The Earth Isn’t Fragile, We Are

We don’t need to save the planet. We need to save ourselves.

There’s no shortage of “things that are wrong in the world right now” for me to write about. And, I’ve never been more excited to dive in and share why “everything that’s wrong” is where all of the most exciting innovation and growth will happen. 

In my first issue, I touched on the positive impact 3D printing can have on our environment and the transition to an economy with less environmental impact. One new technology can exponentially reduce the amount of time and distance goods travel to get into your hands. 

Less distance traveled equals less energy, materials, and output required to bring a good to market. Less materials required means less needs to be pulled out of the Earth and we have a smaller impact on the environment. 

Here’s one semi-controversial statement about our relationship to the environment. 
The Earth is not fragile. Humans are fragile. Our impact on the Earth only hurts our ability to survive as a species. 

The current narrative around the climate is that we need to “save the environment,” which makes no sense. 

In reality, we need to save ourselves. The Earth does not care what the environment looks like. But we care a lot what the environment looks like as we’re sensitive to the temperature, atmosphere, weather, and pollution. 

If we destroy the environment with toxic chemicals, plastic waste, and pollution we don’t hurt the Earth. We hurt ourselves. 

So when I look at a chart like this:

And I see the rapid expansion of oil, gas, and coal I also see the opportunity for new energy sources that don’t pollute our environment to experience massive growth and innovation. 

One thing is certain, our world will not consume less energy in the future. We will most certainly consume more.

But, no renewable energy sources are going to be able to replace fossil fuels without the ability to efficiently store that power over long periods of time (until we get nuclear fission that is…). That’s why an area that I’m watching is the advancements in battery technology and especially battery recycling. 

I’m currently driving through middle of nowhere Texas and passing lots of wind farms. You see on one side of the road all the wind turbines are running and generating power. Then on the other side of the road they’re all sitting idle.

So, what’s the difference? Yes, the wind could not be blowing on the other side of the road, but today it was howling. What’s happening is that the grid cannot use the power. There’s no way for us to capture this excess capacity and use it later, so even though the wind is blowing we’re not capturing that potential energy.

For green energy to proliferate we need batteries and lots of them. You can see the battery market in the US alone will more than double over the next six years.

But, as we create more batteries and draw more materials out of the Earth, engineering ways to recycle our electronic and “green” waste has never been more important. Without it, we’ll be trapped in our current cycle of drawing resources out of the Earth, processing them into usable technology, and then throwing them away back into the Earth. This wastes time, resources, and money. Which, without getting into the politics of the climate change debate is something I feel we can all get behind. 

There are three companies I’m watching in this space right now, Redwood Materials (founded by former Tesla exec and speculation they’ll go public in 2021), ESS Inc (which uses a unique iron, salt, and water combination) and Northvolt (also founded by former Tesla execs and focusing on sustainable lithium ion tech). 

All three are private companies at the moment, but with the amount of money available in the public markets and the strong demand for renewable and sustainable tech I can see them going public soon. 

Thanks again for reading. And thank you for subscribing if you’re one of my new readers. 

On a personal note, by the time you’ll read this I’ll be backpacking in the Guadalupe National Mountains park in west Texas with about 10 of my best friends. I’m most excited for the overwhelming view of the stars at night when out in deep nature.