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447 points Brajeshwar | 7 comments | 03 Sep 23 14:53 UTC | HN request time: 1.17s | source | bottom
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alexchamberlain ◴[03 Sep 23 17:11 UTC] No.37372056[source]▶
I'm starting to wonder whether the conventional wisdom of reducing carbon emissions in favour of more electricalisation is really solving the actual problem. As is often pointed out on HN, electrical cars are substantially heavier than their fossil fueled alternatives, and generate other pollution along the way. Furthermore, we're digging our lithium brines from the environment, without really understanding what all this lithium will do once it's leached out into the environment or what impact the mines themselves will have.

With the recent advances of turning CO2 into other substances, such as propane, should we be focusing more on closing the carbon cycle and simply be producing fossil fuels from the waste products of yesteryear?

Naively, it feels like we understand C, O and H, better than we understand some of the rare metals we're now introducing in the name of climate change.

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whats_a_quasar ◴[03 Sep 23 18:00 UTC] No.37372583[source]▶
Electric cars vastly reduce the environmental impact of cars. Everyone who's run the numbers agrees on this [1][2][3]. Battery vehicles aren't that much heavier than gasoline vehicles, and the volume of metals needed to make a battery is a tiny fraction of the volume of oil needed to fuel a car across its lifecycle. Power plants are much more efficient than small engines in cars, and as the grid decarbonizes the emissions of battery electric vehicles move towards zero. Electric cars really are far better for the planet than burning gas, there isn't a catch.

I get the worries, Lithium mining causes ecological damage, but every sort of resource extraction causes ecological damage. Every kilogram of pollution generated from lithium mining prevents many times more pollution generated from oil extraction and emissions. Lithium, cobalt, and the rest aren't exotic materials, the battery industry is huge and has many decades of experience building batteries.

Synthesizing hydrocarbons is an important technology. But that process is incredibly energy intensive, and it's much more efficient to use electricity to just charge a battery. The scale of production of synthetic hydrocarbons isn't anywhere close to where it would need to be to make a dent in climate change. I think that electrofuels will be very important in aviation - they're the only apparent pathway to run jet engines without emissions. But it will be a long time, if ever, before that technology is mature enough to fuel passenger vehicles at a meaningful scale.

[1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l...

[2] https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212...

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AnthonyMouse ◴[03 Sep 23 18:12 UTC] No.37372716[source]▶
It's not just that. Solar is already cheaper than other generation methods, except that it's intermittent. So it needs some kind of storage technology.

The batteries in electric vehicles are a storage technology, so all you have to do is charge your car while the sun shines. If you need the batteries anyway it makes much more sense to put them there so you can also stop burning gasoline.

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1. palata ◴[03 Sep 23 22:06 UTC] No.37375053[source]▶
> Solar is already cheaper than other generation methods...

In a world that mostly relies on abundant fossil energy. We tend to ignore that and interpolate from "solar improved 3x in the last year, so in X years it will have replaced oil", but that is just wrong. Solar today depends on fossil fuel, and it is absolutely not a given that it can ever replace it (e.g. see next point).

> ... except that it's intermittent.

Yep. So it's not enough. We are at a point right now where it is very likely that what we cannot change anymore (the consequences of what we already emitted) will already cause global instability. I find it crazy that people have the faith to count on technology that does not exist yet.

We need to use (much, much) less energy, that is the only solution. People don't like the word "degrowth", so let's call it differently: let's say we need a "smarter society": less bullshit, less over-consumption, more efficient everything, more minimalistic everything. Probably cryptocurrencies, cheap rockets and SUVs are not part of this world, though.

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2. ianburrell ◴[03 Sep 23 22:45 UTC] No.37375347[source]▶
The production of solar panels requires lots of energy which currently uses fossil fuels. But the whole point of making solar panels is to decarbonize energy. We will need to use fossil fuels for a while longer to make the transition.

You didn't mention why this transition isn't possible. There is also not enough green energy currently to stop using fossil fuels. It is either transition or death.

You mention things that have a small effect. They would be good to get rid but they won't get us there. To use much less energy, we would need to give up cars, trains, AC, and heat. You probably say we should bicycles, and we should, but guess what gets used to make bicycles. We might have to give up food since industrial agriculture is required to feed everyone.

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3. palata ◴[03 Sep 23 23:03 UTC] No.37375466[source]▶
> You didn't mention why this transition isn't possible. There is also not enough green energy currently to stop using fossil fuels. It is either transition or death.

Nope: I mean that green energy is just not capable of replacing fossil fuels, just by looking at orders of magnitude. Thinking that it is possible by extrapolating some graphs is just naive. It is not, that's all.

Of course we need to build alternatives (both nuclear plants and renewables), but they will only cover a fraction of fossil fuels. Don't under-estimate fossil fuels, they are extremely efficient energy.

> To use much less energy, we would need to give up cars, trains, AC, and heat. [...] We might have to give up food

That's the whole point of degrowth: prioritize what you can keep. Planes will mostly disappear, that's pretty much a fact. Food has to stay under some form, quite obviously (but meat will mostly disappear).

We are at a point where it is about survival: we need to organize our society and cities such that people don't starve in the next few decades. Let's be optimistic, I believe we can still keep a modern society. But probably we won't change smartphone every year, and people living in cities won't own a car.

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4. ianburrell ◴[04 Sep 23 00:26 UTC] No.37375989{3}[source]▶
Food accounts for 26% of emissions. 31% of that is meat. Nearly all of the usage is fossil fuels so decarbonizing electricity won't help unless electrify agriculture. Turn off the fossil fuels, the combine harvesters stop running and half of people die (the peasant farmers of Asia are fine). People mention permaculture as alternative, but that requires lots of labor. Is the plan that everybody becomes a peasant?

The problem with talking about smartphones and planes is that they aren't enough. For example, a big portion of energy usage is heating and cooling homes. Are you saying people need to give up AC and die in the summer? Or give up heating and die in the winter? Obviously, we should insulate houses, but like solar panels, that takes fossil fuels.

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5. runarberg ◴[04 Sep 23 00:57 UTC] No.37376137{4}[source]▶
Agricultural machinery can be electrified. There are alternatives to fossil fuel fertilizers. Land use can be prioritized in such a way to significantly lower the need of chemical fertilizers while maintaining current yield. Lowering the production of meat and other animal products will yield much more consumed calories per grown calorie.

The transformation of agriculture is inevitable or we will all die.

Similarly homes can be insulated, roofs can be made of heat reflecting materials, trees can be grown to provide shade. We can build cooling centers in cities.

6. rich_sasha ◴[04 Sep 23 07:29 UTC] No.37378040[source]▶
All scenarios where we rely entirely on renewables assume we can scale storage (or very special locales where there is abundant hydro or reliable year-round favourable weather).

But to make knowledge scalable storage simply does not exist beyond maybe 48hrs. It may well come, but it's not here.

For some reason some people assume it is not a problem.

7. palata ◴[04 Sep 23 10:18 UTC] No.37379017{4}[source]▶
> Are you saying people need to give up AC and die in the summer?

I am precisely saying that we need to prioritize. I would rather survive the summer and not fly far away on holiday than die in the summer.

> Is the plan that everybody becomes a peasant?

Well big cities are a problem, and people working in services definitely rely on a society built on abundant energy.

I don't know exactly what the solution is. What I know is that our society is built on fossil fuel, and not only those are limited, but they are killing us. So we need to remove fossil fuels. Then looking at the numbers, it appears that we can't reasonably hope to replace fossil fuels entirely. Hence we have to use less energy, hence we have to degrow.

I hardly advise reading https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Blain-Christophe-eb..., that's from a well-known french engineer.