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Air transport is one of those things that would better offset with carbon capture - maybe even by making synthetic jet fuel, then it's carbon neutral - but very

Air transport is one of those things that would better offset with carbon capture - maybe even by making synthetic jet fuel, then it's carbon neutral - but very expensive. But really it doesn't matter. Air transport is 2.5% of global CO2. If we solved every other problem first, we could keep pumping oil for airplanes for centuries. Take the engineer's mindset, reach the low-hanging fruit first. Replace coal with nuclear and natural gas, then start replacing natural gas. Cars don't need to run on gasoline anymore, BEVs are a superior technology. The market is doing its work to decarbonize that all by itself. Slowly at first, and then all at once. If you're middle-aged today, you'll likely live to see the end of gasoline cars. We can speed things along by removing subsidies on fossil fuels or offsetting them with green incentives.

fxtentacle 2y ago
The reason why nobody is replacing coal with nuclear is that the former is cheap and the latter is expensive. And at the moment, higher energy prices are a very though sell, politically, even if everyone agrees that we don't want to leave scorched earth for our kids.
- slashdev 2y ago
  Only because the coal power plant doesn’t have to pay for the negative externalities.
  - ttyprintk 2y ago
    Crematoria will pay for their mercury pollution (from dental fillings) before lignite coal plants do.
ViewTrick1002 2y ago
Or just skip the nuclear power step and go directly to renewables with storage since it is vastly cheaper and the deployment time is counted in months rather than decades.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  Unfortunately, solar w/ storage isn’t cheaper. You want to look at VALCOE for LFSCOE as metrics. It doesn’t compare solar roofing with nuclear since you need more transmission, but a distributed grid seems insanely unlikely to ever happen / be practical. Moreover, storage at scale requires strip mining the ocean floor which companies are getting ready to do. That’ll be an ecological disaster which makes nuclear accidents look like peanuts.
  - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
    See the recent study on Denmark which found that nuclear power needs to come down 85% in cost to be competitive with renewables when looking into total system costs for a fully decarbonized grid, due to both options requiring flexibility to meet the grid load. Focusing on the case of Denmark, this article investigates a future fully sector-coupled energy system in a carbon-neutral society and compares the operation and costs of renewables and nuclear-based energy systems. The study finds that investments in flexibility in the electricity supply are needed in both systems due to the constant production pattern of nuclear and the variability of renewable energy sources. However, the scenario with high nuclear implementation is 1.2 billion EUR more expensive annually compared to a scenario only based on renewables, with all systems completely balancing supply and demand across all energy sectors in every hour. For nuclear power to be cost competitive with renewables an investment cost of 1.55 MEUR/MW must be achieved, which is substantially below any cost projection for nuclear power. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924010882 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192... Or the same for Australia if you went a more sunny locale finding that renewables ends up with a grid costing less than half of "best case nth of a kind nuclear power". https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2024-25ConsultDraft_20241205.pdf https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2024-25Co... But I suppose delivering reliable electricity for every customers needs every hour the whole year is "unreliable"? Please do show a study which says that we need to ”strip mine the ocean floor”. It does sound like typical fossil lobby misinformation.
    - vlovich123 2y ago
jmb99 2y ago
> BEVs are a superior technology While BEVs have a lot of benefits, they are still objectively inferior to ICE vehicles. They’re (in most cases substantially) more expensive, less energy dense by mass and volume, and require planning for refuelling (especially if used in areas outside of main city centres or for long driving, or if you live in an apartment without access to a charger at home). Not to mention most grids being nowhere near able to support the entire population of car drivers fast-charging their cars during rush hour. Gasoline-powered cars are objectively easier to own and use. The real solution is public transit, and convincing people for whom public transit is impossible that switching to BEVs is worthwhile, even with their drawbacks. Telling people that BEVs are superior technology is counterproductive though, when there are still very clear problems with them.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > They’re (in most cases substantially) more expensive, less energy dense by mass and volume, and require planning for refuelling (especially if used in areas outside of main city centres or for long driving, or if you live in an apartment without access to a charger at home). The most popular BEVs already cost less than the average new car and the price will continue to decline as long as battery prices do. Ranges of ~300 miles are common, meanwhile the average commute is 42 miles, so charging at home is sufficient for the vast majority of usage and is more convenient than buying gas. Apartments will install chargers as electric vehicles become more common. For long trips, you begin your day having charged overnight and then add 200 miles of range at a supercharger in 15 minutes. That 500 miles is more than 8 hours of driving at 60MPH and it cost you 15 minutes. For people who make such long trips on a regular basis there will be cars with larger batteries and more range so that "overnight plus once in the middle" gets back to being just overnight. > Not to mention most grids being nowhere near able to support the entire population of car drivers fast-charging their cars during rush hour. This is the least interesting problem. Upgrading power grids is a known process involving only widely deployed existing technologies. > The real solution is public transit Public transit doesn't work in the suburbs, the majority of the population lives in suburban or rural areas and changing that would take decades of new housing construction which is currently prohibited by law.
lukan 2y ago
"But really it doesn't matter. Air transport is 2.5% of global CO2." Because most people still cannot afford flying. If the world gets richer, more people want the privilege of flying. And it is not like we have an excess budget of CO2. Everything we reduce helps, so a carbon tax on jet fuel might be a good start. That is a low hanging fruit. Spreading nuclear reactors worldwide really is not. That would be a very hard fruit, with lots of potential side effects. Or do you think bangladesh will build to standards you think are safe?

fxtentacle 2y ago

The reason why nobody is replacing coal with nuclear is that the former is cheap and the latter is expensive. And at the moment, higher energy prices are a very though sell, politically, even if everyone agrees that we don't want to leave scorched earth for our kids.

slashdev 2y ago
Only because the coal power plant doesn’t have to pay for the negative externalities.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  Crematoria will pay for their mercury pollution (from dental fillings) before lignite coal plants do.

ViewTrick1002 2y ago

Or just skip the nuclear power step and go directly to renewables with storage since it is vastly cheaper and the deployment time is counted in months rather than decades.

vlovich123 2y ago
Unfortunately, solar w/ storage isn’t cheaper. You want to look at VALCOE for LFSCOE as metrics. It doesn’t compare solar roofing with nuclear since you need more transmission, but a distributed grid seems insanely unlikely to ever happen / be practical. Moreover, storage at scale requires strip mining the ocean floor which companies are getting ready to do. That’ll be an ecological disaster which makes nuclear accidents look like peanuts.
- ViewTrick1002 2y ago
  See the recent study on Denmark which found that nuclear power needs to come down 85% in cost to be competitive with renewables when looking into total system costs for a fully decarbonized grid, due to both options requiring flexibility to meet the grid load. Focusing on the case of Denmark, this article investigates a future fully sector-coupled energy system in a carbon-neutral society and compares the operation and costs of renewables and nuclear-based energy systems. The study finds that investments in flexibility in the electricity supply are needed in both systems due to the constant production pattern of nuclear and the variability of renewable energy sources. However, the scenario with high nuclear implementation is 1.2 billion EUR more expensive annually compared to a scenario only based on renewables, with all systems completely balancing supply and demand across all energy sectors in every hour. For nuclear power to be cost competitive with renewables an investment cost of 1.55 MEUR/MW must be achieved, which is substantially below any cost projection for nuclear power. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924010882 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192... Or the same for Australia if you went a more sunny locale finding that renewables ends up with a grid costing less than half of "best case nth of a kind nuclear power". https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2024-25ConsultDraft_20241205.pdf https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2024-25Co... But I suppose delivering reliable electricity for every customers needs every hour the whole year is "unreliable"? Please do show a study which says that we need to ”strip mine the ocean floor”. It does sound like typical fossil lobby misinformation.
  - vlovich123 2y ago

jmb99 2y ago

> BEVs are a superior technology While BEVs have a lot of benefits, they are still objectively inferior to ICE vehicles. They’re (in most cases substantially) more expensive, less energy dense by mass and volume, and require planning for refuelling (especially if used in areas outside of main city centres or for long driving, or if you live in an apartment without access to a charger at home). Not to mention most grids being nowhere near able to support the entire population of car drivers fast-charging their cars during rush hour. Gasoline-powered cars are objectively easier to own and use. The real solution is public transit, and convincing people for whom public transit is impossible that switching to BEVs is worthwhile, even with their drawbacks. Telling people that BEVs are superior technology is counterproductive though, when there are still very clear problems with them.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> They’re (in most cases substantially) more expensive, less energy dense by mass and volume, and require planning for refuelling (especially if used in areas outside of main city centres or for long driving, or if you live in an apartment without access to a charger at home). The most popular BEVs already cost less than the average new car and the price will continue to decline as long as battery prices do. Ranges of ~300 miles are common, meanwhile the average commute is 42 miles, so charging at home is sufficient for the vast majority of usage and is more convenient than buying gas. Apartments will install chargers as electric vehicles become more common. For long trips, you begin your day having charged overnight and then add 200 miles of range at a supercharger in 15 minutes. That 500 miles is more than 8 hours of driving at 60MPH and it cost you 15 minutes. For people who make such long trips on a regular basis there will be cars with larger batteries and more range so that "overnight plus once in the middle" gets back to being just overnight. > Not to mention most grids being nowhere near able to support the entire population of car drivers fast-charging their cars during rush hour. This is the least interesting problem. Upgrading power grids is a known process involving only widely deployed existing technologies. > The real solution is public transit Public transit doesn't work in the suburbs, the majority of the population lives in suburban or rural areas and changing that would take decades of new housing construction which is currently prohibited by law.

lukan 2y ago

"But really it doesn't matter. Air transport is 2.5% of global CO2." Because most people still cannot afford flying. If the world gets richer, more people want the privilege of flying. And it is not like we have an excess budget of CO2. Everything we reduce helps, so a carbon tax on jet fuel might be a good start. That is a low hanging fruit. Spreading nuclear reactors worldwide really is not. That would be a very hard fruit, with lots of potential side effects. Or do you think bangladesh will build to standards you think are safe?