Although Net Zero goals are commendable and deserve our support it is vital that they be evaluated realistically. This article is one in a series to do with difficulties that might be encountered as companies implement these programs. Other articles on this theme are:Net Zero by 2050: The RealityThis article shows how greenhouse gas emissions have risen over the course of the last seven decades.…
Dateline: August 2021Story-TellingMost of the people reading posts such as this are aware that earlier this month the IPCC issued an alarming report on climate change that should make society change its ways. Failure to do so could lead to catastrophe and a possible breakdown of civilization within just 20 years. Yet nothing happened; the report changed almost nothing. It was just a blip in…
August 2021This is the third post in the series ‘The Shape of Net Zero’.The first post was The Shape of Net Zero (1): No Substitute. Its theme was that is really no substitute for fossil fuels, particularly crude oil. Fossil fuels are economical, safe, environmentally clean (particularly as compared to nuclear), energy dense, always available (dispatchable) and portable. They are also an…
Shown below is a summary of the post Industry Leadership.In the post Net Zero: The Business Opportunity we saw that many businesses have adopted a ‘Net Zero by 2050’ strategy. This means that these organizations intend to have ‘net zero’ emissions of greenhouse gases by the year 2050. One way — and by no means the only way — of achieving this goal is to develop and adopt new technologies that…
Published: July 2021 In September 2020 the company BP published their 2020 Energy Outlook. The report's Summary states,The Energy Outlook explores the forces shaping the global energy transition out to 2050 and the key uncertainties surrounding that transition.The company makes it clear that they are not predicting the future. The report’s purpose is to outline how energy consumption and…
The good old daysThis post is the second in the series ‘The Shape of Net Zero’. The series is based on an understanding that we cannot simply switch out one source of energy (fossil fuels) with another (wind, solar, nuclear and others) and carry on with Business as Usual. We need to consider the following parameters to do with a switch in the basics of our energy supply.Fossil fuels, particularly…
A theme of the posts at this site is that we are awash in good ideas, but many of these good ideas cannot be scaled up quickly enough to have a meaningful impact on the climate crisis. This post — Realities: Nuclear Power — illustrates this conundrum. Nuclear power is an established energy source. It has its detractors, but it is established and known to work. However, if nuclear is to provide…
he following material is extracted from the post What To Do?Adam McKay, director of the movie Don’t Look Up, has written an intriguing article in The Guardian as to how we, as individuals, can act in response to climate change. The title of the article is I directed Don’t Look Up. When it comes to the climate crisis, the ending is up to us. Here is part of what McKay says.Maybe some film or gif…
The material here is a summary of the post Lithium and Its Limits.Supply and DemandClassical economics states that supply will always meet demand. If the demand for a resource or product increases then the price of that resource will probably go up, but it is taken for granted that the supply is always there. In other words, supply and demand are fundamentally a financial issue.One of the themes…
The following is taken from the post Net Zero Gradients. On Tuesday of this week we learned that the ExxonMobil company has adopted Net Zero goals.ExxonMobil aims to achieve net-zero emissions from its operated assets by 2050 and is taking a comprehensive approach centered on developing detailed emission-reduction roadmaps for major operated assets. This ambition applies to Scope 1 and Scope…
This article provides an introduction to the concept of Net Zero by 2050, and how it could affect the energy and process industries.IPCCThe phrase ‘Net Zero by 2050’ comes from a report published by the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC is one of the world’s leading authorities on climate change trends.This organization <the IPCC> was founded in the…
This article is based on the post Wanted: Imagination.Following the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers the New York Times journalist Tom Friedman said that our failure was not lack of knowledge (we knew quite a lot about terrorist organizations). Our failure was lack of imagination — we simply could not imagine that people would voluntarily fly a commercial airplane directly into a building.I suggest…
The material in this article is taken from the post ‘Natural Gas in Transition’, with the sub-title ‘A Net Zero Debating Point’.One of the on-going debates in the Net Zero world is whether or not natural gas can be used as a transition fuel. We need to transition from all fossil fuels (coal, oil and Natural gas) to renewables — particularly solar and wind. However, the role of natural gas as a…
The Substack letter 2022: A Net Zero Future makes some forecasts (not really predictions) for the year 2022. The focus is on businesses and industries that are adopting Net Zero programs.Companies and businesses will increasingly lead the response to climate change — not because they want to “do good”, but because they want to be commercially successful. Governments will support but not lead…
This article is based on the following post, Solar and Hydrogen: The Foundation.
Our future oil wells. Credit: Unsplash
The Hydrogen EconomyThe climate change world is complex and difficult to understand. There are so many factors, parameters and variables, all of which seem to affect each other in ways that we don’t understand, or that we can even identify. However, when we look at Net…