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Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

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Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#121

Post by pfdietz »

01100011 wrote: post #109
telchar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re seemingly unaware that petrochemicals can be synthesized with energy and simple organic feedstocks. The chemistry is pretty well established to bootstrap up from water and CO2 to complex hydrocarbons and from there of course the same petrochemical processes can be applied. Green energy is perfectly capable of this.

They can, but that takes energy. You have to have sufficient green energy to produce it and how do you get to the place where you have sufficient energy? Currently, that means you burn massive amounts of dirty energy to make the transition over, what, decades? Your comment is well intended but it is the same sort of 'one day it will be perfect' thinking that glosses over the messy transition that actually needs to ta…

Most uses of fossil fuels these days are for fuel, not petrochemicals. The energy needed to get to petrochemicals (and the fraction of carbon currently coming from fossil fuels to get to petrochemicals) are relatively modest.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#122

Post by [deleted] »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #116
cryptonector wrote: post #101

Access to power / energy is what wealth is all about today, and has been for over 100 years. However rapidly a "green energy transition" could possibly happen, if it means reducing access to power / energy, then it means a drop in standards of living. In some parts of the world that means more than merely tightening the belt -- it can mean real hunger, while in many others it might mean a return to poverty, though pe…

I'm not sold that this would happen. It seems to me the plan in the US is to add green energy, and then slowly replace the dirty energy with more green. I admit I am ignorant of the plans of other nations, but from where I am sitting I don't see any reason to believe there will ever be a reduction in available energy.

[deleted]

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#123

Post by [deleted] »

cryptonector wrote: post #101

Access to power / energy is what wealth is all about today, and has been for over 100 years. However rapidly a "green energy transition" could possibly happen, if it means reducing access to power / energy, then it means a drop in standards of living. In some parts of the world that means more than merely tightening the belt -- it can mean real hunger, while in many others it might mean a return to poverty, though pe…

[deleted]

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#124

Post by neffy »

acallaghan wrote: post #104
FunnyBadger wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely correct. Supply Chains are primarily fossil based and can NOT be substituted with low density sources like Green Energy or even electricity at all. For example, you can't efficiently make steel or most other metals with electricity alone. Even primarily electrically refined metals like copper or aluminum REQUIRE inputs that can not be made or refined or extracted with electricity. Often this is abo…

The cargo-cult religion is unfortunately back by science and years of study and agreement amongst scientists - human activity is causing climate change and global warming. You sound like you haven't accepted this fact based reality that we live in and are a part of. Climate change is our fault, and we have to stop it, there is no other alternative that also includes life continuing on earth as we know it. This change…

It's accurate but not complete. The long term (600k year) climatic history of this planet is sobering, and if only climate change was just our fault. Believe me, there is nothing humanity has so far achieved that comes close to matching what nature does to this planet on a pretty regular schedule. We don't know nearly enough about this by the way, and we especially don't know enough about conditions about the end of the last inter-glacial. For the last 20 odd years we can't even discuss it rationally, because to bring up the non-anthromorphic aspects just gets some innocent scientist labelled a denier.

That volcano that went off in the pacific this January appears to have increased the amount of water vapour in the entire atmosphere by 10%. Sit back and contemplate that for a moment, because it is pretty awesome, and also the satellite pictures were quite something, and then take another look at what's happened in Pakistan and Italy. All our fault? We can wish.

There is so much more to this than shifting away from fossil fuels - that's the easy one, get rid of your car, and get a bicycle.

(Added) I have to feel the mindless downvoting on this and similar comments is just proving my point. Link for the volcano, impacts still being assessed...

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1115378385/tonga-volcano-stra...

https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2022/egusphere-20...

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#125

Post by zdragnar »

kkfx wrote: post #113
zdragnar wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locally, there are several mines that have been trying to open for years (copper and nickel, mostly) but the environmental crowd has been extremely determined in using the courts and bureaucracy to block them from opening. The net result is the green wave will be driven largely by relying on dirty minerals from other countries.

Mining tech is essentially the same since ever, we just have transferred some physical efforts to machines, how a local mine is "green" and some in exotic places is different? Consider a thing: all industry do not pollute because they are evil but because the tech produce pollution. Something was done, something can be done, to reduce it of course, but that's not always possible, not possible more than a certain exte…

> how a local mine is "green" and some in exotic places is different?

https://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/solutions/....

https://empoweringpumps.com/5-ways-to-make-mining-more-susta...

are both nice entry points for basic research. Mining tech has changed quite a bit since the early days- waste management is probably the biggest factor in whether a mine is relatively neutral or harmful to the environment.

The other major factor between countries is the extent to which regulations are in place to ensure that old mines are also managed- ensuring water runoff doesn't flow into and through them (picking up excess metal waste), etc.

A final note is many countries do not have the regulatory strength to catch all illegal mining operations, which may have no waste management or treatment in place at all.

Even with all of the regulations in place, it would still be economically feasible to mine here- otherwise, the mining companies wouldn't be spending decades trying to open these mines up in the first place.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#126

Post by pfdietz »

01100011 wrote: post #114
swid wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I saw on HN that Australia has a path to >98% renewable energy (solar, wind, hydro) with only 5 hours of battery storage. That’s a lot of value for less battery backup than I would have thought. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32567994

Do you believe it? Solar+wind has had several notable failures so far when overcast skies combined with windless conditions. Hydro probably helps to a great degree though.

Rare dark/calm periods can be countered by storage technologies other than batteries. These technologies typically have lower efficiency than batteries, but that doesn't matter when they're only rarely called on. For these technologies, low per-energy-stored capital cost is much more important than high efficiency. As an example: hydrogen can be stored in solution-mined salt caverns for as little as $1/kWh of storage capacity.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#127

Post by pfdietz »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #55

One thing I've not seen a decent discussion of is what industries benefit from enormous amounts of almost free electricity? Other than the manufacturers of wind, solar, etc systems, how does this effect the economy? Obviously that effect is going to be significant, but what exactly does it look like?

Ultimately, any industry using process heat will benefit, by using resistively heated thermal stores when power is cheap.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/could-storing-electricity-in-white...

https://rondo.com/

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#128

Post by pfdietz »

alexvoda wrote: post #58
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #55

One thing I've not seen a decent discussion of is what industries benefit from enormous amounts of almost free electricity? Other than the manufacturers of wind, solar, etc systems, how does this effect the economy? Obviously that effect is going to be significant, but what exactly does it look like?

Aluminium production, desalination, and more

Aluminum production is a bit problematic, since aluminum pots cannot be turned off too long without failing (either freezing up or overheating the walls).

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#129

Post by pfdietz »

FunnyBadger wrote: post #63

Complete BS. Green Energy has radically lower thermodynamic efficiency and energy density than ANY other currently used energy source (especially fossil and nuclear). These two qualities of an energy source have a direct relationship to economic efficiency and utility. Economics and Energy are 1:1 causal - economic growth ONLY occurs with energy growth. Lowering the quality of energy means lowering economic productiv…

Ah, the energy density canard. It's becoming a dog whistle for identifying people who don't know what they're talking about.

Energy density doesn't matter; cost does. It's possible to have a high energy density and a high cost -- for example, nuclear fission.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#130

Post by dharma1 »

FunnyBadger wrote: post #73
01100011 wrote: post #37

Garbage comment from an uninformed SW engineer: How, in the current economic and geopolitical environment, can they project that production costs will continue to decline? Green tech requires massive amounts of dirty energy to produce. It also has been benefiting from globalization which is now going in reverse. I would add at least 5 years to any timeline given because of the recalibrating global energy and material…

You are absolutely correct. Supply Chains are primarily fossil based and can NOT be substituted with low density sources like Green Energy or even electricity at all. For example, you can't efficiently make steel or most other metals with electricity alone. Even primarily electrically refined metals like copper or aluminum REQUIRE inputs that can not be made or refined or extracted with electricity. Often this is abo…

You can make steel with just electric heating - Swedish steel companies are making a lot of progress here https://www.reutersevents.com/renewables/renewables/sweden-l...

Oil and petrochemicals have many uses and they will be with us for decades but at some point this century we will get the vast majority of our energy needs from fusion (the sun), hydro, wind and nuclear. It will likely take longer than we think and but might as well start now than keep running a dangerous experiment on the planet

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