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>"Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come." It's sad that a

by tkk23 4y ago

>"Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come." It's sad that a war can driving massive change but not the insight that we are destroying the stable climate as we know it. Are we still going to meet those energy targets if the weather escalates and destroys more and more infrastructure and harvests?

bullen 4y ago
I think it the opposite, war started because we are running out of energy.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Who's running out of energy? The Russians certainly aren't. Ukraine? They've didn't have a lot energy to begin with. Europe? Germany has vast gas reserves it could tap with fracking, it just chooses not to.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
    >Germany has vast gas reserves it could tap with fracking, it just chooses not to. It's like saying France could easily end the war in Ukraine today, they just choose not to nuke Moscow.
    - hunterb123 4y ago
      It's not at all, that's a terrible emotional analogy that's 100% ridiculous. But since you're insinuating fracking is as bad as nuking a city... you do realize that emissions went down in the US while electricity generation rose due to nat. gas displacing coal thanks to fracking? Were you fine with Germany outsourcing their energy to Russia, even though the production of the energy was dirtier than what Germany could have made itself?
      - SuoDuanDao 4y ago
        Having worked around fracking rigs and gotten covered in fracking fluid during blowouts... and having read the MSDSs for fracking fluid... I'm not convinced the lower emissions were worth the cost in groundwater purity. And boy, do West Europeans care about their groundwater purity.
        hunterb123 4y ago
        Generally you only frack where shale oil is, Germany you'd most likely use normal deep drilling. Shale oil deposits are usually found in harsh landscapes where not many people live. Fracking fluid is just 90% water, 9.5% is sand, 0.5% additives. Those additives are normal cleaning products like salts, antifreeze. Yeah you don't want to drink them but in small quantities they are fine to be in the middle of nowhere. You'd rather have more global emissions than some small amount of pool cleaner in a remote desolate landscape? Would you rather we burn our trash vs putting it in a landfill too? Because that's the same line of thinking.
        SuoDuanDao 4y ago
        It's clear that you care about the environment so I'm just going to say that, based on my firsthand experience as a roughneck who did fracking jobs, that it's probably the most greenwashed industry in the world and even if your opinion of it is based on direct reading of official hard numbers, those numbers are gamed at every handoff between field and office. Probably at every handoff between office and press release as well, though I was never in that loop.
        hunterb123 4y ago
        So in your mind coal produces the same amount of emissions as fracking just about. Not even that but every country and it's industries that have been transitioning from coal to nat. gas are fudging the numbers to pretend it's better? And you know that because you were a roughneck "who did fracking jobs", therefore you can see through these numbers. That's quite a story, but I'll go with the breakdown of energy production by source, and the tracked emissions of energy production trends.
    - BjoernKW 4y ago
      How deciding against using an available energy source that might might help with alleviating short-term problems (nuclear power being an even more obvious and readily available option) could be considered even remotely similar to nuking a major city is beyond me.
      - adrianN 4y ago
        You don't just start a fracking operation "in the short term".
        BjoernKW 4y ago
        The same applies to building new LNG terminals, drastically increasing the storage capabilities for renewable energy, and making the power grid sufficiently resilient to be able to entirely rely on renewable energy. Those measures take years to decades to materialise to a significant degree. Still, all those measures are currently being implemented, and rightfully so. In comparison, developing a new fracking site from a mere technical point of view takes less than a year. That's not to say we should do one or the other or prefer fracking over renewables. However, when the alternatives are to either continue to be at the mercy of a potentially hostile power or to use less environmentally friendly energy sources (such as coal or lignite) or to accept regular power outages as a consequence, simultaneously exploring all possible better avenues (including nuclear energy, which as mentioned is still readily available right now) is pretty much a no-brainer.
        adrianN 4y ago
        Unfortunately, both for fracking and renewables, technical problems are the least of your concern when you want to build anything in Germany.
  - skrause 4y ago
    Fracking gas is about as bad to the climate as coal because so much methane leaks directly into the atmosphere: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/fracking-boom-tied-to-methane-spike-in-earths-atmosphere https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/frack... So Germany can just as well continue to dig up and burn lignite instead of starting fracking.
    - hunterb123 4y ago
      1. Methane disappears very quickly 2. It's very small amounts and it can be captured (and is in some instances) 3. The US reduced emissions while growing energy output thanks to nat. gas displacing coal. We don't have to take your word for it, we can see that nat. gas energy production is cleaner than coal, because we have actual data from our transition off of coal to nat. gas. The methane talking point is just that. It's not an actual issue, and you can see it's not from overall numbers. If you truly cared about emissions you'd want the current best solution that drives it down. That would mean displacing coal at all cost. The current best way to do that is nat. gas and fracking. Nuclear isn't built up as a baseline, renewables aren't ready for peak loads, and outsourcing it to someone else only shuffles it around. So... natural gas it is...
      - lm28469 4y ago
        We can also see that fracking is absolutely nasty thanks to the endless amount of studies done on it, but if we cherry pick one single metric, sure... Ditching a fossil fuel to another fossil fuel is just perpetuating the problem, it's not solving anything. It's like going from a meth addiction to a cocaine addition, sure cocaine isn't as bad, you'll still be absolutely fucked up in a decade though
        hunterb123 4y ago
        > but if we cherry pick one single metric, sure... First off, I'd say total emissions by electricity generation is a great single metric to look at. Second, those studies you didn't even reference were most likely FUD. I've worked on companies who organized those through call centers to spread the misinformation about fracking. But instead of coming up with useless analogies about cocaine and falling back on studies you didn't even reference, please respond to each of my points instead of talking past me. Maybe start with the fact that there are no replacements ready for coal other than nat. gas. I'm all for building up nuclear energy and even battery banks. But currently nothing is available other than nat. gas to take the load that coal has produced. Soo... the best way to reduce emissions is to use nat. gas until a solution is built up and ready. (cough, nuclear, cough) Renewables will most likely never be able to handle the peak load, you need a baseline source, that's either fossil fuels or nuclear energy thanks to their densities. ---- edit ---- @lm28469: You're still not addressing any of my points. Dropping a study and calling it a day is not a conversation. At least pick out a point to defend from it... But here's the cool thing. We don't need to read through your biased studies! We know nat. gas is cleaner than coal and we can see it from reduction of emissions as we transition off of coal to nat. gas. If you want to displace nat. gas as well, support nuclear as the new baseline standard! Or come up with better battery tech! Until then, it's not ready and we need energy so we don't die... so nat. gas it is. Or coal worst case.
  - practice9 4y ago
    > Ukraine? They've didn't have a lot energy to begin with They're in top 30 by energy production in the world, around 50% of the energy produced being nuclear. And there untapped gas reserves as well. Coal has been disrupted since Russia invaded the east in 2014 If I'm not mistaken, nuclear capacity was to be expanded considerably in 2022 - 2023, to sell more energy to EU (specifically Poland)
    - eldaisfish 4y ago
      Top 30 of most things doesn’t mean much since values tend to drop exponentially once you’re past the top ten or fifteen. Energy is usually used to refer to things like oil and gas, both items that Ukraine doesn’t have a lot of. Both Russia and Norway have more oil/gas than Ukraine.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > doesn’t mean much Compare a map of Ukraine’s gas deposits [1] with one of Russian-occupied territory [2]. > oil and gas, both items that Ukraine doesn’t have a lot of Ukraine has enough to rival, if not dethrone, Moscow [3]. It is accurate to say the Kremlin is burying Russians in large part to protect its energy profits. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-gas-potential-of-individual-regions-of-Ukraine_fig1_350850048/amp https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-gas-potential-of-ind... [2] https://mobile.twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1585423690795286528/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/158542369079528... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine#Proven_reserves https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine#Prove...
thenewthotness 4y ago
The climate wasn’t stable to begin with.
- paganel 4y ago
  This is a secular apocalyptic religion by this point, I’m afraid that arguing based on past facts won’t have any effect.
  - Comevius 4y ago
    How is a scientific consensus religion? Millions of hours of research is going into climate change every month. Satellites, tens of thousands of sensors, 30 years of academic literature, computer simulations. Meanwhile climate change deniers are sitting on their couches pulling things out of their asses, cherry picking data from publications they didn't write, removing all context to support their argument. Posting content on Youtube, Twitter, TikTok and Substack is all these people do, either for subscribers or for conservative think tanks financed by the fossil fuel industry.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      On one hand we have people denying anything is happening and on the other we have a doom cult where people people civilization is going to end because of the weather. Like people who don’t want to have children because they’re afraid of the consequences of climate change. Tell people that there’s going to be change but things are going to be mostly ok and some of them just lose their minds.
      - Comevius 4y ago
        The IPCC reports don't paint a picture that things are going to be mostly okay, and those reports in many ways are conservative, because they can't include feedback loops and tipping points we are not entirely sure about. Complicated systems tend to show only subtle signs before they rapidly collapse. AI is a new approach that might actually help us asses the risks better. Climate change is a mine field. Telling people that we are going to be okay, while not doing anything to manage the risk is a lie. Rapid, extreme changes are coming, and they are going to test our civilization's ability to survive. Many parts of the planet will be inhabitable. And that's in a few decades, not even centuries. Unfortunately this is out reality, like it or not. We don't get another one, so it's important what we are doing something about it. But we don't because of people like you living comfortable lies, not willing to look up.
novaRom 4y ago
> a war can driving massive change reverse may also be true

by tkk23 4y ago

bullen 4y ago

I think it the opposite, war started because we are running out of energy.

luckylion 4y ago
Who's running out of energy? The Russians certainly aren't. Ukraine? They've didn't have a lot energy to begin with. Europe? Germany has vast gas reserves it could tap with fracking, it just chooses not to.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
  >Germany has vast gas reserves it could tap with fracking, it just chooses not to. It's like saying France could easily end the war in Ukraine today, they just choose not to nuke Moscow.
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    It's not at all, that's a terrible emotional analogy that's 100% ridiculous. But since you're insinuating fracking is as bad as nuking a city... you do realize that emissions went down in the US while electricity generation rose due to nat. gas displacing coal thanks to fracking? Were you fine with Germany outsourcing their energy to Russia, even though the production of the energy was dirtier than what Germany could have made itself?
    - SuoDuanDao 4y ago
      Having worked around fracking rigs and gotten covered in fracking fluid during blowouts... and having read the MSDSs for fracking fluid... I'm not convinced the lower emissions were worth the cost in groundwater purity. And boy, do West Europeans care about their groundwater purity.
      - hunterb123 4y ago
        Generally you only frack where shale oil is, Germany you'd most likely use normal deep drilling. Shale oil deposits are usually found in harsh landscapes where not many people live. Fracking fluid is just 90% water, 9.5% is sand, 0.5% additives. Those additives are normal cleaning products like salts, antifreeze. Yeah you don't want to drink them but in small quantities they are fine to be in the middle of nowhere. You'd rather have more global emissions than some small amount of pool cleaner in a remote desolate landscape? Would you rather we burn our trash vs putting it in a landfill too? Because that's the same line of thinking.
        SuoDuanDao 4y ago
        It's clear that you care about the environment so I'm just going to say that, based on my firsthand experience as a roughneck who did fracking jobs, that it's probably the most greenwashed industry in the world and even if your opinion of it is based on direct reading of official hard numbers, those numbers are gamed at every handoff between field and office. Probably at every handoff between office and press release as well, though I was never in that loop.
        hunterb123 4y ago
        So in your mind coal produces the same amount of emissions as fracking just about. Not even that but every country and it's industries that have been transitioning from coal to nat. gas are fudging the numbers to pretend it's better? And you know that because you were a roughneck "who did fracking jobs", therefore you can see through these numbers. That's quite a story, but I'll go with the breakdown of energy production by source, and the tracked emissions of energy production trends.
  - BjoernKW 4y ago
    How deciding against using an available energy source that might might help with alleviating short-term problems (nuclear power being an even more obvious and readily available option) could be considered even remotely similar to nuking a major city is beyond me.
    - adrianN 4y ago
      You don't just start a fracking operation "in the short term".
      - BjoernKW 4y ago
        The same applies to building new LNG terminals, drastically increasing the storage capabilities for renewable energy, and making the power grid sufficiently resilient to be able to entirely rely on renewable energy. Those measures take years to decades to materialise to a significant degree. Still, all those measures are currently being implemented, and rightfully so. In comparison, developing a new fracking site from a mere technical point of view takes less than a year. That's not to say we should do one or the other or prefer fracking over renewables. However, when the alternatives are to either continue to be at the mercy of a potentially hostile power or to use less environmentally friendly energy sources (such as coal or lignite) or to accept regular power outages as a consequence, simultaneously exploring all possible better avenues (including nuclear energy, which as mentioned is still readily available right now) is pretty much a no-brainer.
        adrianN 4y ago
        Unfortunately, both for fracking and renewables, technical problems are the least of your concern when you want to build anything in Germany.
- skrause 4y ago
  Fracking gas is about as bad to the climate as coal because so much methane leaks directly into the atmosphere: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/fracking-boom-tied-to-methane-spike-in-earths-atmosphere https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/frack... So Germany can just as well continue to dig up and burn lignite instead of starting fracking.
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    1. Methane disappears very quickly 2. It's very small amounts and it can be captured (and is in some instances) 3. The US reduced emissions while growing energy output thanks to nat. gas displacing coal. We don't have to take your word for it, we can see that nat. gas energy production is cleaner than coal, because we have actual data from our transition off of coal to nat. gas. The methane talking point is just that. It's not an actual issue, and you can see it's not from overall numbers. If you truly cared about emissions you'd want the current best solution that drives it down. That would mean displacing coal at all cost. The current best way to do that is nat. gas and fracking. Nuclear isn't built up as a baseline, renewables aren't ready for peak loads, and outsourcing it to someone else only shuffles it around. So... natural gas it is...
    - lm28469 4y ago
      We can also see that fracking is absolutely nasty thanks to the endless amount of studies done on it, but if we cherry pick one single metric, sure... Ditching a fossil fuel to another fossil fuel is just perpetuating the problem, it's not solving anything. It's like going from a meth addiction to a cocaine addition, sure cocaine isn't as bad, you'll still be absolutely fucked up in a decade though
      - hunterb123 4y ago
        > but if we cherry pick one single metric, sure... First off, I'd say total emissions by electricity generation is a great single metric to look at. Second, those studies you didn't even reference were most likely FUD. I've worked on companies who organized those through call centers to spread the misinformation about fracking. But instead of coming up with useless analogies about cocaine and falling back on studies you didn't even reference, please respond to each of my points instead of talking past me. Maybe start with the fact that there are no replacements ready for coal other than nat. gas. I'm all for building up nuclear energy and even battery banks. But currently nothing is available other than nat. gas to take the load that coal has produced. Soo... the best way to reduce emissions is to use nat. gas until a solution is built up and ready. (cough, nuclear, cough) Renewables will most likely never be able to handle the peak load, you need a baseline source, that's either fossil fuels or nuclear energy thanks to their densities. ---- edit ---- @lm28469: You're still not addressing any of my points. Dropping a study and calling it a day is not a conversation. At least pick out a point to defend from it... But here's the cool thing. We don't need to read through your biased studies! We know nat. gas is cleaner than coal and we can see it from reduction of emissions as we transition off of coal to nat. gas. If you want to displace nat. gas as well, support nuclear as the new baseline standard! Or come up with better battery tech! Until then, it's not ready and we need energy so we don't die... so nat. gas it is. Or coal worst case.
- practice9 4y ago
  > Ukraine? They've didn't have a lot energy to begin with They're in top 30 by energy production in the world, around 50% of the energy produced being nuclear. And there untapped gas reserves as well. Coal has been disrupted since Russia invaded the east in 2014 If I'm not mistaken, nuclear capacity was to be expanded considerably in 2022 - 2023, to sell more energy to EU (specifically Poland)
  - eldaisfish 4y ago
    Top 30 of most things doesn’t mean much since values tend to drop exponentially once you’re past the top ten or fifteen. Energy is usually used to refer to things like oil and gas, both items that Ukraine doesn’t have a lot of. Both Russia and Norway have more oil/gas than Ukraine.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > doesn’t mean much Compare a map of Ukraine’s gas deposits [1] with one of Russian-occupied territory [2]. > oil and gas, both items that Ukraine doesn’t have a lot of Ukraine has enough to rival, if not dethrone, Moscow [3]. It is accurate to say the Kremlin is burying Russians in large part to protect its energy profits. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-gas-potential-of-individual-regions-of-Ukraine_fig1_350850048/amp https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-gas-potential-of-ind... [2] https://mobile.twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1585423690795286528/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/158542369079528... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine#Proven_reserves https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine#Prove...

thenewthotness 4y ago

The climate wasn’t stable to begin with.

paganel 4y ago
This is a secular apocalyptic religion by this point, I’m afraid that arguing based on past facts won’t have any effect.
- Comevius 4y ago
  How is a scientific consensus religion? Millions of hours of research is going into climate change every month. Satellites, tens of thousands of sensors, 30 years of academic literature, computer simulations. Meanwhile climate change deniers are sitting on their couches pulling things out of their asses, cherry picking data from publications they didn't write, removing all context to support their argument. Posting content on Youtube, Twitter, TikTok and Substack is all these people do, either for subscribers or for conservative think tanks financed by the fossil fuel industry.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    On one hand we have people denying anything is happening and on the other we have a doom cult where people people civilization is going to end because of the weather. Like people who don’t want to have children because they’re afraid of the consequences of climate change. Tell people that there’s going to be change but things are going to be mostly ok and some of them just lose their minds.
    - Comevius 4y ago
      The IPCC reports don't paint a picture that things are going to be mostly okay, and those reports in many ways are conservative, because they can't include feedback loops and tipping points we are not entirely sure about. Complicated systems tend to show only subtle signs before they rapidly collapse. AI is a new approach that might actually help us asses the risks better. Climate change is a mine field. Telling people that we are going to be okay, while not doing anything to manage the risk is a lie. Rapid, extreme changes are coming, and they are going to test our civilization's ability to survive. Many parts of the planet will be inhabitable. And that's in a few decades, not even centuries. Unfortunately this is out reality, like it or not. We don't get another one, so it's important what we are doing something about it. But we don't because of people like you living comfortable lies, not willing to look up.

novaRom 4y ago

> a war can driving massive change reverse may also be true