9 ms·
40% of US electricity is now emissions-free
- vinniepukh 3y agoI like the term “emissions-free”. It keeps our eyes on the target - not emitting CO2 and other gasses to the atmosphere. Other qualities like “renewablility” or “greenness” are cherries in the top. Nice to haves!
- palemoonale 3y ago[flagged]
- stephen_g 3y agoVolcanoes would average out over the long term with the earth’s natural carbon sinks if we didn’t create gigatonnes of extra emissions from burning fossil fuels, etc. every year…
- Scarblac 3y agoMuch smaller effect than humanity's.
- palemoonale 3y agoSo many experts here... laptop experts!
- marginallen 3y ago[flagged]
- stephen_g 3y agoThat is disingenuous and misleading - some species of plants can use more available CO2 but not all can (there are other limiting factors in many cases as I understand it), but for sure most plants will be far, far more affected by the extremely significant negative effects of climate change than the small positive contribution of extra CO2 for photosynthesis.
- Alpha3031 3y agoAdditionally, increased photosynthetic yield on some staple crops may not necessarily be the win that some people suggest it might be. While this is an area not yet very well studied, a number of papers have raised concerns regarding the nutritional quality of the resulting crops. Humans, after all, do not survive on a diet of exclusively carbohydrates. See for example, Ebi, Kristie L., and Irakli Loladze. "[Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations and climate change will affect our food's quality and quantity.](https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(19)30108-1 https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(19)30108-1)" The Lancet Planetary Health 3, no. 7 (2019): e283-e284.
- unglaublich 3y agoIt's completely fine to be uninformed, still learning, or even uninterested. But writing bold, naïve statements instead of asking questions does not contribute anything. You could have written: "Why do we need to reduce CO2 if plants thrive on it?". Then, someone might have invested a bit of time and effort in you and the audience to share their knowledge.
- foolfoolz 3y agoit downplays the negative impacts of dams. dams prevent sediment from flowing to the ocean which leads to sand loss and erosion
- ehnto 3y agoWhich isn't trivial but there is no perfect solution, even wind and solar have externalities. We will always have some impact on the planet, but I will take erosion over a totally broken ecosystem. Erosion is inevitable over time, and if we don't reduce emissions and the seas rise, erosion will be abit of a moot point.
- mmazing 3y agoEvery choice we make has compromises, but I think coal pollution is magnitudes worse than soil erosion. One affects the entire environment with air pollution, and the other affects a localized area by modifying terrain.
- redundantly 3y agoI wonder what is worse: the consumption of sand for manufacturing, construction, and man-made islands & beaches or the loss of sand generation that dams cause.
- polotics 3y agoAlso btw about dams: they kill! a great deal of a lot more death and also lost land because of dams than all deaths and land loss issues with nuclear.
- rocqua 3y agoAs a counter point, the danger of damns stops when the damn is empty. The danger of nuclear waste is on a longer time-scale. Hence it might be that there are future deaths due to current nuclear power that are not being counted. I say might, because there is no way of knowing how many deaths will occur (or even statistically should be expected to occur) simply because we don't know what will happen to the nuclear waste. I favor nuclear, but I'd love to see hard numbers on the 'headroom' nuclear has on deaths/GWH compared to dams, with some argument about whether long-term nuclear waste storage is likely to be less deadly than that headroom.
- globalnode 3y agoi agree, but i also dislike the term "natural gas" sure its natural just like everything in the universe is -- just a bit of greenwashing to go with our CO2 emissions
- zyl1n 3y agoWhat does natural gas have to do with greenwashing? It is naturally occurring gas; different from other hydrocarbon gas that is man-made.
- SapporoChris 3y ago"Natural gas (also called fossil gas, methane gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas Alright, so it goes by several names but it's sold to consumers as "Natural Gas". I'm not sure if it was green washing, but obviously the marketers were going for the most palatable name for consumers.
- b112 3y agobut obviously Predicated upon what? Natural gas was merely a name to differentiate between 'gasoline', short form 'gas' for many english speaking countries. And the name is valid, it's mostly in its natural form, compared to 'gasoline aka gas', which required loads of processing to create it from oil. And the name comes from a time before most of the population had even heard of global warming, at a time before people cared about using fossil fuels. There was in no way any attempt to greenwash, because absolutely no one cared one iota back then! And the same is true for being palatable. It was just fuel. There was no reason to make it sound better. This was the age when most homes were heated by heating oil, or wood, or coal even! People didn't get "triggered" back then, not in the 1950s or whatever. No one really cared except in the most extreme of cases. The earliest marketing concern over a name I know of, is "canola" oil, created by Canadian research programs, first on market I believe in the 70s, which is rapeseed oil. (Rapeseed oil was added to cattle feed before this, but was considered too bitter for people until processing improvements were developed.) It was thought that women would associate rapeseed with rape, and not buy it. This was in North America, the rest of the world generally, at the time, just called it rapeseed oil.
- uxp8u61q 3y agoCO2 and methane ("emissions") is one target. A very important one, but let's not forget the other concerns altogether - plastic pollution, contamination of the environment through mineral extraction, etc. The only path forward is a drastic reduction in overall consumption. Even if we reach 100% emissions-free electricity, we'll end up with an unlivable planet anyway if we don't focus on the other issues too. If we limit warming to 1,5°C — which isn't even realistic anymore — what good will it do to us if our water and arable land are contaminated beyond repair?
- anovikov 3y agoBut well, the goal is about increasing consumption. No matter if we like it or not, it will increase massively - probably more than an order of magnitude overall - this century, simply because countries that are now poor, will no longer be so once massive amounts of renewable energy become the norm. We have to decrease pollution while also quickly increasing consumption - probably at same rate as in the "main" fossil fuel era - in 1870..1970, between oil becoming a thing, and Arab embargo.
- uxp8u61q 3y agoIf you take as an axiom that the core cause of the current destruction of our planet is inevitable, then there's isn't much we can discuss.
- Faaak 3y agoI agree. Also, our planet is limited. Thinking that we can increase production infinitely ( good economist point of view), is just physically impossible
- iraqmtpizza 3y ago0.9 + 0.09 + 0.009 + 0.0009 +... Seems physically possible to me.
- 3y ago
- Dalewyn 3y agoAssuming this includes solar panels, windmills, dams, et al. their ecological negatives are very conveniently evaded with such terminology.
- rocqua 3y agoGood. We need to solve global warming a lot more than we need to reduce the kind of ecological damage done by dams, panels, and windmills. If we refuse to choose the lesser of two evils, we will be fucked.
- dotancohen 3y agoThe ecological impact of windmills and dams do not present a threat to the existence of human civilization as we know it.
- ekianjo 3y ago> I like the term “emissions-free”. Because it's false? Nothing is emissions-free: making solar panels and wind turbines create emissions, and since they are all made in China, just transporting them around the world where they are used cause emissions as well. And when they become garbage they are shipped once more around the world to be disposed (and not recycled). So it's only "emissions-free" if you ignore the whole supply chain.
- sedatk 3y agoI think the term's used for "emissions-free when running", not "emissions free during manufacturing".
- vinniepukh 3y agoit's pretty obvious that that's exactly what it means. i'm not sure why thy parent commenter posted what they did.
- YPPH 3y agoThis argument lacks substance. Are you suggesting the benefits of emissions-free operation are set-off, wholly or to a substantial degree, by the emissions produced in the manufacture of those products? The answer is clearly "no". There is a net benefit. That is all that is needed, and it's not a marginal benefit, it's significant.
- bamboozled 3y agoWell everything that burns fossil fuels also needs to be built, therefore also is part of the problem, the difference is they have ongoing emissions where as something like a wind turbine doesn’t.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fsh 3y agoI think this concern is often vastly exaggerated. Even with current "dirty" production and transport, renewables have orders of magnitude lower lifetime emissions than fossil fuels. And this will only get better once production and transport increasingly use renewable energy.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago[flagged]
- consumer451 3y agoIf they do their homework, then they will likely mention that anti-nuclear funding came from fossil fuel incumbents, as much as it did from the hippies. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are-fossil-fuel-interests-bankrolling-the-anti-nuclear-energy-movement/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are-f...
- pydry 3y agoAnd that, economically, the eye watering cost of nuclear power in america only makes sense at all if there is a military to share the skills base and supply chain with. The nuclear military industrial complex alternately hates the environmentalist movement and wants to hold up a mask and pretend to be it.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoThat's true, in Germany, Russia fossil fuel companies funded the green movements and their anti nuke rhetoric.
- ChatGTP 3y agoI hate to say it, but who cares? Getting a little tired isn't it? Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. Why not look forwards now? If nuclear was so awesome, we'd have more of it.
- ericjmorey 3y agoIf fossil fuels were so bad, we'd have less of it, right?
- ChatGTP 3y agoThey're not bad, they're cheap and profitable. I hate them, but you're reinforcing my point.
- maelito 3y agoGood thing ! 60 % to go urgently. The US has the biggest responsability on this planet, being the largest rich country, having emitted more than twice the CO2 per capita of Europe in the recent decades. Can't expect pour countries to go quicker than the US.
- Scarblac 3y agoMuch more than 60% to go, as all the non-electricity fossil fuel use (heating, transport, industry) will also need to be replaced by emissions free electric alternatives.
- jupp0r 3y agoIt doesn't have to be electric, thermal is fine too where appropriate.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y agoWhat is both thermal and appropriate?
- rocqua 3y agoSolar water heaters. And district heating that uses waste heat. (E.g. waste heat from data centers or industrial processes). Besides that you could run smelting ovens, internal combustion engines, and other furnaces of hydrogen. Though that hydrogen will probably come from electricity if it isn't polluting.
- jupp0r 3y agoGeothermal heating too.
- Scarblac 3y agoYes, but that doesn't really change my point much.
- 3y ago
- runarberg 3y ago[flagged]
- fnordpiglet 3y agoThree Mile Island is what killed nuclear power in the US. It wasn’t environmentalists, it was basically everyone and it was a pretty galvanizing moment in American politics. Nuclear power even before three Mile island was a mess in America, with horrendous mismanagement. It’s easy to sit in 2023 and pin nuclear powers failure on some political movement you want to grind an axe with, but ignoring the context of 1979 and the events that actually killed nuclear power doesn’t help with understanding how to exit the paralysis. Plants do use CO2, but we have also stripped the planet of an awful lot of its wild lands. Oceans might help us over a long horizon, but we shouldn’t expect plant life is surging planet wide due to the excess co2. That’s just not what’s happening in actual reality. Volcanoes emit on the upper end of estimates an average of 0.6B metric tons of CO2 per year in total. Humans emitted an approximate 37B in 2022. It’s just a falsehood or delusion to claim volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans.
- runarberg 3y agoLike I said, these are all obviously wrong points. And I find it a bit disheartening that points like these are the first to pop up on HN. I think most (all?) of the comments which contained these obviously wrong points have now been flagged to death.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoYeah, it’s disheartening. The noise of falsehoods seems to be fast in coming on, and outside this community, it doesn’t get flagged - it gets promoted. Sometimes it feels like we are racing full speed with our head down towards a wall. (Although I think the three mile island stuff isn’t obvious since you really had to be alive at that time to understand the context of today)
- redundantly 3y agoOpinions tend to lean more to the right on HN, hence the bad science or plain anti-intellectualism.
- seydor 3y agoGreat. How about the % of energy consumption?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoBeing careful to use "final energy" not "primary energy" as the measure. You don't want to be worrying about replacing all the energy that is currently wasted as heat when electrification can be 4x as efficient partly by avoiding that waste entirely.
- divbzero 3y agoLooking at the trend since 1950, I’m struck by two details: 1. We reached peak coal in 2007. Coal generation has declined since. 2. We reached a consumption plateau also in 2007. Electricity use has been more or less level since. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php#generation-major-source https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-... The neighboring chart that tracks renewables since 1950 is also interesting. Growth in renewables really started around 2007 with growth in wind being the primary contributor. Growth in solar has made a smaller but significant contribution in the past decade or so. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php#generation-renewable-sources https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mmazing 3y agoThose are interesting indeed. I would have thought cryptocurrency farming might have made a blip on there somehow but seems not. I wonder how those charts compare with the rest of the world?
- jsiepkes 3y agoI don't think you can draw those conclusions. For example without crypto you might have seen a decline due to more efficient products such as LED's.
- dgellow 3y agoI think by “blip” they meant it would be visible on the graph, not that it doesn’t have any impact
- davedx 3y agoNo idea why you were downvoted. Crypto has had a significant impact on electricity demand, I'd be interested to see if it was visible too.
- andy_ppp 3y agoThe astonishing amount of gas being flared off from US shale production can be seen from space. Nobody is actually reducing emissions as far as I can tell, we are running the experiment of far more that 2°C increases in temperature. What should we expect to happen at say 3.5°C?
- hanniabu 3y ago> What should we expect to happen at say 3.5°C? More meetings and deliberations
- simonhorlick 3y agoAnything about 2C is extremely risky for civilised society. It’s likely that we’ve already surpassed the tipping point for the West Antarctic ice sheet which over time will lead to meters of sea level rise. Changing weather patterns and simultaneous breadbasket failures will mean food becomes a lot more expensive - if you’re lucky enough to have access to it at all. At 3.5C many places on the planet become uninhabitable. People aren’t able to work outside for much of the year due to wet bulb temperatures. Regular storm surge causes a large percentage of the planets population to migrate. Salination of ground water and water for crop irrigation becomes a serious problem. Mountain glaciers that provide clean drinking water for millions of people dry up. In all, it’s hard to see a situation where we’d be able to maintain a reasonable quality of life under the conditions of >2C of warming.
- logicchains 3y ago>At 3.5C many places on the planet become uninhabitable Which places in particular? Here in the middle east temperatures regularly get up to 45-50 degrees celsius in the summer and people get by okay. Most places have average temperatures much lower than that, so how would a rise of just 3-4 degress make then uninhabitable?
- heavyset_go 3y agoHumidity is a big factor in whether heat is bearable or not, and 3.5C is an average over the entire globe. Some places will get much hotter than just 3.5C, some places won't.
- Ericson2314 3y agoWill be interesting when we start hitting the storage binding constraint.
- xcombelle 3y ago[flagged]
- megamike 3y agoeVinci™ Microreactor Westinghouse is currently developing the eVinci™ Microreactor, a next-generation, micro-modular reactor for decentralized remote applications. https://www.westinghousenuclear.com/energy-systems/evinci-microreactor https://www.westinghousenuclear.com/energy-systems/evinci-mi...
- DeathArrow 3y ago[flagged]
- jussij 3y agoBack in 1856 Eunice Newton Foote, created an experiment showing CO2 traps heat from sunlight, by putting jars containing varying degrees of CO2 in direct sunlight. What she wrote in her paper describing that experiment was the heat rise happing in the jars fill with CO2 could also happen to our planet. “An atmosphere of that gas,” she noted, “would give to our earth a high temperature”. So, the science describing this phenomenon is nothing new. When it comes to the science, there is no longer any doubt.
- Sankozi 3y agoNot sure if trolling, but just in case: Nothing in science is proven without any doubt. Check the meaning of the words theory and hypothesis. "Isn't it possible that global warming is part of a naturally occurring cycle that happened by accident at the same time industrialization took place?" - You can ask the same type of question about literally everything we can observe and every theory explaining that. Isn't it possible that things falling down is just random phenomena and not a proof of some gravitational theory? If you have a good alternate theory to global warming then explain/link to it.
- gtirloni 3y agoWhat's the next target once all our electricity is "emissons-free" but climate continues to get worse?
- Ringz 3y agoCapture co2
- dgellow 3y agoImprove infrastructure, make humanity more resilient. And massively invest in research to find realistic ways to improve the situation (aka not the current concept of carbon capture)
- advisedwang 3y agoWork on the other sources of greenhouse gases, ie transport, construction, industry, agriculture etc. Many of which will depend on clean electricity in order to decarbonize successfully.
- kakaz 3y agoMore taxes and bailouts to green companies. Gods of climate ask for that
- badpun 3y agoCan you name some bailouts to green companies so far? I've never heard of that.
- rocqua 3y agoIf you blur the lines between 'bailout' and 'wouldn't exist without subsidies' there are plenty of green subsidies that you could call a bail-out.
- uxp8u61q 3y agoIf you use words when you meant other words, then sure, I'm the queen of England. Nobody can have a discussion if words can just mean anything.
- aksss 3y agoGlobal barrels per day demand globally still going up, not flatlining, not going down. It’s great that demand isn’t rising at a faster rate. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php
- utkarsh858 3y agoThe 40% electricity is emissions free, but it has more adverse effects on environment than fossil fuels. Solar panels, once they break down its difficult to dispose of them without harming the environment. The metals in batteries like lithium, cobalt etc are very harmful for people and environment when they are mined. So not something much to be happy about. We need more innovation.
- Gare 3y ago> but it has more adverse effects on environment than fossil fuels Does it really? Or are your claims just baseless fearmongering? What are your sources that back up those claims?
- jillesvangurp 3y agoNonsense, solar panels are recyclable and mostly consist of silicon. Batteries are recyclable and are in fact being recycled. Even lead batteries are recycled. And lithium batteries are a lot more valuable to recycle. Cobalt free batteries are now quite common. Compared to the staggering amounts of emissions, pollution, and environmental destruction; and indeed countless of people whose health is destroyed by that caused by the fossil fuel industry, mining related to batteries is nothing. It doesn't register as anywhere near similar in scope or impact. Most mining and mineral extraction is coal. Then you get a bit of iron ore and other metals. And then some long way into the long tail of mining you'll find lithium extraction. The amount of lithium mined per year is measured in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes. The amount of coal mined per year is billions of tonnes. All of that is burned. The lithium on the other hand is nearly 100% recyclable. Once extracted, it stays useful.
- adrianN 3y agoIn contrast fossil fuels are created in Santa‘s workshop by elves and have no environmental impact at all.
- duckmysick 3y ago> The metals in batteries like lithium, cobalt etc are very harmful for people and environment when they are mined. How harmful are they exactly? Like how many deaths/how much damage in $ per ton mined - and how does it compare to other metals or coal?
- ngcc_hk 3y ago2008 is the raise of china and that might be a key reason for the decline of industrial use of electricity. You export your pollution etc to the communist and think that it is ok. It is not.
- RecycledEle 3y agoNo, it's not.