I refuse defeatism : memes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 minutes ago

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/energy-statistics-data-browser?country=WORLD&fuel=Energy%20supply&indicator=TESbySource

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/energy-statistics-data-browser?country=WORLD&fuel=Energy%20supply&indicator=ElecGenByFuel

It is catching up, but slowly with still quite a ways to go (at least from 2022 data) . . . the probem is population and demand can grow exponentially too - or if not they can have s-curves with short term exponential growth. Especially for, say, a developing economy that is growing car ownership/usage, or is transitioning from high infant mortality to low and fertility hasn't dropped as it seems to after economic growth.

End result - fossil fuel use has also grown, a lot, over the last 30 years. Even despite the ramp up of renewables. Both in total energy source, and as a source of electricity.

What seems to work best from this data is decent sized economic recession like 2008 (a bit) and a pandemic (a bit more) - just need them to last a bit longer. /s /not-s

The other thing that is quite helpful is stuff like clean air regulation (for example LCPD and IED) - here is the UK electricity source graph as an example of coal switch off following that type of regulation.

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/energy-statistics-data-browser?country=UK&fuel=Energy%20supply&indicator=ElecGenByFuel

But even there with direct regulation to shut the large coal plants (over about 30 year period), it has been gas that takes up the slack. But this is 100% politically driven regulation; nothing to do with the price of solar, or even windmills. It took the 70s recessions , smog choked cities, and a callous devil-posessed prime minister who literally set an army of violent thugs (with badges) on the coal miners to set up the conditions for that - otherwise we might still be stuck with coal a bit like Australia seems to struggle with. It helps that we can't do open cast mining here though so coal was economically redundant anyway.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Real question: Most of things listed are consumer level changes only right? Isn't the large majority of global warming being caused by industry emissions?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Large scale solar is also taking off.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Large scale solar farms have been a thing for decades. Large scale solar adoption is like wrestling with a hydra. The heads are Russia, China, and the middle east. Go nuclear, be the sun.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

What exactly does nuclear change about Russia, China and the middle east? That's a massive non-sequitur

Besides, think of China what you will, they've been key in driving large scale cheap solar

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Nuclear is the only energy that really solves our problems. Nothing to really be confused about there.

You're taking solar for granted. You're not asking the important questions. Like, what if they wont sell to us anymore, what's the human cost of human life? Can you honestly openly hold solar as some separate high accomplishment against the genocides China and Russia are openly complicit it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

The same can be said for nuclear. Potentially even more so. 3 countries produce almost all of the world's uranium. What if they stop selling? You can build a domestic solar panel industry if you want, you can't magic a uranium deposit under your feet. Nuclear is slow, expensive and a national security risk. Renewables are none of these things. Stop shilling for the energy companies that want to keep their monopolies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 52 minutes ago (1 children)

Silliness. Your counterpoints are valid, but mostly restate my last comment with somehow even less sense. Buying solar panels from China isn't more a national security risk than uranium from Australia? I don't think you really have a well though out point here.

I'll restate my own here for posterity and leave you to it. Solar from China Russia bad. Nuclear from literally anyone else good. Nuclear is safer, cheaper, and more efficient in every way at scale.

Remember, solar is untenable, poorly adopted, and is actively being pumped in price. This is as cheap as it will ever be all things equal. Nuclear has had none of those luxuries. If you think the price drop of a untenable solution is impressive, wait until you see one that really works.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 41 minutes ago

Nuclear is consistently among the most expensive ways to generate power, and only afloat due to massive government subsidies, especially when it comes to waste storage. Whereas solar and wind are only beaten (in some metrics) by natural gas when it comes to power per dollar, getting even cheaper at scale.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Your original point was that renewables are being blocked by China, Russia and the Middle East. I disagree on China, but that's not the point. How will nuclear, with all strings attached, succeed there, whereas solar and wind won't? Silliness.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Everybody in this post is a sustainability specialist.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I read that the production of solar is also counter productive. Don't quote me on that cause I read it when I was like 10 maybe.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

The materials needed for solar are very toxic, and hard to remove, we also need a lot of them. We get these from places like China and Russia cheap because they don't mind their citizens dying so much as they make a profit. That cheapness is the cornerstone to every renewable project today. If we found ourselves in a position unable to trade with China/Russia, we would have to mine it in our own borders, poison our own land, water, and citizens. America could just return to it's own petrol fields, but other countries would face serious challenges.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 37 minutes ago

I'm not saying none of this is true, but at the very least most of this is misleading. We're figuring out how to recycle old solar panels on an industrial scale: https://youtu.be/FCtEWveySsA

But progress is a bit slower than expected, mostly also because panels are a lot longer-lived than previously assumed (this is a good thing).

Yes, panels use rare minerals, but so does basically everything we consume and use nowadays. There's two answers to that.

A) does it still make sense climate-wise to use these resources in solar panels? This is what Life Cycle Analyses are for. In general, throughout their life cycle, PV modules help prevent more CO2 emissions than their manufacturing process releases, i.e. they are a net gain (https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/1/252). This is similar to EV vehicles, which break even around 60k km driven depending on your electricity generation (if memory serves https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2023/733112/IPOL_STU(2023)733112_EN.pdf)

b) is there a way to manufacture PV panels less resource-intensive and maybe even without relying on (Chinese) rare earth minerals as much? Yes there is. https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/ISE-Sustainable-PV-Manufacturing-in-Europe.pdf and see also sources above for next-gen differences.

That being said, for now it's still economically more attractive (usually) to implement Chinese panels because they're flooding the market. Still, it's a net gain as outlined.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Solar isn't scalable, clean, or sustainable. The only real option is nuclear. Most of the benefits to solar come from countries involved in multiple genocides, territorial expansion, and diplomatic saber-rattling. It's a neat toy for youtubers, but it's no real solution.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 minutes ago

The issue with nuclear is the extremely high initial cost, and it's not as set and forget it as the propaganda wants you to think. In short, because of nuclear decay chains the power can't be just ramped up and down willy nilly, some of the byproducts poison the chain reaction and power needs to be managed. Having nuclear as the bearer of the minimal load with solar/wind/battery power for the variable load is the way I think works the best, but I'm not an expert.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 25 minutes ago

I'd be real curious if you can back those statements up with peer-reviewed sources.

For one thing, it's not exactly like Uranium is mined in democratic nations with strong labor protections.

Also, "it's a neat toy" they say, meanwhile Germany produces up to 15% of it's total energy by solar: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/daten-tools/agorameter/chart/today/power_generation/01.10.2023/30.09.2024/monthly

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

my mind rapidly shifts from defeatism to optimism practically every week

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 hour ago

Nuclear is the way to go. If we can't manage that we never had a shot as an intelligent race to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Indoor farming isn't scalable. At least not with the models that are being done now. They work for niche crops, but not staple carb sources like potatoes and grains. They can be profitable, but aren't a catch all solution.

The ocean cleaning projects also don't scale. We should be focused on keeping the trash from getting into it first by switching to recyclable and biodegradable packaging and forcing the fishing industry to switch back to hemp nets.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

staple crops have too many subsidies to be a good source of comparison, and staple crops aren't very healthy for people in general.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 42 minutes ago

Staple crops aren't just your cheap empty calories. Legumes, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, soybeans, onions, and some very healthy grains are all staple crops. Even the humble potato is fine, though many preparations of it are unhealthy. Take this soup:

Lentils
Carrots
Onions
Celery
Potatoes
Beans
Vegetable broth made from the odds and ends
Herbs & spices

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Subsidies keep the farms alive in the first place. It's simply not profitable to grow anymore. We make so much it's too cheap to sell. Therefore the volume required and the margins are so razor thin. It's make a profit or be bough-out by a bigger company.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Regardless of the politics that modern staple crops are associated with, you still need calories. Why do you think rice was a second currency for a very long time in some parts of the world.

Also, the example of indoor farming that's near me is absolutely running off of government money, at least for now. They got a grand to setup in an old warehouse in downtown, but also own some empty property in the neighborhood. This could be just them future proofing or it would be them looking to flip the property once the main site raises the property values.

And then there's the MIT Food Computer, which promised a lot and delivered nothing. The smaller scale the production, the less efficient it is. If you want to feed the world's population without a steep decline in that population, you're going to need outdoor farming in addition to the indoor stuff.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Idk about your first point but The Ocean Cleanup, has been doing great work creating plastic filters for the worlds most polluting river. I understand not creating the waste in the first place would be most efficient but this organization is doing a good job cleaning up the mess.

https://theoceancleanup.com/media-gallery/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

All true, but categorically the problem is growing much faster than the solution. It probably always will be unless it's stopped from the source.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 16 hours ago

I don't think that scalable and profitable are goals of indoor farming. It's done for self sustainability.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 16 hours ago

I was on a road trip this weekend, and we had to clean the windshield 5 times. So it looks like the bugs are making a comeback thanks to restrictions on Monsanto products.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

kind of an ironic choice of template for the message

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 hours ago

Disposable diaper use is going down, and a decreasing proportion is getting landfilled.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

Building out more and more renewables doesn't mean anything if emissions aren't falling - and they aren't. Since 2021, nearly 4 full years, the world has closed less than 1% of active coal power plants.

The buildout of renewables has arrived hand-in-hand with an increase in total energy usage. The energy mix has improved greatly in favor of renewables, tons of CO2 per KWh is way down, unfortunately we just use more KWh so total emissions are still rising.

Everything in the meme is a leading indicator for positive change, which is wonderful, but the actual change needs to materialize on a rather short timetable. Stories about happy first derivatives don't count for much.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 17 hours ago

Didn't Britian just close down it's last coal plant? Also Colorado is switching away as well. I thought natural gas was replacing coal?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

From your link it, for me, it seems like emissions are platooning, similar to a technological S curve. Even if China and India are growing exponentially, reduction in other countries are enough to slow down the process significantly (specially if you zoom in in the last 10 years).

It’s very hard to predict change, but I suspect the deprecation of solutions that emit lots of emissions is about to skyrocket.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 23 hours ago

This is what I’m banking on, things get bad but that would motivate us more and it would become easier and easier to address.

Having said that, I think degrowth is the correct way; the above is risky but better than doom and gloom.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (9 children)

I worry that climate defeatism has become a religion, and it will be difficult to separate it from policy discussion going forward.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

Almost as if the people in charge of oil and coal and such want us to be fighting about this type of shit...

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why perchance has the interest in a self-sustaining life skyrocketed you think? Could it be because people can barely afford food anymore?

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solarpunk memes