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Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

It's all so tiresome. When German leaders went online to celebrate turning off their last nuclear plant and instead turned on more coal I learned it was all theater by woke fools. They are not fools because they are woke but just because they are foolish. The dutch seizing farms in the name of global warming. Where are they going to get food from? Ukraine? China? Giving power to foreign possibly enemy nations like they did with Russia. It's all political theater that will weaken the west and do nothing to accomplish it's goals.

Africa and Asia are going to want the same standard of living as the west so carbon use is only going to go up. You don't intentionally cripple industries in your country in the face of global competition.

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It's like shouting in the darkness, isn't it? Don't become discouraged, though.

I see only two solutions:

* A global carbon tax/cap/trading/limit system, with sanctions for any country that does not comply.

* A realistic risk that a global compulsory carbon cap/tax/trading system will be implemented, and that any carbon emissions tracking will be backdated - such that any extra emissions today might disadvantage your country in the future.

With neither of the above two, it is in every countries best interests to emit as much carbon as possible and use free/cheap carbon based energy to produce goods/food/whatever, while doing only a few highly visible environmental moves.

How often do these economic sanctions actually work? From my limited perspective they seem to only hurt the poor, whilst the rich find loophole after loophole and are largely unaffected.

It's magical thinking, and it's proven to be so over and over and over again. It's "Why don't we [ambiguous collective] just..." as public policy.

Reminds me of the movie '12 monkeys', where the groups determined to save the world ended up destroying it.

Would be funny in a way if GreenPeace's actual accomplishment was delaying nuclear until it was too late.

Isn’t that precisely the course correction we find ourselves having to make now? Decades of anti-nuclear sentiment calcified into regulatory opposition that needs to be unwound. Yeah, real funny. If there’s a lesson here we should all take to heart, it’s this: beware of letting bandwagon sentimental movements dictate policy.

Nuclear is not a solution that will save us. In fact it is counterproductive to build nuclear. I know it hurts the sensibilities of many of the technerds here on HN, but renewables are already several factors cheaper than nuclear and are still on an exponential cost reduction curve.

So if you build a nuclear power plant you have less CO2 reduction than if you use the money for renewables. And no we don't need nuclear for baseload (hint renewables are baseload) and nuclear costs are not dominated by regulation any more than other power sources (Nuclear had >50 years, of development and government subsidies, that's 30 more than solar. And they still did not get onto an exponential cost reduction rate).

We're nearly at the point where geoengineering is necessary. People will oppose this like nuclear power, but there's not many alternatives left. Even if we do have a solution to stop climate change, it is simply not going to happen in time.

You're concern trolling, and what you're doing is a great disservice to those trying to make a change. Lets attack a few misguided attempts, spread some FUD and remove the focus from things that matter, all while brewing hopelessness.

Friend, I'm expressing myself on a thread that maybe a couple hundred people will read. If I set back climate reform then it was doomed to begin with. I have no idea what "concern trolling" is. I think nuclear is required to offset climate change. I think western countries shutting down farms is immoral and idiotic. I think expecting western countries to willingly handicap themselves in hopes it will make a difference while upcoming nations including China go full speed is dumb. If that's concern trolling then sure, I'm that.

> The dutch seizing farms in the name of global warming.

1. Seizing farms is not happening here, only a few farms have been sold by the owning farmers to the government.

2. The aim is to reduce nitrogen emissions, which have been accumulating in the ground.

The Netherlands is a net exporter, apparently, so we could stand to loose some food production.

But yes, Dutch farms are very efficient per area. We should export that expertise, and I think we actually do that too

> The Netherlands is a net exporter, apparently, so we could stand to loose some food production.

The countries importing that food will now have to import from somewhere else. It doesn’t seem to be solving any climate problem, just shifting it elsewhere.

See point 2, it's not about climate but our local environment, where too much nitrogen has been deposited.

Maybe we should export the meat and ship the nitrogen with it and distribute the emissions instead of it all piling up here.

Nobody has to pickk this up. It's unnecessary surplus that only does damage. A third of all the food in the world is thrown away. European food production is too high because of the way agricultural subsidies work, and the surplus is dumped, often below market price, on the global market, driving farmers in Africa and India out of business.

Literally the only reason not to reduce this excessive production is in order to protect established business interests and not rock the boat.

That doesn't meam buying out farms is necessarily the way to go. A lot can be done to reduce nitrate pollution by changing the feed for cattle, letting them roam outside as much as possible (the biggest polluters are factory farms woth thousands of animals), and other measures. But reducing the food production won't cause any problems; it will solve them.

EU farm subsidies shouldn't be rewarding production at any cost, but sustainable production and care for the environment.

> Seizing farms is not happening here, only a few farms have been sold by the owning farmers to the government.

That’s some rather disingenuous spin. Look, I’m not at all interested in the merits of the buyouts (maybe they’re entirely justified, I don’t care) but don’t misrepresent what’s going on there - buyouts are being taken under duress, “voluntary” today with statements that they will become mandatory if enough volun-told people don’t step up. Again, I literally don’t care about the propriety of the motivations - not my circus, not my monkeys. In the US we have something called eminent domain that amounts to the same thing: “move and take this bag of cash that we deem to be the market value, or we’ll come with brickbats and make you move.” Sometimes it’s abused, sometimes it’s justified, but it is what it is - the government taking (seizing) property. The fact that there’s some compensation makes it mostly equitable at least. As far as I understand the offers from the Dutch (funded by EU?) are above market. What can never be quantified and captured adequately in a buy-out price, of course, is the legacy of multi-generational ownership, sentiment, and the cost of occupational rehabilitation. Given the variable factors that would go into such things, it’s probably a fool’s errand to even try to calculate such things anyway.

I no longer believe they’re fools, hanlon’s razor is/was a mistake.

They’re malicious.

Cheap abundant clean energy will make a change. Some say it's about to happen, I think we need to do more research. Maybe some of that super intelligence will help us.

It really sends home the concept behind the phrase, “ain’t no war but class war.”

This “ruling” class just does the theater to keep us in the, sometimes actual, dark.

You are misinformed. Dutch don't seize farms because of global warming, in fact they haven't seized any farms so far. The problem in the Netherlands is about nitrogen depositions. Furthermore, we currently export more than two thirds of our agricultural output, and import two thirds as well.

The possibly maybe eventual seizing of a couple of large and polluting meat farm / factories close by natural reserves won't have any effect on our ability to feed ourselves, at all. The problem is mostly about unsustainable ways to produce ungodly amounts of meat and milk, not 'farms' in general.

Woke has nothing to do with it.

> Dutch don't seize farms because of global warming

This isn't true. A major goal of nitrogen cutting programs (started by the UN Environment Program) is to reduce climate change. You can read about it here:

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/four-reasons-why...

Yes, but this is really not the main (or even a) reason why there is the threat of farms having to close shop or mandated to become more sustainable: this is based solely on nitrogen emissions damaging nearby nature reserves.

We are fast approaching the point where renewables are cheaper than fossils. Why would anybody invest in them anymore?

Investment isn't about how cheap something is, it is about how much of a return one can get on an item.

this video always comes to mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC_BCz0pzMw

The economic incentives (in a sort of basic example) are in favor of fossil fuel plants. It takes too long for traditional nuclear plants to have a return.

Energy generation is sadly more complicated than I had hoped as a laymen. The sources have to compete on variable demand basis along with amortized costs over years.

Nuclear needs novel designs with better economic returns, or to be given assistance by government to be more competitive on this amortized basis.

The assumption is that the price trajectories represent profitable investments at a given time.

If that was actually true we would need to talk about it.

It’s not, so here we are. Solar and wind do nothing for base load generation - except distract people from talking rationally about energy. I don’t know where people think all the power to charge electric cars is going to come from. And what transmission lines are going to carry the miracle of power either.

https://www.google.com/search?q=baseload+is+a+myth

Feel free to pick a citation of your preference.

Aren't electric cars thought to be a big part of the battery/storage solution? You can charge the cars at night and draw power when other consumers are peaking?

I think the trajectories for solar are so strong that we will stop talking about any lack of energy in one or two decades.

Case in point: Germany will build 13 GW of renewables this year, which offsets those last 4 GW of Nuclear which were switched off this year.

But the fact that they move away from nuclear rather than coal is the big problem. More renewables is great of course, but it's useless if it's done to replace only nuclear and not oil and coal.

Last winter's reduced gas useage was a big positive, though. We really need to build on that.

Renewables aren't cheaper than fossil fuels if you consider the cost of grid outages. This is an externality that is normally not considered when arguing they're cheaper.

I've never experienced a grid outtake in my life. And most of this gas is being burned in big power plants anyways, which have the exact same grid problem.

Well no, the grid is pretty stable today because fossil fuels are very predictable and base-loady. The point is that renewables aren't, so if you push too hard on renewables then you will have more outages due to losing control of the supply/demand balance.

Maybe because I live in a municipality known for hydro power, so I don't consider that an issue. But it's a renewable that's just as easy to control as gas. Even better, can pump up water and store energy when solar or wind have excess power.

Hydro power is terrible for the local environment, an aspect always neglected.

Yes hydro and geothermal are exceptions, but also irrelevant on a global scale. Hydro sources are already tapped and won't take us any further. When people say renewables in this context they mean the sources that can be scaled up. Pumped hydro is nice when you can get it but again there isn't enough.

Re-reading I didn't quite understand your original point. What do you mean big power plants have the exact same grid problem? The issue comes from the dispatchable nature. You can tell a combustion plant to set output to a particular level and it will do so. That's what you need to keep a grid stable. Wind/solar can't do that.

When people talk about gas and the grid, I often feel them talking about some external factor shutting down the grid (weather etc), and thus how having gas for heating is better than electric because you're not as dependant on the grid. And in that context it doesn't matter if it's a gas plant or a solar farm making the energy anyways.

Well, there's that too yes but I think that's not the main thing people mean in this context. The issue is that in most parts of the world a 100% renewable grid can't satisfy demand on a still night, and storage tech isn't there to ride you through - but even if it was, long stretches of cloudy still days are easily possible. Also the grid is very hard to restart once it has a big enough outage. Even once power is available at all the stations again, a black start is no joke and most countries have never been through one ever.

Why would anybody need a 100% renewable grid? Renewable grids will be 150% grids, that provide 50% more load than you normally need and 100% for 98% of the time. The remaining 2% of time where renewables can't deliver (windless/sunless winter days) will be covered by gas peaking power plants.

The goal is to avoid CO2 emissions at reasonable economic prices.

Only for the 'easy' things... A gas furnace works out far cheaper per unit of heat than a heat pump... A plane is far cheaper to fly with jet fuel than batteries. Steel is far cheaper to make (not recycle) with coal and a blast furnace than direct reduction. Cement is far cheaper to make with gas than electricity...

I just recently read that heat pumps are beating gas furnaces already and on the price trajectories of renewables will be winning easily in the future.

We won't need to focus on the hard things as long as we have sufficient easy things to get done first. For instance I don't think replacing jet fuel is something we should be prioritizing over bringing renewables to developing countries.

> I just recently read that heat pumps are beating gas furnaces already

In general, no. For a few select usecases, yes - particularly highly insulated newbuilds which need very small systems (heat pumps miniaturize better than furnaces).

Ohio passed a law that allows one of counties, townships, and cities to ban "green" developments. I'm not sure if other states have passed similar laws, but I wouldn't be surprised. This makes it trivial to stop any new solar or wind development (ofc, natural gas and coal are not impacted by this law). This has made it so that major solar developers have stopped even considering the state for new developments.

So it's completely possible that people are going to be willing to pay a price premium to ensure the demise of civilization and perhaps humanity.

You are very misinformed if you believe this is true for planet-scale energy demand. Dial back the hope and faith and engage the critical thinking.

Why? Fossil energy reserves are finite anyway. We need and will transition off them.

We can discuss how and when but trajectories make it clear that it will be rather fast.

Portugal, Spain, France, Sweden, Finland, the UK, and other parts of Europe are running on renewables or low carbon nuclear for a substantial amount of time. As oezi mentioned in a sibling comment, the cost of renewables is rapidly approaching a point where they are cheaper than fossil fuels. The solutions are clear, we just need to lean into them harder (and make it painful for those who choose to continue fossil BAU despite the cost reversal).

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/renewables-supplied-8... (Renewables supplied 88% of Portugal's electricity consumption in January)

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65557469 (Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time)

https://english.elpais.com/spain/2023-05-19/the-nine-hours-i... (The nine hours in which Spain made the 100% renewable dream a reality)

https://yle.fi/a/74-20032375 (Finnish nuclear plant throttles production as electricity price plunges) (My note: Estonia and Finland just signed an MOU to build an additional 1GW interconnector, "EstLink3", to import more clean energy from Finland but it won't be done until early 2030s)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35965186 (HN: Renewables supplied 65% of new US utility-scale generating capacity in Q1 2023)

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/renewables-cheapest-form... (Renewables: Cheapest form of power)

https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost... (Lazard 2023 Levelized Cost Of Energy+)

https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf (Tesla Master Plan Part 3: Sustainable Energy for All of Earth)

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map?wind=false&solar=false (Live global electrical generation mix data)

Your are misinformed/wrong.

Germany only had 5% nuclear, those have been replaced by renewables not by coal[1].

Those reactors were at the end of their lifespans anyways. Would nuclear have been great if we never stopped investing in the technology? Maybe, but as it stands now it's much cheaper and way way faster to install renewables than to install nuclear. (Nuclear power plants have lead times in decades and cost overruns in the billions.)

As for your farming claim. Netherlands is reducing milk and meat production, products that have been artificially propped up EU wide by subsidiaries. Meat and diary are one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gasses and the major driving force behind deforestation (more than 80% in terms of area).

Nobody is going to starve without meat or diary, in fact you are much less likely to have certain diseases on a vegan diet. As for vitamin deficiencies, almost everybody is B12 and D deficient, including omnivores, so you should take vitamin supplements anyways. In fact most cows are B12 deficient too (not enough grass feed), so we inject them with vitamin boosters, so you might as well cut out the middleman.

1: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

How do you define "woke?"

Pretty much sums up my views (SFW): https://twitter.com/TheRabbitHole84/status/16596123941702328...

Not sleepy.

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