Duck bellies and doom

A flock of ducks walking in a field of solar panels with a nuclear power plant on the background at night with starry skies
A flock of ducks walking in a field of solar panels with a nuclear power plant on the background at night with starry skies by Visual Electric

At the end of 2024, I asked some friends and colleagues a question: "Which topic do you think is the most important to write about next year?" I loved these conversations because they took me to unexpected places. So, I posed the same question to people on the internet and received 31 responses, which I am now sharing with you. In my previous post, I discussed the first seven answers that addressed the new world order. Today, I will dive deeper into two other categories: climate & energy and conflict

Climate and conflict are closely intertwined, as both contribute to vulnerabilities in our societies. As a warm-up for what is coming below, you might want to explore Climate-Conflict-Vulnerability Index and their interactive world map, which is both beautiful and disturbing to look at.

Climate Conflict vulnerability index map

I am sharing all answers in full, with only slight edits. Beneath each response, I offer my reflections, additional resources, and datasets, hopefully inspiring you to explore further.

I must confess, this post isn't exactly cheerful, but if you hang in there, you'll discover the curious connection between duck bellies and solar power production. 

Let's get to it.

duck in a sun hat

Conflict

To be honest, this category made me feel very uneasy—so uneasy that I didn't want to comment on any of the answers at all. However, as I witness the world becoming a stranger place every day, I'm realizing how important it is that we face these conflicts and consider carefully how we want them to be resolved.

8. Conflicts around the globe e.g. Ukraine, Gaza, because humanity will erase itself in WW3

This is likely very true. There are 12,000 nuclear warheads in the world. Half of them are in the hands of an authoritarian despot, and the other half... well, never mind.

9. Gaza, because it s the moral defeat and the win of money, capitalism and colonialism.

Gaza is a place that, years from now, we will look back on with the same horror as we do Auschwitz today. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) has identified Palestine of 2024 as the world's most dangerous and violent place. Fortunately, President Trump's administration plans to step in, promising to "Make Gaza Beautiful Again".

10. Why are violent cultures are more likely to succeed? Violence throughout history, but also the middle east, and in religion has always led to people becoming apathetic and retreating. See China, see Russia, see Gaza, Afghanistan or Lebanon. In what non-violent ways, can a people or culture win against a violent Regime? Is it possible? For example Falun Gong. Or Kurds. Is it OK to lose ones cultures and identity, if it leads to peace?

Non-violent actions can indeed topple governments. One of the most significant examples in relatively recent history is the series of mostly peaceful protests that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. More recently, we have witnessed the Arab Spring. So, is it possible? Yes. But how?

To refine your nonviolent strategies, read the free guidebook published by The International Center for Nonviolent Conflict. The authors delve into strategies, marketing, security, resources, and more. I especially liked the part focusing on pillars of support: civilians, businesses, police, military and other structures that keep the power in place.

11. The military upscaling world-wide, especially European countries USA will probably diminish in their role as a deterrent for aggressors on European soil, waking up the EU to take action to be able to fend for themselves in case it's necessary. This may be a good thing, since it would mean less dependency on the US for our safety. But historically, whenever all of Europe decided the best course of action is to increase their military spending, world wars happened. It's a bad sign, or omen, if you will. And something that we should all be following closely the coming year.

12. State of the military industrial production in the NATO countries. Russia has switched its industrial output to full military economy. When there is a peace in Ukraine it will take 1 year for Putin to re arm to the state before the war.

Let's combine insights from two datasets to gain some fresh perspective. First, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, these are the countries that spent the most on the military in 2023. Second: China, India, and Turkey have emerged as Russia's most prominent trade partners post-invasion.

What will happen in the future is uncertain. For the newsletter of the Follow The Money Brussels desk, I've visualized the projected EU budget for the military. By 2027, it's expected to be nearly twice as large as it was in 2021.

13. The war to end all wars. On principle, we, humanity, want to end all wars but we’ve seen a huge surge in disgustingly violent, ruthless and needless wars. I do hope that a war to end all wars will not be necessary but looks like Others will make that decision and dump it on us to deal with. It might not suffice, though, because the military complex will find more wars to be had. They gotta put food on the table! :) Are we ever getting off of this bloody merry-go-round?

In their yearly wrap-up, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program concluded that 2023 marked the highest number of active state-based armed conflicts "ever recorded by the UCDP, totaling 59." It seems the time to invest is indeed ripe.  
  
In October 2024, Citigroup, one of the big four US banks, published a report outlining possible future scenarios and investment opportunities in the defense sector. I found point 3 here especially cynical.

Recent global developments
Also, check out Figure 27 of the report (which I am not allowed to reproduce) for a handy list of companies to start exploring—or investing in. Your call!

Ok now take a deep breath. Ready for the second tranche of man-made catastrophes? Here we go.

Climate & Energy

14. Climate, because civilizational collapse is a thing

15. I'm an economics journalist – but climate is going to touch everything. The sooner we make the connections the better.

16. Climate crisis. Why is quite clear: without a livable planet no life.

Half of the answers in this category were very short, yet the topic is incredibly broad.

17. Climate change is the most pressing issue we're facing right now. And of course this ties in with many other issues: inequality (between and within countries), politics (populism, lack of faith in politicians, growing apathy from voters when talking about politics and policy-making?), (social) media (where do people get their information? how can journalists/writers/... make people care? and how do we avoid depressing people to the point of apathy?)

I liked this answer because it touches upon a topic that I haven't seen addressed often: the mental health aspects of climate change. On one hand we are dealing with mental health issues associated with extreme weather events: PTSD, trauma.

We also deal with something called solastalgia: the distress that comes from environmental changes around our home environment, combined with a sense of powerlessness over these changes. The word comes from the Latin sōlācium (solace or comfort), solus (desolation), and the Greek algia (pain, suffering, grief). It reminds me of the disappearance of snow in winter, but for others, it will be more severe.

Although data on all of this is scarce, I came across a 2021 study that surveyed 10,000 people between 16 and 25 years of age from all continents. They did not have many happy thoughts.

survey results of young adults on climate change. most of them think the humanity is doomed
Perhaps stories about the energy transition could provide some solace?

18. The energy transition. The news in 2024 has largely, and understandably, been captured by politics, and it has been ages that climate change has been front and center. I am afraid, that is partly because climate change lives in people's minds as yet another disaster we don't want to think about, which is why I think that stories about the energy transition can be a force for good. It's happening, amazing strides are being made, and it builds a future that we want to live in if we pull it off.

 
This topic is humongous, and I'm not entirely sure how rosy the outlooks really are. I've searched for recent energy transition outlooks. The latest report from the International Renewable Energy Agency states, "Pledges made at international fora will not be sufficient." The 2024 Energy Transition Index by the World Economic Forum notes that "the take-up of clean energy investment has not been at the pace needed to reach net zero by 2050."
 
This seemed quite bleak, so I asked the robots at Perplexity if we are on track. Initially, the bot said, "The energy transition is not on track, and the situation is likely to worsen without significant changes." This made me properly sad, so I asked if they could find me some hopeful news. Luckily, they could. "The message is clear: we are making substantial progress in the global energy transition, and there's genuine hope for a sustainable, clean energy future." That made me feel better. Who said hallucinations were a bug?

19. Climate change and the impact of new technologies like crypto, cloud, AI, etc. Because of the immediate and future impact of it. With such high demand for high energy requiring technologies, we risk a worsening of the actual conditions to a point of no return.

While the recent generative AI boom is making tech companies increasingly energy-hungry, the International Energy Agency's analysis suggests that we should be more concerned about the rising energy demands of air conditioning

Global growth in electricity demand.

Nevertheless, it's definitely something to keep an eye on.

20. (New) Energy Production - Battle between nuclear and renewables. Big tech is investing in nuclear power plants, so won't be long before investors also realize electricity production is a priority. This could buck the renewables trend.

So basically society always needs more energy. Electricity can be the more efficient way to power things (e.g. induction stove uses less raw energy than a gas stove). So there has been a push to electrify much of society in the last decade or so (think electric cars. On top of this, and this is probably the bigger thing, is the use and production of AI models requires a lot of power, and big tech are building record amounts of data centres. All of this means that we need much more electricity.

While there is a lot of traditional renewables (wind, hydro, solar) being added to grids around the world, the intermittency can be annoying since it requires either battery storage, dynamic pricing (so factories will operate at night when its cheaper), or large inter-connectivity (e.g. Spain sells its solar to Netherlands) to flatten out the duck curve (google it).

In response to this, big tech in the US have started taking matters into their own hands and are producing the electricity themselves for the big data centres, since they don't want to wait and let the AI trend miss them. For example google is looking into buying and running an old nuclear reactor (three mile island).

Right now, vast amounts of capital are flowing into the AI boom. I think because the power needed for that is becoming a bottleneck, we will see capital flow into electricity production in the coming years. I think it will be interesting how this capital is spent, since gas and nuclear can give a solid predictable power output, these are desired by data centres, however the public leans towards renewables (usually). I think there will be a bit of a battle between the nuclear camp and the renewable camp over this, with possible more money going towards nuclear in many places. It may also be the case that big tech could say: '"We will only come to places where there are good nuclear reactors with cheap power, since we prefer predictability and profits". This might impact political decisions, and have consequences for some countries like Germany.

As a side note, there are so many advancements in renewables, especially solar (look into perovskites) that they might be able to just brute force the duck curve with better efficiency. Also large inter-connectors are being built, and studies have shown trading electricity over large distances like Spain and Netherlands can allow both places to use renewables longer.

Anyway, caffeine rant over.

Some sources/ Youtube channels: this topicgood channel for renewable tech updates , nuclear could get smaller/ cheaperalso a good channelthis guy is amazing


As promised, I will now explain the relationship between a duck's belly and solar energy production. Introducing the duck curve.

duck curve

See the orange line? While the sun is shining, there's a lot of energy coming in, and the need for other energy sources decreases. That's the belly of the duck. And that's good—free energy! But it's also problematic because the grid needs electricity at all times. So, once the sun sets and energy demand rises sharply, other sources need to be up and running again. Sudden changes like that can stress the grid. Moreover, you can't just turn off a nuclear plant in the morning and switch it back on in the evening.  
  
This rabbit hole is deep, and I won't dive into it for now. But the more I explore, the more I find it miraculous that in Europe, we have a constant supply of electricity at all times.

That wraps up the first 20 answers my survey. If you haven't already, have a look at my previous post on the topics around the new world order. And stay tuned for the final installment!

duck in a sun hat

This post took about 20 hours to research, write, edit and visualize. If you found it valuable, a donation would make my day!

Next time, we'll explore the small and unexpected. Categories such as journalismoneness, trust, and demography. Want to receive the rest of the series directly in your inbox? Sign up for my newsletter!