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Current consumption patterns didn't exist a century ago. Some alternatives to petroleum-powered consumption are already cheaper and more convenient than their p

Current consumption patterns didn't exist a century ago. Some alternatives to petroleum-powered consumption are already cheaper and more convenient than their petroleum-powered equivalents. Today landscaping tools and heat pumps, tomorrow cars and trucks, later ships and construction equipment, and maybe someday airliners. That combined with regulatory carrots and sticks will change consumption patterns. A century ago, people in cities burned a LOT of coal for heating. Air pollution in urban areas was pretty awful. We've changed consumption patterns before and we can do it again. Imagine that we decarbonize most of our economy and mostly stop accelerating climate change, with a combination of renewables and nuclear. But somewhere in the world, a nuclear reactor melts down every 5 years. Sometimes it's like TMI and sometimes it's like Chernobyl. Is that better overall than destabilizing Earth's climate?

mwint 4y ago
Yes, without a doubt. Other than messing up a bunch of land, Chernobyl wasn’t even that terrible outside of a certain radius.
atwood22 4y ago
> Imagine that we decarbonize most of our economy and mostly stop accelerating climate change, with a combination of renewables and nuclear. But somewhere in the world, a nuclear reactor will melts down every 5 years. Sometimes it's like TMI and sometimes it's like Chernobyl. Probably it would be better to de-carbonize the economy. But the global economy is literally a tragedy of the commons. There's really no hope of massive collective action, even has humanity faces greater calamity. My point is that building a bunch of nuclear power will make it more likely that a Chernobyl happens every 5 years, but it won't have a large impact on climate change.
- chrismartin 4y ago
  As long as we need to fill the gaps around supply of renewables, we will need to build either nuclear or fossil fuel plants. Imagine a new 1 GW nuclear plant compared to a new 1 GW natural gas plant. Which is better for the world on the margin? Also, the trend I perceive is that as societies develop, they gain both desire and ability to make the commons less tragic. China is the world's largest carbon emitter yet somehow their strategy to decarbonize feels more credible than the USA's (to the extent that we even have one at all).
  - atwood22 4y ago
    It doesn’t seem wise to vastly increase risk just for marginal capacity when we are already vastly exceeding our carbon budget.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    > As long as we need to fill the gaps around supply of renewables, There are several assumptions hidden here. One is that it's a choice between building new renewable and fossil fuel plants vs. new nuclear. The real choice is between moving some fossil fuels to renewable immediately, or leaving fossil fuels online while a nuclear plant gets delayed 5 times. The second is the assumption that all capacity to consume energy much be fulfilled and must remain constant. We can turn down the aluminium smelter. We can smelt steel with electricity. We can use renewables to drive chemical reactions. We can make fertilizer with electricity. Noone dies if we stop doing these things sometimes. The only downside is it costs a little more. But this is the downside of nuclear anyway, so where's the problem? We can also time shift energy with things like thermochemical storage. A huge amount of emissions come from burning natural gas for heat. Thermochemical storage is a fraction of the cost of batteries and is compact enough to store a year's worth of energy.
throwaway2037 4y ago
Mister Martin: Another great post! Thank you to raise the idea of change. When I talk with people from developing countries, they frequently despair about the state of their environment, including air, soil, and water pollution. I tell them that Japan, UK, Germany, and the United States was a dirty mess in the 1960s and 1970s. Then, all of them awoke to environmentalism. Today, these are some of the cleanest countries in the world. In particular, Japan and German are still major industrial power houses (steel, chemical, manuf, etc.). Their air, soil, and water pollution declined dramatically in the last 50 years. Yes, sadly, some of this pollution has been exported to poor(er), developing countries. However, a lot of industry remains onshore and people and companies are fully committed to a clean environment. Really, I cannot stress enough how large are chemical companies in Japan. When you fly into Haneda (Tokyo) Airport, it seems like a 50km continuous line of chemical plants on the waterfront in Kanagawa-ken! The environment regulations are incredibly strict. Places that were an environmental disaster 50 years ago are now a "factory neighborhood", but no longer a polluted mess. Recovery and change is possible! For other readers, I assume "TMI" means "Three Mile Island" nuclear accident. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

mwint 4y ago

Yes, without a doubt. Other than messing up a bunch of land, Chernobyl wasn’t even that terrible outside of a certain radius.

atwood22 4y ago

> Imagine that we decarbonize most of our economy and mostly stop accelerating climate change, with a combination of renewables and nuclear. But somewhere in the world, a nuclear reactor will melts down every 5 years. Sometimes it's like TMI and sometimes it's like Chernobyl. Probably it would be better to de-carbonize the economy. But the global economy is literally a tragedy of the commons. There's really no hope of massive collective action, even has humanity faces greater calamity. My point is that building a bunch of nuclear power will make it more likely that a Chernobyl happens every 5 years, but it won't have a large impact on climate change.

chrismartin 4y ago
As long as we need to fill the gaps around supply of renewables, we will need to build either nuclear or fossil fuel plants. Imagine a new 1 GW nuclear plant compared to a new 1 GW natural gas plant. Which is better for the world on the margin? Also, the trend I perceive is that as societies develop, they gain both desire and ability to make the commons less tragic. China is the world's largest carbon emitter yet somehow their strategy to decarbonize feels more credible than the USA's (to the extent that we even have one at all).
- atwood22 4y ago
  It doesn’t seem wise to vastly increase risk just for marginal capacity when we are already vastly exceeding our carbon budget.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > As long as we need to fill the gaps around supply of renewables, There are several assumptions hidden here. One is that it's a choice between building new renewable and fossil fuel plants vs. new nuclear. The real choice is between moving some fossil fuels to renewable immediately, or leaving fossil fuels online while a nuclear plant gets delayed 5 times. The second is the assumption that all capacity to consume energy much be fulfilled and must remain constant. We can turn down the aluminium smelter. We can smelt steel with electricity. We can use renewables to drive chemical reactions. We can make fertilizer with electricity. Noone dies if we stop doing these things sometimes. The only downside is it costs a little more. But this is the downside of nuclear anyway, so where's the problem? We can also time shift energy with things like thermochemical storage. A huge amount of emissions come from burning natural gas for heat. Thermochemical storage is a fraction of the cost of batteries and is compact enough to store a year's worth of energy.

throwaway2037 4y ago

Mister Martin: Another great post! Thank you to raise the idea of change. When I talk with people from developing countries, they frequently despair about the state of their environment, including air, soil, and water pollution. I tell them that Japan, UK, Germany, and the United States was a dirty mess in the 1960s and 1970s. Then, all of them awoke to environmentalism. Today, these are some of the cleanest countries in the world. In particular, Japan and German are still major industrial power houses (steel, chemical, manuf, etc.). Their air, soil, and water pollution declined dramatically in the last 50 years. Yes, sadly, some of this pollution has been exported to poor(er), developing countries. However, a lot of industry remains onshore and people and companies are fully committed to a clean environment. Really, I cannot stress enough how large are chemical companies in Japan. When you fly into Haneda (Tokyo) Airport, it seems like a 50km continuous line of chemical plants on the waterfront in Kanagawa-ken! The environment regulations are incredibly strict. Places that were an environmental disaster 50 years ago are now a "factory neighborhood", but no longer a polluted mess. Recovery and change is possible! For other readers, I assume "TMI" means "Three Mile Island" nuclear accident. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.