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What do you mean by “is entirely uneconomic”? Of course it is economic. What do you mean by “literally unsustainable by definition”? Sustainable does not mean

by zaroth 4y ago

What do you mean by “is entirely uneconomic”? Of course it is economic. What do you mean by “literally unsustainable by definition”? Sustainable does not mean supply is infinite. You can sustainably mine a finite and non-replenishable resource by utilizing the mineral or element in a fully re-usable manner. In the absolutist sense nothing is infinitely sustainable, so start with the acceptance that the term defines a spectrum. “Fossil fuels might have served as a bridge” - fossil fuels are the underpinning of modern civilization and indisputably have served humanity exceptionally well. There is absolutely zero question that humanity will find a sustainable energy track, because we’ve proven the technology works and eventually it will work even better than fossil fuels. So I’d say that fossil fuels have provided an absolutely essential and extremely effective bridge to non-fossil energy.

dredmorbius 4y ago
Prices cover costs of production. Which are ultimately costs of creation. If extraction is drawing down a resource, then much as making a withdrawal from a bank, your cost isn't just the effort you put into the withdrawal --- say, Uber fare across town and the price of the slip on which you write the request, but the actual amount by which the account has been debited. If 1 year's withdrawals from the Bank of Fossil Fuels represent 5 million years of accumulation, then the pricing should reflect this. I've answered this in part in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31291706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31291706), which gets into the fact that the economic theory governing natural resources largely formed when a large contingent of otherwise intelligent people thought the Earth was no more than about 8,000 years old, and even geologist's considered opinions ranged from 30--300 million years. It wasn't until early work with radiometric dating showed that the age was on the order of one billion years, in the first decade of the 20th century, that the truth started becoming apparent. The central organising principle of geology, plate tectonics, was not officially accepted until the late 1960s. Economic theory, public policy, and models of financing had developed under utterly fallacious understandings of reality. And they still do not, and strongly reject, reflecting the truth. Wishful thinking is comforting, until it's not.
- zaroth 4y ago
  I can agree with everything that you’re saying! I think there’s one piece missing which changes the nature of the analysis. If fossil fuel deposits were like water aquifers in the sense that they need to be protected, maintained, and replenished, that is one thing. However I would argue this is not remotely true. We can draw down the fossil fuel reserves and never have to pay them back, if all along they way they successfully usher human civilization and technological advancement into a blooming post-petro society. I don’t think the Earth as a habitat is worse off for not having extractable oil reserves left over by 2200 as long as human society doesn’t depend on them to function. In essence these fuels are an essential stepping stone to technologically advanced society. Without easily extractable high energy density liquids I don’t see how human civilization would have gotten to this point, and there’s a non-sci-fi future where we successfully move past them as it becomes economically exigent.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    You "if"s and "so long as"s are doing one hell of a lot of heavy lifting here. The alternative hypothesis is that fossil fuels have served as a form of whalefall benefitting humans, promoting a brief fluouresence of intense technological culture which will last so long as the resource is available, before fading back to the background noise level. There's a shortage of perfect cheap, useful, abundant energy stores in the world. It would be a pity to degrade this one completely without a viable transition plan.

by zaroth 4y ago

dredmorbius 4y ago

Prices cover costs of production. Which are ultimately costs of creation. If extraction is drawing down a resource, then much as making a withdrawal from a bank, your cost isn't just the effort you put into the withdrawal --- say, Uber fare across town and the price of the slip on which you write the request, but the actual amount by which the account has been debited. If 1 year's withdrawals from the Bank of Fossil Fuels represent 5 million years of accumulation, then the pricing should reflect this. I've answered this in part in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31291706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31291706), which gets into the fact that the economic theory governing natural resources largely formed when a large contingent of otherwise intelligent people thought the Earth was no more than about 8,000 years old, and even geologist's considered opinions ranged from 30--300 million years. It wasn't until early work with radiometric dating showed that the age was on the order of one billion years, in the first decade of the 20th century, that the truth started becoming apparent. The central organising principle of geology, plate tectonics, was not officially accepted until the late 1960s. Economic theory, public policy, and models of financing had developed under utterly fallacious understandings of reality. And they still do not, and strongly reject, reflecting the truth. Wishful thinking is comforting, until it's not.

zaroth 4y ago
I can agree with everything that you’re saying! I think there’s one piece missing which changes the nature of the analysis. If fossil fuel deposits were like water aquifers in the sense that they need to be protected, maintained, and replenished, that is one thing. However I would argue this is not remotely true. We can draw down the fossil fuel reserves and never have to pay them back, if all along they way they successfully usher human civilization and technological advancement into a blooming post-petro society. I don’t think the Earth as a habitat is worse off for not having extractable oil reserves left over by 2200 as long as human society doesn’t depend on them to function. In essence these fuels are an essential stepping stone to technologically advanced society. Without easily extractable high energy density liquids I don’t see how human civilization would have gotten to this point, and there’s a non-sci-fi future where we successfully move past them as it becomes economically exigent.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  You "if"s and "so long as"s are doing one hell of a lot of heavy lifting here. The alternative hypothesis is that fossil fuels have served as a form of whalefall benefitting humans, promoting a brief fluouresence of intense technological culture which will last so long as the resource is available, before fading back to the background noise level. There's a shortage of perfect cheap, useful, abundant energy stores in the world. It would be a pity to degrade this one completely without a viable transition plan.