7 ms·

The world won't hit climate goals unless energy innovation rapidly accelerated

43 points by makerofspoons 6y ago

Johnjonjoan 6y ago
I think as a civilisation we should be putting 20% of global resources into energy research. Every leap we've made has been preceded by increased energy. Whether that's the tools that allowed us to be more efficient with energy when hunting etc, agriculture that gave enough energy to sustain large work forces or the technologies that have created enough energy to shift production away from human labor. If we really want to progress as a civilisation I believe we should be primarily chasing energy production increases which are not damaging. The rest will just happen as people aren't constrained by the previous energy limits and can do things that were previously not viable.
freezing_coffee 6y ago
Actually like how they don't pitch focusing a beam of sunlight as AI when the moderator insinuates it - they correctly say software :) But high temperature heat is only part of the process for cement making, most of the CO2 (60%) is actually released by the the calcium carbonate [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement#CO2_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement#CO2_emissions].
perfunctory 6y ago
> "Failure to accelerate progress now," the IEA report said, "risks pushing the transition to net-zero emissions further into the future." And pushing the transition into the future is a problem, because...? I begin to take issue with this kind of language. It does not say much to a casual reader. I believe the time for this overly polite, overly cautious language is over. How about "Failure to accelerate progress now risks to end human civilisation as we know it."
- breakyerself 6y ago
  Completely agree. It's time to stop coddling the public about the potential risks that will come from bad policy today. For a second there I thought you were going to argue that it's okay to push the transition further into the future. I was relieved to be wrong about that.
- frabbit 6y ago
  The idea that we can accelerate progress without having any realistic prospect of magical future technologies to produce power is part of the problem. The most likely way to meet targets is in reduction of energy consumption. That is the one thing that this current economic system is not set up to do. Dreaming of some non-concrete, unbounded, inchoate blueskies solution while ignoring living patterns and modes which could be changed to improve their efficiency is reckless. The simple list is well-known, but apparently taboo due to cultural fixations in the West against centralized planning: automobile abuse; aeroplane abuse; irrational distribution of workers geographically from their workplaces; over-consumption of meat and dairy; poorly insulated housing; overpopulation(1) 1. Please do not bother re-iterating tired arguments about racism for this last point -- it is blindingly obvious that the elevation of consumptions patterns in the rest of the world to those in the West is a non-starter if we want to fix this problem. Just because some racists are delighted at the idea because they imagine population reduction does not involve Western countries does not mean that racist motives are the only impetus here. Similarly the consequence of not fixing this problem are predicted by many to have exaggerated effects on the very areas you are concerned with.
  - voisin 6y ago
    > Dreaming of some non-concrete, unbounded, inchoate blueskies solution while ignoring living patterns and modes which could be changed to improve their efficiency is reckless. I don’t think this is what is needed. We know the solutions - we just need to institute them. Nuclear, solar, wind, wave, etc. Massive incentives to transition to EVs, solar mandated on every new house and incentives for retrofits, etc etc. We need a coordinated plan to attack this the same way we have worldwide (ex-USA) attacked Covid19.
    - frabbit 6y ago
      I know we are not supposed to comment on voting here, but I would appeal to whoever is voting this response down to please consider making a reasoned rebuttal of it instead. Down-voting is supposed to be for something that is just complete noise. This comment is just a disagreement with my post. Hardly grounds for voting it down. I disagree with the post because although I am in favour of all the initiatives suggested in it I suspect they are insufficient in the face of an economic system which is designed to keep expanding and growing. In addition: Nuclear power carries huge risks with it (which may become proportionally preferrable to climate destruction) Solar is useful only for some parts of the world. We lose massive amounts of energy in transmission from generation to consumption. Storage is still a huge problem. All of the above suggests that unless some realistic solutions for storage and transmission are on the table we need to shift manufacturing and consumption closer to the energy sources. Historically civilizations have clustered around such energy centers. The small (but real) gains available from meat-consumption reduction and gasoline-consumption reduction start to look significant.
rtx 6y ago
We don't need more innovation. It can be solved in a day if green activists stop protesting nuclear. These pseudo environmentalist are more unscientific than flat earthers. What does HN think who is financing this anti nuclear and pro solar movement.
- breakyerself 6y ago
  I think co2 should have a cost associated with it and whatever technology is best in a given situation will be used. I have nothing against nuclear, but it isn't a silver bullet. Mandating nuclear is likely just as bad a move as mandating solar. I've also seen anti-nuclear activists pondering who paid off pro-nuckear climate activists. There are likely very few people being paid off on either side. It's silly to me the bad faith both sides have. People can think differently without being sold out.
- burlesona 6y ago
  Two questions: (1) Why does pro-solar have to be anti-nuclear? (2) How quickly can nuclear reactors and associated transmission lines be built, and at what cost? My understanding is we’ve reached the point where solar and wind are quite cheap (cheaper than nuclear) and rapidly getting cheaper. We still need to solve the storage issue, but things on that front are progressing quickly. I am certainly in favor of nuclear power where it makes sense, but again as I understand it the situations where nuclear is more economical are rapidly decreasing. Perhaps it’s better for society to “skate to where the puck is going?” Or perhaps I am incorrect about the economics?
  - cipher_system 6y ago
    Yes nuclear is expensive at the moment but we are hardly building any new reactors. Lets say that society could research and engineer a mass producable reactor type safe enough to be politically viable and set the goal to replace fossil fuels as fast as possible. What would the cost be then?
- the_gastropod 6y ago
  I know this is a common refrain, but it’s not based in actual science. Check out MIT’s EN-ROADS project [1] and see what a tiny difference full nuclear funding actually makes. Aside: accusing people of being unscientific while proposing a very complicated issue could “be solved in a day” kind of calls into question your credibility. [1] https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.19 https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....
lcam84 6y ago
The only way to achieve climate change goals is to accept degrowth of the economy GDP. Some months ago a climate change dashboard appeared in HN. I played with the variables but it was not possible to decrease the CO2 level significantly. Then I notice that we could only play with economic growth bettewen 0 and 3.4. I made a copy of the site to let negative growth and that was the only way I get visible effects on climate. Edit: this is the tool that I'm talking https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.19 https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....
RickJWagner 6y ago
I'm amazed at how little has been said about climate change in this year's American election cycle. Maybe it'll come up later. For now, it's been pretty quiet.
- Ghjklov 6y ago
  The Democratic Party did kill off two of the guys who could've had something to say about it...(Sanders and Yang) Now we have to pick between two sleazy old guys who are arguably two sides of the same coin.

43 points by makerofspoons 6y ago

I think as a civilisation we should be putting 20% of global resources into energy research. Every leap we've made has been preceded by increased energy. Whether that's the tools that allowed us to be more efficient with energy when hunting etc, agriculture that gave enough energy to sustain large work forces or the technologies that have created enough energy to shift production away from human labor. If we really want to progress as a civilisation I believe we should be primarily chasing energy production increases which are not damaging. The rest will just happen as people aren't constrained by the previous energy limits and can do things that were previously not viable.

freezing_coffee 6y ago

Actually like how they don't pitch focusing a beam of sunlight as AI when the moderator insinuates it - they correctly say software :) But high temperature heat is only part of the process for cement making, most of the CO2 (60%) is actually released by the the calcium carbonate [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement#CO2_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement#CO2_emissions].

perfunctory 6y ago

> "Failure to accelerate progress now," the IEA report said, "risks pushing the transition to net-zero emissions further into the future." And pushing the transition into the future is a problem, because...? I begin to take issue with this kind of language. It does not say much to a casual reader. I believe the time for this overly polite, overly cautious language is over. How about "Failure to accelerate progress now risks to end human civilisation as we know it."

breakyerself 6y ago
Completely agree. It's time to stop coddling the public about the potential risks that will come from bad policy today. For a second there I thought you were going to argue that it's okay to push the transition further into the future. I was relieved to be wrong about that.
frabbit 6y ago
The idea that we can accelerate progress without having any realistic prospect of magical future technologies to produce power is part of the problem. The most likely way to meet targets is in reduction of energy consumption. That is the one thing that this current economic system is not set up to do. Dreaming of some non-concrete, unbounded, inchoate blueskies solution while ignoring living patterns and modes which could be changed to improve their efficiency is reckless. The simple list is well-known, but apparently taboo due to cultural fixations in the West against centralized planning: automobile abuse; aeroplane abuse; irrational distribution of workers geographically from their workplaces; over-consumption of meat and dairy; poorly insulated housing; overpopulation(1) 1. Please do not bother re-iterating tired arguments about racism for this last point -- it is blindingly obvious that the elevation of consumptions patterns in the rest of the world to those in the West is a non-starter if we want to fix this problem. Just because some racists are delighted at the idea because they imagine population reduction does not involve Western countries does not mean that racist motives are the only impetus here. Similarly the consequence of not fixing this problem are predicted by many to have exaggerated effects on the very areas you are concerned with.
- voisin 6y ago
  > Dreaming of some non-concrete, unbounded, inchoate blueskies solution while ignoring living patterns and modes which could be changed to improve their efficiency is reckless. I don’t think this is what is needed. We know the solutions - we just need to institute them. Nuclear, solar, wind, wave, etc. Massive incentives to transition to EVs, solar mandated on every new house and incentives for retrofits, etc etc. We need a coordinated plan to attack this the same way we have worldwide (ex-USA) attacked Covid19.
  - frabbit 6y ago
    I know we are not supposed to comment on voting here, but I would appeal to whoever is voting this response down to please consider making a reasoned rebuttal of it instead. Down-voting is supposed to be for something that is just complete noise. This comment is just a disagreement with my post. Hardly grounds for voting it down. I disagree with the post because although I am in favour of all the initiatives suggested in it I suspect they are insufficient in the face of an economic system which is designed to keep expanding and growing. In addition: Nuclear power carries huge risks with it (which may become proportionally preferrable to climate destruction) Solar is useful only for some parts of the world. We lose massive amounts of energy in transmission from generation to consumption. Storage is still a huge problem. All of the above suggests that unless some realistic solutions for storage and transmission are on the table we need to shift manufacturing and consumption closer to the energy sources. Historically civilizations have clustered around such energy centers. The small (but real) gains available from meat-consumption reduction and gasoline-consumption reduction start to look significant.

rtx 6y ago

We don't need more innovation. It can be solved in a day if green activists stop protesting nuclear. These pseudo environmentalist are more unscientific than flat earthers. What does HN think who is financing this anti nuclear and pro solar movement.

breakyerself 6y ago
I think co2 should have a cost associated with it and whatever technology is best in a given situation will be used. I have nothing against nuclear, but it isn't a silver bullet. Mandating nuclear is likely just as bad a move as mandating solar. I've also seen anti-nuclear activists pondering who paid off pro-nuckear climate activists. There are likely very few people being paid off on either side. It's silly to me the bad faith both sides have. People can think differently without being sold out.
burlesona 6y ago
Two questions: (1) Why does pro-solar have to be anti-nuclear? (2) How quickly can nuclear reactors and associated transmission lines be built, and at what cost? My understanding is we’ve reached the point where solar and wind are quite cheap (cheaper than nuclear) and rapidly getting cheaper. We still need to solve the storage issue, but things on that front are progressing quickly. I am certainly in favor of nuclear power where it makes sense, but again as I understand it the situations where nuclear is more economical are rapidly decreasing. Perhaps it’s better for society to “skate to where the puck is going?” Or perhaps I am incorrect about the economics?
- cipher_system 6y ago
  Yes nuclear is expensive at the moment but we are hardly building any new reactors. Lets say that society could research and engineer a mass producable reactor type safe enough to be politically viable and set the goal to replace fossil fuels as fast as possible. What would the cost be then?
the_gastropod 6y ago
I know this is a common refrain, but it’s not based in actual science. Check out MIT’s EN-ROADS project [1] and see what a tiny difference full nuclear funding actually makes. Aside: accusing people of being unscientific while proposing a very complicated issue could “be solved in a day” kind of calls into question your credibility. [1] https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.19 https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....

lcam84 6y ago

The only way to achieve climate change goals is to accept degrowth of the economy GDP. Some months ago a climate change dashboard appeared in HN. I played with the variables but it was not possible to decrease the CO2 level significantly. Then I notice that we could only play with economic growth bettewen 0 and 3.4. I made a copy of the site to let negative growth and that was the only way I get visible effects on climate. Edit: this is the tool that I'm talking https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.19 https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....

RickJWagner 6y ago

I'm amazed at how little has been said about climate change in this year's American election cycle. Maybe it'll come up later. For now, it's been pretty quiet.

Ghjklov 6y ago
The Democratic Party did kill off two of the guys who could've had something to say about it...(Sanders and Yang) Now we have to pick between two sleazy old guys who are arguably two sides of the same coin.