The world won't hit climate goals unless energy innovation rapidly accelerated
cnn.com
cnn.com
Edit: this is the tool that I'm talking https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....
And pushing the transition into the future is a problem, because...? I begin to take issue with this kind of language. It does not say much to a casual reader. I believe the time for this overly polite, overly cautious language is over. How about
"Failure to accelerate progress now risks to end human civilisation as we know it."
The most likely way to meet targets is in reduction of energy consumption. That is the one thing that this current economic system is not set up to do.
Dreaming of some non-concrete, unbounded, inchoate blueskies solution while ignoring living patterns and modes which could be changed to improve their efficiency is reckless.
The simple list is well-known, but apparently taboo due to cultural fixations in the West against centralized planning:
automobile abuse; aeroplane abuse; irrational distribution of workers geographically from their workplaces; over-consumption of meat and dairy; poorly insulated housing; overpopulation(1)
1. Please do not bother re-iterating tired arguments about racism for this last point -- it is blindingly obvious that the elevation of consumptions patterns in the rest of the world to those in the West is a non-starter if we want to fix this problem. Just because some racists are delighted at the idea because they imagine population reduction does not involve Western countries does not mean that racist motives are the only impetus here. Similarly the consequence of not fixing this problem are predicted by many to have exaggerated effects on the very areas you are concerned with.
I don’t think this is what is needed. We know the solutions - we just need to institute them. Nuclear, solar, wind, wave, etc. Massive incentives to transition to EVs, solar mandated on every new house and incentives for retrofits, etc etc. We need a coordinated plan to attack this the same way we have worldwide (ex-USA) attacked Covid19.
I disagree with the post because although I am in favour of all the initiatives suggested in it I suspect they are insufficient in the face of an economic system which is designed to keep expanding and growing.
In addition:
Nuclear power carries huge risks with it (which may become proportionally preferrable to climate destruction)
Solar is useful only for some parts of the world.
We lose massive amounts of energy in transmission from generation to consumption.
Storage is still a huge problem.
All of the above suggests that unless some realistic solutions for storage and transmission are on the table we need to shift manufacturing and consumption closer to the energy sources. Historically civilizations have clustered around such energy centers.
The small (but real) gains available from meat-consumption reduction and gasoline-consumption reduction start to look significant.
> The US can reach 90 percent clean electricity by 2035, dependably and without increasing consumer bills
It really is as simple as scaling up renewables, transmission, and storage.
https://gspp.berkeley.edu/news/news-center/the-us-can-reach-...
Factory farming is an entirely separate issue. You have to make low meat and no meat diets sexy like Tesla made EVs sexy.
That same report says:
a 90 percent carbon-free electric generation sector by 2035, which would reduce economy-wide emissions 27 percent.
Yet the IPCC targets are 43% globally by 2050, unless we believe that there is going to be some currently non-existent technology introduced then something needs to be done to close that gap...reduction seems obvious:
Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air.
Although that relates 2010 emissions to 2030 I think the CO2 emissions are actually higher now: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...
IIRC he was reviewing some paper a while back about the disappearing arctic ice that wasn’t included in the IPCC models. Basically claiming that the target dates they mention should in fact come a few decades earlier.
So if things need to happen by 2050, it could be more like by 2035
For a second there I thought you were going to argue that it's okay to push the transition further into the future. I was relieved to be wrong about that.
But high temperature heat is only part of the process for cement making, most of the CO2 (60%) is actually released by the the calcium carbonate [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement#CO2_emissions].
Every leap we've made has been preceded by increased energy. Whether that's the tools that allowed us to be more efficient with energy when hunting etc, agriculture that gave enough energy to sustain large work forces or the technologies that have created enough energy to shift production away from human labor.
If we really want to progress as a civilisation I believe we should be primarily chasing energy production increases which are not damaging.
The rest will just happen as people aren't constrained by the previous energy limits and can do things that were previously not viable.
Maybe it'll come up later. For now, it's been pretty quiet.
Now we have to pick between two sleazy old guys who are arguably two sides of the same coin.
What does HN think who is financing this anti nuclear and pro solar movement.
(1) Why does pro-solar have to be anti-nuclear?
(2) How quickly can nuclear reactors and associated transmission lines be built, and at what cost?
My understanding is we’ve reached the point where solar and wind are quite cheap (cheaper than nuclear) and rapidly getting cheaper. We still need to solve the storage issue, but things on that front are progressing quickly.
I am certainly in favor of nuclear power where it makes sense, but again as I understand it the situations where nuclear is more economical are rapidly decreasing. Perhaps it’s better for society to “skate to where the puck is going?”
Or perhaps I am incorrect about the economics?
I've also seen anti-nuclear activists pondering who paid off pro-nuckear climate activists. There are likely very few people being paid off on either side. It's silly to me the bad faith both sides have. People can think differently without being sold out.
Aside: accusing people of being unscientific while proposing a very complicated issue could “be solved in a day” kind of calls into question your credibility.
[1] https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....
> there are few technologies available to bring emissions down to zero in areas such as shipping, trucking and aviation, the IEA said. The same problem exists in heavy industries like steel, cement and chemicals.
For chemical processes we have a lot more work to do. While electric furnaces are used in steel production, they are used for recycling, not production of new steel. For this we need to use a reducing fuel for the iron oxide, which is usually carbon monoxide derived from coal. There are hydrogen based alternatives in development, but not widely used.
No, it isn't. There hasn't been a single fatal incident.
> not production of new steel. For this we need to use a reducing fuel for the iron oxide, which is usually carbon monoxide derived from coal
Yes, production of new steel. Steel is made from pig iron by oxidizing the carbon, with the optional addition of alloying elements. No reductant is needed, quite the opposite. If you're going to nitpick, do it correctly!
Now pig iron is a different story, which is why I didn't mention it. Are you really trying to say that because nuclear power can't do everything, it shouldn't be used for anything?