Hi everybody, can you hear in the back, the mic works ok.
Ok, so we don’t need these, ok great.
Today I’m going to give one of the energy climate lectures.
I myself have been watching the climate talks enjoying the controversy.
And I trust those of you who are students understand that this is not work for which I won the Nobel Prize.
I have many hobbies in my career and one of them is writing books.
One of them is destroying the Lindau signs.
Sorry about that. Feel like Inspector Clouseau.
(laughter).
So I have a hobby, writing books, and this is...
The topic today is the subject of a book I’ve written called Powering the Future.
Now that’s the last I’m going to say about books because we’re not supposed to do commercial things here.
But anyway that explains the background that like you I’m interested in energy
and I find the best way to master a thing sometimes is to write about it.
Making sure that we have references so we know what we’re talking about.
Now as you know energy is exceedingly political, climate too.
And my task today for you folks is to try and remove the politics as best we can and to approach the problem scientifically.
Now, this turns out to be hard to do.
And so I’m going to show you a way of doing it that I think, well I hope, will be helpful.
Now, probably we want to start with the Earth.
Everyone is concerned about the Earth and one of the things that will come out this afternoon, we should talk about,
is that the Earth is extremely old.
We on the other hand are short lived things.
And so the problem of saving the Earth isn’t necessarily the same as the problem of energy.
Now, that’s one of the messages I want to give you today that I like to separate these things
because the Earth is a much more mighty and magnificent thing than the energy problem.
The energy problem is engineering and that’s what I want to talk about.
I’m very myself interested in climate but I wish to separate the climate problem as a matter of all time,
as a great matter of all time,
that generations and generations in the future will be worried about and focus on something more imminent
which is diminishing amounts of energy reserves.
Now, I’ll remind you that the world uses lots of energy.
There’s only one place in the world this could be and that’s Hong Kong.
But I wish to remind everybody that most of the extra energy use
that’s coming in our lifetime will not be in Europe or America but will be in Asia.
And the amounts of energy we’re talking about are exceedingly large.
Hong Kong is of course a favourite example because it’s filled with bright light but there are countless other examples.
This is familiar; this is the Bund in Shanghai.
It’s a very buzzed up place and you’ll notice there are lots of cars, ok.
So it isn’t true that folks in China don’t like cars.
They actually love cars just the way we do.
This could only be one place and that’s Tokyo.
So what we do in the western countries needn’t have much effect on events to come
because a lot of history that’s about to be written will be written in Asia, not here.
Now the world uses lots of energy and you can see it from space.
This is a picture that’s familiar to you.
Here’s the world version of it and we know who is using most of the power now.
But the point is in the future, as the next century develops, the big new users will be on this side of the picture.
Now, that light is coming mostly from fossil fuels and the amount of them is enormous.
Since I’m an American, I like to state things in terms of water in the States.
So the amount of oil that the world uses every day is the same as the amount of water in the Mississippi river
that flows past New Orleans in 15 minutes.
If we expand that to the oil equivalent of everything including the coal burned, it’s about 30 minutes.
Now, this extraordinary amount of energy is what powers the world and what makes it possible for us to live well.
And I’ll remind you that this extraordinary thing is recent in history.
It’s less than 200 years old.
The problem I want to place on your plate today is thinking about what happens when this goes away.
What is going to happen historically when this stupendous amount of flow of resources out of the earth becomes exhausted
and it can’t occur anymore?
This is a controversial graph because the oil people are always doing better and they’re pushing this number out.
But the basic idea is very simple.
This is the oil reserves as recorded in the British Petroleum statistical review of world energy.
You notice the units here; it’s tonnes.
So I’m going to, these mass of the units.
So that’s the amount and the slope of this line is the draw rate, how fast we’re using up.
That's the number that I showed you in the previous graph.
Now there are several different ways to do this calculation.
The one I like best is to use the oil reserves in Saudi Arabia.
And the reason why is because Saudi Arabia is the flywheel of the world.
When the Saudi, or the bank, so when the Saudi reserves are gone, they peak.
Then there’s no extra.
So you expect the price of oil to become unstable at this point.
Well calculating with Saudi reserves alone gives this line with the Middle East in toto.
It’s a little longer, it’s about this long.
So I anticipate trouble of some kind, serious trouble in the oil supply somewhere around here,
somewhere in the next century, at the end of this century.
Now, keep your eye on the measurement here. It’s a trillion tonnes.
Let’s look at the coal graph.
This is coal and this is a little more reliable because the coal geology is simpler than the petroleum geology.
So you notice there are a lot more tonnes of coal than there are tonnes of oil.
But notice the slope. We burn coal at prodigious rate.
And the same calculation gives a problem with the coal supply somewhere in 2 centuries from now, more or less.
This of course assumes no change in current practices and you’re asking yourself:
“Well, isn’t the use rate likely to go up?” And the answer is yes.
But let’s be conservative and just say that there are troubles brewing somewhere between 1 century and 2 centuries
from now when the entire basis of civilised life becomes exhausted.
Now, what I’m going to ask you to do today is to think about this time.
Ok? I want you to travel with me to a time beyond this, to this time out here.
Go with me in your mind to this time and imagine what it is like.
That’s what we’re going to do today.
You can do this calculation easily because those people they don’t exist yet.
But you know genetics is very powerful.
Especially you’ll know this if you’ve had children.
Those people don’t exist yet but nonetheless you know them.
You know them because they’re carbon copies of you literally.
They’re just like us, they think the way that we do, they laugh at the same jokes,
they have the same naughty minds, they’re just as greedy,
they’re just as determined to make things better for the kids. Just like us.
So, what I want you to do is think about the problem from the point of view of a person
living after these terrible crises have happened.
And ask yourself what happened.
What happened, how did the past evolve?
And what did those people of the ancient past do?
And how did the world make it through this terrible time?
You know it did because you exist, ok.
So what happened? The reason for doing this is that we’ve now banished all politics
and what I think I’ll show you is the problem is easier to understand backwards than it is forwards.
Now, I wish to remind everybody that the Earth is incredibly old.
I like to explain this age in terms of water.
So the amount of rain that falls on the Earth in a year is typically a metre, about the size of a dog.
The amount of rain that has fallen since the Industrial Revolution is 200 metres,
about the size of a large building or a large dam.
The amount of rain that has fallen since the time of Moses is enough to fill up all the oceans.
The amount of rain that has fallen since the end of the Ice Ages is enough to fill up the oceans 4 times.
The amount of rain that has fallen since the dinosaurs died
is enough to fill up the oceans 20,000 times or the entire volume of the Earth 30 times.
The amount of rain that has fallen since coal formed is enough to fill up the entire volume of the Earth 140 times.
The amount of rain that has fallen since oxygen formed on the Earth
is enough to fill up the entire volume of the Earth 1,000 times.
Now, I mention this because to make the point that the Earth has been around a long time and has suffered terrible traumas.
So you know for sure it has staying power and you also know that saving the Earth is something
that you must do on the Earth’s time.
So you don’t save the Earth on a 10 year scale or a 20 year scale or 100 year scale.
You save the Earth on a million year scale or 1,000 million year scale.
Much, much longer than a human lifetime.
Now, with regard to the carbon in the air it is not possible to save the Earth on its own time
by cutting back on carbon emissions by 20%.
This only causes the exhaustion time to get 20% longer.
It’s still a bat of an eyelash of geologic time.
And I remind you that the carbon problem in the atmosphere is cumulative.
You put the carbon in the air; it stays there, at least in the near term.
Therefore the conservation that we do is not relevant to saving the Earth at all.
The time scale is wrong.
It doesn’t matter if you burn up the carbon in 200 years or 300 years, the end result is the same.
There is no more carbon left to burn and all of it is in the air.
Now if we’re serious about saving the Earth from carbon on the Earth’s time, it is necessary to reduce the carbon burning to zero.
And well, as you all know that’s rather difficult.
So the disparity between the Earth’s time and our time
is why I wish to separate the problem of saving the Earth from the problem of energy.
Energy is a 2 century problem and it’s an engineering problem and it’s something that’s happening right now geologically
whereas the integrity of the Earth is an issue of deep time,
something that will concern people living on the Earth for 1,000s and 1,000s and 1,000s of years in the future.
The energy problem that we’re living through is an instant compared to the Earth not a long drawn out drama.
So, let’s now do the experiment.
I’m going to jump over all the political arguments about energy and climate and ask the question:
What is the earth like in this future time?
Have you all got it?
Ok, we’re going to just take our mind.
We’re going to fly into the future, do a science fiction experiment.
Go in the future, you’re living in the future now and you’re talking about the past.
What is your life like, ok?
Well, I wish not to talk about this.
The route to this future time might be difficult
because usually when human beings don’t have enough of something they fight over it.
Now, as I said this is something...
I am a very optimistic man and I don’t want to think about this.
Or more precisely, I am myself rather determined that such a thing should not happen.
Now, first question.
And I’d like a show of hands people.
In this future time there’s no more petroleum left.
Either you ban the burning or it’s gone, one of the 2.
Show of hands please.
Who of you thinks that these people in the future will be driving cars?
Now please look around you and notice that the number of hands up is about 75%.
Ok, this turns out to be a highly significant number.
Now, we’re going to come back to this but ok.
Now second question.
In this future time, are these people going to be riding in airplanes?
Remember there’s no more petroleum left, no coal, no oil, no nothing, natural gas gone.
Are these people going to be riding in airplanes?
Show of hands please.
Look around you please.
Same result, ok, about 75%.
Now the final question.
This future time, no more coal to burn, no more oil, these people go to the wall and flick on the light switch.
Do the lights come on?
Ok, notice again everyone raises his hand, ok.
Now, let me point out before we go on that you did this without considering the technology at all, ok.
In other words you all understood that I was asking a question about economics.
So right away we’ve established that this energy problem viewed backwards is at least partially an economics problem
that you must judge in part by the psychology of the people living at the time.
Now it so happens that the result of this vote is world universal.
I’ve done this experiment in over 10 countries and the result is always the same.
It also turns out to be independent of age group which is interesting.
So roughly 75% of the people say we’re going to have cars and planes and everybody says the lights will come on.
Now of those of you who said that people will drive cars...
Let’s get rid of this.
So let’s go back to the cars now.
Ok, those of you who said yes about the cars, why?
Remember there’s no gas, I mean there’s no petroleum. Ok?
No petroleum left, no coal and you said people will drive cars.
Why did say that? Somebody said electric. Slow down?
So somebody said electric.
So people will drive cars because they’re electric.
People will drive cars because you’ve got to get from point A to point B.
Commerce. Commerce, people will use cars because they need commerce.
It’s a habit. People will drive cars because it’s a habit.
Remember we’re defying the laws of physics here, right?
No more petroleum. The earth has been trying to get off of petroleum for my entire lifetime and it hasn’t worked.
Remember the Mississippi flowing.
Commerce. Anybody else? Convenient.
People will drive cars because they’re convenient.
My experiment is not working, I’ll try one more.
You’re so close I’ll tell you.
It didn’t happen this time but it almost always does.
Almost always the men say dumb things like: “Well, people will drive cars
because there is solar energy or people will drive cars because we have bio fuels.”
And almost always the right answer comes from a woman who is in the front and she says quietly:
“Because they want them.” Where upon I say: “Yes, because they want them.” Ok.
And now what we’ve had is a conversation about economics that really counts.
In other words, much of what will happen in the future isn’t determined by technical means
but is determined by just animal drives of people.
And that is something that is an invariant which you realise if you have children.
I have this wonderful story of I was I Beijing many years ago with my son.
We were in a big car, stopped in traffic
and there were bicycles by the side of the car and a fellow with a Mao suit was looking in at us.
And I wanted to teach my son a lesson so I said: “Ok now, you see this guy over here.
What is he thinking?” And without missing a beat my son said: “He’s thinking: I wish I had a car.”
(laughter).
Whereupon of course I was a very proud dad because of course that’s exactly what he was thinking
and I felt very small for trying to teach my son a lesson.
When I tell this story in my lectures at Stanford every single student from China gets this great big smile on their face
because they know that’s exactly what he was thinking.
Now, this tells you something important about the energy use.
The idea that that the future will not be energy intensive cannot be
because it’s violating some basic laws of economics that come to us from human nature.
So getting out of the problem by using less is a non-starter.
And the reason is because of the nature of you and me. Ok?
Now as for this one, this one is harder and in a way more important.
Ok, then I ask... Ok, let’s do the experiment.
It won’t work but I’ll try it anyway.
Ok, those of you who said that we’re going to have planes.
What powers them? Fuel cells, bio fuels.
Cold fusion.
(laughter and applause).
From you I might have known, alright, cold fusion.
Ok anybody? Nobody is for nuclear reactors? Ok.
Wishful thinking.
(laughter).
Ok, so most of you are physicist and so it won’t come as a big shock to you
that these are all ridiculous because of weight.
In other words, when you’re flying you cannot have an energy source that’s heavy so nuclear reactors are out.
Actually batteries are out.
Solar cells, there just isn’t enough surface area on an airplane to get enough power to overcome the glide slope of the plane;
we can’t carry any payload.
So clearly think it through.
The only thing that can power the airplanes is something similar to what powers them now
because ordinary fuels that we use today are optimal.
Remember kerosene, gasoline and so forth, alkanes are the same thing as fat.
And plants and animals invented fat for a reason.
It has the most energy per kilogram allowed by physical law.
Actually no, be careful, hydrogen is better.
Hydrogen is better but like if anybody wants to go on a hydrogen powered plane.
You’re welcome to go; I’m going to stay here.
(laughter).
I’ll see you in heaven.
Hydrogen is bulky and it’s just a pain in the neck to deal with.
So the fuels that we use today are physically optimal and that in turn tells you something very important.
That in this future time there must grow up a new industry that makes the kinds of fuels that we have today synthetically.
Now this is regardless of anything...
Because remember you all told me, you made the decision about airplanes not knowing anything about the technology.
So the technology has to follow the demand.
And so that’s one of the developments that’s got to happen.
And so the idea of a perfect carbon free future is just not going to happen.
And the reason is simply that airplanes won’t fly if it does. Ok?
Now what about this last item, lights come on?
May I ask why you said the lights will come on?
Why will the lights come on in this future time?
There’s no more coal to burn.
Renewable energy. Renewable energy.
So lights will come because energy is renewable, lights will be come on because of fusion.
Bio engineering. We don’t want to work in the dark, bio engineering.
Ok now, this one is a little harder.
I’m with you on all these answers but I want to broach something that you probably haven’t thought of.
Namely this.
If you remember your history, Governor Schwarzenegger was elected
because the previous government was executed by the voters in California.
In California we had a regulatory failure in the electricity market and the electricity...
The lights didn’t come on for a full year.
And what happened political was the voters blamed the government for the failure
even though they were not responsible for it.
And Governor Davis at the time was the first governor of California ever to be impeached
and the second governor ever to be impeached in America.
And it all came because the lights went out.
I have very good friends from Russia who grew up in the Soviet Union and they explained to me, you know:
Even Stalin knew that you don’t let the lights go out, ok.
Because if they do, you’ll be out of office and it might not be through an election, ok.
Now, so this has an implication.
When there are political forces involved there is political reason for the price of electricity not to rise. Ok?
The voters don’t like it.
Therefore this brings me into a prediction that’s very scary.
In this future time voters will never vote for power that is more expensive than nuclear power.
In other words I don’t know...
You don’t know whether nuclear power will survive or not or whether there will be alternatives but you do know the price.
The price per joule cannot be significantly higher than it is now because the voters won’t stand for it.
So people in Germany who just voted away their nuclear power this is food for thought.
When things get tough politically it’s much easier for people to invent reasons why the people of the past were misguided
and you should have had nuclear energy all along.
It’s easier for them to invent a myth than it is for them to pay more money.
And so there is a real possibility that if the alternate energy price, unsubsidised price,
doesn’t go below nuclear energy that nuclear energy will come back.
And just to drive this point home I’d like all of you to think very hard about what's occurring in Japan right now.
Japan just had the second worst nuclear accident in history.
And they just turned 2 reactors back on.
They are the vanguard nation in this subject because they have no energy resources on their soil.
And this is the kind of dilemma that people will be facing in the future
when they have to decide between lower standard of living, less money and so forth or nuclear power.
So it’s something to worry about.
If you don’t do something nuclear power is there in the background waiting to come forward
when it’s needed whether you want it or not.
Now, I’m nearing the end of my time here and I think I’ve got the basic ideas that I wanted out for you to think about.
The first was that many of the events to come are fixed by economics.
The second is that part of the energy economy has to be synthetic fuel,
that’s carbon based because there is no other way that airplanes can fly.
And the third is that there’s a price conundrum with regard to electricity.
So that we can expect in the future there is a price inversion
where electric joules become cheap and carbon joules become expensive whereas it’s the reverse today.
And when that event happens it will be like a pond turning over,
that the entire nature of economic decisions will change because now electricity is cheap.
Now there’s more.
We could talk extensive about where the carbon would come from and there’s an issue there with regard to...
my slides aren’t working.
Let’s use this picture.
There’s an issue of whether the carbon you need for the fuels is coming from agriculture or not.
But I want to defer that question for later discussions this afternoon.
The point is that the pricing of the joules is fixed
by things we know now that aren’t determined by research in the future
and that the energy economics of this future time is sort of preordained by things that we know today.
And the message I want to leave you with finally is that when we’re all thinking about
how to solve this energy problem, the beginning of wisdom, of what to do is thinking through carefully what is to be necessarily.
Ok I’m done, thanks everybody for coming.
Applause