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To be fair, that's not all it leads to. I'm not saying that it was the best way to do it, but the energy industry over the last ~150 years has driven nearly uni

To be fair, that's not all it leads to. I'm not saying that it was the best way to do it, but the energy industry over the last ~150 years has driven nearly unimaginable increases in human development, standard of living, poverty reduction, and technology. That said, in 2018 we have little excuse for our current track. We couldn't have done solar or nuclear instead of oil 100 years ago, but we can today, and the fact that we're not is shameful.

bunderbunder 8y ago
It has, but I still can't help feeling like we can do better. I was looking at concept drawings from Walt Disney's original conception of EPCOT, back when it was supposed to be a living community and not just a theme park. What struck me is, that sort of environment doesn't just seem to offer a more pleasant and human way of life; it's also probably way more efficient, both economically and environmentally, than typical communities in the USA. So, yeah, development was fast, but it followed a greedy search and got trapped in a local optimum.
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  I think our algorithm is a lot more complicated than greedy search, if you just step back and look at it through a longer timescale. We're not "trapped" in a local optimum, we've just reached one, and the algorithm is just now realizing it and starting to explore alternatives.
  - akiselev 8y ago
    It's not the fact that it's complex that's the problem, it's the fact that it is adversarial. Not in a "survival of the fittest" kind of way but in a "we have to exterminate this other group/ideology because it is a perceived long term threat to us" kind of way. Or, as a substitute in polite society, "it doesn't how much we have together, as long as I'm guaranteed to have more than you."
  - mobilefriendly 8y ago
    We are very much trapped. The entire U.S. political system is geared towards automobile-based structure at every level of government. Coal is embedded as well. Imagine if the federal government had never subsidized the interstate system, how different our cities would look.
    - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
      Again, too short a timeline. Our energy landscape will be totally different in 100 years.
perfunctory 8y ago
> but the energy industry over the last ~150 years has driven nearly unimaginable increases in human development, standard of living, poverty reduction, and technology. Depends on what is understood by the standard of living. The situation where some people have to spend 6 hours a day trapped inside their vehicles just to get to work and back home, hardly can be seen as a high standard of living. I tend to be quite sceptical about the claims that high energy consumption is imperative for higher standard of living.
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  I understand, believe me. There's still a lot of suffering and misery in the world. We have far to go. But there has been a pretty clear increase in standard of living, even if you consider that some people have long commutes in climate-controlled vehicles with comfortable seats and media devices at their fingertips, on their way to jobs where they earn a PPP-adjusted income that's historically and globally very high. Think of the global decreases over the past century in starvation, disease, infant mortality, maternal mortality, illiteracy, accidental death, etc. Things aren't perfect because they'll never be perfect, but that doesn't mean we haven't made progress overall.
  - arbitrary_name 8y ago
    And what if all of the progress is undone by cripplying drought, flooding, intense storms, crop shortages? There is no denying that fossil fuels have brought an unprecedented level of wealth and prosperity. But what we need to do is face up to the fact that we will lose all of those gains if we arent willing to sacrifice some if them to avoid disaster. Sharing renewable tech with developing countries, ending fossil fuel subsidies, taxing emissions, legislating with a healthy environment as a first priority - they will make many a little bit worse off, but are utterly crucial for any hope of a prosperous future.
    - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
      I agree that we need to make those changes but I think we will, just too late. And yet I still don’t think we’ll “give up all the gains” of the past 150 years.
rubyfan 8y ago
I have to agree it's been a great springboard and we should be doing more. I think the reality on the ground is that solar has only achieved attractive efficiency levels in most recent years. Similarly electric vehicle range and cost has only started to become achievable in recent years. Right or wrong nuclear has always had a perception of danger to it that the most people would say NIMBY. It's understandable there is still a thriving market in the developed world for petroleum fuels. I think we've finally reached a point now were the market is offering both individual and larger scale commercial/public energy solutions. It takes time for new infrastructure investment - it's lots of small efforts. Given the reality on the ground in most of the developed world I have to imagine it takes another 50 years to get to majority renewables. So what's a petroleum producing world power to do? Seems like ensuring a balance of power and energy production for the next 50 years of world development is a responsible thing to do.
nicholas73 8y ago
Solar or nuclear primarily generates electricity, which little oil is used for. They also have problems with supply/demand load balancing, and there isn't a good storage solution for that yet. Lastly, oil products have energy density that batteries are barely starting to be capable of. Tesla is just getting started, but the world will still need jet fuel.
- bunnycorn 8y ago
  > oil products have energy density that batteries are barely starting to be capable of Not even close, diesel/gasoline stores 35 MJ/l, a good battery (lithium-metal, much better than lithium-ion), 4.32 MJ/l Now, if only we could extract 90% of that diesel stored energy.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    If you can't actually extract it (because of limitations like Carnot efficiency, etc.), does it actually count? What's the real figure for usable energy in diesel?
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      Depends on what you are doing. An awful lot of energy consumption is just fine with waste heat, it doesn't need a heat engine. There you get 90% efficiency even with heating oil.
      - CydeWeys 8y ago
        If you need heating, the efficiency of an electricity-powered heat pump is around 300%, so batteries are actually competitive here.
    - leetcrew 8y ago
      diesel engines can exceed 45% efficiency [0], so lithium ion would have to more than triple in energy density to be competitive (using GP's numbers). that said, diesel is mainly used in large trucks and shipping vessels, where I would imagine energy per unit volume would be more important than energy per unit mass. if electricity were much cheaper than diesel fuel, it could certainly become the economic choice for all but the longest routes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine#Major_advantages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine#Major_advantages
drb91 8y ago
That’s not really “fair”, though, the positive aspects of oil will be severely tempered by the myriad effects of global warming.
ppseafield 8y ago
> We couldn't have done solar or nuclear instead of oil 100 years ago Well, as of the 70s we were doing both. Hell, Jimmy Carter even put solar panels up at the White House. (Reagan took them down.)
- RobertoG 8y ago
  Not only that, but: "An electric vehicle held the vehicular land speed record until around 1900." (from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicl...)
- ars 8y ago
  > even put solar panels up at the White House. They were not solar panels (for electricity), they were solar water heaters, and they didn't work very well, which is why they were taken down.

bunderbunder 8y ago

It has, but I still can't help feeling like we can do better. I was looking at concept drawings from Walt Disney's original conception of EPCOT, back when it was supposed to be a living community and not just a theme park. What struck me is, that sort of environment doesn't just seem to offer a more pleasant and human way of life; it's also probably way more efficient, both economically and environmentally, than typical communities in the USA. So, yeah, development was fast, but it followed a greedy search and got trapped in a local optimum.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago
I think our algorithm is a lot more complicated than greedy search, if you just step back and look at it through a longer timescale. We're not "trapped" in a local optimum, we've just reached one, and the algorithm is just now realizing it and starting to explore alternatives.
- akiselev 8y ago
  It's not the fact that it's complex that's the problem, it's the fact that it is adversarial. Not in a "survival of the fittest" kind of way but in a "we have to exterminate this other group/ideology because it is a perceived long term threat to us" kind of way. Or, as a substitute in polite society, "it doesn't how much we have together, as long as I'm guaranteed to have more than you."
- mobilefriendly 8y ago
  We are very much trapped. The entire U.S. political system is geared towards automobile-based structure at every level of government. Coal is embedded as well. Imagine if the federal government had never subsidized the interstate system, how different our cities would look.
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    Again, too short a timeline. Our energy landscape will be totally different in 100 years.

perfunctory 8y ago

> but the energy industry over the last ~150 years has driven nearly unimaginable increases in human development, standard of living, poverty reduction, and technology. Depends on what is understood by the standard of living. The situation where some people have to spend 6 hours a day trapped inside their vehicles just to get to work and back home, hardly can be seen as a high standard of living. I tend to be quite sceptical about the claims that high energy consumption is imperative for higher standard of living.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago
I understand, believe me. There's still a lot of suffering and misery in the world. We have far to go. But there has been a pretty clear increase in standard of living, even if you consider that some people have long commutes in climate-controlled vehicles with comfortable seats and media devices at their fingertips, on their way to jobs where they earn a PPP-adjusted income that's historically and globally very high. Think of the global decreases over the past century in starvation, disease, infant mortality, maternal mortality, illiteracy, accidental death, etc. Things aren't perfect because they'll never be perfect, but that doesn't mean we haven't made progress overall.
- arbitrary_name 8y ago
  And what if all of the progress is undone by cripplying drought, flooding, intense storms, crop shortages? There is no denying that fossil fuels have brought an unprecedented level of wealth and prosperity. But what we need to do is face up to the fact that we will lose all of those gains if we arent willing to sacrifice some if them to avoid disaster. Sharing renewable tech with developing countries, ending fossil fuel subsidies, taxing emissions, legislating with a healthy environment as a first priority - they will make many a little bit worse off, but are utterly crucial for any hope of a prosperous future.
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    I agree that we need to make those changes but I think we will, just too late. And yet I still don’t think we’ll “give up all the gains” of the past 150 years.

rubyfan 8y ago

I have to agree it's been a great springboard and we should be doing more. I think the reality on the ground is that solar has only achieved attractive efficiency levels in most recent years. Similarly electric vehicle range and cost has only started to become achievable in recent years. Right or wrong nuclear has always had a perception of danger to it that the most people would say NIMBY. It's understandable there is still a thriving market in the developed world for petroleum fuels. I think we've finally reached a point now were the market is offering both individual and larger scale commercial/public energy solutions. It takes time for new infrastructure investment - it's lots of small efforts. Given the reality on the ground in most of the developed world I have to imagine it takes another 50 years to get to majority renewables. So what's a petroleum producing world power to do? Seems like ensuring a balance of power and energy production for the next 50 years of world development is a responsible thing to do.

nicholas73 8y ago

Solar or nuclear primarily generates electricity, which little oil is used for. They also have problems with supply/demand load balancing, and there isn't a good storage solution for that yet. Lastly, oil products have energy density that batteries are barely starting to be capable of. Tesla is just getting started, but the world will still need jet fuel.

bunnycorn 8y ago
> oil products have energy density that batteries are barely starting to be capable of Not even close, diesel/gasoline stores 35 MJ/l, a good battery (lithium-metal, much better than lithium-ion), 4.32 MJ/l Now, if only we could extract 90% of that diesel stored energy.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  If you can't actually extract it (because of limitations like Carnot efficiency, etc.), does it actually count? What's the real figure for usable energy in diesel?
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    Depends on what you are doing. An awful lot of energy consumption is just fine with waste heat, it doesn't need a heat engine. There you get 90% efficiency even with heating oil.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      If you need heating, the efficiency of an electricity-powered heat pump is around 300%, so batteries are actually competitive here.
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    diesel engines can exceed 45% efficiency [0], so lithium ion would have to more than triple in energy density to be competitive (using GP's numbers). that said, diesel is mainly used in large trucks and shipping vessels, where I would imagine energy per unit volume would be more important than energy per unit mass. if electricity were much cheaper than diesel fuel, it could certainly become the economic choice for all but the longest routes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine#Major_advantages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine#Major_advantages

drb91 8y ago

That’s not really “fair”, though, the positive aspects of oil will be severely tempered by the myriad effects of global warming.

ppseafield 8y ago

> We couldn't have done solar or nuclear instead of oil 100 years ago Well, as of the 70s we were doing both. Hell, Jimmy Carter even put solar panels up at the White House. (Reagan took them down.)

RobertoG 8y ago
Not only that, but: "An electric vehicle held the vehicular land speed record until around 1900." (from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicl...)
ars 8y ago
> even put solar panels up at the White House. They were not solar panels (for electricity), they were solar water heaters, and they didn't work very well, which is why they were taken down.