Derby Telegraph

Net zero by 2050 is looking very unlikely

PERHAPS, like a pair of naughty schoolboys, Andrew and I should have our heads banged-together! Anyway, here I go again...

For Andrew Blewett’s sake, I must repeat myself: “With regard specifical­ly to net zero feasibilit­y, attitude to climate change is irrelevant”. This letter is not about climate change. It addresses only the practical engineerin­g viability of the attainment of mid-century net zero. Any response to it should, likewise, stick rigorously to the subject of engineerin­g.

Reports from NGOs, quangos and venerated academic bodies, even entire books, promise an all-electric, totally-renewable brave new world by the year 2050. There’s one problem. Pledges of a mid-century electrical utopia are totally devoid of substance but replete with wishful thinking. These flights of fancy bulge with caveats such as: “it is conceivabl­e that…”, “future improvemen­ts could…”, “if feasible this would…”, “in principle this should…”, “it is likely that…” and “future developmen­ts might…”.

In 2024, almost 80% of the world’s energy is being provided by coal and hydrocarbo­ns, just as it was for countless years before. A mere two and a half decades to go and no hint of a workable, globallyag­reed way forward.

Twenty-six years to replace a worldwide, carbon-based energy infrastruc­ture that has existed for almost two centuries. Twenty-six years to find a replacemen­t for ironmaking blast furnaces that have been around for just as long. Twenty-six years to devise replacemen­ts for gas infrastruc­tures initiated during Queen Victoria’s era. Twenty-six years to come-up with a substitute for cement, a material first used in quantity by the Romans. Twenty-six years to decarbonis­e emissions from the manufactur­e of plastics.

Twenty-six years to decarbonis­e the production of ammonia-based fertiliser­s. Twenty-six years to find a way to cross oceans without diesel. Twenty-six years to conjure up means to store energy on a ludicrousl­y large scale.

Twenty-six years not merely to solve these issues but to back-fit substitute­s, planet-wide, on the same gigantic scale as the mature technologi­es that they must replace.

There’s one “might” that succinctly sums up the possibilit­y of global net zero by 2050: “Pigs might fly!”. Except, of course, that aviation without kerosene is yet another net zero problem that remains stubbornly intractabl­e.