Walk or Run? - Setting a Speed for a Transition to Low-Carbon Energy (Part 1 of 2)

Whether you should walk or run to your destination depends on your objectives. How quickly do you want or need to get there? Is there a benefit for arriving early or a cost for arriving late? Is there chocolate cake waiting for you there?

Let’s start by agreeing we need to make a transition

If we agree that we all desire a future free of harmful climate change impacts, then low-carbon energy definitely should factor heavily into that future. If we want to maintain or improve the quality of life worldwide, we must continue increasing the socio-economic benefits per unit of energy consumed, while decreasing the amount of carbon released to realize those benefits. 

Unfortunately, although we’re starting to see a move away from denying that climate change is happening at an accelerated rate and that humans are the primary cause, we’re seeing delays in taking action on climate change, because of the assumed discomfort of the actions required. The tactic is similar to delaying a weight loss program because of the diet and exercise changes required, or delaying retirement planning because it’s an admission of eventual aging. Understandable, but not wise.

...from denying to delaying...

We also need to agree on the urgency of the matter, since that dictates the speed with which we tackle it. Just how negative will the effects of climate change be? Are we seeing them now? Will they get worse? When? Do we have time to delay or do we need to act now? 

Who knows how quickly the effects of climate change will affect us. With almost daily news reports, it seems like climate change impacts are increasing in magnitude and speed. Returning to the earlier personal change metaphor, how quickly would you like to get down to your optimum weight? In both cases, weight and climate, getting there early has its benefits.

A transition will be no easy undertaking

Make no mistake, a transition to low-carbon energy will entail setbacks, obstacles, and at times, slow progress. Witness:

• A colossal amount of work will be required to retrofit a global economy that has grown for a couple of hundred years dependent on fossil fuels. Significant and complex changes to physical and financial infrastructure, human behaviour, and institutions will be required.
• Global energy demand will continue to rise in the next decades due to increasing population and a universal desire for better living standards. Low-carbon energy, consequently, would have to replace existing fossil fuel use and also meet increased energy demand.
• Not all energy applications have electric or other alternatives readily or broadly available yet to replace fossil fuels (e.g., smelting, cement production, aviation).
• Currently, renewables do not offer the same kind of consistent and reliable power as fossil fuels.
• Some think there aren’t enough rare-earth minerals available for the battery-driven power of the future. 

How quickly should and could we make the transition?

The world economy is currently undergoing a transition toward renewable energy sources, but we will require fossil fuel sources during the transition. Although fossil fuels will be with us for an unknown period of time, does that mean we should relax the timetable for transitioning away from them? 

The nature of a transition is that it doesn’t happen overnight. Otherwise, I would use the term upheaval. A transition can take a short or long time. It’s easy to put things off, and often difficult to speed things up. 

If we keep saying the shift will take a long time, are we setting ourselves up with a self-fulfilling prophecy?

By delaying action we signal that there is no urgency to the matter. It means we’ll take longer to transition into renewable energy and reap the attendant rewards. It means not providing enough of the financial and research support that is needed to encourage adoption of renewables. Using uncertainty and the long road ahead as excuses to postpone the transition is inadvisable. We have to take the first steps, and the thousands that need to follow, sooner rather than later. 

We know from history that transition rates vary widely. Televisions and smart phones reached saturation quickly, whereas adoption of electricity and the wired telephone were slower. Energy consumption in the U.S. shifted from 70 percent wood in 1870, to 70 percent coal in 1900 – a major shift in just 30 years.

My earlier post takes a look at various predictions about how quickly the transition might occur. Difficult to factor into such predictions are geopolitical conflict, global governance trends, adoption tipping points, and other upsets and trends that could alter the transition rate. Instead of focusing on the predictions that match our worldview and fit our comfort zone, we could focus on blowing the “X percent renewables by 20XX” figures out of the water.

Obviously there’s a difference between “should” and “could”. How quickly we can overcome limitations and obstacles to make the transition faster depends in part on how much human and financial resources we invest in the effort.

Part 2 looks at what a transition might entail and how it might affect the oil and gas industry.