On the 12th of December, 2015, in a vast hall in Paris, a historic agreement was reached on the future of the world. The hall was Le Bourget Exhibition Centre, which easily accommodated delegates from almost two hundred nations of the world, providing them, not just sitting space, butspace for relaxation in between sessions of serious bric-a-brac.
For the two weeks that the ‘Conference Of Parties’ (COP) number 21 lasted, Paris wore the air of a city under siege. But this time the besieging force was a friendly army made up of a motley assortment of people from all over the world –students, labour unionists, regular Joes from the Parisian neighbourhoods, as well as the usual sprinkling of ideologues of various hues – anarchists, Trotskyites, apocalyptic doomsday-ists– religious and agnostic.
Thestreet-level engagements of previous Climate Change conferences were an exciting and unscripted cultural accompaniment that added an air of danger and excitement to what might otherwise have been a series of dull technical discussions. Colourful slogans. Crowd barriers pushed down from time to time. Missiles flying through the air in the odd encounter with the Police.Unwashed youth camping out on public lawns.
Paris was still on tenterhooks because of recent terrorist attacks in which scores of citizens had been ruthlessly murdered by religious fanatics. There was some possibility that some of the terrorists might still be around, waiting to use the cover of any gathering to unleash a fresh round of mayhom. By mutual consent between protesters and police, a unique and symbolic form of protest was decided upon. People would leave their shoes on the streets. So there they were – hundreds of shoes arranged end to end on the Parisian street. A truly bizarre sight to behold. From designer brogues to plastic throw-aways, all lined up, facing the one direction.
It came down to one message, and one message only. It was necessary to save Earth from Human Beings.
The activities of mankind, through the emission of ‘greenhouse’ gases that were depleting the ozone layer of the earth’s atmosphere, constituted an ever-greater threat of global warming.The earth’s atmosphere was growing warmer through the burning of fossil fuels. Science had concluded that the rate of temperature increase on the planet had to be kept below two degrees centigrade, whatever it took. In fact, an extreme view within the conference, representing he interests of the island nations who would be the first to be swept away by rising oceans – one of the consequences of global warming, insisted that the correct goal to shoot for was a more challenging maximum increase of one point five degrees Celsius.
To keep the increase in the earth’s temperature below two degrees celciuswas an ambition in the end shared by the men and women in suits, who inhabited the Parisian hall, and who in the first few days included Barack Obama and Angela Merckel and MuhammaduBuhari.
It was an ambition based on hope and optimism for the possibilities of mankind, rather than hard-nosed reality. Even the Science required to achieve the desired ends was yet to be developed!
One hundred and eighty six nations – the parties to the agreement, would publish their action plans for the reduction of greenhouse emissions. These actions plans were to be reviewed every five years, starting from 2020, in order continually to pitch for a higher, more demanding target. Countries would aim to achieve ‘carbon neutrality’ in the second half of the century. The use of the most polluting forms of fossil fuels – meaning not only coal but petrol – would have to be stopped entirely.
That was not all.
There was a peculiar Economy to the argument on global warming. It was acknowledged that the technologically developed countries achieved prosperity by creating huge machines and causing a disproportionate amount of the damage that had already been done to the earth’s atmosphere. The not-so-wealthy nations – including the countries of the Indian and African continents such as Nigeria, would also want to become wealthy like the ‘first world’ countries through a rapid industrialization. Asking them to limit pollution was tantamount to holding back their industrialization, or at least making it expensive and non-competitive by holding them to high anti-pollution standards. They would need to be ‘compensated’ somehow for this. It was a matter of simple justice.
The Paris meeting had an answer to this thorny and highly emotive issue. The rich nations would raise $100 billion every year and give the money out in loans and donations to poor countries to enable them reduce their greenhouse emissions, or mitigate the impact of climate change such as drought and rising ocean levels. Some ‘developing’ countries, such as India, might themselves, over time, become donors to the very poorest countries, assisting them with money and Science to limit their additions to the global pollution, and to overcome the worst ravages of the scourge of global warming.
It was not to be assumed that there was unanimous agreement that global warming wasa great threat, or that there was even such a thing as ‘global warming’. A substantial movement among right-wing Republicans in the United States of America remained skeptical about the concept of global warming, and the role of human activity in causing it. The movement was in automatic alliance with strong voices in Industry, who saw the stringent emission-reduction changes recommended in their productive processes as bad for business. They scoffed at the fact that the Science to implement the decision of the conference to effectively substitute non-fossil energy sources for fossil fuels across the board was yet to be developed, and, for all anyone knew, might never be developed!
Just to show that America was special, and could go its own way, they promised that they would get Congress to prevent the signing of the final agreement by President Barack Obama. Failing that, they would ensure that the next government, which they hoped to control, would renege on the implementation, even if an agreement was signed.
People from other lands had learned to observe the antics and pronouncements of the right wing in the USA with a mixture of amusement and bemusement. Their stranglehold on Public Policy, for example, did not allow their doctors – among the best in the world, to ask a patient in their consulting office if they possessed a gun. The patient might be suicidal or homicidal, in the view of the doctor, but that counted for nothing. But when the poor bloke then went out on the street and began to kill innocent people, the prevailing logic encouraged citizens, presumably including the hapless doctor who saw it coming and could have headed it off with some common sense questioning and reporting, which could have shown up in a background check – another thing that was not allowed by Law, to Stand Tall, meaning they should bring out a gun from their pocket, and shoot the ‘killer’ dead. The whole scenario was ridiculous to everyone except a certain kind of American, to who it was the Holy Grail. Stupidity had been deified, and given the double-barreled name of political conviction and constitutional right.
America, like every nation, was entitled to its foibles, as long as they were not foisted on anyone else.
And now to the crux of COP21 – this project that was aimed at no less a mission than the salvation of the world as we knew it. There was embedded in it an unwavering certainty that at the crucial time when the very survival of the species required it, mankind would be able to come up with innovation that would change his ways wholesale and save his planet. A shift away from fossil power, which generated his electricity, ran his cars, cooled his home, ran his aeroplanes, and was at the heart of virtually everything he did everyday. A change to non-fossil power – predominantly solar, but also including wind power, wave power, and other ‘clean’ sources of energy. If mankind carried it off, it would indeed carry a strong value proposition for the salvation of planet Earth. Afterall the sun’s energy wasfree, and in abundance. Over a number of years, technology hadbeen developed to harness that power, and to deploy it. In many parts of the world, the use of solar panels in homes and offices was routine.However, nowhere had solar or wind power become a full substitute for conventional power.
There was a crucial missing link, and this was becoming the focus for the next major race to lead the world. It would actually have more substantial economic and political significance for the person or the nation that invented it than landing a man on the moon.
To put it in Clinton-esque language, ‘It Is The Storage, Stupid!”
Why was the prototype electric car no rival yet for the conventional car? Because it was hobbled by a need to recharge its batteries every so often – and certainly more often than the conventional car on a full tank of fuel. Storage.
Why was the domestic inverter not an alternative to public electricity? Current technology allowed the storage of some power acquired from public electricity or solar panels or generator, using huge and heavy batteries. Some people had ten to twenty of these batteries in their domestic inverter system, and yet their homes could only be powered by the inverter for a few hours. Even then, they had to ‘load shed’ heavy items like air-conditioners and refrigerators.
The first solar-powered plane limped its way fitfully across the world’s skies recently. Its reach was severely hobbled by the need to recharge from the sun every few hours. The reason? Limited storage.
The next phase of the Power War would be won by the person who discovered a neat, safe, compact and light-weight way to store huge amounts of energy, generated from any source – whether solar or other, and who was able to convert this stored energy to a form that could be used for a long spell to power homes, cars, devices, and do all the things currently done with electricity.
The storage war indeed is the new scientific frontier. It is a war that has been going on for some time quietly in government and privately funded laboratories in different parts of the world. It has been unleashed afresh and brought into focus by the Climate Change conference in Paris. Whoever wins the ‘Storage War’ will not only help to create a clean world for all mankind, he would also change the economics and power dynamics in the world. National economies built on fossil fuel that have not hastened to diversify will wane. The new economy, based on Knowledge and a new form of Power, stored, transported and managed in a different way, will rule the World.
The Storage War is a chance for Nigeria, which has been a laggard in the innovation race, to jump to the front of the next Big Idea. It is a chance for the Ogbunigwe scientists of Biafra, and all the bright young and not-so-youngegg-heads in the Universities and Polytechnics all across the land to pool their energies or engage in friendly or not-so-friendly competition for a chance to put Nigeria on the world map. This is not about writing academic papers in journals nobody reads – it is about solving a problem that nobody on the planet had yet solved, which is crucial for the next stage of the human race, and which is sure to solved by someone, somewhere – in the next few years, if only to fulfill the stipulations of COP21 and the men and women who left their shoes lined up on the streets of Paris.
It is not a far-fetched argument. A government where the Energy brief is held by BabatundeRajiFashola would surely ‘get it’, and realize that this could, and should, be defined as a strategic imperative for the nation. If resources were deployed to help the nation’s best and brightest compete meaningfully, with a fighting chance to be the ones to solve the riddle, Nigeria would actually be in the equivalent of the new Arms Race. This time it would be a race the winning of which could make Nigeria’s economy explode with positive power, as the Knowledge created could become a national treasure, vastly greater than oil. A win would put the nation in the front rank in the committee of nations for the next stage of the Human Story.
At this stage, anything, including that giddy scenario, is possible.
