
Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change - chmaynard
https://e360.yale.edu/features/deep-decarbonization-a-realistic-way-forward-on-climate-change
======
piokoch
I don't get this kind way of thinking. We have a proven and tested way of
producing electricity without any emission - nuclear power plants.

This article even mention it, obviously on the last place in a strange way
"and to advanced nuclear plants with zero emissions". As if there were some
non-advanced nuclear plants that have non-zero emission.

Solar and wind require energy storage that we don't have now and it does not
seem we will without major technological leap. In addition, in large parts of
the World they just does not make sense as there is not enough sunny/windy
days.

For nuclear energy we have everything - knowledge, infrastructure, experience.

What makes people so blind to the simple solution of the problem we have now?
Eco people fought vigorously nuclear energy for years and now we are where we
are. Time to say that they've made a costly mistake and move on.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Like solar & wind, nuclear also needs supplementing with peaker plants.
Nuclear can be used for peaking, but current designs cannot, and nobody is
going to pay the crazy costs of nuclear just to have it idle 23 hours a day as
a peaker.

And storage for renewables is a last resort. Instead of storage:

1\. build in areas with reliable winds (offshore trade winds)

2\. better interconnection ("the wind is always blowing somehwere")

3\. over-provisioning. If you build 3 times as much wind power as you need,
it's still a lot cheaper than nuclear and you need a _lot_ less storage.

4\. storage. It's expensive, but if you did 1-3 correctly, you don't need much
of it.

Nuclear is safe, but it's also crazy expensive and takes decades to build.

~~~
batmansmk
Scale is missing in your analytsis. For instance in New England, the peak
demand goes from 15GWh (average) to 16.5GWh down to 10GWh. Solar and wind on
the other hand, need supplemental for 100% of its installed capacity the day
there is no wind...

In France, 70% of the electricity is nuclear, 15% is hydro, pumped by the
excess nuclear power generated at during the night.

Now for your arguments:

1\. Wind goes from 0 to 50mph at sea. No reliable wind corridor exists. Even
if Market Street in San Francisco makes me think otherwise frequently :)

2\. The concept of wind proliferation has been debunked, at least on the
European level. We built a network between Denmark, Germany, Portugal and
Italy. It doesn't work.

3\. If you don't have wind, putting 3 wind turbines won't help you more.
Germany learned it the hard way where their CO2 emission flat lined since 2009
instead of going down despite their all in on the wind and solar energy. If
you install 3 times more than what you need, you also have the side effect of
making your renewable energy 3 times more carbone intensive. It kills solar as
a viable, scalable option for instance.

4\. Yes that would be the required breakthough to change the game. Right now
batteries production pollute way too much and cost too much to be climate
efficient.

~~~
bazzert
Great points. “The damage done by these wind installations is out of all
proportion to the benefit,”
[https://www.ft.com/content/d8b9b0bc-04a6-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e...](https://www.ft.com/content/d8b9b0bc-04a6-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e7dd)

~~~
tenacious_tuna
Heya,

Do you have either a non-paywall version of that article or an alternative
article with a similar view? I'm curious what it says, but I can't read it
with the paywall in place.

~~~
bazzert
[https://docdro.id/SjaNeM6](https://docdro.id/SjaNeM6)

------
gdubs
In terms of agriculture, we could use basic research into perennial staple
crops. [1] It’s a promising area, but still a ways off. The result, as
mentioned in the article, is less soil disturbance and more long-term carbon
sequestration.

From a policy perspective, Victory Gardens [2] were a successful strategy
during WWII. It would be great to mobilize a similar effort to get people
growing food in their own backyards again, and reduce the amount of monocrop
farming and all the global transportation and chemical fertilizer production
that goes along with it.

1: “The Carbon Farming Solution”

2: Victory Gardens:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden)

~~~
michaelt
I don't know if you've ever tried growing food in your back yard to eat?

It's a fine hobby if you enjoy gardening and find satisfaction in the honest
simplicity and hard work of digging over soil, weeding, and spreading manure.

But the truth is: supermarket food is incredibly cheap, and you'll be putting
in 50 hours of labour to grow $20 worth of vegetables.

If you enjoy the process and don't mind not getting much output, by all means
enjoy it as a hobby. But as a way to feed the nation? I'm skeptical.

~~~
gdubs
Absolutely, but in the context of this conversation we’re talking about moving
away from annuals and all of the labor and inputs associated — towards
perennials.

Therefore, I’m not saying we should copy the Victory Garden from WWII
verbatim, but use it as a model for how every person can use their backyard to
combat climate change.

The point is not to replace all of agriculture, but find ways that,
collectively, individuals can make a dent in the problem. Even if it’s as
simple as planting more oak trees and fruit trees.

But, some of the comments here lack imagination (to speak kindly of the some
of the negativity and snark in some of the other replies) in how we could take
a 20th century idea and update it for today. We have more technology
available, and more knowledge.

------
bryanlarsen
As the article indicates, the basic problem is a international co-ordination
problem.

Nordhaus won a Nobel Memorial Prize proposing a solution:
[https://issues.org/climate-clubs-to-overcome-free-
riding/](https://issues.org/climate-clubs-to-overcome-free-riding/)

To oversimplify: carbon tariffs on any country not doing their part.

------
topkai22
I always find it odd that atmospheric carbon capture isn't a greater part of
the conversation on climate change. It's basically assumed that we'll need to
be able to take carbon out of the system to meet our goals, but so few people
are willing to mention it as part of the overall solution to transitioning to
a net negative economy. It seems like a technology that still has a lot of
runway left before we start hitting any sort of fundamental limits on
efficiency.

~~~
jackdeansmith
I think air capture is an important part of the discussion when we talk about
trying to get temps back down later this century, but I have serious doubts
about it playing a large role in determining what the peak CO2 concentration
will be around the middle of the century. Capture is orders of magnitude more
expensive than emissions reductions, and will be for a long time. When you
invest in capture, you get lower net emissions and that's it. When you invest
in emissions cuts, at least while there's still a lot of low-hanging-fruit,
you get the same net effect while also getting a productive asset like a power
plant. Totally onboard with research budgets going way up for capture tech,
we're 100% going to need it, but later rather than sooner I think.

------
LatteLazy
Like so many other articles on this subject, the authors first identify the
problem (a global scale prisoners' dilemma) and then pretend it can be solved
at a local level by individual actors.

I actually find it terrifying that people think this way. It's the same
intentional blindness that climate change deniers show, only with more steps
and information.

The author even goes as far as parroting George W Bush's (now decade old and
stupid even when it was fresh) vague hope that technology will just magically
fix the problem. Of course, he is allowed to be bat shit insane because he is
on "our side".

This problem is (geo-)political. It's not about technology or ideas or
campaigning. It cannot be fixed by any local action (except maybe building
flood defenses and watching everyone else drown?). Until people accept that
they won't be able to fix this by composting more and hoping others take the
bus, we will be doomed. Given that, a great article about how much Madrid
could cut it's emissions is pointless and distracting.

~~~
perfunctory
Ok, it's a (geo-)political problem. So what do we do now? Besides posting HN
comments that is.

~~~
LatteLazy
You write to your representatives. You vote for greener parties. You donate to
green peace etc.

None of those things are actually likely to work. But they're infinitely more
likely to work that talking about local action and cutting back your meat
intake.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, this problem is really hard. Likely unsolvably hard.
But that doesn't make an impractical solution practical.

~~~
kiliantics
There are effective things you can do but they require coordination with your
community. Mass protests and worker strikes can force the hands of governments
and big business. There are many historical examples that this works and just
look at how much success the French are having right now. But they need to
happen at scale and very frequently. Voting only happens once every few years
for a reason.

~~~
LatteLazy
I have to really blunt, I'm sure you're a nice guy/girl/person, and we both
would love to see this problem solved but...

No, there are no effective things my community can take. None.

Even my whole nation has zero actual power. That's the whole point here. I
don't know why people keep saying that.

Im a limey brit. We have a huge economy, lots of cars and houses, all pouring
out co2. But we only produce 1% of world emissions. So even if we cut our
emissions to zero today, that would be only 1/8th of the global cut needed
just for 2020. Given world co2 emissions are growing at 2.7%, the problem
would still be getting worse.

Nothing the UK does matters in the face of this issue. And we're one of the
bigger, more powerful, more polluting nations.

Before we can find an actual solution, we need to stop wasting time and effort
pretending this can be solved by communities. It really really can't.

------
andy_ppp
I always wonder if we could heat large blocks of salt in the desert with
mirrors and then make power at night extremely expensive. Cable it all up with
huge direct power cables... once the infrastructure is built sure this becomes
nearly free energy?

------
jeffdavis
What ever happened with Project Vesta?

[https://projectvesta.org/](https://projectvesta.org/)

~~~
matznerd
Hi Jeff, Project Vesta is making great progress building out our scientific
team and deployment plan! We have an update coming out very soon, our last
poster in December was featured in the SF Chronicle under the titled "Could
putting pebbles on beaches help solve climate change?" ->
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/environment/article/Could-
puttin...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/environment/article/Could-putting-
pebbles-on-beaches-help-solve-14911295.php)

------
CaptArmchair
Hm. This article seems to wield several non-descriptive terms such as "deep
decarbonization" or "green steel" while skipping discussing fossil fuels
themselves.

One of the main reasons why we can't replace fossil fuels is because they are
arguably the most efficient way of storing and transporting a huge potential
of energy.

Think about it like this. It's easier to store a ton of coal for 50 years then
it is to store the same amount of potential energy as electricity in a
battery. It's more efficient to transport a ship filled with coal then it is
to transport the same amount of energy as electricity through power lines.

Fossil fuels have a high energy yield per unit and they are abundant.

So, fossil fuels are far easier to scale towards diverse and large energy
needs compared to clean energy sources.

The author hears the bells chime, but can't find them: he alludes to the
higher price of "green steel" and how subsidies are a necessary to support
these innovations. But he ultimately draws the wrong conclusion.

For one, he compares Denmark to China. Which represents 18% of the World's
population. Sure, if China would switch to wind energy, the effects would be
massive. But that's discounting vast economic differences between those
countries.

