It’s the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it wouldn’t that be nice if we could just have some civil dialogue right and so when we think about these things I’m going to I’m going to feed on what Jordan introduced us with the last
Couple of days faith is the process of removing doubt and science is a process requiring doubt would it we not so as a scientist we are filled with doubt we are always skeptical and we are always challenging and you can think of them kind of in this way they don’t have to live
Separately faith and science can live together but if we remove doubt from science it becomes religion and that’s when things get unsettled in science okay science is never settled I’ve been called a pragmatist or realist and Optimist accusation and complimentary you know I’ll let you determine uh after this is
Done where we are with all this but here’s the world the World As We Know It And there are a lot of big things in the world that are going on big issues right and these ones that I’ve colored orange here they’re human flourishing they’re related to E the economy energy sits up
Here as does climate change and people try to make climate or energy we bring in the land the air and the water and we know that it’s energy and the environment and the economy these things are conjunctive and another way to look at this we love turn triangle diagrams
As geologists everything has to sum to 100% right reliable energy affordable energy and low emissions energy if you want 100% low emissions you get zero of everything else there are trade-offs in this very real world that we have to work with and deal with and I’ve called
This the radical middle for a very long time and interestingly enough I noticed there’s an A and an r and a c in the radical middle and it’s kind of where the arc is sitting isn’t that a neat coincidence maybe it was my journey to be here and
Join the arc the energy security underpins healthy economies it flows this way every big economy in the world has reasonably secure energy and that allows for what environmental investment it flows that way and we can take a little Waltz around the world pre Paris and then we head up toward post Paris
Toward climate and Co pulls us back and then the iea says no let’s talk about net zero emissions that leads to cop 26 in Glasco and Mr Putin says no no I’m going into Ukraine I’m going to weaponize gas physically and economically and cop 27 in Egypt kind of
Pulled this back and then Germany goes into a recession and recently Israel so we’ve been Waltzing around this radical middle and wouldn’t it be nice if those things could all come together closer and not be quite as dramatic as they seem to be in the world and again
This is the role of Ark we have another famous philosopher in the US Yogi Bara he said if the world was perfect it wouldn’t be and we know it’s not a perfect world we don’t live in a perfect world I’ve been fortunate I visited over 60 countries here they are colorcoded by
Number of visits and we’ve made a couple of films one on the energy train transition released in 12 one on energy poverty and these pictures are from that this man my age in Ethiopia had tears in his eyes when he told me his grandkids had something he never had they’d come
Out of the Bush and they were in school for the very first time and we go over to Kenya and we meet sanii she’s cooking indoors with wood like 2.8 billion other people do a biomass of some kind and at the set Memorial Hospital we see kids
Die of breathing indoor smoke and moms too of lung issues isues and lung diseases and Cancers come back to Africa a school doubling as a church with light bulbs and these kids walking to school over mounds of pollution polluted water polluted soil polluted air in their uniforms to get educated we go to
Vietnam we meet Thon who carries her crippled son on her back across this plank every day so he can go to a school this theme repeating over and over India some of the most severe poverty I’ve ever seen and some of the most severe wealth quite the disparity and we bring
Back to the Western Hemisphere to the Village of guka the arwo people where we installed First Solar 3 and half kilowatt half of your house put light bulbs in those mud huts and thatch roofs the world organizations call that electrified we would call it a brownout but it’s a start for them
Because these kids half of them will die before they reach adult of a tooth infection or diarrhea it wouldn’t kill us so that last night with a mama or the chief when we turned on the switch and they saw saw each other for the first time in their own village at night other
Than over a fire was very powerful and this is our world this is the world of optimism and hope and it’s interesting the irony of the optimism and hope that these people have as they look to the Future they seem to be more hopeful than we are even though they have very little
I’m not going to talk about ESG but right now to them clean water clean air clean soil the environment matters social how about a school or some Health Care governance get me out from under this autocrat so I can actually have a voice it matters in that
Real world because so much of the world lives in poverty income you see the Reds and yellows they are the lowest income and this is the most LI or least livable cities in the world I’ve superimposed guess where they are where it’s poor and here’s the most livable cities Blue on
Blue where it’s Rich so as you think about these emerging economies they’re they’re just getting started they live in energy poverty for the most part it’s everywhere in the world but concentrated sub equatorially and they need something some affordable energy just to get started and you think about the
Developing world the pinks it’s again broadly distributed but Latin America Eastern Europe and parts and Russia they’ve got energy but it’s not secure to them it comes and goes so they need reliable energy about 60% of the world lives in some level energy poverty today 5 billion people it’s a phenomenal number
When think about it I put out a piece called Net Zero poverty the editors changed titles but that’s what it talks about and then there’s the rich World in blue it’s not that extensive is it we want climate security we want it clean well where’s the cleanest air in the
World the green countries where it’s Rich where’s the dirtiest air the red countries where it’s poor same with soil same with water poor countries simply can’t afford to clean up the environment they have other priorities bring that all together and you start to realize that energy security it varies
Tremendously across the globe it’s a paradox I first said this a 10 years ago in Ecuador I think energy won’t end poverty but we can’t end poverty without energy it’s time to power the people it’s time to bring energy access for all so when you think of this conundrum
Energy access for all and managing climate impacts it’s not an easy challenge it’s not a binary challenge we used to cook with wood indoors 10,000 years ago the sun is the first form of energy it grew the hay that powered our vehicles they pulled their own food and
Then we started collecting the wind and the motion of water to do useful work and bigger dams and we killed whales to light our homes and this is old energy and then Along Came coal and that changed the world it’s very dense boil water makees steam turn a
Turbine around a generator and make light that changed the world oil comes along we refine it and put it in our vehicles and then natural gas and finally nuclear right and this is this is the new energy and why am i showing you all this it’s because of this
Concept of energy density Michael talked about it yesterday we’ve gotten a lot denser with energy not a little bit hundreds of times denser it drives modern societies dense energy does and we have words for this stuff renewable thermal clean and dirty little judgmental you industry has its own terms intermittent and reliable okay
And how about weather dependent and firm let’s call it electrons and molecules the stuff on the left makes electricity we can burn molecules to make electricity but we do more with molecules a lot of heat to make cement and steel molecules for Plastics molecules for fertilizers ammonia for fertilizers
The world needs both we’re not going to Electrify everything we have to have both so we’ve got to stride to be completely factual and factually complete in this world I said this testimony to Senator mansion’s hearing on climate a couple years ago what does that look like well my slides are
Colorcoded these are the color scheme oil and coal are still going up in the world today they’re very dense they make a lot of CO2 when you burn them natural gas is growing tremendously so is nuclear still it’s very dense less CO2 and finally hydro and solar and wind and
Other things are going up as well they’re not dense they don’t make much CO2 there’s tradeoffs in this real world of ours the 2019 Great Recession Global you see the dip in energy there in the world that happens when the world doesn’t move around as much and here’s
The co recession a little deeper we’re already consuming more energy than we did pre-co nothing structural changed we consume more coal and oil in the world today than everything else combined that’s the actual data those of the generation nothing has gone down we just keep adding energy energy energy
Addition look there are three kinds of people in the world those are good at math and those who aren’t so you know which are the three are you um here’s a little math for us maybe it’s completely factual that the sun and the wind are growing faster than everything else it’s
A rate it’s exponential let’s scale it and make it a little more factually complete there they are in the global increase it turns out they represent about 10% of the growth in energy demand 10% of the growth not the base so here we sit where where other things well coal and natural gas
Represent 52% of Today’s Energy down from 53% 70 years ago okay and gas more than coal now that mix has changed why coal well here’s why China consumes a lot of coal this isn’t for electricity this is total energy more coal than all the other energy combined in China and and it’s
Not slowing down no matter what you hear building about a coal plant a week still in China a big one let’s lay India right on top of China here we go India passed China in population April this year about one out of every three people on the planet live in these
Two countries today all right watch what happens when I scale India to be proportional in energy consumption to China it’s less than a quarter today and why is that because the GDP per capita in China is about 5x India India wants to do what China has done so watch now
As I move India to the left 25 years a quarter a century look familiar if they do what China has done it’s game over climate too much coal some other mix would be good different options yet they’re building coal and I don’t blame Mr MO who said to
The G20 don’t you know don’t blame us Don’t lecture us about climate change you did it UK US Germany China we’re doing it okay so coal consumption in the rich world has been cut in half here’s coal consumption in Asia and here’s the rest of the world essentially
None overwhelming and it’s not just China Pakistan Bangladesh Vietnam other countries it is despite energy transition a long prosperous life ahead absolutely it is it’s an Asian story unless you’re Germany and Mr Putin cuts off your gas and then you increase your coal by 133% and you shut down the nuclear reactors
At the same time climate scientists are a gas they should have been cut down the stuff that doesn’t emit I mean Germany could afford to do that mostly here’s the reality global leaders prioritize energy security over climate watch what they do not what they say this is a critically important
Point and here’s how they do it these are the top three producing countries of oil and gas in the world and here’s the top producing or extracting countries of key Metals for solar wind and batteries this is extraction watch what happens when we see where it’s processed China brilliant belt and Road
And other initiatives have bought the processing CU they need the EVS don’t have much oil they are making the solar panels and the wind turbines they need to own these Metals half the lithium Market just about two weeks ago tight hold on graphite etc for electric vehicles China controls the
Global Supply chains for these things and we need to understand that at least we might move OPEC for vehicles to China for vehicles China relations are critical for security all all these things have impacts left to right biofuels yes you grow them you have to process it refine it move it and you
Burn it it’s a carbohydrate to a hydrocarbon solar wind and batteries all this stuff you mine you manufacturer Etc I was walking through the this field in Spain thinking where are these all going to go have you seen a solar farm after a hail storm and they they wear out non-
Catastrophically and you know what this is it’s the floor bed of a Tesla S there are 7,000 batteries in this car 7,000 you do the math on EVs and you get into the trillions of batteries that have to be made and they wear out have you seen lithium mining how many raise
Your hands how many think mining is green oh come on you chickens I’m a geologist I don’t mind mining it’s not green okay we mine everything and Ste and Michael showed this yesterday we bury these this is about a 100 turban blades being buried in Wyoming Texas has
40,000 wind turban blades now and we are burying them in Sweet Water oil and gas and coal are you kidding all of these things happen mine manufactur drill refine transport we burn it it’s done better in the wealthy regulated world but here we
Sit we we mine it we make it and we dump it over and over and I said this to 1100 students during a TED Talk there’s no renewable energy and I ducked I I lived I’m here but this was a shock there’s no renewable energy it all comes from the
Earth nonetheless we’re proposing EV mandates in the US in multiple States I put out a piece that reducing options doesn’t work mandates don’t work markets hate reduction of options markets like optionality we can tell our kids there’s ugly energy and there’s pretty energy you know but we’re not doing them any
Favors with this message they need to start to think deeper so the emissions from all this look like this the rich World level emissions growing economy Asia’s emissions are going up and the rest of the world’s just getting started Asia emits more CO2 than the rest of the
World combined now and it’s not because Asia’s bad it’s because of this above that red line countries consume more stuff than they produce and below it they produce more the United States makes 5 billion tons of CO2 but we still need more stuff China makes 10 billion
Tons but they make more stuff than they need most of the non-rich world the N ecd are producers the rich world you and us are consumers we say send us our stuff on an Amazon truck one item at a time to the front door and what are we
Effectively saying put out our CO2 you use coal so it be cheap and just send it our way is this a zero Mission strategy there’s only one atmosphere in the world one this doesn’t do it this is called a shell game the offsets world we’re well aware of the benefits of reducing
Emissions but what are some of the unintended outcomes of it these are happening consumers electricity and fuels higher prices Industries are damaged from non-level Global Playing Fields you’re seeing that happen here in Europe wealthy Nations we Fain green coal Nations make our stuff okay mining Manufacturing and dumping accelerate unreliable grids from oversaturated
Intermittent energy and well-intended policies that eliminate options I say well- intended so as with most things the trade-offs with nce there are tradeoffs and we got to discuss them and carefully consider them so this thing called an energy transition I think some people think here we are in today’s energy and we’re
Just going to go watch closely to tomorrow’s energy in flipflops sandals this is not a transition okay this is an idiot all right if you don’t make it it’s over the cost benefit the risk reward isn’t there for that kind of a so-called leap energy transition what is it it’s adding energy
And lowering emissions not at zero just reducing emissions so we come back to our world and the income in that world and we Fade Into the lights at world at night look where the lights are on and look where they’re off here’s the mixes of energy around the world and I’m going
To scale them to be proportional to actual consumption Asia almost half the world’s energy now makes our stuff people want to get rid of colon oil it’s interesting and gas and nuclear and some even don’t want to build dams what’s left 6% let’s just darken the world’s Lights
By 94% here we go how’s that look to you seriously how’s it look to you it looks like the past not the future got to turn those lights back on a billion people don’t have anything they need something to get started education and Health Care women are disadvantaged by energy poverty
Disproportionately a lot growing populations are slowed by education and access to energy migration away from autocrats the environmental investment and adapting and mitigating climate change these are the big issues in the world today and they’re all underpinned by secure energy so I’ll leave you with these
Thoughts no one has a patent on Truth we just seek it that’s all we can do as scientists is seek it it’s vital for human flourishing energy is vital all forms have pros and cons there’s nothing clean and dirty good and bad there are trade-offs in this real
World there are real tradeoffs we’ve got to end this divisive binary narrative black and white clean and dirty believer denier doesn’t exist in the real world here we go we must move past politics misplaced emotion via public and factually complete civil dialogues public education and civil dialogues radical middle
Arc this is our mission so I appreciate your attention today thank [Applause] you
