Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions • Hacker News Board

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#161

Post by bryanlarsen » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

yesco wrote: post #140

Comevius wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, consumption and energy use went up, not to mention waste. That video game needs 600-700 watts per client and most of it is created very inefficiently, using fossil fuels. People still drive up and down too, and there are more people. > the economy of 2200 The planet will be barely habitable, if at all.

Minor correction but consumer game consoles tend to cap out at 220 watts, and even for PCs 600-700 watts is on the higher end.

And the average of both is under 100 watts.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#162

Post by fakedang » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

mountainb wrote: post #84

lettergram wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the tell. Lots of reports pointing out Russia funds environmental groups. China does the same - but more openly - advertising cheap solar and wind (neither function as well as nuclear). https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/596304-invest...

The Gulf countries do, too, such as when the UAE paid Matt Damon for an anti-fracking film https://www.cnbc.com/amp/id/49218229 I don’t blame them for playing the game well.

Tbf, fracking does have proven issues with geological stability and soil contamination. But it would be very hypocritical of the UAE to go on an anti-nuclear tirade, since they themselves use nuclear energy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barakah_nuclear_power_plant

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#163

Post by Schroedingersat » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #53

collyw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that climate activists never seem to push for nuclear, the most obvious solution.

It’s the tell. Lots of reports pointing out Russia funds environmental groups. China does the same - but more openly - advertising cheap solar and wind (neither function as well as nuclear). https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/596304-invest...

Tell me how nuclear can be more than 2% of the solution? Where does the Uranium come from?

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#164

Post by samatman » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

myrmidon wrote: post #120

samatman wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are, as a sibling comment demonstrates, deluded, after decades of being maliciously lied to by 'environmental' movements with ties to the fossil industry. Anyone against nuclear is a shill for petrochemical power, there are no exceptions. There are the deluded and the liars, that's it.

Completely disagree. And I used to be strong nuclear proponent until 2015 or so. Nuclear power is no longer a viable pathway for a government to throw tax dollars at, and there are multiple reasons: 1) Nuclear power is not cost effective: Even right now, nuclear power is more expensive (LCOE) than solar or wind. 2) Nuclear power costs explode if the capacity factor of your plants decreases: Meaning that they are basi…

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Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#165

Post by _ea1k » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:39 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #98

pixl97 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the new question then becomes, can we make enough solar panels for everyone without destroying the Earth?

A more pertinent question is possibly can we make enough storage to smooth the supply sufficiently to allow adoption of solar as the principal electricity supply technology. Seems like we're going to need to become more diurnal and more seasonal in our approach to industry? Make hay while the sun shines, as the idiom says.

I think industries that are overwhelmingly dependent on energy often are like that now. Energy prices vary throughout the day and some industries (aluminum?) are very price sensitive.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#166

Post by lettergram » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #99

lettergram wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the tell. Lots of reports pointing out Russia funds environmental groups. China does the same - but more openly - advertising cheap solar and wind (neither function as well as nuclear). https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/596304-invest...

Right now wind and solar have dropped so much in price that they represent a serious threat to fossil fuels on a short time frame. Have all storage problems been worked out? No. But even moving 50% of our current fossil sources to renewables would have a huge impact on the profits of those industries and it’s now completely feasible in the short term and very cheap. If I was in the fossil fuel extraction industry I’d…

> Right now wind and solar have dropped so much in price that they represent a serious threat to fossil fuels on a short time frame.

I recommend sitting down and calculating the input cost for solar / wind. It's being subsidized substantially.

There aren't even enough materials currently mined to support the US switching to mostly (>50%) solar / wind. Silver/gold/copper/nickle prices would go up an order of magnitude, for instance.

I'm for cheap energy - period. It's directly correlated with improvements in life. If solar / wind get us there, great. If nuclear improves it, let's do it. Right now natural gas is also very cheap, should be drilling as much as we can. The more we maximize growth and cheap energy now, the quicker we advance technology, innovation and automation.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#167

Post by ZeroGravitas » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

anemoiac wrote: post #35

I'll be casting my vote with the skeptics for this one. That said, even if economic activity was fully decoupled from emissions, Earth's environmental problems would remain overwhelming. Biodiversity loss, deforestation, aquifer depletion, desertification, etc. are just as concerning for most people here as rising global temperatures. My inner cynic sees headlines like the above and assumes that A) the writer/publish…

Who told you it would hurt the economy to not pollute groundwater or clear cut old-growth forests?

And what have those same people been saying about our ability to transition to lower-emissions energy sources, which you think is possible?

Presumably along the lines of "we don't need to do that, it's fine", "actually we do need to do that, but it's impossible", "okay it is possible but it would cost too much", "okay, it would actually be cheaper but it'll put all the poor groundwater-polluters and clear-cutters out of a job, why do you hate poor people" and finally "It's a conspiracy by the gays and the jews and the authoritarian left to control you by passing laws to not let you pollute groundwater, not that I want to pollute groundwater, but I'll defend to the death your right to do so etc."

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#168

Post by Schroedingersat » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

erlich wrote: post #111

mountainb wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gulf countries do, too, such as when the UAE paid Matt Damon for an anti-fracking film https://www.cnbc.com/amp/id/49218229 I don’t blame them for playing the game well.

I don't think people realize that when you have a huge commodity income stream under threat of ceasing to exist, it's quite realistic to spend a huge percentage of this on lobbying to stretch it as far as it will go.

Such as by constantly filling the internet with lies about how the technologies that are eating 1% of your market share per year, and growing by 20-40% per year can't possibly solve the problem and we must divert all funding from it to a technology that costs 3x as much, has consistently gotten more expensive with time, and can't scale?

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#169

Post by nidu » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

mellavora wrote: post #143

pstrateman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be generating 120% but what happens if everybody installs? Do you have storage installed to smooth out the dead hours? Unfortunately the answer is that you need days of storage for solar and wind to be anywhere near 100% of the energy mix. The cost of that is astronomical.

I keep hearing that a problem with solar is that it doesn't work at night. So I can see that as a (solvable) problem for industry, but for personal life? This idea that you need to have your lights on all night is rather recent. For a very very long time people survived by following the natural rythms of daylight. Some people even think this is healthier, and suggest special apps to adjust screen brightness to follow…

Would be especially inconvenient in places where you have daylight from 9AM till 4PM and where people rely on electric heating.

Re: Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions

#170

Post by ZeroGravitas » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 2:45 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #139

eloff wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Quite easily, the materials are common. They require energy to process and ship, but that does not have to come from fossil fuels. I'm confident we'll get there. There will be lots of mitigating the damage from climate change, because that train wreck is still in motion. But we will mostly decarbonize our economies by the end of this century.

> But we will mostly decarbonize our economies by the end of this century. Unfortunately unless we completely decarbonize by the middle of the century, we'll reach catastrophic levels of global warming (>3 degrees warming, likely leading to the polar ice caps melting and significant ocean level rises, especially at the equator).

Most economies are aiming for net zero by 2050.

A goal, which it is now clear, that would have been absolutely trivial to meet while making a solid profit on the deal, if we'd just started earlier, like when the problem became widely known four decades ago.

But we didn't. So we can probably still do it, and we can probably still come out richer, but some people are still trying to slow it down so they can profit from the short term chaos and impoverishing and risking our lives to do so.