Missed opportunities

KEEPING COOL WITH

Hi there,

Back in the U S of A. If you’re around New York (or California) the next few months and want to link up, let me know. Reckon a lot of you all will be in town for Climate Week; keep me posted, maybe I’ll organize an informal hang too. Before you dive into the newsletter today too, one big announcement that holds for all of August. Check it out.

PRESENTED BY NUCOR

This month, we’re excited to welcome our second ever presenting partner, Nucor – the largest recycler and steel manufacturer in the U.S.. Plus, Nucor is a world leader in producing steel with a drastically lower emissions footprint than the average steelmaker globally (including Europe,  China and India). We’re not talking about 5-10% lower emissions here, either. Think more in the ballpark of 60% less emissions.

Over the month, we’ll offer multiple touchpoints for you all to: 

• Explore how Nucor drives serious decarbonization results in steelmaking

• Re-evaluate ideas like how ‘hard to abate’ a sector steel is really

• Understand the broader dynamics surrounding industrial decarbonization in the U.S. and the importance of companies in the U.S. taking leadership

Plus, as you enjoy the content this month, make sure to ask any questions that might come to mind by responding directly to emails. Further, if you’re keen to connect with Nucor to discuss sustainable steel or industrial decarbonization, we can facilitate those introductions, too. If you want to read ahead, you can learn more about Nucor’s sustainability efforts here.

OPINION

Carbon dioxide is only half of the global warming story and less than half of the climate change one. We miss opportunities to sell better solutions every time we forget that fact. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, that isn’t a novel statement from me. But it bears repeating and was also crystallized by some nice new graphics from the Climate and Clean Air Coalition:

When I say carbon dioxide is less than half of the climate change story, I’m gesturing at the fact that warming is just one of many climate change and ecological problems mounting in the 21st century. Sure, warming itself negatively impacts many other ecological and environmental dimensions. However, warming is only one of the five primary drivers of biodiversity loss. It also tells us little about air pollution, or microplastic pollution, or... you get the idea.

My (relatively) succinct argument in this newsletter is that overfixation on carbon dioxide isn’t just a knowledge gap, or a communications oddity, or a pernicious problem in climate finance. It’s a missed opportunity to make a better sale

EV as an example

Let’s take an example. The chief benefit of electric vehicles that almost everyone focuses on when trying to stress their importance versus gasoline-powered cars is that over their lifetimes, they produce less carbon dioxide. They actually yield higher carbon dioxide emissions on average during production, given the mining that goes into making their batteries. But the minute they’re driven off dealership lots, they cut carbon dioxide emissions relative to internal combustion engine (“ICE”) peers, regardless of how dirty the grid they’re charged with is.

That’s all well and good. And reducing carbon dioxide emissions is seminally important this century; I’d never suggest otherwise. I rarely see folks emphasize all the other benefits of EVs over ICEs, however. There are at least three other big benefits we can enumerate swiftly:

1. Cutting nitrous oxide emissions

2. Cutting carbon monoxide emissions

3. Cutting volatile organic compounds

Nitrous oxide

Nitrous oxide, like carbon dioxide, is a ‘direct’ greenhouse gas. Like methane, another greenhouse gas, it’s more potent than carbon dioxide, with a striking ~265x higher global warming factor than carbon dioxide over 100 years. While nitrous oxide emissions predominantly stem from agriculture and soil management, burning fossil fuels also produces nitrous oxide alongside carbon dioxide. Tailpipes constitute a significant source of nitrous oxide, as is the combustion of jet fuel in aviation. While hybrids with catalytic converters also eliminate nitrous oxide emissions from tailpipes, EVs do so comprehensively.

Carbon monoxide

EVs also eliminate carbon monoxide emissions from cars. Carbon monoxide isn’t a ‘direct’ greenhouse gas, but it influences the concentration of other greenhouse gasses and can accelerate their warming impact. For example, carbon monoxide is a tropospheric ozone precursor (and tropospheric ozone is a ‘direct’ greenhouse gas) as well as an air pollutant.

Cars are the largest source of carbon monoxide, especially in urban areas. Perhaps most importantly, carbon monoxide is a bad air pollutant; it’s linked to a litany of things you don’t want to experience in your lifetime.

Volatile organic compounds

Like carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds aren’t a direct greenhouse gas but they are insidious for human and animal health. They comprise a large group of organic chemicals that have a high vapor pressure at room temperature in common, meaning they evaporate easily into the air. Like carbon monoxide, human-caused VOCs are predominantly produced by cars, as well as in chemical manufacturing processes. VOC exposure can cause respiratory issues, headaches, and eye irritation. VOCs, like carbon monoxide, are also ozone precursors.

There are many other benefits to EVs. And no shortage of challenges. For one, they do nothing, or worse, exacerbate microplastic pollution from tire wear. Also, even as they cut air pollution that kills millions of people annually, cars kill millions of people annually, too. EVs do nothing to solve that compared to basically any other form of transportation. Climate work is all about incremental improvements though, and EVs are better than ICEs by meaningful increments across many dimensions, not just carbon dioxide emissions.

Another example

We can extend this aperture-broadening exercise to countless other energy transition areas. Iron and steelmaking, for instance, is a notorious source of carbon dioxide emissions, accounting for 8%+ of global emissions. There’s a lot more to the steel story, however. A lot of the carbon dioxide emissions inherent to steelmaking stem from the use of coal in blast furnaces. The coal mines from which that coal was sourced, meanwhile, are a major source of methane emissions, emissions that warm the planet more quickly than carbon dioxide does.

That’s bad. But if we flip perspectives, as more and more steelmakers embrace alternative manufacturing techniques that emit coal, the benefits won’t just be felt in carbon dioxide terms. A greener steel transition will also help avoid methane emissions (one caveat: coal mines can leak methane long after they’re out of operation).

This month, we’ll feature a lot more content on cleaner steelmaking with Nucor.

The net-net

It’s curious to me that all the above benefits of EVs aren’t major selling points for the cars, alongside their carbon dioxide emissions benefits (and, of course, cost savings and actual vehicle performance). The same could be said about countless other climate and energy tech solutions. The same way climate challenges rarely stop at carbon dioxide, the benefits of new alternatives seldom end there either. I guess that’s what we’re here to do, though. Namely, to iteratively evolve not just the actual technologies and products but how we talk about them.

Thanks for reading,

— Nick