How can humanity be both so clever as to develop modern civilization in the first place and so dumb as to burn all the fossil fuel?

This novel presents the only possible explanation to this basic contradiction: the evil alien hypnotist theory.

And here is a PDF-file: Lenz, Great News. I may change this version slightly, since I am in the process of proofreading.

Let’s step back for a moment. What do you think we should be worrying about in 10 years?

I really think 10 years from now the signs that we’re on a runaway climate change will start to become a lot more obvious. It won’t be big rises in temperature yet, but will be enough to make people look around and say, oh my God. But by then, it will be very hard to bring it under control.

The meaning of that will become clear shortly. For now, I will just repeat one central message I have posted here and on Twitter before:

How can humanity be both so clever as to develop modern civilization in the first place and so dumb as to burn all the fossil fuel?

Since I have retired from discussing nuclear power (I don’t care either way), I won’t discuss the merits of Lynas’ positions on that particular question.

However, Lynas seems to think that it helps him get support for nuclear power if he somehow manages to convince people that large scale renewable energy projects in the Mongolian desert won’t work out. Of course he is wrong on that. Taking that position is a sure-fire way to increase opposition to nuclear, since it assures that everyone who likes renewable energy disagrees with you.

Since that is a large majority just about everywhere, opposing renewable while doing pro-nuclear advocacy is probably the most effective way to convince even more people to hate nuclear than do so already.

I for one view anyone opposing renewable energy as part of the problem. They are making climate change worse. Lynas is making climate change worse with his opposition to renewable energy. At that point, his claim that he wants to support nuclear as a countermeasure to global warming has no credibility left. You can’t campaign against renewable energy and still expect to be taken seriously in the climate debate.

I am not ready to tolerate this. This said, here is what Lynas had to offer on the topic of the project I am interested in, large scale renewable energy from the Mongolian Gobi desert. It is very interesting to note, since it gives me a great opportunity to counter those claims.

The president was immediately followed by the Japanese telecoms billionaire Masayoshi Son, who – having reinvented himself as head of the new Japan Renewable Energy Foundation– dramatically declared that there should be “no nuclear for mankind anywhere in the world, for the sake of the future, for the sake of our children, for the Earth”.

The Korean hosts clapped politely, but did not appear convinced – hardly surprising given that Masayoshi Son’s only proposed alternative to nuclear generation was a scheme for a pan-Asian supergrid linking Japanese cities with thousands of solar and wind plants supposedly to be built across the Gobi desert in faraway Mongolia. The plan would cost trillions and take decades to implement – and would leave Japan dependent on power lines crossing its energy-hungry and often less-than-friendly neighbour China. Koreans know that their economic miracle has been built on practical engineering success, not magical thinking.

First off, I am impressed at Lynas’ mind reading skills. I have viewed Masayoshi Son’s speech in Korea again right now. I blogged about it before, a link to the speech is found at that post.

I heard the applause for Son’s declaration of opposition to nuclear as well. Lynas has reported that quite correctly.

But how does he know what the people clapping were actually thinking? How can he know they are thinking exactly what he writes in his article?

He must have some pretty impressive technology brought back from the future at his disposal for this kind of mind reading magic to work. Maybe Doreamon is his friend.

Or, maybe, what Lynas attributes to the thoughts of the people listening to the speech is actually only what he, himself, was thinking. That makes more sense to me.

Unfortunately, those thoughts have not much merit.

For one, Lynas doesn’t understand what Masayoshi Son is actually proposing with the “Asia Super Grid”. This is definitely not just about the Gobi desert. It is about all Asian nations sharing their electricity market, just as Europe is already. And there will be multiple connections between Mongolia and Japan, not only  one running through China. Just listen to Masayoshi Son’s speech, he explains these points.

Then Lynas brings up the standard anti-Desertec talking point of energy independence. How could Japan ever trust China with the power lines?

News flash: Right now, there is no energy independence for Japan. Japan is importing 90% of their electricity generation capacity in the form of fossil fuel.

That of course means that everything coming in from the Asia Super Grid will always help to diversify the supply. That of course helps with energy security.

Also, it is correct that the relations between Japan and China are less friendly than those between European nations. But that is not a valid argument against the “Asia Super Grid” concept. Actually, it is exactly the other way round. Exactly because these relations are less developed, the task to keep peace and stability in Asia is much more important than the equivalent task in Europe.

Europe has seen over 60 years of peace. And it all started with the European Coal and Steel Community, which was in part also about energy.

Masayoshi Son has made quite clear that the “Asia Super Grid” is not only about energy and economics. It is also supposed to help keep peace for future generations.

As the experience in Europe shows, economic cooperation helps with keeping peace.

Lynas also mentions that these projects will cost money and take time. Of course they will. Anything in the energy sector needs investments in the trillions of dollars and a long term perspective spanning at least decades for deciding on what options to go with. If Lynas thinks “trillions of dollars” is too expensive for long term investments in the energy sector, maybe he hasn’t read the recent IEA report on renewable energy.

As for the “magical thinking” snide remark, thanks for that as well. It serves as a great motivation coming from the opposition.

For readers who want to know some more about the project of renewable energy from the Mongolian Gobi desert, I recommend my recent book (free PDF file).

The Reuters article also explains that Enkbayar’s opposition party is running on a platform of resource nationalism and renegotiating the Oyu Tolgoi stability agreement.

That of course removes the value of such a stability agreement. It is concluded in the first place to give foreign investors bringing billions of dollars to Mongolia stability over a time span longer than until the next election.

I hear that Parliament has passed another law restricting foreign investment. I don’t feel qualified to comment on that right now. I might want to come back to the issue once the elections are over.

My own opinion on these issues is somewhat mixed. On the one hand, I would be quite happy to see all the Mongolian coal mining projects hit a brick wall because of such legislation. While it would be not necessarily in the interest of Mongolia’s economic development to have that happen, anything that keeps coal in the ground is great news. Humanity is already burning too much of the stuff.

On the other hand, any large scale renewable energy project in the Gobi desert will need a stable environment for the investment of the large sums of money involved.

Again, I will wait for some time and see how this plays out after the election before trying to comment on this new law.

That paper has ten authors who know a thing or two about the solar industry.They include Shi Zhengrong, founder of Suntech.

One of its main results are that photovoltaic prices are going down so fast that people have trouble keeping up with the developments. That is something I have asserted here as well, and documented with a few cases of estimates way off base. Please refer to my January post on “Solar prices dropping too fast”.

They also explain the various factors influencing solar cost in very much detail. And one thing that is clear from that: There is a lot of leeway for making the result of the estimate depending on who does the estimating. For example, with the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) metric, much depends on factors like the interest rate that has to be paid for the capital invested, or on how long the panels will actually produce.

But there are also some interesting facts that are very easy to understand presented. I especially like Figure six, which shows how much electricity one can expect on average from one kW of installed capacity in various countries. Germany has about 1,000 kWh, which is a rather small value in world wide comparison. Japan is better by about 20 percent, and California reaches close to 2,000 kWh, or about the double of Germany.

So if you look at the feed-in tariffs in Germany, one can easily see that anything built in California will be cheaper by about a factor of two in California, all other things equal.

Or to make the message even easier to understand (and harder to distort): If Germany can build 25 GW of capacity at a cost of 70 euro per average consumer and year, just about every other country can do so as well, and cheaper.

The article has this to say about President Elbegdorj’s opinion on these matters:

In his greetings, President Elbegdorj underlined:” …While the world’s carbon market is working fretfully to have polluters pay and the polluted compensated, “time waits for no man”, and our blue planet is dauntingly browning. The simplest, the rightest solution is just to stop polluting. How? Mongolia can offer the solution. Mongolia can produce clean and renewable energy and offer it to the world.

I ardently look forward to a day when the Mongolian Gobi becomes the hearth of the regional renewable energy production – the Gobi-Tech, a Gobi-centered powerhouse localizing global tehcnological progress. This day is to be realized by Mongolian and foreign engineers, scholars and businessmet. Therefore, your cooperation and partnership is instrumental in this effort”.

These remarks were delivered by P. Tsagaan, adviser to the President. I recall that he has also spoken at the recent “ReVision” conference in Tokyo, where he said that Mongolia should be “not the Saudi Arabia of coal, but the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.”

I think it is fair to say that there is quite some political support in Mongolia for pulling off some large-scale Desertec project in the Gobi.

It will be interesting to see what results of this conference will be published.

Update: President Elbegdorj’s greeting address has been published in full at the Mongolia Economic Forum website.

Comments are possible until June first. I am looking forward to write a couple of things and blogging about it here.

Thanks to this tweet by H. Matsubara for the link.