Energy innovation on all fronts and fairness needed to address climate change

We need the 2020s to be the decade of an all-hands-on-deck approach to meet our climate goals, according to the thirteenth former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.

This push is required across the board: from technological innovation and deployment, to multidisciplinary research and the creation of new industries, but we also must pursue energy equity, Moniz stressed. In doing this, we will address the dual challenge of creating sustainable systems while simultaneously extending modern energy resources to emerging economies.

“The right pace of change is fast and now,” said Moniz. “We need to pick up the pace dramatically.”

California, as well as other states and countries around the world, have made commitments to “net zero” emissions—or carbon neutrality—by mid-century. To meet these, they will need significant technological innovation and deployment, said Moniz who is also the CEO and founder of the Energy Futures Initiative and a professor emeritus of physics and engineering systems at MIT.

Moniz was the featured speaker at the inaugural session of the Stanford University Global Energy Dialogues on June 9. In a wide-ranging discussion covering the breadth of energy resources needed to meet our climate challenge, he said that renewables like wind and solar will be "critical components.” However, we also need "an assault across the board on all approaches,” including longer-term storage, hydrogen, carbon capture and sequestration, even technologies that remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Hydrogen could play the role of a flexible fuel in the low-carbon economy, similar to the use of natural gas today, according to Moniz. The key will be to take an integrated approach and build a hydrogen market across the economy. Responding to an audience question, Moniz said that there are fundamental open questions on hydrogen, including which technologies will be developed and settled on.

“In the end, what we can’t afford is to have a cacophony,” said Moniz. For hydrogen to be economy-wide and economical, “we’re going to need some standards.”

As for the role of new nuclear technology, the trend toward a next generation of small, modular reactors is promising, Moniz said, adding that we are witnessing an enormous amount of innovation, but these technologies have to prove that they are economical. He thinks we’re on a path to some deployment of next-generation nuclear technology in this decade, but “we need a major public-private partnership for these technologies to get over the hump.”

Energy for all

Deep decarbonization and energy equity go hand in hand, Moniz said. Issues of energy and social equity are often inextricably linked. Domestically, we must create millions of good jobs, and the energy sector has created jobs at twice the pace of the overall economy over the last five pre-COVID years. Internationally, take Africa, said Moniz, “how can you increase the public health system—which is absolutely needed if you are going to control pandemics early—without reliable electricity?”

Focusing on energy equity is not only the right thing to do but also will make climate efforts more successful. Without it, “we’re going to have headwinds” for the energy transition. We instead want tailwinds, which “come from getting broad coalitions together,” Moniz said.

Stanford’s Global Energy Dialogues series examines the role of the energy sector in responding to the global economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the dual challenge of deep decarbonization and equity. The next guest will be Stanford professor, Nobel laureate and the twelfth U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, on June 23.

Moniz was interviewed by Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy co-directors Sally Benson and Arun Majumdar.

Benson, who is also a professor of energy resources engineering, asked if global emissions will peak in 2020 due to the pandemic.

“Industrialized countries may have reached that point,” said Moniz. Emerging economies will likely have increased emissions while they continue to promote economic development. It’s important for industrialized countries to understand, said Moniz, that “it’s a good investment to help that economic development with the least-emissions trajectory as possible.”

For example, China is prepared to support the building of new coal plants in Southeast Asia as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Why isn’t the U.S. in there supporting natural gas and renewables?

Such an effort would “make a huge difference as opposed to locking in new coal plants in those countries,” said Moniz.

Energy and economic recovery

The pandemic could be a rare opportunity, noted Majumdar, who is also a professor of mechanical engineering, to reset the course on the dual challenges of energy access and climate change. Putting people back to work to rebuild new energy infrastructure is one way to achieve this.

We need to be thinking in terms of creating new industries, Moniz said, not just on new products and processes. The oil industry, which has been heavily impacted by COVID-related demand change, has many similarities to carbon capture and sequestration.

“The skill set is largely the same. The geographies will be largely the same,” sad Moniz. Pairing transitions in the oil sector with the development of a sequestration industry could “address our carbon challenge and our jobs issues.” 

A multidisciplinary approach

Asked by a student how young people could best pair their career paths with work to advance a more sustainable economy, Moniz echoed the need for effort on all fronts.

We often think of innovation in technology as the answer, and it is crucial, said Moniz, but innovation is needed everywhere: in business models, policy and regulation and social sciences.

“We need to have students, in a completely multidisciplinary way, understanding that they all have important parts of the solution going forward,” said Moniz.

The Stanford Global Energy Dialogues series takes place every other Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. PT. Registration is required for the series, which is open to the public.

The Global Energy Dialogues are funded by the Stanford Global Energy Forum.