
The world won't hit climate goals unless energy innovation rapidly accelerated - makerofspoons
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/business/climate-change-clean-energy-iea/index.html
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lcam84
The only way to achieve climate change goals is to accept degrowth of the
economy GDP. Some months ago a climate change dashboard appeared in HN. I
played with the variables but it was not possible to decrease the CO2 level
significantly. Then I notice that we could only play with economic growth
bettewen 0 and 3.4. I made a copy of the site to let negative growth and that
was the only way I get visible effects on climate.

Edit: this is the tool that I'm talking [https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....](https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.19)

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perfunctory
> "Failure to accelerate progress now," the IEA report said, "risks pushing
> the transition to net-zero emissions further into the future."

And pushing the transition into the future is a problem, because...? I begin
to take issue with this kind of language. It does not say much to a casual
reader. I believe the time for this overly polite, overly cautious language is
over. How about

"Failure to accelerate progress now risks to end human civilisation as we know
it."

~~~
frabbit
The idea that we can accelerate progress without having any realistic prospect
of magical future technologies to _produce_ power is part of the problem.

The most likely way to meet targets is in _reduction_ of energy consumption.
That is the one thing that this current economic system is not set up to do.

Dreaming of some non-concrete, unbounded, inchoate blueskies solution while
ignoring living patterns and modes which could be changed to improve their
efficiency is reckless.

The simple list is well-known, but apparently taboo due to cultural fixations
in the West against centralized planning:

automobile abuse; aeroplane abuse; irrational distribution of workers
geographically from their workplaces; over-consumption of meat and dairy;
poorly insulated housing; overpopulation(1)

1\. Please do not bother re-iterating tired arguments about racism for this
last point -- it is blindingly obvious that the elevation of consumptions
patterns in the rest of the world to those in the West is a non-starter if we
want to fix this problem. Just because some racists are delighted at the idea
because they imagine population reduction does not involve Western countries
does not mean that racist motives are the only impetus here. Similarly the
consequence of not fixing this problem are predicted by many to have
exaggerated effects on the very areas you are concerned with.

~~~
voisin
> Dreaming of some non-concrete, unbounded, inchoate blueskies solution while
> ignoring living patterns and modes which could be changed to improve their
> efficiency is reckless.

I don’t think this is what is needed. We know the solutions - we just need to
institute them. Nuclear, solar, wind, wave, etc. Massive incentives to
transition to EVs, solar mandated on every new house and incentives for
retrofits, etc etc. We need a coordinated plan to attack this the same way we
have worldwide (ex-USA) attacked Covid19.

~~~
frabbit
I know we are not supposed to comment on voting here, but I would appeal to
whoever is voting this response down to please consider making a reasoned
rebuttal of it instead. Down-voting is supposed to be for something that is
just complete noise. This comment is just a disagreement with my post. Hardly
grounds for voting it down.

I disagree with the post because although I am in favour of all the
initiatives suggested in it I suspect they are insufficient in the face of an
economic system which is _designed_ to keep expanding and growing.

In addition:

Nuclear power carries huge risks with it (which may become proportionally
preferrable to climate destruction)

Solar is useful only for some parts of the world.

We lose massive amounts of energy in transmission from generation to
consumption.

Storage is still a huge problem.

All of the above suggests that unless some realistic solutions for storage and
transmission are on the table we need to shift manufacturing and consumption
closer to the energy sources. Historically civilizations have clustered around
such energy centers.

The small (but real) gains available from meat-consumption reduction and
gasoline-consumption reduction start to look significant.

~~~
toomuchtodo
From the Center for Environmental Public Policy at the University of
California, Berkeley

> The US can reach 90 percent clean electricity by 2035, dependably and
> without increasing consumer bills

It really is as simple as scaling up renewables, transmission, and storage.

[https://gspp.berkeley.edu/news/news-center/the-us-can-
reach-...](https://gspp.berkeley.edu/news/news-center/the-us-can-
reach-90-percent-clean-electricity-by-2035-dependably-and-without-increasing-
consumer-bills)

Factory farming is an entirely separate issue. You have to make low meat and
no meat diets sexy like Tesla made EVs sexy.

~~~
frabbit
I completely agree that is doable, and indeed profitable for many of us, but
it is only a partial solution.

That same report says:

 _a 90 percent carbon-free electric generation sector by 2035, which would
reduce economy-wide emissions 27 percent._

Yet the IPCC targets are 43% globally by 2050, unless we believe that there is
going to be some currently non-existent technology introduced then something
needs to be done to close that gap...reduction seems obvious:

 _Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall
by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050.
This means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing
CO2 from the air._

Although that relates 2010 emissions to 2030 I think the CO2 emissions are
actually higher now: [https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-
emis...](https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-
emissions#how-have-global-co2-emissions-changed-over-time)

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
I’ve been watching some videos from
[https://paulbeckwith.net/](https://paulbeckwith.net/)

IIRC he was reviewing some paper a while back about the disappearing arctic
ice that wasn’t included in the IPCC models. Basically claiming that the
target dates they mention should in fact come a few decades earlier.

So if things need to happen by 2050, it could be more like by 2035

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freezing_coffee
Actually like how they don't pitch focusing a beam of sunlight as AI when the
moderator insinuates it - they correctly say software :)

But high temperature heat is only part of the process for cement making, most
of the CO2 (60%) is actually released by the the calcium carbonate
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement#CO2_emissions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement#CO2_emissions)].

------
Johnjonjoan
I think as a civilisation we should be putting 20% of global resources into
energy research.

Every leap we've made has been preceded by increased energy. Whether that's
the tools that allowed us to be more efficient with energy when hunting etc,
agriculture that gave enough energy to sustain large work forces or the
technologies that have created enough energy to shift production away from
human labor.

If we really want to progress as a civilisation I believe we should be
primarily chasing energy production increases which are not damaging.

The rest will just happen as people aren't constrained by the previous energy
limits and can do things that were previously not viable.

------
RickJWagner
I'm amazed at how little has been said about climate change in this year's
American election cycle.

Maybe it'll come up later. For now, it's been pretty quiet.

~~~
Ghjklov
The Democratic Party did kill off two of the guys who could've had something
to say about it...(Sanders and Yang)

Now we have to pick between two sleazy old guys who are arguably two sides of
the same coin.

------
rtx
We don't need more innovation. It can be solved in a day if green activists
stop protesting nuclear. These pseudo environmentalist are more unscientific
than flat earthers.

What does HN think who is financing this anti nuclear and pro solar movement.

~~~
burlesona
Two questions:

(1) Why does pro-solar have to be anti-nuclear?

(2) How quickly can nuclear reactors and associated transmission lines be
built, and at what cost?

My understanding is we’ve reached the point where solar and wind are quite
cheap (cheaper than nuclear) and rapidly getting cheaper. We still need to
solve the storage issue, but things on that front are progressing quickly.

I am certainly in favor of nuclear power where it makes sense, but again as I
understand it the situations where nuclear is more economical are rapidly
decreasing. Perhaps it’s better for society to “skate to where the puck is
going?”

Or perhaps I am incorrect about the economics?

~~~
cipher_system
Yes nuclear is expensive at the moment but we are hardly building any new
reactors. Lets say that society could research and engineer a mass producable
reactor type safe enough to be politically viable and set the goal to replace
fossil fuels as fast as possible. What would the cost be then?

