4 ms·

yeah, we'll just share our star trek free/clean/infinite energy tech

hackerlight 4y ago
Talking beyond your snark to anyone else reading this -- obviously I mean solar, wind, nuclear or hydro installations either in the poor country, or in the rich country and piped into the poor country via HVDC at discount rates. Anything less is quite morally unfair if you think about it. Rich countries have imposed this massive externality on poor countries and they haven't compensated the poor countries for doing so. If you make money by dumping waste into my backyard, the least you can do is give me a small slice of the profits. Subsidizing clean energy in poor countries is a way to satisfy this moral obligation while also solving the problem you raised.
- throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
adrianN 4y ago
You mean wind, solar, nuclear, batteries and electrolysers? Because we have them available right now. In fact, we had them for the last couple of decades.
- throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
  we have them yes, and at this moment, the richest country in Europe is rationing hot water and restarting coal power plants due a temporary disruption of supply of another fossil fuel. Europe + North America is 10% of the world population, and we can barely carry our own burden.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    I don't see your argument. Everybody knows that we're not deploying carbon free technology sufficiently quickly. That's why we're reading these articles.
    - throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
      in your reality, we're a type 1 civilization with unlimited resources, so obscenely rich that providing the rest of the world with free clean energy is a matter of political will in my reality, we're 95% dependent on fossil fuels, dams and nuclear power stations cost tens of billions and take decades to build, there are no viable energy storage technologies, and even the few somewhat viable renewable energy technologies we possess still rely on a limited supply of expensive things like lithium. also, in my reality, double digit percentage of our population lives in poverty, and about half lives paycheck to paycheck, and our richest country is 30T in debt
      - adrianN 4y ago
        We spend literal trillions on waging war. Every rocket fired in Ukraine today would pay for solar panels for a house or two. It's not a matter of money. Look how well we managed to to switch literally all industry to building weapons during the last world war. If we wanted to we could do the same for renewable energy. It's a matter of priorities. But in actuality, it's much easier to do than that, because renewable energy is not all that expensive or hard to build. In many scenarios it's profitable to build it today, but bureaucracy is in the way. The proper market incentives and a bit of legislation would probably be enough to have private industry take over.
        josephcsible 4y ago
        > Every rocket fired in Ukraine today would pay for solar panels for a house or two. But it's more important that we stop Putin from just taking whatever territory he wants and killing as many civilians as it takes to do that than it is to put solar panels on a few more houses.

Talking beyond your snark to anyone else reading this -- obviously I mean solar, wind, nuclear or hydro installations either in the poor country, or in the rich country and piped into the poor country via HVDC at discount rates. Anything less is quite morally unfair if you think about it. Rich countries have imposed this massive externality on poor countries and they haven't compensated the poor countries for doing so. If you make money by dumping waste into my backyard, the least you can do is give me a small slice of the profits. Subsidizing clean energy in poor countries is a way to satisfy this moral obligation while also solving the problem you raised.

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

adrianN 4y ago

You mean wind, solar, nuclear, batteries and electrolysers? Because we have them available right now. In fact, we had them for the last couple of decades.

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
we have them yes, and at this moment, the richest country in Europe is rationing hot water and restarting coal power plants due a temporary disruption of supply of another fossil fuel. Europe + North America is 10% of the world population, and we can barely carry our own burden.
- adrianN 4y ago
  I don't see your argument. Everybody knows that we're not deploying carbon free technology sufficiently quickly. That's why we're reading these articles.
  - throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
    in your reality, we're a type 1 civilization with unlimited resources, so obscenely rich that providing the rest of the world with free clean energy is a matter of political will in my reality, we're 95% dependent on fossil fuels, dams and nuclear power stations cost tens of billions and take decades to build, there are no viable energy storage technologies, and even the few somewhat viable renewable energy technologies we possess still rely on a limited supply of expensive things like lithium. also, in my reality, double digit percentage of our population lives in poverty, and about half lives paycheck to paycheck, and our richest country is 30T in debt
    - adrianN 4y ago
      We spend literal trillions on waging war. Every rocket fired in Ukraine today would pay for solar panels for a house or two. It's not a matter of money. Look how well we managed to to switch literally all industry to building weapons during the last world war. If we wanted to we could do the same for renewable energy. It's a matter of priorities. But in actuality, it's much easier to do than that, because renewable energy is not all that expensive or hard to build. In many scenarios it's profitable to build it today, but bureaucracy is in the way. The proper market incentives and a bit of legislation would probably be enough to have private industry take over.
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        > Every rocket fired in Ukraine today would pay for solar panels for a house or two. But it's more important that we stop Putin from just taking whatever territory he wants and killing as many civilians as it takes to do that than it is to put solar panels on a few more houses.