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Ah, techno utopianism. It ignores reality in many ways, here are two. First, if we have clean energy, are we going to shut down fossil fuel plants that have al

Ah, techno utopianism. It ignores reality in many ways, here are two. First, if we have clean energy, are we going to shut down fossil fuel plants that have already been built? If not, then fossil fuel will just become cheaper as demand drops, making burning fossil fuels attractive again. Countries currently plan to reduce their emissions, but none are planning to reduce their fossil fuel exports. They just hope it will show up on another country's emissions balance sheet. Even if we did develop super cheap clean energy, that would only reduce emissions in the future. Past emissions hang around for centuries and contribute to warm the planet (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhouse-gases-remain-air https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhou...). We would need to pay huge amounts to sequester that CO2 and I don't see anybody volunteering to foot that bill. This paper summarises both issues well: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Both are just aspects of the fundamental issue - although technological solutions perhaps could be developed, there is no political or economic will to do so, and no indication that will change.

ben_w 8y ago
> First, if we have clean energy, are we going to shut down fossil fuel plants that have already been built? That depends entirely on how cheap the alternatives are. Fossil fuel mining is not zero cost in itself, so there is a minimum price it can’t go below. Indeed, quite a lot of coal plants are being shut down — they can’t compete as the fuel itself is too expensive. This is not universal as not all coal is the same price and transport costs are also relevant, but it is happening.
- ed_balls 8y ago
  10$ for Saudis, 25$ for shell, 50$ from the Artic sea.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Per what, barrel of oil? If that’s what you’re quoting (I’ve not seen any recent attempts to calculate the costs of oil extraction), each barrel has ~1.7 MWh of energy. By way of comparison, PV solar records are around $0.02/kWh = $34/BOE.
hueving 8y ago
>Countries currently plan to reduce their emissions, but none are planning to reduce their fossil fuel exports. They just hope it will show up on another country's emissions balance sheet. That's not how markets work, at all. Oil has an extraction cost, and once the price falls below the profitable threshold, the production will absolutely shutdown. This highly visible with the boom/bust cycle of the more expensive extraction areas (dakotas, canada, etc). So as demand continues to drop due to competition from cheaper energy, oil supply will start to collapse as well because none of it comes for free and taking it out of the ground will become a money losing proposition.
r00fus 8y ago
> First, if we have clean energy, are we going to shut down fossil fuel plants that have already been built? If not, then fossil fuel will just become cheaper as demand drops This is untrue. If cost to extract >> market price, then existing operations may well just be shut down. To quote Hemmingway it would likely happen "gradually then suddenly".

ben_w 8y ago

> First, if we have clean energy, are we going to shut down fossil fuel plants that have already been built? That depends entirely on how cheap the alternatives are. Fossil fuel mining is not zero cost in itself, so there is a minimum price it can’t go below. Indeed, quite a lot of coal plants are being shut down — they can’t compete as the fuel itself is too expensive. This is not universal as not all coal is the same price and transport costs are also relevant, but it is happening.

ed_balls 8y ago
10$ for Saudis, 25$ for shell, 50$ from the Artic sea.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ben_w 8y ago
  Per what, barrel of oil? If that’s what you’re quoting (I’ve not seen any recent attempts to calculate the costs of oil extraction), each barrel has ~1.7 MWh of energy. By way of comparison, PV solar records are around $0.02/kWh = $34/BOE.

hueving 8y ago

>Countries currently plan to reduce their emissions, but none are planning to reduce their fossil fuel exports. They just hope it will show up on another country's emissions balance sheet. That's not how markets work, at all. Oil has an extraction cost, and once the price falls below the profitable threshold, the production will absolutely shutdown. This highly visible with the boom/bust cycle of the more expensive extraction areas (dakotas, canada, etc). So as demand continues to drop due to competition from cheaper energy, oil supply will start to collapse as well because none of it comes for free and taking it out of the ground will become a money losing proposition.

r00fus 8y ago

> First, if we have clean energy, are we going to shut down fossil fuel plants that have already been built? If not, then fossil fuel will just become cheaper as demand drops This is untrue. If cost to extract >> market price, then existing operations may well just be shut down. To quote Hemmingway it would likely happen "gradually then suddenly".