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Yes, people are purists. If something emits a gram of CO2, they think it's dirty, even if it saves one kilogram. For example, if we could switch overnight all

Yes, people are purists. If something emits a gram of CO2, they think it's dirty, even if it saves one kilogram. For example, if we could switch overnight all passenger cars in the US to be fully electric, we'd save about 375 megatons of CO2-e [1]. Of course, we can't do that, but we could probably be able to do it in 20 years. Or 30. But if we could switch overnight all the coal power plants to run on natural gas, we'd save about 525 megatons of CO2-e [2] (the calculation is: 919 MT currently produced by coal times times 0.97/2.26 = 394 MT if we switch to gas, for a saving of 525 MT). Again, we can't switch overnight, but we can easily do it in 10 years; we are doing it, because coal is inefficient compared to gas. But how many people would think that it's more worth switching from coal to natgas than switching from gasoline cars to battery cars? [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1235091/us-passenger-car-ghg-emissions-by-vehicle-type/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1235091/us-passenger-car... [2] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11

_hypx 3y ago
The real answer is neither: Switch to mass transit as much as possible, and build nuclear reactors instead of natural gas plants. This would very quickly drop CO2 emissions even further and not involve any new technologies nor huge new supply requirements. The problem with "purist" is that they're the classic example of letting the perfect defeat the good. In reality, they are anything but. They are arguably just greenwashing since their ideas don't scale.
- credit_guy 3y ago
  I'm with you there. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a nuclear renaissance, but it's not a guaranteed thing. Not by a mile. As for mass transit, how can you achieve that? That's a boring, but so difficult problem. If you take any mass transit from NYC you will not reach 60 miles in an hour. Most often you will not reach 40 miles in one hour. How do you fix that? And NYC is by far the most connected city in the country. What about the rest of the country? Fixing mass transportation in the US is an NP-hard problem.

_hypx 3y ago

The real answer is neither: Switch to mass transit as much as possible, and build nuclear reactors instead of natural gas plants. This would very quickly drop CO2 emissions even further and not involve any new technologies nor huge new supply requirements. The problem with "purist" is that they're the classic example of letting the perfect defeat the good. In reality, they are anything but. They are arguably just greenwashing since their ideas don't scale.

credit_guy 3y ago
I'm with you there. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a nuclear renaissance, but it's not a guaranteed thing. Not by a mile. As for mass transit, how can you achieve that? That's a boring, but so difficult problem. If you take any mass transit from NYC you will not reach 60 miles in an hour. Most often you will not reach 40 miles in one hour. How do you fix that? And NYC is by far the most connected city in the country. What about the rest of the country? Fixing mass transportation in the US is an NP-hard problem.