3 ms·

Switching to renewable energy could save trillions – study

11 points by donutshop 4y ago

melling 4y ago
You’d think if this were true, I wouldn’t be seeing stories like this: “China’s Coal Power Boom Beijing is building more coal-fired capacity than the rest of the world combined, U.S. climate lectures notwithstanding” https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-coal-power-boom-beijing-xi-jinping-climate-energy-biden-administration-11650480857?mod=mhp https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-coal-power-boom-beijing-... Coal generates a lot of pollution, in addition to a lot of CO2. If renewables were a better option, it’s unlikely China would need to continue to build coal power plants. “China starts building 33 GW of coal power in 2021, most since 2016” https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-starts-building-33-gw-coal-power-2021-most-since-2016-research-2022-02-24/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-starts-bui...
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  You definately shouldn't get your climate, renewable or China news from WSJ editorials.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gardenfelder 4y ago
  On the surface, that seems reasonable. But, the surface elides the idea that renewables are being built at a furious pace in China as well, and that renewables have the distinct problem of not always "being there when you need them"; people speak in terms of base load, peaking power, and all manner of issues in "wheeling" power from one place to another. China's energy needs, especially in terms of providing energy when renewables are not around, seems to be enormous; coal is a logical backstop until things such as batteries come along. At one time, hydro was going to be the primary source, but headlines tell of drying up rivers and so forth. Lots of other chatter around HN suggests that we are still stuck with fossil fuel sources, at least for a while. One in particular today tells how California made a long term investment in "grid storage" - batteries on the grid, which, according to the latimes.com piece, helped prevent rolling blackouts during the massive heat wave in the southern part of the state. To your point "if renewables were a better option", I'd like to think they are; almost.
credit_guy 4y ago
> "Even if you're a climate denier, you should be on board with what we're advocating," Prof Doyne Farmer from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School told BBC News. > "Our central conclusion is that we should go full speed ahead with the green energy transition because it's going to save us money," he said. Both conclusions are wrong: 1. if you are a client denier and you are not on board with what they are advocating, nobody cares. 2. we don't need to say "we should go full speed with green technologies". If they are more profitable, we'll just go full speed, regardless of whether we push for this or not. And by the way, we are already going full speed. In 2021 we (the world) have invested 3 times more money in renewable power generation that in fossil fuel power generation [1]. [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2021/executive-summary https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2021/exe...
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Why is 3x more "full speed" and not 30x or 300x? If it's just a philosophical objection to government intervention in markets then removing government support for fossil fuels and pollution would be consistent with that.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    If you ask random people on the streets if they think power companies invest more in fossil fuels or in renewables, it's quite likely they'll say yes. By this token, I find the fact that not only they invest more, but they invest 3 times as much really encouraging. You ask why not 30x or 300x. I don't know, maybe I'm more of a glass-half-full type of person. But that's just me. You are absolutely free to think that we are doing quite bad while we are not at 30x or 300x.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      I don't think we're doing nothing, but I also think we could do more, hence why 'full speed' seemed an odd choice of phrase to me. There's a difference between thinking the glass is half full, and that the glass is half the size and so there's no more room for any water anyway so we couldn't have any more water no matter what we did.

11 points by donutshop 4y ago

You’d think if this were true, I wouldn’t be seeing stories like this: “China’s Coal Power Boom Beijing is building more coal-fired capacity than the rest of the world combined, U.S. climate lectures notwithstanding” https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-coal-power-boom-beijing-xi-jinping-climate-energy-biden-administration-11650480857?mod=mhp https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-coal-power-boom-beijing-... Coal generates a lot of pollution, in addition to a lot of CO2. If renewables were a better option, it’s unlikely China would need to continue to build coal power plants. “China starts building 33 GW of coal power in 2021, most since 2016” https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-starts-building-33-gw-coal-power-2021-most-since-2016-research-2022-02-24/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-starts-bui...

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
You definately shouldn't get your climate, renewable or China news from WSJ editorials.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gardenfelder 4y ago
On the surface, that seems reasonable. But, the surface elides the idea that renewables are being built at a furious pace in China as well, and that renewables have the distinct problem of not always "being there when you need them"; people speak in terms of base load, peaking power, and all manner of issues in "wheeling" power from one place to another. China's energy needs, especially in terms of providing energy when renewables are not around, seems to be enormous; coal is a logical backstop until things such as batteries come along. At one time, hydro was going to be the primary source, but headlines tell of drying up rivers and so forth. Lots of other chatter around HN suggests that we are still stuck with fossil fuel sources, at least for a while. One in particular today tells how California made a long term investment in "grid storage" - batteries on the grid, which, according to the latimes.com piece, helped prevent rolling blackouts during the massive heat wave in the southern part of the state. To your point "if renewables were a better option", I'd like to think they are; almost.

credit_guy 4y ago

> "Even if you're a climate denier, you should be on board with what we're advocating," Prof Doyne Farmer from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School told BBC News. > "Our central conclusion is that we should go full speed ahead with the green energy transition because it's going to save us money," he said. Both conclusions are wrong: 1. if you are a client denier and you are not on board with what they are advocating, nobody cares. 2. we don't need to say "we should go full speed with green technologies". If they are more profitable, we'll just go full speed, regardless of whether we push for this or not. And by the way, we are already going full speed. In 2021 we (the world) have invested 3 times more money in renewable power generation that in fossil fuel power generation [1]. [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2021/executive-summary https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2021/exe...

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Why is 3x more "full speed" and not 30x or 300x? If it's just a philosophical objection to government intervention in markets then removing government support for fossil fuels and pollution would be consistent with that.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  If you ask random people on the streets if they think power companies invest more in fossil fuels or in renewables, it's quite likely they'll say yes. By this token, I find the fact that not only they invest more, but they invest 3 times as much really encouraging. You ask why not 30x or 300x. I don't know, maybe I'm more of a glass-half-full type of person. But that's just me. You are absolutely free to think that we are doing quite bad while we are not at 30x or 300x.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    I don't think we're doing nothing, but I also think we could do more, hence why 'full speed' seemed an odd choice of phrase to me. There's a difference between thinking the glass is half full, and that the glass is half the size and so there's no more room for any water anyway so we couldn't have any more water no matter what we did.