Hacker News Reader

Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

Living well requires energy and lots of it. There are billions of people who aspire to use far more energy than they are currently using, in order to live better. Who are we to say that they can't use as much energy as we do/did? (I know you're not saying that directly, but it's hard to imagine how half the population could bring themself up to even the median energy consumption without dramatic increases in climate changing forces.)

View on HN

I think this is a false conundrum. We should use as much energy as we sustainably can, without destroying ourselves, if that improves our well being. But not more. And we should also make sure that all humans have good conditions. I think the essence of what makes a good life is surprisingly inexpensive in terms of resources. I believe that planning well, we can achieve a good compromise for everyone involved, with a larger focus on those more in need.

Moreover, energy consumption isn't so significant as emissions per Watt. Our capacity for solar energy could sustain even energy growth without significant emissions. We already have the technology to make the transition.

To reiterate, whatever we do, sitting back and watching the world burn (in an almost literal sense) is not a reasonable option!

Even solar panels aren't emissions-free. They take 1-3 years to payback the emissions used to create them, which is a great trade (a decrease full-lifecycle emissions as compared to do) for people who would already be consuming the power they'd create, but is still an increase in full-lifecycle emissions when created to supply power to someone who wouldn't otherwise have access to that power. Anyone who is without stable electricity today should gain access to it, by all means, but that is a net increase in emissions as compared to today.

Stable supplies of food (and fertilizer and machinery to grow and process it), clean water, refrigeration, transport, (somewhat ironically) HVAC, lighting, and some amount of outputs of manufacturing are desired by all.

I'm sure there are some emissions we still don't know how to avoid relating to solar manufacturing, but typically we look at energy return on energy invested (EROI). As the supply chain becomes less carbon intensive, less the energy to produce panels themselves produces emissions. The most carbon intensive countries are countries like US and China -- I'm sure just the emissions they cut back could compensate a lot of energy growth for developing countries. This is only a temporary spike. And being the large industrial producers, as they transition the emissions per Watt will go down significantly.

Again, it's not clear what your proposal is. Ignoring the problem is a bad idea. Doing the best we can to rapidly (of course, not so rapidly we couldn't handle it) transition to renewable energy is what we should be doing. Doing it now is the best time to be doing it. And are doing it! Just some countries are lagging behind somewhat, including the US and China. A big part of the problem is not recognizing the scale and importance of what we're facing. With reason and compassion in our hearts, we shall find the best solution for all :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com