Accelerating the Energy Transition
https://innovating4energy.com

Over the next twenty to thirty years, the Energy System will undergo a massive transition to achieve that eventual 2050 net-zero target of decarbonizing the energy system fully, resulting in a clean, climate-resilient energy transformation.

I have been looking in a short mini-series at the need to structure the Energy System in a very systematic and consistent evaluation as we undertake the changes from a fossil-reliant ecosystem into a clean, renewable one, with the overriding obligation to address climate change.

In this third and final post of this series, I focus on 1. Innovation & Ingenuity, 2. Experimentation & Rapid Pilots, and 3. Leapfrog Opportunities and discuss a value proposal.

Within my first post, “Changing the Energy Ecosystem“, I began to lay out the need to change the energy dynamics by redirecting them away from the existing systems and structures and where I looked at the triggering points of this: 1. Changing the Energy System, followed by considering new 2. Value Propositions (scenario, synthesise, combinations, synopsis, sketches) and then evaluating the 3. Dealing with the different disruption and dislocation points, and 4. the need for rapid learning and knowledge sharing.

In my second post, “Building out the new Energy Ecosystem “, I  continued to build out the new Energy Ecosystem. This post focused on triggering thinking for reforming the Business Models within any energy system change and then looked at the necessary resolutions in the impact or implications any new business model will have.

Moving from proven to nascent solutions needs an innovation mindset

So why am I focusing on these? 1. Innovation & Ingenuity specifically, and then on the essentials of building real competencies in 2. Experimentation & Rapid Pilots, and then taking a future building capability with 3. Leapfrog Opportunities.

As I mentioned in the previous post, we need to dismantle the existing energy ecosystem; we are building the new one inside; that is the really hard part; it is full of variability and novelty.

We are replacing proven solutions with nascent ones, perhaps individually demonstrated but not fully connected up in an integrated, designed energy system showing validation and long-term return or resilience.

This is why within this post, my emphasis is on innovation generation, experimentation and the need to look beyond the known and sometimes leap into the unknown. We need an equal emphasis on start-up-driven innovation and rapidly establishing technology-driven solutions.

I have not focused here on the multiple energy solutions available.

They can cover additional concepts like blockchain, big data, microgrids, storage for providing and handling energy or the enormous potential of digital smart “everything” or cover electrolyzers, grid transmission solutions, power generation, electric charging, wind, solar, hydro etc., etc.

The list of innovative solutions seems endless, but this becomes a central point here. If you do not establish a real core innovation capability and set of competencies and capacities to innovate, you run the risk of not optimizing or capitalizing on all the solutions offered today or emerging in the next ten or more years.

Hence why, in any changing Energy Ecosystem, Innovation becomes a central tenet.

Innovation is the energy transition key enabler.

Innovation is the engine that powers the ongoing transformation of the
global energy system. Decision-makers need to identify the optimal combination of solutions, which needs a dedicated team of innovators exploring and exploiting options and validating them systematically.

Innovation needs to build the capability to understand the enabling technologies, investigate fit and innovative business models, and constantly determine different market designs and system operations.

We must recognize today that any energy innovation challenge we face extends to sectors that have not significantly changed for many decades and that do not yet have commercially available low-carbon options.

Technology innovation is the key, but we must make quicker progress through faster innovation.

Energy technology refers to the combination of hardware, techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of energy and the provision of energy services, i.e. the way we go about producing, transforming, storing, transporting and using energy.

 We require a rapid evolution of the technology mix, particularly in some emerging economies that are just starting out on their decarbonisation journeys. The under-appreciation of these urgent challenges in today’s energy debate is a real concern and why I believe we need to recognize the current Energy Ecosystem is not fit for future purposes.

We need to recognize there are no single or simple solutions to putting the world on a sustainable path to net-zero emissions; it will come from a radical re-assessment of what the future energy ecosystem needs.

I do not want to take this urgency further here; that’s for future posts with a growing recognition that today’s energy transition is falling behind in its goals to achieve net zero by 2050. We do need to speed up and innovate.

So let me return to this third part of my structure to drive an Energy Ecosystem change.

Again I have used mindmaps to reduce content and allow an individual understanding of each idea and what it triggers. This offers the individual a suggested prescriptive framework and course of possible activation, but I stress again, as previously, “the devil is in your details and circumstances“.

Innovation & Inqenuity

The triggers to build out Innovation Capabilities for the Energy Ecosystem

Experimentation and Pilots

The capacity and competencies for experimenting and exploring pilots and prototypes become essential to learning and building an innovation capability.

Experimentation and Pilot building capabilities for the Energy Ecosystem

Leapfrog Opportunities

The need to change our energy systems in thirty years is a really short period. It needs to adopt a greater “leapfrogging” approach to technology, business model options, market design and system operations.

To accelerate the Energy Ecosystem, you must leapfrog as much as possible.

Through my focus on innovating for energy, I have placed my point of value on supporting the building out of a structured system that takes the energy ecosystem and builds the essential aspects needed for any energy transition into it.

MY Value Proposal

This dedicated website outlining services, thinking, and structures that can help you formulate a pathway of change in energy perspectives and solutions.

Any Energy Transition needs all its parts to become fully connected.  We provide the knowledge and understanding to help connect the parts that lead to fresh business opportunities and growth.

• Our value is in helping to translate the understanding and the decisions needed to provide that critical different perspective and positioned to operate at the front end of the Energy System.

There is a growing urgency in the innovation scope, pace and direction of changes needed. Any change in the energy system needs to have depth and greater knowledge, perspective and activism for delivering innovation intent and helps the positioning in building out your understanding of the Energy journey and our wish to support you along this transition pathway.

The vital “infusion” of innovation in thinking, approaching and building this into the front end of energy provides a greater discovery structure and process that can greatly facilitate the changes, with more informed knowledge, insights and validation of a path to travel.

Contact me if you would like to explore where innovation fits within your energy transition.

The post Accelerating the new Energy Ecosystem first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Building out the new Energy Ecosystem

I firmly believe the Energy System needs a very systematic and consistent evaluation as we undertake the changes from a fossil-reliant ecosystem into a clean, renewable one, with the overriding obligation to address climate change.

As you consider a change of this magnitude, you recognize how complicated this becomes, and the deeper your thinking becomes, hence why I like thinking through this with the use of mind maps.

I would argue we need a consistent framework to keep working through all the changes that will be undertaken in the next twenty to thirty years to achieve that eventual 2050 net-zero target of decarbonizing the energy system fully;  resulting in a clean, climate-resilient energy transformation.

Within my first post, “Changing the Energy Ecosystem“, I began to lay out the need to change the energy dynamics by redirecting them away from the existing systems and structures.

This is my second post, which continues to build out the new Energy Ecosystem.

This post focuses on the two points of Reforming Business models and the needed Resolutions to take this different thinking forward, then I will take out in the third post, Innovation & Ingenuity, Experimentation & Rapid Pilots,  and Leapfrog Opportunities.

Reforming Business Models and Needed Resolutions required.

So this post focuses on reforming the Business Models within any energy system change and then looking at the necessary resolutions in the impact or implications any new business model will have.

Putting the scale of this Energy Transition into context.

Again, these are my first attempts to systematically redirect or reorder the Energy System. I have viewed the Energy System as an Ecosystem one as it needs to account for a whole system approach. I find so much of today is made up of piecemeal evaluations or activities, lacking that comprehensive view or systematic evaluation before the change is undertaken.

Any evaluation of Energy System change requires an initial view of the six dimensions that will impact or trigger any seismic change. These are 1. Environmental. 2. Economic, 3. Technical, 4. Institutional, 5. Political and 6. Social.  I have left this analysis out in these posts, but these drive the macro case for making the Energy Transition change.

The sheer size of estimated investment in changing the energy system is presently suggested as between $110 trillion to $140 trillion by 2050. For all those involved, their investments in transforming what they have as assets today, how to transition or retire them, and what and where they need to invest in the future in renewable energy sources is a daunting task, full of risk and uncertainties.

A consistent and sustaining evaluation pathway for the Energy System

Changing the energy system must have a systematic redirection, built on an evaluation format that stays sustaining and constant for a pathway that will be lasting twenty-eight years to achieve that eventual 2050 net-zero target of decarbonizing the energy system fully, resulting in a clean, climate-resilient energy transformation.

Building the new from within the existing, we have no other choice.

As we dismantle the existing energy ecosystem, we are building the new one inside; that is the really hard part; it is full of variability and novelty. We only have one planet; we need energy constantly and always on. We are transforming one built out from our reliance on fossil fuel being progressively dismantled to one built on renewables in such a short time span is monumental.

We are replacing proven solutions with nascent ones, perhaps individually demonstrated but not fully connected up in an integrated, designed energy system showing validation and long-term return or resilience.

We do need to get our heads around this to manage what is orderly chaos, thinking through the “known-unknown-unknowable” in our present and future projected world and dealing with all the constraints.

This is why I refer to The Cynefin framework from Dave Snowden through Cognitive Edge. The positioning of Cognitive Edge is “making sense of complexity in order to act.” That trying to make sense of all the constraints involved in changing the Energy systems.

Building upon my opening post

So building from my opening post of “Changing the Energy Ecosystem” where I looked at the triggering points of this: 1. Changing the Energy System, followed by considering new 2. Value Propositions (scenario, synthesise, combinations, synopsis, sketches) and then evaluating the 3. Dealing with the different disruption and dislocation points, and 4. the need for rapid learning and knowledge sharing. We now need to go one step deeper.

I have taken a mind mapping approach to reduce content and allow an individual understanding of each idea and what it triggers. This offers the individual a suggested prescriptive framework and course of possible activation, but “the devil is in your details and circumstances“.

Going one stage further- Reforming Business Models and the Resolutions needed

Reforming the Business Models- opening thoughts

Reforming Business Models is absolutely essential in any Energy Transition.

Resolutions needed- initial areas of focus.

Resolution Needs to address in the Energy Transition.

Rebuilding our Energy Ecosystems

How can we unplug from a fossil-dependent energy system into a clean, reliable and renewable one that is sustaining and net-zero for greenhouse gas emissions?

It is the emerging scope of Business Models and Resolutions needed to be found that “informs” the application explored in the next post of 1. Innovation & Ingenuity, 2. Experimentation & pilots, and 3. those Leapfrog opportunities

What needs to be explored, exploited, built out, and deployed based on the business models and the resolutions considered to existing and future needs as outlined briefly in this post and the first post to shape the future of energy in predictable and systematic ways?

The post Building out the new Energy Ecosystem first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

We have a very unhealthy world.

When I set up this posting site https://innovating4energy.com in December 2019, I stated within the site identity the tagline “a transition in all of our lives.” Little did I know how our lives would change at that time and continually do so in a very unhealthy geopolitical environment where collaboration is rapidly deteriorating to solve our rapidly warming planet.

I have found working in this energy transition space to be extremely hard, if not at times overwhelming. It is so complex, challenging and caught between the extremes of needed change and no change. You wonder what will happen, not just in the year 2050 as that year we need to have achieved bringing our world to a net-zero in carbon.

Just how we will be capable of transitioning to a net zero energy system by 2050, ensuring stable and affordable energy supplies, providing universal energy access, and enabling robust economic growth is seemingly getting harder to grasp than it was a year ago or even when I started this posting site.

A 2050 goal beyond us all

Understanding and even believing this net-zero goal by 2050  is beyond me, but perhaps this goal is beyond us all.

All I know, in my gut, is that something really radical has to change dramatically. I know, we know, that we are approaching a decisive moment for international efforts to tackle the climate crisis –one of the greatest challenges of our times. Actually, we are reminded of this every day.

Yet we seem to be at a point where energy sources have become weaponized, rapidly altering the pace of change and the complexity of managing any energy transition in these immediate years. Essential materials are in limited supply and limited hands for resourcing. Scaling has been hampered by global supply chain issues; normally reliant profit sources have become unpredictable and markets more volatile.

I was so disappointed by CoP 26; it deeply affected me to question the resolve, understanding, and beliefs of all involved, caught in a very bad position. I just kept asking, “how has this happened?” All we saw  was “raw” politics”, intensive lobbying and levels of hype and spin, leaving the conference outcome as “grabbing on straws of hope.” That alone is not enough.

I keep asking myself can this continue? We see the effects of climate impact every minute of every day, we see entrenched positions.

I believe there is a real need to “step back” and reconsider where we are. Many of the alternative solutions to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels within any energy transition have been identified at different points of validation or scaling.

We need to make sense of this current global disorder to begin to act in a very different world. I wanted to go back to one of my favourite frameworks, the Cynefin framework, for partly thinking through the “known-unknown-unknowable” in our present world.

We are seemingly more in the “unknown or unknowable” at present, perhaps in a world of disorder, in our understanding and actions to manage the energy transition. This post explains the framework:  “focusing on moving from disorder in today’s world.”

So the Cynifin framework really helps us make sense of our present world. Where it was, where it is at present and where it needs to return to or actually be reframed as a world that needs different order and thinking.

Yet we do need a new order, a new shaping of the eventual ecosystem for the design, transition and laying down, in an orderly fashion, the new energy system.

I come back, we need to change the Energy Ecosystem

I find Mind Maps as a great tool to think, record and review my thoughts. Within a recent evaluation of my positioning in contributing to the energy transition.

These are a (real) work-in-progress to regain my footing and find the contribution points.

I have, at this time, left them as mind map segments and have not attempted to explain them, letting the map do the talking or describing.

Initial thoughts on Changing the Energy Ecosystem

Changing the Energy Ecosystem- opening thoughts

The build towards new Value Propositions

The building toward new Energy Value Propositions

Dealing with Disruption and Rapid Learning Approaches

Dealing with Energy Disruption and Applying Rapid Learning

In my next post related to thinking about building a new Energy Ecosystem, I will focus on 1. Reforming Business Models, 2. Finding resolutions, 3. Innovation & Ingenuity, 4. Experimentation & Rapid Pilots, 5. Leapfrog Opportunities.

The pressing Energy need

I return to the need, in my opinion, the burning need, to recast Energy into a new Energy Ecosystem. We need to get the narrative and positioning right and have this as our evolutionary perspective.

The post Changing the Energy Ecosystem first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Pinned to my door, my way of approaching the Energy Transition

I have on the door of my office the approach I am taking to build out my understanding and pace myself in what I can absorb, translate and offer views upon on the Energy Transition.

My site www.innovating4energy.website is where I outline and see my value contribution in applying the “multiplier effect” to any discovery and validation of the Energy Transition. The value proposition is in accelerating the clients/readers’ understanding of where the potential growth and impact points with the objective of triggering a new business opportunity for it to occur.

What we offer is exploring the Energy Landscape in understanding, so this can then be translated into fresh, exciting Energy Value Positioning Offerings.

We extract points of value to drive innovative change to your business offering.

The services provided https://innovating4energy.website

I draw it up heavily influenced by the work I am undertaking in the Energy Transition. It adapts some of the energy jargon as a fun way to look at this

On my door, I have this:

• • • I increasingly go off the GRID (less time on the Internet)
    • I keep investing and building the STORAGE (my research work is my value proposition base)
    • I look constantly for Renewable Energy SOURCES (forming new contacts, networks, and relationships)
    • I keep motivated and keep transitioning with ENERGY (nothing stays still, knowledge is always evolving)
    • I look to constantly seek out sources of DEMAND (looking for work-to-be-done)
    • I have a core to focus on my PRIMARY demand (innovation, energy, and ecosystem advisory work)
    • I look toward being close to the EDGE (in research, topics, and discussions)

The vital “infusion” of innovation in thinking, approaching and building this into the front end of energy provides a greater discovery structure and process that can greatly facilitate the changes, with more informed knowledge, insights and validation of a path to travel.

We offer a mix of understanding, forecasting and access to comprehensive knowledge and research resources.

• Offering the intelligence to accelerate your energy journey and solutions

The innovation energy transition journey roadmap outlined

Providing a given value in the proposition

• The aim is to support the individual, teams, and organisations in their innovation and transition activity around the energy transition they intend or are already undertaking in relevant insights and knowledge.
• The outcome is to advance further the client’s comprehension, based on a different external perspective, that has a valuable place in any assessment of the Energy Transition and future pathway.
• The value for the client, so often time and resource-starved, is that they can rapidly understand the latest thinking relevant to their focus areas, in thoughts, and insights around innovation, ecosystem building, or how the energy transition impacts them, to identify new growth options or impact points of new value, or consider radically different stances in business positioning in the future.
• Adding new insights and knowledge contributes to building significantly new innovation and transformation understanding and competencies, resulting in clients achieving deeper appreciation, further positive momentum and sustaining results, from these energy transformation activities.

Two focal points and one reality!

1. We are constantly building our library of energy knowledge to support your requirements.

2. Our position is to operate at the front end of the Energy System- where the true energy is generated and we make it renewable and sustainable!

• Partnering in any energy journey needs extensive network and collaboration thinking

How often do you stare at the wall or door?

The post Pinned to my door, my way of approaching the Energy Transition first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Two really important points have troubled me in the past months and given growing challenges and issues relating to the energy transition.

The failure of CoP26 lingers very heavily and now as we are caught up in the Russian- Ukrainian war we are seeing so many reverses on pledges made in Glasgow or simply waiting to see where this crisis will take us all.

It seems to be that the lack of positives is presently being defeated with all the negatives I have been recently reading about in disruption, energy risks and the growing energy crisis. A level of panic is setting in. It does seem we are losing real momentum on reducing carbon emissions as we fall back on fossil fuel supplies.

At the UN’s Cop26 climate summit in November 2021, after a quarter-century of annual negotiations that as yet have failed to deliver a fall in global emissions, countries around the world finally included the word “coal” in their concluding decision. That is now back on the agenda, with old coal mines even being reopened.

Even this belated mention of the dirtiest fossil fuel was fraught, leaving a “deeply sorry” Cop president, Alok Sharma, fighting back tears on the podium after India announced a last-minute softening of the need to “phase out coal” to “phase down coal”.

The really shocking failure at CoP26 was this.

But there was no mention of oil and gas in the Cop26 final deal, despite these being responsible for almost 60% of fossil fuel emissions.

Since then Energy has gone into shock from the Russian war

The stories of the bonanza in extra cash flooding into the big oil companies, the opening up or extending of oil field options and the recent reveal through work undertaken by the Guardian about the carbon bombs set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown is making us believe how great a danger the plans of oil and gas companies pose to the climate as they retake their leadership role.

Research shared exclusively with the Guardian has identified the Cabo Delgado development as one of 195 carbon bombs, which – unless stopped – will drive catastrophic climate breakdown around the world. These are very distressing reading.

The term carbon bomb has been widely used in climate circles for the past decade to describe large fossil fuel projects or other big sources of carbon.

The new research sets a specific definition: projects capable of pumping at least 1bn tonnes of CO2 emissions over their lifetimes.

According to the article, it is chilling what is possibly planned

Details of the projects being planned are not easily accessible but an investigation published in the Guardian shows:

• The fossil fuel industry’s short-term expansion plans involve the start of oil and gas projects that will produce greenhouse gases equivalent to a decade of CO2 emissions from China, the world’s biggest polluter.
• The fossil fuel industry’s short-term expansion plans involve the start of oil and gas projects that will produce greenhouse gases equivalent to a decade of CO2 emissions from China, the world’s biggest polluter.
• These plans include 195 carbon bombs, and gigantic oil and gas projects that would each result in at least a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions over their lifetimes, in total equivalent to about 18 years of current global CO2 emissions. About 60% of these have already started pumping.
• The dozen biggest oil companies are on track to spend $103m a day for the rest of the decade exploiting new fields of oil and gas that cannot be burned if global heating is to be limited to well under 2C.
• The Middle East and Russia often attract the most attention in relation to future oil and gas production but the US, Canada and Australia are among the countries with the biggest expansion plans and the highest number of carbon bombs. The US, Canada and Australia also give some of the world’s biggest subsidies for fossil fuels per capita.
• The dozen biggest oil companies are on track to spend every day for the rest of the decade $103m

If the projects go ahead, they will blow the world’s rapidly shrinking cap on emissions that must be kept to enable a livable future – known as the carbon budget.

A further study led by Kjell Kühne from the University of Leeds in the UK and published in the journal Energy Policy, found that just a few months after many of the world’s politicians positioned themselves as climate leaders during the Cop26 conference in Glasgow, they were giving the green light to a massive global expansion of oil and gas production that scientists warn would push civilization to the brink.

In this report by Kühne it is suggested there are 425 fossil fuel projects with >1 Gt CO₂ potential emissions globally. This is staggering.

What really disappointed me, and alarms me even more, was the final comments in this piece from the Guardian on the carbon bombs.

“The world is in a race against time,” said Guterres, the UN Secretary_general. “It is time to end fossil fuel subsidies and stop the expansion of oil and gas exploration.”

Reflecting on the war in Ukraine, he said: “Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use. This is madness. Addiction to fossil fuels is mutually assured destruction.”

The Guardian article closed with this “Will the world’s governments act to close the book on the oil companies’ giant climate gamble? Will richer countries, historically most responsible for emissions, support a just transition for developing countries on the frontline of the escalating crisis?

They go on with “Would strong, immediate action lead to a financial crash, as billions of dollars are wiped off the value of some of the world’s biggest companies? Or will more steady but concerted action wean us off fossil fuels rapidly, close the oil companies’ cash machine and lead us into a clean energy future with a liveable climate? Only time will tell. But, unlike oil and gas, time is in very short supply.

Guterres said: “Fossil fuel interests are now cynically using the war in Ukraine to lock in a high-carbon future.”

He commented “The 1.5-degree goal is on life support. It is in intensive care. And we must tell it like it is”

This brings me to the second area that has been troubling me and picking up on this point “we must tell it like it is“

The truth is we are not telling it like it is, the truth is being drowned out or lost in a sea of data, reports or alternative positions that are simply a struggle to comprehend and find the “path of truth”.

A stark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on climate science. “[This report] is a code red for humanity,” Guterres said. The IPCC states carbon emissions must fall by half by 2030 to preserve the chance of a liveable future, yet they show no sign of declining.

Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.

The big question for me is where do you start “telling it like it is?” If the CoP and UN seem powerless to stop the reliance on fossil fuels who can?

This climate hypocrisy starts in making sure we address historic injustices over emissions, including the carbon footprint of the wealthy, whose lifestyles have contributed most to global warming.

Climate change is predominantly impacting those who’ve done the least to contribute to carbon pollution and who have the least resources to deal with it because they are living below the poverty line.

Then there are warnings of carbon inequality. Politicians need to level with voters on what the transition to net-zero will mean for the way we live. They are avoiding this at present.

There’s potential for a public and political backlash over issues of unfairness, which could damage trust and ultimately the wider transition to net-zero (removing as many emissions as we produce).

Everywhere you look we have a high impact potential all lives will be affected by an entire economic, and societal shift and transition that we need to make.

We are going to see even more the global south will bear the biggest brunt of economic impacts from rising temperatures, with those on lower incomes more vulnerable to the likes of floods, drought and extreme heat.

The constant storms, floods, and heatwaves are coming faster than ever it seems, causing loss of livelihoods, suffering, disruption and devastation, were our Scientists working on the various IPPC reports being far too cautious and the concerns they mentioned for the future are actually now in the present?

The drive towards net zero could mean higher prices for food and energy, which will have a greater impact on the poor. Measures presently designed to encourage cleaner, greener living might exacerbate existing socio-economic divisions and derail the drive towards a net-zero world.

So how can we tell it like it is?

Everywhere I look, I read stories and reports of a really troubling future
Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister who presided over Cop26, summed up the agreement soon after as one that was “on life support”. He wrote in the Guardian: “The 1.5C limit lives. We brought it back from the brink. But its pulse remains weak.”

We are seeing that Putin has shown he is prepared to weaponize that dominance for his own ends, whatever the consequences on food, raw materials and especially on fossil fuels.

Do I share this (simplistic view) from Fatih Birol?
There are three clear answers to this energy crisis, according to Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, and one of the world’s foremost energy economists: countries must seek to replace Russian fossil fuels in the short term by squeezing more out of their current supplies.

Urgent measures, such as turning down thermostats, imposing speed limits on cars and installing home insulation, must be taken to cut down on demand. And renewable energy must be ramped up fast by removing barriers such as planning problems and grid connections.

“I believe we have the chance to make this a historic turning point, towards a cleaner and more secure energy system,” said Birol. “This is the first time I have seen such momentum behind the change in the energy sector.”

My position today

I do not buy this optimism at all. Since CoP26 I have become such a pessimist it has stopped me in so many ways, I have lessened my time on research, reading reports, and writing (optimistic) articles and generally feel I have been in a “deep funk” over the current Energy Transition.

Can i get back to an optimist? I want too

I want to offer real value and understanding of the positives behind the energy transition. I want to tell better stories of progress, I want to build the narratives and business cases to shift our present.

My task is to push past all the negativity and often heartbreaking stories caused by bad management, greedy companies, and weak governments all not doing enough for a growing problem that dwarfs Corvid, Putin’s War and the present economic uncertainties where inflation is back, creating havoc and uncertainty and further disruption.

Transitioning to a different Energy system is monumental. We are allowing it to slip away and if so, our future as humans able to function on this planet.

We need the good stories, the successes, the pointers towards promise and breakthroughs. I want to tell them, not constantly get drowned out by a climate and fossil fuel crisis.

I hope we get through this present time, it is a time of great danger and peril.

The post Unlocking your challenges and issues first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Courtesy of CB Insights

I have been working through the latest IEA report “Direct Air Capture: a key technology for net-zero”

I have to be utterly honest here, I really struggle with the viability (as it stands) for Direct Air Capture (DAC) to be a significant contributor to achieving net-zero by 2050.

If we cannot soon demonstrate AT SCALE the viability I think this pursuit of capturing CO2 directly from the air is a distraction, huge experimentation that deflects us and much needed financial and human capital away from more proven (at scale) technologies or solutions.

I want to be wrong in my current disbelief but I am simply not optimistic

In this recent IEA report the DAC their scenario states a capture of more than 85 Mt of CO2 in 2030 and around 980 MtCO2 in 2050. They put it mildly this is requiring a large and accelerated scale-up from almost 0.01 MtCo2 today. No need to check the figures suggested and where we are, it strikes me as something we want but seems to not be able to achieve in technology.

IEA claim DAC is a key part of the carbon removal portfolio but it only operates at a (very) small scale with 18 DAC facilities operating experimental plants in Canada, Europe and the United States. The first large-scale DAC plant of up to 1 MtCO2/ year is in advanced development to come on stream (possibly) by mid-2020.

Current realities are in plain sight

In the executive summary of the report, it states “Capturing CO2 from the air is the most expensive application of carbon capture. DAC cost estimates (to quote) are wide-ranging and uncertain”

My interest to keep some hope alive is through Innovation, to get DAC technologies to reduce dramatically their needs for significant amounts of energy. DAC still needed to be demonstrated in different conditions, that is extremely dry or humid conditions, or even dealing with polluted air.

The push is to dangle the capture to offer synthetic fuels but their current cost can be (or is) five times conventional fossil-based options- Really!

The hope within this report comes from the Six priorities for direct air capture deployment

To reproduce these six priorities I have taken them, as outlined in the Executive Summary of the IEA report.

DAC deployment must be accelerated for net-zero. The Net Zero Scenario requires the immediate and accelerated scale-up of DAC, calling for an average of 32 large-scale plants (1 MtCO2/year each) to be built each year between now and 2050. This will require increased public and private support to reduce costs, improve technologies and build the market for DAC technologies, aligned with net-zero goals:

1. Demonstrate DAC at scale as a priority. Targeted policies and programmes are needed for near-term demonstration and deployment. Governments should ensure that planned projects are able to progress to operation and provide essential learnings for DAC technologies and supply chains.

2. Foster innovation across the DAC value chain. Innovation will be critical to reducing manufacturing and operational costs, as well as the energy needs for DAC plants; supporting the availability of low-emission energy sources for high-temperature heat; and developing and reducing the cost of CO2 use applications including synthetic aviation fuels.

3. Identify and develop CO2 storage. The potential for DAC to remove CO2
from the atmosphere in large quantities rests on the development of suitable geological CO2 storage. Although the storage potential is vast, the time to develop these resources can be as long as ten years and could act as a brake on the scale-up of DAC in some regions.

4. Develop internationally-agreed approaches to DAC certification and
accounting. Robust, transparent and standardised international certification and accounting methodologies for DAC are needed to facilitate its recognition in carbon markets and IPCC greenhouse gas inventory reporting.

5. Assess the role of DAC and other CDR approaches in net-zero strategies.
Improved understanding and communication of the anticipated role of DAC
and other CDR approach in net-zero strategies will help identify the
technology, policy and market needs within countries and regions. For
example, the United Kingdom’s Net Zero Strategy identifies a need for around 80 MtCO2 of technology-based carbon removals by 2050.

6. Build international cooperation for accelerated deployment.
Collaboration through international organisations and initiatives such as the IEA, Clean Energy Ministerial, Mission Innovation, and Technology
Collaboration Programme on Greenhouse Gas R&D (GHG TCP/IEAGHG) can
play an important role in promoting knowledge sharing, reducing duplication in research efforts, and harmonising approaches to LCA and accounting methodologies for DAC technologies.

In summary

I just find this extremely hard to believe in, as it stands in technology solutions. We are not beyond a pilot, experimental stage and this pursuit to find workable solutions that can scale has been with us for a number of years.

As I said earlier I hope I am wrong and we see some very promising, robust and scalable solutions within the next two to three years, otherwise, it needs to be taken off the solution radar and realisable alternatives, that are proven, need to move this development money into realistic carbon reduction return projects.

The post Direct Air Capture- a viable dream or impossible first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

I need to remind myself that my objective is to focus on different aspects of innovation needs within the energy transition. It should be simple for me, but it certainly is not!

The sheer scope of the energy transition often pulls me away in so many different directions from my innovation focal point. Equally, it can force me as a necessity to understand a significant amount of advice, detail and opinion, so I can far more appreciate where innovation has an even more significant potential to contribute.

I keep constantly investing my time in growing my further understanding, expertise, and thinking of energy transition ‘cross-over points’ where we move away from the old energy systems into the new ones.

This knowledge understanding provides some distinctive and inter-related “core” topics, which are admittedly time-consuming but essential based on the in-depth research undertaken.

What I look for is where innovation has a more catalytic effect as these might become ‘flash points’ of future challenges that need a new level of creative or innovative thinking.

The whole Energy Transition has been a growing platform to apply my innovation learning and ecosystem thinking. There are so many inter-related topics, and you have to make choices?

I have decided to narrow these inter-related topics to focus on critical areas that impact any successful energy transition.

The topics I will focus on are shown below. I have also provided links to some of my previous thoughts or views to build out these focal topics.

The critical focal points I have chosen to concentrate upon.

-Firstly on rare minerals and the impact the extraction and use these have within any future solutions requires a radically different approach to the extraction, use, disposal and will have so many fluctuating issues in the years to come,

-Secondly, the growing importance of the (smart) edge for a greater distributed energy architecture.

-Thirdly, the hydrogen story is taking off. Electrolyzers are a place for invention, research, and increased development are coming together for solutions that have more significant scaling potential and innovation.

-You have the whole topic of power generation. The shifts, structures and positioning are ripe for innovating at individual levels to resolve legacy and location and energy sources, and the solution “fits”—Nuclear, wind, solar and hydropower.

– The recognition and investment need for wholesale change in Grids and the growing value of microgrids where the adaptability and flexibility and the emphasis on robustness and resilience grow in importance.

-Storage and batteries have such an important role to play in any new energy system design. They deliver the “response” rate and much of the stabilities we require in any newly designed system.

-No one can avoid decarbonization as a topic to understand and see the need for greater carbon capture and natural solutions. My post “Themes for decarbonizing, my agenda setting post“ offers my thoughts here.

-Lastly, within this current focus area, it is necessary to keep relating to all the complexities of the climate crisis. These ongoing crises will accelerate and progressively alter so much of the energy transition, the timing of investment, and increasing understanding of impact and risk assessments.

Hard choices for all involved.

Choices are needed everywhere in the difficulties of what to invest in and when. These include facing up to the decisions required regarding when to dispose of assets and how to treat these within the P&L, especially in the growing area of stranded assets—recognizing the necessary shifts in structures and the challenges within current business models.

Also, understanding the why with the ‘evolving state and risk’ of the options needed and what options are available to deploy within this deteriorating environment is fraught with issues and business impact.

We are faced with increasing volatile times over the coming decades before any reliable stability returns. The growing recognition and urgency need multiple ‘voices’ and contributions to help those in decision-making roles to gain more significant insights and awareness of the implications.

Implications need to have a more informed, independent understanding. Then, decision-makers can execute their decisions with growing knowledge, in more effective and efficient ways.

Often, it is not recognized that innovation, in the age of disruption and radical change, equips the organization and person far better than often realized.

Each of these focus areas above is massive in its own right.

Simply each of these topic areas has the absolute need for innovation. My other focus area of ecosystem design is to create value, deliver impact and find improved ways to collaborate and learn and gain from increasing collaborations, knowledge and application.

It is finding impactful ways, as they all become interconnected for any business to advance on their journey of understanding delivering sustainable growth and new business potential.

Risk and opportunity are the two sides of the innovation coin.

My focus due to the innovation aspect naturally falls far more at the Front End Of the Energy Transition, at the discovery,  development and validation stages, as this is where innovation emerges.

Today, I see and believe that there is a real gap in many organizations by not having the robust innovation capability, capacity, and competency needed, recognized, well-established and firmly in place.

The magnitude of change required means greater reliance on researchers, scientists, and engineers and their need to ramp up to a whole new performance level. The attention to innovation throughout all of our organizations needs to become a shared sense of purpose, involvement and commitment to contribute.

I have worked in innovation advisory work for over twenty years, advising and transforming the activities and awareness, to help fill those poor understanding gaps of lacking comprehensive approaches to capabilities, capacities and competencies in innovation and the tools to drive change throughout organizations. Innovation is rarely treated as core, and it should be as change emerges from the dynamic environment that promotes innovation.

A critical decision time for Energy requires a different and radical mind shift.

We are presently at a critical decision time; the level of investment needed to achieve this energy transition is massive. The current estimate to create a safe climate system is the need to invest USD 140 trillion of new investments in the energy sector by 2050.

Much of the investments need to be directed away from fossil fuels (the primary carbon emitters) into clean technologies. It is renewables, including most power generation and end-use applications, that need to invest primarily through new generation sources of wind, solar, hydrogen, and biofuels.

This level of investment commitment will radically alter the energy landscape, where Energy is generated, by what means, and how it will be distributed, stored and consumed by us all. I am working on energy fitness landscapes as a way to plot and execute around.

Presently we are not making the essential investments we need to make.

We are all becoming painfully aware that the period until 2030 is absolutely critical for investments not just to be pledged but effectively deployed on the ground in the physical solutions and effective operation needed to make this energy transition required on track to reach the climate goals.

Innovation is critical in this energy transition. I have a clear role to play.

We need to move from research and development through engineering validation into pilot and scaling solutions, at speed, requiring a different innovation approach from discovery to execution.

What is recognized increasingly is that we do not have the luxury of evaluating radical change over standard lifetime returns or observing others over the years, we need to be highly proactive in innovation from discovery to final execution at scale. There is the need to raise validation and take higher risks than in more stable times.

We need to be more pioneering. Without a coordinated and leadership direction, the efforts and the risk will always remain cautious without guarantee or point of crisis. Scientists, engineers and researchers are, by nature, often conservative. There is a need for leadership to instil the imperative to reevaluate risk, seek out opportunities at high speed, and push for discovery and experiment constantly.

We also need to encourage this different mind shift of acceptable risk. Having an innovation mindset helps.

So for me, the energy transition is at the forefront of “cutting edge” innovation to deliver; this is why I have been increasing my attention to understanding, investigation, research, and become more immersed in the changes and challenges, issues, and barriers.

I need to emphasize my positioning and what I offer in innovation system design and building knowledge and expertise. To support and help deliver innovative solutions, I suggest my multipliers for innovation at the front end of the energy transition.

The ability to help discover, see and effectively manage the change in solutions and recognize and build out the business case for building a more robust and sustaining innovation system is critical for the future energy transitions we need to find and then put into place.

As I said in the opening to this post: I need to remind myself that my (sole) objective is to exclusively focus on different aspects of innovation” to help in this energy transition.

I need you as the vehicle and mechanism to deliver! I deliver innovation understanding and capability as the business promise return.

The post Understanding the innovation needs of the energy transition first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

I have been building out the value of having a Fitness Landscape framework within the Energy Transition and why it makes sense.

I am looking at the Energy Transition from an evolving technology innovation perspective. In other words, what “forces” can be identified or promoted that can transform the existing energy system through the pursuit of the new invention, innovation, or technological advancement.

Specifically, ones that will be needed over such an extended time and complexity of change that this Energy Transition will take, upwards of twenty to thirty years to give it an unstoppable momentum.

When you look through the lens of innovating at the Energy Transition, you are often questioning the fitness, or the reality to achieve something. We need to recognize that the energy world is “stacked” with Scientists, Engineers, and Researchers that have a real depth of expertise but so often can be lacking the required “T” shape skills that can actually be restrictive to making change.

It is thinkers, designers, innovators, inventors that need to bring balance into Energy transitions work to give it a rapid push or advancement, well as much as the scientist with his potential breakthrough. They go hand in hand.

There is a greater need for skills that can anchor a solution, advocate the reason for the change, and then provide the broader resolve and purpose to ensure the delivery of the change.

The value of fitness landscapes needs to be part of any Energy Transition awareness as it can make sense,  to bring greater identity and structure.

Taking Hydrogen as my point of reference, to understand the context, complexities, and creative tension.

Firstly, mapping out the hydrogen terrain to the task at hand enables us to understand and relate to what is needed – I call that the context for change. I have been investigating Hydrogen as a promising energy carrier to understand the barriers and obstacles to the energy transition we need to undertake.

There are so many underlying “tensions” in this change from established fuels, infrastructure, and product delivery that Hydrogen needs to overcome.

Taking this fitness landscape thinking and applying it.

Any Energy Transition Fitness Landscapes identifies the opportunity spaces on where you need to focus your efforts- the appropriate resources to navigate the terrain. The higher the ‘fitness’ transforms your landscape potential into accelerating opportunities into final tangible outcomes.Fitness Landscapes helps in this task by identifying the opportunity spaces on where you need to focus your efforts‐ and applying the appropriate resources to navigate the terrain. A greater understanding of the ‘fitness points needed’ can transform your hydrogen landscape potential, or in business parlance, achieve your goal.

Mapping out your capabilities, competencies, and capacities to the task at hand enables you to understand and relate to what is needed. You begin to get fit for the journey ahead.

I took what I call a “Fitness Landscape Result Expectancy” approach.

Fitness Landscape Result Expectancy

My approach here is a work-in-progress; it will evolve and adapt.

The expected results or points of investigation sought, by identifying the critical aspects of capability identification for the Hydrogen (or any energy transformation journey), can make a significant contributor to the Future Energy Mix.

For example:

• A greater understanding of the obstacles and barriers to Hydrogen, becoming a significant energy carrier in the future energy mix is critical to understand. It “conveys” the fitness landscape journey.
• The understanding of what needs to be changed moves Hydrogen towards an energy transition that is sustainable and evolutionary built on technology investigation, validation, and ability to scale. Solutions gain worldwide recognition and adoption as the resulting outcomes and processes from discovery to realization. Greater adoption and scaling-up potential
• The journey generates a learning process for the identification of real and ‘false’ dynamic capabilities. Dynamic capabilities bring about change in the environment. As we frame, we can identify differences separating the more static ones that often just need reinforcement or retirement as not of lasting value.
• Pursuing limited or ‘selective’ development allows for restrictive exchanges within a network of specialization. These will not have the desired effect to accelerate solutions that can replace the existing ones unless the broader network effects are not accounted for.
• Any fitness landscape journey, where change is a significant level of requirement, requires a holistic view of the existing issues and the intent and goal of the journey by framing a clear strategic plan to mobilize the necessary forces.
• The solutions suggested will draw out internal discussions, growing recognition, and the reality of the present and future needs in this area of resource allocation and capital allocation.
• Importance of linking capability across different activities or technology applications to become increasingly ‘dynamic’ for a more sustainable future.
• The ability to build out a clear capability portfolio knowing where resource needs to be applied and their likely timeframe from concept to fruition. These evaluations will also help identify synergies to bring new value and future impact options.
• We need to challenge long, well-established routines and processes to see how we can extend technology options. To discover and continue the existing can be valuable to place additional resources behind.
• Having clarity in the fitness landscape allows for regularly taking additional “adaptive walks” to learn and adjust current thinking and question alternatives more openly.
• Knowing your capabilities, competencies, and capabilities intensifies and solidifies the studies, investigation, and importance of innovation through greater engagement and a growing understanding. You have greater confidence in where to invest new capital and resources.
• Outcomes from these expected results raise dynamic capability and the importance of dynamism for more flexibility and fitness discovery. By identifying higher points of value, you accelerate the change process and plot different projects and their impact.
• You give momentum and connected identity and purpose

The energy complexities do need understanding, explaining, and mapping. The knowledge of how the traversing will be undertaken to get to the end goal of a clean energy system as soon as we can, needs often different articulation? Fitness landscapes help make the journey a lot easier to determine what is needed to be undertaken and how to systematically go about it.

The post Exploring Energy Fitness Landscapes first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

The post We are falling badly behind on our invention in technology for the Energy Transition first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

I have been providing extracts from the recent McKinsey report in two posts recently,

My first post was  explaining their scenario limitations with the message “we hope that this scenario-based analysis will help decision-makers refine their understanding of the nature and the magnitude of the changes the net-zero transition would entail and the scale of response needed to manage it.”

Then the second post was to re-produce and show their summary of costs and outcomes.

I did not make any personal comments in these two posts, I found the report difficult to comprehend and have been hoping someone far more qualified could provide a view to add or to challenge this report view

I personally found the costs absolutely staggering. I find the disruption frightening. So, we face significant electricity price increases and uncertainties of continuity of supply, very limited job gains over job destructions, whole industries and supply chains wiped out, steel and cement price increases of 30 to 45%, investment inequality even more.

The way McKinsey has phrased this does need deeper clarity. The point is they highlight the effect of the additional $3.5 trillion, their view of the additional amounts we need to spend on achieving Net-zero, not the predicted total spend of $9.2 trillion needed each year. To put this increase in comparative terms, the $3.5 trillion is approximately equivalent, in 2020, to half of global corporate profits, one-quarter of total tax revenue, and 7 per cent of household spending. YIKES! That is of a magnitude that is way beyond me to comprehend. For Real?

Seriously, do any of the energy experts here in Energy Central contributors recognize this as the future conversation in the boardrooms or public institutions? Now if we have a disorderly transition it gets worse.

Today I was reading a reply to this McKinsey report by Karl Burkart, Managing Director One Earth, formerly DiCaprio Foundation Dir. Science & Technology.

I reproduce this here as it challenges the work of McKinsey significantly and gives me a better framing of my concerns and shock.

No McKinsey, it will not cost $9 trillion per year to solve climate change.

1. The real cost of the energy transition is lost in the headline.
Top line, the report puts the total cost of a net zero aligned global energy transition at $275 trillion over 30 years, $3.5T more per year than we spend today. But deeper inside the report, we find that this is a misrepresentation. Business as Usual (BAU) would cost $250 trillion. So based on McKinsey’s own analysis, the real incremental cost is less than $1T per year in additional investments. And to be clear, this is before counting the rapidly rising costs of climate-related disasters (floods, fire, famine) and deaths.

2. The model does not account for rapidly accelerating innovation in clean energy.
The McKinsey analysis uses a model by Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), and like most Integrated Assessment Models, it assumes the continuity of our current fossil-fuel dependent energy system, despite a “cambrian explosion” of innovation in the clean energy sector. In reality, rapidly falling costs of clean technologies combined with the existential threat of the climate crisis will drive further innovation and economies of scale. A recent model published by Oxford’s Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) offers a more realistic approach to modeling anticipated disruptions in the energy system, finding savings from the clean energy transition in the range of $14–26 trillion (PDF).

3. Like other conventional models, this one vastly underestimates the growth of solar and wind deployment.
Like a lot of mainstream energy modeling, this one is almost comical in its estimations of the pace of renewable energy adoption. For example, NGFS assumes 20 PWh of solar in 2050. This is half the level that the leading (and quite conservative) energy research firm Rystad forecasts. According to NGFS, the growth rate of solar would have to slow down from today’s level — from about 25% annual growth today to around 10% in annual growth. This one modeling decision makes a huge difference. Low growth in solar means you would need more carbon capture and storage (CCS) to remove fossil fuel emissions, and this significantly raises the total transition price tag.

4. Like other conventional models, this one vastly overestimates the costs of solar and wind deployment.
Despite the continued drop in renewable energy costs, McKinsey still seems to think that delivered electricity costs from renewables in 2050 will be 25% higher than they are today! Their justification for adding a huge premium on solar and wind is to account for higher grid integration costs, based on the assumption that there will be no innovation in the transmission or storage of intermittent renewables. This argument is old and has been largely debunked. For example, it was recently determined that the U.S. electricity grid can handle as much as 80% renewables with almost no enhancements. Getting to 100% will require additional upgrades but these are already underway — high voltage lines, smart grid technologies, sophisticated utility storage systems, computer-optimized load balancing, wind and solar shedding, distributed urban solar arrays, and many other strategies make getting to 100% renewable power entirely feasible.

5. The report fails to disclose pricing models for key renewable technologies.
Given that renewable energy deployment of solar, wind, geothermal, and green hydrogen is the world’s primary instrument of change in the transition to net zero emissions by mid-century, it certainly would be helpful if McKinsey disclosed how they have chosen to model the cost of deployment over time in their analysis. It’s likely they are not incorporating any benefits of scale or policy incentives that will reduce future deployment costs, even though all evidence points to declining, not increasing, costs. Oxford’s INET paper projects a continuation in the trend of declining costs, as do other models: IRENA, BloombergNEF, ETC, APCAG.

Even the IEA, which has historically been extremely conservative about the role of renewable energy, is now jumping on the bandwagon in their new Net Zero by 2050 roadmap. When the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, the IEA thought the cost of solar electricity in 2040 would still be higher than that of electricity from fossil fuels, and expected deployment of only a cumulative 360 GW of solar by 2020. Just five years later, BloombergNEF finds that 90% of new electricity generation from renewables was cheaper than from fossil fuels, and 710 GW of solar was deployed. Battery prices have fallen even faster, halving from 2015–2020 and sparking a four-fold increase in deployment. McKinsey should be transparent about how and why they are modeling renewable costs in light of these developments.

6. McKinsey seems to have forgotten about fossil fuel rents.
This is surprising given McKinsey’s expansive knowledge about extractive industries and expertise from decades advising the fossil fuel industry. Our current fossil fuel system involves paying rent to fossil fuel producers beyond operating expenses and capital expenditures (CAPEX). Today, these rents amount to about $2T per year. These costs are not captured if you only model CAPEX. Adding rental costs, even with the McKinsey model, you would basically spend $1T on clean energy to save $2T on fossil fuel rents. And it’s likely rents will go up, increasing net savings from a renewable energy transition. For example, in the U.S. there is now a big push to eliminate the huge discounts on rents currently provided (they’re still at 1980s levels), thereby increasing the cost of fossil fuel extraction and the ROI for renewable energy investments.

7. The report is pessimistic in nature, highlighting the downside of the transition away from fossil fuels.
The McKinsey report seem overly focused on the loss of revenues for countries that are heavily reliant upon the fossil fuel industry for their GDP. It’s true that a lot of governments (and investors) highly exposed to the fossil fuel industry will be big losers over the coming years. But they have a choice. Transitioning to renewables will provide a huge economic advantage to the countries that move the quickest. These will come in the form of a large net increase in long-term jobs, far less volatility in energy markets, fast and cheap energy access for rural areas that currently lack grid connectivity, less oil spills and contaminated water from fracking operations, less deaths from poor air quality, a safer and healthier climate with less risk of environmental disasters, and on and on. All thing considered, countries have a lot more to gain than to lose, and many are now waking up to the large net benefits a renewable energy transition will deliver.

Kingsmill Bond, now at Rocky Mountain Institute, says it well: “There is now a new logic to the energy transition — the pursuit of gain. The shift of energy from scarce to abundant; from concentrated to distributed; from decreasing to increasing returns; from extraction by the lucky to manufacturing by the diligent; and from generating rents for a few to bringing prosperity for the many”.

8. The NGFS model used by McKinsey is not actually net zero by 2050.
A final point to make is that the model used as the basis for the McKinsey report does not actually deliver net zero by 2050:

It shows an 82% drop in actual CO2 emissions to roughly 7 GtCO2 per year in 2050 with 5 GtCO2 in carbon dioxide removal. In Glasgow, the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) released a long-awaited standard for net zero emissions on the heels of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, calling for a 90–95% reduction in actual CO2 emissions by 2050, with the balance of emissions “neutralized” through carbon dioxide removal. The above NGFS model is +2 GtCO2 in 2050. It sounds like a small amount, but if we are to have at least a 50% chance of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C, there is almost no leeway room. The other issue is how those negative emissions are achieved. The NGFS model achieves its carbon removal using the controversial technology called Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). A lot has been published on the limits of this technology to scale. At best, BECCS delivers carbon neutral energy, not carbon-negative energy. It would also require a huge amount of logging to reach anything like 5 GtCO2 per year. And those trees are needed for other services like timber and pulp, not to mention their role in global carbon sequestration.

As it turns out, shifting more quickly to 100% renewable energy will be a cheaper and more efficient way to get to actual net zero emissions by 2050, accompanied by carbon removal from reforestation and ecosystem restoration. One Earth has supported the work of a team of engineers and scientists who have estimated that a rapid, optimized energy transition will cost in the ballpark of about $1.5T per year. Why don’t we all start focusing on transition models that honestly seek to solve the problem of the climate crisis, rather than the problem of preserving profits for fossil fuel companies in a world that no longer wants the products they have on offer?

Written by Karl Burkart, Managing Director One Earth, formerly DiCaprio Foundation Dir. Science & Technology.

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