A Future Free From Fossil Fuels: It’s Already Happening

IE Insights asked me to write an article for their special “Ideas to shape the future”, which on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of IE University, covers four areas — society, power, education and creativity — and compiles articles by twenty-seven authors on various topics of the future.

My piece is entitled “The key technological drivers of decarbonization” (pdf), and explains why, from a purely rational perspective, decarbonization will be the most important technological transition in human history.

First of all, the consensus: the entire scientific community agrees that about global warming, and that this warming is due exclusively to human action. Anyone who doubts this, therefore, is either ignorant or irresponsible, and should be immediately removed from all decision-making processes.

Secondly, the role of the fossil fuel industry, which, knowing full well the magnitude of the problem for decades, deliberately chose to lie to the public and get the media to generate the idea that global warming was still subject to debate, clearly putting its business profits ahead of the future of the planet.

Despite the machinations of that inherently aberrant industry, it is important to understand that the energy transition is going to happen, and not because we want to be cleaner or more responsible — which unfortunately is rarely the case — but because the technology is superior, both in terms of efficiency and cleanliness, and financially, which trumps everything else in capitalist societies.

Why is it better? Simply because the main technologies involved in the transition, solar panels and batteries, are ruled by economies of scale. Over recent decades, emulating the application of Moore’s Law to chips, the cost of making solar panels and batteries has fallen as more units were manufactured, reaching reductions of more than 99%. Furthermore, solar panels and batteries are now much more efficient than they were a few years ago, as well as much cheaper.

Understanding this is absolutely fundamental, because not only is solar energy by far the cheapest in history, we can now envisage a scenario in which all human activity is powered entirely by renewable sources. There are still many outdated engineers who will deny this as if their lives depended on it: well, they are exactly that, outdated engineers who should be kept away from any decision making (note that I am not quoting press articles, but rigorous and perfectly reviewed scientific studies).

Solar panels are not only economical, but can perform for at least 25 years without significant degradation. Batteries are also more robust, and fewer will be needed than initial estimates to power a renewables-based system. And above all, despite the fossil fuel industry’s lies, we have everything we need to carry out the energy transition: lithium and rare earths are much more abundant than originally estimated; it was simply because they were not considered strategic and we had not looked hard enough. Is it mining, and therefore, potentially harmful? Of course, but everything we mined previously by similar or worse procedures was too, and was never subject to much discussion. Gold and diamonds are quantitatively more harmful than lithium or rare earth mining. And with lithium, moreover, we are not talking about the only technology used in batteries, nor necessarily the most efficient: sodium, one of the most abundant elements on the planet, is emerging as a key element in the evolution of battery chemistry.

Decarbonization, therefore, is being driven not by ideology, but pragmatism: it is not being politicized, as some claim, nor can it be postponed: it is simply a matter of economic logic; a pragmatism that is behind the strong uptake in electric vehicles: not because we want to be cleaner, but because they are simply better than their petrol or diesel predecessors.

The only thing that makes sense today regarding decarbonization is, firstly, to embrace it as desirable and unstoppable, and secondly, to pressure our politicians so they make it their highest priority instead of simply using it to give a splash of color (green) to their programs. We have to stop talking about it as “desirable” or “palatable”, and force any party that aspires to office to put it at the top of its list of things to do. It is the only option we have as a society.

(En español, aquí)

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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