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> That's not the right metric. I guess that opinion comes down to whether you think Climate Change is an existential threat to our civilisation or not. If you

> That's not the right metric. I guess that opinion comes down to whether you think Climate Change is an existential threat to our civilisation or not. If you are of the opinion that it is then costs be damned and build everything: Renewables, Storage, Nuclear. If we end up with more power than we need then we can shutdown excess or funnel that into powering carbon capture technologies if we ever get there. If you are not of the opinion then current economics, as you have described, rule the day.

MapleWalnut 8y ago
It's always going to be a matter of economics.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- godelski 8y ago
  Climate is a matter of economics though. The difference is that the cost is in the future. That's why the poster was talking about the cost of climate and if you consider it an existential crisis. I guess it also matters if you care about current costs vs future costs.
  - rurounijones 8y ago
    As a sidenote. I also have trouble understanding the mindset of people who argue purely on economic basis. It seems that telling out grandchildren "Sorry you inherited a ruined climate, but we didn't want to spend the money at the time to avoid it" is a rational decision. (And hey, maybe some people think it is; but I can't)
    - godelski 8y ago
      I honestly think they fall into one of 2 camps: 1) They don't believe in anthropocentric climate change (probably deflecting by taking this stance) 2) They don't believe the economic destructive power of climate change. Be that by disbelief, thinking it is over stated, or just not being good at thinking about the future (which a lot of humans aren't. We're terrible at it)
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        There are two issues here. One is, are we currently pricing carbon appropriately? And obviously not. But if we did then it would be an economic issue -- make emitting carbon more expensive than alternatives and people would naturally gravitate to alternatives. But then we have the second issue, which is that we don't want the alternatives to be significantly more expensive than the status quo, and we may want to take some steps to ensure that. If you tax carbon and so people switch to renewables and batteries and figure out how to make it scale efficiently, everything is fine. If not, people would then turn to nuclear because it would still be less than paying the carbon tax. But if we wait to start building nuclear plants until after we've already established whether or not renewables can handle the entire grid, and then it turns out they can't, that could be problematic, because then you've waited too long. It's a hedge. If we fix the nuclear regulations to remove the most egregious of the cost-wasting portions and start building nuclear plants now, and then we don't need them because renewables fully succeed, energy will cost modestly more than it would have. Or the investors in nuclear would lose money in that case. Whereas if we don't, and then we do need them, energy would cost dramatically more than it would have because of the shortfall. And as a result people would be inclined to pay the carbon tax, or repeal it, and then we get catastrophic climate change. When "need it and not have it" is literally the end of the world, better to have it and not need it. That seems like a worthwhile hedge.
        rurounijones 8y ago
        You explained and expanded on my thoughts brilliantly, cheers.
        olau 8y ago
        We already know that renewables can handle the entire grid. There are plenty of papers out there exploring this matter. What we don't know yet is exactly what particular technologies we're going to end up with, especially for the last few percentage points. Probably a mix depending on location. The reason for we don't know it is that wind and solar costs have been falling exponentially for many years now, while short-term storage is only now heating up and long-term storage not yet really started (well, except hydro). We know tech that can be used, we know an upper bound on the cost (not prohibitively expensive), but anyone trying to look 10-20 years out in such a rapidly developing cut-throat market are basically just guessing. 10 years ago I was thinking we'd probably have to pay somewhat more for energy, perhaps up to 50%-100%. But in 2014 the Danish energy oversight body (Energistyrelsen) did a complicated analysis that said around 5% more in Denmark. And it didn't take more than a couple of years for their projected 2030 cost of offshore wind turbines to be reached by the market, more than a decade before anticipated. So I'm beginning to think energy is probably going to be cheaper, perhaps a lot cheaper.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Not as much as you think. When countries decide that there is an existential threat that they must fight, they can mobilize enormous resources. Look at what happened during the last World War. Imagine what we could do if we decided that Global Warming is as much of a threat as Germany was in 1939.
pdonis 8y ago
> I guess that opinion comes down to whether you think Climate Change is an existential threat to our civilisation or not. Not necessarily. I don't think climate change is an existential threat to our civilization; human civilization has already dealt with problems much bigger than the average temperature going up by a couple of degrees and sea level rising a couple of feet. (Personally, I think the biggest existential threat to human civilization comes from humans with false beliefs and too much political power.) And yet, I think nuclear energy should be a no-brainer. (I have no problem with renewables or storage either; I just don't think they can provide enough reliable base load power by themselves.) Why? Because we need to stop buying foreign oil for national security reasons. Which is not an economic reason--economically speaking, oil is still pretty cheap--but I still think it's a good one.
- bogle 8y ago
  > already dealt with problems much bigger than the average temperature going up by a couple of degrees and sea level rising a couple of feet With respect, I think you may be underselling the effects! The chaotic knock-on of species loss; water pressures causing human migration; a loss of half of the ice on the third pole (the Himalayas) that provides water to over a billion people; acidification of the oceans. We could go on but the point I'd like to hammer home is this isn't anything at all like the previous crises in our brief 60k year sojourn: the anthropocene is an apocalyptic event that will wipe out half of the species on earth (probably).
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > this isn't anything at all like the previous crises in our brief 60k year sojourn We do not know that this is true. Alarmists claim it, but they have no evidence to back it up. For example, we don't know what the ice in the Himalayas was like, say, 6000 years ago. We do know that as glaciers are retreating now, they are uncovering evidence of human habitation in many mountain areas, which is evidence that there have been previous warm periods where there was no ice there as well. That is evidence against the claim you are making. But you don't hear about that from alarmists.

MapleWalnut 8y ago

It's always going to be a matter of economics.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
godelski 8y ago
Climate is a matter of economics though. The difference is that the cost is in the future. That's why the poster was talking about the cost of climate and if you consider it an existential crisis. I guess it also matters if you care about current costs vs future costs.
- rurounijones 8y ago
  As a sidenote. I also have trouble understanding the mindset of people who argue purely on economic basis. It seems that telling out grandchildren "Sorry you inherited a ruined climate, but we didn't want to spend the money at the time to avoid it" is a rational decision. (And hey, maybe some people think it is; but I can't)
  - godelski 8y ago
    I honestly think they fall into one of 2 camps: 1) They don't believe in anthropocentric climate change (probably deflecting by taking this stance) 2) They don't believe the economic destructive power of climate change. Be that by disbelief, thinking it is over stated, or just not being good at thinking about the future (which a lot of humans aren't. We're terrible at it)
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      There are two issues here. One is, are we currently pricing carbon appropriately? And obviously not. But if we did then it would be an economic issue -- make emitting carbon more expensive than alternatives and people would naturally gravitate to alternatives. But then we have the second issue, which is that we don't want the alternatives to be significantly more expensive than the status quo, and we may want to take some steps to ensure that. If you tax carbon and so people switch to renewables and batteries and figure out how to make it scale efficiently, everything is fine. If not, people would then turn to nuclear because it would still be less than paying the carbon tax. But if we wait to start building nuclear plants until after we've already established whether or not renewables can handle the entire grid, and then it turns out they can't, that could be problematic, because then you've waited too long. It's a hedge. If we fix the nuclear regulations to remove the most egregious of the cost-wasting portions and start building nuclear plants now, and then we don't need them because renewables fully succeed, energy will cost modestly more than it would have. Or the investors in nuclear would lose money in that case. Whereas if we don't, and then we do need them, energy would cost dramatically more than it would have because of the shortfall. And as a result people would be inclined to pay the carbon tax, or repeal it, and then we get catastrophic climate change. When "need it and not have it" is literally the end of the world, better to have it and not need it. That seems like a worthwhile hedge.
      - rurounijones 8y ago
        You explained and expanded on my thoughts brilliantly, cheers.
      - olau 8y ago
        We already know that renewables can handle the entire grid. There are plenty of papers out there exploring this matter. What we don't know yet is exactly what particular technologies we're going to end up with, especially for the last few percentage points. Probably a mix depending on location. The reason for we don't know it is that wind and solar costs have been falling exponentially for many years now, while short-term storage is only now heating up and long-term storage not yet really started (well, except hydro). We know tech that can be used, we know an upper bound on the cost (not prohibitively expensive), but anyone trying to look 10-20 years out in such a rapidly developing cut-throat market are basically just guessing. 10 years ago I was thinking we'd probably have to pay somewhat more for energy, perhaps up to 50%-100%. But in 2014 the Danish energy oversight body (Energistyrelsen) did a complicated analysis that said around 5% more in Denmark. And it didn't take more than a couple of years for their projected 2030 cost of offshore wind turbines to be reached by the market, more than a decade before anticipated. So I'm beginning to think energy is probably going to be cheaper, perhaps a lot cheaper.
adrianN 8y ago
Not as much as you think. When countries decide that there is an existential threat that they must fight, they can mobilize enormous resources. Look at what happened during the last World War. Imagine what we could do if we decided that Global Warming is as much of a threat as Germany was in 1939.

pdonis 8y ago

> I guess that opinion comes down to whether you think Climate Change is an existential threat to our civilisation or not. Not necessarily. I don't think climate change is an existential threat to our civilization; human civilization has already dealt with problems much bigger than the average temperature going up by a couple of degrees and sea level rising a couple of feet. (Personally, I think the biggest existential threat to human civilization comes from humans with false beliefs and too much political power.) And yet, I think nuclear energy should be a no-brainer. (I have no problem with renewables or storage either; I just don't think they can provide enough reliable base load power by themselves.) Why? Because we need to stop buying foreign oil for national security reasons. Which is not an economic reason--economically speaking, oil is still pretty cheap--but I still think it's a good one.

bogle 8y ago
> already dealt with problems much bigger than the average temperature going up by a couple of degrees and sea level rising a couple of feet With respect, I think you may be underselling the effects! The chaotic knock-on of species loss; water pressures causing human migration; a loss of half of the ice on the third pole (the Himalayas) that provides water to over a billion people; acidification of the oceans. We could go on but the point I'd like to hammer home is this isn't anything at all like the previous crises in our brief 60k year sojourn: the anthropocene is an apocalyptic event that will wipe out half of the species on earth (probably).
- pdonis 8y ago
  > this isn't anything at all like the previous crises in our brief 60k year sojourn We do not know that this is true. Alarmists claim it, but they have no evidence to back it up. For example, we don't know what the ice in the Himalayas was like, say, 6000 years ago. We do know that as glaciers are retreating now, they are uncovering evidence of human habitation in many mountain areas, which is evidence that there have been previous warm periods where there was no ice there as well. That is evidence against the claim you are making. But you don't hear about that from alarmists.