Optimistic Storm E-Book

Hugh Butler

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Innovation
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 541

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

A young sub-Saharan woman, with a child slung on her back and three others at her side, dreads going out into the blazing sun to walk 5 km to gather some wood to cook for her refugee family. And 800 million like her.

Climate Change Can be Stopped

We’ve failed to accept the terrifying consequences of climate change for fellow citizens, young and old, rich and poor. Experts say we face a global recession comparable to the Great Depression of 1929, but forever.
Asking the wealthy to change and experience austerity is naive. Focusing on doom and gloom will not lead to a change.

Change in Energy

The fourth era of energy started in the 1950s with the invention of the first practical solar panel, and today, in the 2020s, we stand at the cusp of a transformative new century in energy and transport.
We’ve relied on molecule-based energy, but now, we move to unlimited and free electron-based energy. Energy is no longer fuel but technology.
In contrast to climate doomer narratives with little hope of stopping global emissions or the deliberate action of climate deniers, we will explore how far we have moved to a zero-emission future that turns geopolitics on its head. Local energy takes back sovereignty and control from fossil fuel-rich countries and from corporations to individuals.

Change in Transport

The energy change will change transport. Along with artificial intelligence and human ingenuity, transport will change from being individually owned to “personalised public transport”.
We will end our dependence on exploitive mineral extraction of Earth resources, and that young woman and her family will be lifted from poverty to abundance.

Optimism

We are optimistic. Explore how we have a future of prosperity and sustainability. We have it for the taking if we realise the promise of human ingenuity and take control of our destiny.

Leseprobe

Optimistic Storm:A Future Powered by Ingenuity

Part 1 End the Fossil Fuel Era

Like a tsunami, the wave has travelled across the ocean, and it is now breaking on the shore.

Dr Hugh Butler

ISBN13: 978-0-9941-7333-1 Paperback

(ISBN13 978-0-9941733-2-4 E-book)

Structure of Book

When you go to a doctor, they do not see you as a stick figure. No, the doctor is well aware you have 30 billion cells, 40 billion microbiota, and they are all connected as a system. So too, technologies, ideas and chapters are interconnected to multiple chapters. The end of the fossil fuel era is about renewable energy, batteries, transportation, AI and climate change. Electricity is core to this discussion, as for the first time since humans walked on the earth, we no longer need to burn rocks. AI is already transforming transport, agriculture, food, health and health and that is for Part 2.

Fig: 1 Outline of book Part 1 and Part 2

The glossary, copyright, dedications and sections are at the end of the book. Dive right in.

Table Of Contents

Section 1: Urgency and Challenges

1.​Urgency and Challenge

2.​Prosperity Not Austerity Drives Changes

3.​Five Disruptions

4.​Renewable Energy

5.​Transportation

6.​Labour

7.​Health Care

8.​Food and Agriculture

9.​Conclusion Urgency and Challenges

Section 2: Climate Change

10.​Climate Change Introduction

11.​Climate Changes Our World

12.​Carbon Emissions

13.​Methane Emissions

14.​Impacts of Climate Change

15.​Economic Impacts

16.​Tipping Points

17.​Funding Emissions

18.​Rebuilding Our House

19.​Conclusion Climate Change

Section 3: Disruption

20.​Understanding Disruption

21.​Prediction Versus Forecasts

22.​Politics and Belief Systems

23.​Don’t Believe Headlines

24.​Conclusion Disruption

Section 4: Renewable Energy

25.​Renewable Energy Introduction

26.​Pessimists vs Optimists

27.​1. Stop Burning Rocks

28.​2. Molecular-Energy to Electron-Energy.

29.​3. Localisation of Electricity Generation

30.​Energy Markets

31.​Rise of Renewable Energy

32.​100 Per cent Renewable Energy

33.​Grids - Transmission & Distribution

34.​Cost of Renewable Energy Transition

35.​Solar Panels

36.​Riding the Wind

37.​Hydroelectric

38.​Harnessing Tides and Waves

39.​Geothermal Energy

40.​Nuclear

41.​Hydrogen

42.​How Clean is Clean

43.​Speeding up Renewable Energy

44.​Phasing Out Fossil Fuel

45.​Phasing Out of Oil

46.​How Much Electricity?

47.​How Much Land for Renewable Energy

48.​Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

49.​Enough Manufacturing for RE?

50.​Conclusion Renewable Energy

Section 5: Batteries

51.​Battery Revolution

52.​Remarkable Rise of Batteries

53.​Eight Battery Properties

54.​Grid Electricity

55.​Hydropower and Pumped Hydro

56.​Vehicle to X Batteries

57.​How Many Batteries?

58.​Conclusion Batteries

Section 6: Energy Use

59.​Energy Efficiency

60.​Heat Pumps and Air Conditioning

61.​Heating Water

62.​Cooking

63.​Household Economics

64.​Conversion Gas to Electricity

65.​Energy Poverty

66.​Conclusion Energy Efficiency

Section 7: Transportation

67.​Transport Disruption

68.​Electric Cars

69.​Electric Trucks

70.​Electric Trains

71.​Electric Planes

72.​Electric Ships

73.​Space Travel

74.​Personal Public Transport

75.​Conclusion of Transportation

Section 8: End of Fossil Fuel Era

76.​Despair and Optimism

77.​The End of the Fossil Fuel Era

78.​Do We Need a Weather Crisis?

79.​Stop Emitting

80.​Companies Supporting Disruption

81.​Practical Steps for Disruption

82.​Government's Response

83.​Personal Response

84.​Restoration

Appendices

Glossary

Outrage and Optimism

Dedication

Copyright

Disclaimer

Limitations on Information

Section 1: Urgency and Challenges

1.       Urgency and Challenge

A young sub-Saharan woman, with a child slung on her back and two others at her side, dreads going out into the blazing sun to walk 5 km to gather some wood to cook for her family. Another 800 million people like her are energy impoverished. What she doesn’t understand is that the drought that made her one of 30 million climate refugees is just the beginning. This isn't just about her - it's about all of us. We’ve failed to accept the terrifying consequences of climate change for fellow citizens, young and old, rich and poor. The richest billion, controlling 71% of global resources, mistakenly think they’re immune. Yet, they, too, are heading towards a global recession potentially dwarfing the Great Depression. But forever.

Asking for austerity is unrealistic, and merely focusing on doom is ineffective. The fossil fuel industry, dominated by the 100 companies responsible for 71% of emissions, won't change for austerity but continue to post record profits, condoning suffering. People everywhere change only with prosperity, not austerity.

So, what if I told you a different story? What if we embraced a narrative of hope and possibility instead of succumbing to pessimism?

That woman, whom we shall call Ada, a Nigerian name for “first daughter” and a billion others, live in acute poverty with just 1% of the world's resources. “Tracey”, a middle-class, middle-aged woman who could be in any Western country, is looking at how she will pay her property insurance bill, which has just increased another 15% and trebled in the past decade. Tracey is an example of a billion “wealthier” cohort who owns and uses 71% of the world’s resources. Note that within this wealthy cohort, just 1% own 43% of global financial assets. The remaining six billion share in the remaining 18% of resources. Most people don’t understand the consequences of climate change or ingenuity, nor do they have the optimism for the future. My optimism stems from advances in health, food and labour discussed in my Part 2 book, which focuses on the less advantaged. But in this Part 1 book, my optimism stems from understanding how our fourth energy era disruption takes shape and provides prosperity to all.

Our first energy era began with the domestication of horses 6,800 years ago. The second, from 1750, saw coal powering steam engines and by the 1800s to industrial exploitation and transport by rail and ships. The commercialisation of oil led to the third era starting in 1860, and by 1900, Edison, Ford and the Wright Bros accelerated the transition to electricity and modern transport. This fourth era of energy started in the 1950s with the invention of the first practical solar panel, and today, in the 2020s, we stand at the cusp of a transformative new century in energy and transport.

Yet many behave with disbelief and resistance, like the horse owners did in the 1800s or 1900s. For the past million years, we have “burned rocks”, wood, peat, coal, gas and petroleum. We’ve relied on molecular-energy, but now, we move to unlimited and free electron-electricity.

Energy is no longer fuel but technology.

This transition will benefit everyone, from Ada to Tracey. We're all set to experience severe climate impacts due to past inaction, but we have the means to mitigate and adapt, ensuring a prosperous, sustainable future.

Pessimism

There I sat, listening to Professor Jem Bendall’s book launch at the Ubud Writers Festival, where he introduced me to a new world of “climate doomers.” We all know about climate deniers and climate change delayers, but doomers? Doomers look at the climate data that each year brings new records, heat waves, and anxieties about the future. Headlines scream of impending doom, painting a picture of a world ravaged by climate change, where rising seas swallow coastlines and extreme weather events become commonplace. Doomers prediction is that by 2030, climate disasters will be all around the globe. Crop failures in multiple locations will lead to widespread famines that won't just affect those “normal” famine areas, but the Western world as well. This perspective is shared by many, as evidenced by the book’s enthusiastic reception and the formation of a local doomer community in Bali, where some doomers head off to idyllic tropical eco farms to avoid the impending climate crisis. Not me.

Bendell’s Deep Adaptation paper in 2014 concluded climate change was much worse than the sanitised “group think” of IPCC reports. That paper formed the basis of Extinction Rebellion - you would know them for gluing themselves to roads, on coal trains, or throwing tomato soup over paintings. Singularly focused on stopping the burning of fossil fuels. Other protest movements have sprung up to stop the fossil fuel industry. Was Bendell’s interpretation of climate change so different to mine? If it were just climate, that would be bad enough, but we can see the impacts of humans all around us. Another book launched in Ubud by author John Pabon, “The Great Greenwashing”, focused on how brands, governments and influences lie to us. Some companies say they are taking climate change action but do nothing. Or they are making the climate worse. Governments seem incapable of effecting change, so are they in the pockets of companies? Are the greenwashing programs muting the doomers' predictions?

It is not just the doomers; many worldwide are frightened of the future and do not have children. They don’t want to raise a new generation and seem to feel the weight of despair pressing down, a sense of helplessness in the face of such a monumental challenge.

Beyond climate change, a broader environmental crisis unfolds. Half of all marine life, twelve per cent of bird species, and more than 600 land species have vanished. Millions more teeter on the brink of extinction - an unprecedented rate not seen for over ten million years. Human-induced habitat destruction, pollution, and global warming are the primary culprits.

Compounding these challenges is a global water crisis. Over 730 million people lack clean drinking water, over 1 in 10 people on the planet. Two billion (26%) do not have safe drinking water. In Africa and India, nearly a billion women like Ada are in energy poverty, spending 40% of their income on heating, water and cooking. Women, mostly, spend an estimated 200 million hours carrying water daily, walking 6 km daily to haul 15 kg of water. And between 2 and 3 billion experience water shortages for more than a month a year. At the waste end, 3.6b (46%) lack access to safely managed sanitation. 

Humans are driving this extinction crisis through activities that take over animal habitats, pollute nature and fuel global warming. The oceans are in just as bad a way with a pH drop from 7.1 to 7.0, at risk of catastrophic food chain disruption.

And wars! At least 110 conflicts on average every year, although homicides are now over 0.5 M annually, surpassing war deaths. The war in Ukraine has seen over 600,000 dead; Gaza in the Middle East with more than 50,000 dead, and the Sudan civil war with an estimate of 150,000 dead and 25 million in need. [2] Youth crime. Cost of living pressures. Dictators. Human rights abuses. Genocide. It is enough to turn off the news.

Optimism, Not Doom

As I sat there in that Ubud audience, the stark contrast between their worldview and mine became increasingly apparent.

I’m an optimist who believes that humans, faced with a climate crisis, have creativity and incentives to solve whatever problem throws at us. Humans are fantastic at solving problems. Fire to cook food? Domestic animals to do work? Coal for steam trains? Going to the moon; let’s go. Increase crop yields? Develop new varieties for the green revolution. Stop a pandemic? Develop new vaccines. I’d spent my whole life in science and innovation.

I’m a believer in human ingenuity. My decades in science, innovation, and business have taught me that prosperity often fuels transformative change. While some may succumb to despair, or retreat to the foothills of Bali, I've chosen a different path. My previous book on dietary and lifestyle change gave me a taste of writing, but this would be more of a challenge with the complexity and the global impact of these remarkable changes to society. This pessimism made me angry.

Their books inspired me to write my own book. About optimism. About human ingenuity. Not to focus on doom and gloom but to celebrate the extraordinary capacity of humans to overcome adversity. A book of optimism.

We often overlook the resilience of past civilisations . While climate change and political upheaval contributed to their decline, many previous societal collapses such as the Harappan civilisation, Mayan or Easter Island that vanished almost without trace took decades or centuries. We don’t know how long it took for the huge collapse in the mid-Pleistocene (813,00 to 930,000 years ago), when 99% were wiped out. The population collapsed down to about 1,280 say the geneticists. So, the idea of a rapid, catastrophic event within a few decades as defined by doomers is concerning, especially when you consider the number of nuclear bombs, so it not an entirely unprecedented, scenario.

In contrast to climate doomer narratives with little hope of stopping global emissions or the deliberate action of climate deniers, we will explore how far we have moved to a zero-emission future that turns geopolitics on its head. Local energy shifts control from the 16 oil-rich countries to the 179 energy-poor countries, enabling self-sufficiency for all. This change from fossil fuel molecular-energy to electron-electricity will rapidly accelerate transport changes. Artificial intelligence and human ingenuity will turn transport from individually owned to personal public transport and reduce vehicles from 1.4 billion to 400 million or less. Lastly, this fourth era of energy reduces our dependence on exploitive mineral extraction of Earth resources, and enable transitioning those billion people from energy poverty to abundance.

This book is about confronting the very real threats we face, acknowledging the urgency of the situation while simultaneously celebrating the extraordinary power of human innovation. It’s about prosperity for all, rich and poor, not austerity, so let us harness our ingenuity to build a sustainable future.

We Have the Technology

The best thing to do when we are in a hole. Stop digging!

Firstly, we need to stop creating more emissions. Then we can start to reduce the stored emissions. Changes are surprisingly simple. We have existing technologies. The economics are compelling. We have the technology and favourable economics so why are we missing that individual and collective will to change rapidly. Corporations and governments are not prepared to support the changes needed, even though the cost is less than 3% to 4% of GDP for 5 years, which as we will see is less than many countries spend on the military, and much less than the $7 Tn or 7% of GDP spent annually on fossil fuel subsidies.

Most overcomplicated the change needed. Four simple changes switch from molecular-energy from fossil fuel to electron-electricity with zero emissions.

Heating air

Heating water

Heating things (like cement and steel)

Transportation

These 4 simple changes will reduce 80% of emissions but conversely “strand” fossil fuels. (In Part 2, we will see explore the solution to the other 20% and undoing the damage done to Earth). That's the challenge as the fossil fuel industry is fighting tooth and nail to retain. Alex Steffen, a futurist, argues that if we had started in the 1990s to address climate change in an urgent way, an “orderly transition” to a new society in balance with the 21st-century climate could have been achieved. But an orderly transition is no longer possible, thanks to “predatory delay” — the tactics of the fossil fuel industry and their enablers. They could’ve been part of the transformation but they chose not to.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair.

To try to avoid politics and belief systems, we will attempt to present innovation and optimism from 3 perspectives.

Technology

Economics

Politics and belief systems.

Technology assessment is crucial in understanding the real potential of innovation. With countless advancements, it's essential to distinguish between hype and genuine breakthroughs. Does it need decades more development, or can you buy it and use it today? Economic factors, such as system costs, competition, and future trends, play a significant role. Political considerations, including the actions of governments and corporations, can either accelerate or hinder progress.

Predicting future economics and politics is inherently challenging. Economic analysis often involves forecasting future trends to calculate financial metrics like internal rate of return and present value. While sound policies can expedite change, many countries have historically slowed down climate change mitigation efforts. Understanding how politics determine the adoption of technology helps shed light on complex issues. For example, discussions about nuclear power economics may be distorted by military government advisors who want a trained and skilled nuclear workforce. Or they maybe slowed down because the politicians are looking out for their coal and gas supporter mates enabling burning of coal and gas. These political conversations are not made obvious.

The solar energy revolution exemplifies the power of time and innovation. The first practical solar panel was invented by Bell Labs in 1954, but it has taken 70 years of rapid advancements in technology and economics to have made solar power the most affordable electricity source globally.

We are witnessing an era of industrial revolutions. These five revolutions are reshaping our world, propelling us forward in our ability to produce goods and services with a great deal of uncertainty.

“There are decades where nothing happens; then there are weeks where decades happen” Lenin

This is as pertinent to technology rather than society as Lenin talks about. Technology is here today and here to stay. Don’t look back. Look forward.

In Part 1: The End of the Fossil Fuel Era, we will explore energy and transport.

The end of fossil fuels. Unlimited clean electricity. Renewable energy sources provide electricity cheaper than any other form of energy. Wind, solar and batteries can be deployed rapidly and globally. Renewable energy is nearly twice as efficient as fossil fuel with enormous flow-on consequences. We burn fossil fuel but then we need to get more fuel to burn. With renewable energy, you make the technology, but then for 40 years you just harvest energy, and then recycle all the technology into the latest up-to-date technology. We will explore the consequences of free, zero emissions electricity available to Ada and to Tracey. Hydrogen and nuclear are in Part 2 as they are molecular-energy.

Transportation. Cheap electricity changes transportation. Saving money, that is great. Providing cheap transport to billions, life changing. Saving lives through automation, priceless.

In Part 2: Food to feed all, restore our environment, live healthier and end drudgery we will see how ingenuity will provide benefits to all earthlings, rich and poor alike.

We grow enough food for all, and 40% of all food grown in the world goes to feed animals. We eat over 1,000 animals each in our lifetime. Advances in food production transforms a 3% efficient process to 95% efficient, and an area the size of the farmland in USA, China and Australia can be turned back into grassland and forest, stopping the loss of a million species, and undo some of the worst effects of climate change.

Advances in AI, genomics is already providing longer and healthier lives. What does that do to country health budgets, or do to the workforce? AI and smartphones bring health diagnosis to over 6 billion people, currently without access to health care.

Humanoid Robots are in factories working today. Within 5 years, in small businesses they will be working hard. In a decade or less they will be in aged care homes, hospitals or a living room. The end of slavery with more robots than humans will drive changes bigger than the industrial revolution or changes in previous civilisations . Agriculture, growing crops and animal domestication enabled previous societies such as Egyptians, Greeks and Romans societies to become vibrant societies supporting arts, culture and sciences. We know we can support economic prosperity to Ada and Tracey but what will the end of drudgery do to our society?

2.       Prosperity Not Austerity Drives Changes

Dr Adam Dorr of RethinkX in his book Brighter: Optimism, Progress, and the Future of Environmentalism [3] laid out the premise that prosperity will help drive change. A business colleague three decades once told me people only change for one of three reasons.

●       They make money

●       They lose money

●       It's the law

We have examples of how to drive societal change. E.g. Smoking. You can advertise benefits and provide education as much as you want, but people still keep smoking and still keep dying. Or you can raise the price. Every 10% price increase, smoking rates decrease about 1%. When combined with legal barriers, such as banning smoking in restaurants or indoors, smoking rates further decline.

A few countries have implemented carbon taxes (lose money), some countries have tried law, but the only effective way governments can move the needle is to have consumers and businesses make money. Legislation can either encourage or discourage. Fortunately, reducing carbon emissions is now cheaper with renewable energy and transportation is now cheaper but we need to accelerate the change due to the climate crisis. The challenge with climate change is that 25 companies contribute 50% of all CO2 emissions with 100 companies contributing over 71%. These companies have captured many political parties and in some cases politicians themselves. The willingness of politicians to implement “lose money” is zilch. All they can do is make money, and the Inflation Reduction Act in the USA is a good example of trying to move the needle with making money. Noticeably absent is the lose money part for the fossil fuel industry, and lobby groups are entirely responsible for that largess.

Sound fanciful? Let's explore the information together, and see how we can easily stop destroying our planet, restore it and share in the prosperity the changes offer.

3.       Five Disruptions

Today is probably the best time to be alive. Over our lifetime, we've experienced an enormous increase in standard of living, there are fewer people now starving than ever before, we are living longer with better healthcare and we live in a connected world. Tomorrow - it will be better. We can’t stop innovation and that leads to prosperity for most. There are losers and winners, but we are at the beginning of the biggest disruptions in energy, agriculture, food, health and labour, ever. We no longer need to burn rocks. We can bypass animals for food. For the first time in human existence we can stop drudgery. Healthcare continually improves and we can only predict what these changes will bring.

A particular type of innovation is what Tony Seba calls a “Phase Change Disruption”. (Section 3). Phase change disruptions create entirely new and much larger systems, with new properties, new business models, and new metrics. We have these phase change disruptions underway now. Today. Not in 2 decades. Many don’t see these changes, but when explained they enable us to interpret what is going on and what’s likely to happen over the next decade. You, too, will be more optimistic than you have ever been.

●       Energy

●       Transportation

●       Labour

●       Health

●       Food and Agriculture.

It is impossible to know in advance exactly how these systems will differ from today, but the key driver will be the marginal cost of energy applying to transportation, labour, health and food . The marginal cost will rapidly approach zero. That sounds fanciful, but when you consider that any product you buy includes 3 primary inputs, namely raw material, energy and labour. Renewable energy brings energy cost down close to zero. A humanoid robot might cost $1 per hour and so the cost of goods and services become affordable to Ada or Tracey.

A common mistake is to think technology is disruptive, whereas it is only one aspect of the disruption. Cathie Wood of Ark Invest and Tony Seba of RethinkX share a common vision of technologies driving societal changes. Wood identifies 14 core technologies underpinning five societal disruptions, while Seba has primarily focused on energy, transportation, and food, recently adding labour, with eight identified technologies. Both agree on the transformative potential of batteries and wind, even though these technologies already exist, as continuous improvements are fuelling disruption in energy and transportation.

Technologies and Disruptions

While Seba does not delve into health or finance, Wood highlights their significance. Blockchain and other technologies are poised to revolutionise the financial sector. This convergence of perspectives underscores technology's profound impact on society in the coming years. We know that many do not know it is happening, but there is little they can do to change the inevitability of these changes. We see some trying to hang onto using cash or fiat currency, and we have used it for a few thousand years. That does not make it immune to change or put some value judgment on whether it is good or bad. Change is happening, whether we are comfortable with that change or not.

#

Technologies

Ark Invest

5 Disruptions

RethinkX

3 Disruptions

1

Artificial Intelligence

Robotics, Energy

Transport, Energy, Labour

2

Digital Consumer

Finance, Energy

Energy, Transport

3

Digital Wallets

Finance

-

4

Public Blockchains

Finance

-

5

Bitcoin

Finance

-

6

Ethereum and DeFi

Finance

-

7

Web3

Finance

-

8

Gene Editing

Food, Health

Food

9

Multi-Omics

Food, Health

Food

10

Electric Vehicles

Transport

Transport

11

Autonomous Ride-Hail

Transport

Transport

12

Autonomous Logistics

Transport

Labour

13

3D Printing and Robotics

Manufacturing

Transport

14

Orbital Aerospace

Transport

-

15

Batteries

Energy, transport

Energy, transport

16

Wind

-

Energy

Fig: 2 Technologies enabling disruptions

Disruption Is from Systems

An example of this misunderstanding is below. Single technologies, like electric cars, do change the vehicle, and the business model around it. EVs drastically reduced operational costs, and will be able to last 1 million miles routinely. So, while individual technologies do disrupt specific processes within an industry, it's the interplay of multiple technologies that truly revolutionizes entire sectors.

Tony Seba calls out experts saying they suffer from a “faster horse fallacy”. When cars replaced horses, it was a 1:1 substitution in numbers, and by 1923, there were about the same number of cars as horses prior to the introduction of the car. But the value of the car was 10 times more. It could go 10 times faster, carry 10 times more, didn’t need a whole food and manure economy, and spawned whole other industries, including tyres, gasoline, larger and cleaner cities, urbanization, drive-through restaurants, farm mechanization, trucks and courier systems. That change also completely changed the nature of most cities, which had streets piled high with horse manure, water troughs, and many stables.

Some changes are profound. E.g. Car parking buildings in Los Angeles take up more urban space than the area of all of San Francisco. What will be streetscape in Melbourne or your city? We see in the following image that alongside the technology, we get changes in business processes and ultimately the natural environment.

Fig: 3 Disruptions occur with multiple disruptive technologies

4.       Renewable Energy

Most have little inkling this is a once a century changes for energy and transport, and a once in a million years for humanity. Prof Vaclav Smil [4] proposed major societal shifts are often driven by new forms of energy and the subsequent transport changes. Coal and steam engines changed the world from horses to steam trains. None more so than the USA which became a single nation with its transcontinental railroads and still has the biggest rail network. A century later it was oil, which 50 years later, led to petroleum, cars, trucks and airplanes.

Like a tsunami, the wave has travelled across the ocean, and it is now breaking on the shore.

Our current era of transformation of harnessing unlimited free energy of the sun is going to be bigger era than the 3 preceding ones. We can describe it as moving from molecular energy to electron electricity, or we could phrase it as stopping burning rocks. Once we have built the technology, it harvests 40 years of free energy. Cheap electrons also need advances in storage, and that has really only become economic in the past 5 years. The time from invention of technology to widespread use has been more than half a century. Energy and transport take decades from invention until it becomes the dominant mode – as we will learn in the disruption chapters.

Fig: 4 Disruption in energy leads to disruption in transport

Bill Nussey in his book on Freeing Energy [5] has a great perspective. He focuses on the USA market, whereas Australia is a country where over 30% of the houses already have rooftop solar. Australia is further along the transition and take advantage of centralized power generation.

Fig: 5 Freeing Energy corporate complex to individual simple Bill Nussey

It is still early days and most systems are at the rooftop solar because batteries were too expensive. With lower cost batteries, more will move to solar+battery phase. An oft overlooked driver is regaining sovereignty as a key lever for change. For 120 years, consumers have been locked out of the energy sector. One could not have a coal fired power plant in your backyard. You have to buy your energy products, be it coal, gas, or petroleum from a corporation. A nuclear plant is the ultimate corporate monopoly. Solar is the same whether it’s on your wrist, on your roof or in a 600MW utility solar farm.

●       Many countries privatised their electricity networks in the 1990s or early 2000s to corporations. Adopting the solar+ battery model transfers cost and control to “behind the meter” for consumers and businesses. Consumers regain sovereignty.

●       Flow of energy and electricity was one way - from corporation to individual.

●       Solar can exist in both complex or simple electricity but the ownership changes from corporate ownership to individual.

●       Cheap solar+battery enables the end of energy poverty to over 800 million people globally.

●       Geopolitical - taking back energy sovereignty. At an international level, countries gain freedom from tyrants in autocratic economies. Less than 26 countries are net exporters of energy. The root cause of many geopolitical wars has been due to energy.

●       The end of mining for coal and gas, which as we will see has multiple consequences.

The renewable energy transition is busting many myths one sees in the media.

The cost of building new solar + wind + battery is cheaper than just the cost of fossil fuels, let alone depreciation or maintenance. Trends and predictions are wind solar and battery costs are still reducing at 20% per year.

We are building new transmission grids at a sufficient pace.

Stopping emissions is cheaper than trying to remove it after is has been emitted.

Net zero is false. Existing technology enables true zero emissions. Net zero is a get-out-of-jail card for fossil fuel companies.

Innovation makes net zero more compelling.

Land for renewable energy is less than for fossil fuels and we have more than sufficient land.

The supply chain for renewable energy is rapidly growing and maturing.

More people work in clean energy industry than in the fossil fuel industry.

Over 600 times less mining than with fossil fuels.

Recycling and reusing is addresses complete already.

For a deeper dive, head to the renewable energy and battery section. We will witness a major disruption over the next 25 years, with 4 phases, as in previous disruptive eras.

From now to 2030s we will see the rapid exit of 80% of fossil fuel use used for electricity generation. Electricity prices consumers pay fall as more houses and businesses change to solar+batteries.

In the 2030s we will see heat pumps and electricity replace fossil fuels used for heating air and water.

Transport will change from oil to electric vehicles in the 2030s. The replacement of individually owned cars to personal public transport will accelerate the end of oil.

The 2030s and 2040s will see the end of energy poverty.

Disappointingly, while we could be further ahead than 5%, change is now accelerating at breakneck speed. There is a huge investment in fossil fuel infrastructure and many think replacement will take decades. Maybe in the same way steam survived for some decades after the introduction of oil in the 1900s. A few oil-powered energy systems and vehicles will persist, but nuclear, oil, and coal will be relics and confined to history.

Ada, the sub-Saharan woman, missed out on both previous energy eras of coal and oil. She is still burning wood and sometime over the next decade will move from energy poverty to energy sufficiency. The technology is there today. A politician could make it happen this afternoon, but humans have demonstrated callousness for millennia. Whereas Tracey is acting like people in 1810 or 1910 who don’t understand the changes and simply complains. Change are inevitable but we don’t really know what it will be like after 2040. Different. Good. Both Ada and Tracey will be more prosperous.

5.       Transportation

We will look back on this molecular-energy century of transport and wonder how we accepted the damage it caused. Emissions and deaths. Transport emissions are about 18% globally, so electrification is key to rapid decarbonisation. The change is underway with electric cars 1 in 5 of new cars sales, up from nothing a decade ago. In China, the largest market, it is already over 55%. In Norway it is over 90%, and even UK over 20%. Heavy vehicles have only just started to change, and it will take another 2 or 3 years to scale up. The faster they change, the more rapidly emissions fall. We had electric horseless carriages in the late 1800s but due to many reasons including finding oil, and poor battery storage, ICE cars displaced EVs. For similar reasons, today, EVs are displacing ICE cars. Cheaper. Cleaner. Faster, Longer life.

What enabled this switch? It is not a single technology, but multiple.

●       Decrease in costs of batteries.

●       Growth of emissions-free electricity.

●       Legitimization of EVs by Tesla.

●       Industry support. China knew pollution killed thousands, and made Chinese cities almost uninhabitable, so 20 years ago they invested in a zero-emission vehicle industry - from 3 wheelers to buses to cars.

●       Using mass produced consumer electronic small batteries to make a large battery to power the car.

●       Simplification of vehicles. Engine parts are reduced from 2,000 to 20.

●       Investment in R&D has led to remarkable improvements in efficiency. Electric motors, batteries, and computers makes EVs more efficient

●       Energy efficiency- the energy to boil a kettle propels an electric car 1.5km.

●       Cars have become computers on wheels.

●       Low barriers to entry for manufacturing

●       Multiple markets. Trucks, buses and everything that moves is following the transition to electric.

●       Halving of energy demand - fossil fuels are so inefficient.

While conventional auto companies and the fossil fuel industry are saying it will take 20 years (given an average age of 12 years or more), some are predicting ICE cars will no longer be sold past 2028. A bigger question is this the end of the transport disruption? This would only be a 1:1 substitution, and as have discussed, most disruptions are caused by technology and business model innovations. What is this big change?

From Private Cars to Personal Public Transport

The real disruption in transportation isn't merely from ICE to EVs, but from individual vehicle ownership to personal public transport (PPT) or as others call it transport as a service, robotaxis, autonomous vehicles or robotic cars. Similar to the evolution of elevators, we're moving from human-operated to autonomous, on-demand transportation. PPT is a reimagined public transportation. Unlike the crappy public transport many in the world experience, or not, it will be door-to-door, personalised, secure, reliable, cheap, under 20c per km, and on-demand within 8 minutes 24/7. The actual fleet could either be privately or corporation-owned or could be owned publicly – just like public transport today. To make this possible, we need EVs,✓, business systems (Uber, Lyft,✓), cheap energy (renewable energy, ✓) and computer robotics for autonomous vehicles (AI, GPS ✓). The vehicle will be small (for 2 person), a conventional size 4 to 5-seater or a small bus type vehicle.

We will look back with horror at human-driven cars. Distraction and drunkenness kill over 1.2 million a year, some 1,400 in Australia and 40,000 in the USA. Not just deaths but over thirty million are hospitalized, with many long-term consequences. The cost of road accidents is over $24 billion in Australia, or $340 billion in the USA. That cost is more than 20% of health costs. Not only will countless lives be saved, healthcare costs will be reduced by over 20%. Transportation, the second largest expenditure for consumers, will reduce by five times. It will be the largest economic stimulus for the past 100 years.

PPT will replace individual car ownership by 10:1. We do not need to swap out 1.4 billion cars, but only 140 million. Current auto production capacity is close to 80 million a year, so if vehicle production was only AVs, it could take just 6 years.

Most have no idea you can ride in an autonomous vehicle today in over 60 cities, cheaper than a taxi or rideshare. Tesla has announced its fleet of hundreds of thousands of Cybercabs to be on the road by 2027, but starting in California and Texas in 2025 with existing Models 3 and Y vehicles.  There is no doubt in my mind that by 2028, electric vehicles will be 80% of new vehicle sales, including small cars, trucks, buses, and industrial equipment. By 2035, land transportation will be nearly emission-free, representing a decrease of over 15% of all global emissions, a major step toward addressing climate change. It will take through to 2050 for some transportation sectors to decarbonise.

Both Ada and Tracey will benefit from personalised public transport. Tracey and her household will at save at least $10,000 or half her annual transport cost. Ada will gain public transport where there is none or rudimentary now and is planning to visit her teenage children at university.

6.       Labour

Labour and toil have always been part of civilisation, and we have quotes such as “honour lies in honest toil” (Grover Cleveland), but the disruption coming from labour and toil is going to be upended in ways we cannot imagine. Today, we have the saying for most countries, “fair day’s wages for a fair day’s labour”, but it has not always been that way. Slavery predates written records; the practice has existed in many cultures and can be traced back 11,000 years ago due to the conditions created by the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution. Economic surpluses and high population densities made mass slavery viable. [6] The Industrial Revolution accelerated the trend to drudgery, aligned with low wages and long work hours. Walk Free estimates over 50 million people are in slavery today, with North Korea with over 10% of their adults in slavery. We have different names, but forced labour, debt bond, forced marriage, and human trafficking are all forms of slavery.[7]

With robotic systems, we no longer have to have people doing dirty, dangerous or drudgery tasks. We will explore the social and economic ramifications of robots displacing humans from work or the implications on GDP with an unlimited low-cost workforce. We will explore how it needs to be good for all, not just ten tech billionaires. The key insight that RethinkX says is that the humanoid robot disruption is here now. There is no stopping it. With over 20 companies already learning tasks in factories, the timetable is by the end of 2025. We will see them working at real jobs in real factories. Just as the car replaced the horse in 1905, the human is now the horse and will be replaced firstly for tasks and then for work. Current predictions for the cost and scale of robotics mean there could be 2 to 3 times more robots than humans.

We have time to make some plans for social upheaval, as by 2030, there will be maybe a million robots globally in businesses. Some countries have high employment rates, and some do not, so we need to have a framework for Universal Good Income. Whether we or some of our upmarket friends and those with disabilities will have them in their households, they will most certainly be everywhere by 2040, as we explore in Part 2 of this book. I suspect it will not take as long.

7.       Health Care

In Part 2, we will explore how our current definition of health care should be more appropriately called sick care. Much of the world is focused on treating illness, not preventing it. Doctors and hospitals are all set up to treat sick people, and apart from vaccination for diseases, breast and bowel cancer, there is minimal primary health care. Globally, there are now more people dying from lifestyle diseases from obesity than from starvation. We have treatments for most bacterial and virus infections, yet people in countries with poor health care systems continue to die or even get diseases thought extinct, such as polio in war-torn Gaza. Those treatments are reflected in the numbers. The UN set a goal in 2000 to halve childhood deaths by 2015. Childhood deaths went from 10m a year to 5 m. Their goal for 2015 to 2030 is to halve it further. We know that over 6.5 billion people, including Ada, have poor access to healthcare.

Genomics and AI hold immense potential to revolutionise healthcare. Using these technologies can potentially detect and treat diseases early, but widespread adoption faces challenges, including cost and regulatory barriers. Most of the life expectancy increases globally, which we have experienced over the past decades, are in the control of infectious diseases. The estimated longevity increase from cancer or heart disease treatment is less than ten years. We have some notable exceptions.

Recent studies using AI and genomics show that we can detect and treat cancers and heart disease before any symptoms appear. Some futurists are very bullish about the costs of treatment. Will the advances in health care be available to all or just a few wealthy cohorts? Even more challenging, will health treatments be extended and made available to over 6.5 billion people, not just the 1.5 billion wealthy?

And what of the “alternative or complementary health care” industry, a $500 billion market?

Advances in AI, robotics, and genomics will be extremely disruptive, but we are at an even earlier stage of disruption than energy and transportation. There will be challenges with this extremely conservative industry. The drug and hospital industry are controlled by a few very large companies and a medical profession is risk averse to change, and there are many deeply distrustful of those companies.

My optimistic projection is that by 2030, we will see more of the rise of personalised localised health systems. We will see an increasing improvement of diagnosis and we will explore in detail how AI can already provide better diagnosis than experts. It can be accessed with a smart phone which all of those 6.5 billion have. What they don’t have is that access to front line medical staff. AI can be turned on with a single click. Regulatory barriers will continue to be a barrier to wider adoption yet drug companies get a free pass. Their solutions won’t let regulatory barriers get in the way of relieving the elderly of their money. The release of the insulin  weight loss drugs Ozempic or Saxenda demonstrate the speed drug companies get approval to remove fat and fat wallets.

In Part 2 we will take a detailed look at some remarkable advances in disease, aging and primary health care.

8.       Food and Agriculture

Expansion of agriculture is the major cause of the environmental destruction. Land clearing in Brazil, in Australia, wholesale harvesting in the ocean and production of food to clothing has decimated habitats and species. We have profligate waste throughout the industry with over 40% of food grown going to feed animals, even while the number of starving people has dropped from 20% to less than 10% over 3 decades. In the UK and USA over 20% of the meat is used to feed domestic pets.

Similar to the fossil fuel industry which tried to place individual responsibility onto consumers, rather than fix their own waste, the food and agricultural sector has not owned up to its role in climate change, environment destruction, and obesity epidemic. We have been encouraged to eat less meat, to buy fewer clothes as an individual contribution to the expansion of agriculture and increased emissions. Many will be aware of the plant-based foods movement over the past decade, but that is not where the disruption comes from. Advances in genetics and AI have led to a genetic precision fermentation revolution underway, enabled by genomics and AI.

In Part 2, we will explore the division between western food and the rest of the world. In Western societies, food and agriculture are concentrated. None more so in the USA, where a dozen corporate giants control 70% of food products. In contrast, hundreds of millions of small farmers with less than a hectare feed the other 7 billion. Since hunter-gatherer days, farmers have grown crops we directly consume. They also farm animals, including dairy cows, beef cattle, pigs, chickens for eggs or meat and a few other dozen species. Guinea pigs or dogs for anyone? Most animals are grown and slaughtered on an industrial scale. Precision fermentation takes this animal process and short-circuits it. Farmers grow starch crops, but instead of feeding animals, who then convert them into protein, we can use designer yeasts and bacteria in a container. The starch is directly converted into protein and turns a 3% efficient process to a 95% efficient process. The resultant product is an animal product whose cell or chemical is identical to the animal cell or chemical. Most have little or no idea of this technology's advances and expansion, although companies globally are building out these “craft breweries”.

The result will be that protein will be five times cheaper than existing animal proteins by 2030 and 10 times cheaper by 2035. Eventually, proteins will be cheaper than sugar. Most have a deep suspicion this is genetically modified food, whereas the organism itself is the catalyst for this process. We use this already - for those who require insulin for diabetes and other drugs. Ultimately, instead of killing millions of tonnes of krill to make fish oil tablets full of DHA and EPA, we can now get the same chemicals from sugar and catalysts. Instead of destroying vast areas of the orangutan forest for palm oil for cosmetics or food, we will make it in a factory and restore the palm oil forests for the orangutans. Commercial ocean harvesting of wild species will end. Fish protein and aquaculture will supply all the fish protein people want. Cheaper. No mercury or microplastics.

The probable outcome will focus initially on Western industrial food and agriculture. A land area the size of the USA, China, and Australia will be retired from farming and can be reverted to forests and pastures. The increase in natural grasslands and forests will enable the production of CO2 levels back to normality, the wilding of species, and the elimination of commercial fishing of oceans. Even without active reforestation, the passive reforestation of land through natural recovery will capture and store carbon equivalent to up to 20% of today’s global emissions.

Protein will be cheaper and more available for the seven billion poor and middle-income people and small landholder farmers. Food, locally made, enables sovereignty and reduces transportation. There is no evidence the small farmers will be at risk from precision fermentation, and nor will farmers markets as people act against the industrialised western food system. We will see this disruption face opposition. Like the fossil fuel industry combating renewable energy, expect a similar strident opposition by the agricultural sector. A change is underway; it's just that most don't understand the consequences, but we will explore them in Part 2 of this book.

Most importantly, we are going to see that it will be food and agriculture that hold the key to the restoration of the Earth. Changing to renewable energy and clean transportation is essential to stop emissions from increasing. We will have stopped digging. The next process is to reduce CO2 and methane levels and fix some of the environmental acts of sabotage.

9.       Conclusion Urgency and Challenges

We are on the cusp of five technological revolutions, each with potential to transform the way we live our lives completely. We stand at the precipice of a future free from dependence on fossil fuels, where clean energy sources like solar and wind take centre stage. A place where transport is no longer our second biggest expense harms or kills people and pollutes the Earth. Where advances in health care could extend lives to over 120 years, where work is redefined, and a food and agriculture transformation that makes the green revolution look like a blip. Part One is only about the end of the fossil fuel era and stopping digging our own graves. Part Two of the book will explore AI, food, agriculture and health and how the disruption in food and agriculture will undo the devastating environmental disaster caused by fossil fuel and agriculture expansion.

How does one remain confident and optimistic of change in the face of climate change? Or where to get the next meal? Or the next drinkable water. Or sheltering from the bombs? Or the cost of living, or faced with cancer, or domestic violence, political unrest or any of the multitude of global problems. Yet we can be optimistic as we explore the disruptions going on in our world.

This journey is not without its challenges. There will be obstacles to overcome, and the path forward will require collective action and sustained commitment from individuals, businesses, and policymakers alike. We don’t want these disruptions to have worse consequences. We need to prevent further disparity between rich and poor and narrow that gap. In each of the following sections we will examine in detail what the current situation is, and where some of the impacts are. Change needs to be better understood, and benefit more people than just CEOs of corporations. We are already on these pathways of change and it is unstoppable, notwithstanding nuclear destruction. We have the tools and technologies, and you'll find real-world data, inspiring progress, and a deeper understanding of the extraordinary advancements already happening.

This book is not just a call to action. It's a celebration of human ingenuity, a testament to our capacity to innovate and create solutions for a brighter future. It's a call to embrace optimism, not as a naive disregard for the challenges ahead, but as a powerful force that fuels our collective purpose and motivates us to build a cleaner, brighter future for generations to come. Open your mind, embrace the possibilities, and join me as we explore the future powered by ingenuity. Let's harness the power of technology, not as a source of despair, but as the very tool that will help us end the fossil fuel era and usher in a new age of clean energy. The future is not predetermined; it is ours to shape. Let's choose one powered by hope, innovation, and a deep respect for our planet.

Brace yourself. We are in for a ride and it will be in your lifetime! We have substantial political and cultural challenges to ensure these disruptions do not lead us to worsening politics and social unrest. We have technology, money and ingenuity for Ada to access enough food, protein and clean water. To provide her with a wearable device to monitor her health and her healthy educated children, and be able to return to the community she had to leave with threat of disease and personal safety a distant memory. Tracey will have just finished an art class she always wanted to do, but never had time or resources. She also is pleased her parents have the care they needed, but never thought she could afford.

We can only imagine what our society will be like in 20 years, let alone 50. It took 70 years for Dick Tracy’s smart watch to arrive on our wrists, and 30 years for Captain Kirks flip phone to turn up. What are your predictions?

Section 2: Climate Change

10.  Climate Change Introduction

Tracey heard the earth is warming but pays little attention. Ada is unaware of the reasons she is now a climate refugee. More rapidly than ever experienced before in human timeframe, with 8 billion people, the sea rises of meters; temperature rises, extreme heat, and more devastating storms will create an unliveable planet for some. The IPCC reviews conducted every 5+ years have a wealth of knowledge as they have consolidated over 14,000 papers. Some do not understand science and believe climate science is far from settled. An analysis of the reports over the past two decades shows how science is more certain now than in 2000. The only major change since my first exposure in 1979 is certainty about the level of change and predicting consequences [6]. Climate change is driven by emissions that affect Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI). More energy is being stored than reflected.

Economic Crisis

We won’t dwell too much on refuting climate delayers and deniers, recognising climate change is not about belief systems. Anthropomorphic climate change is summed up in a few graphs or is explained in full detail in the IPCC v6 publications [8]. Temperatures and the Earth Energy Imbalance are rising [9]. The climate change predictions from IPCC predict temperatures of 1.5° would be passed by 2050 under the net zero scenario. Still, recent scary climate change research news demonstrates much higher temperature rises with 1.5°C surpassed by 2033 and overshooting to +3°C by 2050. That temperature increase will cause “precipitous declines in output, capital and consumption that exceed 50% by 2100 says the National Bureau of Economic Research. [10], [11]. This economic loss is so severe that it is “comparable to the economic damage caused by fighting a war domestically and permanently”, or the Great Depression of 1929, but forever. For every 1°, GDP decreases by 12%. For 3°C, and a global DDP of $110 trillion, that’s more than $36 trillion. Most western folk like Tracey think it will be the Ada’s of this world will be affected, and will there be more refugees and immigrants, not realizing she will be more affected. Ada has nothing. She cannot lose more. Tracey and her friend Karen will lose much more.

Recently, research on tipping points such as AMOC [12] brings the most likely change to be likely by 2050, not 2100. Land temperatures have already passed 1.28℃ above pre-industrial highs. Any warming above 1.5° makes the planet very difficult to live on for billions.[13] A recent study in Nature [14] reveals doubling CO2 15m years ago led to a 7° to 14° rise, not the 2.5-4.0° rise that IPCC forecasts.

Doomers - Past the Point of No Return

We can see why doomers read current data and say we have passed the point of no return, and society should be doing everything it can to stop further emissions. The sense of despair that no-one is taking this seriously, given we have the technology, and economic imperative to make changes now, not postpone for 10 to 25 years. Net Zero needs to be today, not 2050. Climate change, population growth, and social equality are all linked, as shown in the image below.

Fig: 6 Global population growth, imperialism, and an economic model based on extractive rules of exploitation and trade

Climate Change Deniers and Delayers

A climate denier friend told me in no uncertain terms that he did not “believe” in climate change. My response was this was not a matter of belief. The climatic and historical data was just data. We can leave belief with the tooth fairy or Santa Claus. The challenge is correct forecasting or predictions. If one disagrees with 234 reviewers of over 14,000 peer-reviewed published papers, what exactly is his disagreement? I have trouble reconciling that we have denier politicians in Australia or the US with Trump saying climate change is a hoax. Their policies to not reduce emissions are at odds with them paying Australian scientists, organisations and representation on IPCC and other global organisations . But we have previously discussed how belief systems will not be swayed with data of technology and economics. The cohort of trolls on social media platforms has become even more strident. Contrast that with climate scientists including James Hansen, Michael Mann, John Holdren, and some of the other 234 authors of the IPCC v6 assessment lead. Two decades ago, I argued with a geologist professor and a physics professor who had their own explanations involving sun's energy. On the flip side, there are climate scientists in the doomer camp who say the IPCC conclusions have watered down the interpretation to get a consensus and the same data used indicates climate change will be much more devastating and much sooner than the models indicate. It is understandable how IPCC authors struggle to find a middle ground. Climate scientists have been accused of “crying wolf” too often. Forecasting is tough. The Weather office may warn of a storm, and to batten down. If the storm does not appear - they get lambasted due to false fear. If they don’t warn, they get blasted for not warning people. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t, and the impacts of climate change are hard to predict.

A recent survey from Griffith University [15] [16] [17] pointed out

●       Australia

○       71% of Australians surveyed accept that climate change is real in 2024

○       Only 15% think it is an “extremely serious” problem right now.

○       35% thought climate change was real in 2010.

○       Which means 30% don’t think climate change is not real!

●       Global survey

○       50% of the Australians thought the impacts in our region have not been severe,

○       Over 35% believe that the media exaggerates the influence of global warming.

The surveyed respondents trust the Bureau of Meteorology (90%) but not TikTok (18%) or politicians (0%). The challenge for climate scientists is as Joelle Gergis says in her book Highway to Hell Climate Change and Australia's Future [17] to speak up. She quotes Martin Luther King (1959) “If you fail to act now, history will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

As she wrote