‼️ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates ‼️

 23/∞

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/+⭐️⭐️

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I was totally amazed by this book! It contains some cutting edge knowledge about how to decrease our greenhouse emissions to net zero by 2050. First of all, thank you Bill, for writing it. This book really pumped me up and returned some of my believe in humanity.

What is the main driver behind this book? It is called innovating to zero (watch the TED Talk here). It is the initiative Bill Gates started in 2010. The reason why the initiative is called innovating to zero is because mere cutting on CO2 won’t save our planet. We need to get net zero when it comes to the production o greenhouse gases. Finally, Bill is coming with ideas on how to reach net zero by 2050 in this book.

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Before I start, I would also recommend you to read Energy and Civilisation: A History by Václav Smil (to read the full-review click here). Václav Smil is a fellow countryman from Czech academic teaching at University of Manitoba and a favourite author of Bill Gates to read. Out of my perspective, Smil’s book is a foundation stone to Bill’s book. Smil helps you to understand energy concepts and its history. Bill then provides solutions for current climate situation. Both of this books combined are a powerful Mortal-Combat combo packed with handy knowledge and useful information. 

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Let’s start wit a little break up of CO2 production:

Manufacturing: 31 %

Pluggin in: 27%

Agriculture: 19%

Transportation: 16%

Warming and cooling houses: 7%

Nuclear

Let’s start with nuclear. Right now, the Czech Republic stands before a big decision: To build or not to build two new reactors in nuclear power plant located near small Czech village called Dukovany. The plant was built in communist era and runs on Russian technology.

Czech citizens are no longer in the position of daft, brainwashed communist citizens and there is a much discussion about, if the Czech Rep. actually needs new two extra reactors in a nuclear power plant.

Initially, I was opposed to the construction of two new reactors in Dukovany plant. Germany decided to shut down its all nuclear power plants. As usually, I consider Germany to be highly-advanced technological nation and I thought that the Czech Rep. should follow the way, until… I have read this book.

Both Bill and Smil argue that the design of nuclear power plant hasn’t been changed for since 1950’. Now he have some new technologies available and they could make nuclear power plants safer and more efficient. Some of those technologies are even being developed by companies financially supported by Bill Gates.

The biggest pro of nuclear energy is its stability. When it come to renewable energy, we have either way too much electricity or none at all. To store all that energy, we need batteries. But it is not possible to have batteries supporting entire cities (e.g. of the size of Tokyo) for more than a couple of days. 

Nuclear energy is also “clean” (it does not produce na CO2 like coal fired plants). Of course, there is the question of a nuclear waste. But there have been some good news about recycling nuclear waste and using all the fuel up to 99%. That looks very promising and makes the nuclear energy look way more appealing for me.

One of the biggest cons remains the construction cost.

To sum up. Nuclear energy is clean, we can improve the design of newly build plants and make them safer and more efficient. On the top of that we are capable of minimising nuclear waste to mere 1%.

Out of my perspective, nuclear is a no brainer for.

Nuclear fusion 

I was also excited to lear about nuclear fusion. To briefly explain the concept. In nuclear fusion are two atoms brought together, they fuse and create loads of energy which could be harvested. Fusion happens at very high temperatures (we are taking about 50.000 °C).

It has been tested on the small scale, unfortunately nobody was capable of conducting nuclear fusion without putting more energy into the process that harvesting. 

There is an experimental facility in the EU called ITER. It is located in France, they aim to master nuclear fusion in next 20 years or so. 

Nuclear fusion is highly interesting, but I do not think we would be able to develop it on the large scale before the time runs up.

Renewable energy (wind, hydro, solar and geothermal)

First of all, are all of those waste of money and time? Certainly not. But they have their limitations (except of hydro which runs stable pretty much all the time). It also depends where on the world and in what climate is renewable energy harvested. A solar plant in Sahara desert will do pretty good, but in Germany and Central Europe in general, it will hit its limitations (mainly because Sun does not shine in Central Europe all the time). 

The next challenge is the storage of electricity produced by renewable sources. Lithium based batteries could be only improved by factor of 3, which means they will get better, but their capacity will never be enough to support large cities over a long period of time (weeks/months/years). There are some really interesting ideas on how to improve them though. E.g. batteries with liquid metal inside, but it still won’t be enough for some counties and cities.

My conclusion is that in countries like Czech Rep. the renewable energy should be complimentary to nuclear. It also should be harvested at location where it makes sense (wind and tidal in Scotland etc.). In the other words, renewable will work for some states more that for the others.

Logistics of renewable energy 💡⚡️

Let’s say you are going to produce wind electricity in Scotland and you need to transfer it down to Midlands. Renewable energy cannot be transferred in the same way as conventional electricity. It needs long-distance power-lines based on high voltage current. It is important to say that the entire electricity grids of most countries are not built in this way and they would need a number of rehauls and major financial investments.

Manufacturing and Concrete 🧱 🪚 🔨

Asphalt, steel and concrete… Three substances without them there would be hardly any structure in today’s world. It was a massive surprise for me to discover that all of them are huge CO2 contributors. I mean, it made sense with steel but concrete was a new one for me. It is not concrete itself that produces CO2, it is calcium (a part of cement which is ultimately a part of concrete). Calcium is created by heating up limestone + carbon. The final product is calcium + guess what carbon dioxide (CO2). We obviously can make calcium without producing CO2. We can use electric furnaces instead of coke fired furnaces, yet this solution is not exactly “energy efficient” and it means that the price of calcium would increase 2 or 3 fold.

But this process is possible and probably not far away from implementation.

Hydrogen ⚗️

I was really excited to learn more about hydrogen. There has been talks about hydrogen powered cars since I was a boy.

On of the most interesting facts I have learned concers storing hydrogen. Molecules of hydrogen are capable of escaping “gas bottles.” It means that if you are going to let your car to stay still, one day all hydrogen just “evaporates.” 😆

The second problem with hydrogen is the price. Some estimates are saying that the hydrogen would be between 300 and 600% more expensive fuel in comparison to gas and diesel. But if there would be a major breakthrough, we would need larger and better batteries in our electric powered cars. In the other words, hydrogen has not been adopted widely just because “the evil oil companies” do not want a competition. As some people say… Manily people who know everything better and never read a single book... 😃

Agriculture 🌱

Based on this book I tried my second ever veggie burger in my life. 🍔😋 It tasted fucking awesome! I haven’t had one since like 10 years ago. When I tried a veggie burger for the first time, I was genuinely looking forward to lovely taste of meat, but then it really tased like a shoe sole. I ate it and I was still hungry (although I was going through my “Massenphase” as they call it in Germany, which meant I could have eaten anything and I would have been still hungry). Anyway, why am I talking about burgers? Because in order to “grow” a one unit of beef, you need to feed a cow six units of energy. It the other words, it is not exactly efficient and environmentally friendly process. Cows are also producing loads of CO2 due to infatuation and farting, thanks to the 4 stomachs. 

Geoengeneering (artificial clouds ☁️)

We would be able to reflect more sun light ☀️coming on our planet by creating artificial clouds. Consequently, we would be able to “cool” down the Earth. This solution appears to be cheap and effective, but there are still loads of question marks. Like the effects of clouds on particular areas, sub-climates etc.

Conclusion:

In a nutshell, this is it. I liked this book a lot and I cannot what to read something similar again what would match up the quality and number of innovation spoken about.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Feel free to like, share and comment or recommend books/courses you find inspirational yourself. I’m keen to hear about them.

Coming Up Next: Beyond Order 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson

Peace 🧘‍♂️✌️🌱