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You’re unhappy people aren’t forced to live like it’s 1850? How about we have alternative energy that can satisfy CO2 concerns and provide the current standards

You’re unhappy people aren’t forced to live like it’s 1850? How about we have alternative energy that can satisfy CO2 concerns and provide the current standards of living we all enjoy first.

jacobolus 5y ago
No, people are not unhappy that energy is cheap, but rather that externalities are not priced in. The result is that activities and goods that seem trivially cheap (so people consume them far in excess of their needs without worrying about the expense) turn out to have disastrous large-scale consequences. Our economic system has no affordances for making choices based on true costs – only sticker prices. When these are systematically distorted, it causes a huge collective problem.
- thedrbrian 5y ago
  Can we price in the carbon cost of raising a child to the age of 18? If we’re going after all the fun stuff I don’t want the parents to get away scott free.
  - greenonions 5y ago
    Future people will likely be carbon negative. Shall I give you my Venmo?
    - newt_slowly 5y ago
      Since you didn't go into detail, I'm going to guess that you are referring to atmospheric CCS being widely deployed in the future. Unfortunately CCS is not and will not be practical. [1] [2] I can explain my critiques in more detail if you clarify exactly what your argument is. [1] https://manuelgarciajr.com/2020/08/09/the-improbability-of-co2-removal-from-the-atmosphere/ https://manuelgarciajr.com/2020/08/09/the-improbability-of-c... [2] Comical, but fact-based take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    If items had the externalities priced in, the cost of having a child would go up, but only in that outgoings would increase. I suppose you could bill them based on their CO2 and methane output.
  - tjader 5y ago
    We should price in the externality where it is caused. I don't think raising a child emits any CO2 by itself. If we price in the emissions where they happen it will be priced in for all consumers of the products that cause them.
    - phdelightful 5y ago
      I want a small discount for sequestering carbon in my child's body mass for several decades!
      - tshaddox 5y ago
        The average adult human contains what, like 30 pounds of carbon? That's very little money according to the carbon offset prices I have seen.
      - pzo 5y ago
        You have to account for: - all the meat and diary your child is going to consume in those 18 years - all diapers that are going to be produced and disposed. - all methane and CO2 you child produced on an a daily basis for those 18 years (exhaling, digesting/pooping/farting) - concrete used for building this extra room for your child ... just to name a few.
        tjader 5y ago
        Not if the externality is priced in for each of those products.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - imtringued 5y ago
    You can do that but it's not the parents that emit the CO2.
tombert 5y ago
I don't think they're complaining that the prices are cheap exactly, I think they're complaining that the prices are, in a sense, inaccurate. No one here is saying we should all be Amish, but if gasoline is $3 per gallon, but it costs $3 to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere (making both these numbers up, I don't own a car), then there's a good chance that the gas is effectively too cheap, and the rest of us are going to have to pay to clean it up later. If we taxed gas to be its true price (cost of extraction + refining + shipping + profit-margin + environmental cleanup), it would help incentivize cleaner fuels.
- epistasis 5y ago
  And to quantify this a bit more, current costs for direct air extraction and sequestration of CO2 are about $6/gallon of gas. Climeworks is charging early customers $600/ton of CO2 [1], and about 100 gallons of gas convert to a ton of CO2. This sort of direct air capture will be absolutely necessary in the second half of this century for all of our current oaths to keep warming to 1.5C, according to the IPCC SR1.5 report. And though many parts of the supply chain of CO2 direct air capture might get cheaper with time, the actual sequestration part might get harder and more expensive with time. Chevron had promised to capture only a small amount of CO2 as part of a LNG project in Australia, but is facing massive fines because they didn't understand the geology enough to actually sequester CO2. So while I'm fairly confident that we could eventually get the tech for CO2 capture down to maybe $1/gallon of gas, the actual sequestration is only going to get more difficult with time. Every gallon of gas burned today makes 20 pounds of CO2 that will need to be removed in the future we are burdening future generations with an incredibly difficult debt that we don't yet know how to pay down. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22663597/largest-direct-air-capture-plant-c02-climeworks-iceland https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22663597/largest-direct-ai...
  - dmitrygr 5y ago
    > 100 gallons of gas convert to a ton of CO2 Gasoline is about 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen by weight. And its density is around 700 kg/m^3. 100 gallons is 378.5 liters, which is 265.0 kg. That is 230.5 kg of carbon. C is 12.011 per atom, O is 15.999, thus that converts to 844.6kg, not a ton. Rounding up by >15% to make numbers more impressive is not nice when we are taking science
Karrot_Kream 5y ago
Historically energy usage has been used to track "human progress" (e.g. a society that is more advanced uses more energy), but I think this is a failed dichotomy as it doesn't account for technology become more efficient at using energy. If we don't price petrol/gas properly (in the face of externalities, energy security, and possibly limited supply), there's no incentive for academia and industry to think ourselves out of a gas-guzzling society.

You’re unhappy people aren’t forced to live like it’s 1850? How about we have alternative energy that can satisfy CO2 concerns and provide the current standards of living we all enjoy first.

jacobolus 5y ago

No, people are not unhappy that energy is cheap, but rather that externalities are not priced in. The result is that activities and goods that seem trivially cheap (so people consume them far in excess of their needs without worrying about the expense) turn out to have disastrous large-scale consequences. Our economic system has no affordances for making choices based on true costs – only sticker prices. When these are systematically distorted, it causes a huge collective problem.

thedrbrian 5y ago
Can we price in the carbon cost of raising a child to the age of 18? If we’re going after all the fun stuff I don’t want the parents to get away scott free.
- greenonions 5y ago
  Future people will likely be carbon negative. Shall I give you my Venmo?
  - newt_slowly 5y ago
    Since you didn't go into detail, I'm going to guess that you are referring to atmospheric CCS being widely deployed in the future. Unfortunately CCS is not and will not be practical. [1] [2] I can explain my critiques in more detail if you clarify exactly what your argument is. [1] https://manuelgarciajr.com/2020/08/09/the-improbability-of-co2-removal-from-the-atmosphere/ https://manuelgarciajr.com/2020/08/09/the-improbability-of-c... [2] Comical, but fact-based take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8
- lostlogin 5y ago
  If items had the externalities priced in, the cost of having a child would go up, but only in that outgoings would increase. I suppose you could bill them based on their CO2 and methane output.
- tjader 5y ago
  We should price in the externality where it is caused. I don't think raising a child emits any CO2 by itself. If we price in the emissions where they happen it will be priced in for all consumers of the products that cause them.
  - phdelightful 5y ago
    I want a small discount for sequestering carbon in my child's body mass for several decades!
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      The average adult human contains what, like 30 pounds of carbon? That's very little money according to the carbon offset prices I have seen.
    - pzo 5y ago
      You have to account for: - all the meat and diary your child is going to consume in those 18 years - all diapers that are going to be produced and disposed. - all methane and CO2 you child produced on an a daily basis for those 18 years (exhaling, digesting/pooping/farting) - concrete used for building this extra room for your child ... just to name a few.
      - tjader 5y ago
        Not if the externality is priced in for each of those products.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- imtringued 5y ago
  You can do that but it's not the parents that emit the CO2.

tombert 5y ago

I don't think they're complaining that the prices are cheap exactly, I think they're complaining that the prices are, in a sense, inaccurate. No one here is saying we should all be Amish, but if gasoline is $3 per gallon, but it costs $3 to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere (making both these numbers up, I don't own a car), then there's a good chance that the gas is effectively too cheap, and the rest of us are going to have to pay to clean it up later. If we taxed gas to be its true price (cost of extraction + refining + shipping + profit-margin + environmental cleanup), it would help incentivize cleaner fuels.

epistasis 5y ago
And to quantify this a bit more, current costs for direct air extraction and sequestration of CO2 are about $6/gallon of gas. Climeworks is charging early customers $600/ton of CO2 [1], and about 100 gallons of gas convert to a ton of CO2. This sort of direct air capture will be absolutely necessary in the second half of this century for all of our current oaths to keep warming to 1.5C, according to the IPCC SR1.5 report. And though many parts of the supply chain of CO2 direct air capture might get cheaper with time, the actual sequestration part might get harder and more expensive with time. Chevron had promised to capture only a small amount of CO2 as part of a LNG project in Australia, but is facing massive fines because they didn't understand the geology enough to actually sequester CO2. So while I'm fairly confident that we could eventually get the tech for CO2 capture down to maybe $1/gallon of gas, the actual sequestration is only going to get more difficult with time. Every gallon of gas burned today makes 20 pounds of CO2 that will need to be removed in the future we are burdening future generations with an incredibly difficult debt that we don't yet know how to pay down. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22663597/largest-direct-air-capture-plant-c02-climeworks-iceland https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22663597/largest-direct-ai...
- dmitrygr 5y ago
  > 100 gallons of gas convert to a ton of CO2 Gasoline is about 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen by weight. And its density is around 700 kg/m^3. 100 gallons is 378.5 liters, which is 265.0 kg. That is 230.5 kg of carbon. C is 12.011 per atom, O is 15.999, thus that converts to 844.6kg, not a ton. Rounding up by >15% to make numbers more impressive is not nice when we are taking science

Karrot_Kream 5y ago

Historically energy usage has been used to track "human progress" (e.g. a society that is more advanced uses more energy), but I think this is a failed dichotomy as it doesn't account for technology become more efficient at using energy. If we don't price petrol/gas properly (in the face of externalities, energy security, and possibly limited supply), there's no incentive for academia and industry to think ourselves out of a gas-guzzling society.