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Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

latimes.com

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Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#31

Post by cyberax »

PKop wrote: post #16
glial wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

The use of fossil fuels equates directly to higher standard of living, military power, wealth, prosperity, and advanced economies. As well, transportation is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. "Exiting" fossil fuels means either nothing, or it means impoverishing your people.

Not long ago this was linked to coal and cancer. And even higher rates of cancer and lung disease correlated with higher standards of living. Should we start advocating for the return to coal? Maybe transplanting cancers to cause better prosperity?

> "Exiting" fossil fuels means either nothing, or it means impoverishing your people.

Utter bullshit. Exiting fossil fuels means prosperity for the people in the near future (the next generation). Staying on fossil fuels means stagnation and decay.

Don't believe me? I welcome you to visit West Virginia. Or pretty much any former coal-mining region, for that matter. Almost all of them are a depressing sight.

Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#32

Post by mikece »

Interesting that Colombia is currently powering more than 70% of their electrical consumption on hydropower. They currently have about 65 TWh of hydropower capacity; the total feasible generation potential is around 200 TWh. Makes then an interesting country to host such talks.

Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#33

Post by leonidasrup »

adrianN wrote: post #3

We‘ve had talks about this topic decades before I was born, but progress is a bit underwhelming.

There is no progress in CO2 reduction, we are still emiting more CO2 each year.

" Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes increased by +0.7% within 2025."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-026-00780-4

Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#34

Post by mrweasel »

ajross wrote: post #5

Absolutely hilarious to me that the biggest catalyst toward global attention to renewables in the last two decades is Trump's ridiculous adventure in the gulf.

Partially the Ukraine war got at least parts of Europe started, then adding Trumps mess on top but keeps the ball rolling.

I've heard a lot of people being critical of wind turbines, calling them ugly and wanting nothing to do with them. After the Ukraine war started I remember driving into town, seeing the five massive wind turbines at the harbour, providing three time the power the city needs, and thinking "not only do they look great, they're also part of our self sufficiency".

The US is a different place, but the hate parts of the US have towards renewable energy is pretty insane. I know the wind isn't always blow, the sun not always shining, but each installation is still one step closer to not being beholden to the whims of some crazy person in a far of land.

Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#35

Post by nomel »

scottious wrote: post #9

> “The mere fact that the conference is happening is already a success,” said Claudio Angelo, senior policy adviser at Brazil’s Climate Observatory, a network of environmental, civil society and academic groups The bar has been set so low that talking about it is seen as success now. Sometimes I think the only way we'll really make meaningful progress is if we simply run out of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, we're just…

The only way we make meaningful progress has never changed, for a scale that matters: have a cheaper alternative.

Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#36

Post by tialaramex »

jmyeet wrote: post #13

I've seen this succintly and accurately described this way: "No One Goes to War Over a Solar Panel" [1]. If you think about it, once you build a solar panel, it just produces power for the next 20-30 years. Then you buy another one and replace it. To get oil or natural gas, you need to drill a well. That well requires constant labor. What many don't seem to know is that oil wells decline in production over time. It's…

> One thing I'll add here is that there are a lot of energy usages for fossil fuels for which we have no alternative. Aviation is a big one.

The status of "fossil fuels" isn't crucial to these uses, it's just cheaper. You can just make kerosene, but you wouldn't because you already use fossil fuels for power. However if you have abundant energy without fossil fuels and you want kerosene for some reason you can make it for $$$$

Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#37

Post by busterarm »

jl6 wrote: post #25
thijson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil has had a pretty active program of converting cane sugar to ethanol for a while now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil Sugar cane doesn't require replanting every year either, like corn does. Plants are actually not a good converter of solar energy to chemical energy though. They capture a few percent of it. Solar cells are able to capture about 10 times that, a much smaller footprint.

Ethanol is quite a useful thing to have though, as a multi-season stable store of energy. We will need to synthesise it (or other synfuels and feedstocks), to fully transition away from fossil sources, and that 10x efficiency factor will be essential, as synthesis is highly energy-lossy.

> Ethanol is quite a useful thing to have though, as a multi-season stable store of energy.

Am I missing something? Ethanol is hydrophilic and hygroscopic. In concentrations used as a fuel (e.g., E85), it acts like a desiccant and spoils quickly. In a closed system this ends up with phase separation and the freed water causes engine corrosion.

I'm not sure we want people running a still or molecular sieve in their homes to deal with fixing long-term-stored ethanol.

Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#38

Post by leonidasrup »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #6

Treating alternative energy and PHEVs/EVs as a core national security concern should have started in the early 2000s. Yes, the PV revolution hadn't happened yet, but the hybrid auto was released in 1998 or so, and a PHEV is a natural extension to that. I'm weak on recollection as to when PV and wind started their big price plummet, but it was certainly in the 2010s. It's still not too late for ... everyone. In partic…

China is currently implementing this national security strategy. Each addition EV car driving in China a car running on domestic solar+coal electricity and not running on imported oil.

China is also turning coal to synthetic fuels.

" The sector last year turned 276 million tons of coal - equivalent to almost a year of European coal use - into chemicals, oil and gas, according to the China National Petroleum and Chemical Planning Institute"

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/chines...

You can imagine the CO2 result of this strategy.

Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#39

Post by tardedmeme »

cmxch wrote: post #27
MattGrommes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of that comment is not that the talking is happening, it's that the hope of action isn't going to be blocked by industry-captured and plain moronic countries like Saudia Arabia and US, respectively. Even if these countries are a smaller part of the climate affecting processes, any forward motion is good at this point. They can also help build economies of scale, and take advantage of the myriad economic ben…

The US still has enough power to stop it though, thankfully. We aren’t captured by environmental activists that force the poor to shoulder the compliance burden while the rich get to defer and delay.

Why is it thankful the US has the power to force everyone to keep wasting money on US-controlled energy sources? What's the difference between this situation and a Mafia protection racket?

Re: Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

#40

Post by tardedmeme »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #6

Treating alternative energy and PHEVs/EVs as a core national security concern should have started in the early 2000s. Yes, the PV revolution hadn't happened yet, but the hybrid auto was released in 1998 or so, and a PHEV is a natural extension to that. I'm weak on recollection as to when PV and wind started their big price plummet, but it was certainly in the 2010s. It's still not too late for ... everyone. In partic…

The PV revolution has happened. Most countries with significant energy grids get most of their energy from PV during the daytime. Some even get 50% of their yearly energy from PV.
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