The Quickest Path to Solving Climate Change
Is your climate solution a game changer or a distraction?
Right now, industries are working very hard to decarbonize their sector — but only their sector. There isn’t enough cross-pollination between sectors to show how solutions being adopted in one area can benefit or couple with solutions elsewhere. (Unfortunately, this also means that the general public is largely unaware of the advances, leading them to placard at protests that “we’re doing nothing”.)
One example came to my attention recently. Taiwan said they want to import hydrogen. This seemed nonsensical to me. Import a product that can be synthesized anywhere? Why? Turns out Taiwan feels its small landmass is a liability, not able to support traditional clean energy like wind and solar to produce enough electricity to power the electrolysis needed for hydrogen production. But… they’re an island nation, surrounded by wave and tide. They have gigatons of energy hitting their shores every day, more than enough to support hydrogen production.
Like Taiwan, most of us are limited in our systems approach to solving climate change. We still think about energy the way we did with fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are location sourced. They’re dug from the ground in one location and shipped to the place that uses it. Hydrogen is location…