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> My own theory is that the root cause is decades of wide-spread awareness of global warming. Either you understand the science and implications, or you think i

by spurgu 5y ago

> My own theory is that the root cause is decades of wide-spread awareness of global warming. Either you understand the science and implications, or you think it’s a global hoax being perpetrated to excuse oppression. Nope, there's more nuance to it than that. I see it as humanity has painted itself into a corner. We're running out of cheap oil, fracking didn't turn out too well and that combined with climate change has put us in a giant pickle. The low EROEI of renewables make the transition (decoupling from fossil fuels) borderline impossible without some serious ramifications. I think humanity is in for a shock. If you go by real inflation (not the government made-up numbers) the world economy has pretty much stalled already for the past decade or so, and the energy transition is going to cause it to collapse in a way where there's no return. Either the human population is drastically reduced (in one way or another), or a drastic change in lifestyle will be required. Global warming is just a slight inconvenience in comparison to that. I suppose a number of "climate change deniers" are aware of this and would like to keep the world going as it is for just a little while longer. Others are aware of the cost of the transition and think it's cheaper to just keep going and deal with it as it comes - sea levels won't rise that fast, there's ample time to migrate out of the way, even if some cities will be lost. They however don't take into account that oil depletion is inevitable sooner or later, and when that time comes they won't have the resources to achieve a transition to renewables anymore (which is doubtful to work out even now). How about that for some doom?

margalabargala 5y ago
I have trouble believing this when nuclear exists and isn't anywhere close to utilized. Sure, the political will to build nuclear doesn't exist currently, but give everyone a taste of the sort of energy crunch you're describing and I bet it'll manifest pretty quick.
- spurgu 5y ago
  Nuclear will be a part of the (attempted) solution for sure. The problem with nuclear is that it takes many years and billions to build. The US alone would need somewhere around 500 new reactors to replace fossil fuels, not to mention the rest of the world. Who will build these reactors and pay for them and how long do you think this would take? Even in the most optimistic scenarios we'd be talking many many decades (if we somehow managed to pay for them).
spurgu 5y ago
Also - to elaborate - it doesn't actually cost billions of money to build nuclear reactors. Or wind turbines, or solar panels for that matter. Ultimately it costs energy. You could argue that money is a claim on future energy. EROEI is the ratio between energy input and output. This goes back to humanity starting to use horses. This positive EROEI allowed some people to not have to work all day long anymore and could instead become blacksmiths and other professions. Fastforward a bit and the EROEI of coal and oil supercharged the growth/economy. That's the wave we've been riding so far, up until now, allowing us to get to almost 8 billion people on the planet. But with a lot of external costs. We've depleted all the easy to extract oil resources and the golden age of abundant EROEI is over. Since a good while ago (EROEI for oil started dropping in the 70's or 80's IIRC). And this is what we should have been preparing for, for decades already. But oil companies fought tooth and nail against policymakers even bring it up, and tried to refute it by stating that there is tons of oil still left to be extracted (without bothering to mention the cost). It's not a popular talking point if you're a politician but climate change on the other hand is something people can easily grasp and get outraged about and policy makers can't avoid. It's simple: The world heats up, sea levels rise, weather becomes increasingly aggressive and erratic - we're fucked if we don't do something. But that's not the whole picture. We'd be fucked anyways. When the EROEI sinks below a certain threshold the economy (that runs on human brains and external energy inputs) starts shrinking. This has arguably been going on for a while already (even though economists have been trying hard to doctor the numbers to look favorable). And if it drops enough it's a death spiral (the negative logarithmic curve). People end up blame policy, the economy, the capitalists, globalization, immigrants or racism, but what it actually boils down to is that energy is becoming more expensive to extract, and the whole thing is hitting us from behind (well some alarmists have for decades but have been considered fringe or "conspiracy theorists"). Nuclear is our best bet at this point, but it seems somewhat of a pipe dream. Throw some China into the mix where they are ramping up coal plants, or Russia, and there's no way we're going to be reaching any CO2 targets. We'd have to actually change society, people's behavior, how we live. One simple example is public transportation. We're frantically expending a ton of resources at converting existing transportation to electric, but we're not thinking it through. Instead of converting existing ICE vehicles to electric we should (somehow) be shifting to public transportation (not an attractive proposition in the middle of a pandemic). High efficiency vs counting on limitless abundant cheap energy. But people like their cars, and won't change their habits unless they are forced to. And this is why I think we're doomed.

by spurgu 5y ago

margalabargala 5y ago

I have trouble believing this when nuclear exists and isn't anywhere close to utilized. Sure, the political will to build nuclear doesn't exist currently, but give everyone a taste of the sort of energy crunch you're describing and I bet it'll manifest pretty quick.

spurgu 5y ago
Nuclear will be a part of the (attempted) solution for sure. The problem with nuclear is that it takes many years and billions to build. The US alone would need somewhere around 500 new reactors to replace fossil fuels, not to mention the rest of the world. Who will build these reactors and pay for them and how long do you think this would take? Even in the most optimistic scenarios we'd be talking many many decades (if we somehow managed to pay for them).

spurgu 5y ago

Also - to elaborate - it doesn't actually cost billions of money to build nuclear reactors. Or wind turbines, or solar panels for that matter. Ultimately it costs energy. You could argue that money is a claim on future energy. EROEI is the ratio between energy input and output. This goes back to humanity starting to use horses. This positive EROEI allowed some people to not have to work all day long anymore and could instead become blacksmiths and other professions. Fastforward a bit and the EROEI of coal and oil supercharged the growth/economy. That's the wave we've been riding so far, up until now, allowing us to get to almost 8 billion people on the planet. But with a lot of external costs. We've depleted all the easy to extract oil resources and the golden age of abundant EROEI is over. Since a good while ago (EROEI for oil started dropping in the 70's or 80's IIRC). And this is what we should have been preparing for, for decades already. But oil companies fought tooth and nail against policymakers even bring it up, and tried to refute it by stating that there is tons of oil still left to be extracted (without bothering to mention the cost). It's not a popular talking point if you're a politician but climate change on the other hand is something people can easily grasp and get outraged about and policy makers can't avoid. It's simple: The world heats up, sea levels rise, weather becomes increasingly aggressive and erratic - we're fucked if we don't do something. But that's not the whole picture. We'd be fucked anyways. When the EROEI sinks below a certain threshold the economy (that runs on human brains and external energy inputs) starts shrinking. This has arguably been going on for a while already (even though economists have been trying hard to doctor the numbers to look favorable). And if it drops enough it's a death spiral (the negative logarithmic curve). People end up blame policy, the economy, the capitalists, globalization, immigrants or racism, but what it actually boils down to is that energy is becoming more expensive to extract, and the whole thing is hitting us from behind (well some alarmists have for decades but have been considered fringe or "conspiracy theorists"). Nuclear is our best bet at this point, but it seems somewhat of a pipe dream. Throw some China into the mix where they are ramping up coal plants, or Russia, and there's no way we're going to be reaching any CO2 targets. We'd have to actually change society, people's behavior, how we live. One simple example is public transportation. We're frantically expending a ton of resources at converting existing transportation to electric, but we're not thinking it through. Instead of converting existing ICE vehicles to electric we should (somehow) be shifting to public transportation (not an attractive proposition in the middle of a pandemic). High efficiency vs counting on limitless abundant cheap energy. But people like their cars, and won't change their habits unless they are forced to. And this is why I think we're doomed.