This page is a place to group together a few interesting reads I stumble across as I go, trying to make my posts not completely unjustified.
Reports
- IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (August 2021): Hot off the press, the latest IPCC report from August 2021. This is the sixth assessment report produced, the last being in 2013. You are welcome to churn through the 3949 pages of the full report, but it should rather be considered as an encyclopedia which you can consult anytime you need some information on a specific topic. On the other hand, reading through the whole 42 page Summary for Policymakers is much more achievable, and something which not only policymakers should do. And when you’re done, don’t forget to put Monty Python’s “Bright side of life” on at full blast.
Books
- Sustainable energy without the Hot Air (MacKay, 2008, freely available online): MacKay gives an interesting overall perspective of energy in our society, both from the production and the demand side. With back-of-the-envelop calculations accessible to everyone, he underlines the importance of reasoning in orders of magnitude to keep the head above water among all the facts and numbers which can be thrown at you in this topic. However, it also gives a good basic understanding of the many technologies involved in the field of energy nowadays (basically everything).
- Sustainable materials, with both eyes open (Cullen & Allwood, 2012, freely available online): Written based on the results and experience of a group of researchers at University of Cambridge, this book underlines the unsustainable consumption of the main materials on which we are building our society, and explores more sustainable paths for five of these. A major conclusion to draw from this book is that despite all the technology available, the n.1 solution to our problem is to use less. I mean, apparently even Bill Gates listens to these guys…
Interactive tools
Warning: these tools can be highly addictive!
- BBC food calculator: this neat little calculator lets you choose different staple food and drinks, and will let you know how much emissions they represent based on your personal consumption. The main point of interest is the comparison of different staples with each other, to see what impact diet changes would have on the environment.
- WWF carbon footprint calculator: dividing emissions into four main sources (food, travel, stuff, home), it allows you to compare your personal emissions with the UK 2020 targets (so basically, now). While this applies to the UK only, values for European industrialised countries in a similar climate will be comparable (Frenchies, you can find an alternative for your country here)
- Energy policy simulator: Want to know what it feels like to be the part of the ones high up there taking the energy policy decisions for our future? Have a go at trying to fix our emissions to meet the bold climate targets fixed in Paris and thereafter.
- Renewables ninja: put on the project developer hat, and try to find the optimal spot on which to place your turbines and photovoltaic panels… Assuming you’ve already sorted out problems with the moody farmers, the local bird protection association, the nearby World Heritage, the supply chain logistics, the list goes on, but let’s not spoil the fun with these details. The main results will be the estimated power output throughout the year and the capacity factor at each month.
The capacity factor is the ratio of actual produced power to maximal deliverable power if always operating at full capacity. For wind turbines this ratio will be less than 100% because turbines are designed to operate optimally at a specific wind speed, above and below which the turbine will produce less. For solar panels, this is simply due to the fact that at night and during cloudy days your production will be none or reduced.
Websites
- Forum for the Future: Apart from its swanky web page, the Forum for the Future website summarises pretty well the main challenges of sustainability.
- GridWatch: get a Big Brother perspective on the UK’s real-time electricity consumption, and compare the generation mix with the weather outside your window to see if the two are linked. Here is the equivalent for the French market (slightly less exciting due to the relatively constant share of nuclear) which also covers other energy sectors, and another for the German market.
- EnergyPost: collection of articles written by experts in the field (renewables, transport, grids, conventional energies…) which can sometimes become quite technical but have the advantage of being rich in referenced facts and numbers if you need some yourself.
Podcasts
Articles, films and more
- The Great Energy Debate: co-organised by TU-Delft and Imperial College London, this debate around a panel of experts lets students ask a variety of questions on the topic in an interactive format, while respecting everyone’s speech time, which is a welcome change in energy debates which can become quite heated. Both questions and answers are of a high-quality caliber.
- Tomorrow (Demain) – the film: a pair of French environmental activists decide to go meet various communities around the world which have adopted alternative sustainable ways of life, whether on education, agriculture, local political institutions… Focusing on solutions rather than drawing out the catastrophic situation we are in, this is definitely a feel-good movie which there should be so many more of in the sustainability movement
- Which brings me to the second movie: 2040 – The film . Currently in cinemas (end of 2019), I must admit I haven’t seen it but have received quite positive feedback on it. Any updates welcome!
Influencers
I’m not on Twitter nor Instagram, so this might be a slightly alternative list based on personal experience, but a bit of new perspectives never hurts.
English-speaking:
- Mike Barry: former director of Sustainable Business at M&S, Mike recently started his own consultancy activities to help companies achieve their sustainability goals and fundamentally restructure their operational mode. Very active on LinkedIn, Mike regularly shares interesting and thought-provoking articles.
- Yuval Noah Harari: You must have seen or heard of his book “Homo Sapiens” and its sequel “Homo Deus” if you ever set foot in a bookstore. While his main ideas are not directly linked to the concept of sustainability, he sheds light on the deep-rooted nature of human behaviour in our ancestral past as hunter-gatherers. Questioning the social construct on which our sedentary lifestyle is based, he makes clear that changing our consumption behaviour will definitely not be a piece of cake and will require to go against thousands years of cognitive evolution in one direction, the growth of material wealth.
- Michael Liebreich: Cambridge graduate, ex-McKinsey consultant, outspoken Conservative, on paper, Michael Liebreich seems to embody the establishment which so many green activities denounce. But do not stop at first impressions: a world-renowned expert on energy matters, founder of multiple energy consultancies, heavy-weight influencer at leading economic forums such as the World Economic Forum, the Clinton Global Initiative, as well as multiple UN Advisory Groups, and board member of Advisory Panels for Transport for London and INSEAD, Michael Liebreich’s 1001 lives show a man with an impressive clarity on the most complex topics of the energy sector. A most recent example is the Hydrogen Ladder published by Liebreich Associates.
French speaking (but you can probably find some sources in English as well):
- Jean-Marc Jancovici: incredible wealth of knowledge, interesting theories on our dependency on fossil fuels. Pro-nuclear (at least clearly defends we can’t do without it) and highly skeptical regarding renewable energies
- Pablo Servigne: one of the founder of the “Collapsologie” movement, which took some of its roots in Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” book. Society as it functions today, with growth as the main driver, cannot continue in a finite world. In this context, we have to be ready to drastically change our life habits, whether by choice or forced by the series of events. But Servigne does not depict apocalyptic post-fossil fuel scenarios, but rather believes in the capacity (and necessity) of humans to cooperate in times of hardship.
- Philippe Bihouix: expert on the energy aspect of raw material ressources (minerals, rare earth metals, oil, gas…). Questions the sustainability of very material-intensive renewables, which moreover have to be reinstalled every 30 years with poor recycling rates.