Net Zero: Five Superheroes Versus Five Horsemen Of The Transition
This week saw the publication of Part II of my two parter for BloombergNEF: Net Zero Will Be Harder Than You Think - And Easier. Should you be optimistic or pessimistic? This might help you decide.
This week saw the publication of the second half of my two-parter for BloombergNEF: Net Zero Will Be Easier Than You Think. The first part, Net Zero Will Be Harder Than You Think, was published in September last year.
In a world of polarized politics, click-obsessed media and enshittified social media - it can be very hard to separate signal from noise. One minute getting to Net Zero will be straightforward: just roll out cheap clean energy technologies, become more energy efficient every year, keep innovating and stop chopping down forests. The next minute it is impossibly challenging: every sector of the economy has to switch to new technologies, consumers have to change behaviors, new supply chains have to be built, and it has to happen in every major economy, in just a few decades, at the cost of the savings of a whole generation.
Confused? In my two-parter for BloombergNEF, I channelled my inner Boris Johnson, who famously drafted two opinion pieces prior to the UK’s EU referendum in 2016, one in favour of Brexit and one in favour of Remain, to see which one was more persuasive.
In Part I, I laid out the bear case, describing the Five Horseman of the Net Zero Transition: five reasons why anyone hoping for rapid global decarbonization is kidding themselves. They are: the poor economics of clean solutions beyond wind, solar and batteries; the inadequacy of our current electrical grid; soaring demand for critical minerals; political and social inertia; and regulatory capture and predatory delay.
In Part II, which dropped this week, I countered with the Five Superheroes of the Net Zero Transition: the five forces which may be even more powerful than the Five Horsemen, and which give cause for optimism. They are: exponential growth; systems solutions; great power rivalry; disappearing demand; and the Primary Energy Demand fallacy.
So do the the Five Superheroes of the Transition vanquish the Five Horsemen? Does Godzilla beat Kong? Does Alien beat Predator? I’m not saying: read the pieces and find out!
Net Zero Will Be Harder Than You Think: The Five Horsemen of the Transition
Net Zero Will Be Easier Than You Think: The Five Superheroes of the Transition
Selah.
In other news, we just released a splendid episode of Cleaning Up, with Professor Donald Sadoway - extreme electrochemist, inventor, educator, communicator and all-round polymath. When you’re done reading about superheroes and horsemen, make sure you listen to or watch my conversation with Professor Sadoway.
And do subscribe to the Cleaning Up Substack too so you never miss an episode.