Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus • Hacker News Board

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#121

Post by rayiner » Sat, May 06, 2023, 5:38 AM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #117

algoatecorn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both mine and rayiner's commentary wasn't focused only on nuclear, but rather the harebrained and unrealistic doomscape narrative coming out of the West. When did it become so unpopular to point out what is most likely to happen? Because if we're placing bets, I'm gonna put my money on the developing nations not giving a flying F about emissions. Therefore, we need to think like realists and instead of idealists.

If you want to be realistic, the more realistic option is for rich nations to fund green infrastructure projects in poorer countries. It is much easier and cheaper and likelier to succeed than every nation with a GDP lower than Connecticut developing a nuclear program on their own, or for carbon sequestration to become viable. And alas, climate relief fund—or rather a loss and damage fund—is already a thing. Approved…

> If you want to be realistic, the more realistic option is for rich nations to fund green infrastructure projects in poorer countries.

It's not realistic at all for developed countries to bankroll green infrastructure in the developed world at a scale that allows those developing countries to continue 6-8% GDP growth annually.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#122

Post by hatsune » Sat, May 06, 2023, 5:38 AM UTC

algoatecorn wrote: post #65

rayiner wrote: post #27

Opposing nuclear was the first catastrophic mistake environmentalists made, causing them to be a net negative overall in terms of climate change. Opposing carbon capture will be the next (and possibly last) one. If you think climate change is a serious problem, then you need to put aside your moral beliefs and think like an engineer about solutions. There is no math that allows you to conserve/renewables your way to…

This is the most reasonable take. For some reason people in the West tend to ignore that 80% of the world is on the lower part of the exponential slope of progress, income, and demand for fossil fuel derived goods - and they are running up that slope at breakneck speed as a result of technological innovation. Is the other 20% going to look down from our place of wealth and abundance - built on fossil fuels and countl…

That case you made about meat consumption is actually very relatable as found in a few reports went viral in China, including this one by ![guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/eating-u...). Twenty years ago most rural living Chinese can't afford beef at all. Twenty years later they are able, and there are like 1 billion rural people become urban in 40 years I guess (plz check source), and developed countries are already mad about stuff they predicted to happen. Trust fund solution is one helpful tool for this, yet uprising tension in India/US allies and China/Russia/Middle East/Pakistan make the plan definitely dead. It will soon to be another case of WWII U.N. that is controlled by U.S. and vetoed by U.S.S.R. for a billion times a year and not producing anything remotely close to a deal, or a compromise. Also, solar array is tremendously expensive due to regional difference, just like battery, either rare metal or lithium.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#123

Post by zamfi » Sat, May 06, 2023, 5:53 AM UTC

myrmidon wrote: post #109

zamfi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I think direct air capture (DAC) is as much “not the solution” as the next guy, but this kind of black-and-white thinking has no place in climate change mitigation. Right now, DAC costs about $250-500/ton. The average passenger vehicle in the US emits 4.6 tons of CO2/year. You say it’s not cost-effective but you could literally charge every passenger vehicle user in the US $1-2000/year and use it for capture an…

You could literally buy people electric cars at that pricepoint instead. Don't get me wrong, I'm strongly in favor of taxing CO2 emission, but the problem IMO is that people in general would rather ruin the planet than pay a fair price for the damage that their emissions cause, purely because they are USED to pollute and consume for cheap. If there was the necessary political will to pay, then I believe that carbon c…

Yes, gas cars would disappear very quickly at that rate of carbon taxation.

"People in general" would absolutely use non-planet-ruining versions of basically anything, the problem is getting there -- most people do not even think about the polluting effects of every item they buy, and could not even if they wanted to given supply chain complexity.

Unfortunately these decisions are made for them, largely by the realities of economics and policy: when you have the option to pay to internalize the external cost of travel yourself, most people don't -- why would they? No one wants to act alone to hold that bag, that's literally one of the main reasons for policy: to engage in group action for group advantage where individual action is a competitive disadvantage.

Redistributive taxes on carbon emissions are likely something many people would support -- were it not for concerted efforts to the contrary by individuals and industries that stand to lose stature as a result. But on carbon capture: there will absolutely continue to be near- and medium-term use cases where burning petroleum products and then capturing the CO2 later is the most cost-effective approach. (Or vice versa, via synfuels.) There will still be a carbon cycle, and we will still want to have many levers on it.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#124

Post by dirtyid » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:09 AM UTC

algoatecorn wrote: post #65

rayiner wrote: post #27

Opposing nuclear was the first catastrophic mistake environmentalists made, causing them to be a net negative overall in terms of climate change. Opposing carbon capture will be the next (and possibly last) one. If you think climate change is a serious problem, then you need to put aside your moral beliefs and think like an engineer about solutions. There is no math that allows you to conserve/renewables your way to…

This is the most reasonable take. For some reason people in the West tend to ignore that 80% of the world is on the lower part of the exponential slope of progress, income, and demand for fossil fuel derived goods - and they are running up that slope at breakneck speed as a result of technological innovation. Is the other 20% going to look down from our place of wealth and abundance - built on fossil fuels and countl…

Reality is geographically, poor global south likely to bear higher brunt of climate change, while many in northern regions will be net benefitiaries. But poverty immediately sucks more than climate change, hope is that development via whatever means will uplift more than a few degrees dooms. How many people in developed north would trade their inhospitable winters in heated homes for being impoverished in more fair weathered country. None, because they learned to live with the cold.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#125

Post by kwere » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:46 PM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #101

CamperBob2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 Mile Island: No one died, nothing of any significance happened. Clickbait from an era before clickbait was a thing. Chernobyl: Irresponsible operation of obsolete, inherently-hazardous Soviet-era design. Not something that can ever happen again if some relatively-simple lessons are followed. Fukushima: Irresponsible maintenance of plant operating well beyond its intended lifespan, which was irresponsibly constructe…

If Japan can’t do it, responsibly, why should we expect any other country to?

fukushima plant was obsolete and built in a not great area (probably due to local political squabble), but it was in the process to slowly (backroooms deals between energy provider and gov) be modernized to current standard, thing that contained the disaster as other reactors had already moved their generators on the roof instead to keeping it at ground level. Japan is not a great example for corporate behaviour

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#126

Post by kwere » Sat, May 06, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

stainablesteel wrote: post #64

godelski wrote: post #57

Can we stop the anti-sequestration movement? Let's just think about it for a second. How do we get to net zero if we account for lifetime emissions of energy sources? Even solar has lifetime emissions. You have to remove it from the atmosphere. (We'll ignore processes that can't be decarbonized, but that just adds to the problem) So what do we know? We know that forests are hard to plant and that their early lifecycl…

imo, as a global priority, reducing carbon seems like it should be a much lower priority compared to how hard its pushed. incoming nuclear fusion would alleviate a ton of our carbon issues if we use info from this wonderfully fleshed out cost-benefit analysis by bjorn lomborg i bet we could get the best of value out of our current fossil fuels while not impoverishing our children and grandchildren: https://i.imgur.co…

nuclear fusion will be achieved but nobody question if it will be economically convenient, even with global carbon tax and esg frameworks. As today we are in the realm of hundreds of billions for "sperimental" fusion facility, just comparing to fission plant cost, they have balloned exponentially from sperimental phase decades ago

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#127

Post by runarberg » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #120

runarberg wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate inaction requires tremendous sacrifice in all of our standards of living. So does taxes. It is a very human behavior to give away a little you have in order for other people to enjoy better lives. We do it all the time.

People in the developing world will not make any sacrifice to their standard of living, which is already low. To the contrary, they will insist on increasing their standard of living. For the developed world to bankroll the green infrastructure of the developing world--at a scale that allows the developing world to continue improving its standard of living, and while continuing their own green energy investment--will…

Why are you so sure that people wouldn’t agree to that? Do you see consistent polling data across generations indicating this trend? Is the popular opinion against climate relief funds in Europe? Are people in Denmark opposed to revenue from their garbage disposal/ski-hill going to climate relief in other countries? I don’t think so. And more importantly to your point, does polling suggest people are more willing to invest in carbon sequestration technology as a climate action, rather than green infrastructure in foreign countries? Show me these polls, and show me a lasting trend, and I’ll consider your point.

As a counter I’d like to offer you that the German population was ready to suffer a deeper energy crisis for harder sanctions with Russia after the Ukraine invasion. Polling was consistent, showing a willingness to accept lower standard of living, if it meant a possibility that a war fought in a poorer country would end sooner. On an individual level participants in a prisoner dilemma studies show a consistent willing to accept a worse deal if it means more people will be better off. Neither psychology nor general polling is on your side.

No, the people will accept lower standard of living just fine. The only ones who insist on anything are governments who are consistently unwilling to sacrifice the corporate profits of the rich. And here carbon sequestration works perfectly, as it will take decades for this technology to be mature and rolled out at scale, all the while corporation can keep polluting and keep turning in record profits for their shareholders. Something that people in the ”developed word“ (ugh!) actually generally oppose.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#128

Post by devwastaken » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:51 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #27

Opposing nuclear was the first catastrophic mistake environmentalists made, causing them to be a net negative overall in terms of climate change. Opposing carbon capture will be the next (and possibly last) one. If you think climate change is a serious problem, then you need to put aside your moral beliefs and think like an engineer about solutions. There is no math that allows you to conserve/renewables your way to…

By definition poor countries overtaken by fossil fuels industrialization cannot use nuclear power - the technical knowledge is not there, and even if it were the corruption would result in destruction of the facility.

Power from the sun is the ultimate end goal in the tech tree. We've just skipped over the middle part because it turns out that even the smartest nuclear builds are still stupid and incapable of accounting for natural disasters or human elements.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#129

Post by fuzzfactor » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:52 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #49

cultofmetatron wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the bigger issue you overlooked is the constant growth of bureaucratic overhead sucking up the watershed of resources and leaving only a trickle for the people actually putting together the curriculum, teaching and researching. The administrators are useful to a point but they vastly overstate their importance and erode everything they touch overtime like a malignant cancer in a lot of organizations.

"lot of organizations" your being generous.

"Overtime" is being very generous too.

I imagine few of the top layers of administration work a full 40 hours a week for the benefit of their institution.

Much less overtime.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#130

Post by fuzzfactor » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:06 PM UTC

polishdude20 wrote: post #71

lisasays wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As cynical as we can count on these people to be - they're also smart enough to recognize that continually whoring themselves out to the highest bidder can, apart from undermining Stanford's integrity (which they obviously don't care about), also be detrimental to their bottom line in the longer run. In fact this seems to be the only way they eventually learn: In response, more than 800 people affiliated with the uni…

I find the notion donating to your alma mater kind of odd. You don't donate money to the local McDonald's that made a burger for you do you? I mean, you could but that's not something that's regularly done. The service was provided and paid for and now there's some expectation to give more money after the fact?

With McDonald's and the Krocs they were the ones making the donations after they had more money than anyone would ever need:

https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/1/10/joan-krocs...