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Personal Review and Book Notes — Apocalypse Never

Alfons
Side A
Published in
25 min readOct 5, 2021

Good book provokes your thoughts.
Sometime we really need to pick a book that challenge our thinking. I think this book matches that criteria. This book provokes me to take a closer look from each opposing ideas.

Please note that with numerous sources I try to read to complement this book, I summarize the sources by the end of this article.

From Michael Shellenberger’s organization page.

Personally, I think Shellenberger is a polarizing person due to his strong point of view on environmentalism. He’s been active in environmental movement since his teenage years. He was part of Rainforest Action Network movement to boycott Burger King. Burger King was purchasing hamburger meat produced on land in Costa Rica that was formerly a rainforest. In his book, he said:

“In some small way, I felt I had helped save the rainforests.”

He graduated from the Peace and Global Studies Program at Earlham College in 1993. In his book, he shared his story on learning Portuguese so he could live in Brazil and work with the Landless Workers’ Movement and the Workers Party in the semi-Amazonian state of Maranhão in Brazil. He said he returned to Brazil several times between 1992 and 1995.

Later in his book, he shared two distinctive stories following his journey to Congo and Indonesia. Some people may think he cherry-picked the stories to support his views. But, it’s still worth to learn his stories.

Glad it was on discount on Kindle

The lady in Congo is Mamy Bernadette Semutaga, she went by Bernadette. She was twenty-five years old with seven child. Much of Bernadette’s life has been difficult, Shellenberger wrote. She was married when she was fifteen years old. She lives by farming sweet near Virunga National Park. This part of his book really make me stop to think deeper:

We should be concerned about the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations, without question. There is nothing automatic about adaptation. And it’s true that Bernadette is more vulnerable to climate change than myself. But she is also more vulnerable to the weather and natural disasters today. Bernadette must farm to survive. She must spend several hours a day chopping wood, hauling wood, building fires, fanning smoky fires, and cooking over them. Wild animals eat her crops. She and her family lack basic medical care and her children often go hungry and get sick. Heavily armed militias roam the countryside robbing, raping, kidnapping, and murdering. Understandably, then, climate change is not on her list of things she worry about.
As such, it’s misleading for environmental activists to invoke people like Bernadette, and the risk she faces from climate change, without acknowledging that economic development is overwhelmingly what will determine her standard of living, and the future of her children and grandchildren, not how much the climate changes.

Understanding Scientific Scenarios

Reading this book is really a practice of “think again.” Especially about what we read or what we understand so far. Shellenberger argues that the author of The Uninhabitable Earth, is like other activists journalists, simply exaggerated the exaggeration. From this book I learned more about “RCP 8.5”.

What is RCP 8.5?
I believe the article from Nature is neutral enough to explain:

In the lead-up to the 2014 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), researchers developed four scenarios for what might happen to greenhouse-gas emissions and climate warming by 2100. They gave these scenarios a catchy title: Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). One describes a world in which global warming is kept well below 2 °C relative to pre-industrial temperatures (as nations later pledged to do under the Paris climate agreement in 2015); it is called RCP2.6. Another paints a dystopian future that is fossil-fuel intensive and excludes any climate mitigation policies, leading to nearly 5 °C of warming by the end of the century. That one is named RCP8.5.

RCP8.5 was intended to explore an unlikely high-risk future. But it has been widely used by some experts, policymakers and the media as something else entirely: as a likely ‘business as usual’ outcome. A sizeable portion of the literature on climate impacts refers to RCP8.5 as business as usual, implying that it is probable in the absence of stringent climate mitigation. The media then often amplifies this message, sometimes without communicating the nuances. This results in further confusion regarding probable emissions outcomes, because many climate researchers are not familiar with the details of these scenarios in the energy-modelling literature.

From Nature article by Zeke Hausfather & Glen P. Peters

I understand that we still need to consider the worst case scenario. However, there is also a more plausible path, even though it’s still going to be challenging.

How Bad Is Plastic?

Another interesting part is the chapter about plastic. I guess the ban on plastic bags is also more popular because it should be easier for average people to do. However, Shellenberger argues that we need to understand a paradoxical truth: it is only by embracing the artificial that we can save what’s natural.
One highlight from this chapter to think about:

Plastics are made from a waste by-product of oil and gas production, and thus require no additional land to be used. By contrast, switching from fossil plastics to bio-plastics would require expanding farmland in the United States by 5 to 15 percent. To replace plastic with corn-based bioplastic, would require 30 to 45 million acres of corn, which is equivalent to 40% of the entire US corn harvest, or 30 million acres of switchgrass. Source: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa60a7/pdf

In this part, I still believe using reusable bags are better for our daily use. Sometimes, those reusable bags are also plastic, right? I know, there are bio-degradable products like AvaniEco which I still admire. But, again, there are a lot to consider if we want to move to fully degradable plastic bags. Are we going to use the land for plastic bags or for feeding the country? On the other hand, I also admire startup like Rekosistem that choose waste management as their sustainable business. It’s fascinating to see Rekosistem keep expanding to other big cities in Indonesia. There is also SiklusRefill that offers refilling services of various consumables for people in the Jabodetabek area. I believe for most people in the cities, be more conscious about our consumption pattern is a good start to try to use less energy and also producing less waste.
I guess this part of the book helps to understand that reducing plastic bags and straws is a good thing to do, but we need to admit that the climate problem is bigger than that.

Polarizing Progress

Another interesting story Shellenberger said is about Suparti, a factory worker in Indonesia. Shellenberger visited her in 2015 after visiting Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. At some point, the story about Suparti might feel like a story with survivorship bias. But, I’ll let you decide.

Shellenberger hiredSyarifah Nur Aida, an Indonesian reporter to help him doing the on-the-ground observation. The story about Syarifah got attacked by unknown person related to her military corruption is true. I think Shellenberger picked a credible reporter to learn more about factory worker in Indonesia.

This chapter actually showed the process of Shellenberger changing his mind. Back in 1996, Shellenberger returned to San Fransisco to work on activist campaigns with Global Exchange, a progressive and environmental organizations. During that time, learning from the success of Rainforest Action Network’s against Burger King, they settled on Nike. Nike had just started promoting its shoes by linking them with women’s empowerment. They drafted an open letter to Phil Knight and circulated the letter among feminist leaders. In the letter, they asked Nike to allow local independent monitors to inspect its factories in Asia and increase wages. In fall 1997, the Times ran a story with the headline: “Nike Supports Women in Its Ads but Not Its Factories, Groups Say.” Jeff Ballinger is one of the activists who often mentioned about underpaid subcontractor workers related to Nike. Some chronological history on this matter can be seen in this article on Glass Clothing.

Fast forward to Indonesia in 2015, Shellenberger tried to understand the stories directly from the factory workers like Suparti. Suparti left her village when she turned 17 years old. She started working at Mattel factory assembling Barbie doll. In the next year, she moved to a chocolate factory. Shellenberger believes that Suparti is one of the best example of The Great Escape. The Industrial Revolution constituted what Steven Pinker calls “The Great Escape” from poverty. Referring to the work of economist Angus Deaton, Steven Pinker calls it the “Great Escape” from the historic burdens of human suffering, depicting the rise in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. Quoting the report from World Bank Group, from 1981 to 2015, the population of humans living in extreme poverty plummeted from 44 percent to 10 percent. He cited another data about increasing humans life expectancy and the declined of malnourished humans population.

As I tried to think again, it’s also worth mentioning that not everyone are satisfied with the use of GDP as the measure of human life progress. Jeremy Lent, a political and cultural writer, wrote in his article that correlation of GDP with human flourishing has not been discovered when economists have adjusted GDP to incorporate other major factors that affect human flourishing. One prominent alternative measure, the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), reduces GDP for negative environmental factors such as the cost of pollution, loss of primary forest and soil quality, and social factors such as the cost of crime and commuting. It increases the measure for positive factors missing from GDP such as housework, volunteer work, and higher education. Sixty years of historical GPI for many countries around the world have been measured, and the results resoundingly refute Pinker’s claim of GDP’s correlation with wellbeing. In fact, as shown by the purple line in Figure 5 (right), it turns out that the world’s Genuine Progress peaked in 1978 and has been steadily falling ever since.

From Jeremy Lent’s article at OpenDemocracy.net

Let’s get back to the book.
The book also noted the bitter truth about the start of manufacturing era in Indonesia. After the civil war and mass killings circa 1965–1966, per capita annual incomes rose from $54 to $3,800 between 1967 and 2017.
Reflecting back to Suparti, Shellenberger mentioned that her wages have more than tripled since she first started working in the city. As a factory worker, she was able to purchase a flat-screen TV, a motor scooter, and even a home by the age of twenty-five.

I also learned that wealthier countries will consume more energy, and probably more emission depend on what kind of energy they consume. Shellenberger tried to crunch 2017 and 2018 data that average Congolese person consumes the energy equivalent of 1.1 kilograms of oil per day (kg/day). The average Indonesians consumes the energy equivalent of 2.5 kg/day, average US citizens up to 19 kg/day.
We can also see in kWh per person for 2019 data here:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use
In 2019, the average energy use per person in Indonesia was 9,147 kWh, meanwhile in US was 79,897 kWh.

From the data, we can try to empathize more on the stories behind it. Shellenberger wrote, Bernadette in Congo must produce all of her food and energy whereas Suparti can purchase theirs. While Suparti prepares most of ther food, Shellenberger’s wife as a working professional is able to buy prepared food and delivered to her home. The ability to buy food on demand I believe is also the same with most professional workers in tier one cities in Indonesia. The other comparison even more striking, while Bernadette must farm to live, people in cities (including my self) can garden for pleasure.

Suparti is one of the awesome story of how industrialization can help people. However, I cannot close my eyes to other situation affecting factory workers in Indonesia and other countries in South East Asia. If you got a chance, The True Cost is a documentary to take a deeper look behind fast fashion industry.

However, I try to also think that maybe the story of Suparti is also the kind of story that most people in Indonesia aspire to be? Got a stable job with opportunity to develop their career, own a family and then build a house, and also invest some money for sending parent to Hajj pilgrimage. We are allowed to support that kind of dream, right?

By the end of the chapter Shellenberger also shared Suparti’s proudest moment as a labor union organizer. She fought to win two days off menstrual leave regulation for female workers in her factory.

In his 2019 article at Forbes, Shellenberger quoted his discussion with MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel.

Part of what bothers me about the apocalyptic rhetoric by climate activists is that it is often accompanied by demands that poor nations be denied the cheap sources of energy they need to develop. I have found that many scientists share my concerns.

“If you want to minimize carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2070 you might want to accelerate the burning of coal in India today,” MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said.

“It doesn’t sound like it makes sense. Coal is terrible for carbon. But it’s by burning a lot of coal that they make themselves wealthier, and by making themselves wealthier they have fewer children, and you don’t have as many people burning carbon, you might be better off in 2070.”

Shellenberger continued in his book that late economic developers like the Congo have a much harder time competing in international markets than did early economic developers like the US and Europe.

That means early developers, today’s rich nations, should do everything they can to help poor nation’s industrialize. Instead, as we will see, many of them are doing something closer to the opposite: seeking to make poverty sustainable rather than to make poverty history.

It’s important to note that Shellenberger’s view on industrialization is also confronted by numerous scientists. One of the opposing review that I believe also important to read is from Sam Bliss, a PhD candidate in natural resources at the University of Vermont.

Ecomodernists think that not using nature — or, rather, using nature that’s out of sight — is not just the best way to care for it but also the best way to care about it. Shellenberger states, “It was only after humans started living in cities, and growing wealthier, that they started to worry about nature for nature’s sake.”

What about worrying about nature for our own sake, because we rely on it? What about caring for our relationships with the rest of the mesh of existence because those relationships themselves matter? The world’s rural poor consume little and, in many places, they fiercely defend their environments from destruction by industry and governments. The idea that they don’t worry about nature is plain wrong.

Again, that’s left us to see how complicated the situation related to environment and social welfare.

Which leads to next important part of this book.

Energy and Power Density

The part on energy density actually guide my curiosity to learn more from Vaclav Smil’s work. His name keep popping up on various matters that I searched related to energy and geo-politic.
Humans have been moving away from wood to fossil fuels for hundreds of years. Globally, wood went from providing nearly all primary energy in 1850 to 05 percent in 1920 to just 7 percent today.
In his work, Power Density, Vaclav Smil wrote that the environmental and economic benefits of fossil fuels are that they are more energy-dense and abundant. I know, the abundant part can be questioned because reserve will be depleted. However, a kilogram of coal has almost twice as much energy as a kilogram of wood, while a kilogram of LPG has three times the energy as the rice husk biomass. While the energy density of coal is twice as high as the energy density of wood, the power density of coal mines is up to twenty-five thousand times greater than forest.

Please also note that even Vaclav Smil wrote in his paper:

Energy density is easy — power density is confusing. Energy density is simply the amount of energy per unit weight (gravimetric energy density) or per unit volume (volumetric energy density).

Power density is a much more complicated variable. Engineers have used power densities as revealing measures of performance for decades — but several specialties have defined them in their own particular ways. The first relatively common use of the ratio is by radio engineers to express power densities of isotropic antennas as a quotient of the transmitted power and the surface area of a sphere at a given distance (W/m2 ). The second one refers to volumetric or gravimetric density of energy converters: when evaluating batteries (whose mass and volume we usually try to minimize) power density refers to the rate of energy release per unit of battery volume or weight (typically W/dm3 or W/kg); similarly, in nuclear engineering power density is the rate of energy release per unit volume of a reactor core.

The essay by Samantha Gross is comprehensive to have a wider picture on the challenge to move away from fossil fuels. I found this visualization is quite simple to compare energy density.

Note: MJ/kg = megajoules per kilogram
Sources: The Engineering Toolbox; Epec Engineered Technologies

Shellenberger wrote:

None of this is to say that burning coal is “good,” only that it is, on most human environmental measures, better than burning wood. As we will see, natural gas is similarly better than coal on most measures. People burn wood not coal, and coal not natural gas, when those fuels are all they can afford, not because those are the fuels they would prefer.

I also tried to look the view from Bill Gates, which one of the most strongest voice to fight climate change. In his review of several of Vaclav Smil’s work, he wrote:

In his other books, Smil opened my eyes to the challenges of many of the new energy technologies by showing their limited energy density. If you compare renewable energy technologies with current power plants fueled by fossil fuels, they are 10 to 100 times less power-dense. This doesn’t mean renewables won’t succeed, but there are a lot of variables to consider, such as weather conditions that affect the predictability of energy generation and the lifespan of equipment.

Even though Bill Gates wrote that in 2010, some of the challenges are still valid today.

In 2020, Samantha Gross wrote in her essay:

This is an engineering challenge, since the power grid operates in real time: Power is generated and consumed simultaneously, with generation varying to keep the system in balance.

The next thing to think about is energy stability.

I feel like the part about energy stability is close to the situation on energy today, especially around Europe and UK. Shellenberger started with comparing two major economies in Europe, France and Germany. France spends a little more than half as much for electricity that produces one-tenth of the carbon emissions of Germany electricity. The difference is that Germany is phasing out nuclear and phasing in renewable, while France is keeping most of its nuclear plant online.

Interestingly, in the first half of 2021, coal shot up as the biggest contributor to Germany’s electric grid, as reported by DW. Bloomberg also noted that if big outages of power coincide with little wind or sun, the U.K. could be close to running out of electricity.
I think those are the reasons why Shellenberger heavily advocating nuclear. He brought up again his case on his post last September:

The heavy reliance on renewables in Europe and the United States has made electricity supply more vulnerable to a single commodity’s volatility. Today’s electricity grids mean that high gas prices cause energy price spikes and a return to the dirtiest forms of electricity production, including diesel and coal.

The return to coal was most dramatic in Germany. Electricity from wind was 20% lower in Germany in the first half of 2021 than the first half of 2020, resulting in a 24% higher use of fossil fuels and 28% greater emissions from electricity. Coal was the number one source of energy for electricity in Germany in the first half of 2021, comprising 27% of total electricity.

In his book, Shellenberger again quoting Kerry Emanuel related to the situation that nuclear is also facing opposition from several environmental activist including New York Rep. Alexandira Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg.

“They can’t have it both ways. If they say this [Climate Change] is apocalyptic or it’s an unacceptable risk, and then they turn around and rule out one of the most obvious ways of avoiding it [Nuclear Power], they’re not only inconsistent, they’re insincere.” — Kerry Emanuel.

Shellenberger also shared the concern related the safety of nuclear energy. Which, most the fear he believes came from the fears of nuclear weapons. Again, this part is for sure going to be divisive. At the moment I would like to be more focused on the energy part.

Recently, the video from Vox also shared a balanced reporting about nuclear. Specifically about the recent closure of the infamous Indian Point nuclear plant.

Cleo Abram, the reporter said:

Up until then (before the plant closure), the vast majority of the electricity used in New York City that didn’t come from fossil fuels came from Indian Point. What happened here is an example of the complicated role nuclear energy is playing in the fight against climate change.

More facts shared in the video:

  • 52% of the electricity in the US that’s not from fossil fuels came from nuclear.
  • After the shut down of three different nuclear plant in Florida, California, and Wisconsin, the in-state electricity generation gain more contribution from fossil fuels. In every case.
  • In Indian Point case, nuclear was replaced with natural gas.

The concern pushing the closure are also worth to be discussed. As mentioned by energy & politic journalist David Roberts.

  • Human Safety. The fear related to Chernobyl, Three Mile Islands, Fukushima, and also terrorist threat.
  • Environmental Issues. The pro-closure activists believe that the cooling system of the plant were damaging the organisms live in the river. Other than that, a fire at the facility in 2015 leaked thousands of gallons of oil into the Hudson river.
  • Money. In the last 10 years, the price of electricity from renewables and natural gas has plummeted, as their production has gotten cheaper and easier. However, the price of electricity from nuclear has gone up, in part because of regulation to address safety concerns.

However, David Roberts pointed out important distinction, something that nuclear energy has that other renewables don’t yet:

“You need power that’s firm. Firm just means you can turn it on when you want to, and run it as long as you want to. Every fossil fuel power plant counts as firm power. But what you need if you’re going to decarbonize is clean firm power, firm power that doesn’t emit greenhouse gases. That’s much trickier.”

And Cleo Abrams add:

“Nuclear is not the only option for clean firm power. But, it is one we have right now.”

Vox visualized it in this Venn diagram.

Screenshot from Vox video.

The video is only 9.5 min, but able to convey the complicated nature of nuclear in the energy mix.

Another comment I would like to add on the video is I am curious why some people that oppose hydraulic fracturing (one of the key part for cheaper natural gas), also oppose nuclear?
I know the reason might be multidimensional. But, as we have seen in the video, in the short term shutting down nuclear plant most likely will lead to the increasing demand of natural gas that is more reliable provide firm energy at the moment.

The Cost of Being Green

Shellenberger’s sub-chapter on several issues with renewables might have a lot of opposition. As usual, we can always google whatever information we want to support our belief. I don’t want to take much energy on polarizing green vs dirty.

That’s why in this personal review I would like to take a closer look on Nickel. Which are heavily needed in the past few years as the important material to build batteries. Especially batteries to fulfil the demand growth of electric vehicles. Quoting International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), electric vehicles provide opportunities to link the renewable power and low-carbon transport sectors.
I am excited about that future too. However, we need to keep in mind on how to supply the electricity with a firm and clean power.

Recently, I just observed several stories from Muhammad Fadli, a National Geographic contributor. He and his team reported the situation from the ground in various places in Sulawesi. They covered Indonesia’s nickel production in relation to the global electric vehicle industry.

Photo by Muhammad Fadli on his Instagram.

Quoting from his instagram post:

One thing that really surprised me upon arriving in Bahodopi, a largely unknown coastal town in Central Sulawesi, was the scale of PT. Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP), the current biggest player in Indonesia nickel industry. Its area stretches for several kilometers and there were many developments still in progress. It even has its own ports and its own luxury hotel for company special guests.
In Bahodopi, nickel boom has changed everything. The presence of IMIP in the area has turned it into an overnight boomtown. Once no more than sleeping fishermen village, it attracts people from all around Indonesia, especially from within Sulawesi, to move and work there. Currently, IMIP employs around 44,000 people, in which 37,800 are local Indonesian and 6,000 are foreign workers mainly from China.
PT. IMIP consists of 24 different companies such as Indonesia Tshingshan Stainless Steel, Guang Ching Nickel Stainless Steel Industry, Sulawesi Mining Investment, and others. Established in 2013, it has been consistently dominating Indonesian nickel industry at around 50% from total national production since 2018. Quoted from an interview, Alexander Barus, the company’s CEO, said that PT. IMIP is currently building an electric vehicle battery cluster, which needs a total investment of $3 billion.
However the negative health and environmental impacts are too obvious to be ignored. When I first arrived, I could smell metals in the air. Based on my interview with an official from a local healthcare center, the town has a very high cases of Acute Respiratory Infection among the population. The production of battery for electric vehicle will also leave massive industrial waste. Even the company CEO acknowledged this in an interview with an Indonesian media last year. He said there will be 1.8 tons of tailing for every battery produced.

In another photograph, they highlighted the impact of the nickel mining booms to the fishermen.

In this photograph, nickel ore transporting barges from different private companies are anchored near the village of Tapuemea, North Konawe, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. Each barge would need a few days to be filled with ore carried by dump truck from nearby mines. On avegare, each barge can can carry around 8,000 metric tons of nickel ore. The ore then will be transported to nickel processing plants around the region.

Nickel mines employ many local villagers but at the same time the environmental destruction is too massive. Fishery, which is used to be the major source of income for the locals, is threatened by marine pollution caused by accumulation of mud sediment from the mines. As for now, about 80% of adult males have jobs in mining-related works. Some who are still keeping into their traditional way of living as fishermen now have to go far away to the sea for their catches.

It’s quite complicated, at least for me.
At one point, the mines employed many local villagers as reported, even with salary higher than local standard as other post reported. This also reminds me about the story of Suparti. However, there is also environmental intervention, if we don’t want to mention destruction.

In one of the comments of his instagram post, the contributor also mentioned that to produce 1 ton of nickel, the process needs up to 30 ton of coal. Because the nickel is not yet a battery-grade.

I haven’t get any further detail on the process that are currently used by PT. IMIP. At the moment, I tried to take a look on several reports available on the web regarding nickel processing.

This is some notes from an article on S&P Global:

As analysts and industry participants warn of a looming shortage of battery-grade nickel, there is an ample pipeline of projects employing high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) technology to produce nickel chemicals. But scrutiny of the process is also growing, after some facilities ran into difficulties or produced less than expected.

In addition, the industry doesn’t have many options. Low-grade nickel laterite ore accounts for the biggest portion of the world’s resources, and a significant portion of the high-grade nickel sulfide assets are already operating. This means that the anticipated boom in high-grade nickel demand for battery applications will require laterite ore to be processed.

There are several Chinese-backed HPAL projects in Indonesia. Companies now are also looking to process nickel mined in Indonesia domestically after the Energy & Mineral Resources ministry announced in September 2019 that all unprocessed nickel ore exports, including material over 1.7% nickel content, would be banned from the start of 2020 to increase revenue from the processing of ore.

Most of the existing HPAL facilities are coal-fed, and the process emits up to three times more greenhouse gases than nickel production from high-grade sulfide deposits. This raises concerns that the benefits of increasing nickel supply for “green” purposes such as batteries might not be enough to cover its environmental costs.

It’s hard not to ask, what does it really mean to be “green”?

Anyway, I am looking forward to buy the National Geographic magazine to learn deeper about that report.

Moving Forward

One big thing that sparks my curiosity to pick up Shellenberger’s book is how he change his mind, especially on renewable energy and the rise of environmental alarmism. I still support renewable energy, and still hope that the energy mix in Indonesia is truly optimized. Not, just increasing the use of renewable energy to be just achieving ESG metrics, but really for the benefits of the people. Even though I still think that the more popular renewable like wind and solar are still weather dependent. They still need support for energy storage to be a more stable, or firm, energy source.

Michael Parfit wrote for National Geographic:

What’s needed for wind as well as solar is a way to store a large energy surplus. Technology already exists to turn it into fuels such as hydrogen or ethanol or harness it to compress air or spin flywheels, banking energy that can later churn out electricity. But most systems are still decades from becoming economically feasible.

On the plus side, both wind and solar can provide what’s called distributed energy: They can make power on a small scale near the user. You can’t have a private coal plant, but you can have your own windmill, with batteries for calm days. The more houses or communities make their own wind power, the smaller and cheaper central power plants and transmission lines can be.

I am interested in learning more if there are more important facts that I missed related to various energy sources. And with an archipelago country like Indonesia, maintaining energy stability is challenging.

I still believe climate change is happening, but we need to maintain healthy discourse on this matter. Which also challenging with our polarized society. Aligned with the praise from Jonathan Haidt about this book:

If there is one thing we have learned from the coronavirus pandemic, it is that strong passions and polarized politics lead to distortions of science, bad policy, and potentially vast, needless suffering. Are we making the same mistakes with environmental policies? I have long known Michael Shellenberger to be a bold, innovative, and non-partisan pragmatist. He is a lover of the natural world whose main moral commitment is to figure out what will actually work to safeguard it. If you share that mission, you must read Apocalypse Never.”

I believe it’s not productive to keep bashing each other on the discourse of energy and environment. I think with a wider lens of understanding, trying to learn more on the each other’s value chain and each other’s needs; it’s hard not to see that probably almost everything is interconnected in many ways.

If we want to fly with airplane, at the moment oil and gas seems to be the more feasible fuel. If we want to increase battery storage for our grid and increase the use of electric vehicles, the process to make that batteries might still need coal to ensure the smelter running. If we want to maintain wind-power engine gearboxes, we need lubricant which is a by-product of oil.

Personally, I am interested in learning more about energy and power density in general. Probably starting from Vaclav Smil’s work. Recently, I also tried to follow more engineering professionals related to energy.

I try to take a look on Bill Gates’ view in 2019 on his review of another work by Vaclav Smil:

I don’t agree with all of his analysis. In particular, I’m more optimistic than he is about the degree to which today’s renewable energy technologies can be deployed, and the pace at which scientists and engineers will develop new clean sources. In my view, Smil underestimates our accelerating ability to model the physical world using digital technologies equipped with artificial intelligence. For example, future generations of clean energy will be designed and tested in computers, not on paper, before we try them in the world — a process that will speed up innovation in a dramatic way.

We still have hope.

I hope this personal review and book notes may open wider perspective about energy and environmentalism for anyone who takes time to read this far.

Sources and references:

Pustakaraya
Book Review
Apocalypse Never
Environmentalism
Michael Shellenberger

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Alfons
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