4 ms·

As an aside, I found this article the be spectacularly well written: > A central argument for fossil fuels’ continued dominance is that humanity will surpass 1

by ixtli 7y ago

As an aside, I found this article the be spectacularly well written: > A central argument for fossil fuels’ continued dominance is that humanity will surpass 10 billion at some point, and all those people will want something like the Western living standards built over the past 100 years on the back of coal, gas, and oil. Yet what a poverty of imagination this betrays, especially in light of climate change, which hits the poorest hardest. How can that be the pinnacle of civilization? What even constitutes “higher living standards” in a world where the costs of our existing technologies are so transparent? Far from securing hydrocarbon dominance for another 100 years, the needs and aspirations of future generations demand it give way to something more sustainable.

cardamomo 7y ago
I almost have goosebumps reading that passage. People's demand for (and right to) high living standards is truly a significant issue, but it's often framed in a way that derails anti-fossil fuel arguments. This reframes that, however, and offers a relevant critique of what "high living standards" is often assumed to imply.
- rexpop 7y ago
  > it's often framed in a way that derails anti-fossil fuel arguments. That's because it's framed deliberately by bad-faith energy-industrial proponents, and repeated by "useful innocents".
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
    Those "living under the poverty line of imagination", to stay within the article's elegant framing.
philipkglass 7y ago
When I go by the numbers it looks like there is easily room for enough renewable energy generation for everyone to consume energy services at "Western" rates. But a number of caveats: Energy production is the easier part. Storage is the harder part. It seems like renewable electricity storage is just now getting to the point of maturity that solar electricity production was 10-15 years ago. [1] The model Westerner in question is someone more like the median Dane than the median Texan. [2] Some forms of consumption are going to be limited by constraints other than CO2 emissions from energy. Ruminants emit too much methane for everyone to eat beef like Australians. There are not enough redwood trees for the world's populations to install redwood hot tubs like Californians used to. There is not enough usable space in Luzon for most of the population to have a large detached house even if there were clean energy for all those houses. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20595698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20595698 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_co... https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/ https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/
- aaron_m04 7y ago
  You might enjoy https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/how-much-energy-do-we-need.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/how-much-energy-do... And on the subject of energy storage: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-lights-on-redefining-energy-security.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-...
- csboyer 7y ago
  In the cited statistics, they may be conflating energy production/refining with consumption. In Europe, the Benelux region has much higher consumption then their neighbors. A bit surprising given similar weather, their love for bicycles and well developed train infrastructure. State side, Louisiana has a much higher consumption than rest of the deep South. Perhaps due to the small population and the oil & gas production off of the carcinogenic coast?
  - philipkglass 7y ago
    Louisiana has a large number of facilities that make chemicals and fuels from natural gas and crude oil. Those facilities dissipate much of the primary energy in the inputs in the course of making refined output products. I think that's where the high per capita figure comes from; it's e.g. energy losses in facilities making ethylene from fossil inputs, not the mere fact of extracting fossil fuels. Since that energy dissipation happens in facilities located within the state of Louisiana, staffed by Louisianans, I think it's fair to include those facilities in the per-capita statistics for Louisiana. The other popular perspective is that those figures really "belong" more to the end consumer than to the producer. I don't agree, for reasons both philosophical and pragmatic. Pragmatic: it is easier to track what happens in large production facilities than to track the ultimate retail fate of every gallon of gasoline coming from Louisiana refineries. Trying to trace production to millions of consumers instead of monitoring dozens of primary producers is a recipe for getting much less actionable data. Philosophical: producers are (IMO) more responsible for the efficiency/pollution of production than consumers are. A consumer has no way of telling at the point of sale how efficiently/cleanly the aluminum in a laptop or plastic in a bucket was produced. Primary producers reap the profits and make those process choices about production; it's also producers who should most face the criticism for wasteful or polluting practices.
marktangotango 7y ago
It was good, I found this part very enlightening: The same applies to the seas on which fossil fuels are shipped across the world. In June, Trump unleashed a tweeted torpedo at the Carter Doctrine when he questioned the U.S. Navy’s role in ensuring freedom of navigation, especially for oil tankers. Followed by: Absent the U.S. Navy policing sea lanes, it’s debatable whether oil-importing countries would have allowed themselves to rely on barrels shipped from the Middle East and other hot spots. It does seem strategically questionable when posed this way.
rrrazdan 7y ago
Perhaps the poorest have an incentive then to quickly burn fossil fuels to become not poor then. Perhaps that is what is China doing and what India should do. From my seat, the Western World brought us to this brink and isn't doing enough right now.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  Renewables are rapidly approaching cost parity. In energy generation, they have arguably already achieved it, even with existing(!) coal(!) power. And China is actually investing far more into clean energy than richer countries, both in absolute as well as relative terms. One of the reasons is the catastrophic pollution from manufacturing. Others are fuel independence and the goal of becoming a leading manufacturer.
perl4ever 7y ago
Something I don't see acknowledged in discussions like these, is that industrial energy usage isn't something that is distributed equally, and never will be, and never should be, because some industries use more or less, and people and geographic areas specialize. If you are going to run an aluminum smelter, you need a lot of power. An area where they don't have those, doesn't need anywhere near the amount of power per capita. But somebody has to produce aluminum if society is going to have it.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  That's why certificate/trading schemes are important: they allow all the costs of emissions to be levied onto the goods produced, making the (financial) costs of production, and therefore consumption, align with the environmental costs. That's better compared to, say, per-country emission goals.

by ixtli 7y ago

cardamomo 7y ago

I almost have goosebumps reading that passage. People's demand for (and right to) high living standards is truly a significant issue, but it's often framed in a way that derails anti-fossil fuel arguments. This reframes that, however, and offers a relevant critique of what "high living standards" is often assumed to imply.

rexpop 7y ago
> it's often framed in a way that derails anti-fossil fuel arguments. That's because it's framed deliberately by bad-faith energy-industrial proponents, and repeated by "useful innocents".
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  Those "living under the poverty line of imagination", to stay within the article's elegant framing.

philipkglass 7y ago

When I go by the numbers it looks like there is easily room for enough renewable energy generation for everyone to consume energy services at "Western" rates. But a number of caveats: Energy production is the easier part. Storage is the harder part. It seems like renewable electricity storage is just now getting to the point of maturity that solar electricity production was 10-15 years ago. [1] The model Westerner in question is someone more like the median Dane than the median Texan. [2] Some forms of consumption are going to be limited by constraints other than CO2 emissions from energy. Ruminants emit too much methane for everyone to eat beef like Australians. There are not enough redwood trees for the world's populations to install redwood hot tubs like Californians used to. There is not enough usable space in Luzon for most of the population to have a large detached house even if there were clean energy for all those houses. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20595698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20595698 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_co... https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/ https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/

aaron_m04 7y ago
You might enjoy https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/how-much-energy-do-we-need.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/how-much-energy-do... And on the subject of energy storage: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-lights-on-redefining-energy-security.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-...
csboyer 7y ago
In the cited statistics, they may be conflating energy production/refining with consumption. In Europe, the Benelux region has much higher consumption then their neighbors. A bit surprising given similar weather, their love for bicycles and well developed train infrastructure. State side, Louisiana has a much higher consumption than rest of the deep South. Perhaps due to the small population and the oil & gas production off of the carcinogenic coast?
- philipkglass 7y ago
  Louisiana has a large number of facilities that make chemicals and fuels from natural gas and crude oil. Those facilities dissipate much of the primary energy in the inputs in the course of making refined output products. I think that's where the high per capita figure comes from; it's e.g. energy losses in facilities making ethylene from fossil inputs, not the mere fact of extracting fossil fuels. Since that energy dissipation happens in facilities located within the state of Louisiana, staffed by Louisianans, I think it's fair to include those facilities in the per-capita statistics for Louisiana. The other popular perspective is that those figures really "belong" more to the end consumer than to the producer. I don't agree, for reasons both philosophical and pragmatic. Pragmatic: it is easier to track what happens in large production facilities than to track the ultimate retail fate of every gallon of gasoline coming from Louisiana refineries. Trying to trace production to millions of consumers instead of monitoring dozens of primary producers is a recipe for getting much less actionable data. Philosophical: producers are (IMO) more responsible for the efficiency/pollution of production than consumers are. A consumer has no way of telling at the point of sale how efficiently/cleanly the aluminum in a laptop or plastic in a bucket was produced. Primary producers reap the profits and make those process choices about production; it's also producers who should most face the criticism for wasteful or polluting practices.

marktangotango 7y ago

It was good, I found this part very enlightening: The same applies to the seas on which fossil fuels are shipped across the world. In June, Trump unleashed a tweeted torpedo at the Carter Doctrine when he questioned the U.S. Navy’s role in ensuring freedom of navigation, especially for oil tankers. Followed by: Absent the U.S. Navy policing sea lanes, it’s debatable whether oil-importing countries would have allowed themselves to rely on barrels shipped from the Middle East and other hot spots. It does seem strategically questionable when posed this way.

rrrazdan 7y ago

Perhaps the poorest have an incentive then to quickly burn fossil fuels to become not poor then. Perhaps that is what is China doing and what India should do. From my seat, the Western World brought us to this brink and isn't doing enough right now.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
Renewables are rapidly approaching cost parity. In energy generation, they have arguably already achieved it, even with existing(!) coal(!) power. And China is actually investing far more into clean energy than richer countries, both in absolute as well as relative terms. One of the reasons is the catastrophic pollution from manufacturing. Others are fuel independence and the goal of becoming a leading manufacturer.

perl4ever 7y ago

Something I don't see acknowledged in discussions like these, is that industrial energy usage isn't something that is distributed equally, and never will be, and never should be, because some industries use more or less, and people and geographic areas specialize. If you are going to run an aluminum smelter, you need a lot of power. An area where they don't have those, doesn't need anywhere near the amount of power per capita. But somebody has to produce aluminum if society is going to have it.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
That's why certificate/trading schemes are important: they allow all the costs of emissions to be levied onto the goods produced, making the (financial) costs of production, and therefore consumption, align with the environmental costs. That's better compared to, say, per-country emission goals.