Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

e360.yale.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 118 posts

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#81

Post by LatteLazy »

perfunctory wrote: post #69
LatteLazy wrote: post #66

Like so many other articles on this subject, the authors first identify the problem (a global scale prisoners' dilemma) and then pretend it can be solved at a local level by individual actors. I actually find it terrifying that people think this way. It's the same intentional blindness that climate change deniers show, only with more steps and information. The author even goes as far as parroting George W Bush's (now…

Ok, it's a (geo-)political problem. So what do we do now? Besides posting HN comments that is.

You write to your representatives. You vote for greener parties. You donate to green peace etc.

None of those things are actually likely to work. But they're infinitely more likely to work that talking about local action and cutting back your meat intake.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, this problem is really hard. Likely unsolvably hard. But that doesn't make an impractical solution practical.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#82

Post by vzidex »

jeffdavis wrote: post #58
efnx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first and easiest thing we can each do, individually, is eat less meat (or better - no meat). My wife and I have been mostly vegan for a year for health reasons and it’s surprisingly easy. Throw on the eco benefit and it’s a very good feeling. Very worth it.

My daughter is vegan and sometimes I worry about her diet. A diet is what you do eat, how much, when, etc.; but being vegan only tells you what you don't eat. Surprisingly little about vegan promotional stuff gives practical advice. It's mostly talking about how wasteful meat is and how foolish meat-eaters are. Where is practical material about daily eating habits? Like, what should an athletic teenager eat, how much…

I'm a young, vegetarian person who is working on going vegan - and making good progress.

If you do a cursory search of vegan material, or only pay attention to stuff that pops up on your Facebook/Reddit/HackerNews/Twitter feed, you'll definitely get a lot of "meat = bad"-type material. However, if you put in a little more effort there's a lot of good material available - from recipes, to nutrition advice, to guides on what products are vegan/are not.

Hint: I've found appending the term "vegan" to my Google searches for recipes tends to work quite well and yield healthy, reasonable, scalable meals. By putting in the work, I've gotten a bunch of YouTube channels, saved recipes I like, and nutrition advice.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#83

Post by Maximus9000 »

manfredo wrote: post #77
bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far too late. 10 years to build is optimistic, and that is on top of a good decade or 2 of bureaucracy before even breaking ground.

France managed to bring its nuclear generation from close to 0% to over 75% in 15 years.

Interesting... actually, that is actually fairly compelling evidence that it can be done. Thanks!

For anyone interested, citation is here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/read...

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#84

Post by bryanlarsen »

manfredo wrote: post #77
bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far too late. 10 years to build is optimistic, and that is on top of a good decade or 2 of bureaucracy before even breaking ground.

France managed to bring its nuclear generation from close to 0% to over 75% in 15 years.

In the 1970's, yes. Nowadays it seems to take 10 years to build something as simple as a subway station.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#85

Post by manfredo »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #84
manfredo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France managed to bring its nuclear generation from close to 0% to over 75% in 15 years.

In the 1970's, yes. Nowadays it seems to take 10 years to build something as simple as a subway station.

Technology hasn't regressed. Nuclear plants get built cheaper and faster on a per unit basis when they're built as part of a series of production. France built dozens of copies of the same four reactor designs. By comparison, many new projects are one off or part of only a single digit number of copies.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#86

Post by shawndrost »

rayiner wrote: post #72
gfodor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, my own prediction is a) that we will mitigate climate change and b) it will not be through any of the activism methods being pursued today. The reason we will succeed is because we are, luckily, converging on market incentives which will (as a side effect) fix climate change. Specifically, it seems likely that the next iteration of technology startups focused on energy should be able to create products that are…

I agree for the most part. We will either fix it technologically (my guess through a combination of nuclear, renewables, and carbon capture) or we won’t fix it. In the latter case we either won’t fix it and everything will still be fine, because the IPCC and others estimate the cost of a do nothing scenario at like 10% of world GDP by 2100,[1] or we won’t fix it and we’ll all die. What will never happen is addressing…

I think you would probably agree that those technological shifts require significant policy shifts, like a carbon tax, right? Does your pessimism about social engineering extend to getting public support for those kinds of policy shifts? (I agree that individual choices to eg fly less will not be a major component of any solution we reach.)

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#87

Post by pmontra »

bazzert wrote: post #80
pmontra wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is safe until it isn't, then you lose a large area of the country around the power plant (Chernobyl, Fukushima.) Personally I don't think it's worth the risk, plus the building times you write about and the costs of decommissioning.

Fukushima, "1 death from radiation, 2202 from the evacuation" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

As awful as it can sound it's not about the deaths. It's about people not being able to enter that area basically forever, on their time scale.

If Fukushima was in New Yersey the USA would have lost New York City.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#88

Post by mywittyname »

rayiner wrote: post #68
mywittyname wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has a huge problem with corporations bribing politicians to loosen "costly" regulations at the expense of our health and environment. The country is already destroying itself with fracking and coal mining. Nuclear power is orders of magnitude more devastating. So while nuclear is plenty safe when handled correctly, it's completely understandable to feel like America is not a country which can be trusted to ha…

> The country is already destroying itself with fracking and coal mining. Nuclear power is orders of magnitude more devastating. All of this is completely wrong. Fracking has enabled us to simultaneously reduce CO2 emissions (by reducing coal mining) while reducing our reliance on foreign oil. Nuclear would be a huge leap forward, again maintaining energy independence (no reliance on Chinese solar panels) while cutti…

I'm not talking about CO2, I'm talking about the localized effects of fracking, which is leaking into the water supply and probably renders the area around fracking sites uninhabitable.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-cont...

We still can't get companies to tell the public what's in these fluids because they are protected trade secrets.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#89

Post by tenacious_tuna »

bazzert wrote: post #78
batmansmk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scale is missing in your analytsis. For instance in New England, the peak demand goes from 15GWh (average) to 16.5GWh down to 10GWh. Solar and wind on the other hand, need supplemental for 100% of its installed capacity the day there is no wind... In France, 70% of the electricity is nuclear, 15% is hydro, pumped by the excess nuclear power generated at during the night. Now for your arguments: 1. Wind goes from 0 to…

Great points. “The damage done by these wind installations is out of all proportion to the benefit,” https://www.ft.com/content/d8b9b0bc-04a6-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e...

Heya,

Do you have either a non-paywall version of that article or an alternative article with a similar view? I'm curious what it says, but I can't read it with the paywall in place.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#90

Post by jackdeansmith »

topkai22 wrote: post #48

I always find it odd that atmospheric carbon capture isn't a greater part of the conversation on climate change. It's basically assumed that we'll need to be able to take carbon out of the system to meet our goals, but so few people are willing to mention it as part of the overall solution to transitioning to a net negative economy. It seems like a technology that still has a lot of runway left before we start hittin…

I think air capture is an important part of the discussion when we talk about trying to get temps back down later this century, but I have serious doubts about it playing a large role in determining what the peak CO2 concentration will be around the middle of the century. Capture is orders of magnitude more expensive than emissions reductions, and will be for a long time. When you invest in capture, you get lower net emissions and that's it. When you invest in emissions cuts, at least while there's still a lot of low-hanging-fruit, you get the same net effect while also getting a productive asset like a power plant. Totally onboard with research budgets going way up for capture tech, we're 100% going to need it, but later rather than sooner I think.
Post reply on HN