🚀 Will This Tech Scale? 🚀
How to Assess ClimateTech P.3
Welcome to My Essays
Hi! I’m Ahmed. I’m an analyst with a deep curiosity about the world.
I explore ideas. I break them down. I share what I learn in essays like this.
I hope you find them interesting.
What I’m Sharing Today
I am continuing to share what I learned about evaluating climate technologies.
The goal is to figure out the best way to stop climate change.
What’s in This Essay?
This framework answers four questions:
Should I spend time on this technology?
Will it get cheap enough?
If it’s cheap, will it scale?
If it can scale, how should I scale it?
If you missed my thoughts on the first question, check out this essay.
If you missed my thoughts on the second question, check out this essay.
Today, I’m focusing on the third question.
If a technology can get cheap, will it scale?
Below are some important questions to help you find out.
Question 1: Is there enough space in the world to scale this technology?
If a concept needs too much land to scale, it won’t work.
For example, there is a company making chemicals using sugar instead of natural gas.
This sugar comes from plants like corn, sugarcane, and sugar beets.
To decarbonize the chemicals industry, we need to compare global chemical and sugar production.
Chemical production is 2.3 billion tonnes per year, but sugar production is only 180 million tonnes per year.
If 1 tonne of sugar made 1 tonne of chemicals, we’d need 12.7 times more sugar to decarbonize everything.
This would require 12.7 times the land used for sugar today.
Note: This assumes a 1:1 sugar-to-chemicals ratio, but that’s not accurate.
Some chemicals need more sugar.
For example, making 1 tonne of ethylene (a common chemical) requires 3 tonnes of sugar.
Currently, growing all sugar uses 30.23 million hectares (302,300 km²).
To scale by 12.7 times, we’d need about 3.5 million km² of new land.
This is in addition to the original 302,300 km².
Here’s how global land is currently used:
When we look at the land options for growing sugar crops, here’s what we find:
Agriculture – This land is needed to grow food, so we can’t use it.
Forests & Shrubs – Cutting these down would increase emissions instead of reducing them.
Glaciers – Crops can’t grow on ice.
Barren Land (Deserts) – Deserts aren’t good for farming.
Freshwater – Crops can’t grow on water.
Urban Land – Cities and towns can’t be turned into farmland.
The conclusion is clear: there’s no extra land to grow enough sugar crops.
We can solve this problem in two ways:
Find new ways to grow sugar on unused land, like deserts or oceans.
Engineer crops to produce 12.7 times more sugar.
Right now, the company isn’t doing either.
Unless they fix this, they won’t have a big impact on climate change.
Question 2: Is there enough input material to scale this technology?
To make any product, you need input materials.
If there isn’t enough material globally, the product cannot scale.
Take nuclear fusion as an example.
Many believe it is the future of energy and a key solution for climate change.
However, there is a major issue most fusion efforts overlook.
The problem lies in the availability of fuel.
Below is a breakdown of companies by their chosen fuel sources.
Out of the 44 companies in the 2024 fusion industry report, 68% rely on deuterium-tritium (DT) reactions.
Since this is the most common method, we need to evaluate if it is feasible.
A fusion reactor needs 125 kg of deuterium and tritium to match the energy output from a 1000 megawatt (MW) coal plant.
To calculate the energy output of a 1000 MW coal plant, we need two key factors.
The first factor is plant lifetime. Coal plants typically operate for 40–50 years.
For this calculation, we will assume a 50-year lifespan.
The second factor is capacity factor.
The capacity factor measures how often a plant operates at full power.
U.S. coal plants have an average capacity factor of 42.1%.
This means they operate at full power 42.1% of the time.
The total energy produced in one year is calculated using this formula:
Yearly Energy Output (MWh/year) = Power (MW) x Hours per year x Capacity Factor.
Energy Output (MWh/year) = 1000 MW x 8760 hours/year × 42.1% capacity = 3,687,960 MWh/year.
The world consumes 183,230 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year.
A single fusion reactor would produce only 0.002% of global energy.
The question is whether there is enough input material to scale fusion reactors for all the world’s energy needs.
This fusion reactor requires 125 kg of tritium and 125 kg of deuterium over its lifetime.
For a 50-year lifespan, this equals 125 kg ÷ 50 years = 2.5 kg/year of deuterium and tritium.
Deuterium is common in saltwater, but tritium is rare.
The annual global production of tritium is 20 kg/year.
If we used all 20 kg of tritium, we could only supply enough fuel to produce 0.0161% of the world’s annual energy consumption.
This shows there isn’t enough tritium to scale this type of fusion reaction.
Without enough fuel, this process cannot meet global energy needs.
This example shows why it’s important to assess material availability.
If there isn’t enough input material, the technology cannot scale.
Question 3: Does our cost goal make us profitable for this application?
For a business to scale, it must be profitable.
In most climate industries, price is the most important factor for success.
If your price is too high, your business will fail.
Profitability depends on the specific application.
A cost target that works for one use might not work for another.
Take green hydrogen as an example.
Many companies aim to produce hydrogen at $1.5 per kilogram (kg).
Fossil fuel-based hydrogen costs between $0.5 and $1.7/kg.
Selling green hydrogen at $1.7/kg could be profitable.
The problem is many hydrogen companies assume one cost target works for all applications.
They often fail to check how much revenue each use case can support.
One popular use for hydrogen is replacing natural gas in energy production.
To compare costs, we must look at each fuel’s price in kilowatt-hours (kWh), a standard energy unit.
1 kilogram of hydrogen contains 33.3 kWh.
If hydrogen costs $1.5/kg, the price per kWh is 4.5 cents/kWh ($1.5 ÷ 33.3 kWh).
1 MMBtu of natural gas contains 293 kWh.
At a cost of $2.12 per MMBtu (as of November 2024), the price per kWh is 0.7 cents/kWh ($2.12 ÷ 293 kWh).
Hydrogen at 4.5 cents/kWh cannot compete with natural gas at 0.7 cents/kWh for energy
This shows the importance of setting the right cost target for each application.
Bonus Things to Consider
Bonus Thing 1: Don’t assume something is expensive without running a cost analysis first
I once wanted to use photocatalysis to split water and make hydrogen.
I assumed there wasn’t enough freshwater, so I thought I needed to use saltwater instead.
I believed desalination was too expensive. But my mentor told me to check the math.
When I checked, I found out desalination is cheap.
The highest cost for desalination is 1 cent per gallon, or 0.26 cents per kilogram of water.
Since 9 kilograms of water make 1 kilogram of hydrogen, desalination would only add 2.4 cents per kilogram of hydrogen.
That extra 2.4 cents per kilogram is worth it.
Using freshwater makes the system simpler and avoids all the problems caused by using saltwater.
The lesson: Don’t assume something is expensive before running the math.
Run the math to avoid bad assumptions and bad designs.
Bonus Thing 2: Focus on overall efficiency instead of side metrics
I was exploring an electrochemistry concept and read a paper claiming 74% Faradaic efficiency.
I looked up the definition and found this:
“Faradaic efficiency measures how efficiently charge (electrons) is transferred in an electrochemical reaction.”
I assumed Faradaic efficiency meant overall efficiency, but I was wrong.
Overall efficiency has two parts: current efficiency and voltage efficiency.
Faradaic efficiency only measures current efficiency and ignores voltage efficiency.
If someone only talks about one part of efficiency, they might be hiding something.
You could have good Faradaic efficiency but bad voltage efficiency.
This would result in poor overall efficiency.
This kind of misrepresentation happens in other industries too.
In batteries, people focus on coulombic efficiency instead of overall efficiency.
In steam turbines, they use higher heating values (HHV) instead of lower heating values (LHV).
HHV counts energy from water vapor, even though most steam turbines can’t capture it.
This inflates efficiency by including energy the turbine can’t actually use.
The takeaway: Always check overall efficiency to avoid being misled.
A Few Final Words
I hope you found this essay interesting! If you know someone who might enjoy it, feel free to share.
Got feedback? Email me at theahmedhassan1@gmail.com.
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Until next time,
Ahmed
