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Hence why the real solution has always been: 1. Electrify everything possible 2. Shift all electricity production to renewables, massively increase power outpu

Hence why the real solution has always been: 1. Electrify everything possible 2. Shift all electricity production to renewables, massively increase power output with nuclear nuclear nuclear. 3. Carbon capture.

arcticbull 6y ago
Ooh and stop mining Bitcoin
- loceng 6y ago
  But how else will people make money than in a global, decentralized pyramid/MLM scheme?
  - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
    s/make/lose/ But I see your point. We should make a pyramid/MLM scheme where you're promised rewards for planting trees, segregating waste, cleaning up in any potential wildlife habitats, and reducing/reusing stuff in general.
- fastball 6y ago
  Actually, as part of "Electrify everything", it would probably be good to replace a significant chunk of the banking system with a cryptocurrency layer (maybe bitcoin, maybe not). With green energy, digital gold is a lot more green than physical gold. Bitcoin is like electric cars – not super green right in this moment when the grid is still dirty, but all it takes to make it greener is to green up the grid. Meanwhile the classical banking system: uses all forms of transport which green up slower (armored cars, planes, etc), requires crazy amounts of construction (I don't even want to guess how much cement has been used in the construction of physical banks all over the world), all those buildings use energy for AC/lighting/etc, require huge amounts of manpower to manage trust in the system (people definitely aren't green), and also need their own datacenters anyway. And I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, where as with BTC pretty much all consumption is baked into mining, which again just gets greener automatically as the grid gets greener. Nobody is running a Bitcoin mining operation off of diesel generators. If you did the math (impractical given the breadth of the existing banking system), I think you'd find Bitcoin is already far greener than the existing banking system, by a huge margin. And cryptos like Ethereum have the potential to 10x/100x/1000x that with things like PoS vs. PoW as well as the fact that Ethereum smart contracts can not only replace banking but probably other industries as well, such as title companies and various other middlemen.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    > And cryptos like Ethereum have the potential to 10x/100x/1000x that with things like PoS vs. PoW as well as the fact that Ethereum smart contracts can not only replace banking but probably other industries as well, such as title companies and various other middlemen. It's been 13 years now and nobody's done it, because that's a terrible idea. The reason lawyers exist is that all contracts have ambiguity and require a human to review and consider. All contracts have circumstances that aren't captured. Just ask the DAO folks. Middlemen exist for a reason. Efficiency, conflict and ambiguity resolution, and so on. Blockchains are only useful for things that are entirely captured within the blockchain. As soon as you interface the blockchain with the outside world you have to trust something to enter and capture that data accurately - garbage in, garbage out. Once you're trusting someone, you don't need a blockchain, just fire up and RDS instance and save everyone the headache.
    - fastball 6y ago
      For starters, I think you're underestimating how much of what we do in the modern world is entirely digital and therefore can be entirely captured in a blockchain. There are decentralized trustless platforms running on Ethereum right now. You can transact currency on a plethora of decentralized exchanges, without all the layers that doing so with an exchange of USD -> RMB requires today. There are pilot programs built around blockchain that allow people to sell excess energy production (e.g. with home solar) back to other people on the "grid" in an entirely decentralized way. And with tokens that are tied to real-life things, the benefit is that once you've used real-world trust systems (e.g. real-life contracts / lawyers / courts / etc) to tie something to the blockchain, you can (going forward) hand everything over to the trustless and secure system. i.e. You tie your property to the blockchain once, and from then on you don't need to involve all those inefficient systems, you just transact the tied token directly on the blockchain. Just because it hasn't been done successfully yet doesn't mean it's not viable. How long did the internet exist before [thing that is taken for granted on the internet now] was successful? Finally, Ethereum launched in 2015, not sure where you're getting 13 years from.
adrianN 6y ago
Destroying old growth forests is still a bad idea even if you have enough energy to capture all the carbon.
AndyMcConachie 6y ago
Everytime I hear the word 'carbon capture' I just think of trees. This is literally what trees do, they capture carbon.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  And then release a large majority of it when they die and are eaten by fungus and bacteria. https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/recycling-dead https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/recycling-dea...
  - enriquto 6y ago
    Thus, growing a tree and burning the wood (or disposing of it) is 100% carbon neutral. What's the problem, then?
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      The problem is that it's useless for sequestering carbon that's already in air, that we sourced from deep underground.
      - enriquto 6y ago
        Yes, the obvious step would be to stop burning fossil carbon, it seems like a much more pressing issue than sequestering the one that is already in the atmosphere.
        kaybe 6y ago
        By now we need to do both, there is already too much carbon in the atmosphere. If you look at the IPCC projections, 1.5°C is only achievable with carbon capture of some sorts [0] (if at all). Research and development for this has to be pushed yesterday. Though word is in the air that the previous assessments might have been very optimistic.. although that will probably only be discussed in 2022 when the 6th assessment report is to be published. Which presses the issue only further. [0] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM3b-724x1024.png https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM3...

arcticbull 6y ago

Ooh and stop mining Bitcoin

loceng 6y ago
But how else will people make money than in a global, decentralized pyramid/MLM scheme?
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  s/make/lose/ But I see your point. We should make a pyramid/MLM scheme where you're promised rewards for planting trees, segregating waste, cleaning up in any potential wildlife habitats, and reducing/reusing stuff in general.
fastball 6y ago
Actually, as part of "Electrify everything", it would probably be good to replace a significant chunk of the banking system with a cryptocurrency layer (maybe bitcoin, maybe not). With green energy, digital gold is a lot more green than physical gold. Bitcoin is like electric cars – not super green right in this moment when the grid is still dirty, but all it takes to make it greener is to green up the grid. Meanwhile the classical banking system: uses all forms of transport which green up slower (armored cars, planes, etc), requires crazy amounts of construction (I don't even want to guess how much cement has been used in the construction of physical banks all over the world), all those buildings use energy for AC/lighting/etc, require huge amounts of manpower to manage trust in the system (people definitely aren't green), and also need their own datacenters anyway. And I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, where as with BTC pretty much all consumption is baked into mining, which again just gets greener automatically as the grid gets greener. Nobody is running a Bitcoin mining operation off of diesel generators. If you did the math (impractical given the breadth of the existing banking system), I think you'd find Bitcoin is already far greener than the existing banking system, by a huge margin. And cryptos like Ethereum have the potential to 10x/100x/1000x that with things like PoS vs. PoW as well as the fact that Ethereum smart contracts can not only replace banking but probably other industries as well, such as title companies and various other middlemen.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  > And cryptos like Ethereum have the potential to 10x/100x/1000x that with things like PoS vs. PoW as well as the fact that Ethereum smart contracts can not only replace banking but probably other industries as well, such as title companies and various other middlemen. It's been 13 years now and nobody's done it, because that's a terrible idea. The reason lawyers exist is that all contracts have ambiguity and require a human to review and consider. All contracts have circumstances that aren't captured. Just ask the DAO folks. Middlemen exist for a reason. Efficiency, conflict and ambiguity resolution, and so on. Blockchains are only useful for things that are entirely captured within the blockchain. As soon as you interface the blockchain with the outside world you have to trust something to enter and capture that data accurately - garbage in, garbage out. Once you're trusting someone, you don't need a blockchain, just fire up and RDS instance and save everyone the headache.
  - fastball 6y ago
    For starters, I think you're underestimating how much of what we do in the modern world is entirely digital and therefore can be entirely captured in a blockchain. There are decentralized trustless platforms running on Ethereum right now. You can transact currency on a plethora of decentralized exchanges, without all the layers that doing so with an exchange of USD -> RMB requires today. There are pilot programs built around blockchain that allow people to sell excess energy production (e.g. with home solar) back to other people on the "grid" in an entirely decentralized way. And with tokens that are tied to real-life things, the benefit is that once you've used real-world trust systems (e.g. real-life contracts / lawyers / courts / etc) to tie something to the blockchain, you can (going forward) hand everything over to the trustless and secure system. i.e. You tie your property to the blockchain once, and from then on you don't need to involve all those inefficient systems, you just transact the tied token directly on the blockchain. Just because it hasn't been done successfully yet doesn't mean it's not viable. How long did the internet exist before [thing that is taken for granted on the internet now] was successful? Finally, Ethereum launched in 2015, not sure where you're getting 13 years from.

adrianN 6y ago

Destroying old growth forests is still a bad idea even if you have enough energy to capture all the carbon.

AndyMcConachie 6y ago

Everytime I hear the word 'carbon capture' I just think of trees. This is literally what trees do, they capture carbon.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
And then release a large majority of it when they die and are eaten by fungus and bacteria. https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/recycling-dead https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/recycling-dea...
- enriquto 6y ago
  Thus, growing a tree and burning the wood (or disposing of it) is 100% carbon neutral. What's the problem, then?
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    The problem is that it's useless for sequestering carbon that's already in air, that we sourced from deep underground.
    - enriquto 6y ago
      Yes, the obvious step would be to stop burning fossil carbon, it seems like a much more pressing issue than sequestering the one that is already in the atmosphere.
      - kaybe 6y ago
        By now we need to do both, there is already too much carbon in the atmosphere. If you look at the IPCC projections, 1.5°C is only achievable with carbon capture of some sorts [0] (if at all). Research and development for this has to be pushed yesterday. Though word is in the air that the previous assessments might have been very optimistic.. although that will probably only be discussed in 2022 when the 6th assessment report is to be published. Which presses the issue only further. [0] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM3b-724x1024.png https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM3...