4 ms·

And China has plans that have some decarbonization baked in - and even the US are decarbonizing, no matter what the current administration says. Can they decar

And China has plans that have some decarbonization baked in - and even the US are decarbonizing, no matter what the current administration says. Can they decarbonize _fast enough_ ? No idea... India and the rest of asia will be interesting - can they leapfrog oil and gas for some sectors ?

hammock 2mo ago
India is very renewable already. Same with Africa. Hundreds of millions if not billions burn wood and biomass for heat and cooking daily
- triceratops 2mo ago
  Definitely not billions. Do you have actual sources for how many? Do you imagine they enjoy wood and dung smoke in their houses, or maybe they'd prefer electric ranges or hot plates powered by solar panels?
  - hammock 2mo ago
    About 660 million in India and 1 billion in Africa burn renewables like wood or biomass for cooking, heating and daily energy needs. We could learn from them. Sources: https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/clean-cooking-expands-at-record-pace-in-africa-but-lags-behind-population-growth/ https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/clean-cooking-expands-at-r... https://www.fao.org/wood-energy-info-portal/search/detail/en/c/1395457/ https://www.fao.org/wood-energy-info-portal/search/detail/en...
    - triceratops 2mo ago
      Thanks for the sources. So not billions but still more than I'd have expected. Also the 1 billion number from Africa includes people burning kerosene. That isn't biomass. > We could learn from them. I sense sarcasm. It's an ugly worldview.
    - phtrivier 2mo ago
      In a sense, when we use scraps from agriculture in a methanizer to produce "bio" gaz, we are "learning" from people still using biomass. It's just that we mediate it through ch4 to avoid some of the worst health risk. The problem is of course that we don't use "scraps" so much as "purposefully using fossil fuels to grow stuff that we won't eat and burn instead". There's a startup to build around "disrupting food wastes from gen-Z". Like a "reverse" dashdoor, where people would drive e-bikes door to door to collect your compostables, and sell the gaz / fertilizer. Then the next version will not collect food scraps, but other forms of... Let's say "valuable organic matter currently wasted in big cities" ;) But I doubt VCs would rush to fund something like "UberPoop"... Unless we find a way to get views on HN by bringing "AI" in the mix, or writing the client in Rust :P
- phtrivier 2mo ago
  Which is why I mentioned _decarbonization_, not only renewables ;) (wood stoves are always this weird thing to put in the carbon cycle. It's "recent" carbon, not carboniferous, so... the But they're not very efficient.)
  - hammock 2mo ago
    > It's "recent" carbon, not carboniferous, so... Yeah try telling that to the people who want to ban beef because the cows eat grass and burp
    - triceratops 2mo ago
      Cows also eat corn and burp. Corn is grown with fertilizers and harvested with tractors and shipped by truck. All fossil-fuel intensive. If all we had were grass-fed cows and no deforestation to raise them, it would be a much smaller problem.
      - belorn 2mo ago
        A lot of political platforms has the goal of using corn based ethanol to become carbon-neutral, by burning that fuel for heat, electricity and in transportation. Animal feed and bio fuels are directly competing with each other. For now, animal feed has a bit bigger portion of the market but the distance is shrinking as demand for bio fuels are constantly increasing. With plans to increase bio fuel consumptions several times over, bio fuels will overtake animal feed in consumption, while deforestation will increase in order to generate more green credits.
        triceratops 2mo ago
        > using corn based ethanol to become carbon-neutral You misspelled "to win the farm lobby". That's the only reason for the ethanol stupidity.
        belorn 2mo ago
alephnerd 2mo ago
> Can they decarbonize _fast enough_ ? No idea... Likely not. China and the US are decarbonizing, but their overall rate of GHG emissions is still stagnant. > India and the rest of asia will be interesting - can they leapfrog oil and gas for some sectors ? Not really. GreenTech is useful, but there are multiple industrial processes and products such as Fertilizers and Steel that have hard carbon and coal dependencies. Additionally, in Asia energy security is the name of the game, not environmentalism. Edit: can't reply > If solar is the cheapest form of energy... Cheap but comes with a dependency on China. Also, a number of industrial processes like Fertilizers and Steel simply cannot be decarbonized because carbon is a critical input. > have much oil and gas Most of ASEAN (Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Phillipines) has significant gas reserves because of the South China Sea. But coal remains cheap and available everywhere. > Asia is also the most vulnerable continent to climate change. Reversing or mitigating it is national security in a way that it simply isn't for most developed economies. And depending on the country, GreenTech dependency on China is also a real risk. Vietnam (Hoang Sa), Phillipines (Bajo de Masinloc), Indonesia (Laut Natuna Utara), India, and other large industrial states in Asia have ongoing disputes with China that have gone hot over the past decade.
- phtrivier 2mo ago
  Completely agree. On the last point : given enough climate events, "decarbonization" will become a "national security" topic. Who knows what happens next. (First chapter of "Ministry for the Future" always comes to mind...)
  - alephnerd 2mo ago
    They eat the cost. Most countries are not as poor as they used to be 30 years ago, and can afford a $2 billion or even $10 billion climate disaster hit. Back in VN, the cyclone seasons now causes several billion dollars of damage a year yet they still trudge on. Same with the Philippines, China, India, and others. > given enough climate events, "decarbonization" will become a "national security" topic They already are, but most large states in Asia also have ongoing disputes with China that have almost gone hot multiple times over the past decade.

hammock 2mo ago

India is very renewable already. Same with Africa. Hundreds of millions if not billions burn wood and biomass for heat and cooking daily

triceratops 2mo ago
Definitely not billions. Do you have actual sources for how many? Do you imagine they enjoy wood and dung smoke in their houses, or maybe they'd prefer electric ranges or hot plates powered by solar panels?
- hammock 2mo ago
  About 660 million in India and 1 billion in Africa burn renewables like wood or biomass for cooking, heating and daily energy needs. We could learn from them. Sources: https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/clean-cooking-expands-at-record-pace-in-africa-but-lags-behind-population-growth/ https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/clean-cooking-expands-at-r... https://www.fao.org/wood-energy-info-portal/search/detail/en/c/1395457/ https://www.fao.org/wood-energy-info-portal/search/detail/en...
  - triceratops 2mo ago
    Thanks for the sources. So not billions but still more than I'd have expected. Also the 1 billion number from Africa includes people burning kerosene. That isn't biomass. > We could learn from them. I sense sarcasm. It's an ugly worldview.
  - phtrivier 2mo ago
    In a sense, when we use scraps from agriculture in a methanizer to produce "bio" gaz, we are "learning" from people still using biomass. It's just that we mediate it through ch4 to avoid some of the worst health risk. The problem is of course that we don't use "scraps" so much as "purposefully using fossil fuels to grow stuff that we won't eat and burn instead". There's a startup to build around "disrupting food wastes from gen-Z". Like a "reverse" dashdoor, where people would drive e-bikes door to door to collect your compostables, and sell the gaz / fertilizer. Then the next version will not collect food scraps, but other forms of... Let's say "valuable organic matter currently wasted in big cities" ;) But I doubt VCs would rush to fund something like "UberPoop"... Unless we find a way to get views on HN by bringing "AI" in the mix, or writing the client in Rust :P
phtrivier 2mo ago
Which is why I mentioned _decarbonization_, not only renewables ;) (wood stoves are always this weird thing to put in the carbon cycle. It's "recent" carbon, not carboniferous, so... the But they're not very efficient.)
- hammock 2mo ago
  > It's "recent" carbon, not carboniferous, so... Yeah try telling that to the people who want to ban beef because the cows eat grass and burp
  - triceratops 2mo ago
    Cows also eat corn and burp. Corn is grown with fertilizers and harvested with tractors and shipped by truck. All fossil-fuel intensive. If all we had were grass-fed cows and no deforestation to raise them, it would be a much smaller problem.
    - belorn 2mo ago
      A lot of political platforms has the goal of using corn based ethanol to become carbon-neutral, by burning that fuel for heat, electricity and in transportation. Animal feed and bio fuels are directly competing with each other. For now, animal feed has a bit bigger portion of the market but the distance is shrinking as demand for bio fuels are constantly increasing. With plans to increase bio fuel consumptions several times over, bio fuels will overtake animal feed in consumption, while deforestation will increase in order to generate more green credits.
      - triceratops 2mo ago
        > using corn based ethanol to become carbon-neutral You misspelled "to win the farm lobby". That's the only reason for the ethanol stupidity.
        belorn 2mo ago

alephnerd 2mo ago

> Can they decarbonize _fast enough_ ? No idea... Likely not. China and the US are decarbonizing, but their overall rate of GHG emissions is still stagnant. > India and the rest of asia will be interesting - can they leapfrog oil and gas for some sectors ? Not really. GreenTech is useful, but there are multiple industrial processes and products such as Fertilizers and Steel that have hard carbon and coal dependencies. Additionally, in Asia energy security is the name of the game, not environmentalism. Edit: can't reply > If solar is the cheapest form of energy... Cheap but comes with a dependency on China. Also, a number of industrial processes like Fertilizers and Steel simply cannot be decarbonized because carbon is a critical input. > have much oil and gas Most of ASEAN (Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Phillipines) has significant gas reserves because of the South China Sea. But coal remains cheap and available everywhere. > Asia is also the most vulnerable continent to climate change. Reversing or mitigating it is national security in a way that it simply isn't for most developed economies. And depending on the country, GreenTech dependency on China is also a real risk. Vietnam (Hoang Sa), Phillipines (Bajo de Masinloc), Indonesia (Laut Natuna Utara), India, and other large industrial states in Asia have ongoing disputes with China that have gone hot over the past decade.

phtrivier 2mo ago
Completely agree. On the last point : given enough climate events, "decarbonization" will become a "national security" topic. Who knows what happens next. (First chapter of "Ministry for the Future" always comes to mind...)
- alephnerd 2mo ago
  They eat the cost. Most countries are not as poor as they used to be 30 years ago, and can afford a $2 billion or even $10 billion climate disaster hit. Back in VN, the cyclone seasons now causes several billion dollars of damage a year yet they still trudge on. Same with the Philippines, China, India, and others. > given enough climate events, "decarbonization" will become a "national security" topic They already are, but most large states in Asia also have ongoing disputes with China that have almost gone hot multiple times over the past decade.