Green Onions
The Grasshopper’s been thinking a lot about Net Zero recently. So much so, in fact, that it’s starting to put this blog in danger of running on a single-issue ticket.. And that just won’t do.
So, time to spin off the one-trick pony. While polymathy and philomathy continue to be themes to be celebrated here, the investigation of the skills needed for Net Zero is going out to another blog. Dear readers, I give you The Green Edge – you can read its introductory post here.
So, that’s that. Well, not quite…
It occurs to the G. that this whole business of understanding what on earth these Net Zero geeks are banging on about is like an onion. Green Onions, if you will. Now, we all know the analogy of the onion, peel off a layer and find a whole new layer beneath. But the green onions we’re talking about here are the reverse of that. It’s like being inside the onion and working one’s way out. It’s reductionism gone bonkers and these green geeks – together with the politicians, of course, who are too dim to understand even the basics yet preach it like it’s a done deal – simply focus on the layer they’re living in or are told about, and never venture out and up through the layers.
Take a wind turbine, for example. Quite simple to do the math on cost of turbine vs value of clean electricity production. Reliable sources (not Net Zero geeks at all, of course not) estimate anywhere between 6 and 12 months payback…
…except these people don’t break their way out of the green onion. Consider this: many wind turbines are built in huge wind farms, and many wind farms (onshore ones, that is) live on top of moors, and many moors contain valuable peat, and this peat disappears during construction (not to mention the roads built to service the windfarms), and the carbon that was stored in the lost peat goes into the atmosphere, and once peat is dug up it never comes back1. Although they only occupy 3% of the global land area, peatlands contain about 25% of global soil carbon. That’s twice as much as the world's forests. And when peat is gone, it’s gone for good. So, 6 to 12 months economic payback and perhaps 30 years working life, but loss of peat FOREVER.
Green Onions.
Another example: in HM Gov’s brand shiny new Net Zero strategy just published, it says…[o]ur ambition is to enable delivery of 10% SAF [sustainable aviation fuel] by 2030 and will be supporting UK industry with £180 million funding for the development of SAF plants2. The problem is that, basically, SAFs produce just as much co2 out the back end of an aircraft as bad ol’ kerosene, but you need to look at the lifecycle co2 emissions to find the savings. SAF from biomass can offset some carbon but not if you need to cut down the rainforest to make it. Other fuels produce a load of co2 during refinement.
Green Onions.
This is all about systems thinking. And in the G’s humble opinion, there’s nowhere near enough of it. In the drive to ‘specialise, specialise, specialise’ the big picture gets lost. Systems thinking peels away the layers and examines how the component parts interact with each other. It focuses on feedback loops, causes and effects, and behaviours over time. Most importantly, it looks at holistic behaviour. And the behaviour of the human system is what will make Net Zero happen in the long term – or not.
Not like a tree, of course
Sense check: the amount of SAF burned in the UK today is no more than 2 or 3 % of the total.