Tag Archives: Hydrogen as our future

Direct Air Capture- a viable dream or impossible

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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. Continue reading →

Understanding the innovation needs of the energy transition

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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.

Continue reading →

Exploring Energy Fitness Landscapes

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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. Continue reading →

We are falling badly behind on our invention in technology for the Energy Transition

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No energy transition will be achieved without invention and innovation,  yet we are failing badly at present to fund research, development and deployment. We are losing the race to stop our planet warming as our innovative human endeavours are not at the level they should be, or we simply lack the “will” to make the changes we so desperately need to undergo to protect our planet.

My focus continues to get deeper and deeper into the Energy Transition from my innovation perspective, it is highly critical to our future.

I provide different perspectives and thinking, firstly on my innovating4energy.website for my offerings of service and a dedicated posting site for energy, innovating4energy.com  that provides a decent mix of thought leadership, news and awareness, for the Energy Transition.

Do visit these sites if you are curious and want to understand more about the Energy Transition we are all undergoing (really all of us in the World). Also, I can only encourage you to get in touch to see if we have areas of some collaboration opportunities.

So let me get back to what this post is about, providing critical reference points on technologies we need to improve and innovate.

One really rich reference site is the Internation Energy Agency, the IEA who provide some incredible, in-depth knowledge for “Shaping a secure and sustainable energy future for all.”

On their extensive site, they provide constant updates. This site is primarily a place I go back and constantly check when it comes to the progress on the technologies that need to be researched, developed and deployed.

Having the insights and their knowledge helps knowing if we are on track and going to be successful in transforming our Energy Systems. And make the dramatic contribution level for us to achieve the net-zero pathway we need to have in place by 2050.

Continue reading →

A reply to McKinsey and its Net-zero transition report by the MD of One Earth

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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.

I felt this report needs understanding, hence my staying to the report faithfully. I made an appeal of “I can’t get my head around this”- can anyone offer insights to counter this was a reply I made on comments provided to where I had equally posted this on the energy-central site.

Energy Central is a membership-based Professional Network serving the global electric power industry

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. Continue reading →

At present the net-zero equation remains unsolved- part two outcomes and costs

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January 2022 Copyright c McKinsey & Company

The second part of my summary or part-reproduction of the McKinsey report “The Net-zero transition: what it will cost, what it can bring”

In a very extensive report, “the Net-zero transition in what it will cost and what it can bring” running to 224 pages, is produced by McKinsey Global Institute in collaboration with McKinsey Sustainability and McKinsey’s Global Energy & Materials and Advanced Industries Practices and published in January 2022.

Within this report, McKinsey outlines the Net-zero transition in one scenario-based analysis, that provides sobering but terrific value to thinking through all that is required in the net-zero transition being attempted.

I have taken here, in this second post, significant parts of their summary, their “in brief,” to amplify this work and show their summary of costs and outcomes. The first post is here. On both, I have not added any views, thoughts or comments. The only change I made was replacing “we” when referring to themselves in this report with McKinsey. Continue reading →

At present the net-zero equation remains unsolved- part one scenario limitations

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January 2022 Copyright c McKinsey & Company

In a very extensive report, “the Net-zero transition in what it will cost and what it can bring,” running to 224 pages.

This report is produced by McKinsey Global Institute in collaboration with McKinsey Sustainability and McKinsey’s Global Energy & Materials and Advanced Industries Practices and published in January 2022.

McKinsey outlines the Net-zero transition in one scenario-based analysis that provides sobering but terrific value to thinking through all that is required in the net-zero transition being attempted.

I have taken here in this post parts of their preface, executive summary and in a second post their “in brief” to amplify this work and provide the outcomes. I have not added any views, thoughts, or comments. The only change I made was replacing “we” when referring to themselves in this report with “McKinsey”. Continue reading →

The Global Energy Innovation System is NOT Thriving

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The Global Energy Innovation System is NOT Thriving

In a very sobering report from Hoyu Chong of Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) published on 10th January 2022, it is highlighted how the global energy innovation system is in poor health.

In this report, it is pointed out there are weaknesses across most indicators and the need is to rectify these by most nations.

The key takeaways: Continue reading →

Not seeing the wood for the burning trees at COP26.

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We have just finished the most critical COP  meeting in Glasgow. It was the eleventh hour. For two weeks, nearly two hundred countries entered into discussions, finally agreeing on the “Glasgow Climate Pact” to keep the 1.5 degrees C target alive and finalize the outstanding elements of the Paris Agreement.

The President of the proceedings, COP26 President Alok Sharma, commented, “its pulse is weak, and it will only survive if we keep our promises and translate commitments into rapid action.”

“Keep 1.5 alive” has been a rallying cry for diplomats and activists alike at the COP26 negotiations. The phrase refers to the goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

1.5 degrees Celsius is seen as the threshold beyond which the effects of climate change become increasingly dangerous to people and ecosystems. But scientists warn that time is running out for humanity to take the transformative steps to achieve the 1.5 goals. And according to multiple estimates, the deal negotiated in Glasgow does not bend the curve enough to get there. Continue reading →

The World Awaits, What is the Energy and Climate Outlook?

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I have been reading IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2021 (WEO), issued a month earlier in October, specifically because of the COP26 Climate Change
Conference meeting in Glasgow in a few weeks time.

This is the IEA flagship report, a 380 plus page report has for this year’s edition of the WEO been designed, exceptionally, as a guidebook to COP26.
It spells out clearly what is at stake.

This COP – short for the Conference of the Parties, the main decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – is particularly significant. This COP session is being held between 31st October to 12th November 2021 and perhaps is the most pivotal climate meeting to date. Why?

It is the first test of the readiness of countries to submit new and more ambitious commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. It is also an opportunity – as the WEO-2021 states – to provide an “unmistakable signal” that accelerates the transition to clean energy worldwide.

I wanted to “lift out” of the report a few very short but essential messages provided in this report that give the essential snapshot. Continue reading →