A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US • Hacker News Board

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#21

Post by phil248 » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #20

I want clean energy as much as the next guy, probably more (it's one of my top concerns). But plans like this are extremely naive. I agree, we need to get the of fossil fuels as fast as possible. But very few articles like this mention what we'd replace it with. Wind, solar, and hydro are all fantastic, but hydro is the only one that can produce constant output. It is also difficult to throttle the other two and brin…

Thermal solar can produce constant output. As can any system with sufficient storage capacity, be it battery or otherwise.

It seems like most critiques of alternate energy come from a place of ignorance about alternative energy. No offense, it's just frustrating to hear people say "I care so much!" and then they don't even understand the basic landscape about which they claim to be so deeply concerned.

It also seems to be the one area of technology where people suddenly lose all capacity to understand that technology changes, that the solutions we have today are not the solutions we will have tomorrow, and more investment always leads to more solutions. So many prefer to throw their arms up and say "It's impossible! Sometimes the wind doesn't blow so we're doomed!"

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#22

Post by OldHand2018 » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 10:58 PM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #19

Just saw an episode of American Pickers where they at some guys farm going through all of his 1920's era car collection. There was a little side part where they talked about how common electric cars were in the late 1880's and early 1900's before Henry Ford and the discovery of Texas oil. Made me think about where we could be if we had not made the wholesale switch to gas powered cars and instead focused on building…

> before Henry Ford and the discovery of Texas oil

There is a book called Internal Combustion which claims that Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were working together on an electric car but that in 1914 Edison's battery facility was destroyed in a massive blaze of very suspicious origin. With this setback and the beginning of WWI, the electric car was lost. You can read that book and make your own conclusions, of course :)

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#23

Post by tzs » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #16

ForHackernews wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here is why nothing will happen and we're hosed. > It takes time to make big shifts like this. We have 11 years to cut global CO2 emissions by 50%, and even that may not be enough. > Maybe it's not possible to tackle this without great pain to a lot of people. That might have been possible if we'd started in earnest 30 years ago. Now, we have a choice between serious lifestyle discomfort in the short term…

CO2 has already dropped by nearly 20% in the US over the past decade naturally, as renewables becoming cheaper and buildings, appliances, and manufacturing becomes more efficient. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38133 This is a secular trend that I imagine will continue regardless of what politicians do. Unfortunately none of the US/EU cuts will matter in the end with the track China is on. https://bl…

Your second chart shows China appears to be leveling off, at a total level that is a little less that twice the total US emissions.

Since they have more than 4x the US population, that means they have quite a bit lower per capita emission, which is a more useful metric than total emissions when assessing how well a country is addressing the issue, since the atmosphere doesn't care about arbitrary political boundaries.

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#24

Post by vkou » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 11:03 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #16

ForHackernews wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here is why nothing will happen and we're hosed. > It takes time to make big shifts like this. We have 11 years to cut global CO2 emissions by 50%, and even that may not be enough. > Maybe it's not possible to tackle this without great pain to a lot of people. That might have been possible if we'd started in earnest 30 years ago. Now, we have a choice between serious lifestyle discomfort in the short term…

CO2 has already dropped by nearly 20% in the US over the past decade naturally, as renewables becoming cheaper and buildings, appliances, and manufacturing becomes more efficient. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38133 This is a secular trend that I imagine will continue regardless of what politicians do. Unfortunately none of the US/EU cuts will matter in the end with the track China is on. https://bl…

> Unfortunately none of the US/EU cuts will matter in the end with the track China is on.

There's an obvious solution to this. Carbon tariffs.

If Trump can tariff China for largely nationalistic, non-sense, sore-loser reasons, we almost certainly have the ability to tariff China with actionable reasons (Reduce your carbon emissions, and we will lift the tariffs.)

Unfortunately, we actually need to reduce our emissions (Or apply similar penalties to domestic polluters), before we can do something like that.

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#25

Post by blackflame7000 » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

graycat wrote: post #13

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, which I think is entirely correct, it took the effects of spending on arming for WW2 that finally brought the world out of the Great Depression. Unemployment went down and the economy surged. The US New Deal helped but it wasn't nearly enough. Edit: Is this controversial somehow? I thought it pretty standard and well known history.

There's an old remark: "Recession and depression are the easiest things in the world to cure -- just print money.". The cause of our recessions and depressions was suddenly too little money. That is, a lot of money was destroyed. How? When the banks, etc. got in trouble, the multiplier effect enormously reduced the money supply. Soooooo, have some new regulations on reserve ratios, etc. for banks and then print the m…

The US Government started printing money as you say for government projects as early as 1930, 12 years before the war. Hoover dam for example. So are you saying it takes 12+ years for your theory to work? Also, how many millions more have died due to over-printing of money? MMT is a disaster waiting to happen because at the end of the day Credit=Trust and you can only borrow so much before you lose that trust. Trust is everything and debt is an incursion.

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#26

Post by WorldMaker » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

sxates wrote: post #9

yokaze wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, that you say that. I actually think, policy based deprecation is the biggest possible boost the economy could get. Think CDs Vs Vinyl, VHS to DVD. Or more on point: Catalytic converters. Having to buy new stuff drives the economy, being content with "what works" throttles it (e.g. mobile devices, laptops). Sure, there might be a backlash, but it's not like there isn't any opposition now. Being to cautious (i.e…

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure it's analogous. Lets say the cost of gasoline triples in the next 5 years because we're killing all subsidies, ending federal leases, etc., enough to justify everyone to make investments in electric cars. We literally can't make them fast enough. Making a million CDs was easy, but our heavy industries take a lot longer to tool up. Tesla is struggling to scale their supply ch…

Making a million CDs involved building entire new factories to meet demand. Making a lot more electric vehicles could reuse a lot more existing factories (and/or recently shuttered factories) if demand shifted enough away from internal combustion to retool a lot of existing lines in place. The difference between an EV and an ICE car on the factory floor are fewer than between a cassette tape and CD.

Whether or not, say, Detroit is still capable of making a rapid shift to such a demand change is certainly a new question, and indeed supply chains would have to follow. On the other hand, again, the supply chains are a lot closer between EVs and ICE Vehicles, and if anything EV supply chains are simpler on paper with one big exception (batteries). But that big exception is one that is already busy scaling drastically and generally seems to know how to scale to demand (because it touches so many other industries such as computing).

It's a chicken-and-egg nightmare, certainly, that heavy industries aren't going to scale it unless they have no other choice, and the reasons to give them no other choice may have some transitional hiccups. That said, the capability to make that rapid shift is theoretically in a really strong place, we have the technology and wherewithal if we made it a priority.

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#27

Post by crispinb » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 11:14 PM UTC

derp_dee_derp wrote: post #15

ForHackernews wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here is why nothing will happen and we're hosed. > It takes time to make big shifts like this. We have 11 years to cut global CO2 emissions by 50%, and even that may not be enough. > Maybe it's not possible to tackle this without great pain to a lot of people. That might have been possible if we'd started in earnest 30 years ago. Now, we have a choice between serious lifestyle discomfort in the short term…

> Now, we have a choice between serious lifestyle discomfort in the short term or famine and death in the long term. I expect we'll opt for our grandchildren's generation to starve It's statements like this, which are completely absurd, which are hindering our progress of making meaningful change. Please stop using armegeddon like language to describe climate change. It doesn't help if you sound like a crazed cultist…

> It's statements like this, which are completely absurd, which are hindering our progress of making meaningful change.

Only the degree of certainty of the statement is exaggerated. The content is well within any reasonable scenario-planning approach. Near-term catastrophe may not be the most likely outcome, but on all accounts it is likely enough to be the most genuinely alarming threat we've yet faced. You may not like the tone, but surely you can muster the courage to set aside your personal taste with regard to something so important?

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#28

Post by sachdevap » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 11:16 PM UTC

derp_dee_derp wrote: post #15

ForHackernews wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here is why nothing will happen and we're hosed. > It takes time to make big shifts like this. We have 11 years to cut global CO2 emissions by 50%, and even that may not be enough. > Maybe it's not possible to tackle this without great pain to a lot of people. That might have been possible if we'd started in earnest 30 years ago. Now, we have a choice between serious lifestyle discomfort in the short term…

> Now, we have a choice between serious lifestyle discomfort in the short term or famine and death in the long term. I expect we'll opt for our grandchildren's generation to starve It's statements like this, which are completely absurd, which are hindering our progress of making meaningful change. Please stop using armegeddon like language to describe climate change. It doesn't help if you sound like a crazed cultist…

I heavily disagree with your rather mild assessment of climate change. As an example, I suggest you look at the drought in India in 2019 [0], its effects on South Africa [1], and its role in the Syrian crisis. [2]

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/12/indian-village... [1] https://www.finglobal.com/2019/05/09/climate-change-in-south... [2] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-syri...

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#29

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 11:17 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #20

I want clean energy as much as the next guy, probably more (it's one of my top concerns). But plans like this are extremely naive. I agree, we need to get the of fossil fuels as fast as possible. But very few articles like this mention what we'd replace it with. Wind, solar, and hydro are all fantastic, but hydro is the only one that can produce constant output. It is also difficult to throttle the other two and brin…

[deleted]

Re: A plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US

#30

Post by godelski » Mon, Jun 24, 2019, 11:23 PM UTC

phil248 wrote: post #21

godelski wrote: post #20

I want clean energy as much as the next guy, probably more (it's one of my top concerns). But plans like this are extremely naive. I agree, we need to get the of fossil fuels as fast as possible. But very few articles like this mention what we'd replace it with. Wind, solar, and hydro are all fantastic, but hydro is the only one that can produce constant output. It is also difficult to throttle the other two and brin…

Thermal solar can produce constant output. As can any system with sufficient storage capacity, be it battery or otherwise. It seems like most critiques of alternate energy come from a place of ignorance about alternative energy. No offense, it's just frustrating to hear people say "I care so much!" and then they don't even understand the basic landscape about which they claim to be so deeply concerned. It also seems…

Okay, but I'm a scientist and I do interact with climate scientists.

I specifically addressed your storage capacity comment. Be realistic, we just aren't there YET. We're close, but not there as of the writing of this comment. Energy is extremely complex. There is no easy solution like you're suggesting. Solar thermal won't work everywhere in the US. Wind doesn't work everywhere either.

I'm tired of people that counter nuanced comments by saying "you're so dumb. Here's a singular technology that'll solve all those problems. You're clearly not as smart as me." I'll give you a hint, no singular technology is ever going to solve all the energy problems. People live in vastly different climates. These different areas have very different constraints on them.

And in no way is my comment anywhere close to throwing up my arms and saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's difficult. Really REALLY difficult.

So yes, I do take offense. Everything you wrote is specifically addressed. For example I said we can't bet on batteries solving the problem, hence the hedge to nuclear (but also putting more funding into battery research). It's an all your eggs in one basket problem. You need to diversify. I don't know any energy or climate researcher that doesn't think you don't need to diversify. Or a single one that thinks we can solve the problem with current solar (including solar thermal), wind, hydro, and current battery technology. Not a single one.

I'm not saying we're doomed (come on, that's a really disengenuous statement and I expect better out of HN). But I am saying that this is a really difficult and complex problem that millions of man hours a year are being put into and we still haven't solved it. It isn't some conspiracy that's preventing it from being solved, it is the difficulty of the problem. Every day we get a little closer (and it is a converging solution) but it's naive to claim we have it solved, even in the theoretical sense.

So please, if you're going to call people naive doomsayers, please actually read the comments you are responding to, digest them, and do talk to the actual scientists.