Just kind of a pity that some of the most productive farmland in the world now resembles the surface of Mars, along with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.
War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
131–140 of 231 posts
Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Faster than what? This articles cites nothing more than a hunch and trends that existed pre war.
I’m sure you’re familiar with supply and demand. The investment in green tech is driven by price of renewables compared to price of fossil fuels. A big decline in supply of fossil fuels (which is what has happened in Europe due to the war) shifts the trade-off significantly in favor of green energy. This shift can be so dramatic that it drives up the short term cost of green energy. That’s a good problem to have beca…
>I’m sure you’re familiar with supply and demand.
Yes, that's precisely why I said that the cost of capital going up due to war (higher interest rates) would have a dampening effect on green energy which is very capital intensive.
That's called "supply and demand in action".
The pro war argument (the Economist's) would *ignore* this facet, arguing only "fossil fuels are more expensive -> green energy will definitely be more popular".
It was quite a simple point.
Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vime's boots. I'm not sure about here in the EU, but the UK has a cost of living crisis such that millions[0][1][2] are regularly skipping meals. People in that situation don't have the spare money be able to install PV or upgrade their insulation. [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/one-four-britons-skip-meals... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/26/uk-student... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/soc…
It's unfathomable to me that people in the UK are skipping meals. If you buy rice & beans in bulk you can fill your belly for less than £1 I'm sure. Quick look on the Tesco website - bread: £0.39 £0.05/100g - chicken soup: £0.60 £0.15/100g - 1KG rice: £0.48 £0.48/kg - Baked beans: £0.50 £1.19/kg - Kidney beans: £0.59 £2.46/kg DR.WT - Tinned mackerel: £0.85 £0.97/100g DR.WT (sardines are half the price) - Eggs: £0.20…
Someone posts this comment every time the subject is mentioned; someone else posts the Orwell essay from the 1940s which replies to the exact same discussion; and yet the kids are still turning up hungry. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/03/expand-fre...
Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
#134Just kind of a pity that some of the most productive farmland in the world now resembles the surface of Mars, along with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.
If you wanna have your mind blown, start looking into who bought up a lot of that farmland (and agricultural enterprise) starting after the 2014 uh, government restructuring. Hint: it’s not the Ukrainians. And they were changing laws to allow more foreign takeover of Ukrainian agriculture by multinationals all the way up to the invasion.
Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vime's boots. I'm not sure about here in the EU, but the UK has a cost of living crisis such that millions[0][1][2] are regularly skipping meals. People in that situation don't have the spare money be able to install PV or upgrade their insulation. [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/one-four-britons-skip-meals... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/26/uk-student... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/soc…
It's unfathomable to me that people in the UK are skipping meals. If you buy rice & beans in bulk you can fill your belly for less than £1 I'm sure. Quick look on the Tesco website - bread: £0.39 £0.05/100g - chicken soup: £0.60 £0.15/100g - 1KG rice: £0.48 £0.48/kg - Baked beans: £0.50 £1.19/kg - Kidney beans: £0.59 £2.46/kg DR.WT - Tinned mackerel: £0.85 £0.97/100g DR.WT (sardines are half the price) - Eggs: £0.20…
> It's unfathomable to me that people in the UK are skipping meals.
It is when you consider many people simply don't know how to cook simple, healthy food. Our schools no longer teach basic cookery (and many parents neglected to pass on the skills).
Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
#136Just kind of a pity that some of the most productive farmland in the world now resembles the surface of Mars, along with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.
If you wanna have your mind blown, start looking into who bought up a lot of that farmland (and agricultural enterprise) starting after the 2014 uh, government restructuring. Hint: it’s not the Ukrainians. And they were changing laws to allow more foreign takeover of Ukrainian agriculture by multinationals all the way up to the invasion.
You mean that? : https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/09/13/fact...
Looks like the type of comment you'd find on a boomer conspiracy theorists facebook group
Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> in the UK, governments have stepped in to spend huge amounts subsidising energy (including gas), SPECIFICALLY AND EXPRESSLY to that people don't use any less No. The government stepped in because poor people (and many not so poor) could not afford to heat their homes over winter. It is (was) an emergency measure. The transition to green energy is well under way in the UK, regardless of temporary subsidies.
In the UK, they capped the price of energy per kWh. So they bailed out everyone, rich, poor and middle alike. And the more energy you used, the more support you got. So richer and more wasteful households got the MOST support. Saying "but the poor" while throwing money at the rich is pretty self-contradictory IMHO. If they'd at least made cash payments, even if it was the same per household, it would at least have in…
This is partially a consequence of the bonkers way in which electricity is priced in the UK: it's costed based off of fuel prices rather than the cost per unit to produce the power in question. This leads to situations where the UK might have plenty of electricity being produced by means other than natural gas (such as renewables), but it's still all costed as if it were produced by natural gas.
And yes, some kind of flat cash payment that advantaged poorer people would've been better. And much as I loathe the Tories, I doubt they took the route they did because they wanted to give money to the rich in this case, or even encourage electricity usage growth. Assume incompetence before malice: they needed to do something to staunch the flow, and a price cap per unit was something they could do there and then without engaging extra bureaucracy, which a cash payment would've required.
Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
#138Stupid question: But were does a normal citizen buy redox flow batteries? I googled far and wide, and those are just not sold in my area to end consumers (germany). Has somebody else a website were you can order those? I can order normal battery packs just fine, but the chemical storage ones ( https://redflow.com/ ) are vannishing into silence here in germany, for unknown reasons.
They're usually the size of a shipping container and up, aren't they? I thought they only started being cost-effective once the electrolyte containers reached a certain size.
Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
#139Just kind of a pity that some of the most productive farmland in the world now resembles the surface of Mars, along with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.
Sudan exists, although is probably not in a better shape.
Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition
#140War runs on oil. While the war continues we will be wasting a lot of petroleum powering tanks, trucks, drones and planes... All so we can kill each other. Pretty much the worst thing for the environment.