Lessons from technology development for energy and sustainability
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REVIEW Lessons from technology development for energy and sustainability
M.J. Kelly, Electrical Engineering Division, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FA, UK Address all correspondence to M.J. Kelly at [email protected] (Received 5 January 2015; accepted 16 November 2015)
ABSTRACT There are lessons from recent history of technology introductions which should not be forgotten when considering alternative energy technologies for carbon dioxide emission reductions. The growth of the ecological footprint of a human population about to increase from 7B now to 9B in 2050 raises serious concerns about how to live both more efficiently and with less permanent impacts on the finite world. One present focus is the future of our climate, where the level of concern has prompted actions across the world in mitigation of the emissions of CO2. An examination of successful and failed introductions of technology over the last 200 years generates several lessons that should be kept in mind as we proceed to 80% decarbonize the world economy by 2050. I will argue that all the actions taken together until now to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide will not achieve a serious reduction, and in some cases, they will actually make matters worse. In practice, the scale and the different specific engineering challenges of the decarbonization project are without precedent in human history. This means that any new technology introductions need to be able to meet the huge implied capabilities. An altogether more sophisticated public debate is urgently needed on appropriate actions that (i) considers the full range of threats to humanity, and (ii) weighs more carefully both the upsides and downsides of taking any action, and of not taking that action. Keywords: energy generation; environment; government policy and funding; environmentally benign
DISCUSSION POINTS • Only fossil fuels and nuclear fuels have the ability to power megacities in 2050, when over half of the then 9B people will live in them. • As the more severe predictions of climate change over the last 25 years are simply not happening, it makes no sense to deploy the more costly options for renewable energy. • Abandoned infrastructure projects (such as derelict wind and solar farms in the Mojave desert) remain to have their progenitors mocked for decades.
Introduction The present debate concerning the finite capacity of the earth to support humanity can be traced back to the Rev Thomas Robert Malthus FRS1 who in his 1798 paper “An Essay on the Principle of Population” stated “The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the
human race.” He started a widespread debate at the time as recorded by Mayhew.2 Malthus prompted a response, with which I have considerable sympathy, from the 1st Baron Macaulay FRS in 1830:3 “On what principle is it that, when we look we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration befo
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