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How many coconuts are on one tree and how many tons of coconuts would be needed to replace kerosene globally? I am 100% for decarbonization as fast as possible

by sixtyj 2mo ago

How many coconuts are on one tree and how many tons of coconuts would be needed to replace kerosene globally? I am 100% for decarbonization as fast as possible. BTW Law of Conservation of Energy will be applied to coconut-based energy as well. Vaclav Smil mentions in his book that we should consume less. I see so many cheap weekender air tickets… it’s almost impossible to resist the temptation. Annually 5 billions people travel by plane…

pfdietz 2mo ago
Vaclav Smil so wildly mispredicted the trajectory of renewables that his worldview should be taken with heavy skepticism.
- chermi 2mo ago
  That's true of basically all economists' predictions of technology. But he does a lot more than state predictions, his numbers and breakdowns and decompositioba are valuable in themselves.
  - pfdietz 1mo ago
    Possibly, but economists can simply not make those predictions. Smil focused on them. It was a core of what he was saying, and he got it very wrong.
  - dredmorbius 1mo ago
    TBF: Smil is a technologist, not an economist.
- dredmorbius 1mo ago
  Howso?
  - pfdietz 1mo ago
    He observed that historically energy transitions took 50-100 years and then concluded a renewable energy transition would take a similar amount of time. This is of course a non sequitur, an example of the hazards of inductive reasoning. Since he made those predictions renewables grew many times faster, and with a much shorter doubling time, than he had predicted. But even before that renewables were on an experience curve that would have rendered his predictions implausible.
    - dredmorbius 1mo ago
      Fair point, though I'd give him a bit more credit. By pointing out both the necessity of the transition and the historically slow pace of such transitions, Smil is raising the pressure on achieving such a transition rather than encouraging complaisance and/or excessive tolerance of the rate of change to date. And despite the current pace of change, we're still far from goals with impacts of failure to move off fossil fuels ever more evident.

by sixtyj 2mo ago

pfdietz 2mo ago

Vaclav Smil so wildly mispredicted the trajectory of renewables that his worldview should be taken with heavy skepticism.

chermi 2mo ago
That's true of basically all economists' predictions of technology. But he does a lot more than state predictions, his numbers and breakdowns and decompositioba are valuable in themselves.
- pfdietz 1mo ago
  Possibly, but economists can simply not make those predictions. Smil focused on them. It was a core of what he was saying, and he got it very wrong.
- dredmorbius 1mo ago
  TBF: Smil is a technologist, not an economist.
dredmorbius 1mo ago
Howso?
- pfdietz 1mo ago
  He observed that historically energy transitions took 50-100 years and then concluded a renewable energy transition would take a similar amount of time. This is of course a non sequitur, an example of the hazards of inductive reasoning. Since he made those predictions renewables grew many times faster, and with a much shorter doubling time, than he had predicted. But even before that renewables were on an experience curve that would have rendered his predictions implausible.
  - dredmorbius 1mo ago
    Fair point, though I'd give him a bit more credit. By pointing out both the necessity of the transition and the historically slow pace of such transitions, Smil is raising the pressure on achieving such a transition rather than encouraging complaisance and/or excessive tolerance of the rate of change to date. And despite the current pace of change, we're still far from goals with impacts of failure to move off fossil fuels ever more evident.