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Sounds like a great plan... if you don't need electricity

gmuslera 5y ago
Could those billions be used to change all electrical generation facilities to not use fossil fuels? And then turn all public transport in the world to electric ones? And then private cars, heating, and so on? Yes, that could be expensive, but you don't want to know how expensive will be to do nothing. In fact, billions were already used in denialism campaigns by Shell and other companies, if they can use billions for that then well we may charge them trillions to mitigate what they put all of us into. But no, the chosen way will be to blame others, try to reach a mythical net-zero and increase extraction of fossil fuels and pumping it into the environment while they last.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  > Could those billions be used to change all electrical generation facilities to not use fossil fuels? Probably only if you're willing to invest in Nuclear. Solar, Batteries and Wind and such are just not there yet. And may not ever be.
  - greenthrow 5y ago
    > Solar, Batteries and Wind and such are just not there yet. And may not ever be. What is your definition of "there"? Because green energy is already cheaper than nuclear. There is zero need for nuclear. Wind, solar, hydro and geothermal with sufficient storage can meet all our needs. Stop pushing pro nuclear FUD.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      "with sufficient storage" Sure, it's easy to say. There's currently no tech available that could be deployed for grid scale storage. Batteries are needed elsewhere, pumped up hydro requires specific geography, hydrogen is too inefficient. And all of those would cost a lot to be able to deal with a multi-day energy generation slump ( e.g. a big storm).
    - jimmydorry 5y ago
      >Wind, solar, hydro and geothermal with *sufficient storage* can meet all our needs. The sufficient storage part is the key. You can massively overbuild wind, solar and hydro capacity and still have parts of each day or stretches of several days a year where these sources will provide very little of their nameplate capacity. Geothermal is pretty reliable, but not something I'm keeping an eye on as I'm not aware of any large energy systems where this type of power generation will play a significant role.
    - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
      Um, LCOE for utility solar and wind is under installed coal and Almost under installed nat gas. That means a power company is losing money by not building solar wind for coal and keeping an old coal plant running. Nat gas is probably going to hit this level this year. Certainly with reasonably accurate carbon taxes and if we removed shadow subsidies for fossil fuels. Soon nat gas will only be useful for load balancing.
    - Giho 5y ago
      What many seem to use as argument for wind, solar, hydro and geothermal is its price. But to compare the price with nuclear is flawed. The price of wind, solar, hydro or geothermal doesn't include the price of planability. Wind and solar would need some sort of energy storage to produce continuous energy. Hydro and geothermal only works at places where it can be installed. A good example for need of planability can be submarines or spacecrafts. Many of these crafts use either fossil fuels or nuclear as main energy source. Stop compare apples and oranges, they have different use for different cases.

Could those billions be used to change all electrical generation facilities to not use fossil fuels? And then turn all public transport in the world to electric ones? And then private cars, heating, and so on? Yes, that could be expensive, but you don't want to know how expensive will be to do nothing. In fact, billions were already used in denialism campaigns by Shell and other companies, if they can use billions for that then well we may charge them trillions to mitigate what they put all of us into. But no, the chosen way will be to blame others, try to reach a mythical net-zero and increase extraction of fossil fuels and pumping it into the environment while they last.

bluefirebrand 5y ago
> Could those billions be used to change all electrical generation facilities to not use fossil fuels? Probably only if you're willing to invest in Nuclear. Solar, Batteries and Wind and such are just not there yet. And may not ever be.
- greenthrow 5y ago
  > Solar, Batteries and Wind and such are just not there yet. And may not ever be. What is your definition of "there"? Because green energy is already cheaper than nuclear. There is zero need for nuclear. Wind, solar, hydro and geothermal with sufficient storage can meet all our needs. Stop pushing pro nuclear FUD.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    "with sufficient storage" Sure, it's easy to say. There's currently no tech available that could be deployed for grid scale storage. Batteries are needed elsewhere, pumped up hydro requires specific geography, hydrogen is too inefficient. And all of those would cost a lot to be able to deal with a multi-day energy generation slump ( e.g. a big storm).
  - jimmydorry 5y ago
    >Wind, solar, hydro and geothermal with *sufficient storage* can meet all our needs. The sufficient storage part is the key. You can massively overbuild wind, solar and hydro capacity and still have parts of each day or stretches of several days a year where these sources will provide very little of their nameplate capacity. Geothermal is pretty reliable, but not something I'm keeping an eye on as I'm not aware of any large energy systems where this type of power generation will play a significant role.
  - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    Um, LCOE for utility solar and wind is under installed coal and Almost under installed nat gas. That means a power company is losing money by not building solar wind for coal and keeping an old coal plant running. Nat gas is probably going to hit this level this year. Certainly with reasonably accurate carbon taxes and if we removed shadow subsidies for fossil fuels. Soon nat gas will only be useful for load balancing.
  - Giho 5y ago
    What many seem to use as argument for wind, solar, hydro and geothermal is its price. But to compare the price with nuclear is flawed. The price of wind, solar, hydro or geothermal doesn't include the price of planability. Wind and solar would need some sort of energy storage to produce continuous energy. Hydro and geothermal only works at places where it can be installed. A good example for need of planability can be submarines or spacecrafts. Many of these crafts use either fossil fuels or nuclear as main energy source. Stop compare apples and oranges, they have different use for different cases.