How many roadmaps, strategies, action plans, accelerators and clean deals can a seasoned lobbyist stomach? Quite a few, apparently, although not without a certain amount of mental confusion.
In climate policy, it is rare to encounter a situation that could be described as normal. Either we are teetering on the brink of the abyss, facing eternal damnation, or the opportunities are so enormous that the banks will run out of room for all the money. Year after year, the economy is promised both a billion-euro bill and a billion-euro jackpot.
Still, optimism is a comfort to the bewildered mind. The basic technological idea behind carbon capture emerged sometime in the early 20th century. Since then, it has made repeated appearances in climate policy, and a directive on the subject was already crafted more than fifteen years ago. As the clock is ticking, take-off must now be closer than ever.
Surely the hydrogen economy is not moving backwards? Its arrival is closer than it was in the 1970s, when the term first gained prominence. Hydrogen itself has, of course, been used for a long time, but not on the scale envisaged by the hydrogen economy. As a child forty years ago, I read some Finnish technology magazine whose stories about hydrogen cars amazed its readers. Not long ago, it sounded as if practically everything would soon be made from hydrogen. Now it appears that the hydrogen economy will be able to produce at least some things as soon as it finds customers willing to pay for them.
But where will profitability come from? Perhaps from lead markets, an idea already discussed in the 1990s. Creating markets for new products became something of a minor hit around fifteen years ago. Now it is back in vogue. There is certainly plenty to ponder: how do we push a good cause forward without placing too much strain on the wallets of industry and citizens? That is a question above my pay grade.
Over the years, plenty of free advice has also been offered on the everyday use of wood. Trees must be left in the forest. Trees must be felled and pushed into bogs. Wood must be used only for long-lived products. Wood must specifically be used for biodegradable products. The value added of wood processing must be increased. No wonder all this advice comes free of charge.
More remarkable were the utopias in which electricity was free, free hydrogen flowed through pipelines and everyone had so much cash in their pockets that they had to walk hunched over. During the hype’s sleepwalking phase, the whole enterprise resembled a helium economy, with people gushing about their dreams in amusingly squeaky voices. These days, more people dare to say, in their normal voice and without being branded a spoilsport, that products are unlikely to be manufactured and distributed free of charge in the future either. Someone will have to pay for them with real money.
We in the forest industry used to say that anything made from fossil raw materials could also be made from wood. The wording did not quite work out as intended. It created the impression that we believed wood could eliminate the need for other raw materials. Of course it cannot. There would not be nearly enough wood. Some of the forest industry’s dreams will come true, but I couldn’t tell you which ones.
Looking at the state of European industry, one cannot help thinking that, alongside the dreams, the World Championships in Hanging On are looming on the horizon. We need both: the dreams and the determination of existing industry to stay alive long enough for at least some of them to come true.
I can well imagine that I have misunderstood many of the things mentioned above and made a fool of myself. If that is the case, let us agree that this piece was written by artificial intelligence. AI first emerged as an academic concept in the 1950s, and its great breakthrough followed immediately afterwards, in the 2020s.
