6 ms·

Climate change has inertia so probably not solved by the time we have industrial scale fusion + would not solve the two other main anthropic activity related pr

by alas44 4y ago

Climate change has inertia so probably not solved by the time we have industrial scale fusion + would not solve the two other main anthropic activity related problems: biodiversity loss and depletion of natural resources

ahmedk92 4y ago
My layman understanding tells me depletion of natural resources will be worse if we manage to find a sustainable source of energy.
blibble 4y ago
with unlimited cheap energy you can pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, produce hydrocarbons and pump them back into the wells
- anon291 4y ago
  better yet... you can kep current hydrocarbon economy factories, vehicles, etc in operation by simply producing fuels from air. Wil be cheap enough. Hydrocarbons are a great, usable source of dense energy.
- macksd 4y ago
  I don't know what the math looks like here, but there is waste heat in this, right? We could lower CO2, but "unlimited cheap energy" at the scale required to make a dent in climate change surely gives off a pretty phenomenal amount of heat. I wonder what the equation looks like for the overall effect on the planet.
  - blibble 4y ago
    my understanding of chemistry is poor, but presumably if energy is liberated from combustion, reversing that reaction requires energy (with some input to kick it off possibly) regardless, the earth receives 173,000 TW of solar radiation from the sun we have a way to go yet
- X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
  I really don't think all we need is cheap energy, it's still an economically unproductive thing to do, so you need a govt to tax people and use the $ to perform sequestration. You need to build out the sequestration plants, maintain and run them, only one of those inputs is cheap energy. You need to move the carbon to a safe storage facility etc. It's still a huge undertaking, but would be way simpler if we had cheap electricity (which it seems like we will get via solar anyways, carbon sequestration could probably be turned on and off as needed for grid conditions)
  - blibble 4y ago
    > You need to move the carbon to a safe storage facility etc. fortunately we already have millions of holes we drilled in the ground to get the stuff we burnt originally
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Carbon tax + cheap energy = people starting carbon sequestration companies to sell credits to polluters. As long as the tax is high enough we can reach close to zero net emissions.
    - X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
      I agree, but also you really need regulation with teeth around what is a carbon credit. The voluntary market for carbon offsets is pretty sketchy right now. Cheap energy doesn't need to come from fusion, wind and solar are getting quite cheap, I suspect it'll take a loong time for fusion to get as cheap even after it's wall plug positive. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... 28 - 37 $/MWh for solar 26 - 50 $/MWh for wind This includes the maintenance and operating costs. Their estimate for maintenance costs of a pre-existing nuclear plant is 29 $/MWh. That means there are cases where it'd make financial sense to shutter a pre-existing plant to build a new solar array (obviously not all cases, the generation profile of nuclear is very nice for base load) Fusion is 10 years away from being able to generate more energy than it consumes, how far away is it from being able to be cost competitive with solar & wind?
- ben_w 4y ago
  One could, but this is unlikely to actually be done unless there is an economic incentive, which is basically why everyone put the CO2 into the air in the first place despite knowing the consequences.
  - blibble 4y ago
    carbon credits and carbon trading were invented, what, twenty years ago?
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Indeed, and look how effective they’ve been.
      - blibble 4y ago
        extremely effective indeed? (where implemented) with unlimited clean energy you'd be able to print carbon credits as a result of direct hydrocarbon sequestration the economic infrastructure already exists today, but the cost structure doesn't work
        Bakary 4y ago
        Isn't the fact that they were not implemented part of the definition of their failure? Since it's supposed to be the backbone of the solution that allows the neoliberal model to continue without significant changes, the fact that it was not adopted is a clear indictment.
        blibble 4y ago
        no? my town's anti-dog fouling laws aren't a failure because there exist other towns that permit dog fouling in terms of contribution to global emissions everything is dominated by Chinese growth but that doesn't mean that it hasn't curtailed emissions significantly where implemented
- gitanovic 4y ago
  Why, do we have unlimited cheap energy? Or the technology to pull out CO2 from the atmosphere at this scale yet? IMO this is wishful thinking, and the wrong attitude to solve a problem that is right here right now. We should focus on reducing emissions, not on hoping that a technology that is not yet proven will be available soon EDIT: sorry for the tone, I just re-read what I wrote. Anyhow what I wrote still stands: we have no proof that fusion will ever bring unlimited cheap energy, if ever viable. It poses many problems, from neutron activation of the blanket to energy extraction, problems that we don't know yet how to solve, to solve them in a economically viable AND with neutral carbon footprint... well seems just unfeasible to me (hope to be proven wrong). Therefore I might suggest to pursue more understood ways to mitigate the huge problem we have
wizofaus 4y ago
Would depletion of natural resources be so much of an issue if we could use fusion to recreate them? (after all, they didn't come into existence by magic...) Biodiversity is a bigger problem given the sheer levels of complexity and our relatively poor understanding of exactly how we depend on the exact make-up of the biosphere. Most likely humanity could survive without it, but it would be a poor sort of existence - our bodies and brains evolved in tandem with the huge diversity of life around us and is optimised to thrive in that context.
- digianarchist 4y ago
  Not all natural resources are renewable. Unlimited cheap energy would probably be more harmful to nature in the short term. Unrestricted mining, logging and human expansion.
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  This is why my primary donations are to bio diversity and endangered animal protection orgs instead of climate change.

by alas44 4y ago

ahmedk92 4y ago

My layman understanding tells me depletion of natural resources will be worse if we manage to find a sustainable source of energy.

blibble 4y ago

with unlimited cheap energy you can pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, produce hydrocarbons and pump them back into the wells

anon291 4y ago
better yet... you can kep current hydrocarbon economy factories, vehicles, etc in operation by simply producing fuels from air. Wil be cheap enough. Hydrocarbons are a great, usable source of dense energy.
macksd 4y ago
I don't know what the math looks like here, but there is waste heat in this, right? We could lower CO2, but "unlimited cheap energy" at the scale required to make a dent in climate change surely gives off a pretty phenomenal amount of heat. I wonder what the equation looks like for the overall effect on the planet.
- blibble 4y ago
  my understanding of chemistry is poor, but presumably if energy is liberated from combustion, reversing that reaction requires energy (with some input to kick it off possibly) regardless, the earth receives 173,000 TW of solar radiation from the sun we have a way to go yet
X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
I really don't think all we need is cheap energy, it's still an economically unproductive thing to do, so you need a govt to tax people and use the $ to perform sequestration. You need to build out the sequestration plants, maintain and run them, only one of those inputs is cheap energy. You need to move the carbon to a safe storage facility etc. It's still a huge undertaking, but would be way simpler if we had cheap electricity (which it seems like we will get via solar anyways, carbon sequestration could probably be turned on and off as needed for grid conditions)
- blibble 4y ago
  > You need to move the carbon to a safe storage facility etc. fortunately we already have millions of holes we drilled in the ground to get the stuff we burnt originally
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Carbon tax + cheap energy = people starting carbon sequestration companies to sell credits to polluters. As long as the tax is high enough we can reach close to zero net emissions.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
    I agree, but also you really need regulation with teeth around what is a carbon credit. The voluntary market for carbon offsets is pretty sketchy right now. Cheap energy doesn't need to come from fusion, wind and solar are getting quite cheap, I suspect it'll take a loong time for fusion to get as cheap even after it's wall plug positive. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... 28 - 37 $/MWh for solar 26 - 50 $/MWh for wind This includes the maintenance and operating costs. Their estimate for maintenance costs of a pre-existing nuclear plant is 29 $/MWh. That means there are cases where it'd make financial sense to shutter a pre-existing plant to build a new solar array (obviously not all cases, the generation profile of nuclear is very nice for base load) Fusion is 10 years away from being able to generate more energy than it consumes, how far away is it from being able to be cost competitive with solar & wind?
ben_w 4y ago
One could, but this is unlikely to actually be done unless there is an economic incentive, which is basically why everyone put the CO2 into the air in the first place despite knowing the consequences.
- blibble 4y ago
  carbon credits and carbon trading were invented, what, twenty years ago?
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Indeed, and look how effective they’ve been.
    - blibble 4y ago
      extremely effective indeed? (where implemented) with unlimited clean energy you'd be able to print carbon credits as a result of direct hydrocarbon sequestration the economic infrastructure already exists today, but the cost structure doesn't work
      - Bakary 4y ago
        Isn't the fact that they were not implemented part of the definition of their failure? Since it's supposed to be the backbone of the solution that allows the neoliberal model to continue without significant changes, the fact that it was not adopted is a clear indictment.
        blibble 4y ago
        no? my town's anti-dog fouling laws aren't a failure because there exist other towns that permit dog fouling in terms of contribution to global emissions everything is dominated by Chinese growth but that doesn't mean that it hasn't curtailed emissions significantly where implemented
gitanovic 4y ago
Why, do we have unlimited cheap energy? Or the technology to pull out CO2 from the atmosphere at this scale yet? IMO this is wishful thinking, and the wrong attitude to solve a problem that is right here right now. We should focus on reducing emissions, not on hoping that a technology that is not yet proven will be available soon EDIT: sorry for the tone, I just re-read what I wrote. Anyhow what I wrote still stands: we have no proof that fusion will ever bring unlimited cheap energy, if ever viable. It poses many problems, from neutron activation of the blanket to energy extraction, problems that we don't know yet how to solve, to solve them in a economically viable AND with neutral carbon footprint... well seems just unfeasible to me (hope to be proven wrong). Therefore I might suggest to pursue more understood ways to mitigate the huge problem we have

wizofaus 4y ago

Would depletion of natural resources be so much of an issue if we could use fusion to recreate them? (after all, they didn't come into existence by magic...) Biodiversity is a bigger problem given the sheer levels of complexity and our relatively poor understanding of exactly how we depend on the exact make-up of the biosphere. Most likely humanity could survive without it, but it would be a poor sort of existence - our bodies and brains evolved in tandem with the huge diversity of life around us and is optimised to thrive in that context.

digianarchist 4y ago
Not all natural resources are renewable. Unlimited cheap energy would probably be more harmful to nature in the short term. Unrestricted mining, logging and human expansion.
therealdrag0 4y ago
This is why my primary donations are to bio diversity and endangered animal protection orgs instead of climate change.