3 ms·

Oil comes from plants, plankton might eat said algae (phytoplankton would not be sufficient) but trees on land probably contributed as much. The problem obvious

by bullen 5y ago

Oil comes from plants, plankton might eat said algae (phytoplankton would not be sufficient) but trees on land probably contributed as much. The problem obviously is that the process from plant to coal, oil and gas takes a long time so we're inevitably going into a wall of energy deficit that will impact everything. Solar and wind are not solutions as plants are a solar panel and maintenance free battery in one, without any work required. Nuclear (1.000.000.000x higher energy density than batteries) is our only hope/despair to have any chance at preserving this way of life for 8 billion people but it requires hydrocarbons to build and maintain. Reduce your energy consumption as much as possible: no car, small house/appartement. Work on meaningful digital solutions that scale without too much energy. Quit everything else.

sandworm101 5y ago
With a rising population, on the order of several percent a year, reduced per-person energy consumption cannot do much. It can only delay the inevitable a decade or two. The answers are clean energy or a steadily reduced population. We are biologically adverse to the later, leaving green energy as the only option.
- bullen 5y ago
  Green/clean energy does not exist. The only thing that has somewhat +/- zero impact is (edit: small scale) hydro. But hydro also requires hydrocarbons to build and maintain (don't forget the powerlines) and freshwater fish populations are impacted. The population will go down to 1 billion from here, that much is inevitable. The question is how fast it goes down and how much people will suffer: we peaked our growth-rate in 1968: https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    Hydro is far from green. Dams flood forest, which no longer absorbs co2 and further rots into methane.
pfdietz 5y ago
Solar and wind likely are the solution. They are cheaper than nuclear and are improving much faster. Nuclear faces great obstacles to reaching a level that could power civilization (for example, breeding would likely be required, and breeder reactors have proven to be even more expensive than today's thermal burner reactors; breeders are also excellent sources of super-weapon grade fissionable material.) The energy density argument for nuclear goes nowhere. It's not something any consumer cares about, nor is energy density a showstopper for renewables (except biomass, so don't base the renewable energy system on biomass).

by bullen 5y ago

sandworm101 5y ago

With a rising population, on the order of several percent a year, reduced per-person energy consumption cannot do much. It can only delay the inevitable a decade or two. The answers are clean energy or a steadily reduced population. We are biologically adverse to the later, leaving green energy as the only option.

bullen 5y ago
Green/clean energy does not exist. The only thing that has somewhat +/- zero impact is (edit: small scale) hydro. But hydro also requires hydrocarbons to build and maintain (don't forget the powerlines) and freshwater fish populations are impacted. The population will go down to 1 billion from here, that much is inevitable. The question is how fast it goes down and how much people will suffer: we peaked our growth-rate in 1968: https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth
- sandworm101 5y ago
  Hydro is far from green. Dams flood forest, which no longer absorbs co2 and further rots into methane.

pfdietz 5y ago

Solar and wind likely are the solution. They are cheaper than nuclear and are improving much faster. Nuclear faces great obstacles to reaching a level that could power civilization (for example, breeding would likely be required, and breeder reactors have proven to be even more expensive than today's thermal burner reactors; breeders are also excellent sources of super-weapon grade fissionable material.) The energy density argument for nuclear goes nowhere. It's not something any consumer cares about, nor is energy density a showstopper for renewables (except biomass, so don't base the renewable energy system on biomass).