MTBTY - a key obstacle to the energy transition

I read a fair number of articles on energy and the environment that allow reader comments. Sometimes the comments are as interesting as the articles on the app or site themselves. Providing opinions that balance that of the author, say, or adding interesting facts or links to other good articles or papers. Sometimes they even point out mistakes in the article, and at least with the Financial Times you'll often see that the author replies, thanking for pointing it out and making changes to the article. All very good.

On the flip side, however, such comments all too often unearth a key obstacle to progress in our current energy transition:-

My Technology is Better Than Yours, or MTBTY for short.

MTBYT warriors expend huge amounts of their own energy battling - even insulting - each other, in the quest to suggest why their favourite flavour of energy production or use is superior - and why yours is uneconomic, ineffective or a dead end. What compounds the futility of this armchair sport is the fact that the most aggressive players won't cite any credible proof for their position. They are right, and you are wrong (in their view).

Aeroderivative gas turbine, by GE

It's easy to find examples of MTBTY in most articles on relatively new energy technologies. You can pretty much guarantee that any article about wind power or nuclear will be choked by comments on why one of these two technologies is pointless/best. I read a LinkedIn post by the CEO of respected wind farm developer last week, celebrating the opening of a huge new offshore wind farm. Something to celebrate. Though the comments section was choked with negative comments about how onshore wind, solar, nuclear etc are 'better'. And that offshore wind farms kill birds (well, the climate crisis will kill a whole lot more, says the pro-wind RSPB).

Battery vs hydrogen vehicles is another key battleground. This one is often all the more bitter through centring not on the impressive progress made in these technologies, but whether you think Elon Musk is the Messiah or a loudmouth jerk. I'll move on...

Whatever the tech in question, what these mêlées have in common is that they spectacularly miss the point that energy and the climate are systems, both individually and collectively. There is room for many technologies and techniques, each having strengths and weaknesses that balance and complement each other. Batteries are great for cars. Hydrogen-based propulsion will be very useful for heavy duty vehicles that today guzzle fossil fuels, such as vessels, planes, certain trains and large trucks. We can have both things.

As someone who works in the low carbon energy sector, most people that I encounter realise that there is one goal driving us (arresting the climate crisis), and one common enemy (creating alternatives to the continued consumption of fossil fuels). We don't waste time focussing on the downsides of a certain generation technique. We just get on with it, and will happily talk to those involved in other technologies - it's very interesting to do so.

The terms in use don't help. On the sooty side of the battlefield, we have that common enemy: fossil fuels. Yes, there are different types, but there is a collective noun. At the rebel end of the battlefield, however, we have renewable energy, nuclear power, green hydrogen, pink hydrogen, blue hydrogen, turquoise hydrogen etc. It's very rare to hear the collective noun "low carbon" and when we do it's often perverted by fossil fuel producers bundling natural gas into that category.

Back to MTBYT. All this practise achieves is driving wedges between those in the rebellion against fossil fuels. Some of it is driven by enthusiasts or zealots with genuine intentions. We are all prone to confirmation bias, thinking that the brands we buy or the choices that we've made are the right - sometimes the only - ones. Those with some technical knowledge (let's face this, engineers!) can be quite blinkered and intransigent once they step outside the debate-driven world of academia and into mainstream media. After all, many have invested in careers built upon a certain technology. We're proud of our team! Maybe too much, however, and we should be proud of the sport (or sport, generally).

Of course, the fossil fuel industry has form in MTBTY, sowing division and doubt amongst all competing, cleaner, sources of energy. As Michael E Mann's book The New Climate War (review) evidences, the fossil fuel lobby employs many of the same tactics - and, indeed, many of the same people - that Big Tobacco has been caught using to sow doubt. Outright denial is used less these days, as many have become better at spotting and calling this out. "Inactivists" are more common now: people employed, at often huge expense, to set one team against another in a classic game of divide and conquer. 

Several of the Supermajors have been exposed hiring aggressive 'merchant of doubt' lobbying firms at the same time as spending hundreds of millions on PR campaigns asking us to believe that they are committed to combating the climate crisis. It's not hard to imagine these firms buying dozens of subscriptions to the likes of the FT and NYT, or the even cheaper route of buying the services of the bot armies that clutter media such as Twitter (where they influence those with genuine subscriptions).

The anonymity that commenting and social media platforms allow is great for plausible deniability. If I hire Professor [Blah] or setup The Institute for [Blah], and they are exposed by researchers as being funded by Big Oil, then this can be at best an operational hassle and at worst an expensive PR headache. If, however, I setup accounts with usernames like UK20217 or Robert Smith to sow the doubt then whose to know? If they get discovered, I just rename or setup a new one in seconds.

So, how do we sidestep and move forward?

Perhaps the most obvious thing is to embrace the plethora of post-fossil-fuel technologies, for all of their individual weaknesses. Yes, nuclear is expensive and slow to build, though it has a very high capacity factor and pays back the embedded carbon very quickly. Yes, it produces some waste, but it's about one drinks can worth per human lifespan and it can be buried deep underground (as Finland has just started doing). Yes, wind turbines can affect birds if not carefully planned, and the wind doesn't always blow, but this can be predicted surprisingly accurately. The sun doesn't always shine on solar panels, and yes solar cell production isn't without its environmental challenges. But they're all very cheap to run and don't emit the CO2 that is gradually killing all of the animals on Earth. Yes, green hydrogen is currently more expensive than the currently filthy method of production. Though costs are falling, just as historically they have with solar and wind power, and rebellions are built on hope.

Second, don't waste your time trying to convince otherwise the most vehement online supporters of a technology who like to engage in MTBTY. It can be like trying to convince a Flat Earther, Vaccine Sceptic or, heaven help us, a Trump Birther. They could well be a shill employed or paid by a lobbyist. Move on, because you're wasting your breath. Instead, scroll past, and read something more interesting.

Overall, I try and maintain a broad outlook on things, avoid MTBTY thoughts and now think of myself less as pro-renewables, pro-nuclear or pro-hydrogen - and more as simply anti-warming and anti-fossil.