John Doerr: Carbon-neutral OKRs, the goal is not hard to achieve

Numerous studies have shown that if the earth’s temperature rises by 4°C, the global economy will be destroyed, especially the economy of the southern hemisphere. The scale of this disaster will be far greater than the 2008 financial crisis, and it will continue for a long time. Humanity will enter a permanent climate depression. But frankly, such warnings are unlikely to put us on the path to saving the planet. Predictions about what will happen in 80 years are too far for the human brain. A few degrees warmer sounds more innocuous than ominous. At the same time, the biggest hurdle is that people are always slow to make changes without a roadmap. Real change requires a clear and achievable plan.

So how can we prevent the climate crisis from turning into a climate catastrophe? What is the targeted, actionable, and measurable plan that will allow us to truly avoid this looming catastrophe?

In his first book, This Is OKR, John Doerr introduced OKRs, or how goals and key results can drive success for organizations ranging from Google to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to Small startups to Fortune 500 giants. Doerr believes they can also help us tackle the climate crisis, leading to a new book, Speed ​​and Scale: A Guide to Action on Carbon Neutral OKRs.

The Speed ​​and Scale Program

OKRs stand for Objectives and Key Results. They address two key aspects of any worthy goal, the “what” and the “how.” The goal (O) is the “what” you are trying to achieve. Key Results (KRs) tell us “how” to achieve these goals, and usually they are broken down into finer-grained goals.

OKRs are not the sum of all tasks. Instead, they focus on what’s most important, the few basic steps of action in the effort to achieve a specific goal. They allow us to track our progress. Its design philosophy is to look ahead and strive to achieve ambitious but still achievable goals.

In addressing environmental issues, net zero emissions are our bottom line. “Net” means that it is impossible to achieve zero emissions simply by reducing emissions. We also need to rely on nature and technology to eliminate and store unavoidable emissions. But to be clear, we cannot continue to burn fossil fuels under the pretext of cleaning the atmosphere in the future. The main task we face is to reduce emissions.

Our top OKR is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, with the key milestone of halving emissions reductions by 2030. In the face of such a huge challenge, the Objectives and Key Results will keep us sane and pragmatic. These goals and key results can save us both from unhelpful fantasies and from so-called “shiny objects”—innovations that appear brilliant but are not competitive in cost or scale. By holding us accountable for our quantified goals, they make us less prone to relying on elusive hope. We will relentlessly focus on the biggest, most productive opportunities that will get us to our net-zero goal on time.

The target is in line with calculations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations Environment Programme and negotiators of the Paris Agreement. All three agencies calculated emissions levels for 1.5°C, 1.8°C and 2°C increases in temperature compared to pre-industrial air temperature levels. In order to simplify the target, the key results we have set are in line with the most ambitious target of no more than 1.5°C increase in temperature.

This is our plan: a “speed and scale plan” to address the climate crisis. These six measures support our overarching goal of addressing the climate crisis by achieving net-zero emissions by 2050

Speed ​​and Scale Program ‘Combustion Booster’

Scale up battery production while reducing costs

If all new cars sold (60 million per year) were EVs, 10,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of batteries would be required. Our battery production today can only cover a fraction of that, so we need another 10,000+ GWh of storage. The world will be extremely thirsty for batteries, and the scale needed is hard to come by. To increase yields by orders of magnitude, we need innovation in materials and manufacturing.

Scientists and engineers have worked tirelessly to make progress in energy storage for decades. Ever since Alessandro Volta made the first battery in 1800,11 people have been trying to make better batteries. So far, Quantum Landscape has produced solid-state lithium metal batteries that are denser, cheaper and even safer.

However, to facilitate the transition to electric vehicles in developing countries, we also need denser, lower-cost batteries. Quantum Landscape is building a production line to produce enough solid-state batteries for field testing in cars. If the company hits its cost and density targets (and beats market rivals), it could eliminate the green premium for EVs in places like India or Africa, where brand new gasoline cars cost less than half the cost of the U.S.

However, even with all efforts, the battery industry will still face inherently thorny issues such as material shortages and ore mining. Cobalt, which makes up as much as 20 percent of lithium-ion cathode materials, faces major problems—60 percent of the world’s cobalt feedstock comes from the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo, a country riddled with mines, dangerous, and plagued by forced child labor.

As the world’s demand for battery power continues to grow, we need to increase scrutiny of supply chains to ensure materials are mined responsibly. In addition to increasing energy density, we also need to scale up the battery industry workforce, manufacturing plants and materials used far beyond current levels. The new version of the cathode chemistry will cut the cobalt content in half. The new battery technology could also remove cobalt entirely, which would solve a difficult problem.

In the long run, a large-scale battery industry could operate with little or no new ore mining by recycling used batteries from electric vehicles and the grid.

We need more breakthroughs from battery manufacturers (and recyclers) to meet the world’s need for cheaper, greener energy storage. There is plenty of room in this space for many companies to shine.

Lower zero-emission baseload electricity costs

Focus on the cost of delivering energy to the grid. To replace coal and natural gas, zero-emission energy must be stable and reliable. Clean energy can come from solar, wind or hydro power, as large as the earth and as small as atoms. The challenge now is to provide stable power under normal conditions while ramping up production to meet peak demand during winter storms or summer heat waves. For any new technology to stand out from the competition, it must have a lower cost than fossil fuels.

The need for robust energy storage and more reliable power systems is most highlighted in extreme scenarios of surging electricity demand, so how can variable energy sources such as solar and wind be made more reliable? How can you rely on these zero-emission solutions in a pinch? The answer lies in inventing new ways to store energy for longer periods of time.

Energy storage technology is defined by its charge and discharge cycles. Short-term energy storage for cell phones, laptops, cars, and homes is usually calculated on a daily basis. The grid, on the other hand, captures energy during periods of excess generation, stores it, and distributes it during periods of peak demand. For short-cycle energy storage needs, the current popular and economical option is lithium-ion batteries.

The long-cycle energy required by the grid must be able to be stored economically for weeks or months, making batteries prohibitively expensive. For long-term energy storage, we need more efficient alternatives, such as pumped-storage power generation that relies on the action of water gravity. However, although pumped-storage power plants are very suitable for long-term energy storage, they are expensive to build and cannot be used on flat ground. run on.

A start-up called Energy Vault uses gravity in another way, lifting a 35-ton composite block,

Drop and stack to store and release energy. A company called Malta stores energy as heat in large tanks filled with ultra-high temperature molten salt. Energy storage makers Highview Power and Hydrostor use the excess energy to store compressed air and then release the compressed air to generate electricity. Energy company Bloom Energy uses green hydrogen produced and stored on-site to power fuel cells. In addition, Form Energy and others are using new chemical reactions to store energy.

Nuclear energy is an integral part of our electricity mix today and in the future. Its shortcomings are well known, and if a nuclear power plant fails, the consequences can be devastating, but as Bill Gates points out, “This is the only carbon-free energy source that can reliably provide electricity around the clock, in all seasons, almost in Anywhere on Earth has been proven to operate at scale.” So nuclear energy is an integral part of the huge grid we need to develop,

In order to ensure the safety of the reactor, the future direction is to design a new type of advanced reactor, which is known in the industry as the fourth generation reactor. More than 50 laboratories or start-ups are currently following this path around the world to advance nuclear power in all aspects of safety, sustainability, efficiency and cost.

Lower carbon-neutral fuel costs

Carbon-neutral fuels offer a path to decarbonization for industries that may not be fully electrified, such as aviation and cargo. Vehicles that cannot be powered by batteries or hydrogen can be powered by carbon-neutral fuels. The challenge with this approach is to find readily available alternative fuels that are comparable in cost to today’s fossil fuels.

Biofuels can be made from plants, crops, algae, vegetable oils, oils and fats. We can convert these biomass resources into ethanol, diesel and jet fuel through industrial processes. Emissions from the combustion of these biofuels can be offset by the atmospheric carbon dioxide absorbed by the biomass. Of course, emissions are not 100% offset, depending on the process and the fossil fuel energy required, the reduction will be 30% to 80%.

However, the increased use of biofuels increases the risk that it will compete with food crops or forest conservation. So the path to net-zero emissions requires a synthetic fuel from a completely emission-free energy source that doesn’t compete with land or food. One promising approach is to use solar or wind power to combine hydrogen in water with carbon dioxide extracted from the atmosphere. Since these fuels emit no more carbon dioxide than was captured when they were produced, they would be carbon neutral.

One has reason to doubt that it all sounds too perfect to be true. Carbon neutral fuels are not currently economically viable. To be economical, the zero-emission energy used to make the fuel must be very cheap, or the cost of fossil fuels with a carbon price needs to increase significantly. What is the good news? Both directions are promising. If entrepreneurs developing synthetic fuels can secure financial support, the conditions for their success may soon be ripe.

Lower carbon removal costs

Aimed at improving the economics of capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air and storing it, the technology has yet to scale. We also need to find a place to store all the carbon dioxide, which is really hard. Scaling up carbon removal is the cornerstone of our journey to net-zero emissions by 2050. As Bill Gates pointed out, we haven’t been able to get the cost of capturing CO2 directly from the air below $100 per ton. “If someone could do that for $50 a ton, that would be a pretty remarkable achievement,” Bill said. “If you could get it down to $25, it would be one of the greatest contributions to addressing climate change ever made.” one.”

A controversial concept is to deflect the sun’s rays by emitting sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere. If successful, it could slow the planet’s warming and slow or even stop the melting of polar ice caps. But at the same time, it can also cause extremely cold weather, trigger acid rain, destroy food supplies, and cause people to die from starvation and disease.

Maybe there are safer tools in the world than sulphur dioxide lime pellets? No one can know everything. Al Gore believes that once geoengineering goes beyond carbon removal, it is a morally wrong choice because its effects are unpredictable, and safer and more reliable options are yet to be tried. Al should point out that geoengineering is less an ambitious project than a Faustian deal with nature.

Speed ​​and Scale: A Guide to Action on OKRs for Carbon Neutrality

John Doerr

Synopsis: In 2006, during a crucial dinner discussion, John Doerr was speechless when his 15-year-old daughter challenged him to address the climate crisis. Since then, the authors have been working to find ways to reverse global warming.

In the 15 years of paying attention to the environmental crisis, the author deeply felt that it is urgent to solve the current crisis, and human beings have no time for trial and error and buffer. Therefore, he joined scientists, policy makers, social activists, business leaders and philanthropists. This effective tool creates a clear and followable course of action for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part starts with six broad areas that can mitigate the climate crisis, including transportation, electricity, agriculture, nature conservation, industry, and carbon removal. The goals and methods that need to be achieved at each stage of the field. The second part explores policy, technology, and investment issues related to clean energy and a carbon-neutral economy. Each goal in each chapter is accompanied by a set of measurable key results, making it easy to track progress in those areas to show how well you are doing, and whether you need to pick up the pace or correct direction.

This is a set of imminent carbon neutrality action plans. It is also a guide for investors to find new opportunities for the “zero carbon” economy. It is also an effective reference for the government and entrepreneurs on how to transform enterprises under the “dual carbon” goal.