6 ms·

> more efficient devices, more robust consumer products that can be replaced once a decade or less, more local production to reduce long-distance transportation

by tomp 3y ago

> more efficient devices, more robust consumer products that can be replaced once a decade or less, more local production to reduce long-distance transportation, PR campaigns against over consumption You're advocating for degrowth policies. Degrowth is an evil, destructive, murderous mentality, and if you support it, you're evil. The only thing we should be doing is building more energy production capacity. Primarily nuclear, and also some solar (to use for e.g. air conditioning and maybe some energy intensive industries that don't need constant power). Carbon capture is a good way of supporting more energy production.

Retric 3y ago
That’s not an argument for degrowth, so your attacking a strawman. Further, your suggestion is incredibly inefficient and so would result in a lower standard of living for humanity. The litmus test for carbon capture is to see what kind of carbon tax would be needed to offset the costs and hit net zero. If you actually implemented it you wouldn’t see massive scale carbon capture programs and current emissions you would instead see a vast reduction in emissions.
- coldtea 3y ago
  His description of degrowth as "an evil, destructive, murderous mentality, and if you support it, you're evil" is already a strawman, with ad-hominem and moral panic thrown in. God forbid we forego "business as usual" while the bodies start piling up from continued growth's side-effects that are not impacted at all by kludges and unfeasible patches like "sucking carbon dioxide", "electric cars", and other such not-even-half measures...
- concordDance 3y ago
  Properly taxing externalities on a global level would likely result in a giant reduction in fossil fuel burning and would indeed be a great thing. I'm a bit confused as to why you think nuclear power would result in a lower standard of living though.
  - Retric 3y ago
    It all comes down to economic efficiency. Nuclear wasn’t the biggest issue with the suggestion rather than the carbon capture first approach. However the reason Nuclear is more expensive at scale than battery backed renewables is it takes a great deal of effort that could be used on other things. You can add whatever subsides you want, someone needs to actually do the work. Obviously wind/solar power plants and batteries etc still need manpower and materials it’s just vastly less. We could run the world on nuclear power, but millions of extra people directly or indirectly supporting the nuclear industry are millions of people not building amusement parks, maintaining bridges, providing healthcare, etc etc. PS: Risks also get factored into the above calculation at scale. Three mile island didn’t cause significant issues for public health but it did destroy valuable equipment and cleanup was expensive. As such even the cost of insurance represents an economic cost in the long term. 1 or even 500 reactors may have zero significant issues, build 10,000 of them around the world and someone will once again fuck something up.
    - concordDance 3y ago
      > Nuclear is more expensive at scale than battery backed renewables How much storage you putting there? Because unless it's an hour then nuclear will be cheaper. The 90% of the cost of 100% solar and wind comes from needing to store up to several weeks worth of electricity. Also, the vast majority of the cost of nuclear comes from overregulation. Plants were 6x cheaper 40 years ago even adjusting for inflation. And we know how safe those are (safe enough to kill less people per kwh than solar and wind back in 2010!). People/politicians simply seem to calculate a death due to radiation as worth $2 billion to prevent, while a death from lung cancer isn't even worth $1 million (numbers very approximate).
      - Retric 3y ago
        You’re mistaken on several points. The major concern with Nuclear is the economic cost of accidents not the deaths. Grid solar is by far the safest option per kWh, but we still subsidize relatively deadly rooftop solar because such low numbers of deaths aren’t a major concern for regulators. Next both Nuclear and solar/wind want storage/dispatchable power to follow the daily, weekly, and yearly demand curve. Hydro can provide significant flexibility but scaling Nuclear means falling capacity factors and thus higher cost per kWh without storage. As to battery backed solar, there’s several existing power plants that operate with the ability to store 40-50% of their daily generation capacity that are viable with current grid prices. Significant renewable storage is therefore already cost effective as long as the source electricity is cheap enough. Finally regulations don’t really explain the price differences alone when you compare different countries and they all have similar issues you need to look deeper. One example of a root issues is modern skilled workers simply demand higher salaries. Most industries have offset this with higher levels of productivity and or outsourcing, but the Nuclear industry has completely failed here. In theory many of these issues could be addressed, but current plans fail to do so in fundamental ways. Small modular reactors for example have gotten a lot of press but only address a small portion of overall costs. Not useless but you still need expensive workers, thick concrete walls for safety, fuel enrichment, heat exchangers, turbines, cooling towers and ponds, security guards, decommissioning, etc etc. CANDU reactors attempted to address the need for enrichment but failed to be cost effective for other reasons. And so it goes through many promising concepts that never materialized.
esarbe 3y ago
There's tons of potential for "degrowth" that's neither destructive nor murderous. Our society is overwhelmed with low-quality, throw-away products that don't do anything to improve health or well being. If we want to live sustainably on this planet we need stop producing goods to keep the engines of consumerism running and start cutting back these lunatic outgrowth that are only possible by allowing companies to externalize the long-term costs their products cause. That includes disposal and recycling.
- permo-w 3y ago
  I think the strongest argument for growth is that more growth means more redistribution of wealth, but if the degrowth means there's better distribution of wealth, then I'm all for it
  - esarbe 3y ago
    You don't need growth for redistribution of wealth. Just distributing the already existing output more evenly would be enough.
- concordDance 3y ago
  > start cutting back these lunatic outgrowth that are only possible by allowing companies to externalize the long-term costs their products cause Note that while properly taxing those externalities is the theoretically perfect solution, in practice calculating the costs is so infeasible it would paralize our economy, particularly if we don't allow grandfathering in previous goods, practices, foods, etc. Merely assessing a particular food type for long term health costs is a 20 year £500 million study.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 3y ago
    Perfection isn’t necessary. When assessing a carbon tax for example you can try and come up with an exact figure or you can simple tax the amount of carbon extracted from the ground. That does account for methane leaks from natural gas pipelines, but it’s much better than nothing.
geysersam 3y ago
Amazing what propaganda and convenience does to people. Environmental "degrowth" measures (that in reality are just growth measures that take externalities into account) are evil, while the companies and the economic system literally destroying the natural environment and the prerequisites for human civilization on the planet are fine.
- tomp 3y ago
  No, you're mixing up different things. You can be pro-sustainability and pro-growth. Examples are (product-neutral) carbon tax and solar&nuclear power. You can also be anti-growth and disguised as pro-sustainability. Examples are being anti-consumerism, anti-energy-abundance (including being pro-solar without solving for intermittency), and meat tax (i.e. singling out a single product that you don't like). "More efficient devices" also falls in the second category, as (1) it's pursuing energy-scarcity, not energy-abundance, and (2) it's usually implemented as "uses less energy by being worse" (e.g. dishwasher that runs longer, cars with lesser range) not "uses less energy by being more efficient" (prime example are actually petrol cars, which have massively increased in efficiency in last few decades).
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    We need to be pro-growth but it is difficult to balance that with sustainability. For example: In practice, carbon taxes are easy to game and are counter-productive. The companies prioritize profits (growth) to the exclusion of sustainability; the governments are bureaucratic and slow, so they're always years behind the businesses playing the game. > "uses less energy by being more efficient" (prime example are actually petrol cars, which have massively increased in efficiency in last few decades). Jevon's Paradox is that as resource usage becomes more efficient (cheaper), there is a _greater_ overall use of the resource. This isn't bad per se, but it does mean that greater efficiency will not lead to reduced usage. Nuclear power is one of our best current options, even though it's often derided for cost. But in lots of ways, we can't stop developing nations from burning fossil fuels, so energy developed nations produce from other sources can be use to capture those emissions.
- 3y ago

by tomp 3y ago

Retric 3y ago

That’s not an argument for degrowth, so your attacking a strawman. Further, your suggestion is incredibly inefficient and so would result in a lower standard of living for humanity. The litmus test for carbon capture is to see what kind of carbon tax would be needed to offset the costs and hit net zero. If you actually implemented it you wouldn’t see massive scale carbon capture programs and current emissions you would instead see a vast reduction in emissions.

coldtea 3y ago
His description of degrowth as "an evil, destructive, murderous mentality, and if you support it, you're evil" is already a strawman, with ad-hominem and moral panic thrown in. God forbid we forego "business as usual" while the bodies start piling up from continued growth's side-effects that are not impacted at all by kludges and unfeasible patches like "sucking carbon dioxide", "electric cars", and other such not-even-half measures...
concordDance 3y ago
Properly taxing externalities on a global level would likely result in a giant reduction in fossil fuel burning and would indeed be a great thing. I'm a bit confused as to why you think nuclear power would result in a lower standard of living though.
- Retric 3y ago
  It all comes down to economic efficiency. Nuclear wasn’t the biggest issue with the suggestion rather than the carbon capture first approach. However the reason Nuclear is more expensive at scale than battery backed renewables is it takes a great deal of effort that could be used on other things. You can add whatever subsides you want, someone needs to actually do the work. Obviously wind/solar power plants and batteries etc still need manpower and materials it’s just vastly less. We could run the world on nuclear power, but millions of extra people directly or indirectly supporting the nuclear industry are millions of people not building amusement parks, maintaining bridges, providing healthcare, etc etc. PS: Risks also get factored into the above calculation at scale. Three mile island didn’t cause significant issues for public health but it did destroy valuable equipment and cleanup was expensive. As such even the cost of insurance represents an economic cost in the long term. 1 or even 500 reactors may have zero significant issues, build 10,000 of them around the world and someone will once again fuck something up.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    > Nuclear is more expensive at scale than battery backed renewables How much storage you putting there? Because unless it's an hour then nuclear will be cheaper. The 90% of the cost of 100% solar and wind comes from needing to store up to several weeks worth of electricity. Also, the vast majority of the cost of nuclear comes from overregulation. Plants were 6x cheaper 40 years ago even adjusting for inflation. And we know how safe those are (safe enough to kill less people per kwh than solar and wind back in 2010!). People/politicians simply seem to calculate a death due to radiation as worth $2 billion to prevent, while a death from lung cancer isn't even worth $1 million (numbers very approximate).
    - Retric 3y ago
      You’re mistaken on several points. The major concern with Nuclear is the economic cost of accidents not the deaths. Grid solar is by far the safest option per kWh, but we still subsidize relatively deadly rooftop solar because such low numbers of deaths aren’t a major concern for regulators. Next both Nuclear and solar/wind want storage/dispatchable power to follow the daily, weekly, and yearly demand curve. Hydro can provide significant flexibility but scaling Nuclear means falling capacity factors and thus higher cost per kWh without storage. As to battery backed solar, there’s several existing power plants that operate with the ability to store 40-50% of their daily generation capacity that are viable with current grid prices. Significant renewable storage is therefore already cost effective as long as the source electricity is cheap enough. Finally regulations don’t really explain the price differences alone when you compare different countries and they all have similar issues you need to look deeper. One example of a root issues is modern skilled workers simply demand higher salaries. Most industries have offset this with higher levels of productivity and or outsourcing, but the Nuclear industry has completely failed here. In theory many of these issues could be addressed, but current plans fail to do so in fundamental ways. Small modular reactors for example have gotten a lot of press but only address a small portion of overall costs. Not useless but you still need expensive workers, thick concrete walls for safety, fuel enrichment, heat exchangers, turbines, cooling towers and ponds, security guards, decommissioning, etc etc. CANDU reactors attempted to address the need for enrichment but failed to be cost effective for other reasons. And so it goes through many promising concepts that never materialized.

esarbe 3y ago

There's tons of potential for "degrowth" that's neither destructive nor murderous. Our society is overwhelmed with low-quality, throw-away products that don't do anything to improve health or well being. If we want to live sustainably on this planet we need stop producing goods to keep the engines of consumerism running and start cutting back these lunatic outgrowth that are only possible by allowing companies to externalize the long-term costs their products cause. That includes disposal and recycling.

permo-w 3y ago
I think the strongest argument for growth is that more growth means more redistribution of wealth, but if the degrowth means there's better distribution of wealth, then I'm all for it
- esarbe 3y ago
  You don't need growth for redistribution of wealth. Just distributing the already existing output more evenly would be enough.
concordDance 3y ago
> start cutting back these lunatic outgrowth that are only possible by allowing companies to externalize the long-term costs their products cause Note that while properly taxing those externalities is the theoretically perfect solution, in practice calculating the costs is so infeasible it would paralize our economy, particularly if we don't allow grandfathering in previous goods, practices, foods, etc. Merely assessing a particular food type for long term health costs is a 20 year £500 million study.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 3y ago
  Perfection isn’t necessary. When assessing a carbon tax for example you can try and come up with an exact figure or you can simple tax the amount of carbon extracted from the ground. That does account for methane leaks from natural gas pipelines, but it’s much better than nothing.

geysersam 3y ago

Amazing what propaganda and convenience does to people. Environmental "degrowth" measures (that in reality are just growth measures that take externalities into account) are evil, while the companies and the economic system literally destroying the natural environment and the prerequisites for human civilization on the planet are fine.

tomp 3y ago
No, you're mixing up different things. You can be pro-sustainability and pro-growth. Examples are (product-neutral) carbon tax and solar&nuclear power. You can also be anti-growth and disguised as pro-sustainability. Examples are being anti-consumerism, anti-energy-abundance (including being pro-solar without solving for intermittency), and meat tax (i.e. singling out a single product that you don't like). "More efficient devices" also falls in the second category, as (1) it's pursuing energy-scarcity, not energy-abundance, and (2) it's usually implemented as "uses less energy by being worse" (e.g. dishwasher that runs longer, cars with lesser range) not "uses less energy by being more efficient" (prime example are actually petrol cars, which have massively increased in efficiency in last few decades).
- brightlancer 3y ago
  We need to be pro-growth but it is difficult to balance that with sustainability. For example: In practice, carbon taxes are easy to game and are counter-productive. The companies prioritize profits (growth) to the exclusion of sustainability; the governments are bureaucratic and slow, so they're always years behind the businesses playing the game. > "uses less energy by being more efficient" (prime example are actually petrol cars, which have massively increased in efficiency in last few decades). Jevon's Paradox is that as resource usage becomes more efficient (cheaper), there is a _greater_ overall use of the resource. This isn't bad per se, but it does mean that greater efficiency will not lead to reduced usage. Nuclear power is one of our best current options, even though it's often derided for cost. But in lots of ways, we can't stop developing nations from burning fossil fuels, so energy developed nations produce from other sources can be use to capture those emissions.
3y ago