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Yeah I'm not sure why it was concluded from my comment that I was suggesting to keep the current renewable energy production at current capacity. We need to low

by forty 4y ago

Yeah I'm not sure why it was concluded from my comment that I was suggesting to keep the current renewable energy production at current capacity. We need to lower consumption and build more clean (or cleaner, nothing is really clean except what's not produced) energy production.

pfdietz 4y ago
It may be a good idea to lower current consumption, but it's by no means necessary. The available renewable resource is very large. Total world rate of primary energy consumption is around 18 TW (which might correspond to 10 TW of work); the world is constantly being hit by 100,000 TW of sunlight.
- forty 4y ago
  You are probably right in theory, but I think all serious plans I have seen to switch to full renewable energy involved some reduction of the consumption. It's not that it's strictly necessary, but it's probably more practical in the short term at least.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    I think all plans globally involve serious increases in consumption. Otherwise, one is assuming most of the world's population stays in a state of energy poverty.
kcplate 4y ago
I didn’t conclude that you were suggesting that we could—-quite the opposite, I posted both the original comment and yours to make the distinction. Your comment was responding to the notion that the world can run on renewables. You didn’t make the claim that it could, you made the claim that we would need to decrease consumption so it could. So the answer is “no” at current consumption and current renewable capacity. Further consumption will only increase, so to get to a 100% renewable place, we need to account for capacity increase and build that into the equation. We cannot make moving to renewables dependent of something that will not happen.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  > So the answer is “no” at current consumption and current renewable capacity What is this "current renewable capacity" nonsense? Currently installed capacity? Current rate of construction of renewable capacity? None of those are physical constants of nature. We want more renewables, we build more. We want them faster, we build more factories. You seem to be trying to imply there's some sort of limit that prevents renewables from being installed to replace fossil fuels. There really isn't any such limit.
  - kcplate 4y ago
    You need investment to do it and to get that investment, you need a payback that encourages the investment. Without that there is a limit. I am talking a real ROI—not based on some apocalyptic prediction of “if we don’t invest a $1 now it’s going to cost us $100 90 years from now…”. That sort of scaremongering is not going to encourage investment because the return needs to be on a smaller time scale. We need industry to see that when they put up $1000 in renewables, it’s going to result in a $5000 return vs we put $1000 in fossil fuel tech that results in $3000 in the same time frame.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      What, you're objecting because an energy system to power an industrial economy is expensive? Of course it's expensive, regardless of whether it's extracting fossil fuels, fissioning atoms, or capturing sunlight or wind. We spend something like 5% of our GDP on energy. There is a very large budget available for replacing current energy sources with new ones. What renewables have in their favor over fossil fuels is the lack of externalized costs foisted on everyone else. Toss in those costs -- as one should do, if one is honestly looking at the cost of an energy source -- and renewables save money, and a lot of it.
      - kcplate 4y ago
        You are reading much more into my comment than is what is actually there. You need industry to make renewables happen, but industry will focus where the greatest return is first. A global scale move to renewables will only happen when their are not other options with more return. Energy orgs and their investors are looking at the shorter game…the <10 year ROI, they do not care as much about the longer game with the >50 year ROI. Frankly I bet you will not find an energy organization CEO in 2023 who truly gives a shit if their company even exists in 2073 let alone showing a profit. So what do you do? Find that entrepreneur willing to play the long game. One name comes to mind, but now he is pretty much universally hated on HN, so god forbid we bring his name up. But…you need a nut job type like an Elon to push the envelope and be willing to bleed some money for a long time to move the needle just enough to show that there just might be a market worth exploring by others.

by forty 4y ago

pfdietz 4y ago

It may be a good idea to lower current consumption, but it's by no means necessary. The available renewable resource is very large. Total world rate of primary energy consumption is around 18 TW (which might correspond to 10 TW of work); the world is constantly being hit by 100,000 TW of sunlight.

forty 4y ago
You are probably right in theory, but I think all serious plans I have seen to switch to full renewable energy involved some reduction of the consumption. It's not that it's strictly necessary, but it's probably more practical in the short term at least.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  I think all plans globally involve serious increases in consumption. Otherwise, one is assuming most of the world's population stays in a state of energy poverty.

kcplate 4y ago

I didn’t conclude that you were suggesting that we could—-quite the opposite, I posted both the original comment and yours to make the distinction. Your comment was responding to the notion that the world can run on renewables. You didn’t make the claim that it could, you made the claim that we would need to decrease consumption so it could. So the answer is “no” at current consumption and current renewable capacity. Further consumption will only increase, so to get to a 100% renewable place, we need to account for capacity increase and build that into the equation. We cannot make moving to renewables dependent of something that will not happen.

pfdietz 4y ago
> So the answer is “no” at current consumption and current renewable capacity What is this "current renewable capacity" nonsense? Currently installed capacity? Current rate of construction of renewable capacity? None of those are physical constants of nature. We want more renewables, we build more. We want them faster, we build more factories. You seem to be trying to imply there's some sort of limit that prevents renewables from being installed to replace fossil fuels. There really isn't any such limit.
- kcplate 4y ago
  You need investment to do it and to get that investment, you need a payback that encourages the investment. Without that there is a limit. I am talking a real ROI—not based on some apocalyptic prediction of “if we don’t invest a $1 now it’s going to cost us $100 90 years from now…”. That sort of scaremongering is not going to encourage investment because the return needs to be on a smaller time scale. We need industry to see that when they put up $1000 in renewables, it’s going to result in a $5000 return vs we put $1000 in fossil fuel tech that results in $3000 in the same time frame.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    What, you're objecting because an energy system to power an industrial economy is expensive? Of course it's expensive, regardless of whether it's extracting fossil fuels, fissioning atoms, or capturing sunlight or wind. We spend something like 5% of our GDP on energy. There is a very large budget available for replacing current energy sources with new ones. What renewables have in their favor over fossil fuels is the lack of externalized costs foisted on everyone else. Toss in those costs -- as one should do, if one is honestly looking at the cost of an energy source -- and renewables save money, and a lot of it.
    - kcplate 4y ago
      You are reading much more into my comment than is what is actually there. You need industry to make renewables happen, but industry will focus where the greatest return is first. A global scale move to renewables will only happen when their are not other options with more return. Energy orgs and their investors are looking at the shorter game…the <10 year ROI, they do not care as much about the longer game with the >50 year ROI. Frankly I bet you will not find an energy organization CEO in 2023 who truly gives a shit if their company even exists in 2073 let alone showing a profit. So what do you do? Find that entrepreneur willing to play the long game. One name comes to mind, but now he is pretty much universally hated on HN, so god forbid we bring his name up. But…you need a nut job type like an Elon to push the envelope and be willing to bleed some money for a long time to move the needle just enough to show that there just might be a market worth exploring by others.