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I think it's an uneducated viewpoint that is supported by the deliberate misinformation of the oil and gas lobby. There are alternatives, there have always bee

by esarbe 3y ago

I think it's an uneducated viewpoint that is supported by the deliberate misinformation of the oil and gas lobby. There are alternatives, there have always been alternatives. Better ones, cheaper ones.

oldpersonintx 3y ago
[dead]
gottorf 3y ago
I posit that any deliberate misinformation by the oil and gas lobby can and will be equally matched by deliberate misinformation by the wind and solar lobby. There's no reason to believe that the former is composed of evil people who mislead for the sake of profit, and the latter of good people who just want the best for everybody. If there are "better and cheaper" alternatives available right now, market forces will assure their dominance. The oil and gas lobby is not so omnipotent that millions of people looking out for their own best interests, despite the imperfection of their knowledge, will stick to an obviously inferior means of achieving their goals. In other words, very few people will actually "maintain/increase fossil fuel usage just to stick it to their perceived enemies", as the GP said, if it hurts their pocketbooks to do so.
- useless999 3y ago
  > I posit that any deliberate misinformation by the oil and gas lobby can and will be equally matched by deliberate misinformation by the wind and solar lobby. There's no reason to believe that the former is composed of evil people who mislead for the sake of profit There is plenty of edvidence to the contrary. See e.g. “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt “Tracing Big Oil’s PR war to delay action on climate change” https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/09/oil-companies-discourage-climate-action-study-says/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/09/oil-companies... “Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago” “A new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became a public issue and spent millions to promote misinformation” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-... As for the market argument, it is costly because all historical capacity is in fossil fuel based systems. This is a major cost advantage to fossil fuel based solutions. Waiting for the market to adjust might be too little to late, climate change is path dependent, you can’t simply undo it.
- esarbe 3y ago
  > I posit that any deliberate misinformation by the oil and gas lobby can and will be equally matched The economic and political power of the oil and gas lobby is magnitudes larger than the economic and political power of the wind and solar lobby. We're talking about entrenched interests here. Also, wind and solar didn't spent more than fifty years spreading misinformation and denialism about an existential threat to our global human civilization, framing and defaming credible scientists. If there's ever an existential threat to our global human civilization through wind and solar and the wind and solar lobby is found to spread misinformation, framing and defaming credible scientists, I'm willing to revisit the topic. Until then I'm not playing this game "both-sideism". There's a real and actual culprit here. > If there are "better and cheaper" alternatives available right now, market forces will assure their dominance. That's the "free market" fallacy. But we don't have a free market. We have have trillions of yearly subsidies for oil and gas[0], we've had it for decades. We spent trillions building up oil and gas infrastructure. To expect wind and solar to compete on such an uneven playing field where even the rules of the game are written by the fossil fuel lobby is ludicrous[1]. Oh, by the way. Power generation through wind and solar has been lower then all and any fossil fuels, for years[2]. So much for "the market will solve it". [0] https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel-subsidies-surged-to-record-7-trillion https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel... [1] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/oil-lobbyists-use-rigged-system-hamstring-bidens-climate-agenda/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/oil-lobbyists-use-r... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
  - holbrad 3y ago
    When discussing market forces and renewables keep in mind, Levelized cost of electricity is a largely useless metric because it doesn't take into account the prohibitively high costs of storage and redundant infrastructure needed for intermittent sources.
    - esarbe 3y ago
      I'm not sure that this is completely true. Yes, it's true that levelized cost is not giving the full picture. But that's not quite the point here. The point is to show that the "free market" is not the solution we're looking for and that waiting for the market to solve this will closely resemble Waiting for Godot. So sure, that infrastructure needs to be built. But that was also the case for fossil fuels. Think of the massive infrastructure required to get gas to a power plant. Much of that infrastructure is subsidized, it's already there and thus any energy source trying to get into the market cannot just be slightly cheaper; the cost advantages of the established system is just to great. So in a way, your statement supports my argument that the market will not able to fix this for us.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  The oil and gas lobby literally masquerades as activists to torpedo wind and solar industries (see Trump's recent ramblings about wind farms hurting whales... there's almost zero evidence and the fishing industry is demonstrably worse). They've been spreading false information for decades. I'm not sure there's ANY industry that has undercut competing industries to the extent that they have. This is especially damning considering the millions of gallons the oil industry has been responsible for dumping directly into the ocean. All this and they still get massive federal subsidies. Worst I've seen solar and wind do is over-promise and support existing climate activists. The solar and wind industries haven't even existed for as long as the oil and gas industries have been spreading misinformation. They're not even in the same league.
jonhohle 3y ago
It’s also uneducated to eliminate fossil fuels at the expense of all else. There is real impact to life by destroying economies[0]. This is not a one dimensional problem. 0 - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239520 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- esarbe 3y ago
  No one is demanding to get rid of "fossil fuels at the expense of all else". That's a bit of a straw man. We're far away from getting to the point where we've gotten rid of fossil fuels at the expense of everything else. We've not actually really started to get rid of fossil fuels, yet.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

by esarbe 3y ago

oldpersonintx 3y ago

[dead]

gottorf 3y ago

I posit that any deliberate misinformation by the oil and gas lobby can and will be equally matched by deliberate misinformation by the wind and solar lobby. There's no reason to believe that the former is composed of evil people who mislead for the sake of profit, and the latter of good people who just want the best for everybody. If there are "better and cheaper" alternatives available right now, market forces will assure their dominance. The oil and gas lobby is not so omnipotent that millions of people looking out for their own best interests, despite the imperfection of their knowledge, will stick to an obviously inferior means of achieving their goals. In other words, very few people will actually "maintain/increase fossil fuel usage just to stick it to their perceived enemies", as the GP said, if it hurts their pocketbooks to do so.

useless999 3y ago
> I posit that any deliberate misinformation by the oil and gas lobby can and will be equally matched by deliberate misinformation by the wind and solar lobby. There's no reason to believe that the former is composed of evil people who mislead for the sake of profit There is plenty of edvidence to the contrary. See e.g. “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt “Tracing Big Oil’s PR war to delay action on climate change” https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/09/oil-companies-discourage-climate-action-study-says/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/09/oil-companies... “Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago” “A new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became a public issue and spent millions to promote misinformation” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-... As for the market argument, it is costly because all historical capacity is in fossil fuel based systems. This is a major cost advantage to fossil fuel based solutions. Waiting for the market to adjust might be too little to late, climate change is path dependent, you can’t simply undo it.
esarbe 3y ago
> I posit that any deliberate misinformation by the oil and gas lobby can and will be equally matched The economic and political power of the oil and gas lobby is magnitudes larger than the economic and political power of the wind and solar lobby. We're talking about entrenched interests here. Also, wind and solar didn't spent more than fifty years spreading misinformation and denialism about an existential threat to our global human civilization, framing and defaming credible scientists. If there's ever an existential threat to our global human civilization through wind and solar and the wind and solar lobby is found to spread misinformation, framing and defaming credible scientists, I'm willing to revisit the topic. Until then I'm not playing this game "both-sideism". There's a real and actual culprit here. > If there are "better and cheaper" alternatives available right now, market forces will assure their dominance. That's the "free market" fallacy. But we don't have a free market. We have have trillions of yearly subsidies for oil and gas[0], we've had it for decades. We spent trillions building up oil and gas infrastructure. To expect wind and solar to compete on such an uneven playing field where even the rules of the game are written by the fossil fuel lobby is ludicrous[1]. Oh, by the way. Power generation through wind and solar has been lower then all and any fossil fuels, for years[2]. So much for "the market will solve it". [0] https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel-subsidies-surged-to-record-7-trillion https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel... [1] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/oil-lobbyists-use-rigged-system-hamstring-bidens-climate-agenda/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/oil-lobbyists-use-r... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
- holbrad 3y ago
  When discussing market forces and renewables keep in mind, Levelized cost of electricity is a largely useless metric because it doesn't take into account the prohibitively high costs of storage and redundant infrastructure needed for intermittent sources.
  - esarbe 3y ago
    I'm not sure that this is completely true. Yes, it's true that levelized cost is not giving the full picture. But that's not quite the point here. The point is to show that the "free market" is not the solution we're looking for and that waiting for the market to solve this will closely resemble Waiting for Godot. So sure, that infrastructure needs to be built. But that was also the case for fossil fuels. Think of the massive infrastructure required to get gas to a power plant. Much of that infrastructure is subsidized, it's already there and thus any energy source trying to get into the market cannot just be slightly cheaper; the cost advantages of the established system is just to great. So in a way, your statement supports my argument that the market will not able to fix this for us.
micromacrofoot 3y ago
The oil and gas lobby literally masquerades as activists to torpedo wind and solar industries (see Trump's recent ramblings about wind farms hurting whales... there's almost zero evidence and the fishing industry is demonstrably worse). They've been spreading false information for decades. I'm not sure there's ANY industry that has undercut competing industries to the extent that they have. This is especially damning considering the millions of gallons the oil industry has been responsible for dumping directly into the ocean. All this and they still get massive federal subsidies. Worst I've seen solar and wind do is over-promise and support existing climate activists. The solar and wind industries haven't even existed for as long as the oil and gas industries have been spreading misinformation. They're not even in the same league.

jonhohle 3y ago

It’s also uneducated to eliminate fossil fuels at the expense of all else. There is real impact to life by destroying economies[0]. This is not a one dimensional problem. 0 - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239520 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

esarbe 3y ago
No one is demanding to get rid of "fossil fuels at the expense of all else". That's a bit of a straw man. We're far away from getting to the point where we've gotten rid of fossil fuels at the expense of everything else. We've not actually really started to get rid of fossil fuels, yet.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]