3 ms·

Doomberg has this theory that worldwide consumption of a source of energy never decreases, any fossil fuels extracted will be burned somewhere, and green regula

Doomberg has this theory that worldwide consumption of a source of energy never decreases, any fossil fuels extracted will be burned somewhere, and green regulations or subsidies just shift around who does the burning. Adding new sources of energy to the mix only reduces the rate of growth in fossil fuel consumption, but it still goes up. Oil consumption didn't reduce coal consumption, it just added a new energy type. Same for natural gas. So far they've been right. Decreased coal usage in developed countries has been offset by increased coal usage, of the now cheaper coal, in developing countries. German electric consumers are effectively subsidizing Chinese and Indian consumers. Eventually that will turn around, if only because we start running out of fossil fuels, and the thesis will fall apart. But it will take far longer than we have, and we have far more fossil fuels than we can afford to extract and burn. That means the ONLY way to address climate change, which is a global problem, is through technological innovation. Regulation is a dead end, and just looking at the track record of regulation so far, it's hard to deny that. That means making green alternatives that are better, and we're making some good progress on that. Electric cars are better in most ways for most uses except price. Solve that last one and they'll quickly displace combustion vehicles for most uses. Range is already good enough most of the time for most of the people. It may also mean doing some geoengineering to soften the impact of global warming that will continue for multiple centuries if we don't intervene.

matthewdgreen 1y ago
I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion from this set of facts and claims. What I think you're saying is: 1. The only solution to this problem is technology that gives us alternatives to fossil fuels. 2. However, even if this technology becomes ubiquitous and cheap, it won't solve the problem by itself. Absent some forcing function, people will continue to use fossil fuels as long as they're convenient and available. All of which may be true. But then you make the weird third claim: 3. Regulation is a dead end, and just looking at the track record of regulation so far, it's hard to deny that. It seems to me that the only possible implication you can draw from facts (1) and (2) is that we are going to need massive amounts of regulation to discourage fossil fuel usage, since it won't drop organically even when sustainable alternatives are cheap and available. PS As a totally unrelated note, here's a chart of global whaling activity. https://ourworldindata.org/whaling https://ourworldindata.org/whaling
- slashdev 1y ago
  That's a fair point, but the thing about regulation is it only works for one country at a time. For whaling we could make a law and apply it to the whole world, and most countries complied only because there were no whales left and no money to be made in it anymore. That's the real reason whaling ended. With climate change, I don't think it's possible, and the current track record seems to back me up. When Europe enacts green legislation, the fossil fuels are just consumed elsewhere. It hasn't reduced consumption, just moved it. So, no, I don't see how we can regulate a way out of this problem. I think the only viable option is to innovate. Maybe I'm too cynical, but that's the way I see the situation.
  - matthewdgreen 1y ago
    Honestly I kind of have to disagree with your entire premise. We’re seeing pretty dramatic decreases in emissions across any advanced society that took major regulatory action to decrease emissions. EU emissions in 2023 were 37% lower than in 1990, despite population increases. A good chunk of the early drops were due to fuel substitution, but now increasingly they’re due to the deployment of renewables. In 2024, about 47% of the EU’s total electricity generation for the year came from renewable sources! These are incredible results, especially if you compare them to a decade or two earlier. If you’d told me that in a matter of 15-20 years, the EU’s pro-renewable industrial policy would have achieved these results (say back in the late 2000s) I would have been very surprised. Yet here we are, and the numbers keep jumping every year. So I would not say “regulatory approaches haven’t worked,” I would say “wow, this is one of the most effective regulatory interventions that human beings have ever devised.” The reason global emissions haven’t dropped is because China’s emissions kept rising during this time. However: now we’re seeing a similar process unfold in China, just at a much larger scale. There the central government is massively subsidizing and encouraging the deployment of renewables. Current estimates are that China’s emissions may have already plateaued and are entering a structural decline. Again, yes, a lot of this is due to technology being available. But the rapid deployment of the tech is a function of strong government intervention. We are going to reach a point very soon where 90%+ of any modern nation’s energy can be supplied using renewables, nuclear and storage. It’s actually coming very fast. (And that 90% is really only capped by intermittency issues, not because there are major limits on what we can generate.) At that point we’ll be into the very substantial “mop up” phase where we try to work through the remaining high-emissions industries. This will require massive amounts of regulatory intervention, since most of the barriers will be due to the need to replace existing infrastructure on an expedited schedule.

matthewdgreen 1y ago

I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion from this set of facts and claims. What I think you're saying is: 1. The only solution to this problem is technology that gives us alternatives to fossil fuels. 2. However, even if this technology becomes ubiquitous and cheap, it won't solve the problem by itself. Absent some forcing function, people will continue to use fossil fuels as long as they're convenient and available. All of which may be true. But then you make the weird third claim: 3. Regulation is a dead end, and just looking at the track record of regulation so far, it's hard to deny that. It seems to me that the only possible implication you can draw from facts (1) and (2) is that we are going to need massive amounts of regulation to discourage fossil fuel usage, since it won't drop organically even when sustainable alternatives are cheap and available. PS As a totally unrelated note, here's a chart of global whaling activity. https://ourworldindata.org/whaling https://ourworldindata.org/whaling

slashdev 1y ago
That's a fair point, but the thing about regulation is it only works for one country at a time. For whaling we could make a law and apply it to the whole world, and most countries complied only because there were no whales left and no money to be made in it anymore. That's the real reason whaling ended. With climate change, I don't think it's possible, and the current track record seems to back me up. When Europe enacts green legislation, the fossil fuels are just consumed elsewhere. It hasn't reduced consumption, just moved it. So, no, I don't see how we can regulate a way out of this problem. I think the only viable option is to innovate. Maybe I'm too cynical, but that's the way I see the situation.
- matthewdgreen 1y ago
  Honestly I kind of have to disagree with your entire premise. We’re seeing pretty dramatic decreases in emissions across any advanced society that took major regulatory action to decrease emissions. EU emissions in 2023 were 37% lower than in 1990, despite population increases. A good chunk of the early drops were due to fuel substitution, but now increasingly they’re due to the deployment of renewables. In 2024, about 47% of the EU’s total electricity generation for the year came from renewable sources! These are incredible results, especially if you compare them to a decade or two earlier. If you’d told me that in a matter of 15-20 years, the EU’s pro-renewable industrial policy would have achieved these results (say back in the late 2000s) I would have been very surprised. Yet here we are, and the numbers keep jumping every year. So I would not say “regulatory approaches haven’t worked,” I would say “wow, this is one of the most effective regulatory interventions that human beings have ever devised.” The reason global emissions haven’t dropped is because China’s emissions kept rising during this time. However: now we’re seeing a similar process unfold in China, just at a much larger scale. There the central government is massively subsidizing and encouraging the deployment of renewables. Current estimates are that China’s emissions may have already plateaued and are entering a structural decline. Again, yes, a lot of this is due to technology being available. But the rapid deployment of the tech is a function of strong government intervention. We are going to reach a point very soon where 90%+ of any modern nation’s energy can be supplied using renewables, nuclear and storage. It’s actually coming very fast. (And that 90% is really only capped by intermittency issues, not because there are major limits on what we can generate.) At that point we’ll be into the very substantial “mop up” phase where we try to work through the remaining high-emissions industries. This will require massive amounts of regulatory intervention, since most of the barriers will be due to the need to replace existing infrastructure on an expedited schedule.