into Scope 1, 2 and 3. The basic formula for calculating emissions is Emissions = Activity Data x Emission Factor
• There are seven main gases that contribute to global warming, but CO2 is used as a benchmark for stating the global warming potential (GWP) of all gases, where GWP is expressed in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2e. CO2 makes up about 75% of all emissions.
• COPs (Conference of the Parties) are the highest decision-making bodies of the UN - but I didn't realise there were three: the Climate COP is annual, the Biodiversity COP and the Desertification COP are every two years.
• Biodiversity is both bearing the brunt of climate change but can also help with the challenge, and biodiversity credits are an emerging mechanism for addressing biodiversity loss (think of it like carbon credits, but for biodiversity projects).
• Since the baseline year of 1970, average vertebrate species populations have declined by 73%, and six of the nine planetary boundaries (which measure the ability of Earth's systems to continue at a healthy level) have been crossed
• The fragility of the energy system - the NEM (national electricity market) must stay within a very small and defined range of frequency - too much or too little energy can mean surges and blackouts. This means it needs to be monitored every second (done by AEMO in Australia). There are a few ways to deal with this - turn the energy tap on/off (eg. stop solar panels producing or startup a gas peaker), use more/less energy (eg. if there's extra energy, turn those aircons on!), shift when power is used across the day to lower demand times (load shifting), or store it (short/long term).
• The current grid has ‘inertia’ - large spinning energy generators, primarily coal-fired power plants, that help smooth out sudden disturbances or fluctuations in the grid. But renewable energy sources connect via inverters, which means we’ll need to find another way to help stabalise the grid (a "zero inertia" grid). By 2050, 1/3rd of energy generation and 2/3rds of storage will be ‘behind the meter’, ie in households.
• The energy market seems to be almost like the stock market - buying, selling, trading, earning, etc. Carbon offsets, carbon credits, carbon markets, FCAS... and many other mechanisms are all part of this system.

• Wind (onshore/offshore) and solar (rooftop, grid) are called Variable renewable energy (VRE), which makes sense in hindsight. Rooftop solar is by far - and will always be - the cheapest form of energy as it's generated on-site and doesn't incur transmission or distribution cost. There are six phases of VRE in a system - only Denmark and South Australia are at Phase 5.
• Interesting that both Hydroelectric and Hydrogen can be thought of as stores of energy as well as generators. Pumped Hydro (pump water up high with excess energy, release the water down when energy is needed) can be both natural (ie a waterfall/dam) or closed loop (all you need is a high point and a low point and you can use the same water over and over forever). Hydrogen could also be a store by using excess energy to create hydrogen and then storing it for when needed.
• Distributed energy resources (DERs) are all those things that produce or store energy that aren't centralised (eg rooftop solar) and will be crucial to the transition. They can be connected via things like Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) to optimise the supply and demand of electricity.
• Transport and Energy are intrinsically linked, and today both sectors are decarbonising but there’s a huge opportunity - energy needs batteries to be stored in, and EVs just happen to be batteries on wheels. With V2G approved in Australia, this means EV batteries can now supply back to the grid (and earn money for their owners).
• Process heat is the most significant source of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial sector - mostly used in the creation of gas - and contributes 15%-30% of carbon emissions globally. Electricity can be used to heat things up to about 200-250 degrees Celsius, but after that you need another fuel that makes it hotter, such as hydrogen, particularly needed for things like steel and chemical processes.
• Apartment buildings and strata are challenging to transition with no strong policy to incentivise landlords or renters/strata members to invest, including things like solar power, battery and EV charging.
• 67% of young people say climate-change anxiety (aka eco-anxiety, eco-grief or climate doom) is affecting their mental health. There's also a sense of "what can I do, I'm only one person".
• The AI Paradox - it will help us fight climate change (it could help mitigate 5-10% of global GHGs by 2030), but is also contributing to it (currently uses 1-1.3% of global final electricity demand, is responsible for 0.1% - 0.2% of global emissions, and is project to use 4.2bn - 6.6bn cubic metres of water by 2027 - equivalent to half the UK's annual consumption).
• Carbon Sequestration / Carbon Dioxide Removal removes CO2 from the atmosphere, while Carbon Capture stops CO2 from entering the atmosphere. Carbon Storage and Carbon Usage is where that carbon is kept - biological (carbon sinks, forests, oceans, etc) and geological (eg rocks) - and how it is reused in other products, such as concrete inputs.

I've capture what I thought are some key findings from my research so far, but if there's anything else you think is important, let me know in the comments!

Cheers,

Dan