Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air (2009)

A lot of the previous writers I have reviewed have used great rhetorical skills or grand verbiage to convey their message and unique slant on the multifaceted environmental movement.  In Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air, author David JC MacKay (Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge) attempts no such ingratiation or smooth posturing.  To his credit, MacKay has quite simply written an extremely practical, numerical investigation of the energy debate.  He has taken the question of renewable energy, plugged it into the conceivable UK power supply, and calculated a no-nonsense renewable energy debaters’ handbook.

MacKay explains that as an empirical scientist he became interested in the renewable energy debate when he read two seemingly credible books that came to shockingly differing conclusions – David Goldstein’s Out of Gas and Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist.  Consequently, Professor MacKay admirably decided he would put that physics doctorate to further good use and write a freely downloadable book that, devoid of emotions, asks the question: How much renewable energy could the UK theoretically produce and would it be enough to power the country/achieve energy independence? http://www.withouthotair.com/

What follows is a source by source dissection of the theoretical sustainable energy production this country could achieve versus current energy consumption levels here in the UK.   In order to do so, MacKay helpfully converts everything into a single unit of measurement that we can then use to easily compare all the variables.  This is where you’ll have to take my word, or alternatively check the science for yourself (if, unlike me, you studied physics past the age of 18); the magic unit we shall use to further the discussion is:

kWh/day/person (kilowatts per day per person).

Now, before the bespectacled jump on my back, it is worth noting that all the following calculations are approximations, rounded to whole numbers for ease of understanding and discussion.  So take a moment to consider the two following tables so that we can begin to investigate the interesting implications of MacKay’s findings.

Energy Consumption Source	Energy Used in kWh/day/person	Comments
Cars	40	Assuming the average person drives 30 miles per day, obtaining a fuel efficiency of 33 miles per gallon (without considering the energy used to manufacture the vehicle).
Planes	30	Assuming 1 trans-continental flight per person per year (for the frequent flyer – 60 kWh/day/person)
Heating & Cooling	37	This includes the heating & cooling related to the home, workplace and cooking.  More specifically hot water is responsible for 12 kWh, hot air 24 and cooling 1 kWh (this is so low only because the UK has so few days per year when we require cooling).
Lighting	4	Including lighting at home, in the workplace, street lights and traffic lights.
Gadgets	5	Here we’re talking about fridges, freezers, computers, TVs, Xbox, etc.
Food & Farming	15 E.g. Eggs – 1,  Meat – 8, Fertiliser – 2.	This includes the energy used to grow a crop and the energy spent/consumed by the animal that provides/is the food (but not the energy of transporting or processing the food).
Stuff	48 E.g. Drinks containers – 3 Other packaging – 4 Car-making – 14 Road freight – 7 Shipping – 4.	This includes the extraction of raw materials and the production, use and disposal of consumables.
Public Services	4	This primarily consists of the energy used in providing for the country’s armed defence (Army, Navy, etc.).
TOTAL	195	In comparison, the U.S. total for energy consumption is roughly 250 kWh/day/person.

Before moving on I would like to mention that this list demonstrates the effect of what I call “token environmentalism.”  Don’t get me wrong, using energy efficient light bulbs and becoming best friends with your “bag for life” is the right thing to do, it’s just that they don’t really make that big of a dent in the total!  The above list demonstrates that such behavioural changes likely do more to reduce cognitive dissonance rather than actually addressing the problem in a meaningful way.

 

Anyway, I digress.  We now have an idea of what consumption behaviours take up the largest proportion of our energy use (travel, heating, manufacturing, etc.) but it doesn’t really provide much context until we understand how much energy we can generate.

Renewable Energy Source	Conceivable Output in kWh/day/person	Comments
Wind	20	This calculation presumes that we cover 10% of the entire country with wind farms (extremely optimistic given that the current global wind power generation is 10 kWh/day/person).
Solar (Photovoltaics)	5	This is assuming that every person in the country could install 10m2 (south-facing) of 20% efficient (high-end) solar PV panels.
Solar Thermal	13	Where normal solar panels convert sunlight into electricity (a high-grade energy), solar panels can do a much more efficient job of converting the energy into heat (a low-grade energy) to heat water and thus produce more output but with fewer applications.
Biomass	24	This is again a very optimistic calculation based on using all current crops (neglecting the need for crops as food) as biofuel.
Hydroelectricity	1.5	Hydroelectricity requires altitude and rainfall.  The UK actually already receives 0.2 kWh/day/person and the exploitation of the remaining areas would be potentially expensive and disruptive.
Offshore Wind (Shallow)	16	Shallow mean coastal areas less than 30 miles from the coast, which actually means you would have to build in international waters, presenting several legal problems.
Offshore Wind (Deep)	32	Deep means more than 30 miles from the coast.  At present no such windmills exist.  Their economic viability is questionable due to transmission and maintenance costs.
Wave	4	This calculation assumes that we line half of the Atlantic coastline (500km) with deep sea wave absorbers.
Tidal	11	Using a mixture of barrages, lagoons and tidal stream farms, it would be possible to harness the tidal power of the sea and ocean should land owners agree and public opposition be minimal.
Geothermal	1	Unfortunately the UK does not have too many geothermal sources (being so far from tectonic boundaries).  Currently a geothermal plant in Southampton produces 0.1 kWh/day/person.
TOTAL	180	Other predictions of total conceivable renewable energy production include: 27 – Institute of Electrical Engineers (2002) 38 – Centre for Alternative Technology (2007)

CONSUMPTION 195 v THEORETICAL RENEWABLE PRODUCTION 180

Thus we can clearly see that even with the most optimistic of calculations the UK could not shut off the energy supplied by coal, oil and natural gas tomorrow and be able to power the country with clean electrons.  As a staunch environmentalist I wish I could deliver different news, but the numbers must be respected and the pragmatists must prevail over the idealists at this moment in time.

So what conclusions can we draw and where can we go from here?

• Firstly, to make a difference, renewable projects need to be country-sized!  I am a big proponent of micro-generation (e.g. installing your own solar panels/ decentralising energy generation), but it appears that at present levels of efficiency, the best an individual could hope for would be to cover then own electricity bill.  Micro-generation could not currently provide for the energy needed for transportation, manufacturing, etc. 
• Every little does not help! Well it does, but what I mean is that if we are to balance the energy budget (either by reducing consumption or increasing renewable production), we must do something big.

Before we give up on renewable energy technologies, there are however some exciting technologies and plans (even if two of them aren’t technically renewable) that could buoy the mood:

1. The DESERTEC Plan – just because the UK doesn’t have great potential for solar energy production doesn’t mean we couldn’t buy some.   MacKay analyses an exciting plan to create 65 solar parks each of which consists of 1500km² of solar panels in northern African desert (97,500 km² in total).  Enough sunlight falls on the North-African desert that, using a High-Voltage Direct-Current (HVDC) transmission line, renewable energy could then be distributed to the majority of Europe and Africa to provide 125 kWh/day/person.  Such a plan is obviously incredibly ambitious but nonetheless incredibly appealing.  Issues regarding the covering of such a large area with man-made objects, international agreements on how to pay for the manufacture, installation and maintenance of the solar panels, and how the energy would then be shared would all need to be carefully considered and negotiated.  Nonetheless, an incredible humanitarian goal that I think everyone should learn more about: http://www.desertec.org/concept/ .
2. Nuclear Fission – hate or love it, nuclear fission is a form of energy that could produce an extremely helpful 420 kWh/day/person for the next 100 years if we extracted all available Uranium and all countries agreed to the safe and ubiquitous deployment of nuclear plants. Currently, Sweden and France lead the world in nuclear production, generating 19 kWh/day/person.  Of course concerns regarding the safe disposal of radioactive Uranium after use and the effective safeguarding of these materials so as to prevent the proliferation of nuclear arsenals across the world are problems that cannot be ignored, but from a mathematical point of view it is clear that our fears of nuclear power must be kept in perspective as the potential is just so great.
3. Nuclear Fusion – now we enter the realm of science fiction and can begin to talk about some truly mind-blowing numbers.  At present scientists are not confident that the science of nuclear fusion, in which Lithium or Deuterium are used instead Uranium, will ever be perfected.  But if the theory is correct and the technology could be successfully developed we are talking about an energy source that could provide 30,000 kWh/day/person for 1,000,000 years for 60 billion people!

Should we be able to perfect nuclear fusion then all bets are off and we’ll have such an abundance of energy on this planet that no one would every pay for, or fight over, energy again.  Yet, the pragmatist in me is screaming not to get carried away; we must push forward without the magic bullet in mind.

With that said, I think MacKay has written an extremely helpful book.  Regardless of how optimistic the numbers presented are it is essential to create context in any debate.  Having studied the numbers he has presented I have come to grips with the reality that fossil fuels will have to part of our energy portfolio for many decades to come should the country wish to maintain its current economic  output and standard of living. 

I hope MacKay updates this book every decade and we can see how technology improves and whether we will ever be able to achieve energy independence.  For now, I encourage everyone to read Without the Hot Air this year.  No matter your political persuasion or motivation, this book forms an excellent starting point for debate on a topic that has become far too stifled by grand rhetoric and out of context numbers.  It’s time we all started talking about renewable energy, without the hot air.

Score: 82/100

Collapse (2005)

Environmentalists can sometimes be accused of fear mongering.  And it’s true that nothing rallies the troops like a bit of imminent dread.  With that in mind, here's hoping that my review of the fatalistic, Collapse, can present a balanced approach to a scary subject.

No society lasts forever.  For every society that adapts and prospers, marking their dominance with the building of complex structures and systems, there is an inescapable demise.  The only pertinent question is how long can you survive?

Jared Diamond, professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of the Pulitzer Prize winning, Guns, Germs and Steel (1997) - an examination of the factors that have historically caused societies to prosper - takes a historical look at how environmental factors are inextricably connected to the collapse of almost all societies.  Lest we get carried away with melancholia and fatality, I think it is important for me to note that Diamond has written a scary historical account of the world, but it is a nonetheless a tale of cautious optimism; by better understanding the past we can endeavour to do better in the future.

   

Diamond approaches the task of learning from the past by laying out a distinct five-point framework from which to approach each case study:

1. Environmental Damage – here we are talking about the way which we exploit our natural resources for gain and whether an environment is naturally fragile or resilient to such exploitation.  Diamond makes the point that the reversibility of such damage is dependent on both a society’s decisions (e.g. the number of trees cut don per acre per year) and the characteristics of the given ecosystem (e.g. the number of seedlings that germinate per year or the sapling growth rate).  Thus, what is a sustainable rate of exploitation in one area will not always be sustainable in another.
2. Climate Change – it is refreshing to get to use this term in a neutrally political sense, as Diamond is more expansively referring to the natural variations in the climate that effect the conditions in which we live.  These are exclusively non man-made (e.g. volcanic eruptions, changes in the orientation of the Earth’s axis effecting local temperatures, wet versus dry decades, etc.)
3. Hostile Neighbours – the effect of intermittent or chronically hostile neighbours is perhaps the first factor you may have thought of when considering the collapse of past societies, however, Diamond presents compelling evidence to suggest that hostile neighbours are usually the proximate, not the ultimate, cause of collapse.  That is to say that, ecological factors usually weaken a society to the point where military conquest is possible (i.e. the straw that broke that the camel’s back).
4. Friendly Trade Partners – the ability to trade with neighbouring states greatly affects a society’s ability to provide everything that it needs, as no environment provides an abundance of all natural resources.  Consequently, the economics of competitive advantage and opportunity cost have been used for centuries to provide an improved standard of living.
5. Societal Response to Environmental Problems – obviously this is the factor most clearly separating the winners from the losers, and Diamond makes his way through the following case studies with a keen focus on human decisions.

Diamond devotes a lot of time carefully dissecting the collapse of the Easter Islanders (in South America circa 1600 A.D.), The Anasazi (in the Southwestern U.S. circa 1300 A.D.), The Mayans (in Mexico circa 1300 A.D.), The Vikings and The Norse (in Scandinavia circa 1100 A.D.).  At this point I could expand on the all the nuances of the above collapses, but for the purposes of this article I will very quickly skim over these investigations (which take up a good 300 pages) and briefly summarise the findings so that I can focus on the more modern topics explored in the book.

The three recurring reasons for the societal collapse of historic civilisations, that I noted, were:

1. Deforestation,
2. Soil Erosion, and
3. High Population Density

Short-term exploitation of forests decreases the availability of natural resources that are vital to many areas of the economy, increases your need to import raw materials thus weakening your trading position, drastically reduces your ability to control forest fires and destroys habitats and jobs.  Soil erosion (generally caused by working the land too hard, failing to rotate crops and farming on too steep a gradient) seriously undermines a society’s ability to feed itself and strengthen its economy as farming becomes harder and harder.  And high population density causes any problem to become exacerbated as the fight for resources, food and money becomes more intensified.

These factors appear time and again in Diamond’s analysis of the past societies and create a clear platform from which to view modern societies.  Diamond’s analysis of past societies is educational and thorough, but I must admit that I found the second half of the book (regarding modern societies) much more compelling and engaging.

While the collapse of previous societies had felt slightly impersonal and distant, the magnitude of the topic was really brought home when Diamond explored how environmental factors played a crucial role in the Rwandan genocide.

In 1994, almost 1,000,000 people (close to 20% of the entire population) were savagely murdered in Rwanda.  The motivation for such savagery has traditionally been attributed to ethnic cleansing.  The rivalry between the Hutu and Tutsi people was said to have provided the kindling and the plane crash that killed the Rwandan and Burundian presidents on April 6, 1994, the spark that ignited the horrific atrocities.  Yet Diamond unearths the compelling environmental factors that explain how the tensions were not so cut and dry as first thought.

Firstly, for several decades prior to 1994, Rwanda had been experiencing unprecedented population growth.  By 1994 the population density had reached 760 people per square mile (for comparison, the UK is approximately 600 people/m² and Canada 10 people/m²) leading to the average farm being a meagre 0.07 acres.  Furthermore, a high percentage of the population were farmers for subsistence and unlike industrialised nations could not harness efficient and mechanised agricultural methods.  Consequently, farmers struggled to feed their families, soil erosion and soil fertility loss exploded as farmers tried harder to survive on smaller plots of land and deforestation rates increased as farmers searched for new arable farmland.    In short, the ground could not feed the country and disputes over land and resources became common and violence and theft sky-rocketed.

Consequently, when the global price of coffee and tea (Rwanda’s primary exports) declined and a severe drought swept the nation in the beginning of 1994 we can see how tensions must have reached an all-time high.  The assertion that this was a genocide led to by the Hutu people against the Tutsi is not supported by the fact that nearly 5% of the entire Hutu population died.  What is more telling is the fact that the prevailing link between those who died, is that they were almost all landowners. 

Such devastation is truly saddening and hard to comprehend.  When I think of the face of genocide I think of people like Idi Amin (Uganda), Pol Pot (Cambodia) and Slobodan Milošević (Serbia) and it easy to think that bad people cause such tragedies, but Diamond really brings home just how serious mismanagement of the environment can be when stating, “it is not rare, even today, to hear Rwandans argue that a war is necessary to wipe out an excess of population and to bring numbers into line with the available land resources.”  This is the ultimate Malthusian nightmare and a truly haunting chapter that stuck with me for a long time.

While Diamond’s harrowing exploration of Rwanda’s circumstances unveiled the humanitarian consequences of mismanaging the environment, the comparison between the Dominican Republic and Haiti underscores just how deeply it can affect a nation’s economy.  The point is strikingly brought home by presenting these two nations who share one island.

Historically, Haiti had been the much richer and more powerful of the two island nations.  Unfortunately, the 20^th century was marred for both countries as they suffered under oppressive dictators.  Haiti was ruled by Francois “Papa Doc” Duvallier from 1957 to 1971 and then by his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvallier from 1971 to 1986.  Similarly, Rafael “El Jefe” Trujillo and then Joaquin Balaguer brutally ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1996.

While all four dictators cannot be commended for their perpetual abuse of human rights, it is interesting to note how the Dominican dictators’ approaches (primarily those of Balaguer) to the environment has left a stronger economy for two nations sharing extremely similar characteristics.  Only 1% of Haiti is still forested following the aggressive deforestation policy and accelerated use of charcoal advanced by the Duvalliers’ policy in order to continually prop up the economy in the short-term.  In contrast, 28% of the Dominican Republic remains forested due to Trujillo and Balaguer’s concentration on modernisation (building dams and hydro-electric facilities, though it is said that their motivations were purely political) and importing fuel.  The effect is astonishing:  the economy of the Dominic Republic is now five times larger than that of Haiti.  Haiti’s leadership has continually undermined its own ability by squandering its own resources and failing to come up with a long-term plan.

Lastly, Diamond inspects the most fragile environment in the First World, Australia, to underline how this is not a problem exclusive to Third World countries.  Australia is the most unproductive land continent in the world.  Australian soil is in a state of crisis, supporting the lowest nutrient levels and the slowest plant growth rate in the world.  This is because nutrient rich soil is created in one of three ways: volcanic eruptions, glacial movement or tectonic uplift, and none of these have occurred on Australian soil in thousands of years.  Consequently, its agriculture, forestry and fisheries are all becoming decreasingly competitive.  Coupled with the fact that Australia has traditionally traded with the West (despite its Eastern location) due to Colonial ties and suffers with geographic isolation, Australia’s agriculture is becoming less globally competitive and its land management is increasingly becoming a cycle of land clearance, investment, bankruptcy and abandonment.

Consequently, Australia is at a cross roads and must make some very difficult and personal decisions about how to move forward.  As Diamond states, “It would be a ‘first’ for the modern world if a government voluntarily decided to phase out much of its agricultural enterprise, in anticipation of future problems, before being forced in desperation to do so,” however, these are going to being discussions that will become increasingly prevalent as the 21^st century progresses and Australia may very well set the tone.

Diamond argues that the development of public environmental concern and governmental countermeasures is accelerating, and rightly so.  Unfortunately, the development of environmental problems (as the modern examples of Rwanda, Haiti and Australia demonstrated) are accelerating exponentially.  Even in the fastest growing economy in the world, China, Diamond outlines the multitude of problems that may serve as their downfall: air pollution, soil erosion, soil salinization, disappearing wetlands, biodiversity loss, invasive species and megaprojects (and trust me, the list goes on).

In the end Diamond provides the poignant reminder that all societies (and therefore, economies) are built on the use of a mixture of renewable and non-renewable resources.  Consequently, we must seriously ask ourselves, where, in what amount and by what means we use these resources if we are to avoid (or at least prolong the time before) collapse.

Diamond provides a stark warning when he summarises that his analysis of past collapses has made him realise that, “a society’s steep decline may begin only a decade or two after the society reaches its peak numbers, wealth and power.”  The truly modern realisation is that Globalisation is a double edged sword.  While we have created networks in which we can better support each other, we have also exponentially sped up the pace at which we are working and decreased the time we have to react.

I will conclude by presenting a map showcased in the book (apologies for the quality) that depicts the world’s most politically troubled nations.  This is then followed by a map of the world’s most environmentally endangered countries.

The conclusions are so obvious I barely feel the need to comment.  What is left to say is that Collapse is a serious and thought-provoking book that raises a timely reminder that in a world of fast-paced, global competition, it is not worth winning in the short term if we sacrifice future generations.  All countries have a responsibility to plan long-term and must engender a willingness to reconsider core values if they are to avoid collapse.

Score: 75

That Used to be Us (2011)

That Used to be Us is a sober and honest assessment of the Unites States’ decline from being the world’s premier superpower (post WWII) to a country short on intellectual capital and overdrawn on political stagnation and budgetary deficits. 

The book is co-authored by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum (both American before I get any flak for being anti-American).  Having written popular titles such as, The World is Flat and Hot, Flat and Crowded (see previous review), Friedman expands on his previous work in which he so astutely describes the major trends influencing economic and environmental change around the globe, while Mandelbaum lends ever more credibility to the book with his wealth of experience in nuclear disarmament treaties and international diplomacy.

Strictly speaking, this is not an environmental book.  However, both the following problem and solution are inextricably connected to environmental issues and policy, so I hope we can agree that it is a pertinent continuation of the blog’s goals.

The book offers a lucid picture of the distractions that have led to America’s economic (and somewhat cultural) downfall.  The authors argue that the turning point was after the victory in the Cold War when America lost a common enemy that united its citizens.  But more importantly, the authors argue that America’s leadership misunderstood the world they were creating when Capitalism ‘triumphed’ over Communism.

The book depicts an America resting on its laurels, borrowing too much from future generations and overreacting to the threat of terrorism post 9/11.  The world in which Capitalism ‘won,’ the world in which 

we now live, is now centred on four factors:  

(1) Globalization: The spread of capitalism and the ability to source cheap labour all over the globe has created a hyper-competitive world in which no country or city has an inherent right to be the leader of any given economic sector.

(2) The IT Revolution: The power of technology to automate jobs while increasing productivity is destroying blue-collar jobs and increasing the demand for highly educated and creative employees.  Furthermore, the IT Revolution has created a hyper-connected world in which scenarios play out much more quickly than in the past.

(3) Debt and Deficits: The authors describe this as a “war on math[s].”  Never before in America’s history has the country been as fiscally irresponsible as in the presidency of George W. Bush in which two wars were waged while at the same time taxes were cut.  The author’s argue that the political entrenchment of Republicans refusing to raise taxes and the Democrats’ refusal to cut spending has fuelled the largest budget deficit in U.S. history (a deficit which is now worryingly being financed by borrowing from China).

Lastly, (4) Energy and the Environment: (“The war on physics”) The U.S. has refused to face up to the reality that it must reduce its dependence on foreign oil and make significant investment in the great industry of the future, clean energy, and also impose a carbon tax (though President Obama has recently given a speech pledging to refocus his administration’s efforts on addressing such problems).

At this point many readers would be forgiven for thinking that this is a depressing and America-centric read.  Both assumptions would be wrong.  The book is wilfully optimistic in recounting the formula that made America so exceptional.  The authors argue that America once thrived using the following formula, but has fallen away badly in recent decades:

• Investment in Infrastructure: America has fallen very far behind in public transport, transportation network maintenance and electrical grid/transmission technology, especially when compared to Europe and Asia.

• Education: The authors go to great lengths to emphasise just how far America has fallen behind the educational over-achievers (such as Singapore, Japan, China and South Korea) – the U.S. has fallen to 31^st in Maths, 17^th in Reading and 23^rd in Science according to the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Rankings – and what policy decision must be made to reverse the trend.

• Immigration: The authors highlight how over 40% of the start-ups in Silicon Valley are started by first-generation immigrants and argue for a robust change of immigration laws as anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise in and the country begins to close down its borders.

• Regulation: The necessary safeguards to protect against financial collapse in the private sector are crucial to any free market, and unless you’ve had your head in the sand since 2008, you’ll know that smarter (which does not necessarily dictate more or less) regulation is needed to protect against a minority of market actors who have the power to adversely impact the majority. Traditionally, the U.S has had a strong record in terms of harnessing the dynamic power of growing markets for the public good without major collapse.   However, more recently, the power of lobbyists and private interests have prevented the appropriate amendment and modernisation of such protections (which I would argue started with “Reaganomics” and then the partial repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 under the Clinton administration).

• Government support for Research & Development: In the 1960s, investment in NASA’s space missions created a hub of scientific expertise in Florida that drove their economy and sparked innovation for decades.  However, more recently government research grants have been diminished and misplaced.  While the U.S. (and Europe to a lesser extent) continues to heavily subsidise fossil fuels, the Chinese government is investing in clean technology.

But wait, Friedman and Mandelbaum can see light at the end of the tunnel.  Their solution is one they term, “political shock therapy.”  In an attempt to jolt the country out of its two-party political malaise, the authors call for an independent presidential candidate, who would run on the following platform:

• Raise taxes across the board (raising taxes on only the highest income earners will not address the deficit, nor is the most equitable way to approach the problem).

• Cut spending (Social Security and Medicare programs will have to significantly cut their spending as baby-boomers approach retirement age – the authors recognise this is painful but necessary).

• Invest in the Formula (see the five factors outlined above) – focus on creating an economy in which education is paramount and risk-taking, within the appropriate framework, is rewarded.

In my opinion, this is a poignant political message and one that we are beginning to come to grips with here in Europe (the authors could quite easily be referring to the UK or France when writing this book). 

I support their broad message that individual sacrifice (higher taxes and a reduction in the social welfare budget) is necessary to embolden a country in this economics climate, however the discussion about where to cut spending is one that I think needs to be more democratically and openly debated (though the baby-boomer problem is very similar in most developed countries at the moment).  In addition, I whole heartedly agree that government worldwide have been overly distracted by short-term economics to the detriment of environmental issues (which undermines a country’s long-term economic outlook).

Unfortunately, I also agree with their analysis that America (and I would add, Europe) has been slow to react to the new world.  The world is hyper-connected and hyper-competitive now and no country or continent has an inherent right to monopolise jobs or wealth.  We are entering the age of international meritocracy and that is a good thing, and a necessary thing, for the developing world.  However, it does mean that Europe and America need to renew their vitality and invest with both eyes on the future, educate like there are no safe jobs and protect the planet as if we are all going to live here for a while. 

I only hope that we can look back in a 20 years’ time and say, “that used to be us.”

Score: 80/100

Cradle to Cradle (2008)

Re-making the way we make things is the order of the day.  A short history of manufacturing will teach you that if you don’t evolve your manufacturing and design processes you will get left behind.  In its day, the Model T Ford was a revolution in automotive manufacturing, but the process would obviously be viewed as horribly inefficient by today's standards.  Consequently, it’s never a bad time to rethink how we design and manufacture mass goods – especially given the extent to which these goods pollute our atmosphere and then pack our landfills.

Authors Michael Braungart and William McDonough take this relatively obvious truism and deliver a relatively short, but potentially revolutionary book about taking the next step in evolving beyond cradle to grave manufacturing and design.  Braungart and McDonaugh are architects by trade and with this in mind it is not surprising that they have chosen to view the issue of environmental sustainability in a holistic nature: from start to finish, via the products and services of the world. 

The title, Cradle to Cradle, encapsulates the central tenet of this book: that we must stop thinking of products, processes, buildings and resources as having expiration dates.  Rather, the authors work backwards from the logical assertion that the world has finite resources and that we cannot afford to treat resources as expendable and space as incalculably vast.  Instead, they advocate viewing the purchase or use of any and every resource as essentially a lease.  This is the first point to commend in this book; realising that it is impossible to truly own a resource, will inevitably lead to a greater duty of care and increased utility when in possession of that resource.

Braungart and McDonough are down-to earth architects with impressive careers.   With clientèle ranging from commercial giants, Nike and Ford, to niche organisations, such as the Environmental Defence Fund.  Cradle to Cradle’s authors propel the book with their credibility and expertise.  The book doesn’t brim over with personality, but what they lack in style they make up for in substance.

The book briskly covers the evolution of manufacturing trends and the history of commercial resource use, leading into a sound critique of modern methods.  Chief among the culprits of unsustainable modern practice are the ideas that:

•  Efficiency is King: less of something bad does not necessarily make it good if the process or material you are using in the first place is not appropriate.
•  Activity equals prosperity: this is exemplified in the book by the saying, “if brute force doesn't work, you’re not using enough,” which the authors argue is an all too common approach in manufacturing at present.  Heat, beat and treat are words that are far too common on the engineer’s tongue in the 21^st century.
•  And “one-size-fits all”  design solutions: the most memorable, though perhaps not the most easily transposed example, being that detergent is usually manufactured in the same way and in the same concentrations for all markets across the world despite the hardness of a community’s water being a decisive factor in the effectiveness of a detergent.   

The most interesting and ecologically sound part of the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) philosophy is the idea that “waste equals food.”  That is, when we are finished with a commercial product, whether its components are biological (able to biodegrade) or technological (metallic or synthetic), it should have been designed with its end-use in mind.  Mindlessly, many products are inadvertently designed to be what they refer to as “monstrous hybrids,” combining biological and technological components so that neither component can be extracted and reused at the end of its life-cycle.   Instead, C2C provides a multitude of good design rules that can ensure products do not become obsolescent after their original incarnation.

But what propels C2C philosophy is the concept of eco-effectiveness, which is the idea that once a system is designed with an effective “closed loop system” we find that, not only do we have almost zero waste, but also net outputs that are advantageous to the surrounding environment.  To achieve this design, the three principles must be considered and carefully balanced:

1.    Ecology,
2.    Equity, and
3.    Economy.

And the proof is in the pudding, with the authors providing evidence of car and textile factories they have worked on that have been transformed from wasteful, polluting and harmful places into factories who work harmoniously with their surroundings.  In order to do so, the entire system is redesigned to ensure that products and by-products nourish the surrounding ecosystem as they are made with biodegradable material.  Alternatively, if biodegradable material cannot be used then the technical materials must re-enter the work flow instead of being dumped, burned or buried.  This has the consequence of creating car factories that are net producers of energy and textile factories that use dirty water in their processes and then amazingly output clean water.  Such design requires expertise, investment, long-term planning and commitment, but when the result is such a prosperous, fertile and profitable system, the decision should become inevitable.

I really enjoyed this book because of it accessibility and common-sense approach.  Before reading Cradle to Cradle, I viewed recycling as an important, but not particularly interesting, part of the environmental agenda.  However, Braungart and McDonaugh have shown that when we think holistically and begin to consider the entire life cycle of services and goods (particularly buildings), not only can we design more aesthetically and environmentally friendly things, but we generally create unanticipated economic advantages and eco-system services as well.

I hope by now that readers are noting this recurring theme in my reviews: that becoming environmentally sustainable leads to long-term economic profitability (please see Natural Capitalism as a prime example).  Businesses and regulators alike should stand up and take notice.

Score: 70/100

Biomimicry (1997)

If upon first reading the title of this book you were slightly lost, don’t feel alone.  At first I thought it may be something to do with French street artists using natural camouflage!  Luckily, I turned to the blurb and was immediately fascinated by Janine Benyus’s stimulating and imaginative book about the possible future of environmental manufacturing/design and sustainability.

Benyus writes with adventurous prose and genuine enthusiasm about the potential direction of a series of different products/economy sectors/holistic systems in a book that, frankly, opened my eyes to a number of budding marriages between science and nature that had not even crossed my mind.  At times it feels like a science fiction novel, but the book is incredibly well researched – Benyus interviews many of the most credible and innovative scientists in each of the respective fields she writes about – and has a great blend of idealism and pragmatism.

Benyus playfully deconstructs the efforts made by scientists to mimic nature’s best designs in order to improve functionality and reduce their impact on the environment with the ‘Holy Grail’ of reaching sustainability (or even net positive impacts).  Just a few of the ideas that genuinely caught my attention include:

Bio-Computing

Understanding the computing strength of DNA and how this can be harnessed to radically improve the speed and size of our computers is incredibly hard to fathom (and I am certain the proceeding explanation will not do it justice, so please research more on your own if you’re interested).  Natural or bio-computing involves completely divorcing your mind from the idea of computers as man-made, solid (and slow) objects. 

Needless to say that my scientific knowledge isn’t strong enough to properly boil the process down to a digestible sentence in one blog, but the basic idea was developed by the head of the of the cutting-edge BioComputing Group, Michael Conrad, and revolves around harnessing the processing power of DNA/enzymes/proteins.  To evolve beyond digital computation (a.k.a. linear computation), where one piece of information is processed at a time using a series of zeros and ones, to parallel or 3D computation (similar to the brain) in which multiple networks are connected and exponentially more computations are processed at the same time, Benyus describes the switch from the world of silicon computing to carbon computing.

Like conventional computers, DNA takes information, processes it and passes it along to initiate an action.  Protein molecules have specific receptors that can feel for other shapes, consequently, they are the ultimate pattern recognisers (which is essentially what conventional computer code is).  Were you to hitch together millions of these proteins you would could create molecules that, when activated by a specific light frequency, could create a specific shape that interlocks with a corresponding shape/line of code to create a new sequence/computation.  Known as a “tactilizing processor,” these proteins compute simultaneously and evolve to create smarter and smarter networks.  Consequently, without a single electric wire, a large number of disparate inputs would be sorted, coded and translated simultaneously into a coherent answer.   

The power of such computing is, I think, not understated in the following quote, “a DNA computer could perform more operations in a few days than all the calculations ever made by all the computers ever built.”

The potential of such computing is truly difficult to comprehend.  Not only does it apply to computation but also storage as, “a million times more information could be stored at the bottom of a test tube of DNA than in the entire human brain.”

The most modest of early applications includes real-time facial recognition software that works in any environment, no matter how crowded or complex (current linear computation struggles with such a task).  However, you don’t need to be George Orwell to think about the repercussions of being able to create extremely powerful little computers that can fit inside your blood stream!

Natural Fibres

Current methods for producing synthetic materials all involve serious levels of heating, beating or treating that all inescapably energy intensive.  Yet, in nature, we see that the spider is able to produce a silk that is five times stronger than steel without any ovens, machines or chemicals.

Other animals have similarly amazing abilities to produce materials that man-made materials cannot yet come close to matching.  Consider a rhino horn that repairs itself, an abalone shell that has twice the structural strength of any known ceramic or a mussel’s adhesive that is completely water resistant and reusable.  In addition, all of these animals manage to produce such results without toxicity.

Consequently, Benyus analyses the efforts being made by scientists to understand the protein sequences of such materials and how we may attempt to recreate the conditions in which they are naturally made.  Benyus never fails to stimulate the imagination and provides an exciting insight into how we may soon be seeing products like synthesised crystal which could be used to manufacture (virtually) unbreakable windshields.

Solar Energy

Swanson’s Law (similar to Moore’s Law in computer processing) dictates that the price of solar photovoltaic cells tends to drop 20% for every doubling of industry capacity.  As encouraging as that may be, Benyus explores how the photosynthetic potential of solar panels can radically improve by studying the electron transfer in the reaction centre of photosynthetic cells in different types of leaves.  The most revolutionary application of this research being the ability to create power packs that are activated by sunlight (meaning you could carry back up power with you to any corner of the globe!).

Natural Medicine

Biomimics across the world are studying primates to see how they use plants, minerals and bacteria to regulate their digestive system.  Surprisingly this has already been the inspiration for many previous medicines (and even contraceptives) and continues to provide innovative solutions to the healthcare industry.

It’s hard to know which ideas will prove fruitful and which will die on the laboratory table, but it’s Benyus’s childlike enthusiasm that really turns this book from a dry exploration of current scientific trends into a wonderfully optimistic book about Man’s potential to live harmoniously on this planet.  It’s ‘keen green’ if ever I’ve read such a thing, but I can’t fault the author for its truly infectious tones.

Benyus concludes by talking about the different types of natural systems and I think she draws a powerful parallel in doing so.  In nature there are three types of systems:

I.                    Type I Systems expand quickly, using all the resources and filling all available space at the expense of others (and ultimately their own – as they always eventually collapse).  Type I examples include things like ragweed, crabgrass, viruses and bacteria, etc.  They’re characterised by short-term thinking and opportunism.

II.                  Type II Systems attempt to create rooting systems and will fight their neighbours for the space around them but are not as voraciously dominant as Type I systems.  They’re characterised by a mixture of medium growth rates with eventual prudence (such as bushes and seedlings).

III.                Type III Systems grow slowly, plant deep roots and seek equilibrium with their surroundings.  The quintessential Type III is a redwood tree: patient, seeking optimisation of resources with no waste and consideration of its neighbours.

It’s obvious where the analogy is heading, but nonetheless a salient point to make.  Humans have for too long behaved like Type I systems, drawing down on natural resources, creating waste that is not recycled, maximising rather than optimising and, in the process, fouling our own nest.  All three systems are necessary to grow a forest, but over time the Type III system always wins.  

I would love for Benyus to update this book, as it was written in 1997 and is still, in 2013, way ahead of its time.  It undoubtedly awoke something in the social and scientific conscience that we all know to be true: we are not bigger or better than Mother Nature and we must learn all we can from her or we’ll be thrown out the classroom.

Score: 84/100

P.S. In researching whether Benyus had updated this book, I did stumble across a TED Talk that she gave in 2009.  It covers some of the material in the book and a couple of new, updated ideas as well – definitely worth the time if the above caught your attention.

Natural Capitalism (1999)

 

The environmental movement and the capitalist agenda have traditionally appeared to be natural adversaries; at the very least, uneasy bed partners.  However, Natural Capitalism is a compelling and detailed read on how this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the solution to modern environmental problems.

Written in 1999 by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins (who is the founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute – one of the best environmental research organisations in the world, if you haven’t heard of them) and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism is a blueprint for how capitalism can evolve to properly respect the environment while at the same time harnessing the unquestionable dynamism and individual autonomy of free markets.

The authors make the convincing argument that there is no need for a retreat from capitalism to heavy-handed regulation (not to discount the beneficial role of smart regulation that properly defines the appropriate level of risk we are willing to accept in free markets).  Recent economic experience has taught the lesson that the market feedback loops, that supposedly keep capitalism on a self-correcting course, are failing to work.  This is epitomised by the idea that, “For all their power and vitality, markets are only tools.  They make a good servant but a bad master and a worse religion.”  Just like a thriving democracy, capitalism requires responsible and informed citizens.

Unfortunately, factors such as oil, coal and natural gas subsidies, unaccounted for externalities (such as cost of addressing pollution and climate change), the avoidance of transparency, monopolization of markets, lobbying for private benefits and capital concentration amongst the world’s wealthiest have led to a gross distortion of global energy and resource markets. 

Consequently, it is time we abandoned our trajectory toward economic fundamentalism, in which the tax payer is left to pick up the bill for environmental degradation, and re-imagined the driving ambition of commerce, where we “take nothing, waste nothing, do no harm and do well by doing good, not at the expense of the planet but of less alert competitors.”

As a starting point, the authors outline the basic rules or assumptions governing our current economic system and the economic theory that underpins it:

·         Free-market systems reinvest profits to make labour and capital increasingly productive.

·         The maximization of total output (usually measured in GDP) maximises human well-being.

·         Any resource shortage that may occur will elicit the necessary development of substitutes.

·         A healthy environment is balanced against the need for economic growth.

·         Free enterprise will allocate people and resources to their best use.

In contrast, the vision of Natural Capitalism posited by the authors, works around the following adaptation of the rules, as if living systems mattered:

·        The environment is the primary factor of production (before human, manufactured and financial capital) as it is “the envelope, containing, provisioning and sustaining the entire economy.”

·        Future economic progress best takes place in democratic, market-based systems of production and distribution where all forms of capital (manufactured, financial, and especially human and natural) are fully valued.

·        Human welfare is best served by improving the quality and flow of desired services, rather than increasing total output.

To begin to shape this new economy the authors focus on four principles:

1.       Radical resource productivity

2.       Biomimetic production

3.       A solutions economy, and

4.       Reinvestment in nature.

Read as a list this is a pretty abstract plan and one that does not really jump off the page.  Consequently, I want to take the time to discuss some of the ideas contained within this book that I think make it one the most innovative and important books I’ve read.

Radical resource productivity is all about using what we have more efficiently.  This has the benefit of slowing the rate at which we deplete our resources and emit pollution.  The authors take the time to document the plethora of ways in which nearly all environmental and social harm is a by-product of wasteful use of human and natural resources. 

A central tenet of resource productivity (and the book) is the idea of “Factor Ten” improvements – a 90% reduction in energy and materials intensity – and how they can be applied to almost every business, everywhere.  To do so, the authors explain the power of “thinking backward” and how this can lead to “tunnelling through the cost barrier.”  To think backward is the idea that when you envision a way to make a process more efficient you think downstream to upstream because when you save one unit of energy furthest downstream (closest to the finish) you avoid the need to generate energy earlier in the system.  These savings multiply as they are traced back as energy is always lost in transmission downstream (e.g. friction).  This can apply to manufacturing just as naturally as it can to human work flow.  Working in this direction, successive components become simpler, smaller and cheaper.  This leads to what is known as “tunnelling through the cost barrier” which describes the phenomenon in which you receive diminishing returns on your efforts to improve efficiency until a certain point when you realise that you don’t have to pay for capacity you do not need (see the diagram below for help with visualising this). 

 

For example, imagine a system pumping water through pipes: you start downstream by using a pipe that reduces friction, then you straighten the pipes’ layout as much as possible so you don’t unnecessarily lose momentum and also improve the sealant at all the joints so you don’t have so much transmission loss.  Then the ‘eureka’ moment comes when you realise your efficiency gains mean that you can use a smaller generator to pump the same amount of water as before, thus drastically reducing your energy use.  That is tunnelling through the cost barrier and the authors do an excellent job of explaining how this type of thinking can be used in many contexts.

This kind of holistic systems approach regularly leads to unintended benefits; the authors conclude by noting “You know you are on track when your solution for one problem accidentally solves several others.”

The second factor is biomimetic production, which is a fancy way of saying that you should always endeavour to turn waste in value.  This is accomplished by removing waste from the system and closing the resource cycle (upcoming reviews on the books Biomimicry and Cradle to Cradle will greatly expand on these ideas if you’re interested).

The father of such thinking is Taiichi Ohno who created the system of “Muda” (Japenese for waste/futility) at Toyota in the 1940s in which any activity which absorbs resources but creates no value is eliminated from the system.  This approach primarily applies to manufacturing but can be deployed in all economic sectors: retail, design, customer services, etc.  The focus is simply that value continually flows at the pull of customers – nothing is produced upstream until it is requested downstream.

This approach was brought to the U.S. by James Womack and Daniel Jones in their adaptation, Lean Thinking.  The approach concentrates of seven sources of waste:

·         Transport

·         Inventory

·         Motion

·         Waiting

·         Over Production

·         Over Processing, and

·         Defects.

Having a father who works as an engineer, I’m assured that this kind of thinking has been common place in manufacturing for many decades.  A quick search of systems thinking like Kaizen, Six Sigma and Just-in-Time Manufacturing reveal the broad application of such practices beyond the factories of Ford and Toyota.

Consequently, it would appear that radical resource productivity and biomimetic production have been understood and applied for some time; the challenge is expanding the scenarios in which they are used and encouraging people to consider these principles in everything they do.  In this respect the authors are asking for an evolution of current practice.  Where the book really comes into its own, and introduces what I consider to be revolutionary idea, is the solutions economy.

The solutions economy is a fundamental shift in the way we buy and consume goods and services.  Instead of buying the physical item, the authors advocate the idea that we should regularly contract for the service it provides instead.  This was best illustrated by the example of air conditioning.  When you buy an air conditioning unit to cool your home or office, you don’t really want to own the metal box of components; you want the benefit of being cool. 

This shift, from possession of goods to utility of services, will incentivise the provision of the most up to date technology by your service provider (because it will be the most cost effective and therefore leaves the provider with a higher profit margin once the cost of providing the service is subtracted from the agreed service price – which of course will be renegotiated down at the end of the term of the contract as the service has become cheaper to provide).  Furthermore, when selling a service, the business retains ownership of the input and you encourage retrieval and reuse of the raw materials and remove the inconvenience of disposal and recycling from the consumer.  This way, you align customer and provider objectives creating lifelong customers, instead of repeated disposable purchases with unnecessary waste.  You probably already have a contract for your phone, why not for your computer, your car or your furniture? 

The authors reference textiles company, Interface, as great example: they produce carpeting and then contract the service of continual floor covering (because you don’t really want to own the carpet), replace the carpet whenever you want, and then reuse all the materials.  This has led to a situation in which they barely use any new materials now and have reduced their energy input by 97% while still providing a great product and improving profitability.  “In an economy of service and flow, an entire company may end up owning little or nothing but accomplishing more, while being located nowhere to sell everywhere.”

Lastly, Natural Capitalism would not be complete if it did not advocate closing the loop and reinvesting in nature.  After all, nature truly does determine the limits of own our growth and we must recognise this truism if we are to avoid the ultimate Malthusian dilemma. 

The authors present an intriguing study in which scientists attempted to quantify the value of the abundant eco-system services that nature provides by setting up a biosphere in which all of nature’s services had to be recreated to support eight scientists for two years.  The bill for replicating nature for two years, for eight people: $200 million!  Just a few of the services they highlighted include:

·         The production of oxygen

·         The purification of water and air

·         The regulation of the chemical composition of the atmosphere

·         Natural pest and disease control by insects and birds

·         Flood prevention and regulation of runoff

·         Storage and recycling of nutrients.

In my opinion, the case for reinvesting in our natural capital is as simple as the principle that you replace what you take and you appreciate the richness that is brought to our lives by the fecundity of nature.  However, if you’re more of a numbers guy, consider that the study calculated the value of 17 eco-system services provided worldwide to be $36 trillion – the Gross World Product, when this study was conducted in 1999, was $39 trillion.

It may be perhaps overstating the obvious at this point, but I learnt a lot and was truly impressed by this book.  It may be a bit on the technical side for the casual reader, but as a tool for educating business leaders and government regulators what an economy that properly values natural resources, addresses pollution and respects free markets would look like (all without taxing carbon!), this book is going to be your first port of call.

When design works with nature and not against it, when resources are used frugally, new technologies are adopted and broken loops are closed, toxicity is designed out and health in.  Even though most global economies have started to recover since the crash of 2008, we still face a fundamental problem with their design.  I hope that our economy recovers strongly and we can get back to focusing on long term environmental issues but, moving forward, let us not forget that just because we have the ability to accelerate a car that is low on petrol does not mean that the tank is full!

Score: 92/100