非洲的大碳谷——以及如何结束能源贫困

我们的生活依赖于遏制气候变化，但许多优先事项似乎都在竞争。人类现在能做的最紧迫的事情是什么？社会企业家 James Irungu Mwangi 告诉我们，为什么非洲可以成为推广最新和最雄心勃勃的气候技术的理想家园——包括在肯尼亚地狱之门国家公园这样的地方，该公园可能成为他所谓的“大碳谷”的一部分。

Welcome to the gates of hell. Now depending on your frame of mind, that is either a bizarrely morbid or entirely appropriate wayto start a talk about climate action in the year 2022. Behind me is a picture from the Hell's Gate National Park in the town of Naivasha, in the Great Rift Valley in my home country, Kenya.Now its name may not scream “tourist trap,” but believe me, it is a beautiful part of the world and you should all try and visit sometime. But more importantly, it could play -- It has the potential to play a crucial role in the fight against global climate catastrophe.

欢迎来到地狱之门。 现在取决于你的心态， 这要么是一种奇怪的病态，要么是完全合适的方式 来开始谈论 2022 年的气候行动。 我身后是一张来自地狱之门国家公园的 照片 我的祖国肯尼亚的 大裂谷。现在它的名字可能不会叫“旅游陷阱”， 但相信我， 它是世界上美丽的一部分，你们都应该尝试一下。 但更重要的是，它可以发挥作用——它有可能 在对抗全球气候灾难中发挥关键作用。

The most recent IPCC reports are clear. Humanity has left cutting emissions too late. Any realistic path to avoiding unacceptable levels of warming now requires us to not only drastically cut emissions, at least halving them by 2030, but also undertake an equally massive effort to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere at an accelerating rate.

最近的 IPCC 报告很清楚。 人类已经为时已晚。 现在，任何避免不可接受的变暖水平的现实途径都 要求我们不仅要大幅减少排放， 至少到 2030 年将排放量减半， 而且还要做出同样巨大的努力， 以加快速度从大气中清除温室气体。

Now, let's be clear. Greenhouse gas removal is not and cannot be an excuse for continuing to emit. Just as installing seat belts and airbags is not an excuse for deliberately ramming your car into a wall.

现在，让我们说清楚。 温室气体清除不是也不能成为继续排放的借口。 就像安装安全带和安全气囊不是 故意将汽车撞到墙上的借口一样。

(Laughter) Indeed, current estimates suggest that even with drastic emissions reductions, the world will need to be removingbetween five and 16 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every single year by 2050.

（笑声） 事实上，目前的估计表明 ，即使排放量大幅减少， 到 2050 年，世界每年仍需 要从大气中去除5 到 160 亿吨二氧化碳。

Now to give you a sense of the scale of that, the low end of that range, five billion tons, that's bigger than the size of the global petroleum industry in 2020. So let's not kid ourselves that carbon removal, at anywhere close to the scale that we will need in order to survive, is some sort of easy way out. It is going to be damn difficult to do. So how do we do it?

现在让你了解一下它的规模， 这个范围的低端，50 亿吨， 这比 2020 年全球石油工业的规模还要大。 所以，让我们不要自欺欺人， 在任何接近我们为了生存而需要的规模， 是某种简单的出路。这将是非常困难的事情。 那么我们该怎么做呢？

Well, the first and most familiar measures would be interventionssuch as reforestation and landscape restoration. Essentially giving Mother Nature the time and space to heal herself. In addition, we can increase the amount of carbon held in our soilsthrough the widespread application of biochar and enhanced weathering of chemically suitable rocks. We estimate that in Africa alone, something like 100 million to 680 million additional tons of carbon dioxide could be drawn from the atmosphere using these types of methods. However, they do require a lot of land, a lot of water and a lot of other natural resources that may limit the extent to which we can scale them. Moreover, they are subject to some of the feedback loops from the climate change that we are already experiencing, such as more frequent and intense wildfires. And all of that means we are going to need to supplement them with technologies that accelerate and amplify natural processes to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

嗯，第一个也是最熟悉的措施将是 重新造林和景观恢复等干预措施。 本质上是给大自然母亲治愈自己的时间和空间。 此外，我们可以 通过广泛应用生物炭 和增强化学适宜岩石的风化作用来增加土壤中的碳含量。 我们估计，仅在非洲， 使用这些类型的方法就可以从大气中额外抽取 1 亿至 6.8 亿吨二氧化碳。 然而，它们确实需要大量土地、大量水和许多其他自然资源，这可能会限制我们扩展它们的程度。 此外，它们还受到 我们已经经历的气候变化的一些反馈循环的影响， 例如更频繁和更强烈的野火。 所有这一切意味着我们将需要用 加速和放大自然过程 以从大气中去除二氧化碳的技术来补充它们。

Enter the members of my new favorite boy band. DAC, BECCS and BiCRS.

输入我最喜欢的新男孩乐队的成员。 DAC、BECCS 和 BiCRS。

These are a set of engineered approaches that use physical, chemical and biological processes to gather and concentrate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere before safely sequestering it, usually underground. As more people run the climate math,you're seeing growing levels of interest and investment in these technologies, with billions of dollars already being committed to early pilots and installations in various parts of the world,particularly in Europe and North America. But the reality is they have a very long way to go. To date, engineered removals around the world have accounted for something like 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide removed total. To get to the multi-billion-ton scale we’re going to need by 2050 is going to take a truly epic process of exponential scaling. Probably means we need to get to something -- If we want to have a realistic shot at it, we need to get to something like 100 million tons per year by 2030. For those of you running the calculators, that's a thousand-fold increase in less than a decade. And guess what? We will have to continue that insane rate of growth for another two decades after that.

这些是一组工程方法 ，使用物理、化学和生物过程 从大气中收集和浓缩二氧化碳， 然后将其安全隔离，通常是地下。 随着越来越多的人从事气候数学， 您会看到对这些技术的兴趣和投资水平越来越高， 数十亿美元已经投入到 世界各地的早期试点和安装中， 特别是在欧洲和北美。 但现实是他们还有很长的路要走。 迄今为止，世界各地的工程清除 总二氧化碳排放量约为100,000 吨。 为了达到我们到 2050 年所需的数十亿吨规模，我们将经历 一个真正史诗般的指数级扩展过程。 可能意味着我们需要实现一些目标—— 如果我们想实现现实的目标， 我们需要到 2030 年达到每年 1 亿吨的目标。对于那些使用计算器的人来说， 这是增加一千倍在不到十年的时间里。 你猜怎么着？ 在那之后的二十年里，我们将不得不继续这种疯狂的增长速度。

And here's the really bad news. Anything close to that level of scaling of this industry in the places where it’s currently being piloted presents some really difficult climate action trade offs. For that, let me take the example of DAC or direct air capture. The best known DAC facility in the world is in Iceland. It's the Orca plant in Iceland, it was inaugurated last year, 2021. It uses plentiful green geothermal energy to capture carbon dioxide, dissolve it in water and inject it into porous basalt deep underground, where it chemically reacts to create a stable solidthat can stay there for centuries. It takes the equivalent of between two and three megawatt hours of energy to take a single ton of carbon dioxide today and render it in that way. To get to the hundred million number in 2030, on that track, would entail something like 200 to 300 terawatt hours of electricity.Again, that's about half the electricity usage of Germany. And all of that power would need to be renewable, otherwise, we would be taking two steps forward and one and a half steps back.

这是真正的坏消息。 在目前正在试点的地方，任何接近该行业规模的任何事情都会 带来一些非常困难的气候行动权衡。为此，让我以 DAC 或直接空气捕获为例。世界上最著名的 DAC 设施位于冰岛。它是冰岛的 Orca 工厂，于 2021 年落成。它利用丰富的绿色地热能捕获二氧化碳，将其溶解在水中，然后注入地下深处的多孔玄武岩中，在那里发生化学反应，形成一种稳定的固体，可以在那里呆了几个世纪。它需要相当于两到三兆瓦时的能量 今天取一吨二氧化碳并以这种方式呈现。 要在 2030 年达到 1 亿这个数字， 在这条轨道上， 将需要大约 200 到 300 太瓦时的电力。 同样，这大约是德国用电量的一半。 所有这些能量都需要是可再生的， 否则，我们将向前迈出 两步，后退一步半。

Now it's reasonable to expect and assume that we are going to see substantial improvements in energy efficiency of these technologies as we deploy them and learn to use them better.However, keep in mind that probably the most urgent thing we can do to slow climate change right now is stop current emissions. And so scaling these technologies in places where we do have fossil fuel energy emissions that we could be curtailingdoes not make sense. Essentially, every unit of renewable energythat we are bringing on stream in places like North America and Europe should be going towards displacing and retiring existing fossil fuel capacity. And so the world is kind of stuck. Right? We need to scale this technology. We need to get DAC down the cost curve and up the efficiency curve urgently. Our lives literally depend on it. But at the same time, we cannot do it except at the expense of other equally urgent climate imperatives.

现在可以合理地期待和假设， 随着我们部署这些技术并学会更好地使用它们，我们将看到这些技术的能源效率得到显着提高。 但是，请记住，我们现在为减缓气候变化所能做的最紧迫的事情可能是停止当前的排放。因此，在我们可以减少化石燃料能源排放的地方推广这些技术是没有意义的。从本质上讲，我们在北美和欧洲等地投入使用的每一种可再生能源都应该朝着取代和淘汰现有化石燃料产能的方向发展。 所以这个世界有点卡住了。 正确的？ 我们需要扩展这项技术。 我们迫切需要让 DAC 降低成本曲线并提高效率曲线。 我们的生活确实依赖于它。 但与此同时，我们不能这样做，除非以牺牲其他同样紧迫的气候要求为代价。

So we need places in the world that somehow have three characteristics. A, they need to have the right geophysical conditions. You know, plenty of porous basalt rock in a geothermally active zone is one such example. Two, they need to have plenty of renewable energy potential. And three, they need to have no current proximate emissions that that renewable energy could be used to displace.

因此，我们需要世界上以某种方式具有三个特征的地方。 A，他们需要有合适的地球物理条件。 你知道，地热活跃区的大量多孔玄武岩 就是这样一个例子。 第二，他们需要有大量的可再生能源潜力。第三， 他们需要没有 可用于替代可再生能源的当前近似排放。

And that brings us back to Hell's Gate National Park. Here's another view of the park from an angle that may explain its potential. That is one of the power plants that together constitutethe Olkaria Geothermal Energy Plant, which provides about a third of Kenya's electricity. That's right. My home country not only has 92 percent renewable electricity being dispatched on its grids today, but its largest single-energy installation is seamlessly integrated into an honest-to-goodness national park. Literally, between the different plants you can see herds of zebrapeacefully grazing all times of the day. It's amazing.

这让我们回到了地狱之门国家公园。 这是公园的另一个 视角，可以解释它的潜力。 这是共同构成 Olkaria 地热发电厂的发电厂之一，该发电厂 提供肯尼亚约三分之一的电力。 这是正确的。 今天，我的祖国不仅有 92% 的可再生电力 被分配到其电网上， 而且其最大的单一能源装置 无缝集成到一个诚实的国家公园中。 从字面上看，在不同的植物之间，您可以看到成群的斑马 在一天中的所有时间都在安静地吃草。 太奇妙了。

Now at just under 1,000 megawatts, Olkaria is nothing to sneeze at. It's one of the largest geothermal electricity installations in the world. But it's barely scratching the surface of the potential in Kenya. There's 10 gigawatts of proven, high-quality geothermal resource in the country, widely recognized, ready to be tapped.And in addition, Kenya is endowed with excellent wind and solar resources that have also barely been exploited. We are on the equator, after all. We estimate conservatively that there's about 50 gigawatts of potential deployable renewable energy in Kenyathat can be readily accessed with the right level of investment.And yet, Kenya remains an energy-poor country where, despite a lot of progress in recent years, more than a quarter of the population still does not have access to basic electricity. And those that do often pay prices that are almost three times as much as much as their counterparts in countries like India and China.

现在只有不到 1,000 兆瓦， Olkaria 没什么好打喷嚏的。 它是世界上最大的地热发电装置之一。 但它几乎没有触及肯尼亚潜力的表面。 该国有10 吉瓦已探明 的优质地热资源， 得到广泛认可，可供开发。 此外， 肯尼亚拥有极好的风能和太阳能资源 ，而这些资源也几乎没有被开发过。 毕竟，我们在赤道上。 我们保守估计 ，肯尼亚有大约 50 吉瓦的潜在可部署可再生能源 可以通过适当的投资水平轻松获得。 然而，肯尼亚仍然是一个能源匮乏的国家 ，尽管近年来取得了很大进展，但仍有 超过四分之一的人口无法获得 基本电力。 而那些这样做的人通常支付的价格几乎 是印度和中国等国家同行的三倍。

Now you might be sitting there wondering, "Well, all right, James, if this is true, if Kenya has all of this renewable energy potentialand all of these people in need of energy, well, before we have this whole conversation about fancy climate tech, shouldn’t we first have a TED Talk about affordable energy access?” And you would be right. Were it not for a particularly cruel paradox of energy economics in countries like Kenya. You see, part of the reason why energy is so expensive in the country is those consumers who are on the grid have to pay for capacity that is not currently being used. There's something like 1,000 megawatt hours every day that goes begging because there isn’t sufficient industrial demand. At the same time, those very same high energy prices make the country unattractive and uncompetitive for manufacturers and other users of energy looking for places to site their industries.

现在你可能会坐在那里想， “好吧，詹姆斯，如果这是真的， 如果肯尼亚拥有所有这些可再生能源潜力 并且所有这些人都需要能源，那么 ，在我们进行关于幻想的整个对话之前气候技术， 我们不应该先做一个关于负担得起的能源获取的 TED 演讲吗？” 你是对的。 如果不是 肯尼亚这样的国家出现了一个特别残酷的能源经济学悖论。你看，这个国家能源如此昂贵的部分原因 是那些上网的消费者 必须为容量买单目前没有使用。 每天有大约 1,000 兆瓦时在乞讨 因为没有足够的工业需求。 与此同时， 同样高昂的能源价格使该国对制造商 和其他寻找其产业所在地的能源用户缺乏吸引力和竞争力。

So to get this straight, the reason why the average Kenyan cannot get affordable access to clean, renewable energy despite all of this natural bounty, is this tremendously frustrating feedback loop where firstly, we would have all of that energy if someone invested in renewable power plants. People would invest in those power plants if there was a lot of available industry to use the energy. Available industry would come if energy costs weren’t so high. And energy costs wouldn’t be so high if there was enough demand. It's enough to drive you crazy.But it also points the way to a potential huge triple opportunity.

因此，直截了当地说， 尽管有这些天然资源，但普通肯尼亚人无法负担得起清洁、可再生能源的原因， 是这个非常令人沮丧的反馈循环，首先，如果有人投资于可再生能源，我们将拥有所有这些能源植物。如果有很多可用的工业可以使用能源，人们就会投资这些发电厂。如果能源成本不那么高，可用的工业就会出现。如果有足够的需求，能源成本也不会那么高。足以让你发疯。但它也为潜在的巨大三重机会指明了方向。

Firstly, introducing DAC and other energy-hungry climate technology into places like the Rift Valley would give them the space and capacity they need to really scale to planetary levels.With no competition, with none of the trade-offs they would face in other parts of the world. At the same time, having that energy-hungry anchor industry available suddenly creates the basis on which people are willing to invest in expanding the country's renewable energy potential. Actually creating the business casefor providing tens of millions of people with the productive energy they need to improve the quality of their lives. And thirdly,introducing these new and exciting technologies on the continent with the world's youngest and fastest-growing workforce could potentially activate their imaginations and their energies towards becoming climate innovators and solution builders themselves, basically building an army from the world's largest workforce to solve the world's biggest problem.

首先， 将 DAC 和其他耗能大的气候技术 引入大裂谷等地方， 将为他们 提供真正扩展到行星水平所需的空间和容量。 没有竞争， 没有他们在世界其他地方将面临的权衡取舍。 与此同时， 这种耗能巨大的锚业 突然出现，为人们愿意投资 扩大该国的可再生能源潜力奠定了基础。 实际上 ，为数以千万计的人 提供改善生活质量所需的生产能源创造了商业案例。 第三， 在拥有世界上最年轻和增长最快的劳动力的大陆上 引入这些令人兴奋的新技术可能会激发他们的想象力 和精力，使他们自己成为气候创新者 和解决方案建设者， 基本上从世界上最大的劳动力中建立一支军队 来解决世界上最大的问题.

I call it the “Great Carbon Valley.” And it's just one of the ways in which Africa, as the continent, which, per capita, is the closest to net-zero and has contributed the least to climate change, can play a role in helping the planet avert climate disaster.

我称之为“大碳谷”。 这只是非洲作为 人均最接近净零排放 且对气候变化贡献最小的大陆 在帮助地球避免气候灾难方面发挥作用的方式之一。

But in addition, it can do more and be the first continent to go substantially net-negative. We're used to thinking about the continent in terms of its forests, its peatlands, its grasslands, its wetlands that need to be preserved. And we should definitely continue to invest in the Indigenous communities, the smallholder farmers and the local innovators who are protecting and expanding natural carbon sinks. But that should not blind us to the fact that Africa also provides an ideal potential home for scaling the latest and most ambitious of climate technologies.

但除此之外，它还可以做得更多 ，成为第一个大幅净负的大陆。 我们习惯于从需要保护的森林、 泥炭地、草原和 湿地的角度来思考这个大陆。 我们绝对应该继续投资于 保护和扩大自然碳汇的土著社区、小农和当地创新者。 但这不应该让我们忽视这样一个事实，即非洲也为推广最新、最雄心勃勃的气候技术提供了理想的潜在家园。

Whichever of these narratives most speaks to you, one thing should be clear. We need to shake the old, tired idea that Africa is a poor, hapless, helpless climate change victim. Instead, Africa and its people have the potential. They can, and they should, be the world’s climate vanguard.

无论这些叙述中哪一个最能对你说话， 有一件事应该是清楚的。 我们需要摆脱陈旧、陈旧的观念 ，即非洲是一个贫穷、不幸、无助的气候变化受害者。 相反，非洲及其人民具有潜力。 他们可以而且应该成为世界气候先锋。