After the conclusion of World War II, Winston Churchill penned a multi-volume set describing the events from his perspective. The books contain incredible levels of detail given his access to diplomatic matters and a clear love of military equipment, strategy and statecraft. The third volume in this set, The Grand Alliance, might have some lessons for the World in 2020 and beyond, as well as our individual pursuits in the field of renewable energy, climate change and our part in the whole. Let’s step through these volumes with a focus on the third and describe some parallels with current events.

The Gathering Storm

The first volume in the set is The Gathering Storm, which covers the painful post-World War I period from 1919 that set the stage for the ensuing disaster. The book spans the two decades up to Spring 1940. Churchill as he wrote this, and we now, have benefits of hindsight (and some selective editing). But the many citations of messages, speeches and communications with other Powers make it clear that many were clearly aware of the dangers posed by the Axis in the early 1930s, well before the fall of countries such as Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Norway. They knew of the threat, they saw the gathering storm, but the other major powers such as the U.K., France, the Soviet Union (who indeed invaded Finland and Eastern Europe) stood by and did little as fascism assimilated countries one by one. The United States was little better, with the America First movement lobbying strongly for isolationism, which would certainly have changed the nature of the Greatest Generation. It begs the question: if everyone was aware of the threat, why was there so little action?

Now let’s pivot to an analogous concept: climate change. Let me pull out my favorite textbook: El-Wakil’s Powerplant Technology. In the late 1980s this was my inspiration for a career in power generation and in particular renewable energy. In part this was due to the fascinating array of technologies, but also of the global threat as outlined in Chapter 17-6: The Greenhouse Effect. The book shows curves of the average CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere: from ~315 ppm in 1958, to ~336 ppm in 1980. The book warned four decades ago of the potentially disastrous consequences of the growing carbon level.

The level now in 2020 is around 410 ppm, and the growing impacts on the global environment in terms of temperature, ecology, precipitation and the oceans is as evident as the advance of Germany across Europe in the “prewar” years, ignoring the fact that an innocent in war-torn Spain, China, Ethiopia or Czechoslovakia would certainly make the case that WW2 was already underway. It was only the recognition that the world was shifting that the general population in neutral countries was slow to realize (or chose to be willfully ignorant).

Young engineers have undisputable knowledge of the threat now. Our Code, unlike any that surely do not exist for politicians, require us to be mindful of this: we shall “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.”

The Gathering Storm is full of dread without much action by the major Allies. It’s fair to say that some people were doing what they could to stem the tide: aid to and fighting by the Chinese, the Lincoln Battalion, the Flying Tigers, and espionage and resistance in occupied states. But this clearly was not enough, and the limited efforts up to this point set the stage for 1941.

The Finest Hour

Am skipping this volume because…don’t have it and haven’t read it yet!

The Grand Alliance

The Grand Alliance focuses on the years of war from 1941-1942.

1941 was the bleakest of years for the Allies. France and the Low Countries had fallen. British and ANZAC forces had been pummeled in Greece, Crete and North Africa. The Soviet Union was pushed back to the perimeters of Leningrad and Moscow, with entire armies surrounded and smashed/captured/executed. Churchill feared the USSR would collapse or sue for a separate peace, which would have left the U.K. virtually alone versus the Axis horde.

We are close to a similar circumstance regarding climate change today, at a precarious “tipping point.” The world may or may not be able, unless decisive action is taken soon, to stabilize the consequences to something that will result in less than massive collapse to ecosystems and the countries and people they support, with ensuing casualties. Yet even in 2020 we have a similar “America First” set that imagine that this country can somehow be immune from the global consequences, willfully disregarding the science, or thinking that the country should withhold its capabilities from addressing these issues simply due to ideology.

On December 7, 1941 everything changed for the world. Churchill writes:

No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not foretell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death…How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end, no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care. Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. The British Empire, the Soviet Union, and now the United States, bound together with every scrap of their life and strength, were, according to my lights, twice or even thrice the force of their antagonists. No doubt it would take a long time…United we could subdue everybody else in the world. Many disasters, immeasurable cost and tribulation lay ahead, but there was no more doubt about the end.

The paragraph that follows in the book is of especial interest to Americans in regards to politics in 2020. Could be viewed as quite critical of us, read it if you choose. But it ends with a quote from Edward Grey:

The United States is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.

So here we stand at a precipice. Through a narrow turn of events, the U.S. will reenter the Paris Agreement in 2021, and the executive branch and many states will be committed to fighting climate change. The U.S. will have complex decisions of how to apply its potent industrial talent and force to the challenge of transitioning to a lower carbon economy. This is not now a battle between a modest number of Allies and the Axis, but of the entire world versus its own inertia and limited vision.

The Battle of the Atlantic

Let’s mention another parallel between the volumes and current events. Churchill, former First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, really delved into detail in these chapters of The Grand Alliance regarding the struggle between British shipping and U-boats in the Atlantic in 1941. He provides descriptions of the strategies and antisubmarine warfare tactics and technology that allowed the tons of shipping sunk over the year, versus losses suffered by the U-boats, to turn the tide by the summer. ASDIC (sonar), hedgehogs, convoys. The Brits were aided by the Lend-Lease program, which provided the Allies destroyers and other war materials prior to the formal U.S. entry into the war. It was technology and industrial might that turned the battle around, not the rightness of the cause necessarily.

Similarly, we have to acknowledge the work of researchers and manufacturers around the world for the past decades prior to this formal “reentry” of the US into the climate war in helping drive the cost of electricity renewable energy down to a level that is competitive with fossil fuels, as illustrated by the IRENA figure following from their Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2019 report. Only ten years ago the levelized cost for solar PV was astronomical – now it’s improved in many settings to costs far below that shown here, the advances are so swift. All their work has set the table for you to be part of these dramatic transformations with your careers in the renewable energy industry.

The students, young engineers and clients we work with have the will, which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for victory. Now, we also have very competitive renewable energy technologies, if we choose to deploy them. If you are embarking on a career in renewable energy now, the invisible hand of economics is behind you, finally. There’s never been a better time to be part of projects and see them built, not simply envisioned in wistful studies.

Will the U.S. step forward and ally with the other nations of the world to advance these sorts of industries? Will we be able to capitalize on these technologies fast enough and help others do the same? Will the Allies be able to effectively collaborate; supporting and transforming the world as we did earlier during the war and after via projects like the Marshall Plan, or will the U.S. regress into factions and isolationism and numbly (and literally) watch the fires burn all around us?

Other volumes

Sadly do not have/am yet to read Vol 4 (The Hinge of Fate) or 5 (Closing the Ring).

Summary: Triumph and Tragedy

The final volume of Churchill’s series, Triumph and Tragedy, covers the end of the war, 1943-1945. Millions were still to suffer and die after the U.S. entry, though Churchill felt the conclusion was not in doubt. We don’t know what the years after 2020 will bring in terms of environmental consequences, but we can make one final point about the series and how this new “Grand Alliance” may work together. That is: the nations and people of the global Grand Alliance of the 1940s often hated, mistreated or killed each other, but for the most part amidst the animosity they still achieved the common goal.

The Russians slaughtered Poles. The Nationalist and Communist Chinese killed each other. Admiral Canaris spied on the U.S. at the same time he was undermining Nazi policies. The Americans sent their immigrant families of Japanese ancestry to camps while at the same time many Nisei were fighting hard in the U.S. military versus the Axis. To say there was friction within the Allies then would be an understatement. Let’s hope we can rise above our current U.S. political frictions, which seem mild by historical comparison.

Right and left ideological differences exist but should not be allowed to unduly impede the overall war on climate change, or for that matter most social ills. Firefighters from different political parties put those aside when battling a blaze. Scientists and engineers may differ on the preferred blends of technology solutions to decarbonize. The various types of Allies with their interests (energy companies, technology providers, levels of government, countries) don’t have to see eye to eye, particularly like each other, or have the same approaches. But we must at least move forward in delivering solutions.

We’re trying to solve a technical crisis, not a philosophical or religious one. Can argue fiercely over how, but let’s not dispute the if. Time is short but if the world’s Grand Alliance puts their united forces to it, we might have a chance. For those with the good fortune to be embarking now on a 30-40+ year span of your energy engineering careers during this campaign, Churchill’s watchword of Resolution seems an appropriate moral.