Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 114

Ten types of energy storage

A transition to 100% renewable energy is not just a matter of closing down coal power stations and building wind turbines instead. They function differently on the grid, with the main difference being the variability of renewable energy. Wind and solar power depend on the weather, something we don’t have any control over. The times when power is available aren’t necessarily the times when it is most needed. I experience this most days of the year, when we start cooking the evening meal just as t...

What I’m working on right now

When I finished the principle writing on The Economics of Arrival, I started researching a topic that has troubled me for a long time: the racism of climate change.

If you’re a regular reader you may have seen me compare climate change to slavery – something that future generations will look back on and wonder how on earth people could live with the moral outrage of it. The gulf between the lifestyles of those most responsible for climate change, and those who are most vulnerable to it could har...

What we learned this week

Lux Research have released their 2020 update on when electric cars will outsell internal combustion cars. The ‘inflection point’ is currently expected between 2035 and 2040 globally. That’s far too late and a sign that a lot more needs to be done to accelerate their adoption.

One thing that will accelerate it is cheaper electric cars from China, where manufacturers have made them for the mass market, rather than starting at the luxury end like Western firms have. Here’s the first one in Britain,...

Colouring in the climate

If you were to ask a classroom full of children to draw a picture for an environmental cause of any kind – whether it’s climate change or pollution or even littering – many of them will draw something that includes a blue globe with green continents on it. Or some green blobs roughly approximating the continents.

I was thinking about this the other day because if you look at actual satellite pictures, the continents are not all green. Some parts of the world are sandy-coloured, some parts are wh...

Film review: 2040

2040 is a new documentary that got a global release on World Environment Day last week, and we sat down to watch it as a family at the weekend. That, in itself, is notable. How many environmental documentaries work as family films? This one really does.

First of all, it’s made for a specific child. It follows Australian film-maker Damon Gameau as he investigates climate solutions on behalf of his young daughter Velvet. What would the world look like in 2040, if we pursued the very best of the so...

Will coronavirus cause peak fossil fuels?

There has been a lot of discussion about how the coronavirus could change life, the economy and the world. It’s led to some breakthrough moments already, such as South Korea’s Green New Deal. In many other places there’s a grim determination to get back to ‘normal’, however inefficient, unequal and unsustainable normal may be. For every story about environmental positives during lockdown, it seems like there’s a negative headline keeping it in balance.

My hopes that the coronavirus might bring a...

Book review: How are we going to explain this? by Jelmer Mommers

Jelmer Mommers is the climate reporter for The Correspondent, the Dutch reader-supported news outlet. (I’m a supporter of the English edition and would definitely recommend it). His book has already been a bestseller in the Netherlands. It’s been translated, updated, and lands in Britain as How are we going to explain this? Our future on a hot earth.

It’s a book written for people who haven’t read a lot about climate change and would rather not think about it. It explains the science and the cur...

What we learned this week

Neolithe is a French company that ‘fossilises’ household waste, turns it into stone and sells it as aggregates for the construction industry. I’d write a whole post on it if I was anywhere close to understanding it.

Sales of cleaning products have gone up during the coronavirus lockdown, which has been a windfall for those that sell them. Ecover have decided to put their bonus profits into a fund called Fertilise the Future.

Per capita, South African police kill three times more black people tha...

The indigenous architecture of Centennial College

This week I was thinking about statues of slavers and how the built environment can exclude ethnic minorities. When architectural heritage reflects the imagery of empire and conquest, it sends powerful signals about who is valued and who is not, who the land belongs to and who is welcome.

Rather than deconstruct any familiar buildings or monuments, literally or metaphorically, I thought I’d write about how it can be different. So my building of the week is Centennial College in Ontario, Canada. ...

The falling cost of renewable energy

Can the world afford the transition to renewable energy? That’s been a nagging concern for years. The cost of renewable energy has consistently been used to delay action on climate change. There may have been an argument ten years ago, but anyone making the case today is not paying attention.

This graph is from the latest report out of the International Renewable Energy Agency, and it shows the falling costs of various kinds of clean power – exactly what you’d expect to see as the sector achieve...