I saw an economist recently speak and he touched on the topic of oil. Beyond using it for power, it is deeply rooted in everything we do by way of plastic (in your car, on your TV, fast food containers, Barbie boxes, coffee makers, and so on). Practically speaking, giving up oil will take a while, so we should start the process sooner rather than later. Super interesting presentation.
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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Agreed, and on the topic of nuclear energy generation, it takes 10-20 years to build a decent plant. Combined cycle natural gas plants take less than 2 years from breaking ground to synchronizing with the grid. It's no wonder these types of power plant have been sprouting up everywhere. If we wanted to be positioned to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, we should've been building nuclear plants at some point in the past 40 years to handle base loads while we replace coal and gas plants with wind, solar, and hydro. Because of plastics, I don't see us completely off oil products any time soon, but there's no good reason for us to still be burning fossils fuels for electricity. And this is coming from a combined cycle gas plant operator. We are doing everything we can to be as green as feasible, but we still release significant greenhouse gases while nuclear plants don't. America will be far behind if we continue on this path while other world leaders invest in modern nuclear tech. There will be a profitable, commercial fusion reactor somewhere in the world within 20 years, and maybe we will have built an experimental net-zero fusion reactor by then.
Idk about Just Stop Oil, but as a someone from Germany, a country that has done what you seek to do, namely moving from 3rd world conditions to 1st world conditions by the use of the cheapest energy source: fossil fuels, there is a sad secret i can tell you:
As per my quick and unscientific calcualtions, Germany used fossil fuels over a period of roughly 120 years to bring ~80M people from 3rd world conditions to the current level, emitting roughly 80bn tonnes of co2 and heating the planet by 0.145C.
If we apply this very rough calculation to 1bn Indians (blissfuilly ignoring the rising population of India), Indians will have to work tirelessly for the next 50 years at 2x our speed to do this. So most indians living today will likely never see that dream fully come true.
As a result earth will be heated to 2.95Β°C (current temp + heating by Indians), a temperature incompatible with boring 3rd world stuff like farming. If we add the african continent (>1.2bn) to the mix (they also want to achieve this, i asked them), it's more like 5Β°C.
In the end, Indians will have to decide: Do you guys want to want to have your grand-children drive cars, or do you want that your children have stuff to eat.
Here in Germany the people have already decided: We want to achieve a ratio of peope-to-cars of 1:1 (as God planned for us) (We are at 0.583:1), and for that we are sacrificing our grandchildren's cravings for food (and your grandchildren's too). But that is ok, because they are not born yet, so we can not hurt them. And also: Food is so boring.
If we fail, and someone forces us to abandon our ways and do koombayah without cars and with renewables (idk that's Indian i think), we will just say we did not know that co2 was harmful and that we just did what our boss ordered. Worked for our grandparents, will work for us.
I already know what Indians will decide, for they are just like us: You will choose the cars.
Peace to India, and remember: We are the good guys, we knew nothing, we just wanted to be happy (life is not worth living without a car).
May contain large amounts of sarcasm, sry for bad english, i'm in a hurry.
Good on you for checking in with all those people, it must have taken a while.
Lifting the whole world off of fossil fuels is going to be hard, especially if we want to do it quickly. This isn't however a problem the capitalist and nation-state models are well equipped to solve. It should not be a question of can a given people afford the technology or if someone can turn a profit on it.
We need to do this as a species, for the species. It should be given not as charity, not because wealthy countries owe it to poor ones, but because it is right that everyone should benefit from this.
The difficulty is how to convince the politicians and their masters of this, and I don't think throwing paint on things is going to be sufficient.
We need to do this as a species
I am pretty sure climate change is/will be a disaster for India, but I am betting on the capability of Indians as well as other third world countries to develop economically and be better prepared to face the consequences of climate change. Because I know for a fact that collective action problem is not solvable.
It's absolutely possible to completely switch over to renewable for power creation. It's just not profitable.
We've been fooled to think that things that are "too expensive" aren't possible. Sometimes that's the case. Sometimes it's just us putting money over people.
Not profitable for companies already heavily invested in the existing infrastructure. Solar is now cheaper than coal per watt though for new builds.
They're cowards. Because they mess with everyday people but not with Government. Like gluing themselves to Government buildings. How Just Stop Oil protest makes people turn against them and their message. So gg Just Stop Oil.
EDIT I don't want Just Stop Oil to mess with everyday people, just with governments.
Just shut down all but the absolute necessary of industry. At the start of COVID carbon emissions nosedived, we just need to keep doing that.
It's not just power either. Green energy is not good enough yet, but there are other problems.
Whole industries are built on using whatever is left after certain oil processes. You might be using something right now, that has resources that in the end would not be there without oil mining.
PVC floors use part of oil that is left over after kerosine is made for airplanes. So if we stop using fuel, we also have to figure out a replacement for that. And this is just one example. There could be thousands of things like this.
Because we have the oil and the leftovers, we use it and have very efficient technology to create products that we need. So if we stop using fuel, we have solved one problem(and I don't believe we will be able to do this for quite some time), but there will be consequences everywhere.
Jobs will disappear, whole industries need to start over and find different ways of producing things with different, green resources. The very foundation that our society is built on will need to shift.
I believe plastic is also an oil product. Can you imagine a world with no plastic? I know it is bad for the environment, but if you want to package food safely, or medicine, what is the alternative?
It is going to take a tremendous amount of effort, innovation and money to get even close to stopping with oil, and even more to solve all the problems that will follow.
If we spent 10% of the renewable effort towards nuclear, the cheapest electricity wouldn't be gas or coal anymore.
So yea, poorer countries with larger populations need to stop being blamed for trying to have a good life, when it's the rich countries chasing the shiny new thing that keeps us harming the environment
I love Nuclear, what's absolutely stupid about some climate activists is their opposition to it. I mean, it's the cleanest and the least deadly form of energy. Let's hope someday we will reach enough efficiency that fusion energy would be feasible, it's absolutely everything you can wish for and more. Literal free energy! We have it, it has generated energy, but it has generated less energy than we put into it if I am not wrong, would be absolutely stunning if we can increase it's efficiency. This is the dream!
We actually got more energy out than we put in recently, but that was in a research reactor and it will take some time to make it actually large-scale feasible. Fission would be completely sufficient on its own if not for the politics. Greenpeace has more blood on their hands than the captain of the Exxon Valdez.
Unfortunately Fusion is too far in the future to solve climate change. There are still a bunch of hurdles we need to pass to start making feasible commercial reactors, so investment into other fields is necessary for the short term.
Unfortunately Fusion is too far in the future to solve climate change
I did a small project once for my school long ago, do you think it's more a matter of sci fi at this point than actual reality?
I think that we will reach net energy output within 30 years, with another 30 to actually scale that into a usable reactor, then another 30 to actually start using it widespread, and that's assuming that costs continue to decrease on things like superconductors, and we get our tritium supply chain to exist. I'm a little biased as a student going into the field, but I'm hopeful.
I think it's a group of obnoxiously self-righteous people who get to tell themselves that they're taking real action to make a difference but really aren't doing anything useful at all, and their stunts probably actively turn some people against environmental causes. They're the exact same kind of people as the NIMBYs who pat themselves on the back for getting a new 50% affordable-housing apartment building canceled because it wasn't 100% affordable.
We're starting to be able to mass produce thin sheets of solar panels as easily as newspaper. It's time to replace coal plants and switch to renewables.
You can also put wind turbines out at sea and out of sight and add tidal generators below them. But wait there's more! You can generate power at wave level too! So now this combination generator system can send lots of power back to shore.
...where it cannot be effectively stored at present.
The question is whether it can be utilizied. Some countries do use 100% renewable energy so the answer must be yes.
If by utilised you mean effectively stored and distributed when required, then yes I agree but most countries are a long way from that.
I think you've taken a couple of anomalies for the last part and generalised across all countries.
The countries that are close to 100% renewables have unique circumstances that enable them to.
For example, Iceland has a small concentrated population with easy access to geothermal energy.
Paraguay generates a lot of its electricity from hydroelectric dams as it has suitable rivers to be able to build them on. Even so, its citizens often burn firewood for heat.
If everybody would just stop eating fucking meat we wouldnβt be having this problem. Your addiction is killing the planet.
add in cars and cryptocurrency and having children and we would eventually not be having the problem but vegan alone won't do it even eventually and nothing will stop it immediately.
Yes it will.
A study mentioned on Our World in Data suggests that if the entire world adopted a vegan diet, our total agricultural land use could shrink dramatically, from 4.1 billion hectares to 1 billion hectares, a reduction of 75% . This reduction is significant because agriculture, particularly livestock farming, is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Further, a research team, including scientists from Leiden University, found that if high-income countries switched to a plant-based diet, almost 100 billion tons of CO2 could be pulled out of the atmosphere by the end of the century. This switch would reduce annual agricultural production emissions by 61%, and converting former cropland and pastures to their natural state could remove another 98.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by the end of the century .
Additionally, a study by scientists from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, found that phasing out animal agriculture over the next 15 years would have the same effect as a 68% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions through 2100. This would contribute 52% of the net emission reductions necessary to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. The phase-out of animal agriculture could create a 30-year pause in net greenhouse gas emissions and offset almost 70% of the heating effect of those emissions through the end of the century .
as what you posts states. it would take time and it certainly does not state that the problem would be over from it as a single action. We have to hit the other big sources as well. You will note it does not say is the largest major contributor.
If people stopped eating meat and we turned the massive amount of land we waste raising animals to slaughter into carbon sinks it absolutely would be enough. But go on justifying your addiction thatβs literally killing the planet. Iβm sure your grandchildren would agree.
So you are arguing two different things or at least think I am. Not eating meat is good for the environment and I am not fighting that point. Not eating meat will not instantly fix climate change or get us to pre industrial even over time. Even with the heat sinks. We can't go whole hog on everything else and expect veganism to cure all our ills. We grow plenty of plants with fertilizer that we get from fossil fuels and all our pollution and environmental damage is not exclusively from eating meat. Its a great help and a great thing to do but it is not a panacea unto itself. Im not sure if you justify other pollution creating things like driving yourself around in a big suv or supporting bitcoin, but if you do veganism and feels that justifies that type of behavior. well thats literally killing the planet.