This is a review of Bill Gates’s new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, subtitled, The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need. The book was published February 16, 2021 and has benefited from a lot of publicity. It’s a good book, laying out a very complex challenge in an understandable way.
Bill doesn’t shy away from difficult challenges. He and Paul Allen aimed for a computer on every desk and achieved that. Five years ago, he warned us of a coming pandemic, which we all ignored. Climate Change is probably his biggest challenge yet. Or maybe I should say, our biggest challenge.
The book’s introduction is titled, 51 Billion to Zero. 51 Billion is the tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year. This is where we are now. Zero is where we need to be. This sounds difficult and it is. The world has never done anything this big. If we don’t do this, the world will continue to warm and the impact on humans will be catastrophic.
Bill came to this conclusion via his work with the Gates Foundation and discovering that a lot of places don’t have reliable electricity. It became obvious that the world needs to provide energy to the world’s poor but without releasing more greenhouse gases.
Three things became clear:
- To avoid climate disaster, we must get to zero.
- We need to deploy the tools we already have, like solar and wind, faster and smarter.
- And we need to create and roll out breakthrough technologies that can take us the rest of the way.
Why Zero? Greenhouse gases trap heat. This causes temperatures on Earth to rise. 20% of the carbon dioxide emitted today will still be here 10,000 years from now.
Prior to the industrial age, the Earth’s climate cycle was roughly in balance. Plants and other things absorbed about as much carbon dioxide as was emitted. When we started burning fossil fuels, we got out of balance. If we get to zero, we will still be emitting greenhouse gases; we’ll just be removing as much as we emit. Thus, zero really means “near net zero.”
Some of the obvious effects of climate change include more hot days, sea levels rising and more intense storms. The habitable ranges for various animals will decrease.
Getting to zero will be very difficult. Fossil fuels are like water—they’re everywhere. Virtually everything in our lives is made of petroleum, powered by petroleum or uses petroleum in some way. Oil is cheaper than soft drinks; it is ubiquitous. Changing our world to use no fossil fuels will be tough.
Gates has five questions one should ask about anything about climate change. These are the five questions that helped him understand the issue:
- How Much of the 51 Billion Tons Are We Talking About? The problem is that the numbers thrown around are huge and it is hard to know what a significant amount is. The 51 billion tons is the total of greenhouse gases released every year. He suggests converting any change to a percentage of the whole to determine the significance. Gates doesn’t get involved unless a technology can remove at least 500 million tons per year, or 1 percent.
- What’s Your Plan for Cement? Any plan for tackling climate change needs to be comprehensive. Electricity and cars get a lot of attention, but they are only the beginning. The total greenhouse gases annually result from:
- Making things (cement, steel, plastic) 31%
- Plugging in (electricity) 27%
- Growing things (plants, animals) 19%
- Getting around (plans, trucks, cargo ships) 16%
- Keeping warm and cool (heating, cooling, refrigeration) 7%
Electric generation is only 27% of the problem but could be more of the solution. Think of transportation that is getting electricity off the grid and heating and cooling systems that are electric. Some things fall into two categories, such as making cars that then are used to get around. The most important thing to remember, we need to get all five categories to zero.
- How Much Power Are We Talking About? An electric light uses about 40 watts, a hair dryer might use 1,500. A kilowatt is a thousand watts, a megawatt is a million watts, and a gigawatt is a billion watts. How much power does it take?
- The world 5,000 gigawatts
- The U.S. 1,000 gigawatts
- Mid-sized city 1 gigawatt
- Small town 1 megawatt
- Average home 1 kilowatt
- How Much Space Do You Need? Power density determines how much space you need to create the watts needed. How much power can we generate per square meter?
- Fossil fuels 500-10,000
- Nuclear 500-1,000
- Solar 5-20
- Hydro 5-50
- Wind 1-2
- Wood/biomass less than 1
This becomes important when someone says that “All the power in the world can be generated from solar.” Maybe, but how much space would it take?
- How Much Is This Going to Cost? Current greenhouse gas sources of energy are the cheapest, which is why they are the most widely used. (This neglect putting a cost on the long-term damage caused.) Green premium is the way Gates thinks of the alternatives. How much more does the green alternative cost? The alternatives with the lowest Green Premium should be implemented first.
There is a chapter dealing with the five major areas that generate greenhouses gases (listed under #2 What’s Your Plan for Cement? Above.) There are chapters on the role of governments, the plan to get to zero by 2050 (which includes a daunting list of the new technologies needed), and what each of us can do as individuals.
I like the book and the way Bill has made the challenge understandable. He really cuts through all the misinformation out there. There is one problem he doesn’t address, and that’s curbing population growth, which is one of the root causes. But some problems are even too big for Bill. I give him credit for tackling this problem and devoting his time and resources to it. He also deserves credit for never talking about saving the World. The World will live on, but will it be fit for human habitation?
After reading the book, am I optimistic? No. This is a hundred times as hard as Covid. But I recommend the book to you wholeheartedly, so you can be a more informed citizen of the World.
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