Amid the endless interesting details of the climate and energy fight, I find myself sometimes losing track of the basic outlines of our the dilemma. So let’s try to oversimplify it for a moment, just to make sure we’re at a place we can work from. The key, as always, is the sun.
Right now, thanks to our recklessness, the sun is overheating our planet. And by right now, I don’t mean in this century. I mean, in this month. The global temperature readings for September should have been the top story on every newscast in the world, because they were bonkers. June, July, and August were historically hot—we saw the hottest days recorded on the planet in 125,000 years. September wasn’t quite as hot, of course, because it’s fall. But in relative terms September was even more outrageous. It was, the scientists tell us, the most anomalous month we’ve ever seen, with temperatures so far beyond historical norms that the charts don’t even seem to make sense.
For instance, here’s the chart that the estimable Zeke Hausfather prepared using data from the Japanese Meterological Agency.
All those gray lines are the temperature anomalies for many years back; the black line at the top is this year, and the blue area is September. As the Washington Post reported, “the planet’s average temperature shattered the previous September record by more than half a degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit), which is the largest monthly margin ever observed.”
We have, in effect, turned September into July. That’s not hyperbole, that’s just data. And in so doing, September smashed through the 1.5 degree Celsius warming mark that the world set as a target in Paris just eight years ago. We’ve been talking about it ever since, and now we’re there.
And there’s no huge mystery about why. Yes, we’re in an El Niño, though it’s only now kicking in. Yes, reduced air pollution from ships and Asian cities means less sun reflected. But, basically, the gases we’ve poured into the atmosphere are turning the sun from our greatest friend into our most daunting problem.
And at the exact same time, the sun is our greatest hope for getting us out of our predicament. Again, there are lots of other things we could talk about: whether we’ll eventually have small nuclear reactors, or deep geothermal power, or a dozen other possible wonders. But right now, in the same months that the planet is overheating, our cheap quick ways out of trouble rely on that same ball of burning gas orbiting 93 million miles above us. They are solar panels that catch the sun’s rays directly, and wind turbines that take advantage of the fact that the sun differentially heats the earth, creating the breezes that make them turn.
So here’s what good news I’ve got. At the same moment that the planet is starting to broil, the solar market is starting to cook. I was walking the streets of Manhattan during Climate Week when Danny Kennedy—legendary solar entrepreneur—pulled up on his City Bike. “We’re at a gigawatt a day,” he said with a grin.
“What?” I said.
“The planet is now adding a gigawatt a day of solar power. A nuclear plant’s worth every day of solar power,” he said. And what do you know, he was as usual correct. About half the total is being added in China, apparently even amidst their economic trials (and far outdistancing the increase in their fossil fuel plants). The U.S. is second, followed by Brazil and India.
Is this enough? Nowhere near.
Is it stable? No—when I talked yesterday with Mary Powell, the CEO of Sunrun, she said rising interest rates and languishing government help may mean that American installations actually fall this year.
But is it remarkable? Yes. Think of the work that traditionally goes into building a new power plant: the years of work and planning and pouring concrete. We’re building the equivalent of one of those every day now, and instead of burning coal or gas they’re letting the sun handle the combustion.
The numbers are going up so fast that they really can’t be denied. The International Energy Agency—the club of big oil users that Henry Kissinger cobbled together in the 1970s—puts out an annual report, and for decades it was notorious for underestimating how fast renewable energy would grow. But no longer. As Kingsmill Bond and Sam Butler-Sloss point out in their highly useful gloss on the new report.
The report is a significant change in tone since the 2021 net zero roadmap. That report was all about ‘should’ while this report is all about ‘will’. As the result of the continued rapid growth in renewable deployment, the IEA has moved from a theoretical exercise in 2021 to embracing the prospect of a net zero future with enthusiasm.
Even without accounting for, you know, the destruction of the earth, the rapid buildout of renewables is cheaper than business as usual—it takes a little more capex (capital expenditure) to build all those solar panels than to keep replacing fossil fuel infrastructure, but the opex is far lower because…the sun delivers the power for free, while Saudi Arabia and Exxon charge.
We should go much faster—and we could. Despite the ongoing efforts of the fossil fuel industry gin up NIMBY opposition, a new survey finds that Americans are willing to live next to solar and wind farms.
Three-quarters of all Americans say they would be comfortable living near solar farms while nearly 7 in 10 report feeling the same about wind turbines. And these attitudes appear to remain largely consistent regardless of where people live. According to the poll, 69 percent of residents in rural and suburban areas say they would be comfortable if wind turbines were constructed in their area, as do 66 percent of urban residents.
General comfort with green energy infrastructure crosses party lines, with 66 percent of Republicans saying they are comfortable with a field of solar panels being built in their community and 59 percent comfortable with wind turbines. Among Democrats, 87 percent are comfortable with solar farms and 79 percent with wind farms.
But the race is on. And that’s what it is, a flat-out race to build as much renewable energy—and to keep in the ground as much fossil energy—as we possibly can, in the hope that eventually that rising technological curve will bend that rising temperature curve. It’s amazing that they’ve both gone somewhat vertical at precisely the same moment, but that’s the story of our time on earth.
The sun keeps pumping out more or less the same amount of energy day in and day out. It’s what we do down here on earth that will decide whether it cooks us or saves us.
Please go here for the original article: https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/the-rays-of-the-sun?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share
No comments:
Post a Comment