Visualizing the roots of renewables

November 2024

I drew this illustration because I can’t stop thinking about this topic. I am on a journey to redefine what it means to be a good engineer. As part of this, I want to understand how we can visualize the systemic impact of innovative technologies. Do you have ideas or want to chat? Please reach out.

Engineers design for structural integrity. But why does this not include social integrity? How can something be considered structurally safe if the structures it requires harm human and non-human life on many dimensions but the most immediate physical one?

You can find a variety of resources related to this topic below the following illustration.

Why roots?

The word radical inherits its meaning from latin, meaning rooted. I drew roots because environmental injustice didn’t start with CO2 in the atmosphere. Much more likely it started with a state of mind that justified the destruction of ecosystems, displacement of people, and exploitation child labor for the sake of technological & scientific development. This way of 🔮 doing things around here has finally led to the warming of the whole planet.

Radicalness means to find a solution to a problem by going back to the roots of the injustice (see more on 🔮 radicalness). Plants have roots. The roots of plants are some of the most intelligent parts of their systems as they investigate and make decisions separately yet connected to others. Therefore, I argue that being a radical engineer also means to a critical thinker. Obviously and sadly, critical theory is a term barely stated as a core piece of a good engineer.

What are the Just Transition Principles?

The 🔮 Just Transition Principles are guidelines that help us to stay focused on addressing the root causes of environmental injustice as opposed to building technological quick fixes that perpetrate ecological destruction and human suffering.

The principles are:

  • Living well without harming others
  • Meaningful Work
  • Self-Determination
  • Equitable Redistribution of Resources and Power
  • Regenerative Ecological Economics
  • Culture and Tradition
  • Solidarity
  • Let’s Build What We Need Right Now

See their visual framework and read in more depth about them 🔮 over here.

The mining needed to sustain green technology

Wind energy and solar require 7-18 times more minerals per energy produced compared with fossil-fuel based equivalents. Obviously, fossil fuel also needs to be extracted from this planet. But the point is that if we want to keep electricity consumption the same, we will need to dig up the whole planet for minerals (🔮 source here). Let’s not forget that the plan is to continue to increase electricity consumption across western nations and beyond.

Humanity is facing 🔮 the largest increase of mining in human history.

We will need 2x more copper than we have mined throughout all human history to feed the Western green transition plans.

Here is a quite personal interview with some humans affected by multinational mining corporations


ID ROOTS-OF-RENEWABLES