
Cheap renewables won’t stop global warming (2018) - acidburnNSA
https://energy.stanford.edu/news/cheap-renewables-won-t-stop-global-warming-says-bill-gates
======
wjnc
Project Drawdown [1] deserves a mention in any discussion in this field. They
are a substantive research enterprise trying to map what can (technically, not
politically) be done to reach the point where CO2 ppm start to fall in the
next 30 yrs. Good thing is: it can be done. Bad thing is: the incentives
aren't there right now. Bill is right, energy isn't the largest component.
It's food and (delta) people that need to change the most. Step away and we
need all measures to work and succeed in concord, including energy.

There's a podcast for you to have a taste for the quality of the modellers and
what they are up to in the next fase. [2].

My 2 cents is a CO2-tax would align incentives quite painfully. All we get in
return is the drama of creating an artificial pool for a unlimited 'resource'.
The cost of all measures is quite affordable, on a global, long-term scale.

[1] [https://www.drawdown.org](https://www.drawdown.org) [2]
[http://www.thedrawdownagenda.com/about/](http://www.thedrawdownagenda.com/about/)

~~~
solotronics
From a CO2 standpoint wouldn't it be good to stop subsidizing immigration to
the first world? It's not just delta-population it's people moving from a low
consumption environment to a high consumption one.

~~~
entity345
Better option regarding both CO2 and immigration, IMHO:

* Global programme to drastically reduce birthrate.

* Global development programme based on good governance and actual results, not just "sending money".

~~~
ctack
Global programmes to drastically reduce birthrate already exist. They
accomplish it by educating women.

~~~
entity345
Considering the growth of the world's population they don't seem to be
accomplishing much...

------
acidburnNSA
This contains a link to the actual discussion [1] which I highly recommend
watching. Bill demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of energy systems,
guided by one of his favorite authors (Vaclav Smil) who recently wrote the
incredible and humbling book, Energy and Civilization [2].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1EB1zsxW0k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1EB1zsxW0k)

[2] [https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Energy-and-
Civilization](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Energy-and-Civilization)

~~~
olau
It didn't sound particularly sophisticated to me. For instance, he asks the
rhetorical question, what kind of battery is going to power Tokyo at 22 GW
through a cyclone?

One way to answer that question is to ponder the following question - if we
can reduce the price 90% of the time by say half, how much are you willing to
pay for power in the remaining 10% of the time?

There are a multitude of technical solutions.

But you can only see them if you actually look for them. If you're down in a
nuclear 24/7-constant-output-except-for-one-refueling-month-per-year pit, then
you can't.

Cheap renewables are going to be favoured by the marked forces. Yes, we need
to solve the gaps, but will just have to do so. Nuclear can't do it, so
there's really little room for nuclear in the future.

~~~
acidburnNSA
That's not a rhetorical question at all. To do that you need 22 GW of storage
that's only used a few percent of the time. Why are we going to price gouge
everyone to pay for reliability when we could just build reliable energy
sources in the first place? Show me the battery that can do 22 GW for three
days.

As for cheap renewables being favored: check out this other thread about
Californians banning new solar installations in the desert [1]. As we ramp
wind and solar from 3% of total energy (not just electricity) towards 100%,
you can bet you'll see significant NIMBY stuff at work. Plus, what are you
going to do with the waste from all the gargantuan retiring solar and win
farms and chemical battery systems?

You mention that nuclear can't do it without substantiating it. Care to expand
on why that'd be impossible? France and Ontario are doing pretty well in the
decarbonized world at the moment thanks to nuclear. [2]

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19277653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19277653)
[2] [https://www.electricitymap.org/](https://www.electricitymap.org/)

~~~
philipkglass
Just repeating "building nuclear is much cheaper" doesn't make it so. Nuclear
is safe. It has some very admirable technical qualities. But it's difficult to
find examples of reactors built quickly and at low cost any more[1]. South
Korean reactors built _in_ South Korea seem to be the last good example.

South Korean reactors in UAE are behind schedule. China takes 6 years to build
reactors in China and their costs aren't very transparent due to opaque
government and censored press. Russia takes even longer to build reactors in
Russia and abroad. India takes a decade+ to finish a reactor. France can't
build their new reactors swiftly _or_ affordably, either in Finland or in
France. We all know how Westinghouse's AP1000 has fared in South Carolina,
Georgia, and China.

Ontario experienced drastic cost overruns building the Darlington reactors in
the first place and rejected new Darlington reactors a decade ago because the
projected costs were too high.

 _The Ontario government put its nuclear power plans on hold last month
because the bid from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the only "compliant" one
received, was more than three times higher than what the province expected to
pay, the Star has learned._

 _Sources close to the bidding, one involved directly in one of the bids, said
that adding two next-generation Candu reactors at Darlington generating
station would have cost around $26 billion._

[https://www.thestar.com/business/2009/07/14/26b_cost_killed_...](https://www.thestar.com/business/2009/07/14/26b_cost_killed_nuclear_bid.html)

I have some hopes that small modular reactors will eventually break out of the
rut of disappointment that recent Western reactor projects have furrowed. I'm
not trusting anybody's cost/schedule estimates until some SMR projects are
actually in commercial operation.

Finally, if NIMBY is a legitimate obstacle to renewable projects, it's also a
legitimate obstacle to nuclear projects. (I think that NIMBY is _not_ a good
reason to block either renewable facilities or nuclear plants, but I'm not
King of Earth.)

[1] You might think that requiring swift completion on top of affordability is
excessive, but my view is that Western projects that aren't fast will become
expensive as well. Even projects that never get within earshot of the NRC,
like building transmission lines or refurbishing bridges, are very predictably
expensive if they stretch beyond 5 years.

------
jussij
Posting this from Australia, being +50 and having lived through one of the
hottest summers I can remember.

Strangely enough today we officially went into Autumn yet that too feels like
Summer across most of Australia.

This leads me to believe that in fact the world has seriously under estimated
climate change.

For what little it is worth, my last 10+ years of lived experience here in
Australia has seen things getting hotter and hotter.

My take on the situation is the IPC have actually got it wrong and there are
way more, unidentified positive feedback loops in play, meaning the global
climate system is actually showing signs of accelerated warning.

Here in Australia we are now in Autumn and the temperature is +10 above
average, making it feel like the middle of Summer.

Time will tell, if in the next few year's we once again manage to break this
current Autumn heatwave record. I suspect it will.

~~~
magicalhippo
> Here in Australia we are now in Autumn and the temperature is +10 above
> average, making it feel like the middle of Summer.

Thing is, when they say global average of +1 or +2 degrees C, people have a
hard time mapping that to how that works out.

If you measure 4, 5, 5, 6 the average is 5. If you measure 1, 2, 9, 9 the
average just increased to 5.25. So very hot summers can be "masked" by colder
winters.

------
akie
No one mentioning carbon extraction technologies here?

Just adding less CO2 to the atmosphere is not enough to stop the trend, we
actually need to undo what we've been doing all these decades and need to
_massively_ invest in carbon extraction technologies. Trillions of dollars,
probably - about the same amount of what we spent on the Iraq war, so I'd say
it's not undo-able.

~~~
TimGremalm
I've read about this neat process for extracting CO2 from the atmosphere. You
place a ultra compact box in the ground containing it's own building
instructions and tooling for separating CO2 in to oxygen and building giant
structures of the carbon. It's apparently called photosynthesis.

~~~
adrianN
You're joking, but producing biochar is actually a decent way of doing carbon
capture that doesn't require any fancy technology. You even get some energy
out of it. Unfortunately you'd need to plant absolutely massive amounts of
trees to put a dent into the trillion tonnes of CO2 we've released in the last
150 years.

~~~
Twisell
Also algae could be neat allies. But there we are playing with fire, maybe GMO
algae can be engineered to be supper efficient, but at the risk of
compromising marine ecosystems.

~~~
knob
The fern Azolla already did this once! linky -->
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event)

------
baxtr
> _“Electricity is just 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Gates.
> “There is no substitute for how the industrial economy runs today.”_

That’s why...

~~~
dragonwriter
Electricity may be only around 25% (it's actually a little more than that for
the US and almost half globally), but cheap renewables don't just affect the
share currently from electricity, they also (by way of emerging use of
electric vehicles) attack the share that comes from transportation, which
together with electricity is over half in the US and close to 70% globally.

US: [https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-
emis...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions)

Global: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-dioxide-
co2-emissi...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-dioxide-
co2-emissions-by-sector-or-source)

~~~
benj111
Don't forget space heating also.

There's a lot of things that can be electrified, that currently aren't.

~~~
AstralStorm
Funny thing, space heating is probably the last thing you want electrified,
instead investing in heat (re)capture and building design.

Air conditioning including plain old ventilation is the hard one to tackle and
is already electrified.

~~~
benj111
By heat recapture do you mean heat pumps and insulation?

I (personally) include heat pumps in the heating category, and yes most houses
are probably under insulated. Insulation can lower the air con load also.

------
ryanwaggoner
The weaknesses of our technocratic mindset on HN are so apparent whenever this
subject comes up.

This is not a technical problem. We know the threat, we know what we should
do, but we can't actually get it done.

This is a political problem.

And to my eye, it's a particularly intractable one. In democracies, in order
to make the huge sweeping changes required to avoid the worst of climate
change, you need the population on board. And they are _not_ on board for
those kinds of changes. You can scream and wave your hands all you want about
CO2 taxes and smaller houses and not eating meat, but as soon as you start
hitting people in their pockets _hard_ to encourage other actions, they'll
just vote you out of office instead. There will _always_ be another politician
who is happy to tell the population that they don't need to put up with this
crazy sacrifice, there are better ways, etc. So either you get voted out of
office or you just cave to the pressure.

Humans are going to suffer from climate change, a lot. And even then, I
suspect technology is what will save us, not billions of people deciding (for
the first time ever) to make great individual sacrifices for the greater long-
term good. It's the ultimate collective action problem, and we are not up for
it.

~~~
tomjen3
This isn't a political problem, all problems are technical, because we are
only ever going to solve problems politically.

------
scythe
It's a little off IMHO to argue that energy storage affects fuel usage only in
electricity. The most visible company in the business right now is Tesla which
primarily goes after transportation. Together, electricity and transportation
account for 56% of US emissions:

[https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-
emis...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions)

Another large chunk of emissions come from burning fuel for heating, at least
11% (commercial/residential heating slice) but probably about half of the
industry slice as well comes from local energy generation. This tends to be
harder to replace with batteries because of the form of energy desired, e.g.
you can't replace an acetylene torch with electricity.

If we _very generously_ assume that most modes of transportation excepting
airplanes and snowmobiles can be run on batteries, and gas heating can be
replaced with electric heat pumps, the proportion of emissions affected by
these two technologies could be around 60-70%. That's not a complete fix, but
it is a big piece of the puzzle. However, the technology turnover is extremely
difficult and expensive, which I think is the bigger problem hiding behind
"renewables".

~~~
AstralStorm
You can replace an acetylene torch with gas electric arc welding and cutting.
It is done, but is currently more expensive (not a whole lot mind you).

The problem is not manufacturing but mostly smelting and refining. (Including
recycling)

You need huge sustained _and_ peak energy input for that, renewables do not
deliver it.

------
syllable_studio
There are many pieces to this puzzle. Energy Storage is a hugely important
piece to solve.

[https://blog.syllablehq.com/can-we-create-the-worlds-
largest...](https://blog.syllablehq.com/can-we-create-the-worlds-largest-
battery-deep-below-sea-level/)

^ This is a proposal that we consider the ocean as a source for relatively
affordable pumped storage.

------
gdubs
These conversations inevitably turn towards population control. Here's the
thing: we started this process of global warming when we had a lot less people
on the planet, and it would continue even if we cut the population in half. If
the science is correct – and I personally think it is – we have something like
a decade to get onto a different trajectory. While reaching sustainable
population levels in the long term is in vital, population control is not
going to address the crisis in the next ten years. Even if we cut the
population in half. And, how on earth would you even do that without throwing
the world into turmoil?

There's no escaping the fact that the developed world emits more carbon per
capita than the rest of the world. To me, it's obvious: the developed world
needs to become drastically more efficient with carbon, and it needs to do it
_yesterday_. We need to lead the way, and we need to pay for it. It makes no
sense to put this on the backs of the developing world – who are already
suffering the consequences of our emissions.

If I had to put it on a bumper sticker, it would be: "It's Agriculture,
stupid." Conventional agriculture damages topsoil, and destroys forests, which
are two of the most effective carbon sinks we have. When you combine that with
the amount of petrochemicals involved in conventional farming, along with fuel
burned freighting food halfway across the world on a daily basis (how are
those out-of-season cherries?), we're just beginning to come to terms with
just how big of a contributor our food system is to global warming.

Here's my list of what we should be doing:

1) Carbon tax

2) Eating less meat, and less out-of-season produce

3) Repairing soil and forests through conservation and more sustainable
farming

4) Letting people work remotely to cut down on car and air travel

5) Massive public and private investment in infrastructure

6) Universal access to family planning

~~~
robomartin
No, sadly, no. None of the above.

Here’s an uncomfortable fact few know about and even fewer are talking about:

If humanity, and all we have ever created, evaporated from the planet
tomorrow, it would take 50,000 to 75,000 years for atmospheric CO2
concentration to come down by 100 ppm.

Source: Ice core data going back 800,000 years. Look it up and see for
yourself (sorry can’t link right now).

~~~
gdubs
I initially misread your comment and thought you were arguing something
entirely different.

If what you’re saying is that simply removing humans from the equation
wouldn’t change atmospheric CO2 for a long time, I think we’re actually in
agreement there. It supports my point that population control isn’t how we’re
going to get on a different trajectory in the decade or so we have.

But I don’t think it addresses the ideas of effective carbon capture. Soil
carbon capture, for one, is incredibly promising. Reforestation is another.

------
Santosh83
Lesser consumption will.

~~~
barry-cotter
Poverty for all! Smaller houses and apartments, heated less, wearing more
clothes in winter and less AC in summer, all combined with a collapse in
international travel. That’s a real vote winner.

Technological solutions, megadeaths to reduce consumption or dealing with
climate change. These are the only realistic options. China and India aren’t
staying poor.

~~~
benj111
Compare the US and Western Europe. Europe has lower Co2 emissions, smaller
houses, and still maintains quality of life.

No doubt you could go much further along that road.

And what's wrong with wearing more clothes in the winter?!

~~~
barry-cotter
All but 13 US states are richer than the Netherlands.All but six are richer
than Germany. All but five are richer than Belgium. Only Mississippi is poorer
than France or the UK. Every single US state is richer than Italy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_sovereign_states_by_GDP_\(nominal\)_per_capita)

There is no way you are going to get Americans to voluntarily reduce their
standard of living outside of a war. That applies to Europeans, Australians,
Canadians, Chinese and everyone else too. Americans aren’t special.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wearing more clothes in winter but
it is a consistent vote loser, like all the other realistic proposals for
individual action on climate change. This past winter I wore plenty of extra
clothes but people like being able to walk around inside in a T-shirt and
pants. Everywhere they can afford to they do it more or less as soon as it’s
affirdable, maybe with a thirty year generation gap.

~~~
benj111
"There is no way you are going to get Americans to voluntarily reduce their
standard of living"

My point is you don't have to reduce your standard of living (quality of
life). Does the average American have a better standard of living than the
Average European, and is it so much better that it accounts for the much
higher carbon footprint?

I've never voted for anyone on the basis of wearing more or less clothes. Id
hazard a guess that most voters wouldn't identify it as a top 10 issue. Plus
didn't Jimmy Carter tell people to wear a sweater?

~~~
barry-cotter
> Does the average American have a better standard of living than the Average
> European, and is it so much better that it accounts for the much higher
> carbon footprint?

Yes. The only countries with higher average individual consumption than the US
are Norway and Switzerland.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household_final_consumption_expenditure_per_capita)

The only country with bigger houses than the US is Australia.

[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-
business/average-h...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-
business/average-home-size-by-country/article27181802/)

Jimmy Carter wasn’t re-elected.

~~~
benj111
You've mentioned gdp, consumption and house size. None of those directly
translate to quality of life, although I agree they are strongly correlated.

The average European living in a city may not have a car, that is not the same
as the average American who lives in a city and doesn't own a car. European
cities are have a lot better public transportation, so you don't need a car.

In my experience houses in the city tend to be smaller than houses in the
country. But the city is where the wealth is created, so it doesn't seem to me
that larger houses should be an indicator of wealth in and of itself. I'm
undecided whether living in the city with a smaller house but higher income
would lead to a higher quality of life versus living in a bigger house in the
country, but with a lower income. I suspect its probably down to personal
preference.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I love Europe for the reasons you mentioned, but it's a different culture.
Most Americans have no interest in living a European-style life and would see
it as a huge decrease in their quality of life, _especially_ if it were forced
on them.

Which means it's effectively impossible to do, because as soon as you try,
they'll vote you out of office. Short of suspending elections, I don't see how
democracies make the level of changes needed until we're actually suffering
badly from climate change. But historically it doesn't seem like the types of
people who become tyrants do so because it's the only path available to save
the society from itself.

