It is not a matter of simply switching from Fossil Fuels to an energy source that does not emit GHG. For a start these zero-emission technologies are more expensive than FF and secondly we just do not have the capability to give humanity the energy it is accustomed to from carbon-free sources.

The alternative is that we massively slash our energy consumption. In some scenarios this may be fairly easy to do but overall using less energy is likely to completely change the way most people live, how and where they travel, what they eat, who they work for and how much they can save.

These are some pretty heavy suggestions to be putting to an electorate and not many people are going to vote for those kinds of changes until the water is literally coming up their drive (maybe sooner than you think).

Australia is a comfortable middle-class society. IMHO climate change will have to wipe out most of this middle class (either physically or financially) before we see an emission abatement policy with any real teeth emerge.

I’ve loved this discussion, I think it really needs to happen. Great idea to continue it over a drink, might be easier to better convey the details. Looking forward to it!

Thanks all, talk soon.

Finally a sensible idea.

Some pretty drastic changes are required to the way we live in order to solve this issue, lets not forget that governments must get elected…if people are not willing to embrace these changes, develop the skills and knowledge to convert to alternative technologies then they are doomed from the outset.

I think that this discussion needs to be resolved through that one great engineering tradition that we can all agree on…the drinking of beer, its a great mediator.

Time and date to be advised…

So what sort of radical steps would you propose to make the transition towards zero emissions? I would agree with you to a certain extent that most of the renewable technologies would be able to put up with the fossil fuel economy once the subsidies are stopped. But, there are lot of infrastructure and material requirements/demand that would make the renewable more capital intensive once the total shift towards the zero emission economy is made radically.

Think about this. Lets ignore the economics totally. Lets assume Australian government is ready to spend any amount of money in renewables!!! If Australia decides to go emissions free in a month’s time – and if all the power required is to be provided by solar PV – do you think we would be able to get such a mass amount of solar panels – given the scarcity for silicon ? If the whole power required is to be produced by wind mills – do you think we would be able to construct successful wind farms with good wind resource/efficiency and without any objections from the neighbours in such a short time ? If we are to go hydrogen all the way – do we have the infrastructure to make the production of hydrogen feasible ? do we have a mass storage option for hydrogen ? is the public really confident about hydrogen as a fuel???

I would say, the answer to all these questions relies heavily on engineers and more often than not, even political decisions are driven by cheap economics and technical feasibility. Why do you think the government is backing the Coal industry and the fossil fuel industry as a whole? The cheap economics have been proven and the technical feasibility is proven too through all these decades. I would say that the renewable would have had a higher position on the governement agenda, if the coal mining and handling involved higher cost and greater technical difficulties.

Hence the way I think/look forward is through greater technical prowess in renewable industry – fall of cost of renewable technology/material – powerful/knowledgable politicians who can take these technologies forward.

All this has to happen in the next 5 to 10 years….if we are really looking forward towards a zero – emission society atleast by 2050. Until then, I would not rule out the role of fossil fuel……It would be interesting to see how the fossil fuels are getting pushed out of the energy mix…there is no doubt that it has to be sooner than later.

If you want to see an example of countries that have slashed GHG emissions to zero overnight look at Burma or Zimbabwe.

If you think we are not locked into a Fossil Fuel economy you should take a harder look around you. The city you live in, the supply chain that feeds you, the plastic in the keyboard you type on and the electricity that powers your screen are all fossil fuel derived. Some of these may be able to be replaced by renewables but not all.

This is the status quo and the price of oil permeates every single aspect of our lives. It is not out of habit but how the global economy is arranged. Oil enables the globalisation that has been occurring for the last 20-odd years. I am not saying that this is right or we necessarily have to accept and plan for a future like this but we must realise it is where we are right now and plan with that in mind.

To come back to your point about our need to implement zero emissions technology. Regarding our current approach, I would be interested to hear how you would change it. Personally I do not think it is useful to aim for zero emissions across the board without having government, society and industry all solidly behind the concept. This does not look like occurring anytime soon so I owuld recommend we move to emission free technology with staionary energy and try and increase efficiencies with transport. The en-masse adoption of diesel electric hybrids for transport would probably be the way to go. I can not see society at large willingly giving up the freedom of movement it currently has but to switch stationary energy to zero-emissions would be different as its more pure economic and less of a lifestyle cost.

Christian, I would argue that the world economy is driven by access to energy, not fossil fuels. The changes in Germany and Denmark over a time of less than ten years are good examples of how low emission policies can drive healthy economies without rewriting the economic context. They just need to step up the timeframe and scale.

I find a comment such as “We are firmly locked into a FF economy” as quite dangerous. I think we are limiting our perspective of the world by accepting the status quo out of habit. Just because we are raised in an era of FF doesn’t mean they are our future. And if we want any chance of averting dangerous CC, FF can’t be our future.

Iain, I agree there are difficulties within certain sectors regarding zero emission pathways. Transport is one, agriculture another. Yet my response again comes back to the issue of responsible goal setting. If there is a necessary goal, set a suitable target. If there are steps along the way that are difficult, work them out as you go. Don’t rule out the target beforehand because one of the steps seems difficult at the time.

To come back to Iain’s point that engineering is concerned with problem solving. We have a significant problem with AGW. I would argue we are not solving the problem with our current approach. Therefore we should change this approach to something more practical. We should either aim to keep the temperature rise below 1.5C to avert dangerous climate change (keeping GHG levels below 400 CO2e), or we just ignore the whole issue. To aim somewhere in the middle is meaningless.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your responses.

See you soon.

To give some context I think Rob is responding to Andrea’s comments in Energy Proposals. Andrea was of the opinion that to achieve something worthwhile you need to narrow your topic to a very specific question. Another way of viewing this is that Engineering is concerned with problem solving. Usually this is done by breaking a problem down into small components which are much easier to solve than the original larger problem. Possibly in humanities subjects you tend to deal with big picture issues, whereas in engineering you get down to the nuts and bolts of how something works (I apologise if this is a generalisation).

To give an example have a quick read of the history of PV cells:

http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Solar/photo-hist.htm

So getting to the point where we have a product that people can stick on their roofs has been the culmination of many different highly focused research projects.

I agree with Christian that there is no silver bullet. Rob, you say that we already have the technologies available for emission free energy. I think there are still some serious gaps especially in the area of transport. Currently many technologies are only viable if we totally ignore economics, but is that really possible? For example we have seen that widespread use of windfarms in Australia will require massive changes to our grid infrastructure.

So yes I agree that it is criminal that the FF industry is heavily subsidised by government, and I believe that if a carbon cost were introduced it would change the picture significantly. But there are still many serious political, economic and technical challenges to overcome.

Something to bear in mind, there is nothing stopping Australians signing up to green power right now. How many people do it? At some point we are all going to have to pay a lot more for energy. At this stage it is voluntary, but it may have to become mandatory to achieve serious cuts in emissions.

One final thing. The time when you are studying is one of the few periods when you have the opportunity to research areas of interest in some depth. There is a certain academic freedom that allows us to pursue intellectual ideas and see where it takes us. The value of this should not be underestimated. There is plenty of time for pragmatism once we are all out in the real world.

Iain.

It is very difficult, if not imposible, to remove FF energy without dramatically raising the cost of everything and completely rewriting the economic context. Whether you do this by slashing subsidies, implementing a carbon tax or some other means doesn’t matter. The net result is the price of energy will go up because renewable energy is more expensive than FF.

Rather than just sticking a well in the ground through which we can get billions of joules of energy at very low cost we have to construct (for example) x amount of windmills that each have a maximum power output of y which is then transformed (at an energy loss) to useful work. To raise capacity we then have to build more windmills. Meanwhile that oil field just keeps gushing.

I am not a good enough economist to explain what the repercussions of a global changeover to zero emission energy supplies will do but I would assume profound economic implications. Businesses that were once profitable would no longer be and the economic order would be readjusted somewhat. Gail over at the oil drum is doing a series of posts regarding the financial impact of peak oil that also gives a good overview of what portion of our economy is driven by use of Fossil energy:

” [the] declining real cost of energy, particularly electricity, and the rising use of the much cheaper electricity, fed economic growth in the 1900 to 1998 period”

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2977#more

Whilst I agree that goals should be set in dealing with AGW I think your idea that we are focusing too closely on niche applications and tiny pockets of ideas fails to acknowledge that there is no silver bullet for dealing with carbon emissions. If we need to set a goal we should plan to be diverse as possible. The world will need wind turbines, PV, CSP, Geo, biofuels, wave, tidal, hydro and probably nuclear as well to even begin to replace our current energy needs.

Iain,

That looks interesting about the Pope. I found this story also about the green movement in the US Christian right http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1491-2005Feb5_2.html