Technology will save us! No, it won’t!
Whenever the climate-policy debate addresses specific economic sectors, potential carbon-abatement technologies, or energy strategy, the same fundamental question always arises: How much can we rely on “simple,” preferably “cheap,” technofixes? Can climate change be addressed by counting on people to switch to lower-carbon technologies, or will it take more fundamental changes to how we live and organise ourselves as a society?
These are not just philosophical or academic questions. In today’s political culture, they have been among the issues that most divide right and left. One side trusts markets and new technologies to fix everything, while the other insists that public policy must play a leading role. Yes, this caricature is far too crude. But recognising that it is how many politicians, polemicists, and their followers frame the matter can help us analyse, and ultimately improve, how new clean-technology developments are received.
Consider the apparent scientific breakthrough in nuclear fusion last month. Longstanding debates about nuclear energy returned to the fore. Techno-optimists seized on the idea that we may have unlocked a source of truly unlimited clean energy. That would be in everyone’s interest, regardless of political stance, and it would seem to confirm that human ingenuity holds the key to our salvation.
But not even the most ardent techno-optimists can claim that technology will save us on its own. After all, this first-ever fusion ignition happened at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a US federal research facility where government scientists conduct experiments paid for with taxpayer money.
Yes, there are also startups working on fusion, in the hope of launching the first demonstration plants in the coming decade. But they, too, are clamoring for government funds, whether direct subsidies or the Department of Energy loan guarantees enabled by the Inflation Reduction Act. The picture is no different in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, nor is it confined to fusion technology. Silicon Valley, that bastion of techno-libertarianism, depends on government funding and favourable policies more than many other industries do.
None of this will come as a surprise to those working in the energy sector, which includes some of the world’s most heavily regulated, taxed, and subsidised industries. Governments pick winners all the time, and lobbying plays no small part in the process.
Now consider a second recent episode. Cookstoves have been catapulted into the center of the US culture wars, following a statement by a federal consumer-protection agency voicing concerns about their effects on household air quality. Induction represents the new technology, gas the old, and the debate has both too much nuance and too much nonsense for the public to make sense of it easily.
In this case, many on the right – who would ordinarily trust technology to save us – are siding with the old technology in the name of opposing government “overreach.” But unlike in the past, they can no longer argue against induction on the grounds that it costs more. You can now get an induction plate at IKEA for $70.
Shifting from gas to induction could be considered largely symbolic in the fight against climate change. Yes, most homes in temperate and cold climates use significantly more gas for heating than for cooking. But this step would go well beyond mere symbolism in households where it would mean cutting off the gas line altogether.
The fusion and stove debates show why getting technology right requires moving beyond simplistic yes-no shouting matches. As a general matter, no one should dispute that we need both new technologies and new policies to cut carbon dioxide emissions at the necessary pace and scale. Just ask the Texas Land and Liberty Coalition, an advocacy group representing traditionally conservative farmers and ranchers. The group is calling for policies to advance renewable-energy projects across the state.
All techno-optimists should be doing the same. If you believe that new technologies are the answer to climate change, you should want the state to use policy levers to hasten those technologies’ deployment. But the problem is that many who are lobbying for such policies are doing so in private, while those who are lobbying against new technologies are much more vocal about it. As a result, public discourse remains a caricature.
With a more nuanced debate, the public would appreciate that not all technological solutions are created equal. Induction stoves, heat pumps (the more efficient electric alternative to gas), retrofitting, and solar and wind power are all ready to be deployed at scale – immediately. But other technologies – chiefly nuclear fusion, but also green liquid fuels for uses where electrification is much more efficient – are not. They are at best a distraction, or, worse, an excuse for continued inaction. They could still deliver future benefits with more research and development funding; but that must not detract from cutting CO2 emissions this decade.
As the joke goes, nuclear fusion has been 30 years away for decades. Now that it has been achieved in a lab setting, those 30 years may actually be true. That means the technology could well become an essential part of the low-carbon electricity mix in the second half of this century. But, given that timeline, nobody who understands the climate science would suggest nuclear fusion as the only technofix. Roughly seven million people are already dying each year from air pollution, which is largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and our ability to keep climate change in check depends on what we do between now and 2030, and then between 2030 and 2050.
No solution is sufficient on its own. But speeding up the adoption of already proven and scalable technologies is a necessary goal, especially when the many hidden costs associated with fossil fuels are included in the calculus, and will require new policies to guide investments in the right direction. Techno-optimists ought to be their loudest advocates.
Technology alone will not save us. But nothing else on its own will, either.
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School, is the author, most recently, of Geoengineering: The Gamble (Polity, 2021). Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2023, and published here with permission.
34 Comments
Hydrogen is nonsense for passenger cars. Too much wasted energy to create it, pressurise it and distribute it, and the infrastructure costs are huge, a few million for a filling station that can only fast fill a handful of cars an hour (ie worse than an EV fast charger site with several fast chargers)
FYI, the Toyota Mirai (pretty much the only hydrogen production car) weighs the same as a Tesla Model 3, so there is no weight advantage.
There is a reason that EVs are everywhere, and hydrogen has never spread beyond heavily subsidised trials in small geographical areas.
Hydrogen might end up being useful in niche applications where extending electrification to the work site is impractical, but the cost of hydrogen will rule it out in areas where electrical infrastructure is present.
Yes, battery powered aviation is not feasible for anything other than small planes and small hops for the foreseeable future, whether commercial aviation settles on hydrogen or synthetic/manufactured liquids fuels will be a question of economics. Ditto with shipping, Battery Electric Ferries make sense, ocean liners and cargo ships, not likely. Unless small modular nukes become feasible, acceptable and cheap then these are all going to become way more expensive, our children will not enjoy the freedom of travel we have. Popping over to Sydney to see an event/concert is not going to be something the middle class does in future.
Hybrids are a small step forward from pure combustion, but in the long run they are still a combustion engine with all its moving parts and maintenance, and the continual need to feed it with extracted, refined and shipped fuel.
There really is a simple fix though, which influences both the technology direction and consumption. If we simply care about arresting and reversing GHG emissions, an ETS or carbon tax is the right way (we already have a perfectly good ETS too). Crank the price up, and fewer people use gas stoves. Maybe some people keep gas stoves, but insulate their house, eat less beef, or whatever. You get a net reduction and avoid divisive culture wars. Imposing arbitrary restrictions on consumption will always be a political lightning rod.
You can even turn it into a progressive tax by paying out a universal dividend.
But people always have other motives they want to hitch onto this problem, whether it be smashing capitalism, or the desire to see “more walking” (stuff off Climate Change Commission). The left is worse than the right in this regard. If they actually cared about climate change, they wouldn’t make it impossible to solve by importing their entire world view. Most of these people are basically innumerate and driven by aesthetics.
Yeah, but each country is responsible for its own emissions and I'd rather NZ was responsible for less. I'd guess many, if not most of our potential immigrants come from low/capita emitting countries, to our higher/capita emitting country, so the net effect is to increase emissions. Guess we could always get rid of more livestock to fit more emitters in?
We should be worried about emissions per cap. Once again, carbon does not respect or borders or jurisdiction.
Perhaps there would be a net increase as some people immigrate here, but for them it comes with a big increase in living standards. The alternative is they stay home and burn more coal to get there. Or do we invade them and force them to deindustrialise?
Have you had an epiphany powerup? A eureka moment? Wasn't that long ago you were rejecting global heating, ergo physics, as an actual thing.
Growth requires energy. In a world of rising demand and energy scarcity/intermittency, growth is hitting the wall known as reality. Climate is easily solved. It's just the growth cult won't let it!
I’ve never rejected global heating. It’s a serious problem. I reject the notion that growth is coupled to emissions. There is no wall; and the developing world isn’t going to put up with degrowth.
And what energy scarcity are you talking about? The 1970s were half a century ago.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-use-per-capita-vs-gdp-per-capita?xScale=linear
Seems like those with higher GDP per capita use more energy per capita = more emissions...?
I'm guessing you haven't been watching the news about Europe's energy shortage? Although of course not just Europe.
What happens during periods of elevated energy prices, caused by excess demand over supply? Those with least economic resilience do without, while those at the top pay the price and carry on in cheerful obliviousness. Now you could say the energy crisis was down to Vlad, the invader, but I tend to think he just accelerated a pre existing depletion trend and picked his moment, when Europe had a nice level of dependency, coupled with a wind energy drought. I'm guessing Russian energy will be increasingly offline for an extended period?
So how come, with a substantial fraction of global energy supply off market, were energy prices prevented from exploding? Drawdown!
And of course a scramble for alternatives.
Unsurprisingly.
"The 6% increase in CO2 emissions in 2021 was in line with the jump in global economic output of 5.9%. This marks the strongest coupling of CO2 emissions with Gross domestic product (GDP) growth since 2010"
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-co2-emissions-in-2021-2
So not only were Emissions coupled with economic growth, they exceeded it!
There's a problem in engineering and other disciplines called diminishing returns on complexity. Basically, each time you try to solve something through added complexity, the less effective that solution becomes. Eventually you reach a point where adding more complexity creates more problems than it solves.
We're pretty much at that point now. EVs provide some reduction in one specific measure of environmental impact (the one which we pretend is the only one that matters), but do so at the expense of added complexity. This introduces a whole set of new problems, including environmental ones, which may actually be worse than the original problem we were trying to solve.
One day we will need to realise that the solution to a lot of the problems we're facing involves reducing complexity, not adding to it. This will come at no small inconvenience to a lot of people, and involve major changes to the way we live our lives.
Who decides what the “best tech” is, or what ensures quality of life? Who decides who gets to reproduce? The whole idea is just beyond unworkable. Are you willing to lower your living standards to the global average (around $18 USD per day)? If not, you’re asking most of the world to take a pretty raw deal.
When you work through the implications of degrowth, it starts looking pretty totalitarian and dark. No coincidence that many of its early proponents were eugenicists and advocated mass starvation in the third world (a.k.a genocide).
"When you work through the implications of degrowth, it starts looking pretty totalitarian and dark."
Possibly, unless it's approached with the knowledge the Earth is in fact finite and all round good will can provide humans with a future. On the other hand, on a planet with massive overshoot in both population and consumption, and with everyone grasping what they can from a limited stock pile, while using an economic system of winner takes all, I'd say a growthist future is more likely totalitarian and dark. In fact, it's playing out every day, if you bothered noticing and put the pieces together in your head.
Complexity doesn't just mean moving parts. The charging circuitry, display and control systems, monitoring, sensors, almost everything in an EV is highly complex. They're not like Tamya cars with a motor and a battery and that's about it.
Modern ICE cars suffer from similar levels of complexity too, so they won't be a solution moving forward either. The point is though that it's possible to build a relatively simple combustion engine vehicle, but you can't build an EV without significant levels of complexity.
More nonsense from Chebbo about EVs, he's getting a bit silly now.
If you are willing to accept a stripped down IC engine with no fancy systems for high performance or pollution control, and resulting poor fuel economy etc you can likewise strip an EV down to a battery with a simple slow charging circuit, an inverter and a throttle input connected to a three phase induction motor or DC motor. Think an electric golf cart, or electric forklift. They are hardly complicated devices.
Ah, yes, It wasn't you that said 3 to 5 years, that was another conversation, but you did imply something similar:
"Warranty on an NZ-new Tesla is 4 years. Once the warranty runs out they're not going to be economical to own, so most people will get rid of them at that point and buy a new one. They're too expensive to fix. "
Pure nonsense. And feel free to ignore me, i'll keep refuting the baloney you put forth when I see it.
NZ produces 0.1% of global climate emissions. Nothing we do here to reduce is any more meaningful than virtue signalling to appease our offshore markets.The only countries of any population size that can make any real difference are in Asia & Latin America - & they won't in the current energy paradigm because their populations are much poorer than ours & the hypocritical West who have long enriched their constituents at the cost of historical emissions.
The only hope is alternative energy technology & innovation. The global Covid shutdowns proved that emissions reducing make a significant difference , what is required is a will to find a way.
Your definition of "fanaticism" is a strange one? I'd say yeastie individuals pursuing the cult of exponential growthism have a lot more to answer for. I realise they are just pursuing life's primary directive, when faced with a seemingly endless supply of agar, along with mythology of past reproductive success to bolster their egos. Don't ever ask why though.
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