written 27 November 2022
published 4 December 2022
Last Spring, atmospheric CO2 concentration hit 421 parts per million, the highest in human history and a 50 percent increase from preindustrial levels. Paleo geologists tell us that the last time the Earth had that concentration was 4 million years ago, and the sea level was 30'-60' higher. The elevation of San Francisco airport is 10', and Sacramento is 17'.
The atmospheric carbon increase has been so rapid that sea levels are lagging far behind, currently estimated to be only a foot higher by 2050. The global temperature has already increase 1.2°C since burning fossil fuels began, but half of the carbon dioxide increase happened in just the last 30 years. Temperatures are lagging behind by about 15 years, which means 1.6°C is already guaranteed. Furthermore, we are still adding massive amounts of carbon dioxide every year.
The good news is that yearly increases have peaked and are slowly declining. So much has been invested in renewable power production and storage technology that the prices have plummeted in the last 20 years. Solar plus storage is now cheaper to install than operating an existing natural gas plant, while providing fixed power costs for decades. Electric cars are now a serious transportation alternative. The increasing impact of climate amplified weather disaster is getting everyone's attention, including the financial community, although some people still doubt the cause is manmade. The fire season in five of the last six years has definitely changed the conversation in California.
While effective national and global action is still inadequate, climate scientists are more hopeful that humanity can avoid the disastrous temperature extremes (increases of 4°C-5°C) that seemed inevitable even a few years ago. That kind of an increase would rapidly destroy every economy on the planet, and risk adding humans to the growing list of extinct species.
However, to avoid that disaster, we must stop adding any more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and begin aggressively removing what we have already put there. We have to electrify everything as quickly as possible, ideally within 20 years. This has to be done globally, because the reality of the world, especially as manifested by the climate crisis, is connected, unified, and not exclusive in any fundamental manner.
But even that best future will take time and will increase temperatures to an estimated 2°C or so, about double our current heat, causing significant climatic damage and social disruption. Such a rapid and complete change of the global economic will require an unprecedented degree of social cohesion and financial investment, and be resisted by the massive status quo inertia of vested interests. But every year, more people see that the current system is doomed, bankrupt not only by the structural inequities and the climate problem, but by the global exhaustion of affordable fossil fuels.
Putting aside, for a moment, the question of political cohesion, the technical challenges are also daunting.
In the US, the energy budget is roughly 1/5 for generating electricity, 2/5 for transportation, and 2/5 for heating and manufacturing. Electric transportation is 3 times more energy efficient than internal combustion propulsion, as is heat pump technology, where heat is simply moved rather than created. This still means that we have to shift all electrical production away from burning fossil fuels, and then almost triple the amount produced. Toward that goal, California recently told their electrical utilities they must increase peak power production from 60 gigawatts to 150 gigawatts, in order to power this transformation.
The current electrical grid is already strained keeping up with existing loads, requiring new ways of thinking about handling the increased power. For the last century the grid has operated by producing and shipping power only as it is needed. Now we must collect power when it is available and store it until it is needed. Instead of grid capacity limiting local power development, like a congested freeway at rush hour, distributed storage will be required to preposition power for maximum grid utilization. Building distributed production of power, near where it is needed, will also reduce grid congestion.
Despite the difficulty of making this transition, the alternatives of denial or despair are not productive. While we still live, we have possibilities. Are we too stuck in past stories, too selfish and frightened of change, to even make the effort? The time of possibility is now.
