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>But renewables are scientifically a solved problem I don't think so. Whenever there is huge investment in solar and wind, you see a comparable investment in n

>But renewables are scientifically a solved problem I don't think so. Whenever there is huge investment in solar and wind, you see a comparable investment in natural gas to bridge the intermittency issues (e.g. Germany). That isn't a solved problem. That solar and wind require huge amounts of rare earth minerals, have huge land-use requirements, and are largely unrecyclable, is not a solved problem. >For the last 10% You sure that shouldn't be the 'last 50%'? >so you need synthetic gas for long term storage of ener These discussions always seem to go this way. When presented with major challenges to large scale deployments of solar and wind, an unproven, unavailable or unworkable workaround is propsed. No, synthetic gas is not a solution, just like pumped/gravity or Li-ion storage isn't either. >The technical hurdles are all doable To be clear, this is an expression of hope for the future (after more R&D), and not reality today, correct? Today, we don't have a way to fully move off of fossil fuels. >It's disruptive, powerful lobbies have been funding climate denialism There are powerful lobbies all over the place. For example, did you know that natural gas companies are one of the biggest lobby groups for solar and wind deployments? Why is that?

Scarblac 7y ago
Even though all that is true, in reality our output of CO2 is still increasing. The scientific problems that remain are so far away from our current effort that the question of whether it's the last 10% or last 50% is almost irrelevant.
keanzu 7y ago
> Today, we don't have a way to fully move off of fossil fuels. If we are talking just electrical grid power then Sweden is 95% there on a mix of nuclear and hydro. Edit: I acknowledge that hydro only works if the geography gods have been extremely kind.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  Yes! So is my home province (http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html). No point in investing in solar and wind here (but we still do because it makes people feel good) Hydro and geothermal is great if you have the right geography. Nuclear works everywhere. Places that achieved this level of carbon-free emissions always have a mix of some or all three technologies, like my province, Sweden, Costa Rica, France, and unlike Germany (which doubled down on solar and wind and Russian natural gas).
ZeroGravitas 7y ago
That's a good summary of all the arguments made by the people who denied it was happening while talking to any audience that would buy that line when they're talking to slightly more sophisticated rubes. But it's not based in facts, it's just a collection of false talking points. No one who brings up rare earth in these discussions cares about that issue. Usually they don't even understand or care why they're called rare earths. But people are still denying it's even happening, others are arguing it's a good thing so we should expect people to trot out well rehearsed lies on the proposed solutions too. I don't understand why anyone would want to do that, but again it's plainly clear that's what's happening and pretending it's not isn't going to help anything. The benefit of the doubt has been sorely abused by the "skeptics" in this matter, and now they want to be "skeptical" of the solutions to the problem they claimed didn't exist. Well mark me down as "skeptical" of these so-called skeptics. In particular this line about the evil gas lobby being behind the push for solar and wind is the most cynical lie I've heard in a long time.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  > I don't understand why anyone would want to do that Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway covers that pretty comprehensively. Often it is the very same think tanks, PR agencies, and people who are quoted "the science isn't certain" across decades and multiple damaging products and activities. Sowing doubt is their service, built out into a career. The common factor appears to be an irrational fear of any and all regulation - no matter how necessary.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >But it's not based in facts, it's just a collection of false talking points That's not true and unfair. Believe it or not, I want to be proven wrong. I want somebody to walk me through what a end-goal for our ideal energy mix is, preferably without casually throwing it that we just need to create a new exotic battery technology. The most hopeful proposals always put in something in the fine-print like burning some carbon-emitting fuel, like 'biofuels' (i.e. burning garbage or corn) to work around intermittency issues of solar and wind. That's how I got disillusioned with solar(and wind) being the answer to climate change. Then there's Germany (and California to a lesser extent), huge economic regions that are a great test bed for large-scale deployments. Germany is signing multi-decade deals to build NEW pipelines to ship natural gas and isn't expected to be carbon free until 2060s (i.e. never). Both Germany and California are importing fossil fuel-based electricity from neighbours to plug holes in their grids. Meanwhile, France is basically carbon-free for energy generetion, without much solar and wind. Also, you haven't actually said which part is wrong. Just that it's wrong. Can you make an effort? >No one who brings up rare earth in these discussions cares about that issue. I think there's a level of hopeful and overly positive thinking around what solar panels can be to the point where it is cult-like. Why can't you be skeptical of solar energy? I'm not denying climate change, or the need to minimize carbon emissions. I'm skeptical of solar and wind as a modality for that change. There are major challenges with scaling solar deployments past a certain point due to the fact that solar energy is highly diffuse, intermittent and variable (across seasons and years). I agree, the material requirements are a secondary consideration, but let's be clear, if you're going to scale solar to being something like 50% of global energy mix, those are important considerations. >But people are still denying it's even happening There are people like that, but they aren't the problem because we don't have a real solution anyway. The people that are spreading FUD on nuclear are the real problem. If Western world doubled-down on nuclear power to the same level as France in the 60s and 70s think of the trillions of tons of CO2 that would not have been emitted. So is the anti-nuke movement or conservative climate change denials that is worse for climate change?
Certhas 7y ago
Natural gas is a sensible bridging technology. But there is no lobby comparable to the oil lobby for anything anywhere. > These discussions always seem to go this way. When presented with major challenges to large scale deployments of solar and wind, an unproven, unavailable or unworkable workaround is propsed. No, synthetic gas is not a solution, just like pumped/gravity or Li-ion storage isn't either. Explain how synthetic gas storage wouldn't work? It has a shit efficiency, but if we are willing to stomach a 50% increase in electricity prices and made the land available, we can build fully renewable systems today. In fact we do, on islands, where electricity prices are much higher to start with. Again, it's not a technical problem. It's only a technical problem if you add the political constraint that you have to save the planet without hurting any established economic interests. This is different for other industrial processes which are harder to decarbonize, but right now we are not incentivizing the necessary R&D into these processes. On the substance the rest of your points don't really hold. There are efficient wind turbines without rare earths for example. And if we start building carbon neutral technologies prices will come down. Most dramatically so they did for solar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law So the completely ridiculous incentives to build solar home systems in Germany in the 90s created a market that was neither efficient, nor lead to very many CO2 savings. But it ended up bringing the break even point, where solar is cheaper than coal, forward by many years. And organizations like the IEA continue to get all of this really consistently fundamentally wrong: https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1064529619951513600 https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1064529619951513600

Scarblac 7y ago

Even though all that is true, in reality our output of CO2 is still increasing. The scientific problems that remain are so far away from our current effort that the question of whether it's the last 10% or last 50% is almost irrelevant.

keanzu 7y ago

> Today, we don't have a way to fully move off of fossil fuels. If we are talking just electrical grid power then Sweden is 95% there on a mix of nuclear and hydro. Edit: I acknowledge that hydro only works if the geography gods have been extremely kind.

macspoofing 7y ago
Yes! So is my home province (http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html). No point in investing in solar and wind here (but we still do because it makes people feel good) Hydro and geothermal is great if you have the right geography. Nuclear works everywhere. Places that achieved this level of carbon-free emissions always have a mix of some or all three technologies, like my province, Sweden, Costa Rica, France, and unlike Germany (which doubled down on solar and wind and Russian natural gas).

ZeroGravitas 7y ago

That's a good summary of all the arguments made by the people who denied it was happening while talking to any audience that would buy that line when they're talking to slightly more sophisticated rubes. But it's not based in facts, it's just a collection of false talking points. No one who brings up rare earth in these discussions cares about that issue. Usually they don't even understand or care why they're called rare earths. But people are still denying it's even happening, others are arguing it's a good thing so we should expect people to trot out well rehearsed lies on the proposed solutions too. I don't understand why anyone would want to do that, but again it's plainly clear that's what's happening and pretending it's not isn't going to help anything. The benefit of the doubt has been sorely abused by the "skeptics" in this matter, and now they want to be "skeptical" of the solutions to the problem they claimed didn't exist. Well mark me down as "skeptical" of these so-called skeptics. In particular this line about the evil gas lobby being behind the push for solar and wind is the most cynical lie I've heard in a long time.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
> I don't understand why anyone would want to do that Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway covers that pretty comprehensively. Often it is the very same think tanks, PR agencies, and people who are quoted "the science isn't certain" across decades and multiple damaging products and activities. Sowing doubt is their service, built out into a career. The common factor appears to be an irrational fear of any and all regulation - no matter how necessary.
macspoofing 7y ago
>But it's not based in facts, it's just a collection of false talking points That's not true and unfair. Believe it or not, I want to be proven wrong. I want somebody to walk me through what a end-goal for our ideal energy mix is, preferably without casually throwing it that we just need to create a new exotic battery technology. The most hopeful proposals always put in something in the fine-print like burning some carbon-emitting fuel, like 'biofuels' (i.e. burning garbage or corn) to work around intermittency issues of solar and wind. That's how I got disillusioned with solar(and wind) being the answer to climate change. Then there's Germany (and California to a lesser extent), huge economic regions that are a great test bed for large-scale deployments. Germany is signing multi-decade deals to build NEW pipelines to ship natural gas and isn't expected to be carbon free until 2060s (i.e. never). Both Germany and California are importing fossil fuel-based electricity from neighbours to plug holes in their grids. Meanwhile, France is basically carbon-free for energy generetion, without much solar and wind. Also, you haven't actually said which part is wrong. Just that it's wrong. Can you make an effort? >No one who brings up rare earth in these discussions cares about that issue. I think there's a level of hopeful and overly positive thinking around what solar panels can be to the point where it is cult-like. Why can't you be skeptical of solar energy? I'm not denying climate change, or the need to minimize carbon emissions. I'm skeptical of solar and wind as a modality for that change. There are major challenges with scaling solar deployments past a certain point due to the fact that solar energy is highly diffuse, intermittent and variable (across seasons and years). I agree, the material requirements are a secondary consideration, but let's be clear, if you're going to scale solar to being something like 50% of global energy mix, those are important considerations. >But people are still denying it's even happening There are people like that, but they aren't the problem because we don't have a real solution anyway. The people that are spreading FUD on nuclear are the real problem. If Western world doubled-down on nuclear power to the same level as France in the 60s and 70s think of the trillions of tons of CO2 that would not have been emitted. So is the anti-nuke movement or conservative climate change denials that is worse for climate change?

Certhas 7y ago

Natural gas is a sensible bridging technology. But there is no lobby comparable to the oil lobby for anything anywhere. > These discussions always seem to go this way. When presented with major challenges to large scale deployments of solar and wind, an unproven, unavailable or unworkable workaround is propsed. No, synthetic gas is not a solution, just like pumped/gravity or Li-ion storage isn't either. Explain how synthetic gas storage wouldn't work? It has a shit efficiency, but if we are willing to stomach a 50% increase in electricity prices and made the land available, we can build fully renewable systems today. In fact we do, on islands, where electricity prices are much higher to start with. Again, it's not a technical problem. It's only a technical problem if you add the political constraint that you have to save the planet without hurting any established economic interests. This is different for other industrial processes which are harder to decarbonize, but right now we are not incentivizing the necessary R&D into these processes. On the substance the rest of your points don't really hold. There are efficient wind turbines without rare earths for example. And if we start building carbon neutral technologies prices will come down. Most dramatically so they did for solar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law So the completely ridiculous incentives to build solar home systems in Germany in the 90s created a market that was neither efficient, nor lead to very many CO2 savings. But it ended up bringing the break even point, where solar is cheaper than coal, forward by many years. And organizations like the IEA continue to get all of this really consistently fundamentally wrong: https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1064529619951513600 https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1064529619951513600