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Comment by voidr | Hacker News Reader

It would be amazing if we could transition from fossil fuels to clean energy overnight because it sucks that we don't have our own source of oil, however at the moment it's as realistic as the Hyperloop.

We can inch towards clean energy, but destroying our industries does not help with that. It's very difficult to make wind farms if you don't have natural gas to heat up the iron.

Even if we would get a magical device that would generate infinite clean energy for free we would have a huge problem on our hands with the fact that everyone has gas boilers in colder countries and it's not certain if the current electrical grid could even sustain the load generated by all the new electrical heaters.

It looks to me that Europe(including UK) is having the most out of touch leaders it has ever had.

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> It would be amazing if we could transition from fossil fuels to clean energy overnight

In terms of economy and climate, yes. In terms of biodiversity, we would still be in a mass extinction. But that's tangential to this post.

The fact is that we can't remotely compete with fossil fuels. Don't get me wrong: we need as much clean energy as we can find! But we also need to accept that it will not compensate fossil fuels. Which means that we need to organize our society to do less with less. Doesn't necessary mean less happiness (if we do it right). But less consumerism for sure.

Europe is forced to think about that right now, while the US are not. If Europe manages to handle their situation, then they will be in advance as compared to the US. Because the US will also most certainly reach a point were their fossil resources go down.

> If Europe manages to handle their situation, then they will be in advance as compared to the US. Because the US will also most certainly reach a point were their fossil resources go down.

The problem is that it's hard to handle the situation if our economy is collapsing and we have no way to produce the stuff that would help us be less reliant on fossil fuel.

> Which means that we need to organize our society to do less with less. Doesn't necessary mean less happiness (if we do it right). But less consumerism for sure.

We can't even heat our homes without burning natural gas, some people use heating oil, some burn wood while many others have windows that were manufactured before I was born.

I don't think there is a way out for Europe at the moment, we need to depend on at least one country which we despise, burn oil and natural gas and very slowly become more efficient and less reliant on these. I am shocked to hear these talks about net zero when we still haven't managed to insulate all the homes and I don't think we are getting closer by destroying our economies as a matter of fact I'm certain that if you give people a few cold winters their favourite song might become "drill baby drill".

Unfortunately, if it is correct that the economy is slowing down in Europe because of the lack of fossil fuels (but it seems like it explains a lot and it is consistent with the peak of conventional oil in 2007), then it is not a choice.

> I am shocked to hear these talks about net zero

I am not saying that we must detroy our economies in order to save the climate. I am saying that our economies are going down because we have less abundance of fossil fuels. Again: it is not a choice: we can't drill because we don't have the resources (otherwise we would, we are not better than the US in that sense).

Instead of dreaming of building US-like startups that produce a ton of useless stuff and make a ton of money, we should work on what matters: insulate homes, build sources of clean energy (nuclear plants included), improve public transports and active mobility, etc. There is a lot of expertise to develop there, and it is absolutely certain that other countries (including the US) will need it eventually. So it may even be good for the economy (and climate) to develop that kind of expertise.

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