Because the energy transition is a geopolitical challenge
The energy transition has much more to do with world leadership than global warming. Simone Pieranni's preface to the book “Power” by Marco Dell'Aguzzo
Energy transition, global warming, green economy , eco-anxiety: these are all expressions that we are now used to hearing or reading with great frequency. Whether it is talk shows or articles in newspapers, the topic is now widely covered. Even Italian politics talks about it, which could also be seen as a sign of something that is now really on everyone's lips. However, this in itself does not mean that good information is provided on the topic. And this, especially in Italy, happens due to some flaws in our information system.
In fact, these terms are often followed by very clear positioning: in Italy everything becomes an immediate alignment, real or superficial, it doesn't matter, and everything becomes polarised. And at that point, when the topic has now derailed in opinion, we almost no longer remember the origin of the discussions. And it's a bad thing: because in the rest of the world it's definitely talked about. Some newspapers such as The Guardian , for example, have completely changed their organization of content to give ample space, in an almost always very qualitative way, informing rather than just offering opinions and comments, to this topic. And more generally in the world, including Italy, very important decisions are also being made in this regard, which will impact the future of each of us in the short term.
In some parts of the globe, decisions around the energy transition have already been taken years ago; then there are those who try to escape like a cyclist on the run at the beginning of the climb, those who chase, those who retrace their steps, those who make proclamations, those who just observe. Because there is one thing that does not escape careful observers, just as Marco Dell'Aguzzo writes in this book : "the energy transition has much more to do with world leadership than with global warming".
And this phase that we are experiencing and that this book captures with all the qualities that are needed in this case – precision, rigor, connections between apparently distant facts, detailed analysis of the present – has not begun now, on the contrary. Let's take China, one of the protagonists of this book. I have always been very struck by the story of Wan Gang, born in 1952, spending the 1960s in a remote village on the border with North Korea to suffer, at the age of sixteen, the dictates of the Cultural Revolution wanted by Mao Zedong. There, he would say years later, Wan had spent his time fixing tractors and building the village's electricity grid from scratch. A means of transport and energy: it seems like a viaticum and in fact it is. Because Wan manages to graduate, he graduated in 1991 and obtained a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the Clausthal University of Technology in Germany. From university to Audi, the step is very short, rapid and fatal. One day a delegation of Chinese officials arrives at the factory where he works. Among the Chinese delegates there is also Zhu Lilan, the first minister of science and technology in China, a ministry recently created in those years. Wan took advantage of the situation to explain to Zhu one of his theories which we could briefly summarize as follows: it is useless, said Wan, for China in the automotive industry to try to chase the results of the large Western and Japanese producers. We need to think of another path, which would also allow us to tackle the pollution of Chinese cities: that is, electric cars. Zhu is a smart minister and puts Wan in charge of the electric vehicle project within the renewal program of the Chinese scientific sector started in 1986. The Chinese electric revolution began in these years and constitutes another response to the surprise of finding China at the top of some technological sectors that today drive the economy: it all began in the 90s, it is a long tortuous path, at times exhilarating, but above all not improvised.
This story is just a small example of the world we live in, a world in which to understand what is happening it is not enough to stick to contemporary facts. It is necessary to dig into the recent past and – just like Dell'Aguzzo does – also get your hands dirty. The needs of our current societies cannot be understood without understanding at least what the geopolitical and specific protagonists are: the materials, their functioning, their impact, their extraction, their processing, the costs, the processes, the work, government plans, costs, resistance, communication. This book connects all the dots and reminds us of one very important thing: there are no shortcuts. Neither for the states, nor for us who find ourselves at the mercy of so much propaganda but our primary task is to inform ourselves in the best possible way, looking for the correct, realistic information, without "comments" to hide the true extent of the events. And this book does that.
Among the many things you will find and among the many merits, in my opinion, of Marco Dell'Aguzzo's book I would like to point out two: firstly the simplicity of exposing very complicated processes. You will read about materials, industrial production, geopolitical strategies in a very clear way and without value judgements, to remind us that we are talking about a complicated topic but which can be presented in a simple way to everyone, without getting lost in sophisms or in the many theoretical details that the theme recalls. The second great advantage is that of photographing a moment that is happening in a convincing and as "still" way as possible. We must imagine the current world as if it were a long track with three main players at the starting line: United States, Europe and China. In reality, not everyone starts from the same position but this is the real competition. And transition precisely means passage, crossing or, as Treccani specifies, «an intermediate phase of the process, in which the condition, mostly of approximate equilibrium, that existed in the initial phase is altered, and which then gives rise to a new condition of equilibrium". Altering does not mean eliminating, it means moving to a new condition of equilibrium; it doesn't mean that what was there before must be completely erased, even more so when we talk about energy transition (and this doesn't even mean that everything that already exists is fine: it means that we can't suddenly cancel years of history, but that it is necessary to live with this story, analyze it and try to overcome it). Here, this is what we need to talk about: how to change, without thinking that change can happen with the blink of an eye. And this book reminds us how complicated, difficult, change always is. Even when, by all accounts, and I am deeply convinced of this, it absolutely must be done.
(“Power. Technology and geopolitics in the energy transition” comes out on March 1st but can be pre-ordered on Amazon , in bookstores and in the online stores of Mondadori , Feltrinelli and beyond)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/power-tecnologia-geopolitica-transizione-energetica-prefazione/ on Sat, 24 Feb 2024 06:31:08 +0000.