SUPPLIER SUMMIT HIS DARKER MATERIALS
Sky News Journalist Ed Conway gave NBG’s Supplier Summit keynote speech, and left delegates with a few things to think about.
T
he path to net-zero carbon emissions is paved with the use of far more fossil fuels than one might think. Bearing in mind the fact that the drive to net zero is all about reducing humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels, this poses something of a problem.
That conundrum was at the heart of the NBG Supplier Summit keynote speech from Ed Conway, Economics and Data Editor of Sky News. The author of Material World, a book that takes a look at six different materials that shape the modern world, Conway started out by saying that the materials NBG Partners and Suppliers make and sell, such as steel, cement, copper and concrete, are all important in a way that most other parts of the economy aren’t.
“The important part of the world is this material world upon which everything else depends,” he said. “The world that you guys are part of, essentially getting stuff out of the ground turning it into products, turning it into materials, and passing it through the supply chain so that people can make stuff, so they can build stuff — that’s really important. The understanding in Westminster and elsewhere about its importance is alarmingly primitive.” It’s worrying, Conway said, that policymakers around the globe seem to care less about things that make the modern world than they do about things like AI and technology, finance and service. “Let’s face it, if Facebook goes down, then who cares? It’s not the end of the world. If the foundation materials that we build our lives on disappear, then we’re all gone. So, if there is no concrete, no wood, no steel, no fertiliser, then we
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can’t survive because the basic needs of our civilisation will have gone.”
The push towards a net-zero economy, which successive governments have adopted is, Conway believes, a great idea, but is far, far more complicated than authorities seem to have realised. “We may think that we have reduced our use of fossil fuels, but what has really happened is that we have shifted it off to different countries. This route to net zero is going to be a much more difficult challenge, I think, than anyone really appreciates. And the upshot of all of that is we are in for a bit of a shock,” he said.
Many of the materials that the world uses are fossil fuel heavy, in that their extraction and production uses huge amounts of coal or gas. Conway illustrated this point with a story about the development of artificial fertiliser. During the first world war, Germany couldn’t get hold of sufficient fertilisers it needed to feed not only its people but also its weapons industry. Knowing that there was a need to get nitrogen, a key component of fertiliser, from somewhere, and that 80% of the air that we breathe is nitrogen, the big challenge for German scientists was to extract nitrogen from the air and use it to make fertilisers and explosives.
“They did it. Germany developed a process called the Haber-Bosch process, and this was revolutionary. They took hydrogen out of coal, and in a kind of enormous steel canister with a catalyst to fix the nitrogen out of the air, they created – out of thin air – the fertilisers and explosives. This process is one of the simplest, most important chemical discoveries that has ever happened. In the process, it enabled the
world to create more fertiliser and thereby completely changed the calculation on how many people could be supported on this planet. We are all here thanks to that.” Synthetic nitrogen production is what allows the world to feed its growing population, but it uses fossil fuels to do so. “Originally, they used coal, these days its natural gas, which is still a fossil fuel. There’s a calculation that says if synthetic fertilisers didn’t exist, neither would half of the global population. But, that synthetic fertiliser is a fossil fuel product. So how are we going to get to net-zero – which would be a good thing – if we still need to use fossil fuels for so many everyday needs?” Other things that currently use huge amounts of fossil fuels include solar panels. Although the increasing use of solar power is a major part of the push to net-zero, carbon emissions from the manufacture of a silicon chip for use in a solar panel is more than for steel. Conway explained: “Making these things is really carbon intensive. Making solar panels is very carbon intensive and currently involves burning a lot of coal. However, because that coal is being burned in China, where most solar panel components are made, when we buy them in this country, we don’t tend to think about that.
“A telling and problematic issue we have here is that we don’t think about this stuff because it happens out of sight. We don’t think, and neither do policymakers, about how much material is being used to enable 8 billion people to live on our planet.
“As economic growth increases, we mine materials to get the stuff we want. That is part of the story of humanity.”
January 2025
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