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I am not saying we're almost there, just that we do not necessarily need break-though new tech. You're absolutely right that we will need to spend a lot of mon

I am not saying we're almost there, just that we do not necessarily need break-though new tech. You're absolutely right that we will need to spend a lot of money and time if you seriously want to achieve to become globally carbon-neutral. However, going nuclear wouldn't be necessarily cheaper or quicker, either.

lazide 5y ago
Agreed. Though be aware, that puts the decarbonizing countries at a massive disadvantage to those who aren’t decarbonizing, as every action they take (from heating to transport) becomes more directly expensive. Which makes a war of conquest or destruction by countries not doing so much easier to win. Edit: Also, with interest rates likely to go up due to inflation/central bank action, that CapEx may soon be impossible to bear without some equivalent to a wartime economy anyway. A lot of the renewables have been helped by essentially free money.
- rndgermandude 5y ago
  It doesn't mean it is necessarily more directly expensive. The decarbonizing nations, notably the "West" and even China to a degree, have a lot of influence and control over the markets of good and services, both politically as well as a matter of who owns companies manufacturing things, and currently also in regards of who creates demand and margins for producers. You can see that in a lot of consumer products already, when the EU e.g. started to mandate to put energy consumption ratings on electric appliances, and the market then swiftly went to improve the power consumption in most cases. I grew up with regular light bulbs, but now I and everybody I know largely uses LED light bulbs, again driven by consumer demand and heavily nudged by political policy in the EU. And I either save money now or at least break even thanks to my electric bill being less, and LED lights usually lasting so long they are over time cheaper than the old regular bulbs. I wouldn't dare try to predict how these things would actually shake out eventually.
  - lazide 5y ago
    True! Though be aware, what you are referring to is not energy production, which is what I was referring to. It is efficiency gains in energy consumption. Most of the easy improvements have already been done. with the possible exception of insulating more (far harder than changing out electric bulbs or when new appliances get bought or computers age out replacing them with higher efficiency versions). Normal ICE cars and trucks have also hit diminishing returns efficiency wise. Usually not so easy though as it may seem, especially in concrete, stone, or other masonry buildings which are very common in Europe. What I’m referring to is far coarser grained, and on the production side. Fossil fuels are very, very energy dense, and that energy is released/used through completely different mechanisms than electrical energy. So for heat, even if switching to heat pumps which are over unity devices (1 Input unit of energy can move almost 3x units of heat), the amount of energy required to do so for countries which need a lot of heat is astronomical. I did some back of the envelope math for Germany in another thread, and even being very conservative we’re talking 7x the total energy requirements of their current entire grid to replace natural gas for them. So it’s more than just buying a heat pump and installing it, it’s a massive undertaking involving the equivalent of $120-$600k+ of capex to accomplish. That is for every many woman and child when you add it all up. One would hope they could be more efficient, but those prices already involve a huge economy of scale. If the EU forms an army and has mandated no fossil fuels, they would need to spend a massive amount more capex to build that army than if they did not right now, let alone keep it energized. That takes time, resources from other things, and exposes them to unique supply chain challenges too. If they want to just switch their economy off fossil fuels, right now that will likely take a 5-10 years even on a wartime footing. It takes time to build factories, source materials, R&D complex things. Many of these will depend on countries they may not want to depend on (such as chips from China or raw materials currently sourced from Russia). And that is a massive amount of money, on top of likely weapons manufacturing, etc. If they wanted to do it in 2 years, I’m not sure it’s possible right now.

lazide 5y ago

Agreed. Though be aware, that puts the decarbonizing countries at a massive disadvantage to those who aren’t decarbonizing, as every action they take (from heating to transport) becomes more directly expensive. Which makes a war of conquest or destruction by countries not doing so much easier to win. Edit: Also, with interest rates likely to go up due to inflation/central bank action, that CapEx may soon be impossible to bear without some equivalent to a wartime economy anyway. A lot of the renewables have been helped by essentially free money.

rndgermandude 5y ago
It doesn't mean it is necessarily more directly expensive. The decarbonizing nations, notably the "West" and even China to a degree, have a lot of influence and control over the markets of good and services, both politically as well as a matter of who owns companies manufacturing things, and currently also in regards of who creates demand and margins for producers. You can see that in a lot of consumer products already, when the EU e.g. started to mandate to put energy consumption ratings on electric appliances, and the market then swiftly went to improve the power consumption in most cases. I grew up with regular light bulbs, but now I and everybody I know largely uses LED light bulbs, again driven by consumer demand and heavily nudged by political policy in the EU. And I either save money now or at least break even thanks to my electric bill being less, and LED lights usually lasting so long they are over time cheaper than the old regular bulbs. I wouldn't dare try to predict how these things would actually shake out eventually.
- lazide 5y ago
  True! Though be aware, what you are referring to is not energy production, which is what I was referring to. It is efficiency gains in energy consumption. Most of the easy improvements have already been done. with the possible exception of insulating more (far harder than changing out electric bulbs or when new appliances get bought or computers age out replacing them with higher efficiency versions). Normal ICE cars and trucks have also hit diminishing returns efficiency wise. Usually not so easy though as it may seem, especially in concrete, stone, or other masonry buildings which are very common in Europe. What I’m referring to is far coarser grained, and on the production side. Fossil fuels are very, very energy dense, and that energy is released/used through completely different mechanisms than electrical energy. So for heat, even if switching to heat pumps which are over unity devices (1 Input unit of energy can move almost 3x units of heat), the amount of energy required to do so for countries which need a lot of heat is astronomical. I did some back of the envelope math for Germany in another thread, and even being very conservative we’re talking 7x the total energy requirements of their current entire grid to replace natural gas for them. So it’s more than just buying a heat pump and installing it, it’s a massive undertaking involving the equivalent of $120-$600k+ of capex to accomplish. That is for every many woman and child when you add it all up. One would hope they could be more efficient, but those prices already involve a huge economy of scale. If the EU forms an army and has mandated no fossil fuels, they would need to spend a massive amount more capex to build that army than if they did not right now, let alone keep it energized. That takes time, resources from other things, and exposes them to unique supply chain challenges too. If they want to just switch their economy off fossil fuels, right now that will likely take a 5-10 years even on a wartime footing. It takes time to build factories, source materials, R&D complex things. Many of these will depend on countries they may not want to depend on (such as chips from China or raw materials currently sourced from Russia). And that is a massive amount of money, on top of likely weapons manufacturing, etc. If they wanted to do it in 2 years, I’m not sure it’s possible right now.