Response to
The Role of New Technologies in a Sustainable Energy Economy
Little debate remains- human civilization is in the midst of a potentially catastrophic energy crisis. This requires not only immediate and focused action, but also consideration of environmental and social issues. I applaud the recent efforts of MIT in facilitating a discussion to this end and making it available to the public. Their guests, Daniel Nocera and Angela Belcher, made clear the problems facing our environment and our ever-increasing energy demands. What is not apparent are the answers, and the clock is ticking. Gathering the country’s best minds together to reflect on these challenges is exactly the type of forward thinking that this era in history requires. For the first time ever, our engineers, inventors and venture capitalists will have to create technologies not to address the problems of today, but the needs of a global population many years in the future. We must cease our negligent, contemporary thinking and immediately focus on how our actions have and will affect the future inhabitants of this planet.
As a scientist I have seen the power and speed with which technology can move, and thus I am incredibly optimistic regarding the potential for new technologies to solve the energy crisis. Belcher revealed insightful ideas regarding the manufacturing of products such as batteries and solar cells using genetically engineered microorganisms. We must continue to look to nature for answers; clearly there are billions of organisms that have managed to utilize solar energy far more efficiently than we can artificially manage. Additionally, if Belcher’s theories are realized, this would enable a more communal style of living. If products are grown where they are needed, this will eliminate the wasteful transportation of goods around the globe.
However, as a global citizen, I must remain a realist regarding the actual potency of the ideas described. All of these potential technologies must be made attractive to the consumer. We really only saw a legitimate leap in hybrid vehicle development and sales when oil prices soared and ethanol became subsidized. As Nocera suggests, the technologies of the future must be “economically viable.” If there is anything the destruction of our environment shows us, it is that clearly not everyone is committed to conservation. Thus, a real sustainable future will only be realized if it is accompanied by economic growth. Some of Belchers ideas may accomplish this. The mass production of products, potentially even plastics, which could be accomplished on a smaller scale, at lower temperatures, would certainly be attractive to the consumer. Additionally, Nocera’s theories on making “the sun the final energy source” not only align with a scientific reality, they make fiscal sense. After all, the sun does not charge by the hour.
And yet, there seems to be a larger problem than what Nocera and Belcher address. If, as Nocera projects, we will require 30 terawatts of energy by 2050, then to me the question is not how to supply this energy, but rather, how do we lower energy demands? His logic eventually leads to a world where our energy demands outlast even the most efficient of our hypothetical energy sources. Furthermore, if there really are 9 billion people on this earth in 2050, then our energy and environmental problems will have gone beyond the realms of science. Nocera said he refuses to touch the area of social reform, but it seems clear that this is what is required. Science and innovation can only take us so far, eventually the future will require a drastic and potentially abrupt change in nearly everyone’s way of life. Nocera details the causal relationship between energy use and GDP, and to me this seems to be the greatest evil. How can we reduce energy needs without addressing the exponential growth of the global population? How can we form new technologies to provide sustainable energy without first finding means to efficiently conserve and reduce the energy we already use? Again, I applaud these discussions and reemphasize their need, but at some point we must move beyond theory and become committed to widespread, social, cultural and scientific change.
March 6, 2009 at 1:46 am
I think you make a great point here about controlling population pressures. I just listened to a talk by Char Miller, a prominent environmental historian, and someone asked him when the US will start talking about controlling its population. His reply – never. This country is becoming bogged down in political correctness, and suggesting that we may actually need to restrain ourselves offends many people of many religions. Thus, intelligent, hypothetical policies, such as a two-child variant on China’s oft-maligned law, could do us great good but will never receive a foothold in politics. In this flawed representative system of ours, politicians spend more time campaigning for reelection in the next few years than they do taking a step back and looking at the bigger problems and how to solve them. Dealing with the population is something that could be a half-century project, far too long for someone who needs to get reelected next year. It is simple to say that politicians should put aside their careers and work towards a better future, but we must also face the unfortunate fact that the masses that elect these representatives are quite foolish and short sighted. Visionaries who don’t bring great change to their constituencies in the few short years of their term are cast aside for someone looking for more short term, trivial solutions. Controlling population, is thus out of the government’s hands unless a large movement sweeps through Capitol hill where many people of the same ideology are not afraid to act and pass crucial legislation to reign in explosive population growth. It is also very important to spread education to third world countries that currently have absurdly large growth rates. Studies have shown that a more educated populace tends to be a more slowly expanding populace. Government funded institutions such as the Peace Corps are vital in this effort because these are idealists wanting to bring about great change in the world and change must begin with those who really hunger for it. The population problem is not going to cease overnight, and it’s not the scientist’s job to deal with those pressures. We can only deal with what we have in front of us, and that is the unfortunate reality that populations will continue to explode.
March 6, 2009 at 2:55 am
You brought up a very good point about the economic viability of any energy solution. However, your analysis focused mainly on the longer range term. Given our current understanding and technology, I ask: how can we implement an energy solution today that promotes the growth of our economy? While research on and funding for alternative energy is part of a long range plan, what is the best course of action to pursue today? If you were a politician, what would be the most important measures to pass?
While ignoring the energy crisis today could be very costly for future generations, implementing large scale energy projects could be damaging for current generations and also future generations through the loss in economic productivity. At today’s prices, many solar projects are 10 times as expensive as coal and oil plants. While many argue this money goes to help further improve the technology, most of it falls in the hands of wealthy investors. The money that is “reinvested” usually finds its way to the business side of development, finding cheaper ways to obtain materials and machines, not to actually develop the solar cell. In this sense, an “investment” in today’s technology may simply be a waste of money.
But clearly we need to do something. Because almost all of the blog posts lacked specifics for what to do today (besides more $ for research), I am asking: what do people believe are the best ways to begin working on a solution on the supply/production side? Are California’s laws on renewable energy for power production a good model that should be used across the country?
March 7, 2009 at 9:54 pm
This is a reply to narayant715′s post. Talking about creating a government enforced “birth-cap” as a means of curbing population growth in the United States is kind of a non-relevant discussion. The United States already has relatively low birth rates, and our population growth is actually a result of immigration. Without the influx of immigrants into America, our population would become stagnant or even shrink. Population decline is actually a very major problem in a lot of post industrial nations because the pool of people supporting the elderly and the economy shrinks, which results in a lot of problems. So, putting regulations on the number of children allowed in the US would not have that big an effect on our population growth. Furthermore, though exponential population growth is something we should avoid, we should also be wary of the many hazards of population stagnation.
March 7, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I don’t think Nocera ignores the fact that social reforms will be necessary to meet the world’s energy demands. This piece mentions that Nocera makes his calculations based on a world energy demand of 30 terrawatts by the year 2050, and then responds that rather than attempting to reach that number, we should lower it. However, the value of 30 terrawatts is based upon the assumption that everyone in the world will be using the amount of energy that someone in New Guinea does currently. Nocera’s calculations acknowledge that a huge reduction in industrialized nations’ per capita energy demands will have to occur for modern technologies to even have the possibility of meeting the energy need. Nocera doesn’t focus on methods on how to reduce this demand, whether through social reform or technological revolution, because that’s not his area of research. That doesn’t mean he does not realize the importance of reducing demand. But whether demand is reduced or not, we will still be in crisis, and thus Nocera’s work is relavent in trying to address that issue.