His piece on China about being the energy hub was interesting. I always get amazed how much China has progressed being the world's manufacturer. China and India have similar number of humans and land but China is really moving its GDP.
Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies
41–49 of 49 posts
Re: Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's actually a really good idea in there. After transport, building materials are a large energy consumer. Coming up with alternatives to concrete, steel, aluminium, and similar materials, possibly though biologics, whether low-tech like wood, or self-forming biocrete and biobrick. Paving, especially.
People are working on it eg. http://woodforgood.com/sustainability/build-with-carbon and a TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_green_why_we_should_build_...
I'm aware of that (and pointed to a few examples myself).
What I'm pointing out is that energy is a means to some service goal, and in the case of construction, alternate means to ends may well obviate much the need for new energy supplies.
Or taking an alternate formulation: rather than tap energy and convert and store and transform it multiple times to accomplish some goal, employ biological means to achieve the same end with far fewer (loss-entailing) energy transforms.
Trees, plants, algae, and/or microbes, operating over a large area, accomplish a very large net throughput. The questions are whether we can manage that, what outputs are possible, at what rates, and what subsequent changes in capabilities result. I suspect no biologic will have, say, the capabilities of steel. If we're limited to masonry or ceramic-based structures, the age of the 100-storey supertower is gone, but there are a many 10-20 storey towers which might be possible, resulting in high urban densities, if that's what we want.
Re: Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies
#43I see some interesting points raised here, though I also have some fundamental disagreements. Putting those first: what we need isn't more time, or an energy miracle. It's to embrace limits, the fundamental limits of Earth's carrying capacity, and how many people, of a given material affluence, can be supported. This is a question I've been looking at for the past several years, or more accurately, I've spent much of…
I think you missed his point. The earth's carrying capacity for atmospheric co2 has already been exceeded to the point where we have to achieve zero net carbon emissions. Under that assumption, a carbon tax that is not effectively an outright ban is pointless. Also, he does advocate in the article for carbon neutral liquid hydrocarbon fuel production as one possibility although his point is more general.
No, I agree regarding CO2. I think it's also only one of multiple global binding constraints we're encountering, though possibly the greatest.
My point is that in achieving the goal of zero or negative net carbon emissions, changing the economic price structure which allows carbon emissions may prove to be an effective tool. It's not that the market solves all problems (something with which I strongly disagree), or that an unregulated market is the only option (a view I reject absolutely as absolutely false, blatantly ahistorical, and a complete misrepresentation of market theory). But markets are powerful.
At a sufficiently high level, and in the case of a carbon tax, that's likely to be exceedingly painful, the option to emit simply doesn't exist.
Bake that price structure, through both depletion amortisation (a much stronger update to Hotelling's Rule, which was based on multiple false premises), and an at-the-source sequestered carbon introduction tax, at all levels of international banking, finance, and trade, and you make it a money-losing proposition to mine coal, pump petroleum, or drill natural gas, anywhere.
When I say that the taxes would be painful, I mean increasing costs not by a few percent, but by orders of magnitude. That's going to be heavily traumatic -- it's a large part of what's exploded social unrest across the Middle East in the past five years, and is in the process of tearing Venezuela to shreds. Saudi Arabia and Russia are likely next on the block even if only present trends continue.
So yes: the carbon tax would be an outright ban, though it might take some time (~10-20 years) to fully reach that stage. I'd prefer faster. Hell, I'd prefer we'd taken this approach in 1960 when the consequences were first becoming apparent.
Infrastructure and capital take time to replace. We're looking at rebuilding an airplane in flight. I'm not at all sanguine that we'll succeed.
And: if we do address the CO2 problem, there remain numerous others, most reducing to total population and absolute average wealth (which is to say, resource consumption). Which are likely to destroy what we call modern civilisation even if we do manage the carbon crisis.
Re: Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies
#44For carbon, why can't we just find a big hole and start dumping corn in?
There are actually proposals to do something like that, however it's more likely to be wood, not corn. But this has all kinds of potential issues. The likely biggest one is that whatever you want to bury needs to be grown somewhere. It needs space where things can grow, that means space and soil that can't be used otherwise to grow food. If you cut down existing trees you're likely causing more emissions than you bur…
Fresh Kills landfill could hold about 3 gigatons of biochar at 1.5 g/cm3, assuming an average depth is 100 m. So we need 300 of those.
There are some deep canyons in the Rockies where there are very high bridges and little meaningful waterway below. I'll bet you could fit a lot more than 1 Fresh Kills in some of them.
Coal trains run those tracks. American coal cars empty from the bottom. When the coal trains are empty in Wisconsin, Chicago, etc, they have to go back to the mines anyway. They can dump the biochar in a ravine en route. just need to remove a few ties and install the coal emptier.
Wood or coal, the corn trains and timber trains deliver to similar places. Build biomass energy facilities in those rail transportation hubs. Omaha, Kansas City, Fargo, the Twin Cities.
Of course it would make more sense to just leave the coal in the ground. But humans don't do well with static equilibrium.
And you can add it to the food price: this hamburger was made from stover-fed beef. And twice the animal's feedstock in biomass was burned in biomass plants, and the biochar was sequestered.
Omaha Steaks could sell 2x, 3x, 4x, and 10x beef.
It'll raise the price of beef.
Re: Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a far better idea to dump the carbon in after it has been used for it's energy and is bound up in a more stable configuration, ie biochar (a.k.a. terra preta or low temp charcoal). Biochar is stable in the soil for thousands of years, and provides a matrix on which soil organisms can thrive. There are also some indications that the biochar induces greater plant growth because the residual bio-oils and aromatic h…
Biochar is also alkaline. Why not dump it in the sea? Then we get a two-fer: capturing carbon and de-acidifying the ocean.
Plenty of empty tankers leaving US shores, I'm sure the captains wouldn't mind having a heavier ship, and it shouldn't hurt the fuel efficiency much at all. But, mechanically, how to empty it into the sea? Put conveyers on deck and dump it over the side as you go?
Re: Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies
#46For carbon, why can't we just find a big hole and start dumping corn in?
To an extent, that actually works to sequester carbon, but it's not clear that it's the most cost-effective way to do it. Nor would people be OK with the perceived waste.
Just use the stover. And slaughterhouse cities like Omaha and Kansas City and Chicago also import their fuel and receive timber.
Let's take Omaha. Omaha Steaks could sell carbon-negative beef if the USDA inspectors can certify that 2x the carbon went into biomass energy plants. It would create demand for 3x, 4x, and 10x beef.
Re: Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you missed his point. The earth's carrying capacity for atmospheric co2 has already been exceeded to the point where we have to achieve zero net carbon emissions. Under that assumption, a carbon tax that is not effectively an outright ban is pointless. Also, he does advocate in the article for carbon neutral liquid hydrocarbon fuel production as one possibility although his point is more general.
No, I agree regarding CO2. I think it's also only one of multiple global binding constraints we're encountering, though possibly the greatest. My point is that in achieving the goal of zero or negative net carbon emissions , changing the economic price structure which allows carbon emissions may prove to be an effective tool. It's not that the market solves all problems (something with which I strongly disagree), or…
Got it. What do you see as our next existential threat? AI and asteroids don't really fit this discussion...
Re: Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Biochar is also alkaline. Why not dump it in the sea? Then we get a two-fer: capturing carbon and de-acidifying the ocean.
Plenty of empty tankers leaving US shores, I'm sure the captains wouldn't mind having a heavier ship, and it shouldn't hurt the fuel efficiency much at all. But, mechanically, how to empty it into the sea? Put conveyers on deck and dump it over the side as you go?
Or pump it in and out as a slurry. That's typically the most convenient way to handle granular solids.
Re: Q&A: Bill Gates on investments in energy technologies
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I agree regarding CO2. I think it's also only one of multiple global binding constraints we're encountering, though possibly the greatest. My point is that in achieving the goal of zero or negative net carbon emissions , changing the economic price structure which allows carbon emissions may prove to be an effective tool. It's not that the market solves all problems (something with which I strongly disagree), or…
Got it. What do you see as our next existential threat? AI and asteroids don't really fit this discussion...
Us.