I got into an argument on a UA-cam channel on which a bloke had put forward the opinion that ev won't work because it takes ages to charge an Audi eTron. Think it was trolls actually but they ended up screaming in capitals did I know how much concrete it takes to build a wind farm? That pushed me over the edge and I had to step away from the argument before I blew a gasket screaming back something about spent fuel rods!! I too was inclined towards making the argument about local air quality rather than climate change but even the thought of children dying of asthma because of where they live didn't penetrate the petrol intoxication! I didn't have enough facts about cheaper energy to make a proper argument but honestly I don't think even that would have got through. Never experienced such intransigence before and it was really quite distressing to witness at first hand. I write this from the bedroom of a house with no windows open at six in the morning in a foggy Kentish village tasting the pollution seeping through the walls and down the chimney... Scary.... 😐
Hi Robert. Really great podcast. Thank you :-) Could you add the link to Mark's book? I would very much like to read that. (apologies if I've missed it somewhere?) Cheers. Dave
I love this interviews with people who are using science based information to make decisions about where economic entities should go to both improve their bottom line while improving the state of the world.
Since I wish this information was more widely disseminated, here's an obligatory algorithm pleasing comment. =] Thanks for being a reliable source of fantastic news/information on these important topics.
A wonderfully nutrient rich episode. A lot said with very few words. Would be great to listen to another chat with Mark Z sometime, (and also with Auke if you're up for it).
This video has aged very well. The thrust towards renewables is still accelerating. Thank you Robert and Mr. Jacobson for the information packed (free of FUD) discussion.
It IS a reality in the Orkney Isles (population around 23k). They actually produce about 20% more electricity than they use, with the excess going to the Scottish mainland grid.
Another great episode. I would have liked your guest to drill down in more detail into a country such as the UK and what in the real world it would take to get to 100% renewables. I definitely fall into the category of people who is pro renewable, buys electricity from Octopus, drives an EV etc...but still struggles to see how in the UK we can realistically move to 100% renewables anytime soon. I keep hearing lots of very high level, broad brush comments saying ‘of course we could be a 100% renewables now’, without any data to back it up. This week is a prime example. It's been relatively cold (high demand), cloudy (low solar output) and high pressure has meant very low wind (low wind output). The upshot of this is that there has been very low levels of renewables production. As I type, 4.8GWh out of 40GWh of demand is renewable and it’s only that high as the weather is starting to change and wind generation is picking up, it has been considerably lower over the last 48-72hrs. So very approximately if you say there’s been an average of 35GWh of demand for the last 4 days thats 3,360GW of electricity used and less than 10% of that has been from renewables. That means we would have needed to not only meet demand of between 30-40GWh last week but also have generated and importantly stored at least another 3TWh. I know given unlimited resources anything is possible but is it really realistic for a country like the UK to have that sort of storage resource given the cost of batteries and the fact that actually your generating capacity needs to be way higher than is needed much of the time as you constantly need to be able to generate a surplus to store for periods like this week with low generation and high demand. Also, on a slight tangent. I keep hearing Robert and others pushing solar. We have solar on my farm and across the year it does generate meaningful amounts of energy. However in the UK, solars lowest generation coincides with the highest demand for electricity. Therefore it can’t be relied on for base power in the way wind can because it generates sod all throughout most of the winter. I’m not wanting to sit here coming across as anti renewables because I really am not. It just seems to a lay person such as myself that it will be a massive undertaking to achieve anything close to 100% renewables and lots of people including the guest on this weeks show seem almost flippant that it’s easy to do. Am I missing something?
I was so impressed with this podcast and interview I went and bought Mark Z. Jacobson text book (mentioned in the interview). Checked that information wasn't covered in The Fully Charged Guide to Clean Energy. Haven't got it yet but was able to glimpse a little view via Amazon site (bought it via Abebooks though, you'll see why). Thank you so much Robert and team, you do so much.
Just had a wonderful conversation with my daughter. I mentioned the good news that was in this podcast. She told me that on her last visit to a supermarket, she overheard what she thought was a loud tirade from a rather frightening looking customer aimed at a manager. However it turned out to be passionate defence of the environment. "If you hit mother nature hard she will hit back harder" was her memory. This little anecdote, coupled with today's sunshine and Roberts podcast has cheered me up immensely.
Awesome talk, more of these please :-) One suggestion is to look at "RethinkX" I would very much love to hear their take on the future. Well done Robert!
Before you repeat Mr Jacobsen's talking points on CCS, you should check the situation in the UK. It's not the same as Texas. The CCC recommends its use for hard-to-decarbonise things like cement production and existing steel (there are other ways). The CO2 gets put back down our existing oil pipelines under the North Sea, not used for more oil recovery. This is particularly cheap in the UK as we have a load just coming to end-of-life now. Re-using it for CO2 storage is a perfectly reasonable approach, especially in the shortish term. To call it a 'scam' is a bit silly. Re pollution, he's right it doesn't reduce local air pollution, but if used on existing gas generation _until_ 100% no-burning is in place it does reduce climate emissions, and gas doesn't produce much air pollution (some NOx). He also said e-fuels were pointless. That's fair enough for cars, but not planes. If you want to keep long-distance flights you need e-fuels, at least for the next decade or three. I'm OK with going by boat or train or not going at all, but I don't think most people - and certainly not the govt - are going to go for that. Jacobsen has done great work over the years, but he lots a huge amount of respect when he responded to a critical paper by suing the author. That's not how real academics should behave. It made me worry about the quality of his work. Maybe you should get professor Stuart Hazeldine on your show as he's the main academic who studies this in the UK.
37:40 The problem with believing in transitioning to green energy, but not believing in the climate change problem means you aren't motivated enough to make the change and hard choices in time to avert the disaster. You should care.
We need more information on the future of storage, interconnects and smart grid to resolve the intermittency of wind and solar. This is the difficulty in getting to 100% renewables. Its seems to be feasible and these things are being built, but it would good to get some experts views on this.
Servers and computers don't usually have Cobalt, batteries do (so only Laptops). Computers contain Tantalum, Tin, and gold (potentially from the Congo).
The grid blocks central electric power. The new GRID CAPACITY in an electric world is upto 5fold with central power. The $TRILLIONS grid has to be rebuilt 5fold bigger. The $TRILLIONS plants have to be expanded 5fold. The UNLOADED grid in a renewables 100% electric world is perfect.
I wish that you had touched more on the intrinsic link between a 100% renewable energy future and the mass adoption of EVs. The key for being able to rely on an intermittent source of electricity is having plentiful grid level storage and it’s easy to see that once the 1.42billion cars in the world have been replaced with EVs, using V2G technology we will have a 56.8TWh storage solution that perfectly complements a 100% renewable grid (assuming 40kwh average battery size per car) To put that into context, global annual energy use is approx 23398TWh so if there was no wind, sun, geothermal or hydro anywhere in the world on one day then 56.8TWh of storage would be enough to cover the shortfall for nearly an entire day (21hrs). That’s before any steps were taken to reduce the load on the grid. In reality there is never no wind or sun and a smart grid with this much storage would easily be able to manage the supply and demand with the end user hardly even noticing any effect on their lives. As an aside, 1.42billion cars globally at an average millage of 10000miles/15000km per year equates to 6390TWh, or approx 27% increase in demand on global power, an easily surmountable additional load given the positive effect it will bring on balancing out the peaks and troughs in demand. This rough global scale analysis also works at a country level and assumes current energy use, it is certain that the next decades will bring with it efficiency improvements that will further help. My hope is that all of this happens anyway for economic reasons and leads to a brighter and healthier future for all of us and our planet.
Those are some great aspirations, but not realistic in the real world. This would assume you bought a new car and never drove it. Instead left it sitting plugged into the grid and charged/discharged the batteries to damaging levels. I would personally be better off with a gas fueled car I can actually drive. Electric cars are the future, but lets not confuse their purpose as being a major storage factor. Possibly a minor factor.
@@zmavrick On average we don't really drive our cars, they spend more than 97% of the time parked doing nothing. Vehicle to Grid is already working on a small scale and the power consumed is way below what could damage the battery, the vehicle owner can choose their contribution and typically no more than 10% or 20% of the range is used at any one time, and likely replaced before anyone even notices. Most people wouldn't be impacted by 30-60km less range on a 300km range vehicle in their daily lives and if they are planning a big journey then they can choose to opt out to make sure they have a full charge to start their journey. On the whole I'm sure people of the future will find themselves better off being rewarded by making their car battery available to balance out the grid through incentivised tariffs and those who don't have such a sense of collective responsibility will find themselves paying higher rates for their energy. Personally I'd rather own the electric car that is cheaper to run and also earns me money when I'm not using it. A transition to 100% Renewables grid is still one or two decades away and we will likely always have thermal power stations sitting ready as a back-up, but energy produced from renewable sources is already cheaper than non-renewable and nuclear and is only getting cheaper. Lucky for the planet that economics usually wins in the end, the question is can we make it happen quicker?
@@zmavrick because there is a big difference between the normal day to day case and the once or twice per year extreme case. In general we should be able to meet our normal demands using the cleanest and cheapest energy for a vast majority of the time and energy storage will be key to that, in most climates there will be a couple times a year when there isn't enough supply from renewables due to the weather and it will be necessary to use a dirty back up solution for as minimum amount of time as possible.
I think the discussion about Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) misses some of the nuance. Here is where I agree with what was said: 1. Using renewables to provide any needed power before coal and natural gas are replaced is a bad call. 2. CCS as defined and done by fossil fuel companies is a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' arrangement and will likely fail. I personally believe that in addition to not helping directly, companies will also use it as an excuse to extend the use of fossil fuels in energy generation way beyond any benefits we might actually be getting. 3. Use of CCS to combat pollution is really a non-starter, as you are correct, it really is only good at sequestering carbon and that is not the part of pollution that is hurting humans directly. Where I think the discussion misses is that there are other things like farming techniques and tree planting that is CCS and can impact our environment in a natural way without needing more energy and if CCS can be accomplished in a sufficient quantity (I do recognize that may be too big to do) without needing carbon generating resources, we can extend the time we have to get carbon neutral without increasing planet damage and help to speed climate's return once we reach carbon neutral. I do agree mostly with your points, I just think it is more nuanced than stated, and I think it should be pursued, but not by companies in the energy business.
The immense gulf between objective scientific facts and public/political attitudes (heavily influenced by financial vested interests) is the most significant barrier to progress and societal health benefit. It would seem that the political drive for national autonomy in the industrialized world could be significantly fueled by idea of energy independence through existing renewable technology
I would like to see a discussion between MZJ and one of the many "100% renewable deniers" of which there are plenty on UA-cam. A few years ago, the late David MacKay did some rough calculations which suggested that we would have to cover a huge fraction of the UK with solar panels and wind farms to generate enough energy, and we would still need a nuclear baseload. Technology has, of course, moved on in recent years but I have yet to see anyone re-examine the figures. Simply saying that "nuclear is dirty, expensive, takes 20 years to build, etc..." may be true, but it doesn't really tackle the objections raised by the "renewables will never be enough" brigade. There must be someone out there with enough technological knowledge to perform a neutral balanced review of where we are and where we could get to. Personally, I am a great fan of renewable energy, but I have enough scientific caution in the depths of my grey matter to realise how easy it is to be drawn into a green echo chamber. So, how about it Robert, Dan, et al?
Thanks for correcting your hitherto under representation of atmospheric scientists in your podcasts. We are not such a rare breed. Well worth a listen. The discussion on CCS appears to have missed a crucial point. If humanity wants a better than 50/50 chance of limiting global heating to no more than +1.5 Celsius (the threshold beyond which irreversible climate breakdown is considered possible) it must commit to net zero emissions by ~2035, as your speaker rightly points out. Our current 2050 target necessitates investment in large scale CCS; otherwise, we will almost certainly overshoot the +1.5 Celsius threshold later this century. Regarding, your brief mention of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, your interviewee perhaps provided an over optimistic view of humanity’s prospects. There are several lines of independent evidence regarding the upper limit on safe levels of atmospheric CO2. One important line is palaeoclimatolgy - the study of ancient Earth climates. A substantial body of evidence in this field shows that atmospheric CO2 concentrations comparable to present day levels were associated with global sea levels several tens of metres higher than today. Climate model projections do not concur, probably because they are missing some important slow, natural feedback mechanisms in the Earth’s climate system. Expert consensus predicts global sea level rise of at least several metres by 2500 given our current trajectory, but this excludes what have been considered low probability scenarios involving catastrophic ice sheet collapse. There is now sufficient concern in the scientific community around this issue that it seems plausible that the safe upper limit on atmospheric CO2 concentrations is below 400 ppm. In other words, we may already need large scale CCS to save our coastal communities.
I've seen some comments over the years about an apparent increase in dementia rates. Now this could merely be a result of increased population levels. But as science/medicine learns more about the impact of pm2 particulates on human health, I wonder if the apparent increase in dementia rates is also partly a function of fossil fuels usage? If so, following elimination of of fossil fuels usage, we should see not only an almost immediate improvement in respiratory and cardiovascular health, but after about 15-20 years begin to see a reduction in dementia rates.
Well, yours was not deleted. So, I looked it up on Wikipedia. The lawsuit was a dumb and inappropriate tool for dealing with matters of science. However, Jacobsen et al. did push back in the criticisms of their paper on PNAS in some detail: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5495290/ --so it's safe to say that the truth is probably somewhere between the two views, perhaps even leaning towards Jacobsen et al. (2017). Clack et al.'s argument seems to depend strongly on the idea that we cannot develop cost-effective storage but even the last few years have shown that there are probably many ways of achieving this (non-hydro gravity, inertia, pumped hydro, compressed air, and batteries --including flow batteries).
Yeah it's a shame, seems like critique is treated the same as climate deniers. You can not close your eyes that his science has not always been scientifically correct. And he acts irrationality when scientist argue about it with him.
When I was 9 years old in 1985, I used a book on mechanical engineering to build a hydro electric generator, after reading a book about Nikola Tesla the man and inventor. Another source of electricity is installing an alternator onto an exercise bike and getting one or several of your younger relatives to ride the exercise bike. I have the best carbon capture in the backyard; it's called the family farm garden. It takes carbon dioxide in and creates watermelon, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and other fruits and vegetables as well as oxygen. Al gore supported the climate debate until he lost the 2000 election; then he divorced his wife and bought a yacht that went 1 nautical mile for every 8 gallons of fuel used. Climate change was brought up during the 1980's by astronomers because of the way the earth was changing due to the movement through space compared to the sun. The earth has been through 4 ice ages ; it gets cold then warms up. To reduce carbon dioxide quit digging up grass and trees just to widen highways. Roads don't use carbon dioxide and give us oxygen, plants do.
I walk the dog at Balmedie beach next to Trump's golf course.We call it going doon the doones to see Donald's windmills.I think they are great but Trump was spewing angry at them.Trump calls the Menie estate the great dunes (doones in American) of Scatland.
The issue of storage needs to be addressed. These requirements are huge for months at a time in northern countries. The variability of renewable sources needs to be supported by fast reacting sources and the two that work are natural gas and hydro. Few countries have the potential to develop adequate hydro capacity to back up a largely renewable grid. Clearly we will have to be 100% renewable based simply on the fact fossil fuels will deplete almost completely in 100 years. Climate concerns says we have to reduce carbon emissions enormously over the next several decades. We need fully representative models and living labs to lead the way.
@@gasdive Geothermal storage is the most promising for heat storage like the Drake Landing project in Okotoks, Alberta but there isn't remotely the high grade energy capacity to get through a winter in a northern nation even then. Transmission line solution means probably quadrupling the line capacity.
There's plenty of storage solutions they're just not getting the funding they need. If they are spending billions on wind power then only spending millions on storage it shows there is a lack of understanding at the top of a lot of energy firms as too storage's importance. My pet favourite energy storage firm is Highview Energy who after a decade and two test plants are building a 50MW cryogenic liquid air energy storage unit near Manchester with another planned in Scotland... it would not be unreasonable to say have one in each County so around fifty... building two total with vague plans for more, not good enough. Even one 50MW storage site in every County as a background base storage for multiple Battery Storage is only really a start but that is way beyond what is so far planned. There's no Energy Company or Political Party that as yet seems to be thinking about energy storage with the urgency required. Infrastructure take time to build so in my opinion leaving it until after all the turbines and solar has gone up to get serious is a recipe for disaster.
@@helenlawson8426 Energy storage is expensive. It can take the EROI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) of wind and solar drop dramatically and possibly down into non-viable levels when you add on storage infrastructure. Remember, fossil fuels are self-storing, one of their most positive characteristics. Electricity is not self-storing.
@@johnm2879 May I say that not investing in storage and getting the full potential from renewables has also a cost to it so the investment is not as great as perceived. Also energy security from stored electricity has a value which again must be given a value when costing a system. At the moment wind for example is unfairly getting none use payments despite small running costs and have led to Energy Firms actually paying customers to make use of unwanted electricity, that money could go towards storage for selling at times of high demand. In way yes fossil fuels are kind of self storing although it needs refining on the way and then gets used in inefficient combustion engines to create electricity compared with turning wind into a electricity via a 85-95% efficient dynamo, so as we say 'swings & roundabout' and again there are savings in renewables that can pay for the needed storage which lets be honest is only making renewables more realistically costed. Some offset of energy storage can be made by making use of sharing electricity supplies with other areas or countries but this comes at a risk as if demand hits both at the same time then the host will always get the lions share and put the supply of those who did not invest in storage at risk.
You're saying government policy shouldn't be political. It is by definition political. Science and government and the energy industry are 3 separate realms, unless government pokes its head into therm. Maybe only Americans understand that, and only few of them at that.
I think he would find biomass power stations horrific. They are more polluting than coal fired power stations. Check his Wiki, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z._Jacobson
I think carbon capture and bit coin could go hand in hand. If this does not make sense, then that's a good reason for logic education. Energy grid could be the same as container distribution like shipping industry system with collection and distribution in batterys if aircrafts, ships trains and other appropriate vehicles Are the grid in a genuine living grid the airports, docks logistics centres would be the destribution collection of energy. Why would power development for energy distribution be so far from population. A farm for example is at the edge of a city so the home would be at the edge of the city not the fervous point of the farm away from the city. Logic is obviously not part of the foundation of industry. A spirit level is such a basic tool but yet fundamentally crucial. Weather its mining or energy resourcing. Is the next quarry going to be a lake proberly not and the mountains are going to stand proud and the sea beds are going to stay untouched.
@@ferkeap He is more of an ideologue than a scientist. Lying does not seem to bother him if it benefits his goal. But what really bothers me is that Robert doesn't ask a single hard question to Jacobson in the whole interview.
Brilliant 👍 Would really like to know the reason why Hydrogen only makes more sense than batteries for long haul ships, trains and trucks? Probably due to mass of battery required, but would like to know how that is calculated, as you obviously need to carry more hydrogen too.
It's very inefficient to make. It's bulky and heavy to store. It takes a lot of energy to compress. It's difficult to transport to the fueling stations (needing a second round of compression to get out of the delivery truck). It's inefficient to use and the "fuel cell" which is basically a battery wears out like other batteries, but is vastly more expensive. It has low power so you need normal batteries in small vehicles with very variable power demands, so there's the inefficiency of charging the batteries. But other than that it's great.
Also, batteries are more ideal in cases where massive amounts of energy storage aren't needed. They're just too expensive, now and probably long into the future as well.
Robert - great podcast. However please stop using the word 'artisanal' when describing the child labour Cobalt mines in the DRC. Apart from the hands part there is nothing artisanal abo8t them at all. Te word gives some quaint impression like its Ralph Fiennes in 'The Dig' using cute minute trowels !!
As I noted previously, I failed to notice the missing "i" in the words "innovation", "invention" or "inspiring" that MyEnergy claims to be restoring. You see, at least with that old political jingoistic cliche of "putting the great back into Great Britain", there's some logic to that "great = awesome, great = geographical term for the largest British island" double-meaning pun. But it's now getting a bit silly. Now we're putting "i"s back into words that weren't actually missing any "i"s in the first place? Trump is thieving Reagan's "Make America Great Again", which he half-inched off Maggie - but at least there was the pun in "Make Britain Great Again". It just doesn't make sense to put things back that were never there, or which never went anywhere in the first place. What the hell are you even talking about? Pointless marketing twaddle. I mean, I've listened to these MyEnergy ads and I still have zero clue what those guys actually do, besides pay too much to marketing wankers - who I think also have no idea what MyEnergy actually does, which is why they're just recycling tropes and cliches, in the hopes that no-one notices (but I guess at least all this recycling is on message). It's like those perfume or car ads where weird things happen for 30 seconds, and you're still none the wiser what the hell that was all about. I mean, if these guys help you pay for the show and podcasts then you shouldn't look that gift horse in the mouth, of course. But, hey, they're gifting me nothing, so I can say whatever the hell I like and, sorry, it's all just a load of marketing bollocks, isn't it? I'm sure the company probably does good stuff - I imagine Robert looks into this before accepting any sponsorships, so he's not later compromised by the association - but I have no actual idea what MyEnergy does, in truth. Because the ad just talks about restoring the letter "i" into words that, as far as I now, have no missing "i"s in the first place anyway. What does any of this really mean? Goodness knows. And I fear whoever wrote that twaddle doesn't really understand any of it either. Just copying what they've seen other ad agencies do. I'm just thinking that, if you're paying the money, then get some bang for your buck and have Robert read out something less... vague and meaningless. He's an actor and presenter. Does good voice overs. Is beloved by many. Why would you waste the opportunity and ad cash on getting him to recite meaningless drivel like that? I grade this a D (I'm being very generous). Could do better, if the company only paid attention and applied themselves in class.
@KlaxonCow by George you're right! Knew that ad was bugging me 😂. For what it's worth My Energy make the excellent Zappi wallcharger, I believe and also those other cheerfully named gizmos called the Hapi and the Eddi or some such.... Not sure I've got that quite right but they deal with making systems like solar and hot water heating talk to each other... It's all so clever I can't remember a single helpful detail but I'm sure Robert or someone @Fully Charged might be able to elaborate 😂
Robert failed to name the the panel member who dissed him about middle class do gooders etc. Coal mine owner, Peer it must be Matt Ridley. He is most famous for his chairmanship of Northern Rock or (or Wreck) and caused the first run on a British Bank in 129 years. Don't ever take any advice from him and always give him his full title of Lord Ridley of Northern Rock if his name ever appears. Given any chance he would happily steer the world in the same direction as Northern Rock but for the world there is no bail out. Wikipedia entry In 1994, Ridley became a board member of the UK bank Northern Rock. His father had been a board member for 30 years, and chairman from 1987 to 1992. Ridley became chairman in 2004.[20] In September 2007, Northern Rock became the first British bank since 1878 to suffer a run on its finances, at the start of the financial crisis of 2007-2010. The bank applied to the Bank of England for emergency liquidity funding at the beginning of the financial crisis of 2007-08,[21] but failed, and Northern Rock was nationalised. He resigned as chairman in October 2007.[1][11] A parliamentary committee criticised Ridley for not recognising the risks of the bank's financial strategy and "harming the reputation of the British banking industry".[11]
Now you have had 2 good academics on the show can we point out again that the first guy was rubbish and we were right to point this out without you attack us ??
I got into an argument on a UA-cam channel on which a bloke had put forward the opinion that ev won't work because it takes ages to charge an Audi eTron. Think it was trolls actually but they ended up screaming in capitals did I know how much concrete it takes to build a wind farm? That pushed me over the edge and I had to step away from the argument before I blew a gasket screaming back something about spent fuel rods!! I too was inclined towards making the argument about local air quality rather than climate change but even the thought of children dying of asthma because of where they live didn't penetrate the petrol intoxication! I didn't have enough facts about cheaper energy to make a proper argument but honestly I don't think even that would have got through. Never experienced such intransigence before and it was really quite distressing to witness at first hand.
I write this from the bedroom of a house with no windows open at six in the morning in a foggy Kentish village tasting the pollution seeping through the walls and down the chimney... Scary.... 😐
Thank god my city, Porto, stopped buying diesel buses back in 2001!
Hi Robert. Really great podcast. Thank you :-) Could you add the link to Mark's book? I would very much like to read that. (apologies if I've missed it somewhere?) Cheers. Dave
Fully Charged should link to the guest's book in the show notes (with an affiliate link of course!).
Brilliant interview though, so encouraging and positive, just what I needed right now, thank you.
I love this interviews with people who are using science based information to make decisions about where economic entities should go to both improve their bottom line while improving the state of the world.
Great episode Robert. Mark Z. Jacobson's books on the renerwable energy & climate issue are comprehensive and detailed...
thanks, glad I have bought
Since I wish this information was more widely disseminated, here's an obligatory algorithm pleasing comment. =] Thanks for being a reliable source of fantastic news/information on these important topics.
A wonderfully nutrient rich episode. A lot said with very few words.
Would be great to listen to another chat with Mark Z sometime, (and also with Auke if you're up for it).
hear hear
This video has aged very well. The thrust towards renewables is still accelerating. Thank you Robert and Mr. Jacobson for the information packed (free of FUD) discussion.
Excellent information!! Thank you.
I really enjoyed listening to this talk, which was only a little spoiled by the advert for the World Hydrogen Conference at the end. Ah well.
It IS a reality in the Orkney Isles (population around 23k). They actually produce about 20% more electricity than they use, with the excess going to the Scottish mainland grid.
Another really interesting and encouraging interview. Nice one Fully Charged.
Another great episode. I would have liked your guest to drill down in more detail into a country such as the UK and what in the real world it would take to get to 100% renewables. I definitely fall into the category of people who is pro renewable, buys electricity from Octopus, drives an EV etc...but still struggles to see how in the UK we can realistically move to 100% renewables anytime soon.
I keep hearing lots of very high level, broad brush comments saying ‘of course we could be a 100% renewables now’, without any data to back it up.
This week is a prime example. It's been relatively cold (high demand), cloudy (low solar output) and high pressure has meant very low wind (low wind output). The upshot of this is that there has been very low levels of renewables production. As I type, 4.8GWh out of 40GWh of demand is renewable and it’s only that high as the weather is starting to change and wind generation is picking up, it has been considerably lower over the last 48-72hrs.
So very approximately if you say there’s been an average of 35GWh of demand for the last 4 days thats 3,360GW of electricity used and less than 10% of that has been from renewables. That means we would have needed to not only meet demand of between 30-40GWh last week but also have generated and importantly stored at least another 3TWh.
I know given unlimited resources anything is possible but is it really realistic for a country like the UK to have that sort of storage resource given the cost of batteries and the fact that actually your generating capacity needs to be way higher than is needed much of the time as you constantly need to be able to generate a surplus to store for periods like this week with low generation and high demand.
Also, on a slight tangent. I keep hearing Robert and others pushing solar. We have solar on my farm and across the year it does generate meaningful amounts of energy. However in the UK, solars lowest generation coincides with the highest demand for electricity. Therefore it can’t be relied on for base power in the way wind can because it generates sod all throughout most of the winter.
I’m not wanting to sit here coming across as anti renewables because I really am not. It just seems to a lay person such as myself that it will be a massive undertaking to achieve anything close to 100% renewables and lots of people including the guest on this weeks show seem almost flippant that it’s easy to do. Am I missing something?
This was a fascinating interview, packed with interesting information. It inspired me to order Mark's book. Thanks for the channel.
Excellent interview.
Another brilliant podcast. 😊 Fully charged gets better all the time.
This is such a fantastic episode from a very knowledgeable man. Great work everyone.
I have been enjoyed, so thank you for delivering.
I was so impressed with this podcast and interview I went and bought Mark Z. Jacobson text book (mentioned in the interview).
Checked that information wasn't covered in The Fully Charged Guide to Clean Energy.
Haven't got it yet but was able to glimpse a little view via Amazon site (bought it via Abebooks though, you'll see why).
Thank you so much Robert and team, you do so much.
Just had a wonderful conversation with my daughter. I mentioned the good news that was in this podcast. She told me that on her last visit to a supermarket, she overheard what she thought was a loud tirade from a rather frightening looking customer aimed at a manager. However it turned out to be passionate defence of the environment. "If you hit mother nature hard she will hit back harder" was her memory. This little anecdote, coupled with today's sunshine and Roberts podcast has cheered me up immensely.
Super interesting.
Awesome talk, more of these please :-)
One suggestion is to look at "RethinkX" I would very much love to hear their take on the future. Well done Robert!
Yes - the RethinkX series of p[aers are what give me confidence in the future
Very much like this conversation ☺
Before you repeat Mr Jacobsen's talking points on CCS, you should check the situation in the UK. It's not the same as Texas. The CCC recommends its use for hard-to-decarbonise things like cement production and existing steel (there are other ways). The CO2 gets put back down our existing oil pipelines under the North Sea, not used for more oil recovery. This is particularly cheap in the UK as we have a load just coming to end-of-life now. Re-using it for CO2 storage is a perfectly reasonable approach, especially in the shortish term. To call it a 'scam' is a bit silly. Re pollution, he's right it doesn't reduce local air pollution, but if used on existing gas generation _until_ 100% no-burning is in place it does reduce climate emissions, and gas doesn't produce much air pollution (some NOx). He also said e-fuels were pointless. That's fair enough for cars, but not planes. If you want to keep long-distance flights you need e-fuels, at least for the next decade or three. I'm OK with going by boat or train or not going at all, but I don't think most people - and certainly not the govt - are going to go for that.
Jacobsen has done great work over the years, but he lots a huge amount of respect when he responded to a critical paper by suing the author. That's not how real academics should behave. It made me worry about the quality of his work.
Maybe you should get professor Stuart Hazeldine on your show as he's the main academic who studies this in the UK.
It's about time that someone who knows about these things to call out the scam of carbon capture.
An important interview thanks!
Awesome interview, really enjoyed it.:)
As a Brit, you have no excuse for not understanding the American attitude towards government. We explained it to you on 4 July 1776.
37:40 The problem with believing in transitioning to green energy, but not believing in the climate change problem means you aren't motivated enough to make the change and hard choices in time to avert the disaster. You should care.
We need more information on the future of storage, interconnects and smart grid to resolve the intermittency of wind and solar. This is the difficulty in getting to 100% renewables. Its seems to be feasible and these things are being built, but it would good to get some experts views on this.
Servers and computers don't usually have Cobalt, batteries do (so only Laptops). Computers contain Tantalum, Tin, and gold (potentially from the Congo).
So nice to see two longstanding heroes of mine having such an interesting chat. ♡
The grid blocks central electric power.
The new GRID CAPACITY in an electric world is upto 5fold with central power.
The $TRILLIONS grid has to be rebuilt 5fold bigger.
The $TRILLIONS plants have to be expanded 5fold.
The UNLOADED grid in a renewables 100% electric world is perfect.
I wish that you had touched more on the intrinsic link between a 100% renewable energy future and the mass adoption of EVs. The key for being able to rely on an intermittent source of electricity is having plentiful grid level storage and it’s easy to see that once the 1.42billion cars in the world have been replaced with EVs, using V2G technology we will have a 56.8TWh storage solution that perfectly complements a 100% renewable grid (assuming 40kwh average battery size per car)
To put that into context, global annual energy use is approx 23398TWh so if there was no wind, sun, geothermal or hydro anywhere in the world on one day then 56.8TWh of storage would be enough to cover the shortfall for nearly an entire day (21hrs). That’s before any steps were taken to reduce the load on the grid. In reality there is never no wind or sun and a smart grid with this much storage would easily be able to manage the supply and demand with the end user hardly even noticing any effect on their lives.
As an aside, 1.42billion cars globally at an average millage of 10000miles/15000km per year equates to 6390TWh, or approx 27% increase in demand on global power, an easily surmountable additional load given the positive effect it will bring on balancing out the peaks and troughs in demand.
This rough global scale analysis also works at a country level and assumes current energy use, it is certain that the next decades will bring with it efficiency improvements that will further help. My hope is that all of this happens anyway for economic reasons and leads to a brighter and healthier future for all of us and our planet.
Those are some great aspirations, but not realistic in the real world. This would assume you bought a new car and never drove it. Instead left it sitting plugged into the grid and charged/discharged the batteries to damaging levels. I would personally be better off with a gas fueled car I can actually drive. Electric cars are the future, but lets not confuse their purpose as being a major storage factor. Possibly a minor factor.
@@zmavrick On average we don't really drive our cars, they spend more than 97% of the time parked doing nothing. Vehicle to Grid is already working on a small scale and the power consumed is way below what could damage the battery, the vehicle owner can choose their contribution and typically no more than 10% or 20% of the range is used at any one time, and likely replaced before anyone even notices. Most people wouldn't be impacted by 30-60km less range on a 300km range vehicle in their daily lives and if they are planning a big journey then they can choose to opt out to make sure they have a full charge to start their journey. On the whole I'm sure people of the future will find themselves better off being rewarded by making their car battery available to balance out the grid through incentivised tariffs and those who don't have such a sense of collective responsibility will find themselves paying higher rates for their energy.
Personally I'd rather own the electric car that is cheaper to run and also earns me money when I'm not using it.
A transition to 100% Renewables grid is still one or two decades away and we will likely always have thermal power stations sitting ready as a back-up, but energy produced from renewable sources is already cheaper than non-renewable and nuclear and is only getting cheaper. Lucky for the planet that economics usually wins in the end, the question is can we make it happen quicker?
@@detonation5555 Yes, but that is not the numbers you were using.
@@zmavrick because there is a big difference between the normal day to day case and the once or twice per year extreme case. In general we should be able to meet our normal demands using the cleanest and cheapest energy for a vast majority of the time and energy storage will be key to that, in most climates there will be a couple times a year when there isn't enough supply from renewables due to the weather and it will be necessary to use a dirty back up solution for as minimum amount of time as possible.
The CO2 helps oil recovery by releasing it from the rock similar to how detergent takes oil from a sponge.
I think the discussion about Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) misses some of the nuance. Here is where I agree with what was said:
1. Using renewables to provide any needed power before coal and natural gas are replaced is a bad call.
2. CCS as defined and done by fossil fuel companies is a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' arrangement and will likely fail. I personally believe that in addition to not helping directly, companies will also use it as an excuse to extend the use of fossil fuels in energy generation way beyond any benefits we might actually be getting.
3. Use of CCS to combat pollution is really a non-starter, as you are correct, it really is only good at sequestering carbon and that is not the part of pollution that is hurting humans directly.
Where I think the discussion misses is that there are other things like farming techniques and tree planting that is CCS and can impact our environment in a natural way without needing more energy and if CCS can be accomplished in a sufficient quantity (I do recognize that may be too big to do) without needing carbon generating resources, we can extend the time we have to get carbon neutral without increasing planet damage and help to speed climate's return once we reach carbon neutral.
I do agree mostly with your points, I just think it is more nuanced than stated, and I think it should be pursued, but not by companies in the energy business.
The immense gulf between objective scientific facts and public/political attitudes (heavily influenced by financial vested
interests) is the most significant barrier to progress and societal health benefit. It would seem that the political drive for national autonomy in the industrialized world could be significantly fueled by idea of energy independence through existing renewable technology
I would like to see a discussion between MZJ and one of the many "100% renewable deniers" of which there are plenty on UA-cam. A few years ago, the late David MacKay did some rough calculations which suggested that we would have to cover a huge fraction of the UK with solar panels and wind farms to generate enough energy, and we would still need a nuclear baseload.
Technology has, of course, moved on in recent years but I have yet to see anyone re-examine the figures. Simply saying that "nuclear is dirty, expensive, takes 20 years to build, etc..." may be true, but it doesn't really tackle the objections raised by the "renewables will never be enough" brigade.
There must be someone out there with enough technological knowledge to perform a neutral balanced review of where we are and where we could get to. Personally, I am a great fan of renewable energy, but I have enough scientific caution in the depths of my grey matter to realise how easy it is to be drawn into a green echo chamber.
So, how about it Robert, Dan, et al?
IIRC, I believe Hunter Lovins and Mark collaborate.
Thanks for correcting your hitherto under representation of atmospheric scientists in your podcasts. We are not such a rare breed. Well worth a listen.
The discussion on CCS appears to have missed a crucial point. If humanity wants a better than 50/50 chance of limiting global heating to no more than +1.5 Celsius (the threshold beyond which irreversible climate breakdown is considered possible) it must commit to net zero emissions by ~2035, as your speaker rightly points out. Our current 2050 target necessitates investment in large scale CCS; otherwise, we will almost certainly overshoot the +1.5 Celsius threshold later this century.
Regarding, your brief mention of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, your interviewee perhaps provided an over optimistic view of humanity’s prospects. There are several lines of independent evidence regarding the upper limit on safe levels of atmospheric CO2. One important line is palaeoclimatolgy - the study of ancient Earth climates. A substantial body of evidence in this field shows that atmospheric CO2 concentrations comparable to present day levels were associated with global sea levels several tens of metres higher than today. Climate model projections do not concur, probably because they are missing some important slow, natural feedback mechanisms in the Earth’s climate system. Expert consensus predicts global sea level rise of at least several metres by 2500 given our current trajectory, but this excludes what have been considered low probability scenarios involving catastrophic ice sheet collapse. There is now sufficient concern in the scientific community around this issue that it seems plausible that the safe upper limit on atmospheric CO2 concentrations is below 400 ppm. In other words, we may already need large scale CCS to save our coastal communities.
I've seen some comments over the years about an apparent increase in dementia rates. Now this could merely be a result of increased population levels. But as science/medicine learns more about the impact of pm2 particulates on human health, I wonder if the apparent increase in dementia rates is also partly a function of fossil fuels usage? If so, following elimination of of fossil fuels usage, we should see not only an almost immediate improvement in respiratory and cardiovascular health, but after about 15-20 years begin to see a reduction in dementia rates.
A link to his book?
Why are you deleting comments who write aboute the debunking of Mark Jacobsons scienc. Look up his wikipedia article.
Well, yours was not deleted. So, I looked it up on Wikipedia. The lawsuit was a dumb and inappropriate tool for dealing with matters of science. However, Jacobsen et al. did push back in the criticisms of their paper on PNAS in some detail: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5495290/ --so it's safe to say that the truth is probably somewhere between the two views, perhaps even leaning towards Jacobsen et al. (2017). Clack et al.'s argument seems to depend strongly on the idea that we cannot develop cost-effective storage but even the last few years have shown that there are probably many ways of achieving this (non-hydro gravity, inertia, pumped hydro, compressed air, and batteries --including flow batteries).
Oh... and (green) hydrogen of course.
Yeah it's a shame, seems like critique is treated the same as climate deniers.
You can not close your eyes that his science has not always been scientifically correct.
And he acts irrationality when scientist argue about it with him.
Ouch! Thought I'd have a look for his book on Amazon. Sixty three quid! Shame, can't quite manage that 😂
Have you priced any text books lately?
Always interesting. Please add the link for the book mentioned in the interview
[Abe books has best price] "100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything".
What you do when there are no wind?
Wind plus solar plus battery storage makes energy on tap 24/7.
When I was 9 years old in 1985, I used a book on mechanical engineering to build a hydro electric generator, after reading a book about Nikola Tesla the man and inventor. Another source of electricity is installing an alternator onto an exercise bike and getting one or several of your younger relatives to ride the exercise bike. I have the best carbon capture in the backyard; it's called the family farm garden. It takes carbon dioxide in and creates watermelon, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and other fruits and vegetables as well as oxygen. Al gore supported the climate debate until he lost the 2000 election; then he divorced his wife and bought a yacht that went 1 nautical mile for every 8 gallons of fuel used. Climate change was brought up during the 1980's by astronomers because of the way the earth was changing due to the movement through space compared to the sun. The earth has been through 4 ice ages ; it gets cold then warms up. To reduce carbon dioxide quit digging up grass and trees just to widen highways. Roads don't use carbon dioxide and give us oxygen, plants do.
I walk the dog at Balmedie beach next to Trump's golf course.We call it going doon the doones to see Donald's windmills.I think they are great but Trump was spewing angry at them.Trump calls the Menie estate the great dunes (doones in American) of Scatland.
The issue of storage needs to be addressed. These requirements are huge for months at a time in northern countries. The variability of renewable sources needs to be supported by fast reacting sources and the two that work are natural gas and hydro. Few countries have the potential to develop adequate hydro capacity to back up a largely renewable grid. Clearly we will have to be 100% renewable based simply on the fact fossil fuels will deplete almost completely in 100 years. Climate concerns says we have to reduce carbon emissions enormously over the next several decades. We need fully representative models and living labs to lead the way.
Molten salt, liquid air, transmission lines from other places, stored ground heat, hydrogen, and about a dozen other less proven.
@@gasdive Geothermal storage is the most promising for heat storage like the Drake Landing project in Okotoks, Alberta but there isn't remotely the high grade energy capacity to get through a winter in a northern nation even then. Transmission line solution means probably quadrupling the line capacity.
There's plenty of storage solutions they're just not getting the funding they need. If they are spending billions on wind power then only spending millions on storage it shows there is a lack of understanding at the top of a lot of energy firms as too storage's importance.
My pet favourite energy storage firm is Highview Energy who after a decade and two test plants are building a 50MW cryogenic liquid air energy storage unit near Manchester with another planned in Scotland... it would not be unreasonable to say have one in each County so around fifty... building two total with vague plans for more, not good enough.
Even one 50MW storage site in every County as a background base storage for multiple Battery Storage is only really a start but that is way beyond what is so far planned. There's no Energy Company or Political Party that as yet seems to be thinking about energy storage with the urgency required.
Infrastructure take time to build so in my opinion leaving it until after all the turbines and solar has gone up to get serious is a recipe for disaster.
@@helenlawson8426 Energy storage is expensive. It can take the EROI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) of wind and solar drop dramatically and possibly down into non-viable levels when you add on storage infrastructure. Remember, fossil fuels are self-storing, one of their most positive characteristics. Electricity is not self-storing.
@@johnm2879 May I say that not investing in storage and getting the full potential from renewables has also a cost to it so the investment is not as great as perceived. Also energy security from stored electricity has a value which again must be given a value when costing a system. At the moment wind for example is unfairly getting none use payments despite small running costs and have led to Energy Firms actually paying customers to make use of unwanted electricity, that money could go towards storage for selling at times of high demand.
In way yes fossil fuels are kind of self storing although it needs refining on the way and then gets used in inefficient combustion engines to create electricity compared with turning wind into a electricity via a 85-95% efficient dynamo, so as we say 'swings & roundabout' and again there are savings in renewables that can pay for the needed storage which lets be honest is only making renewables more realistically costed.
Some offset of energy storage can be made by making use of sharing electricity supplies with other areas or countries but this comes at a risk as if demand hits both at the same time then the host will always get the lions share and put the supply of those who did not invest in storage at risk.
Hydrogen for shipments and aviation 😊
You're saying government policy shouldn't be political. It is by definition political. Science and government and the energy industry are 3 separate realms, unless government pokes its head into therm.
Maybe only Americans understand that, and only few of them at that.
interoperativability
Really interesting. I would love to know what his take is on biomass power stations.
He says the black carbon emissions are a huge issue.
I think he would find biomass power stations horrific. They are more polluting than coal fired power stations. Check his Wiki, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z._Jacobson
He does address biomass burning in this interview.
I prefer to talk of gas as #FossilGas - it may be natural but all #FossilFuels are bad for the biosphere...
I think carbon capture and bit coin could go hand in hand. If this does not make sense, then that's a good reason for logic education. Energy grid could be the same as container distribution like shipping industry system with collection and distribution in batterys if aircrafts, ships trains and other appropriate vehicles Are the grid in a genuine living grid the airports, docks logistics centres would be the destribution collection of energy. Why would power development for energy distribution be so far from population. A farm for example is at the edge of a city so the home would be at the edge of the city not the fervous point of the farm away from the city. Logic is obviously not part of the foundation of industry. A spirit level is such a basic tool but yet fundamentally crucial. Weather its mining or energy resourcing. Is the next quarry going to be a lake proberly not and the mountains are going to stand proud and the sea beds are going to stay untouched.
But green hydrogen ☺
Look up his reputation as a scientist on an independent site, like green tech media. It's not a joke or denial to address the criticism his work gets.
Ask Mark Jacobson about the climate benefits of nuclear power and he'll go nuts.
Yeah he's a bit nuts.
And many scientist and bigger Renewable professionals do not like his work.
@@ferkeap He is more of an ideologue than a scientist. Lying does not seem to bother him if it benefits his goal. But what really bothers me is that Robert doesn't ask a single hard question to Jacobson in the whole interview.
Brilliant 👍
Would really like to know the reason why Hydrogen only makes more sense than batteries for long haul ships, trains and trucks?
Probably due to mass of battery required, but would like to know how that is calculated, as you obviously need to carry more hydrogen too.
It's very inefficient to make. It's bulky and heavy to store. It takes a lot of energy to compress. It's difficult to transport to the fueling stations (needing a second round of compression to get out of the delivery truck). It's inefficient to use and the "fuel cell" which is basically a battery wears out like other batteries, but is vastly more expensive. It has low power so you need normal batteries in small vehicles with very variable power demands, so there's the inefficiency of charging the batteries.
But other than that it's great.
Also, batteries are more ideal in cases where massive amounts of energy storage aren't needed. They're just too expensive, now and probably long into the future as well.
Robert - great podcast. However please stop using the word 'artisanal' when describing the child labour Cobalt mines in the DRC. Apart from the hands part there is nothing artisanal abo8t them at all. Te word gives some quaint impression like its Ralph Fiennes in 'The Dig' using cute minute trowels !!
As I noted previously, I failed to notice the missing "i" in the words "innovation", "invention" or "inspiring" that MyEnergy claims to be restoring.
You see, at least with that old political jingoistic cliche of "putting the great back into Great Britain", there's some logic to that "great = awesome, great = geographical term for the largest British island" double-meaning pun.
But it's now getting a bit silly. Now we're putting "i"s back into words that weren't actually missing any "i"s in the first place? Trump is thieving Reagan's "Make America Great Again", which he half-inched off Maggie - but at least there was the pun in "Make Britain Great Again".
It just doesn't make sense to put things back that were never there, or which never went anywhere in the first place. What the hell are you even talking about?
Pointless marketing twaddle. I mean, I've listened to these MyEnergy ads and I still have zero clue what those guys actually do, besides pay too much to marketing wankers - who I think also have no idea what MyEnergy actually does, which is why they're just recycling tropes and cliches, in the hopes that no-one notices (but I guess at least all this recycling is on message).
It's like those perfume or car ads where weird things happen for 30 seconds, and you're still none the wiser what the hell that was all about.
I mean, if these guys help you pay for the show and podcasts then you shouldn't look that gift horse in the mouth, of course. But, hey, they're gifting me nothing, so I can say whatever the hell I like and, sorry, it's all just a load of marketing bollocks, isn't it?
I'm sure the company probably does good stuff - I imagine Robert looks into this before accepting any sponsorships, so he's not later compromised by the association - but I have no actual idea what MyEnergy does, in truth. Because the ad just talks about restoring the letter "i" into words that, as far as I now, have no missing "i"s in the first place anyway. What does any of this really mean? Goodness knows. And I fear whoever wrote that twaddle doesn't really understand any of it either. Just copying what they've seen other ad agencies do.
I'm just thinking that, if you're paying the money, then get some bang for your buck and have Robert read out something less... vague and meaningless. He's an actor and presenter. Does good voice overs. Is beloved by many. Why would you waste the opportunity and ad cash on getting him to recite meaningless drivel like that?
I grade this a D (I'm being very generous). Could do better, if the company only paid attention and applied themselves in class.
@KlaxonCow by George you're right! Knew that ad was bugging me 😂. For what it's worth My Energy make the excellent Zappi wallcharger, I believe and also those other cheerfully named gizmos called the Hapi and the Eddi or some such.... Not sure I've got that quite right but they deal with making systems like solar and hot water heating talk to each other... It's all so clever I can't remember a single helpful detail but I'm sure Robert or someone @Fully Charged might be able to elaborate 😂
Goood morning :)
Robert failed to name the the panel member who dissed him about middle class do gooders etc. Coal mine owner, Peer it must be Matt Ridley. He is most famous for his chairmanship of Northern Rock or (or Wreck) and caused the first run on a British Bank in 129 years. Don't ever take any advice from him and always give him his full title of Lord Ridley of Northern Rock if his name ever appears. Given any chance he would happily steer the world in the same direction as Northern Rock but for the world there is no bail out.
Wikipedia entry
In 1994, Ridley became a board member of the UK bank Northern Rock. His father had been a board member for 30 years, and chairman from 1987 to 1992. Ridley became chairman in 2004.[20]
In September 2007, Northern Rock became the first British bank since 1878 to suffer a run on its finances, at the start of the financial crisis of 2007-2010. The bank applied to the Bank of England for emergency liquidity funding at the beginning of the financial crisis of 2007-08,[21] but failed, and Northern Rock was nationalised. He resigned as chairman in October 2007.[1][11] A parliamentary committee criticised Ridley for not recognising the risks of the bank's financial strategy and "harming the reputation of the British banking industry".[11]
Now you have had 2 good academics on the show can we point out again that the first guy was rubbish and we were right to point this out without you attack us ??
How was the first guy rubbish, specifically? Also, who was the first guy?