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Time to 1.5 | 5 | Not Rocket Science
Episode 5 • 15th March 2022 • Threshold • Auricle Productions
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Speaker:

Sam Evans-Brown: Threshold is nonprofit, independent and

Speaker:

listener supported. Join us at thresholdpodcast.org

Amy Martin:

I remember the day when I first realized that it

Amy Martin:

might be possible to solve climate change. It was September

Amy Martin:

2016 and I was at a conference of environmental journalists in

Amy Martin:

Sacramento, California. One of the speakers was an unassuming

Amy Martin:

British man named Christopher Clack. He was wearing a suit. He

Amy Martin:

walked to the front of the room, started up his PowerPoint

Amy Martin:

presentation, and in about 20 minutes, he explained how to

Amy Martin:

decarbonize the US economy, and not in some dreamy, theoretical

Amy Martin:

way. He had a plan. He'd spent five years building a computer

Amy Martin:

model showing how we could transform our electricity grid

Amy Martin:

to run on carbon free sources. Andy showed that if we connected

Amy Martin:

everything we possibly could to that grid, we could be at net

Amy Martin:

zero emissions by 2050. And the kicker was, he said he'd figured

Amy Martin:

out how to do it in a way that would result in lower energy

Amy Martin:

bills for consumers. That's huge. If you don't worry about

Amy Martin:

cost, anybody can tell you how to transition off of fossil

Amy Martin:

fuels, but Chris was saying we could decarbonize and lower our

Amy Martin:

power bills, and I was like, what? I remember that I was

Amy Martin:

listening and frantically taking notes at first, but eventually I

Amy Martin:

just put my pen down and tried to keep my jaw from dropping.

Amy Martin:

Since then, I've actually had this experience multiple times,

Amy Martin:

these strange lightning bolt moments when someone explains to

Amy Martin:

me that getting the United States off of fossil fuels is

Amy Martin:

completely feasible. One of those people is Jim Williams.

Jim Williams:

I would say it like this. It's like Be of good

Jim Williams:

cheer. There is hope. There are also challenges, but they're

Jim Williams:

probably not what you think they are.

Amy Martin:

Jim is a professor at the University of San

Amy Martin:

Francisco and an energy systems expert, and like Christopher

Amy Martin:

Clack, he's been hard at work for years trying to answer the

Amy Martin:

question, can the United States be carbon neutral by 2050?

Amy Martin:

Carbon neutral or net zero means what comes in goes out. No human

Amy Martin:

caused carbon emissions going into the atmosphere beyond what

Amy Martin:

can be naturally reabsorbed or potentially removed with

Amy Martin:

technology. The whole world needs to be at net zero by 2050

Amy Martin:

in order to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius over

Amy Martin:

pre industrial levels.

Jim Williams:

We wanted to ask the question, could we reach

Jim Williams:

that net zero by 2050 and if so, how could we do it, and what

Jim Williams:

would it cost to do it, and what would be some of the

Jim Williams:

implications of trying to do it, in addition to cost, but we

Jim Williams:

wanted to come up with scenarios that were realistic, that

Jim Williams:

actually relate to who we are and where we're at. So that was

Jim Williams:

what we were setting out to do.

Amy Martin:

I kind of hate to like jump to the punchline, but

Amy Martin:

can we do it?

Jim Williams:

The answer is yes.

Amy Martin:

Welcome to Threshold. I'm Amy Martin, and I

Amy Martin:

know Jim's simple yes, there raises a million questions. How

Amy Martin:

does he know? Is he right? And if so, what do we need to do?

Amy Martin:

We're going to try to answer those questions, but first, I

Amy Martin:

just want to linger on the headline here for a minute,

Amy Martin:

because I think it might be one of the best kept secrets in

Amy Martin:

America. Breaking our fossil fuel addiction is possible and

Amy Martin:

affordable. We know what we need to do, and we have the

Amy Martin:

technologies we need to take all of the most important actions.

Amy Martin:

We're going to examine those actions in this episode. We're

Amy Martin:

going to study the maps that Chris Clack and Jim Williams

Amy Martin:

have built that show us how to get to net zero by 2050 and

Amy Martin:

we're going to begin investigating how we can start

Amy Martin:

working together to follow those maps. Two things to know before

Amy Martin:

we start this journey, first, prepare to nerd out. When you

Amy Martin:

start asking how to realistically meet the 1.5 goal,

Amy Martin:

the conversation moves away from passionate slogans and toward

Amy Martin:

concrete details, things like the power grid and what

Amy Martin:

percentage of cars need to be electric by when. And secondly,

Amy Martin:

although we make Threshold for an international audience, this

Amy Martin:

episode is about how the United States in particular can

Amy Martin:

decarbonize by 2050. Every country needs to be asking this

Amy Martin:

question, but the US has a special role to play.

Amy Martin:

Historically, we've emitted more carbon than any other country in

Amy Martin:

the world, around 25% of all of the cumulative planet warming

Amy Martin:

emissions have come from the United States, and we're still

Amy Martin:

the world's second largest carbon emitter on an annual

Amy Martin:

basis, behind China. So the US has a huge responsibility for

Amy Martin:

causing the climate problem, and therefore a huge responsibility

Amy Martin:

for helping to solve it.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: People are inherently cooperative. I don't

Amy Martin:

know why we're so willing to believe the worst of ourselves.

Jim Williams:

It's not an insurmountable problem but it's

Jim Williams:

a hard problem in a divided country.

Adam Reed:

I think in a lot of ways, it attacks the foundation

Adam Reed:

of the modern mythology of human beings controlling the

Adam Reed:

environment.

Francina Dominguez:

We shouldn't wait for like a miracle. We can

Francina Dominguez:

start right now. There's just no reason not to do it.

Amy Martin:

It's the fall of 2016 and I'm in a restaurant in

Amy Martin:

Boulder, Colorado. It's about a month after that conference

Amy Martin:

where I first saw Christopher Clack present his work, and it

Amy Martin:

turned out we both happened to be living in Boulder at the

Amy Martin:

time, so we met up to talk about his big idea, this elaborate

Amy Martin:

computer model he built, showing us how we could get 80% of the

Amy Martin:

energy we need, carbon free by 2030 and get to net zero by 2050

Amy Martin:

and end up with lower electricity bills.

Christopher Clack:

So we can reduce the price of electricity

Christopher Clack:

and solve the carbon problem and solve the local pollution

Christopher Clack:

problem, all at the same time from electricity. We can solve

Christopher Clack:

all of them.

Amy Martin:

It sounds good, right? Really good. Like maybe

Amy Martin:

too good to be true? I needed to find out I was taking a course

Amy Martin:

on energy policy as part of a journalism fellowship at the

Amy Martin:

University of Colorado, so I reached out to my professor in

Amy Martin:

the class, Adam Reed, to get his opinion on Chris's model. And in

Amy Martin:

a weird bit of serendipity, Adam said, Oh, Chris? He's a good

Amy Martin:

friend of mine. I think he's a genius. So Adam actually joined

Amy Martin:

us in the restaurant for this conversation.

Amy Martin:

When you first heard about this, what did you think?

Adam Reed:

My initial reaction was, what a completely outside

Adam Reed:

the box way to look at the problem.

Christopher Clack:

And this is one of the reasons why I became

Christopher Clack:

good friends with Adam, is he got it really quickly, which is

Christopher Clack:

why I know he's a really smart, intelligent, good looking man is

Christopher Clack:

is that he got it really quickly.

Amy Martin:

So there we are sitting around a table with a

Amy Martin:

pitcher of beer, and I start grilling Chris and Adam, because

Amy Martin:

I really want to understand how this model works, and if it's as

Amy Martin:

cool as it seems to be, I want to know why we aren't acting on

Amy Martin:

it. Adam said he could field those questions.

Adam Reed:

Chris's job is telling you what's possible, and

Adam Reed:

my job is telling you why that's harder than he's going to tell

Adam Reed:

you.

Amy Martin:

Let's start with what's possible. This computer

Amy Martin:

model Chris built. How did it arrive at this conclusion that

Amy Martin:

we can switch to renewables and save money? And maybe we should

Amy Martin:

back up a step and ask, what are computer models anyway? Well,

Amy Martin:

there's nothing magical about them. They're just programs that

Amy Martin:

are able to run huge numbers of calculations much faster than

Amy Martin:

people could do on their own. They use specific sets of

Amy Martin:

information to solve problems or answer questions. Chris set up

Amy Martin:

his model to draw on enormous data sets about energy use and

Amy Martin:

supply in the United States. And then he gave it these

Amy Martin:

instructions:

Christopher Clack:

Find the cheapest way to supply power to

Christopher Clack:

every single customer in the US for a minimum of a year, and

Christopher Clack:

then come back to it and say, Okay, you did a great job,

Christopher Clack:

computer, tap on the head and say, unfortunately, this time

Christopher Clack:

you've lost the power line because there's a hurricane,

Christopher Clack:

redo the same thing and tell me, can you keep the lights on for

Christopher Clack:

everybody still, and do that again and again and again to

Christopher Clack:

make sure that you are reliable, so that the grid lights don't go

Christopher Clack:

off ever for any American.

Amy Martin:

energy, turning on the lights, running the air

Amy Martin:

conditioner, and where we get that energy. And then he asked

Amy Martin:

the model, what is the cheapest way to keep the lights on for

Amy Martin:

everyone in the United States using all currently available

Amy Martin:

ways of producing energy. Coal, gas, nuclear, hydro, whatever.

Christopher Clack:

Anything you want. We're completely agnostic

Christopher Clack:

to the technology. So we have wind, solar, coal, geothermal,

Christopher Clack:

everything under the sun that we could think of putting in there,

Christopher Clack:

and we tell it to build the cheapest possible system it can

Christopher Clack:

find.

Amy Martin:

And what the model space. It out was pretty

Amy Martin:

remarkable. It said we could power our lives primarily on

Amy Martin:

wind and solar energy in the United States and have lower

Amy Martin:

energy bills. The cheapest option was also a climate

Amy Martin:

friendly option, and that was a surprise.

Christopher Clack:

We were like, This can't be right. There must

Christopher Clack:

be something wrong. So we did it time and time and time again.

Amy Martin:

And every time it came back with the same result.

Amy Martin:

The cheapest way to provide reliable power to all Americans

Amy Martin:

is to decarbonize the US energy system. But the model also said

Amy Martin:

that to make that work, we need to redesign how the energy moves

Amy Martin:

through the system, the network of wires that we call the grid.

Amy Martin:

In Chris's model, upgrading the grid is the key to decarbonizing

Amy Martin:

the energy sector, and the reason for that is the mantra

Amy Martin:

that gets repeated whenever wind and solar are discussed, the

Amy Martin:

wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. It's a

Amy Martin:

problem known as intermittency.

Christopher Clack:

We all know that wind and solar go away.

Christopher Clack:

Sometimes it's really windy, sometimes it's not windy at all,

Christopher Clack:

sometimes it's day, sometimes it's night.

Amy Martin:

But of course, we expect energy to be available to

Amy Martin:

us at all times in any weather, and making that happen is not

Amy Martin:

just a question of the amount of energy produced, but also the

Adam Reed:

And this is really important, because the unique

Adam Reed:

timing.

Adam Reed:

characteristic of energy as a good is that it must be consumed

Adam Reed:

at the same moment that it is being produced. That makes it

Adam Reed:

unlike almost any other good, any time you want to use energy,

Adam Reed:

it has to be generated at essentially the same moment that

Adam Reed:

you want to use it.

Amy Martin:

I didn't really understand this until I took

Amy Martin:

Adam's class. Energy demand has to be constantly balanced with

Amy Martin:

energy supply. The fact that I can flip on the lights at any

Amy Martin:

moment without a second thought is thanks to a big, mostly

Amy Martin:

anonymous army of technicians who watch over the grid making

Amy Martin:

that balance happen.

Christopher Clack:

There's really smart engineers who

Christopher Clack:

understand that, and they're working all the time to make

Christopher Clack:

sure this is always in lockstep.

Amy Martin:

So given that energy demand needs to be balanced with

Amy Martin:

supply all the time, you can see how the intermittency of wind

Amy Martin:

and solar could look like a problem. How could an energy

Amy Martin:

source that comes and goes be secure and reliable? But what

Amy Martin:

Chris clack is saying is, do they come and go? Really?

Christopher Clack:

What I always do is I do the thought

Christopher Clack:

experiment with myself of, if you step back from Earth and you

Christopher Clack:

look at the whole planet, somewhere on the planet, the sun

Christopher Clack:

is shining. On Earth, the Sun never goes away. It's just we're

Christopher Clack:

turning and so if you go all the way back, you can see

Christopher Clack:

immediately that somewhere sunny and the wind somewhere is always

Christopher Clack:

blowing.

Amy Martin:

We think of the sun and wind as being intermittent,

Amy Martin:

because they come and go for us individually, wherever we happen

Amy Martin:

to be but actually the wind is blowing and the sun is shining

Amy Martin:

somewhere all the time. And if you study the weather at large

Amy Martin:

enough scales, patterns emerge. You can see the places where the

Amy Martin:

wind is reliably blowing and where the solar energy is least

Amy Martin:

likely to be blocked by clouds. What Chris's model shows is, if

Amy Martin:

we design a renewable energy system around those patterns,

Amy Martin:

and then connect the wind turbines and solar panels to

Amy Martin:

each other on a national scale, renewable energy doesn't look so

Amy Martin:

intermittent, after all.

Christopher Clack:

And so what you want to do is you want to

Christopher Clack:

build your grids bigger and bigger until you get to a point

Christopher Clack:

where there's always some sun or wind. You don't always have to

Christopher Clack:

have sun, but one or the other has to be available all the

Christopher Clack:

time.

Amy Martin:

The enormous size of the United States is an

Amy Martin:

advantage here. We have lots of different kinds of weather

Amy Martin:

happening in different places at the same time. So imagine two

Amy Martin:

houses in two different states, each with a wind turbine in the

Amy Martin:

backyard. Maybe at my house there's no wind blowing, but at

Amy Martin:

yours, there is. So my demand is balanced out by your supply, or

Amy Martin:

So your model then multiplies these two people by by millions

Amy Martin:

vice versa.

Amy Martin:

of different points where we're generating these different types

Amy Martin:

of renewable resources, and by putting them all together...

Christopher Clack:

Exactly so what it says is, then you just

Christopher Clack:

multiply that effect by more and more people and aggregating

Christopher Clack:

enough generators together to constantly meet the demand. And

Christopher Clack:

you can only do that if you've got a nice, big area that you're

Christopher Clack:

pulling from, if you're just doing it from the one place you

Christopher Clack:

are. You lose that ability.

Amy Martin:

Part of what makes Chris's model special is the

Amy Martin:

depth and breadth of the data he used. Computer models are widely

Amy Martin:

used in the energy sector today, but a lot of them zero in on

Amy Martin:

just one aspect or another, how we consume energy or how we

Amy Martin:

generate it. But Chris fed his model tons of information on

Amy Martin:

energy use and generation and transmission lines and all kinds

Amy Martin:

of weather data, and this comprehensive approach showed

Amy Martin:

that making the transition to renewable energy affordable

Amy Martin:

isn't just about building more wind turbines and solar panels.

Amy Martin:

The crucial step is for them all to be connected to a national

Amy Martin:

grid. But unfortunately, that's not the grid we have.

Adam Reed:

If you didn't know anything about the grid, you

Adam Reed:

would probably think what most people think, that we have a

Adam Reed:

national United States grid, and that the government must control

Adam Reed:

that. And of course, it's that's not it at all.

Amy Martin:

We actually have three grids, Eastern, Western

Amy Martin:

and Texas, and they operate independently and don't exchange

Amy Martin:

much power. Then within those three grids, there's an alphabet

Amy Martin:

soup of sub regional organizations, independent

Amy Martin:

system operators, or ISOs, regional transmission

Amy Martin:

organizations, or RTOS. It's pretty mind boggling, honestly.

Amy Martin:

The complexity of the American grid, or grids, really is a

Amy Martin:

reflection of the complexity of the country. There wasn't one

Amy Martin:

moment when someone said, Hey, let's build a grid. It happened

Amy Martin:

in fits and starts at very different paces in different

Amy Martin:

places. For example, New York City had electric power before

Amy Martin:

New Mexico was a state. Some parts of our grid were developed

Amy Martin:

as small grassroots projects with people wiring their own

Amy Martin:

homes into a local power plant. Others were planned as part of

Amy Martin:

massive government funded endeavors like the Tennessee

Amy Martin:

Valley Authority. So all of this scattered history led us to the

Amy Martin:

system we have today. And that's why people in the US tend to

Amy Martin:

think about energy on the state or regional scale, and that's

Amy Martin:

also why there's no single overarching entity that could

Amy Martin:

implement Chris's idea on the national level, because there's

Amy Martin:

no single United States grid.

Adam Reed:

The most important infrastructural system to modern

Adam Reed:

society, actually has dramatically less government

Adam Reed:

control than most people realize.

Amy Martin:

But Chris didn't confine his model to our current

Amy Martin:

fragmented, factionalized system. He set it up to be more

Amy Martin:

holistic, to demonstrate what might be possible if we thought

Amy Martin:

about energy as a whole country together.

Christopher Clack:

And we were kind of laughed at for thinking

Christopher Clack:

in this way, but we were saying, well, no, you have to connect

Christopher Clack:

the grid together over these big scales, and we showed that it

Christopher Clack:

was cheaper and emitted less carbon than not doing that.

Amy Martin:

Chris isn't the only person thinking about

Amy Martin:

intermittency of renewable energy, of course, but so far,

Amy Martin:

the dominant response to this problem has been trying to

Amy Martin:

figure out how to store more energy, meaning bigger, better

Amy Martin:

batteries. But as Bruno Rodriguez talked about in our

Amy Martin:

last episode, batteries are not a problem-free solution. Making

Amy Martin:

them requires mining raw materials, and already, human

Amy Martin:

rights are being violated and ecosystems are being

Amy Martin:

contaminated as the global demand for cobalt, lithium,

Amy Martin:

graphite and other materials goes way up. And there are

Amy Martin:

problems at the other end of the life cycle too. Batteries have a

Amy Martin:

limited shelf life, so using more of them means we'll be

Amy Martin:

generating a lot more hazardous waste. And there's another big

Amy Martin:

issue, cost as the industry is growing, prices are coming down.

Amy Martin:

But even so, battery storage capacity at the scale we would

Amy Martin:

need would be very expensive. There are other kinds of storage

Amy Martin:

technologies in development, some of which can hold a lot

Amy Martin:

more energy than batteries can, but they're not at all ready to

Amy Martin:

be deployed at the scale we need. And Chris says, at the end

Amy Martin:

of the day, rather than aiming for each home or city to be its

Amy Martin:

own little expensive island of energy self sufficiency, it

Amy Martin:

makes a lot more sense just to connect to each other.

Christopher Clack:

And so what I'm saying is share. It helps

Christopher Clack:

everybody. It helps you, and it also helps your neighbor and

Christopher Clack:

people further away by sharing the power. Because it costs much

Christopher Clack:

less to share those resources than it is to say, I've got my

Christopher Clack:

own little fenced area, and I'm going to use the power that I

Christopher Clack:

get on that.

Amy Martin:

He's not saying share, as in, give everything

Amy Martin:

away for free. He's saying, build a system that gets the

Amy Martin:

different parts of the country selling energy to each other,

Amy Martin:

and everyone can win. He takes the example of Montana, a state

Amy Martin:

with a very small population and a capacity to produce a lot of

Amy Martin:

renewable energy, and New York State, which has 20 times the

Amy Martin:

number of people.

Christopher Clack:

So if you just separate them and say

Christopher Clack:

they're not going to talk to each other, well, less get

Christopher Clack:

built. But you connect them together and Montana go, hey,

Christopher Clack:

hang on, these, these East Coast fools can buy our power really

Christopher Clack:

expensively, and we can get economy coming to our state, and

Christopher Clack:

we can power ourselves cleanly. We can send the power there,

Christopher Clack:

sell it, and you'll go, this is great. And then suddenly, all.

Christopher Clack:

These sort of cooperations and competition is set up that drive

Christopher Clack:

down the price of everything and allows more and more variable

Christopher Clack:

generation on the grid, which wouldn't have happened if you

Christopher Clack:

didn't have this bigger region.

Amy Martin:

That's what Chris's model shows is possible. And

Amy Martin:

again, the task he programmed it for was not show us how to power

Amy Martin:

the country on renewables.

Christopher Clack:

I care about the cost. And so the underlying

Christopher Clack:

principle is it has to be the least cost solution.

Amy Martin:

And the answer the model spit out was that the

Amy Martin:

cheapest solution was also a huge win for the climate. The

Amy Martin:

model suggested that by 2030 we could be at around 40% wind and

Amy Martin:

20% solar, with nuclear and hydropower making up the next

Amy Martin:

20% or so.

Christopher Clack:

So it's 80% carbon free generation.

Amy Martin:

And that sets us up to be almost completely carbon

Amy Martin:

free in the following decades. It would cost something to

Amy Martin:

redesign the grid, as Chris is suggesting, of course, but the

Amy Martin:

sooner we do it, and the more holistically it gets planned,

Amy Martin:

the more affordable it would be, and we'd be creating jobs in the

Amy Martin:

process. Chris's model predicts the number of jobs in the

Amy Martin:

electricity sector would rise from 2 million in 2020 to more

Amy Martin:

than 8 million in 2050.

Amy Martin:

I have to say, this is the third time I've heard you explain it.

Amy Martin:

And every time I have this moment where I actually get

Amy Martin:

choked up because I feel like what you're saying is we can

Amy Martin:

solve the carbon emission problem from the energy sector.

Amy Martin:

We actually can solve that if we decide to. Am I understanding

Amy Martin:

that correctly? I mean, that's a huge thing.

Christopher Clack:

What I'm actually saying is slightly

Christopher Clack:

more. We can reduce the price of electricity while solving the

Christopher Clack:

electricity carbon problem. But bigger than that, if you can

Christopher Clack:

decarbonize the electric grid, you've solved 90% of all the

Christopher Clack:

problems. So transportation, most of it will be electrified.

Christopher Clack:

Heating, all of it can be electrified. Water heating can

Christopher Clack:

all be electrified.

Amy Martin:

This is where Chris's model really gets

Amy Martin:

exciting. If we get fossil fuels out of our grid and electrify

Amy Martin:

the majority of our big energy consuming equipment, like cars

Amy Martin:

and home heating systems, the US could dramatically reduce

Amy Martin:

emissions, not only in the energy sector, but also from

Amy Martin:

transportation, commercial and residential buildings and from

Amy Martin:

industry. We'd still have some emissions in what are called the

Amy Martin:

hard to abate sectors like producing steel or cement, but

Amy Martin:

we could pluck almost all of the lowest hanging fruit and make

Amy Martin:

huge strides toward becoming carbon neutral overall. So we're

Amy Martin:

not just talking about decarbonizing the energy sector

Amy Martin:

here. We're talking about decarbonizing the entire US

Amy Martin:

economy. You've probably heard people say that to solve the

Amy Martin:

climate crisis, we need systems change, deep transformations of

Amy Martin:

the architectures behind our economy. This is what that looks

Amy Martin:

like.

Amy Martin:

It kind of still just blows my mind, you know, because usually

Amy Martin:

this is the way, this is the way energy and climate things

Amy Martin:

usually turn out. It's like you have this choice, if you want it

Amy Martin:

to be cheap, keep burning the stuff that's going to ruin the

Amy Martin:

planet, or you can pay a lot of money and you can get this nice

Amy Martin:

green planet that you want, but your model said, what?

Christopher Clack:

My model said, Well, if you actually do

Christopher Clack:

the wind and solar right, what you find is, if you go to big

Christopher Clack:

areas, it becomes much cheaper than the traditional ones. And

Christopher Clack:

the reason you get this dichotomy that normally happens,

Christopher Clack:

which is these models are saying, oh, you can either pay

Christopher Clack:

lots of money and get a clean grid, or you pay cheap and you

Christopher Clack:

burn coal or any other fossil fuel. The reason you get that is

Christopher Clack:

because from the starting point, they say, well, the grid has to

Christopher Clack:

be as it is today. And they say, well, the grid is like this, and

Christopher Clack:

that will never change. And what I came in and said with the

Christopher Clack:

model was the grid is an evolving machine. It's never

Christopher Clack:

been static. It's never been this is where the coal plant has

Christopher Clack:

always been forever. No. 150 years ago, the coal plant wasn't

Christopher Clack:

there, and so it's a dynamic machine, and it's got to evolve.

Christopher Clack:

And what we're saying is this new generation type means that

Christopher Clack:

it has to evolve, to go to larger scales.

Amy Martin:

Are we willing to evolve? It feels like no matter

Amy Martin:

what thread we pull on in the tangled web of climate change

Amy Martin:

issues, we end up here at this central question, can we change

Amy Martin:

and change quickly enough and creatively enough? That, to me,

Amy Martin:

is what's fascinating about Chris's work, the creativity of

Amy Martin:

it, the willingness to rethink something that a lot of other

Amy Martin:

people will not: a redesign of the energy grid. This is what

Amy Martin:

makes Chris's work so innovative, and Adam says it's

Amy Martin:

also what makes it hard to implement.

Adam Reed:

There's a whole lot of kind of social, technical,

Adam Reed:

and economic baggage that comes with the existing system that

Adam Reed:

makes thinking in that way difficult for people that are

Adam Reed:

used to the system the way it is.

Amy Martin:

Some of that baggage has been intentionally created.

Amy Martin:

Major oil companies spend vast sums of money lobbying

Amy Martin:

politicians to implement pro fossil fuel laws and policies,

Amy Martin:

and some like Exxon have even funded campaigns designed to

Amy Martin:

cast doubt on climate science and confuse the public, and this

Amy Martin:

is definitely a big part of the reason the US is still the

Amy Martin:

number two carbon emitter in the world. But Adam says there's

Amy Martin:

also a much more mundane set of obstacles to the kind of deep

Amy Martin:

systems change that Chris's model points us toward.

Adam Reed:

Transforming the grid in the way that Chris's model

Adam Reed:

would suggest we need to do it is a tremendous challenge. How

Adam Reed:

do you coordinate the over 3000 entities that control the US

Adam Reed:

power grid collectively in order to plan that?

Amy Martin:

And beyond the logistics of that, there's the

Amy Martin:

simple fact that redesigning how we generate and deliver energy

Amy Martin:

means changing how we think and how some of our institutions

Amy Martin:

run, and that's hard. For example, if you imagine yourself

Amy Martin:

as one of the people responsible for keeping the lights on for

Amy Martin:

everybody, you can see how something like a coal fired

Amy Martin:

power plant looks appealing because it gives you a feeling

Amy Martin:

of control. It puts energy into the grid at a steady,

Amy Martin:

predictable rate, 24/7. You, as the grid operator, know in

Amy Martin:

advance when that plant is going to turn on or off and how much

Amy Martin:

energy it'll produce every moment that it's running. Wind

Amy Martin:

and Solar don't work that way, obviously. no one controls them.

Amy Martin:

The wind gusts and the energy surges a cloudy day and the

Amy Martin:

energy dips, and that's really unsettling, if it's your job to

Amy Martin:

balance load and supply 50 times a second. But what Chris is

Amy Martin:

saying is that if the energy going into the grid is being

Amy Martin:

generated in lots of places simultaneously, the gusts and

Amy Martin:

clouds in one area can be compensated for by another.

Christopher Clack:

So as you get to these bigger grids, you can

Christopher Clack:

actually use these generators as sort of insurance against each

Christopher Clack:

other. If you spread them out, and you think about them

Christopher Clack:

carefully, you'll be losing power in one place, but new

Christopher Clack:

power will be arriving at another place, and so you're

Christopher Clack:

actually insuring each other.

Amy Martin:

We're used to thinking of the stuff we humans

Amy Martin:

build as being more reliable than natural processes. But when

Amy Martin:

you really think about it, what could be more certain than the

Amy Martin:

fact that the sun is going to continue to rise every morning?

Amy Martin:

What's actually more trustworthy, a coal fired power

Amy Martin:

plant or the turning of the Earth on its axis? And also all

Amy Martin:

forms of energy actually depend on natural resources. For

Amy Martin:

instance, nuclear plants have to shut down when there's not

Amy Martin:

enough cold water nearby, which could mean they become an

Amy Martin:

intermittent energy source in a water stressed world.

Adam Reed:

The popular image that we often have of

Adam Reed:

traditional generating resources is that they're just kind of

Adam Reed:

black boxes of stability, but they are, in fact, as dependent

Adam Reed:

on the global environment as anything else. There's no

Adam Reed:

separating the human endeavor and its economic aspects from

Adam Reed:

environmental processes.

Amy Martin:

But we don't tend to think that way, because our

Amy Martin:

modern energy systems can be traced all the way back to James

Amy Martin:

Watt and his steam engine, when we began to imagine that our

Amy Martin:

processes of producing power could be divorced from natural

Amy Martin:

systems. Adam says that paradigm still dominates the energy

Amy Martin:

sector in the United States, and Chris's model challenges that

Amy Martin:

mindset.

Adam Reed:

I think in a lot of ways, it it attacks the

Adam Reed:

foundation of the modern mythology of human beings

Adam Reed:

controlling the environment, which is, of course, it's a

Adam Reed:

complete fallacy. We don't but we've created technologies that

Adam Reed:

create an illusion that we are in control, and having to give

Adam Reed:

that up and adapt to more complex systems is frightening

Adam Reed:

to people in a lot of ways.

Amy Martin:

But whether we're using the wind, the sun, the

Amy Martin:

ancient plants known as coal or a controlled nuclear explosion,

Amy Martin:

we are in collaboration with the natural world. This is what the

Amy Martin:

climate crisis is forcing us to recognize, one way or another.

Amy Martin:

And just to underscore, Chris is not advocating for a system in

Amy Martin:

which we only have power when the wind blows or the sun is

Amy Martin:

shining. He's saying we can design a system smart enough to

Amy Martin:

work with those natural systems instead of fighting them.

Adam Reed:

The existing grid is almost like a like a Henry

Adam Reed:

Ford-esque assembly line. Chris's approach, and the

Adam Reed:

approach that Chris's model does, is more like conducting a

Adam Reed:

symphony, right? It's an entirely different approach to

Adam Reed:

thinking about how an electrical system could work. It's not a

Adam Reed:

factory, right? It's a it's this, this incredible confluence

Adam Reed:

of all of these chaotic, but not random elements in a way that

Adam Reed:

creates a beautiful kind of order.

Amy Martin:

Since we had this conversation in the fall of

Amy Martin:

2016, Chris Clack has been developing his model through his

Amy Martin:

company Vibrant Clean Energy. His work is frequently featured

Amy Martin:

in the national press, and he and his team have adapted the

Amy Martin:

model for the state and regional level. And although getting

Amy Martin:

Chris's ideas implemented on a national scale is full of

Amy Martin:

challenges, I continue to find his approach incredibly

Amy Martin:

inspiring. The climate conversation is dominated by

Amy Martin:

talk about what we need to stop doing and what horrible outcomes

Amy Martin:

we need to try to avoid. Chris's model gives us something to work

Amy Martin:

for. It shows that decarbonizing the American economy is possible

Amy Martin:

and affordable. And I think if more people were walking around

Amy Martin:

with that basic fact in mind, that we can do this, then we

Amy Martin:

might figure out how to implement Chris's model or come

Amy Martin:

up with alternative solutions. Knowing that one thing is

Amy Martin:

possible helps us to imagine what else we could do.

Christopher Clack:

It will happen. The problem is we've got

Christopher Clack:

a clock that we're running against, so we can't have

Christopher Clack:

another delay, and so we have to move much faster.

Amy Martin:

We'll have more after this short break.

Erika Janik:

Hey everybody, this is Erika Janik, Threshold's

Erika Janik:

Managing Editor. Did you know that we have a Threshold

Erika Janik:

newsletter? Our newsletter is a great way to stay connected to

Erika Janik:

Threshold between seasons, find out what we're thinking about

Erika Janik:

and what we're reading, listening to, and watching. So

Erika Janik:

subscribe to the Threshold newsletter today using the link

Erika Janik:

in the show notes or on our website, thresholdpodcast.org.

Amy Martin:

Welcome back to Threshold. I'm Amy Martin, and

Amy Martin:

the first half of this episode deposited us in a somewhat

Amy Martin:

uncomfortable place, this big ravine between a really

Amy Martin:

exciting, transformative climate solution and the difficulties of

Amy Martin:

implementing it. This conundrum shows up again and again in

Amy Martin:

climate work, because a lot of the most effective actions we

Amy Martin:

could take, things like redesigning the electricity

Amy Martin:

grid, don't only require a bunch of individuals to want those

Amy Martin:

things to happen. We have to overcome institutional inertia,

Amy Martin:

and large groups of humans have to decide to collaborate in new

Amy Martin:

ways. And that leads to the question, are we capable of

Amy Martin:

that? Do we humans have the capacity to cooperate at the

Amy Martin:

level the climate crisis demands?

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: I don't think we should be naive about

Amy Martin:

sustainability optimism. That's why, for me, it's a journey. Can

Amy Martin:

we get from here to a world that's maybe 10% better in the

Amy Martin:

next year or 20% better in the next year?

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra is an ecologist who leads the

Amy Martin:

Center for Climate Change and Sustainability at Azim Premji

Amy Martin:

University in Bangalore, India. And she knows that it's not in

Amy Martin:

vogue right now to believe in humanity, but she says we

Amy Martin:

actually do have enormous capacity for working together.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: People are inherently cooperative, but yet

Amy Martin:

this narrative which has taken over our imaginations, I don't

Amy Martin:

know why that is. I mean, I don't know why we're so willing

Amy Martin:

to believe the worst of ourselves.

Amy Martin:

But Harini says we also need to get comfortable

Amy Martin:

with the fact that collaboration takes time, so the systems

Amy Martin:

changes we need just aren't going to happen all at once. Her

Amy Martin:

research has primarily been on urban sustainability, and she

Amy Martin:

says that work has taught her the value in just starting

Amy Martin:

wherever you are and being willing to take small concrete

Amy Martin:

steps from there. For example...

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: Somebody that I knew was working in

Amy Martin:

Bombay with terrace gardening and organic gardening groups in

Amy Martin:

the city. And she said their journey was very interesting

Amy Martin:

because they started with this whole idea of feeding themselves

Amy Martin:

and their families healthy food, so it was purely self related.

Amy Martin:

Then they started working with other groups to say, okay, now

Amy Martin:

if we want organic, healthy food, we need compost and

Amy Martin:

compost is largely in a city like Bombay also would be around

Amy Martin:

manure, cow manure. And then when they got the cow manure,

Amy Martin:

they saw a lot of plastic in it. So then they started thinking,

Amy Martin:

oh my god, what are the cows eating? They're eating plastic.

Amy Martin:

Why are they eating plastic? Because we have garbage. And

Amy Martin:

then they started activism in terms of, where is our garbage

Amy Martin:

going, and why is the city not cleaning it up? So it went from

Amy Martin:

one thing to another. I really think that's a beautiful

Amy Martin:

description of how mindsets change. When you start doing

Amy Martin:

something, you have to start doing something.

Amy Martin:

When you start doing things, Harini says it's easier

Amy Martin:

to believe that more things are possible, and she says we need

Amy Martin:

to consciously seek out experiences that reinforce that

Amy Martin:

sense of possibility. Not just because it makes us feel good,

Amy Martin:

but because the expectations we bring into climate work have a

Amy Martin:

huge impact on the outcomes. For instance, urbanization is often

Amy Martin:

seen as the opposite of ecosystem health. The

Amy Martin:

expectation is that when cities grow, nature dies, and that

Amy Martin:

expectation limits our ability to imagine cities and nature

Amy Martin:

flourishing together. But in her book, Nature in the City, Harini

Amy Martin:

examined the process of urbanization in Bangalore, and

Amy Martin:

she found some surprises. She says it started two or 3000

Amy Martin:

years ago.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: There were people here, and it's an unusual

Amy Martin:

old civilization to have because it's in a semiarid place, so it

Amy Martin:

doesn't get much rainfall, it doesn't have any large sources

Amy Martin:

of water, no river, not next to the sea. So why would you have

Amy Martin:

an old civilization where you don't have water? Very counter

Amy Martin:

intuitive, right?

Amy Martin:

It turns out that way, back in time, people

Amy Martin:

figured out how to dig out basins in the landscape for

Amy Martin:

collecting rainwater, and bit by bit, by storing water, they made

Amy Martin:

the area more verdant and more able to produce the food they

Amy Martin:

needed.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: As people moved into this landscape, they

Amy Martin:

improved it in terms of its ecology from a human

Amy Martin:

perspective. So what was a semiarid place becomes this lush

Amy Martin:

landscape with rice, with coconut groves, with flower

Amy Martin:

gardens, with wells, with trees overground. You have this

Amy Martin:

continuous process that as more people come in, more trees are

Amy Martin:

planted, and more water rainwater harvesting is done,

Amy Martin:

and that, I think, should upend our view that urbanization

Amy Martin:

inevitably leads to destruction. Because we have this narrative

Amy Martin:

in our minds that, what can you do? It's a city. It's going to

Amy Martin:

grow. It can't be sustainable. People get really surprised when

Amy Martin:

you hear this, that there were hundreds of years in which

Amy Martin:

people kept coming into this landscape and kept protecting it

Amy Martin:

more and kept improving it from an ecological services

Amy Martin:

perspective, more shade, more water.

Amy Martin:

Harini says in the late 1800s there was a break

Amy Martin:

from the past.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: And that breach has gotten us into a very

Amy Martin:

unsustainable situation today, high rates of air pollution,

Amy Martin:

high rates of water pollution, asthma, well, it's not a healthy

Amy Martin:

city.

Amy Martin:

But she says we can't just look at the last 100

Amy Martin:

years or so and draw conclusions about humankind. We also need to

Amy Martin:

look at the previous thousand years, when people here were

Amy Martin:

strengthening their own society while also enhancing the natural

Amy Martin:

world around them.

Amy Martin:

The idea that humans are inherently destructive and that

Amy Martin:

we're going to ruin things, it didn't, it didn't come out of

Amy Martin:

nowhere. We do have a lot of destructive tendencies. If you

Amy Martin:

were giving a talk and someone stood up and said, don't give me

Amy Martin:

this baloney about people can be a positive force. Look at this

Amy Martin:

we've done, and this we've done, and this we've done. Look how

Amy Martin:

destructive we currently are in all these different places. How

Amy Martin:

do you com- combat the nihilism end of the spectrum, the people

Amy Martin:

who are just like, not only are we going to sink as a species,

Amy Martin:

we should because we are so bad. I mean, that's it's not an

Amy Martin:

uncommon thing to hear, frankly, often from really young people.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: Absolutely true. I think, I think, for me,

Amy Martin:

two things. One is that I don't think we can give up hope,

Amy Martin:

because we don't have another planet to go to, right? And I so

Amy Martin:

I think we just we can't lose hope whatever. You know, even in

Amy Martin:

the darkest of times.

Amy Martin:

Harini says, for every story of destruction, we

Amy Martin:

can find a story of a person or a group of people doing

Amy Martin:

something inspiring, innovative or brave. But she says, rather

Amy Martin:

than setting up a competition between hopeful and depressing

Amy Martin:

stories of humankind, what we need to do is study what helps

Amy Martin:

people be better.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: So there are certain principles of

Amy Martin:

collective action. I think that people have been looking at

Amy Martin:

small groups, whether people can make their own rules, whether

Amy Martin:

people can have a long term tenure security over their own

Amy Martin:

resources. There are some of these that are very strongly

Amy Martin:

related to conditions that help people want to organize and make

Amy Martin:

it successful, and I think those are the conditions we need to

Amy Martin:

create, rather than saying people are like this or people

Amy Martin:

are like that, because we're cherry picking examples there.

Amy Martin:

Uh huh, and people can be like all kinds of things

Amy Martin:

if they're given the right context.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: Exactly, yes.

Amy Martin:

And she says we need to embrace incremental steps to

Amy Martin:

not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: I mean, renewable energies, they're not

Amy Martin:

quick fixes. They're not without their own sustainability

Amy Martin:

challenges. So nothing's perfect. I think if we hold

Amy Martin:

ourselves up to the standards of what is perfect, we're not going

Amy Martin:

to get anywhere. Is it better than a coal-fired plant? Is it

Amy Martin:

better than fracking infinitely, right? The question is, can we

Amy Martin:

be better than we are? I think we can be much better than we

Amy Martin:

are right now, and maybe along the way, we'll figure out ways

Amy Martin:

to tackle some of these larger problems.

Amy Martin:

The question of how to get groups of humans

Amy Martin:

cooperating effectively on something as big and urgent as

Amy Martin:

the climate crisis is a huge topic, and we're going to

Amy Martin:

explore it in more depth in future episodes this season, but

Amy Martin:

I wanted to plant these seeds from Harini here, so we can keep

Amy Martin:

these internal and interpersonal aspects of the work in mind as

Amy Martin:

we continue to learn about the technical side. So here's one

Amy Martin:

last bit of wisdom from her. She says we need to let go of any

Amy Martin:

fantasies about one miracle solution or any dogma that says

Amy Martin:

there's only one path forward.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: I think you need to do multiple things

Amy Martin:

always. One thing's not going to do it. We'll have to have

Amy Martin:

multiple things coming together. What are those multiple things?

Amy Martin:

And what could be that combination that hopefully tips

Amy Martin:

us over into a better space 10 years from now?

Amy Martin:

And what you just said, it really strikes me that

Amy Martin:

it gets really, really biomimetic, because nature

Amy Martin:

doesn't just come up with one solution, like ecosystems that

Amy Martin:

work have so many different pieces and parts and it's

Amy Martin:

complicated.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Harini Nagendra: Yes, yeah,

Jim Williams:

Sort of my overall label on it is there is no

Jim Williams:

reason for advocates of different approaches to clean

Jim Williams:

energy to have any like internecine warfare for the next

Jim Williams:

decade. You know in terms of what needs to happen.

Amy Martin:

This is Jim Williams. You heard from him at

Amy Martin:

the very beginning of this episode, like Harini. Jim is an

Amy Martin:

advocate of doing multiple things and taking incremental

Amy Martin:

steps. He's one of the leaders of the deep decarbonization

Amy Martin:

Pathways Project, an international effort that aims

Amy Martin:

to map out ways for countries around the world to transition

Amy Martin:

off of fossil fuels by 2050.

Amy Martin:

You know, I discovered you through this really fascinating

Amy Martin:

paper, just the title alone has, I think, a remarkable amount of

Amy Martin:

hope in it, Carbon Neutral Pathways for the United States.

Amy Martin:

When I saw that title, I was like, what? There is such a

Amy Martin:

thing as carbon neutral pathways for the United States. And then

Amy Martin:

when I started reading it, I was like, oh, there's so much about

Amy Martin:

this that says we can become carbon neutral as a country. Not

Amy Martin:

only is it possible, it doesn't even have to be like terribly

Amy Martin:

painful. And I guess maybe, before I ask anything more about

Amy Martin:

the specifics, do you feel like that general understanding of it

Amy Martin:

is correct?

Jim Williams:

Yes.

Amy Martin:

That's That in itself is kind of mind blowing.

Jim Williams:

I'll say this, it's correct, but it doesn't

Jim Williams:

necessarily mean that it's easy. That is the fact that we can do

Jim Williams:

it technologically and the fact that it is affordable for our

Jim Williams:

country doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be easy to

Jim Williams:

accomplish from institutional standpoint or a political

Jim Williams:

standpoint.

Amy Martin:

Right.ight.

Jim Williams:

So one has to be a little bit cautious when, when

Jim Williams:

saying yes, but the answer is still yes.

Amy Martin:

Like Chris Clack, Jim and his team created a

Amy Martin:

highly detailed computer model to map out the pathways to net

Amy Martin:

zero by 2050 again, that's where the world needs to be in order

Amy Martin:

to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius over

Amy Martin:

pre-industrial levels. Jim and Chris's models share a lot of

Amy Martin:

features. They're both focused on how the United States can get

Amy Martin:

to net zero by 2050 they both try to find the lowest cost ways

Amy Martin:

to do that, and they both assume that Americans will, for the

Amy Martin:

most part, continue to drive, fly and generally do the stuff

Amy Martin:

we currently do. And a lot of what Jim's model tells us is

Amy Martin:

also similar to Chris's. They both arrive at the conclusion

Amy Martin:

that we need to decarbonize the energy sector and electrify

Amy Martin:

everything. Meaning charge up our grid with clean energy and

Amy Martin:

then plug everything we possibly can into it, not just our

Amy Martin:

toasters and computers, but our cars, home heating systems, and

Amy Martin:

even eventually, our industrial processes. But the roadmaps

Amy Martin:

these two models provide for how to get there are a little

Amy Martin:

different. Rather than a redesign of the grid, Jim and

Amy Martin:

his team mapped out eight different pathways for the

Amy Martin:

United States to be carbon neutral by 2050 his model is

Amy Martin:

designed to allow us to weigh the pros and cons of different

Amy Martin:

options. For instance, one pathway prioritizes preserving

Amy Martin:

open space, while another shows what it would take to shut down

Amy Martin:

all fossil fuels and nuclear energy by 2050.

Amy Martin:

Where do we start? Like, what do we have to do first?

Jim Williams:

Well, it turns out that in the next 10 years,

Jim Williams:

regardless of where you're going, eventually, it's pretty

Jim Williams:

clear what needs to be done from. A from a technology

Jim Williams:

standpoint.

Amy Martin:

This is a really cool thing that Jim and his team

Amy Martin:

learned. All eight pathways to net zero by 2050 start the same

Amy Martin:

way. It's only after we get through the first decade of work

Amy Martin:

that the roads start to diverge. So eventually we have to face

Amy Martin:

some really thorny issues, like how much total land we're

Amy Martin:

willing to turn over to wind farms, and to what degree are we

Amy Martin:

comfortable with nuclear energy. But for the next 10 years, we

Amy Martin:

don't have to fight about that stuff, because every road to a

Amy Martin:

livable future starts with us doing certain key things in this

Amy Martin:

decade, six things to be exact. So let's go through them.

Jim Williams:

What needs to happen in the next 10 years. One

Jim Williams:

of them is getting out of coal altogether. Basically, that's

Jim Williams:

the biggest single thing that can be done in the next 10

Jim Williams:

years, is eliminating coal-fired power plants.

Amy Martin:

The US currently has around 240 active coal fired

Amy Martin:

power plants, and all of them need to close in the next

Amy Martin:

decade. That's really bad news for the people who work in those

Amy Martin:

plants. Nationally, that's around 40,000 people. We need to

Amy Martin:

find more ways to cushion the blow for those communities and

Amy Martin:

those families. But we also cannot equivocate here. After

Amy Martin:

300 years of burning this fuel at mass scale, we have to stop.

Amy Martin:

Every pathway to net zero includes facing that reality and

Amy Martin:

acting on it. Now, moving on to the second item on the to do

Amy Martin:

list, build more wind and solar. Jim says we need...

Jim Williams:

Something like three to four times the level

Jim Williams:

that we currently have. So that means a faster rate of building

Jim Williams:

than we have currently, but not unprecedented. It means, you

Jim Williams:

know, picking up the pace.

Amy Martin:

Ramping up wind and solar power by three to four

Amy Martin:

times in the next 10 years isn't a nothing project, but it's not

Amy Martin:

an impossible project either. It's not like the model said, we

Amy Martin:

have to ramp it up a hundredfold. So I call that good

Amy Martin:

news item number three, more electric cars. Jim's model was

Amy Martin:

built with the assumption that Americans are going to upgrade

Amy Martin:

their vehicles at the same rate that they do now. So the idea is

Amy Martin:

not that everyone runs out immediately and sends their

Amy Martin:

fossil fuel cars to the junkyard, but when it comes time

Amy Martin:

to upgrade, we need to make it easy for people to choose to go

Amy Martin:

electric. He says our goal should be for half of all new

Amy Martin:

vehicles sold in the United States to be electric by 2030

Amy Martin:

then we'd be on track to meet the goal of transitioning

Amy Martin:

completely away from fossil fueled vehicles in the 2040s.

Jim Williams:

Vehicles last for a long time, right? 10, 1215,

Jim Williams:

years, for that whole fleet to be electrified by the 2040s

Jim Williams:

you've got to start by changing over that vehicle fleet a

Jim Williams:

purchase at a time.

Amy Martin:

Item number four on the list is to do the same thing

Amy Martin:

with the major equipment in our buildings.

Jim Williams:

Heating and cooling of space and also of

Jim Williams:

water. Those are some of the biggest energy uses, both in

Jim Williams:

residential buildings and commercial ones.

Amy Martin:

As with cars, we don't need to junk stuff that's

Amy Martin:

working, but when that gas stove or fuel oil furnace dies, it

Amy Martin:

needs to be replaced with an electric version. And again, we

Amy Martin:

need to aim for 50% by 2030.

Jim Williams:

it's not that all buildings will be 50%

Jim Williams:

electrified in these ways by 2030 but that the sales of

Jim Williams:

equipment reach basically 50% electric by that time.

Amy Martin:

We're going to focus on decarbonizing our homes in

Amy Martin:

our next episode. So I won't elaborate on this point now.

Amy Martin:

I'll just give you two key words: heat pumps. Americans

Amy Martin:

need to fall in love with heat pumps. But moving on to item

Amy Martin:

number five on Jim's list, don't build new stuff that depends on

Amy Martin:

oil and gas.

Jim Williams:

And that would apply especially to new oil and

Jim Williams:

gas distribution infrastructure and so forth.

Amy Martin:

He says, we will continue to use fossil fuels in

Amy Martin:

the US for a few more decades.

Jim Williams:

You know, this may not be music to the years of

Jim Williams:

activists, but it's going to take a while for this transition

Jim Williams:

to happen.

Amy Martin:

But while it happens, you don't want to be

Amy Martin:

spending money or time building the infrastructure of a dying

Amy Martin:

system. These things are called stranded assets.

Jim Williams:

Meaning you build new pipelines to only find that

Jim Williams:

you can't use them. 10 years from now, somebody's going to

Jim Williams:

end up paying a lot for that, and that's a big economic loss.

Jim Williams:

So it just doesn't make sense in a decarbonizing world to be

Jim Williams:

building shipping ports for LNG or pipelines coming down from

Jim Williams:

Canada or any of that sort of stuff. Makes no sense.

Amy Martin:

This is one of the things I really enjoyed about

Amy Martin:

talking with Jim. His pragmatism cuts right through all kinds of

Amy Martin:

supposed fault lines. In one breath, he's disappointing

Amy Martin:

climate activists. In the next, he's telling the oil and gas

Amy Martin:

industry that their attempts to build new ports and pipelines

Amy Martin:

are nonsensical.

Jim Williams:

And finally, to get to that last share of

Jim Williams:

emission reductions where we have the hard dual electrify

Jim Williams:

options, things like air travel. We need to do some more R and D.

Jim Williams:

We need to have pilot projects. We need to have incentive

Jim Williams:

programs. We need to develop the technologies in the next decade

Jim Williams:

that are going to be needed at large scale in the 2030s and

Jim Williams:

2040s.

Amy Martin:

Learn stuff. That's the last item on Jim's to do

Amy Martin:

list for this decade, to get rid of the bulk of our emissions. We

Amy Martin:

already know what to do. But for that last slice that's harder to

Amy Martin:

solve, really carbon intensive processes like producing steel

Amy Martin:

and cement, we need to do research that will allow us to

Amy Martin:

choose the smartest path as quickly as possible.

Jim Williams:

So that that's sort of the the technological

Jim Williams:

benchmarks that we need policy to get us to by 10 years from

Jim Williams:

now. You know, it's a whole nother question about what those

Jim Williams:

policies are, but those should be the outcomes of the policy if

Jim Williams:

we want to be on a straight line path to net zero by mid century.

Amy Martin:

So let's do a quick recap. These are the six things

Amy Martin:

we need to do by 2030 in the United States in order to limit

Amy Martin:

global heating to 1.5 degrees and get to net zero by 2050.

Amy Martin:

Number one, end coal. Two, build three to four times more wind

Amy Martin:

and solar than we have now. Three, increase sales of

Amy Martin:

electric cars, aiming for 50% of new cars sold. Four, make big

Amy Martin:

strides on decarbonizing buildings. More on that next

Amy Martin:

episode. Five, do not build new oil and gas infrastructure. And

Amy Martin:

six, invest in the research and development we'll need to make

Amy Martin:

the next set of decisions. Jim says, if we get to work on these

Amy Martin:

top six highest priority tasks, we can argue all we want about

Amy Martin:

what happens after that. We just have to agree to have those

Amy Martin:

arguments while we're getting these things done, because doing

Amy Martin:

these six things by 2030 will get us well on our way to a full

Amy Martin:

decarbonization in the decades to follow. Just take that in for

Amy Martin:

a minute. We don't need any new technology to do this stuff.

Amy Martin:

There's no eco-police state involved, no sudden moral

Amy Martin:

Awakening on a mass scale. No one's shivering in caves. We

Amy Martin:

just have to increase some things we're already doing, like

Amy Martin:

buying electric cars and building out renewables, and

Amy Martin:

decrease some other things like burning coal and building new

Amy Martin:

fossil fuel infrastructure. And a lot of what needs to happen is

Amy Martin:

stuff that most Americans barely think about, like, where the

Amy Martin:

power comes from when we flip on the lights.

Jim Williams:

The vast majority of what needs to happen is going

Jim Williams:

to be like, literally under the hood. That that's that's

Jim Williams:

actually the things we're saying need to be changed, and most

Jim Williams:

people are not going to notice the difference. I mean, yeah,

Jim Williams:

okay, so maybe you plug in your car instead of taking it to a

Jim Williams:

gas station.

Amy Martin:

And if you're thinking, but isn't this going

Amy Martin:

to kill the economy? Isn't it going to be super expensive? Jim

Amy Martin:

says no, for most of the pathways, this transition would

Amy Martin:

cost less than half a percent of GDP.

Jim Williams:

Which is a little less than $150 billion in the

Jim Williams:

year 2050.

Amy Martin:

H some context for that number. In 2020 we spent $4

Amy Martin:

trillion on health care in the United States. That's more than

Amy Martin:

19% of GDP. We spent $778 billion on the military, which

Amy Martin:

is 3.7% of GDP, and again, to achieve carbon neutrality by

Amy Martin:

2050, Jim's model predicts we'd need to spend less than $150

Amy Martin:

billion per year, less than one half of 1% of GDP.

Jim Williams:

When we talk about affordability, that's that's

Jim Williams:

what we mean. It's just not that big an impact on the economy.

Jim Williams:

And no case that we look at does it say this is a burden. Known

Jim Williams:

the US economy that just can't be born, that that simply isn't

Jim Williams:

isn't true.

Amy Martin:

In the United States, we've gotten so used to

Amy Martin:

thinking about everything to do with climate, or just

Amy Martin:

everything, maybe as an ideological battle. The forces

Amy Martin:

of good versus the forces of evil, and those things are

Amy Martin:

defined very differently by different camps, of course, but

Amy Martin:

what Jim and Chris's models both point toward is that if we could

Amy Martin:

just agree on the fact that preventing climate catastrophe

Amy Martin:

is in everyone's interest, then most of the work isn't really

Amy Martin:

ideological at all. It's just group problem solving.

Jim Williams:

It really is about, what are our building

Jim Williams:

codes, you know, what are contractors required to do? Are

Jim Williams:

you going to build the next set of houses to be, you know,

Jim Williams:

running off of clean electricity and not put in that gas pipeline

Jim Williams:

infrastructure that is going to be obsolete and stranded in 10

Jim Williams:

years. You know, do do we have the land use decisions we we

Jim Williams:

need in order to, you know, make siting of wind and solar and

Jim Williams:

transmission lines and so forth possible at the sort of scale

Jim Williams:

and speed that they need to happen at?

Amy Martin:

Doing this nitty gritty implementation work

Amy Martin:

requires the approach that Harini was talking about, a

Amy Martin:

belief that it's possible to solve these problems together,

Amy Martin:

and a willingness to take concrete, incremental steps to

Amy Martin:

get there. Those are things that all of us can put into practice

Amy Martin:

immediately. We can go to a city council meeting, get involved in

Amy Martin:

rewriting our local building codes to be more climate

Amy Martin:

friendly, or even just get informed about what our local

Amy Martin:

building codes are. I know all of this stuff can sound really

Amy Martin:

technical and kind of dry, but when I think about it, I have

Amy Martin:

feelings, feelings like hope, because it's absolutely possible

Amy Martin:

to do the six things Jim's model points us toward. Sure, they

Amy Martin:

take some effort and some planning, but these are

Amy Martin:

imminently reachable goals.

Jim Williams:

This is way less of a daunting problem than

Jim Williams:

producing a vaccine for covid in a year. That's fabulous science,

Jim Williams:

and this doesn't take fabulous science.

Amy Martin:

Do you feel like a little bit like you're holding

Amy Martin:

this magic box that has all of the answers that we desperately

Amy Martin:

need and and no one's paying attention to you? Maybe people

Amy Martin:

are paying attention to you, I don't know. But when I hear you

Amy Martin:

say this, and when I read a heading titled, the actions

Amy Martin:

required in the next 10 years are known with high confidence,

Amy Martin:

it's like it just kind of makes me both want to do a happy dance

Amy Martin:

and also, like, shake somebody.

Jim Williams:

Yeah, one way I like to say that is, the good

Jim Williams:

news is that, you know, decarbonization is, is really

Jim Williams:

not a problem of technology or cost. And the bad news is that

Jim Williams:

decarbonization is not really a problem of technology or cost.

Amy Martin:

That's good news, because nothing is really

Amy Martin:

standing in our way except ourselves. And that's the bad

Amy Martin:

news.

Jim Williams:

The way our politics work and our

Jim Williams:

institutions run that that's the hard stuff, from my standpoint.

Amy Martin:

Yeah, those patterns are more deeply entrenched than

Amy Martin:

a combustion engine versus an electric engine.

Jim Williams:

Yeah, it's it's not an insurmountable problem,

Jim Williams:

but it's a hard problem in a divided country.

Amy Martin:

Yeah, But I hear you saying, well, I think I hear you

Amy Martin:

saying, that you think we can do this.

Jim Williams:

Yeah, I think we can do this. It's late. A lot

Jim Williams:

has gone down. You know, globally, a lot will be lost.

Jim Williams:

You know, ecosystem, species, it's sad, it's tragic. We're

Jim Williams:

decades too late, and there's a lot to be sorry about and a lot

Jim Williams:

to be angry about, but that doesn't mean that we should let

Jim Williams:

all that stuff get in our way. Going forward, there's still,

Jim Williams:

there's always a right thing to be done, no matter what mistakes

Jim Williams:

have been made in the past. And I think now we're pretty clear

Jim Williams:

about what the right thing to do is, and we can do it, and

Jim Williams:

there's no big barriers to doing it, not on, not on the sort of

Jim Williams:

tangible, physical side of things. And I like to believe

Jim Williams:

that, that somehow, you know, we are going to do those things.

Amy Martin:

To make any of the changes we've talked about in

Amy Martin:

this episode, the number one thing we need is a well

Amy Martin:

functioning democracy. We need the ability to think together,

Amy Martin:

listen to each other, plan ahead, cooperate, and that makes

Amy Martin:

me want to repeat what Jim said at the beginning of this

Amy Martin:

episode. There is hope. There are also challenges, but they're

Amy Martin:

probably not what we think they are. Limiting temperature rise

Amy Martin:

to 1.5 degrees is hard, but it's not rocket science. We're not

Amy Martin:

facing huge technological or financial hurdles. Our biggest

Amy Martin:

barriers and our most promising tools are our imperfect human

Amy Martin:

selves.

Remy Carmichael:

I'm Remi from Door County, Wisconsin,

Remy Carmichael:

reporting for the season of Threshold was funded by the Park

Remy Carmichael:

Foundation, the High Stakes Foundation, the Pleiades

Remy Carmichael:

foundation, NewsMatch, the Llewellyn foundation and

Remy Carmichael:

listeners. This work depends on people who believe in it and

Remy Carmichael:

choose to support it, people like you. Join our community at

Remy Carmichael:

thresholdpodcast.org.

Amy Martin:

This episode of Threshold was produced and

Amy Martin:

reported by me, Amy Martin, with help from Nick Mott and Erika

Amy Martin:

Janik. The rest of the Threshold team is Caysi Simpson, Deneen

Amy Martin:

Weiske, Eva Kalea, Sam Moore and Shola Lawal. Our intern is Emery

Amy Martin:

Veilleux. Thanks to Sara Sneath, Sally Deng, Maggy Contreras,

Amy Martin:

Hana Carey, Dan Carreno, Luca Borghese, Julia Barry, Kara

Amy Martin:

Cromwell, Katie deFusco, Caroline Kurtz and Gabby

Amy Martin:

Piamonte. And special thanks to Steven Rascon, Taliah

Amy Martin:

Farnsworth, Sam Evans-Brown and Remy Carmichael. Our music is by

Amy Martin:

Todd Sickafoose.

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