I wasn’t aware just how good the news is on the green energy front until reading this. We still have a tough road in the short/medium term, but we are more or less irreversibly headed in the right direction.
More and better renewable energy is great. The problem is that we’re not getting rid of the other stuff
You’re right, we’ve got to get rid of fossil fuel. As one example, the article talks about how energy storage has reduced the need for gas peaker plants. In California in April the power required from those plants was half what it’s been in April the prior three years.
Still plenty of progress that needs to be made, but what’s notable is that it’s now cheaper for a business to turn to green energy and storage to solve a problem. There’s not an incentive to build new polluting tech. So while the impact of climate change is going to get worse (because those emissions and warming are already baked in) the business argument for fossil fuel is no longer viable.
As renewables becomes cheaper and easier to implement they will naturally supplant fossil fuel just by the nature of economics.
The problem is that we’re not getting rid of the other stuff
We are, though. Coal use in the United States has cut in half in the last 15 years, and it’s still on a steep downward slope. Even as natural gas (which emits roughly half the CO2 per unit energy as coal) increased over the same time period, our total emissions from energy consumption has dropped from about 6 billion tons to 4.8 billion tons.
The progress we’re making might be slower than many of us would like, but we’re also at a tipping point where we’re making many fossil fuels simply uneconomical. And that’s the key: to make polluting costly enough that big businesses won’t want to.
We need to get our politicians to do a lot more, a lot faster.
So we’re still doomed, then? I’m sorry, I’m sure lots of this is meant to be incredibly uplifting, but it reads an awful lot like “green is cheaper, trust the market! Numbers go up, up, up!” when you consider that:
- Climate change is impacting countless people in horrible ways
- Climate change is still getting worse
The important thing to note here being that, even if a brighter future awaits beyond, the worst is yet to come. I’ll get back to this in a moment.
Yes, that the science to save the human race exists is nice. Really nice. There was a period in which I genuinely wondered if there was any chance humans wouldn’t extinct themselves. But that was years ago. I’ve since learned that “saving the human species” is a terrible, disgusting metric. The future of what I consider humanity remains grim.
Now, if the worst is yet to come, and we can’t yet even accurately predict how much worse the worst really will be, take a moment to reflect on this: which part of humanity is better prepared to weather the incoming changes, and which part is more likely to be labeled “climate change refugees?”
Humanity isn’t only the richest. It’s not merely the wealthiest and most developed nations. Humanity is also a lot of people who will suffer, people who I’m unconvinced will receive the aid and support they need and deserve.
Because the root cause of these issues, the systems that govern our society, have led us here and are unlikely to go away anytime soon. Because these systems have shown incredible prowess at protecting select groups of people from certain issues, while failing at completely fixing them, despite not struggling due to a lack of resources and continuous technological advances. If the pattern holds…
Then humans will survive. Many will live well.
Humanity is still pretty screwed.
TL;DR:
“The tools are here, we’ll be alright, just need political will!”
Who’s we? And if getting politicians to do what’s right was that simple, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
P.S. I’m not advocating for doom here, I just wish more people understood that Americans buying cheap Chinese electric cars won’t save the people living nearby the mine in Africa where the cobalt for those batteries was extracted.
With respect, I think you’re projecting a discussion with a different person onto this article.
You’re right, the climate is going to get worse before it gets better. You’re right, the impacts of climate change will disproportionately affect poor and underdeveloped areas. We can’t make that go away with positive thinking, and it’s not enough for humans as a species to survive, we need to focus on reducing suffering while we’re turning the ship.
What I took away from this article is that the market forces for cheap renewable power and the means to store it are now stronger than the forces for CO2 emitting power. And those forces are moving faster than predicted. That’s good, and it’s ok to talk about something good when it’s true!
People who have been paying attention and care about others have good reason to be wary about the narrative “oh, everything is going to be fine” because that’s what industry and politicians have been saying for a long time instead of taking needed action.
We’re at a point where most people recognize climate change is real, and they can see it’s effects. We’re also at a point where many people don’t have hope for the situation. It’s dangerous to tell people “shit’s fucked and there’s nothing you can do about it” because they might believe you and do nothing.
It’s dangerous to tell people “shit’s fucked and there’s nothing you can do about it” because they might believe you and do nothing.
Which is why I’m not doing that.
P.S. I’m not advocating for doom here, I just wish more people understood that Americans buying cheap Chinese electric cars won’t save the people living nearby the mine in Africa where the cobalt for those batteries was extracted.
I don’t think you disagree with the parts where I say people will suffer.
With respect, I think you’re projecting a discussion with a different person onto this article.
I don’t think so? My comment is generally aimed at “the situation is grim, but tech just got awesome, so let’s save the planet people!” optimism-filled pieces, much like this one. Forgive me if I come across as affronted when, as temperatures reach new and dangerous heights in certain regions, I am put out seeing someone say market forces are on the cusp of saving us.
It’s nice that you’re hopeful, but green energy in capitalism isn’t enough. We need degrowth or a revolution to actually save not just humanity, but the planet as well.
Expecting a revolution to solve your problems is a bad joke.
Degrowth is coming. Birth rate is below replacement in essentially all developed countries and is steeply dropping in less developed ones as well. We’re on track for population to level off and start dropping in only a few decades, as current larger generations die off.
We just need to hope that “natural” depopulation isn’t too late for addressing climate change.
But I’d argue it’s likely to drop too steeply, further destabilizing societies. Think of it like climate change in the 1970’s: we can fix it now with minimal impact, or we could wait until it’s a crisis. We need to take steps now to make having more children a more attractive choice
Degrowth isn’t just about population, or even about it at all. Degrowth is about doing the opposite of what capitalism forces us to do, infinite growth on a finite planet.
But also, the last thing we should do is incentivize birthing more people. We have increasing amounts of automation technologies, we don’t need more people.
Robots are cool and all, but considering our (in a larger sense) children is literally the future of our civilization. The next generation is why it’s important to fix our mistakes, to leave things better than we found them, to open new opportunities and greater potential. Automation can enable that but is not a goal in itself, or is a short term goal for personal gain.
So yes, I’ll agree that we seem to have passed the healthy carrying capacity of the planet and should fix that. However I’ll strongly disagree that it would be a good thing to drop below the sustainability of current society, innovation, science, and I’ll strongly disagree it’s desirable to drop population fast enough to destabilize societies, economies, or to cause human suffering. That’s what we my be headed for. A few tweaks now, might help population level off and gradually decline without causing suffering, and hopefully level off at a healthy total.
Let’s fix our mistakes while still setting the next generation up for success, not give in to misery and root for disaster
Edit: if you read the Wikipedia article on degrowth, there’s surprisingly little focus on reducing population and it really isn’t a goal, although an important tool. Pretty much all of the precepts contradict sudden population declines or the aftereffects of that
Storage is nowhere near enough if we want self sustainable green energy. And author should compare winter moths when it comes to solar panels production - worst case. Yes, there is development and each day a breaking new battery tech is announced but until these get produced for real in mass quantities, they are vaporware. Mind that we need storage for like at least a week, better a month of energy worth. And that’s a lot of batteries.
Grid scale storage has come a long way. There are saltwater batteries and flow batteries in use now, those technologies are here, they’re just still being iterated on and improved. And as the renewables get increasingly affordable, the demand for storage will rise with it. Now we’re still mostly deploying expensive lithium batteries, but as more of that gets installed, the demand for cheaper storage will skyrocket. And production generally follows demand.
Do you have any data how much of those batteries are in fact in use? For example, Slovenia needs something north of 1.5 * 24 GWh energy for a day. And we are 2 mills population. Plus during winter you need to charge them. With short days of like 5 hours of less than ideal sun if no clouds or fog … good luck. Perhaps eventually we’ll get there, but it’s really far far away.
Yes, we need more storage and generation. The author didn’t say we’re all good and nothing more needs to be done. What’s noteworthy is that renewable energy is cheaper than CO2 emitting, and battery storage is cheaper than peaker plants. (And grid battery can come from things like salt, sand, brick along with better known components like hydro storage, doesn’t have to be rare earth elements)
It’s ok to acknowledge when good things happen while also recognizing bad things.
Climate doomerism is the new climate change denial.
Nah. We won’t make it unless a lot of people start to be cool with cutting back a lot. Plane rides, cars, meat consumption, the list goes on. And that just ain’t happening. Also fascism is on the rise.
I don’t agree with you, but also if I did, what then? If we don’t believe it’s possible for things to get better do we just lay down and die?
- don’t cut back on planes, increase intercity train use
- don’t cut back on cars, create more walkability and transit
- dont cut back on meat, try this fantastic new meal that happens to not include meat, or fine: just one less day of red meat every week
- don’t try to avoid facism, stand on your constitutional rights (for us). There’s more to that doc than the second amendment
I’m gonna disagree. We have centuries of rapid development in renewable energy. That’s not the problem. The problem is vested interests constantly lying and successfully misleading the more gullible portion of humanity, and also people unwilling to make any sort of sacrifice to achieve this.
You’re right that people have been thinking about and working on renewable energy for a long time. However what’s only become true very recently is that it’s cheaper to generate energy using renewable sources than to use fossil fuels. That’s a massive milestone because when a new power source is built it will more likely than not be renewable.
People making sacrifices is important, but what if you weren’t only giving people the opportunity to help the environment, but also to improve their bottom line? Makes the pitch a lot easier and helps us to build momentum in the right direction.
Again, it doesn’t matter. Coal companies are not putting up solar panels. They’re investing their money instead on lobbying politicians for the right to continue mining “clean” coal.
I’m saying it does matter. When you go to a business and say you can buy a widget for $1000, or for $500, and they both do the same thing, the business will choose the cheaper one. Sure, lobbying will get businesses some favors, loosen some regulation, get some subsidies, but at a certain point it’s not enough, the economics take over.
I’m saying it doesn’t matter.
When you go to a business and say you can buy a widget for $1000, or for $500, and they both do the same thing, the business will choose the cheaper one.
Okay, but that’s not what’s happening. What’s happening is one business/industry controls to the supply for that widget, and that business only sells the $1,000 one, because they invested $1B to ensure that was the only option. Because that business does not offer the $500 option, and does not care to.
?
The article I shared is about how solar is now the cheapest form of power. So that is what’s happening.
I don’t know how many different ways I can explain this. It doesn’t matter how cheap it is when no one is buying it.
Coal companies are literally going bankrupt as coal plants get decommissioned. When it comes to actual political power, the fossil fuel industry you want to watch out for is oil and gas, not coal.
Mine all the coal you want. If you don’t have anyone willing to buy from you, at a price that covers the cost of extraction, you will fail.
So even though the coal companies’ bankruptcies are getting them out of their cleanup and decommissioning obligations, the root cause of that is that coal just isn’t competitive as an energy source.
Q: Are we not men?
Yes, technically I am.
This guy is not cool enough
So… we’re doomed?
We’re dealing with multiple imminent great filters that not only make the ecosystem way less inhabitable but will drastically slow the rate of recovery to where it will sustain diverse life again.
We’re already seeing agriculture fail, water supplies dry up, people migrate due to intolerable climate, evacuation of islands due to sea level rise, and so on.
If we succeed in mitigating the crisis and reaching net zero emissions, it’ll still be damage control rather than preventing disaster.
A massive population correction is inevitable. Our society, our culture, our way of life will all be radically altered into something unrecognizable. And we may be due for millennia of iron-age life if not a return back to migratory survival.
And that’s assuming we survive the next few centuries at all. Our existential risk is no longer insignificant.
A massive population correction is inevitable.
The world population is going to stop growing, naturally, within the next decades as the last populous countries finish their demographic transition. It’s even going to see a reduction in many places unless steered against due to way below placement rate fertility. Long story short human fertility is intimately tied to child mortality: The fewer children die, the fewer kids we have, investing in quality over quantity.
The earth can easily sustain that population, even in a more fucked up state.
Doomerism like this is fucking stupid and definitely leads to the wrong thing, which is to do nothing. If we’re already fucked, why even try? The truth is that IF we try, we very well might be able to avoid the worst. Which is worth fighting for.
We’re doomed.
And yet 2023 was the new all time high for carbon emissions, at least until 2024 is in the book. We will not cut emissions until we run out of easily extractable carbon to emit. We’ll be building solar powered pumps for oil wells at some point for the otherwise negative EROI. As a species, we deserve the consequences of our behavior. Too bad they will be most severe for some of the least responsible first.
