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Comment by einpoklum | Hacker News Reader

Despite the upbeat title, we need to remember that we are well past time to stop emitting large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. And yet, solar, wind, storage discharge, other renewables( and possibly SMR nuclear temporarily) are not even _close_ to replacing fossil fuel energy sources. The charts do not suggest reaching anywhere near zero emissions from electricity generation by 2030, and that's when we ignore the contribution of the production of solar panels and related systems.

So, while the trend is positive - this is still disappointing and worrying news.

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IMO it is close. ~40% of the world’s electricity is from low carbon sources like solar, and that number is already increasing by over 1.5% per year and accelerating.

People get concerned about 100% carbon free, but really once you hit 90+% the specific year you hit zero becomes less relevant. Spending 1 more year at 50% is worse than 5 years under 10% or 50 years under 1%.

If anything it’s EV’s we should be worried about not electricity. Cars last a long time so every ICE sold today is ~26 years of pollution locked in.

Consider that climate change doesn’t care for percentages, but total CO2equivalents. Coal is still the third-fastest GROWING energy source in TWh (from the article), so the question is really 90% of what?

Coal bounced back from an economic downturn in 2023. The previous peak was in 2014 at 44,858 TWh which was almost matched in 2022 and then slightly exceeded in 2023. Hardly significant growth.

It’s likely somewhere between 2023 and 2026 will be the all time peak but it’s only really dependent on the economy in the short term. Long term coal is clearly dying and looking at China’s energy policies it’s going to start dying quickly.

One interesting stat I saw recently is that China is electrifying at a much faster rate than any other country.

Which means, even if you ignore the nuclear, hydro, wind and solar that they are building at world leading speeds, the electricity from coal is being used to much more efficiently achieve actual services that in Texas or wherever has slightly less coal in their electricity mix, is being done inefficiently with gas or oil.

> IMO it is close. ... ~40%... increasing by over 1.5% per year and accelerating.

That would have been close 15 years ago. We are already way behind, and suffering warming effects with droughts, and fires, and heat waves, and floods etc. :-(

> Cars last a long time so every ICE sold today is ~26 years of pollution locked in.

I would actually guess that 26 years is more of a maximum rather than an average. But regardless - regulatory measures could enforce increasingly more strict pollution limits, which would make it so that the more polluting cars will not be able to be driven legally without some expensive modifications to capture emissions internally. In fact, this already happens in many countries today, forcing decades-old, super-polluting car models off the road. And the availability of gasoline distribution stations could decrease etc.

Global warming has been noticeable and accelerating for 50+ years. Being at the turning point where CO2 emissions are likely lower within 5-10 years despite population and economic growth represents a great deal of progress.

> I would actually guess that 26 years is more of a maximum rather than an average.

It’s actually a low estimate. Average car on the road in the US is 12.6 years *2 = 25.2 but that’s biased because there’s a slow increase in the number of cars on the road which underestimates lifespan. Also there is there is a net outflow of cars from American that get sent to other countries.

> Average car on the road in the US is 12.6 years *2 = 25.2

Hmm... I was naturally thinking about the country I live in (Palestine/Israel), but then I remembered I see a lot of old cars in US movies. Guess I'll take your word and assume that's more like the global average.

Israel has younger cars than the US because the total number of cars is increasing rapidly and you don’t manufacture (import) old cars instead mostly buying new ones.

In 2013 there were 2.85 million, it grew to 3.97 million by 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1364372/number-of-motor-....

The current trend is somewhat exponential, though, and solar is now finally cheap enough to compete even without subsidies. That will hopefully lead to an even stronger boost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics#/media...

Here's another exponential trend. It's showing no sign of slowing down, despite the exponential increase in solar power. (Gosh, I wonder why)

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/bluemoon/co2_400/co2_2k_ce.png

We want to get to net zero by 2050 not 2030. At the current growth of 2-3% per year plus some acceleration we might get there.

We want to get to net zero by 2020, not 2030 or 2050, we just say 2050 because it's way too late to do 2030, let alone 2020

If you plan to hyperbole it, then say 1990. The plan is 2050.

That's the power sector which is less than half of emissions, and it's the most easily addressable part of the problem. We need to be accelerating faster somehow. China has the manufacturing capacity but is struggling to sell panels at the clip it can make them.

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