Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future
Derek Thompsonamazon.com
Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future
The first task is to convert that 60 percent of energy coming from fossil fuels to something closer to 0 percent—or
Derek Thompson • Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future
About 60 percent of the electricity generated in the United States in 2022 came from fossil fuels.
Derek Thompson • Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future
The energy analysts Sam Calisch and Saul Griffith estimate that in the next few years consumers will need to replace about one billion machines with clean alternatives.28
Derek Thompson • Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future
Electrify Everything Start with the major ways that most US households warm the planet. We drive. We heat homes. We cook food. We dry clothes. These activities require millions and millions of machines, most of which now run on fossil fuels. To decarbonize, they all will need to run on electricity.
Derek Thompson • Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future
Austin Vernon and Eli Dourado sketch out some of the near-term possibilities. Vertical greenhouses could feed far more people while using far less land. Desalination is a major contributor to water supplies in Israel now and could supply more than half of the demand in Singapore by the middle of the century. The technology could become affordable f
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Air pollution is not a problem of using too much energy or pursuing too much growth. It is a problem of using dirty energy because you do not have the money or the technology to grow another way.
Derek Thompson • Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future
The same is true in London, where air pollution in the eighteenth century was worse than Delhi is today.
Derek Thompson • Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future
Can we all be energetically wealthy? Not if we’re burning coal and oil.
Derek Thompson • Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future
An economy can grow because it adds more people. It can grow because it adds more land or natural resources. But once those avenues are exhausted, it needs to do more with what it has. People need to think up new ideas. Factories need to innovate new processes. These new ideas and new processes must be encoded into new technologies.