5 ms·

> Reaching net-zero-carbon emissions by 2050, as many international organizations now insist is necessary to stave off dire climate consequences, will require a

by cal5k 2y ago

> Reaching net-zero-carbon emissions by 2050, as many international organizations now insist is necessary to stave off dire climate consequences, will require a rapid and massive shift in electricity-generating infrastructures. Vaclav Smil's excellent analysis on this is worth reading: https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/global/pb/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/Vaclav.pdf https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/glob... The tl;dr is that net zero by 2050 would require all major economies to spend 15-20% of GDP for the next 26 years uninterrupted. For reference, the entire US federal budget was around 23.7% of GDP in 2023. It simply is not going to happen, and pretending it will greatly undermines the pragmatic conversations we should be having about adaptation. I think there's a strong optimistic case that the private sector can get us there by 2100 or so - lots of fundamental advancements can happen in that timeframe - but hamfisted government policy in the EU and America that blunts economic growth will mean there's less money to spend on solving these problems in the future.

titzer 2y ago
> I think there's a strong optimistic case that the private sector can get us there by 2100 or so So, never. The private sector has been dragged kicking and screaming to where we are now; Oil CEOs today are still resisting calls to decarbonize (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-executives-push-back-against-calls-fast-energy-transition-2024-03-18/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-exe...) like it's the 1990s. Trillions in corporate sharedholder value are diametrically opposed to transitioning. They have vested interests, and a massive sunk cost with the current fossil fuel economy. We are so utterly screwed. > that blunts economic growth While economies have somewhat decoupled carbon from economic growth, putting economic growth as a master priority above all others is exactly what got us here and looking increasingly like a bad move.
- bluGill 2y ago
  There is more than oilin the private sector. No surprise oil is resisting, but others are not.
idiotsecant 2y ago
Yes, private industry is famously very good at solving existential threats to the species when solving those problems also results in a loss in the quarterly earnings.
- stetrain 2y ago
  Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders. https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
olau 2y ago
Here are some things Smil gets wrong: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/11/13/what-does-bill-gates-favorite-energy-guru-vaclav-smil-get-wrong/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/11/13/what-does-bill-gates-fa... IEA has historically been bad at forecasting renewables. The GDP numbers you mention are very far from the studies I've seen over the years. I've been following debates about renewables for probably 15 years. Most common objections are: It's too expensive, it's impossible, it's not worth doing anything about, we should wait until later to do anything about it. The truth is that the transition is happening, we have most of the things in place we need, and the rest we'll develop as we go along - they are mostly not developed much because their big market opportunity hasn't happened yet.
- specialist 2y ago
  > The truth is that the transition is happening Emphatic agreement. Now it's a choice between faster (more Bidenomics) or slower (rear-guard obstruction by the loyal opposition). > the rest we'll develop as we go along Yes and: Per Saul Griffith and others, we have the tools today to achieve net zero. The primary hurdles are legal, capacity, and financing. Not technology. For example, there's a huge backlog of renewable energy just waiting to join the power grid. But the utilities remain loyal to natural gas, refuse to upgrade or expand. IIRC, the 4 major categories of (human) CO2 pollution are transportation, manufacturing, buildings, and agriculture. We now have the tech to achieve net zero for all but agricultural. Successor legislation (BBB/IRA 2, 3, 4, etc) must address agricultural. And the stubbornly carbon-based industry segments, like "fast fashion", which alone accounts for > 2% of CO2 pollution (and growing).
  - cal5k 2y ago
    > The primary hurdles are legal, capacity, and financing. Incredibly hand-wavy. Finance is a way to allocate scarce resources - you can't claim the "technology" is solved if you haven't figured out a way to do it cost-effectively at scale. No such cost-effective technology yet exists for nitrogen fixation and steelmaking at scale, regardless of what small pilot projects might have been attempted thus far. "We solved the equations, now it's up to the eggheads to figure out how to finance it" is something only an incredibly naive engineer could possibly think.
silverquiet 2y ago
I'm beginning to believe that the continued existence of humanity (let alone human civilization) requires net zero by way sooner than 2050. Kurt Vonnegut may be proved right after all that we'll go extinct because of economics.
thelastgallon 2y ago
> Vaclav Smil's excellent analysis on this is worth reading: https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/glob https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/glob... While a good read, I'm not sure how anyone can take this seriously. He says " Efficiency gains from the electrification of industrial processes would vary widely, and not all of them could be electrified. And there will be negligible gains for space heating , with 100% efficiency for electric resistance heating compared to as much as 93-99% for modern gas furnaces (Lennox 2023)." Heat pumps have a COP of 1.5 - 4, which are eventually going to replace all heating/cooling. He does not consider efficiency from heat pumps at all. Two thirds of fossil fuel energy is wasted: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/sites/flowcharts/files/2023-10/US%20Energy%202022.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/sites/flowcharts/files/2023-10/U... Electrification is efficient and the transition won't need as much: https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-energy-efficiency https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-en...
Denvercoder9 2y ago
> hamfisted government policy in the EU and America that blunts economic growth will mean there's less money to spend on solving these problems in the future. Disasters brought on by climate change that blunt economic growth will also mean there's less money to spend on solving these problems in the future.
stetrain 2y ago
What would motivate the private sector to solve the problem? What economic incentive does a specific company have to make decisions that may negatively impact its short term earnings to address a global issue that will manifest slowly over the course of a century? What if the "economically sustainable" path to net zero by 2100 results in existential issues for large parts of the human population, food supply, etc? There is an economic cost to allowing the climate to continue on its current path and actually net zero doesn't necessarily reverse that change, it just prevents its continued acceleration. If the "economically sustainable" path results in the destruction of the economy, then it's no longer sustainable.
- prewett 2y ago
  > What would motivate the private sector to solve the problem? Money. Cost of grid-solar is somewhere between 50% - 70% of coal and the trend is decreasing renewable cost. [1] If you are a utility, what is the next plant you are going to install? If you can get solar for a fraction of the cost of a coal plant, it's a pretty easy decision. Plus, you can probably keep the rates the same and pass on that savings to your shareholders. Every time I visit family in Oklahoma I see more and more wind farms. Texas is has one of the highest level of renewable energy. These are states that have a knee-jerk opposition to "the liberal agenda", and yet Texas the largest producer of renewable energy (solar + wind handily beats California), and the most "anti-liberal" red states are generating the most renewable energy: Oklahoma (42%), Kansas (47%), Iowa (60%), S. Dakota (57%). [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-levelized-cost-of-energy-generation-in-the-us-by-technology/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-leveliz... [2] https://www.fool.com/research/renewable-energy-by-state/ https://www.fool.com/research/renewable-energy-by-state/ (switch to the second tab for percentages)
  - stetrain 2y ago
    But would renewables be cheaper today without the "hamfisted government policy" referenced above? Government policy that creates or increases the economic incentive to move in the "desired" direction is an effective tool.
zackmorris 2y ago
Nonsense. And also I find it rather amusing that technologists so passionately predict exponential innovation in all areas of science except for sustainability. If you want to find the truth, it's best to discount propaganda from banks like JPMorgan Chase. Blaming the government for slowing economic growth instead of corporations, in this age of unrestrained late stage crony capitalism and neoliberalism, is not a great look either. What I see coming is that the powers that be will crash the global economy and ignite more proxy wars in the next 6 months before the US presidential election to throw it and cement minority rule for as many more years as possible. That looks like sewing suspicion around such basic American values as democracy. Because we're all struggling so hard just to survive that we turn on each other instead of the owner class which funds most tech companies and even HN itself. I can't really blame them, as they have the power. This is all just a big game to them, as they dip into our money supply to ratchet up their fortunes at perhaps 1% per day whenever they need money, through stock market algorithmic trading which we don't have access to. So it makes little sense to talk about societal investment when over 50% of Americans no longer have any disposable income to speak of. Regulatory capture has sunk what was once our retirement and social safety net into a $30+ trillion national debt paid as treasury yield to the same wealthy financiers who are buying up over 40% of US homes through private equity groups to convert us to a renter society. It would cost next to nothing to convert to a solar grid-tie infrastructure amortized over a decade, with positive dividends paid back to all of us after that. But they won't even give us nothing to spend, they just keep us perpetually in debt so we can't improve our situation at even the most basic level. https://www.tiktok.com/@r4ultra/video/7350811129926536478 https://www.tiktok.com/@r4ultra/video/7350811129926536478 https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-single-family-homes-and-put-them-up-for-rent.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-singl...
hackerlight 2y ago
I'll save you all a click. Vaclav Smil doesn't do any analysis around costings. He pulls the figure from a Mckinsey report[1] (now 2 years old) and multiplies it by 2. To have a meaningful discussion about this, you would have to read the Mckinsey report and understand the input assumptions. In particular, what are the assumptions around cost curves? [1] https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functions/sustainability/our%20insights/the%20net%20zero%20transition%20what%20it%20would%20cost%20what%20it%20could%20bring/the-net-zero-transition-what-it-would-cost-and-what-it-could-bring-final.pdf https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functio...

by cal5k 2y ago

titzer 2y ago

> I think there's a strong optimistic case that the private sector can get us there by 2100 or so So, never. The private sector has been dragged kicking and screaming to where we are now; Oil CEOs today are still resisting calls to decarbonize (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-executives-push-back-against-calls-fast-energy-transition-2024-03-18/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-exe...) like it's the 1990s. Trillions in corporate sharedholder value are diametrically opposed to transitioning. They have vested interests, and a massive sunk cost with the current fossil fuel economy. We are so utterly screwed. > that blunts economic growth While economies have somewhat decoupled carbon from economic growth, putting economic growth as a master priority above all others is exactly what got us here and looking increasingly like a bad move.

bluGill 2y ago
There is more than oilin the private sector. No surprise oil is resisting, but others are not.

idiotsecant 2y ago

Yes, private industry is famously very good at solving existential threats to the species when solving those problems also results in a loss in the quarterly earnings.

stetrain 2y ago
Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders. https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

olau 2y ago

Here are some things Smil gets wrong: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/11/13/what-does-bill-gates-favorite-energy-guru-vaclav-smil-get-wrong/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/11/13/what-does-bill-gates-fa... IEA has historically been bad at forecasting renewables. The GDP numbers you mention are very far from the studies I've seen over the years. I've been following debates about renewables for probably 15 years. Most common objections are: It's too expensive, it's impossible, it's not worth doing anything about, we should wait until later to do anything about it. The truth is that the transition is happening, we have most of the things in place we need, and the rest we'll develop as we go along - they are mostly not developed much because their big market opportunity hasn't happened yet.

specialist 2y ago
> The truth is that the transition is happening Emphatic agreement. Now it's a choice between faster (more Bidenomics) or slower (rear-guard obstruction by the loyal opposition). > the rest we'll develop as we go along Yes and: Per Saul Griffith and others, we have the tools today to achieve net zero. The primary hurdles are legal, capacity, and financing. Not technology. For example, there's a huge backlog of renewable energy just waiting to join the power grid. But the utilities remain loyal to natural gas, refuse to upgrade or expand. IIRC, the 4 major categories of (human) CO2 pollution are transportation, manufacturing, buildings, and agriculture. We now have the tech to achieve net zero for all but agricultural. Successor legislation (BBB/IRA 2, 3, 4, etc) must address agricultural. And the stubbornly carbon-based industry segments, like "fast fashion", which alone accounts for > 2% of CO2 pollution (and growing).
- cal5k 2y ago
  > The primary hurdles are legal, capacity, and financing. Incredibly hand-wavy. Finance is a way to allocate scarce resources - you can't claim the "technology" is solved if you haven't figured out a way to do it cost-effectively at scale. No such cost-effective technology yet exists for nitrogen fixation and steelmaking at scale, regardless of what small pilot projects might have been attempted thus far. "We solved the equations, now it's up to the eggheads to figure out how to finance it" is something only an incredibly naive engineer could possibly think.

silverquiet 2y ago

I'm beginning to believe that the continued existence of humanity (let alone human civilization) requires net zero by way sooner than 2050. Kurt Vonnegut may be proved right after all that we'll go extinct because of economics.

thelastgallon 2y ago

> Vaclav Smil's excellent analysis on this is worth reading: https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/glob https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/glob... While a good read, I'm not sure how anyone can take this seriously. He says " Efficiency gains from the electrification of industrial processes would vary widely, and not all of them could be electrified. And there will be negligible gains for space heating , with 100% efficiency for electric resistance heating compared to as much as 93-99% for modern gas furnaces (Lennox 2023)." Heat pumps have a COP of 1.5 - 4, which are eventually going to replace all heating/cooling. He does not consider efficiency from heat pumps at all. Two thirds of fossil fuel energy is wasted: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/sites/flowcharts/files/2023-10/US%20Energy%202022.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/sites/flowcharts/files/2023-10/U... Electrification is efficient and the transition won't need as much: https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-energy-efficiency https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-en...

Denvercoder9 2y ago

> hamfisted government policy in the EU and America that blunts economic growth will mean there's less money to spend on solving these problems in the future. Disasters brought on by climate change that blunt economic growth will also mean there's less money to spend on solving these problems in the future.

stetrain 2y ago

What would motivate the private sector to solve the problem? What economic incentive does a specific company have to make decisions that may negatively impact its short term earnings to address a global issue that will manifest slowly over the course of a century? What if the "economically sustainable" path to net zero by 2100 results in existential issues for large parts of the human population, food supply, etc? There is an economic cost to allowing the climate to continue on its current path and actually net zero doesn't necessarily reverse that change, it just prevents its continued acceleration. If the "economically sustainable" path results in the destruction of the economy, then it's no longer sustainable.

prewett 2y ago
> What would motivate the private sector to solve the problem? Money. Cost of grid-solar is somewhere between 50% - 70% of coal and the trend is decreasing renewable cost. [1] If you are a utility, what is the next plant you are going to install? If you can get solar for a fraction of the cost of a coal plant, it's a pretty easy decision. Plus, you can probably keep the rates the same and pass on that savings to your shareholders. Every time I visit family in Oklahoma I see more and more wind farms. Texas is has one of the highest level of renewable energy. These are states that have a knee-jerk opposition to "the liberal agenda", and yet Texas the largest producer of renewable energy (solar + wind handily beats California), and the most "anti-liberal" red states are generating the most renewable energy: Oklahoma (42%), Kansas (47%), Iowa (60%), S. Dakota (57%). [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-levelized-cost-of-energy-generation-in-the-us-by-technology/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-leveliz... [2] https://www.fool.com/research/renewable-energy-by-state/ https://www.fool.com/research/renewable-energy-by-state/ (switch to the second tab for percentages)
- stetrain 2y ago
  But would renewables be cheaper today without the "hamfisted government policy" referenced above? Government policy that creates or increases the economic incentive to move in the "desired" direction is an effective tool.

zackmorris 2y ago

Nonsense. And also I find it rather amusing that technologists so passionately predict exponential innovation in all areas of science except for sustainability. If you want to find the truth, it's best to discount propaganda from banks like JPMorgan Chase. Blaming the government for slowing economic growth instead of corporations, in this age of unrestrained late stage crony capitalism and neoliberalism, is not a great look either. What I see coming is that the powers that be will crash the global economy and ignite more proxy wars in the next 6 months before the US presidential election to throw it and cement minority rule for as many more years as possible. That looks like sewing suspicion around such basic American values as democracy. Because we're all struggling so hard just to survive that we turn on each other instead of the owner class which funds most tech companies and even HN itself. I can't really blame them, as they have the power. This is all just a big game to them, as they dip into our money supply to ratchet up their fortunes at perhaps 1% per day whenever they need money, through stock market algorithmic trading which we don't have access to. So it makes little sense to talk about societal investment when over 50% of Americans no longer have any disposable income to speak of. Regulatory capture has sunk what was once our retirement and social safety net into a $30+ trillion national debt paid as treasury yield to the same wealthy financiers who are buying up over 40% of US homes through private equity groups to convert us to a renter society. It would cost next to nothing to convert to a solar grid-tie infrastructure amortized over a decade, with positive dividends paid back to all of us after that. But they won't even give us nothing to spend, they just keep us perpetually in debt so we can't improve our situation at even the most basic level. https://www.tiktok.com/@r4ultra/video/7350811129926536478 https://www.tiktok.com/@r4ultra/video/7350811129926536478 https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-single-family-homes-and-put-them-up-for-rent.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-singl...

hackerlight 2y ago

I'll save you all a click. Vaclav Smil doesn't do any analysis around costings. He pulls the figure from a Mckinsey report[1] (now 2 years old) and multiplies it by 2. To have a meaningful discussion about this, you would have to read the Mckinsey report and understand the input assumptions. In particular, what are the assumptions around cost curves? [1] https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functions/sustainability/our%20insights/the%20net%20zero%20transition%20what%20it%20would%20cost%20what%20it%20could%20bring/the-net-zero-transition-what-it-would-cost-and-what-it-could-bring-final.pdf https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functio...