https://archive.md/Tyhxr
"With the vast majority of the world’s governments committed to decarbonizing
their economies in the next two generations, we are embarked on a voyage into
the unknown. What was once an argument over carbon pricing and emissions
trading has turned into an industrial policy race. Along the way there will be
resistance and denial. There will also be breakthroughs and unexpected wins.
The cost of solar and wind power has fallen spectacularly in the last 20 years.
Battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs) have moved from fantasy to ubiquitous
reality.
But alongside outright opposition and clear wins, we will also have to contend
with situations that are murkier, with wishful thinking and motivated
reasoning. As we search for technical solutions to the puzzle of
decarbonization, we must beware the mirages of the energy transition.
On a desert trek a mirage can be fatal. Walk too far in the wrong direction,
and there may be no way back. You succumb to exhaustion before you can find
real water. On the other hand, if you don’t head toward what looks like an
oasis, you cannot be sure that you will find another one in time.
Right now, we face a similar dilemma, a dilemma of huge proportions not with
regard to H2O but one of its components, H2—hydrogen. Is hydrogen a key part of
the world’s energy future or a dangerous fata morgana? It is a question on
which tens of trillions of dollars in investment may end up hinging. And scale
matters.
For decades, economists warned of the dangers of trying through industrial
policy to pick winners. The risk is not just that you might fail, but that in
doing so you incur costs. You commit real resources that foreclose other
options. The lesson was once that we should leave it to the market. But that
was a recipe for a less urgent time. The climate crisis gives us no time. We
cannot avoid the challenge of choosing our energy future. As Chuck Sabel and
David Victor argue in their important new book
Fixing the Climate: Strategies
for an Uncertain World, it is through local partnership and experimentation
that we are most likely to find answers to these technical dilemmas. But, as
the case of hydrogen demonstrates, we must beware the efforts of powerful
vested interests to use radical technological visions to channel us towards
what are in fact conservative and ruinously expensive options."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-trachoma-human-rights-mexico-river-madrid-spain/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
