Is it the End of the World?
WZ: Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman and you're listening to Science Versus today on the show. How do we solve the climate crisis? Can we do it? A couple of weeks ago. We had an episode about climate change tipping points that ended a little sadly, the climate's not doing well. It's hot. There's been fires, there's been floods, and we may have even crossed some rather scary climate tipping points. But I did tell you that there was hope, and that's what this episode Is hopefully about. We asked for your questions. What you want to know when it comes to solving the climate crisis?
We heard from hundreds of people all around the globe. Generally, these questions fit into two big batches. One, what can me - as a little individual person do for the climate - if anything? And two: What exciting new technologies could help get us out of this mess?
So to answer these questions and more, we have our first guest, Dr. Sven Teske[1]. He's the research director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney. And Sven studies how countries and industries can do the seemingly impossible, which is to get off fossil fuels. He has written detailed analysis for more than 50 countries for how they can get to net zero. These are countries like the US, China, India, France and Bangladesh. So welcome to the show, Sven.
ST: Thanks for inviting me.
Our second guest is Wei Sue[2].
She is the head of strategy at Monash University's Climateworks Center in Melbourne. Climate Works is a climate nonprofit that gives advice to governments and companies about how to reduce their emissions, focusing on Australia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. And Wei is a self-described nerd at heart. So welcome to the family.
WS: Thanks for having me.
WZ Question number one actually comes from the Science Vs team. So when you both think about climate change right now, which song best represents where we're at? I'll give you some options. It's the end of the world as we know it, By REM, Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift. We can work it Out by the Beatles. Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows, famously by Lesley Gore. What do you think? Where are we at with the climate right now?
WS: We can work it out.
WZ: We can work it out.
ST: I actually agree.
WZ: Why do you say that?
WS: There's actually some really simple steps. If you distill it down to what can be done.And these steps are…
WZ: We’ll have to save them for after the break, don't do a spoiler alert there. Now Sven. As someone who's been in this in the climate space for a long time, decades now, what's been the most frustrating thing for you?
ST: Well, I was at COP1, a youth representative, so I'm almost 60.
WZ: Introduce for people who don't know what COP what's COP?
ST: Cop one, the climate, the climate negotiations. This started in Berlin in 1995[3].
WZ: You were a youth. You were a little Greta Thunberg.
ST: Yeah, no, I was about yeah, it was my late 20s So the first ten years of those climate negotiations we were discussing, do we actually have climate change? The next ten years was I? Yeah, we might have it, but it's not us. And then the last ten is, okay, we have climate change and it is us. What can we do? And we continue to go through the same loops of conversation, it's like an endless spiral never actually continues. So we really need to move on and focus on what works and we actually know what works.
WZ: So for you, maybe the the song of this moment is Lizzo. It's about damn time.
ST: Groundhog Day.
WZ: Groundhog Day right… . All right. Well, with all of that and a bit of hope and a bit and a bit of frustration, which sounds right for the time that we're in. After the break, we're going to delve into listener questions.
BREAK
The biggest emitters
WZ: Welcome back. All right. Let's jump in and find out how we can solve the climate crisis. To kick us off, Sven, let's just set the scene. So SarahRoseinaBubble on Instagram, wants to know who creates the biggest carbon footprint.
ST if you look at the historical footprint, it's the US[4].
WZ: So what do you mean historical is - How far are we going back?
ST: Between like 1800 when it started, So the industrialization started until 19.. 2019. So that's sort of the the carbon emissions during that period. There are about 450 gigatons of CO2 from the US and about 280 from the from China[5].[6]
WZ So the US is ahead by a mile
ST: Yeah. If we look at the emissions now, China is by far the largest emitter, one third of all emissions globally energy related come from China[7] while having 18% of the population[8].
What can you do to help?
So our next question is from Sassybitchmaddi on Instagram. And the question is, I hear all the time that our individual choices won't have enough of an impact on climate change because of big corporations and government emissions. Is there anything we should be doing in our day to day that will actually make a meaningful difference in the face of climate change? Wei - What do you think?
WS: Definitely. Even if we just start within our own homes, for example, if you think about where we use energy and where we create emissions, just going about our day to day lives. So when we cook, when we heat, when we cool, when we drive our cars to get from one place to another, all of that uses energy and therefore produces emissions. And there are some simple steps to that that anyone today can take which will actually have a significant impact. And I'll talk through that a little bit. But if we start with just thinking about energy efficiency or put another way, minimizing wastage.
WZ: On a very basic level, having a window open while your heater is on.
WS: Or like just putting on a jumper before you think about putting the heater on. That requires energy of that.
WZ: And does any of that make a difference. If you if you add it up, if everyone in America put on a jumper instead of putting on their heating, would it matter?
WS: But everything needs to happen because if everyone thinks that it's not going to matter, then it's not going to happen. So that's one way to see it. But the energy efficiency side of things also has the additional benefit of actually reducing people's energy bills. And then there's other things that you can do as well around shifting away from relying on fossil fuels. So for example, rooftop solar PV's now like people walk down a street and they see lots of it on their home, on other people's homes or on your own homes.
Does recycling fight climate change?
WZ: Surveys find that a lot of people think that recycling is one of the best things that they can do to reduce their carbon footprint[9]. So Wei when it comes to recycling, @MustacheBallerina on Instagram wants to know how exactly does it help? How much of an impact does it make on climate change? And I actually thought recycling doesn't do anything for climate change. So I'm very interested in this.
WS So recycling in itself in principle will actually have an impact on emissions because it avoids the extraction of raw materials. So for example, plastics being, you know,
ST everything - you produce plastic, you produce fabrics - from large extent, out of oil.
WS petroleum based. By recycling plastics it means that you avoid going upstream in the process to actually have to dig out the term, So digging things out of the ground requires energy, which has an emissions impact. So there is that element in terms of avoiding that energy and emissions that goes into the production of raw materials. however, it can vary the amount of like sort of the emissions benefit from recycling different materials can vary[10]
ST: The good news on on the steel, but also alumunium is you can recycle it endlessly. You can't recycle plastic endlessly because it won't work. But steel and aluminum, we can recycle actually almost endlessly.
WZ But people are recycling yogurt tubs, milk bottles. Is the plastic from that making any difference?
ST Everything makes a difference. But I mean
WZ Aw that’s the answer for no
Should you stop eating meat?
WZ: So if if both of you could snap your fingers and everyone on the planet would give up one thing for climate, what would it be? Options could include giving up meat, never flying in a plane again, never driving a gas car again. Not having children.
STI think riding a bicycle or walking and then downsize your car. I mean, you don't really need a very, very, very large car to move from A to B, I think a smaller car, electric vehicle is also. Can do the same job
WZ Mm Ok ok - are those the things – eating meat is not going vegan is not on either of your list. Are both of you big burger fans?
ST: I think it's very important. I mean, for me, to be perfectly honest, I'm an engineer and focus on what I know.
WS: So methane that comes out from cows, essentially these emissions, they are quite large and actually quite difficult to address as well for a couple of reasons. They are very fragmented
WZ: What do you mean by fragmented? Like it comes out of each cow?
WS: Exactly. So in terms of needing to capture it, it's almost an impossible task logistically.[11].
WZ: Right? What do you put like a muzzle on every cow because it's from their burps?
WS Exactly.
Buying an Electric Vehicle
WZ Pivot on to EVs. Electric vehicles. We had a lot of questions about these. So Jake on TikTok wants to know, are electric vehicles making any impact at all? Does the energy they use from charging and being built still come from fossil fuels? Wei - you want to take this one?
WS: So regardless of the amount of fossil fuels that are in the electricity grid, it is actually still better to drive an electric vehicle than it is to drive a petrol vehicle. And the simplest reason there is because petrol cars are simply very inefficient in converting petrol into the energy that is required to move that chunk of metal along the road. And electric motors are actually a lot more efficient at doing that[12].
ST: An average combustion engine has an efficiency of about 50%. Usually less. Yeah. So you lose at least half of the petrol you put in your tank.
WZ: Wow.
ST: And then it sort of if you then calculate the amount of energy you actually get on the wheels, sort of when the rubber hits the road you down to like 20%..
WZ: Wow. So much wasted energy! In our average car and your average gas guzzling car
WZ: Wow. And EVs. How efficient are they? Much more efficient?
ST: Electric engines have an efficiency of about 90%[13]. 90. 95%. The extreme growth of electric vehicles in China[14] first time ever led to a reduction of the the oil demand[15]. So we actually see that electric vehicles cut into oil demand. Okay. It's tiny, but it's it starts.
WZ: It can grow
WS:Choosing to buy an electric vehicle, for example, when you're replacing your petrol car. That sends a strong signal to car makers around the world that people want electric vehicles and then they will go off and invest in more technologies that are around electric vehicles or the infrastructure to charge electric vehicles. So while, you know, individually, maybe my decision to buy one car is not going to make a difference. But collectively, it can make a difference.
WZ: And so with with electric vehicles, though, there has been a lot of concern around how we're getting the materials used to make the batteries, we're trying to get these materials like cobalt and lithium. And people say that the way that we do it now is really harmful for the planet. We got a couple of questions about this, probably because there's been a lot of headlines like this one, "Why surging sales of large electric vehicles raises environmental red flags"
Is this actually a problem that we need to fix?
ST: I think yes, we need to fix it. But I have to say we also have options to avoid some material. So, for example, cobalt is technically not needed for batteries anymore. So we can actually use a battery of we can build batteries that don't need cobalt[16]. We can phase out cobalt from batteries and we should. Lithium is an element which is really, really almost everywhere. So it's we're not running out of lithium.[17]
WZ: That's because they're called rare earth minerals. They really need a brand update?
ST: I mean, lithium is not a rare earth. There are other rare earth metals. And also, if you look at rare Earth, what is what does it use for?[18][19] Electronics, to a large extent, mobile phones and all. Every single electric motor or generator needs that, no matter if it's a wind turbine, a gas, a coal power plant, they all have the same metals in there. Unfortunately, we focus right now the debate about like wind turbines using magnets with rare earth. But the gas power plant next door uses exactly the same.
WZ And your and the half the electronic stuff in your home is also using these minerals??
WS: The laptops and are and like and the.
WZ: Not my laptop! It's also using these minerals? Interesting. So why the big blow up around renewables?
ST: I mean, when I started sort of promoting renewables for solutions, it was very expensive. That was like it was $10 per kilowatt hour.
WZ: How many years ago was this?
ST: That was 30 years ago. We are now at $0.04 or $0.03[20] . So the argument against renewables is not the price anymore because it's the cheapest form of electricity generation. You can't do it cheaper than solar and wind. Full stop. There's no other technology. It's really cheap[21]. So the only argument if you are an incumbent company like a coal or gas power plant is to argue to find arguments against them and the metal is one.
Can you really make a difference?
WZ: Interesting. Just broadly speaking, how do you feel about this idea that the individual that we can we can make a change. I can little old me can make a change.
WS So while a lot of emissions are controlled and influenced by governments or big corporates, consumers or voters have a huge influence over the actions and decisions that corporates and governments make
ST: It's I mean, it's not a yes or no. Of course you need to change. But maybe I'm too long around to see that it doesn't work that way. We won't solve the climate crisis with voluntary measures. We need policy and we need specific policy to implement specific technologies and to phase out others. Without that, we won't be able to do it. So it's nice if we can do something in our own household but it will only be a very very very small fraction of what we actually need to do…
But, you know, I mean, I would say that the biggest difference first and foremost, it is vote for politicians who actually implement the policy we need to change our economic system to decarbonize our energy system.
WZ: I feel like where you both headed is the biggest things we can do is if you are buying a new car, go EV. If you can do without a car, even better. And then voting are really— I guess keeping your home as energy efficient as possible
ST it is important to actually also change your diet and eat less meat, maybe not totally give it up, but really eat less. That's, I think, the first good step.
WS Remember, during the Paris agreement, the world agreed to net zero[22] . You can't get to zero if there's still bits left.
Yes.
WZ: We're going to have a quick break and after that, we'll find out if carbon offsets are the biggest climate scams
BREAK
Carbon Offsets
WZ: Welcome back. Let's jump back in. This next one is a question that I've been thinking about a lot. It comes from Music2742, on Tik Tok. And they ask, when you look at carbon offsets, are these systems actually working? So Sven did you pay to offset your flight today?
ST: It's a standard for our university to do that.
WZ: Is it a waste of money? Should they have done it?
ST: It definitely serves the feel good factor.
WZ: Feel good. Feel good. Well, let's let's go back a hot minute. When you do tick that box to say that you will pay an extra $8 to offset your flight, what is actually going on? How does carbon offsetting work?
ST I would say let's put it first in a positive way. The idea was actually quite good, saying, okay, we have some processes where we can't reduce the emission right now. We have another process. This old ancient machine to get CO2 out of the air. It's called a tree and we plant them and then it sort of levels out. In theory, that's a that's a good idea
WZ: So what what it's doing basically is your your flight is going to emit just as many emissions as it always would. But instead, what they're going to do is plant trees somewhere else. That somehow they've calculated how much tree, how much that tree is going to remove carbon from the atmosphere. And they like that, that's about right.
ST That's probably the first problem because in the tree, when you plant it will not get take any CO2 out of the air.
WZ: Right when you put a seed in, it's not going to do anything, it needs to get leaves first…
ST 10 to 15 years. So after ten, 15 years, you start to actually see something[23].
WS: and it needs to survive 10, 15 years
ST: Let's hope it will not burn down like in the last forest fires or bushfires in Australia.
WZ: Yes, because there have been several now instances, right. Of areas of huge swathes of forest that have been set aside for carbon offsetting and now they burnt. And then when they burn, they then emit carbon into the atmosphere?
ST: Yeah. I mean, they can emit the same amount of CO2 that actually captured before, obviously. There are other forms of offsets. For example, you invest in solar equipment in in a like an African country where they would usually maybe burn kerosene for light.
WS: But fundamentally offsetting is about the fact that I can't reduce the emissions by virtue of, you know, taking a plane or a flight, but I'm paying someone else to do it elsewhere. Now, that can be anywhere. The challenge there is one: it's remote. It happens elsewhere. So there is a what we call a measurement and verification problem.
WZ: You don't know it's actually happening?
WS Exactly. Exactly.
WZ Right.
WS: if it's a tree planting project, what trees are they planting? How long have the trees been there? Are the trees going to survive and how much carbon is the tree going to sequester. All of those are questions that the payer, in this case myself, don't have readily accessible answers to.
WZ: And so, I mean, offsetting carbon offsetting has also been blamed for allowing this huge industry of greenwashing to emerge. So for example, there’s this huge gas company[24] – a fossil fuel has a goal to be net zero by 2050[25]. And they've said that a big way they're going to do that is through offsets. How can a fossil fuel company be net zero?
ST: That doesn't work. Sorry, that doesn't work. On a global scale. If you sell gas, you will have emissions. And with whom do you want to trade with Mars? So. So you can't. So you have to actually reduce the fuel emissions, fossil fuel emissions entirely.
Renewables: How good are they?
WZ: Okay, so then let's move to renewables. Canaryexploder on Instagram, asks How good are solar and wind these days? Can we really use it to power a bunch of our energy needs? Wei?
WS: Solar and wind is really good these days. It is already one of the cheapest forms of new electricity generation[26]. If anyone wants to think about building a new power station, solar and wind is the cheapest form of technology today.
WZ: WOW That happened. How did that happen?
WS: One of the reasons is because of the sheer amount of solar and wind that has been built over the years. So I'm a nerd at heart, as I said. And about ten, 12 years ago, when we first started modeling solar PV as a technology, it was more expensive than things like some energy efficiency options and it was more expensive than carbon farming, which is essentially tree planting. But today it is one of the cheapest forms of technology in Australia, but also in other parts of the world, I'm sure. And so we are already seeing solar and wind making a huge impact in terms of reducing the emissions that come from powering, you know, our homes in some cases our cars, our industries and our businesses. [27][28]
ST: when I started my engineering degree, there were that the market, the global market for solar was about 60MW. Now we build 1200MW. A day.
WZ: WOWOWO
ST: And that is economies of scale.
WS Solar panels are modular, so you can actually bring down the cost of producing a solar panel significantly, the more you make them. And you can get huge economies of scale by having a factory line that's basically churning out solar panels and get much more efficient and much better and much smarter at doing it. When you when you do thousands, millions, and the difference between that and a gas or a coal power plant is that they are still going to be tied to needing to pay for the gas or pay for the coal or needing.
WZ: pay to mine it out of the ground mine, you can't make that cheaper – Up to a point?
WS: Well, yes, you can't you can't get that down to zero. Whereas with a solar plant, once you've got the panels in place, most of your cost is upfront and it costs very little to continue maintaining it. You don't put any fuel into running a solar plant.
WZ: Fossil fuels, I mean, people are constantly complaining about the gas prices. Why are fossil fuels not getting cheaper?
ST Because it's not a technology. It's a source. And that's why fossil fuel companies will have a problem and had a problem in the past to actually go to renewables because that is absolutely not their business. They are digging our resources out of the ground. A solar and wind company is a technology company. They produce technologies. And it's a total different business concept.
WZ So in 2023, renewables provided 30% of global electricity for the first time, according to the think tank Ember.[29] Also, calculations suggest that this year in Europe, they just hit this big milestone where wind and solar has overtaken fossil fuels for the first time. So in the first half of this year, wind and solar power generated more electricity than fossil fuels in Europe. It's amazing. It's just one more stat in China, clean power made up 35% of China's electricity mix in 2023. All according to Ember.[30]
WS China, is a big reason solar PV costs have fallen so much.
WZ: if we keep taking on renewables at the rate that we are with with solar and wind? Like can we hit net zero?
WS: So unfortunately, with the emissions that we talked about earlier, so sort of a methane emissions from cows or process emissions from cement production being two examples. There are others. Renewables, unfortunately, is not going to be the silver bullet that will address those type of emissions.
ST: Let's put it this way it's the silver bullet for the energy part of the problem.
WZ: And so I feel like part of the climate denial, the journey of climate denialism. Let's say. Started with - as Sven, you told us at the beginning of the show, started with, this is this isn't happening. It's happening, but it's not our problem. Oh no, it's our problem. And it's definitely happening. But renewables? You know that when the sun's not shining, when the wind isn't blowing. What are we going to use?
ST: Storage.
WZ: What are we going to use???
WS: Batteries.
WZ: Batteries? And this is what? This is working. We're doing it. We're doing it.
ST: And I would say in the electricity will be dominated by solar and wind in the next ten, 15 years. I mean, we are. Most countries will go north of 60%. So that is a relatively clear.
WZ: This is so exciting! It's happening.
ST It's happening. Just because it's cheaper and it's actually quicker to build. So a coal power plant takes two, six, seven, ten years to build. Solar and wind takes you depending on how long you wait for the construction permit. But once you have that, it's a few months.
WS: Yeah. So yesterday alone, a record high was set in Australia where solar generated 64% of electricity[31].
Nuclear Power: The Silver Bullet?
WZ: Wow. So renewables, really exciting. Really exciting. They're going to do a lot of work here in helping us solve the climate crisis. But this does take us to our next question, which comes from Ian in Iowa.
It seems like nuclear power might be the Silver Bullet. It seems like the big thing that's holding it back is the fear of a nuclear meltdown and disposing of the nuclear reactants and whatever's left over when you're done. Is am I right about that assumption that if we just switched over to nuclear. We would just kind of fix everything or am I missing something bigger here?
ST: He's missing something bigger there.
WZ: Okay. All right. Tell us about where you grew up, because this is very relevant.
ST It's yeah, relevant
WZ little little Sven, what happened to you?
ST: Little Sven, Little Sven, was about 18 years old and just moved out with his friend Dieter. And we lived together. And Chernobyl exploded.
WZ: Right
ST Chernyobl was only 1700km from my hometown, and we had nuclear fallout in my hometown. We were not allowed to eat food, vegetables from our garden for two years, so we had to wash our clothes before we enter the apartment. So we basically we we we experienced firsthand what it means when a nuclear reactor actually blows up. At that time, I was an offset printer. I was a tradie. I decided to study engineering, to study renewable engineering, to actually provide a solution
WZ So then if we fast forward.. so then for listeners who you..
ST: I just wanted to add some stats. Nuclear right now, like one kilowatt like capacity to build is about 6 to 10 times more expensive than wind and solar[32]. And nuclear reactor construction, on average, we have about 450 nuclear reactors globally[33], the construction takes on average 12 years[34]. There is one reactor in the US which took 30 years. So it is extremely expensive. It is very slow.[35] Then you have nuclear waste. Germany paid about €40 billion, which is about $50 billion USD to build the fleet[36]. Now they pay exactly the same amount of money to decommission the fleet. And it cost €1.1 billion a year for generations to come to store the nuclear waste next to the former nuclear power plant. We have no concept where to put it. And my son, who's just started working as an engineer, and and his kids have to pay for grandpa and grandmother who actually had electricity from those power plants. So it is extremely expensive. It's too slow. Too expensive. We don't need it.
WZ: Right. And so. So if I could be the nuclear lobbyist for the day, just to play, so it is clean energy. It's not it's not emitting carbon dioxide at least. And the length of time it takes to build it, I have heard a lot of that is getting permits. Which is true of Renewables as well. But is that is the actual building process, even if the government was like, let's do it, it still takes too long?
ST I think I think China is China is a good example. China has no problems giving permits, right? 5 to 6 years is sort of the absolute minimum. Usually it's 7 to 10 years, right?
WZ: Wei - do agree – nuclear not part of the solution?
WS Nuclear is definitely not the silver bullet. Firstly, it only addresses energy emissions, if at all, and then I'll get to that. But then.
WZ: We can't put little nuclear on our cows?
WS: No, we can't. So it still does not address non energy emissions yet as we talked about. But the way I see it, when faced with these options where you have nuclear or renewable energy technologies, so you still have to put uranium in as a form of fuel. for the life of the nuclear plant, not the increase in renewable energy. You don't need to pay for the sun and wind and not to mention the really huge hidden cost, if you like, which is the environmental impact and a social impact that nuclear plants can have, all of which does not come with wind and solar technologies.
ST: So forget it.
WZ: Forget it. Okay. Okay. So forget nuclear.
Giant Shades in Space!
WZ Our last batch of questions. Really, a lot of people were were curious about exciting big projects that can help get us out of this mess. So here is Liz.
There are days when I feel like all the little incremental changes are just not going to work, So my question is do any of the big dramatic options like the giant shade that someone wanted to put in space to any of those actually seem like they would work are any of those something that I should be getting behind and supporting cuz I'm just I'm honestly not sure.
WZ: Wei is a giant shade going to save us?
WS: I can't say yes or no at the moment. But there is a role for some of these new emerging, almost science fiction technologies. I am generally quite a bit quite get, get really excited about new technologies because I do believe that, you know, solar and wind was in like was that big shade that people are talking about today 30 years ago. People didn't understand that you know, how can we reliably get electricity at scale from this panel that absorbs solar radiation? Now we can. So, who's who am I to say that this big shade isn't going to be the thing that's going to come and save us? However, we don't know that yet, today.
WZ: Okay. Sven then what do you think? Because there's, I guess, other ideas out there, we're going to suck carbon out of the sky. There's, you know, direct air capture. We've got geoengineering projects, giant shades. How do you feel about all these these balls in the air?
ST: I'm a professor of the technical university. I'm agnostic. I'm interested in technology. But also I've seen a lot of proposals which the first and foremost, the job is to delay, to implement a solution and just to keep going. Sort of business as usual.
WZ: That's right. That's right. If I read one more headline about. What about this? What about that? When this is my concern is that it gives people this idea that some magic scientific technology will come and save the day and we can just keep living our lives on fossil fuels until that magic moment comes.
ST: But my question is, do we really want to live on fossil fuel or do we want to have energy? I mean, I don't want to have fossil fuels. I want to have a climatized home. I want to drive, I want to do stuff. But at the end of the day, as a consumer, isn't it totally irrelevant if it's from electricity or is it burning oil - doesn't matter as long as it works?
Hope?
WZ So to cap us off how hopefully both feeling that we will solve this, that we will stay below some temperature that means we're not completely screwed?
ST I totally believe that. I have to say I totally believe that because I think first we not have no other option. Secondly, all the solutions actually grow exponentially right now. Solar and Wind grows exponentially. And I think that's that's the real hopeful thing. All the solutions currently grow exponentially. And that's really good.
WZ: Wei?
WS: We can do this we are also seeing the most momentum in the public and private sector than we have ever seen in the past.
WZ: You're saying this because you're going into those offices, meeting those suits?
WS: Yeah, we've got we've got a commitment from basically every country in this world to get to net zero time matters how quickly we can get there. But there is a commitment. Most governments in the world have policies in place to reach these commitment to different extents, but they are talking about this net zero is now a household term where emissions wasn't even a thing 20 years ago. So we are seeing the most momentum than we have ever seen in the past in history really around understanding and acknowledging climate change and then taking action and also making some significant real investments both by the public and private sector in terms of reducing emissions.
WZ: So because a lot of our listeners, there was a lot of depression, a lot of hopelessness, but we don't need to feel like that.
WS: No.
WZ: Thank you. Thank you both. Sven and Wei. Thank you.
[3] https://unfccc.int/timeline/ - April 1995, Berlin
[4] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co2-emissions-region Cumulative CO2 emissions 1750–2021 excluding land-use change: US – 427 billion tonnes; European Union (27 countries) – 296 billion t; China – 261 billion t
[5] For 2021, US: 422 billion tonnes; China: 249 billion t
For 2019, US: 412 billion tonnes; China: 227 billion t
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co2-emissions-region
[6] 2021, a bit more than 400 Gt CO2 for the US and ~250 Gt for China , excluding emissions from land use change
[7] Energy-related CO2 emissions, China, 2022: 31.11% of global emissions, https://www.iea.org/countries/china, https://www.iea.org/countries/china/emissions
[8] China is ~18% from 2023 values: population of China 2023, 1422584933 (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/china-population/); global population 2023, 8091734930 (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#table-historical)
[9] https://www.ipsos.com/en/earth-day-2023-concern-and-focus-slipping-climate-change#:~:text=However%2C%20recycling%20(32%25)%20and,effective%20way%20to%20cut%20emissions.
[10] E.g., Various, household and commercial recycling - https://drawdown.org/index.php/solutions/recycling
Metals - https://drawdown.org/index.php/solutions/recycled-metals
Paper - https://drawdown.org/index.php/solutions/recycled-paper
Plastics - https://drawdown.org/index.php/solutions/recycled-plastics
[11] “The IPCC reports that the theoretical maximum potential for reducing enteric methane emissions is 0.8 Gt CO2-eq per year, out of the 2.1 Gt total enteric methane emissions, a maximum reduction of 38%. However, of this technical potential, only 0.2 Gt is economically achievable. What’s more, that total includes feed additives and other strategies like breeding for lower emissions and feeding concentrates. So, only about 10% of enteric methane can be reduced, and feed additives are only a subset of that. … most feed additives are not ready yet; most of those that are ready are not yet in wide use (though 3-NOP is on its way); they won’t ever be relevant to the grazing majority of the world’s livestock; and they can only provide a partial reduction of methane for the animals they are fed to at best.” Also see figure: “Categories of methane-reducing feed additives” https://drawdown.org/insights/are-livestock-feed-additives-the-future-or-folly
[12] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv-ev.shtml “Electric vehicles (EVs) are more efficient than their gasoline-powered counterparts. An EV electric drive system is only responsible for a 15% to 20% energy loss compared to 64% to 75% for a gasoline engine. EVs also use regenerative braking to recapture and reuse energy that normally would be lost in braking and waste no energy idling.”
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml “Only about 12%–30% of the energy from the fuel you put in a conventional vehicle is used to move it down the road, depending on the drive cycle. The rest of the energy is lost to engine and driveline inefficiencies or used to power accessories. Therefore, the potential to improve fuel efficiency with advanced technologies is enormous.”
[13] Note: like with combustion engines, an electric vehicle has additional losses beyond just the engine efficiency; but the losses are much smaller, and regenerative braking makes up for a lot of them: “In all, the various energy losses in an EV add up to 31% to 35%. Regenerative braking adds 22% back into the system, making the overall efficiency around 87% to 91%.” https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/08/electrifying-transportation-reduces-emissions-and-saves-massive-amounts-of-energy/; data from https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv-ev.shtml
[14] https://www.wri.org/insights/countries-adopting-electric-vehicles-fastest See graph: “EVs as share of passenger vehicle sales,” data for 2009 to 2022. “China is by far the biggest player when it comes to EVs. In 2022, 22% of passenger vehicles sold in China were all-electric, which adds up to 4.4 million sales. That’s higher than the 3 million EVs sold in the rest of the world combined.”
[15] “Oil demand in China has slowed markedly this year amid the country's shift to electric vehicles and natural gas, Goldman Sachs analysts said. …The shift from gas-fueled cars to electric and hybrid vehicles alone has reduced demand by 500,000 barrels a day, the analysts said.” https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/china-ev-oil-demand-natural-gas-tesla-electric-vehicles-goldman-2024-8
[16] E.g.: “the LFP [lithium iron phosphate] battery enjoys unsurpassed advantages in safety, cost and containing no cobalt or nickel” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00757-7 [sci-hub]
[17] 2021 article, Physics Today (https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/74/5/20/904801): “Benchmark [market analysis firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence] product director Andrew Miller says the [lithium] forecast shortage takes into account current mines and mining projects that are known to be in development. “However, lithium is not scarce, so the question is how quickly resources can be developed or accelerated to meet these requirements,” he says. ... The supply base for lithium is expected to diversify over the next decade, even as South American and Australian output increases. As of 2020, brine-based lithium sources were in various stages of development in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, China, and the US, and mineral-based lithium sources were being developed in Africa, Australia, South America, Canada, and Europe, according to the US Geological Survey.
In addition, new mining techniques and types of deposits are expected to supplement traditional sources.”
[18] “Permanent magnet applications” [sci-hub] Table 1, Summary of permanent magnet applications. Examples listed include: Magnetic resonance imaging; Alignment of magnetic powder; Sensors, read-heads; Motors, actuators, loudspeakers; Generators, microphones; Beam control, radiation sources (microwave, uv; X-ray); Bearings, couplings, Maglev; Mineral separation; Magnetometers; Switchable clamps, holding magnets; Metal separation, brakes
[19] “Rare earth magnets have many uses across a broad spectrum of applications, including wind turbines, electric vehicle drives, hard disk drives, cell phones, loudspeakers, industrial motors, non-drivetrain motors in vehicles, power tools, and electric bikes. … As shown in Table 3, consumer electronics and industrial motors make up the largest share of current NdFeB magnet demand, but wind turbine and vehicle demand represent significant and growing segments of the market.”
[20] See world, and Australia: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/levelized-cost-of-energy?time=earliest..2022
[21] https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summary “In 2023, an estimated 96% of newly installed, utility-scale solar PV and onshore wind capacity had lower generation costs than new coal and natural gas plants. In addition, three-quarters of new wind and solar PV plants offered cheaper power than existing fossil fuel facilities.” “The world is on course to add more renewable capacity in the next five years than has been installed since the first commercial renewable energy power plant was built more than 100 years ago. … Solar PV and wind will account for 95% of global renewable expansion, benefiting from lower generation costs than both fossil and non‑fossil fuel alternatives.”
[22] “Parties aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) as soon as possible, recognizing peaking will take longer for developing country Parties, so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of GHGs in the second half of the century.” https://unfccc.int/most-requested/key-aspects-of-the-paris-agreement
[23] E.g., This paper factors in a “time delay, or ‘phase-in period,’ of around 20 years between land-management interventions and carbon removals. For reforestation, agroforestry, and silvopasture, this lag time is to allow new forests, trees, and shrubs to grow. For pathways that allow restoration of degraded forests, there is a similar phase-in period to allow non-additional regrowth that would normally occur after timber harvest. Given that peak warming is now expected to occur within the next 10–20 years in the strong mitigation scenarios and it takes time to scale up land-based removals, these interventions do not strongly affect the peak temperature, but they do contribute to a temperature decline, on the order of 0.1C (median), by the end of the century.”
[24] https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/products-services/energy/top-100.html Top 100 Global Energy Leaders
[25] “Avoiding and reducing our emissions are our first priorities for meeting our net equity emissions reduction targets. However, offsetting emissions allows Woodside more flexibility to meet these targets, while asset and technology decarbonisation plans are matured and implemented. In the longer term, where emissions prove to be hard-to-abate, any such residual emissions would also need to be offset using carbon credits in order to achieve our net zero aspiration. ” https://www.woodside.com/docs/default-source/investor-documents/major-reports-(static-pdfs)/2022-climate-report/climate-report-2022.pdf
[26] https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summary “In 2023, an estimated 96% of newly installed, utility-scale solar PV and onshore wind capacity had lower generation costs than new coal and natural gas plants. In addition, three-quarters of new wind and solar PV plants offered cheaper power than existing fossil fuel facilities.” “The world is on course to add more renewable capacity in the next five years than has been installed since the first commercial renewable energy power plant was built more than 100 years ago. … Solar PV and wind will account for 95% of global renewable expansion, benefiting from lower generation costs than both fossil and non‑fossil fuel alternatives.”
[27] https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summary “Global annual renewable capacity additions increased by almost 50% to nearly 510 gigawatts (GW) in 2023, the fastest growth rate in the past two decades. This is the 22nd year in a row that renewable capacity additions set a new record. … Globally, solar PV alone accounted for three-quarters of renewable capacity additions worldwide.”
[28] https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2024/Jul/Renewable_energy_highlights_FINAL_July_2024.pdf. I think their numbers might be a bit different for total capacity added. But using their numbers, 2023 had +473 GW of renewable capacity, and +80 GW of nonrenewable. 347 GW of the new renewable capacity was solar. So according to these numbers, 347/(473+80)= 63% of total new capacity was in solar. That's a bit under 2/3.
[29] In 2023, “Renewables provided 30% of global electricity for the first time…” And this year (2024) – in Europe, they just hit a big milestone where wind and solar has overtaken fossil fuels– So that means in the first half of this year – Wind and Solar power generated more electricity than fossil fuels for the first time ever this year. that's according to the think tank Ember
[30] in China, “in 2023, clean power made up 35% of China’s electricity mix.” – instead they plan to double their solar and wind capacity by 2030.
[31] From WS via email: Records for Australia were broken 2 days in a row. The source for both is the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). The first time was on September 31 as reported here in the Guardian - "the milestone was set at 12.30pm with a contribution of 68.7%, or 18,882MW, from renewable sources". Then on October 1 as reported by Renew Economy - "Wind and solar alone accounted for 72.6 per cent of total demand on the main grid… Almost all of it, just over 64 per cent, came from solar – a mix of rooftop (44.4 per cent) and large scale solar (19.7 per cent. Just eight per cent came from wind power." Therefore, it was actually higher than what I mentioned in the recording - solar alone provided 64% while solar and wind together actually hit 72.6%. In terms of timing, the specific reference there is for instantaneous renewable energy generation, so this is likely short-lived, i.e. a matter of minutes at 11:30am October 1.
[32] https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus/
p. 37: Solar and wind costs – total capital costs: Solar PV $850/kW to $1,400/kW; Wind $1,300/kW to $1,900 kW
p. 38: US nuclear, new build – total capital costs: Nuclear $8765/kW to $14,400/kW
[33] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide “Today there are about 440 nuclear power reactors operating in 32 countries plus Taiwan, with a combined capacity of about 390 GWe.”
[34] https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-construction-time-for-reactors-since-1981/ “Nuclear reactors connected to the grid in 2023 had a median construction time of 121 months, or almost 11 years.”
[35] https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/wnisr2024-v2.pdf - “The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024” See p. 58-onward for discussion of construction times