[HN Gopher] Europe's energy crisis is about to go global as gas ... ___________________________________________________________________ Europe's energy crisis is about to go global as gas prices soar Author : OJFord Score : 219 points Date : 2021-09-27 11:05 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com) | EricE wrote: | Bet more than a few in Germany are going to regret shutting down | nuclear.... | Shadonototra wrote: | France pushed for nuclear energy for decades, only to get pushed | down by "allies", now they will all get their juicy contracts | with American's companies.. what a sad story | Proven wrote: | Thanks to climatists and various government busybodies. | | President Biden has been particularly effective in making energy | less affordable and more expensive. | | CLIMATE CHANGES!!! | woodgrainz wrote: | https://archive.ph/NSmoA | finiteseries wrote: | The rest of the world minus North America*, whose main problem | seems to be selling too much of it! | throwaway210222 wrote: | The USA imports about 3.7 million b/d in 2021. | | Russia is now the second largest supplier at 844,000 (May | 2021). | finiteseries wrote: | This crisis is about natural gas, not oil, as described in | the article. | | The USA imports ~0% of its natural gas from Russia, >98% from | Canada, all dwarfed by its exports though making it one of | the LNG sellers Asia and Europe are turning to, as described | in the article. | | That's assuming the DoE doesn't at some point need to | prioritize domestic needs over exports like Russia did | however, as described in the article. | | My comment was also about North America, which includes | Mexico and critically Canada. But if you'd like more about | the US, here's a nice recent overview of its natural gas | trade: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=49156 | danans wrote: | > The USA imports ~0% of its natural gas from Russia, >98% | from Canada, all dwarfed by its exports | | Be that as it may, natural gas is a globally priced | commodity [1], so US consumers won't be shielded from | prices increases, unless the government decides to | subsidize it. | | 1. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas | golemiprague wrote: | Maybe moving away from coal was a bit premature? there are pretty | good technologies this days so even coal energy can be pretty | clean. We should stop being afraid of some climate speculations | and start to deal with the current problems we have. Everybody | trying to hide it but inflation is raging and this will make | things much worst, at the end of the day it will also damage the | environment and make global warming worst because poor countries | will make it their last priority and we are all becoming poorer | with this crazy inflation. | malchow wrote: | Natural gas from trash is undergoing a rapid growth period: | | https://www.archaeaenergy.com | | Details: | | https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/_628372108fa37c6495a97d... | | As ever, the cornucopians will win and the Malthusians will lose | ! | Karrot_Kream wrote: | The US has long been in the dark ages for this. Northern Europe | uses a lot of "district heating" [1], which often is trash | burning (or other renewable source) plants used to heat water | and distribute heated water to residences for area heating and | hot water purposes. It's a classic example of having subsidies | for traditional/polluting energy and having very few subsidies | for newer forms of cleaner energy. | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating | lettergram wrote: | It's self created... | | Nuclear is a great option; unfortunately renewables need a high | amount of storage capacity AND expensive other minerals AND space | AND particular environments. | | That being said, renewables are great if you can set them up. For | instance, I'm building a hydroelectric & solar system on my farm. | That does not mean I think it's for everywhere. | | Nuclear, Coal and Natural Gas are going to be necessary for | northern climates and many regions due to environmental factors. | qayxc wrote: | It takes at least a decade to build a modern nuclear power | plant from planning to regular operation. | | A modern reactor block has a net capacity of about 1.3 GW. Last | year, 1.4 GW net have been installed in just wind power in | Germany. Sure that's not a good comparison, since both over- | provisioning and storage have to be accounted for, but it just | goes to show how quickly alternatives can be scaled up (side | note, the newly installed capacity in 2017 was 5.3 GW). | | The problem with nuclear power is logistics and time. There's | only so many specialists for planning and building nuclear | facilities plus most countries simply cannot afford to have | more than dozen or so under construction at any given time. | | The countries that'd benefit the most from cheap and reliable | electricity ae incidentally countries that can neither afford | nor operate nuclear power for various reasons. That's not just | political instability and lack of expertise, but also | geography. You need stable ground and cooling, so dry regions | with seasonal flooding are off the table. | | Not to mention the enormous amount of additional | infrastructure, from substations to stable grids. Oh, and | nuclear reactors are crap at load following so unless you have | substantial baseload (e.g. heavy industry), you'd need | somewhere to dump excess electricity. | cm2187 wrote: | > Not to mention the enormous amount of additional | infrastructure, from substations to stable grids. Oh, and | nuclear reactors are crap at load following so unless you | have substantial baseload (e.g. heavy industry), you'd need | somewhere to dump excess electricity. | | That's not true. Modern nuclear power plants can move at 5% | of full load per minute up and down. France is doing load | following country wide with its nuclear reactors. | | In fact the French must be laughing at this energy debacle | with their 75% share of nuclear energy. | mschuster91 wrote: | > Nuclear is a great option | | It's not, for a multitude of reasons: | | - New ordinary reactor projects (EPR) are ridiculously | overrunning timelines and budgets, they are putting Berlin's | infamous BER airport to shame | | - New revolutionary concepts (MSR) are at the moment vaporware, | not to mention the unsolved proliferation issues | | - Europe (unlike the US, Australia and Russia) doesn't have | remote places to safely dump all the nuclear garbage | | - Most of Africa and South America are politically too unstable | to do anything involving nuclear. Last thing unstable narco | countries or war zones need is to worry about terrorists | snatching up nuclear material and building dirty bombs | | - Most of the world's uranium production comes from | dictatorships and has intense environmental concerns | surrounding it, making it an ethically questionable fuel source | | - Even our existing nuclear plants are _plagued_ with | mismanagement, cost-cutting and accidents (see e.g. the | infamous Sellafield plant in UK), not to mention they are | _extremely_ old. Many have been placed in geologically | questionable areas, further increasing the risk of a repeat of | a Fukushima-style incident. | Jensson wrote: | > - Europe (unlike the US, Australia and Russia) doesn't have | remote places to safely dump all the nuclear garbage | | You mean if you exclude places like northern Scandinavia, | Greenland and Svalbard? | qayxc wrote: | Greenland hardly counts as "Europe" - that's mostly an | historical curiosity. | | And Svalbard - sure! - let's dump our garbage in one of the | few remaining somewhat pristine Arctic islands. Brilliant! | | As for other places in northern Scandinavia, ask the | natives whether they're cool (pun not intended) with | becoming the dumping ground for the rest of the continent. | cm2187 wrote: | And you don't need a remote place to store nuclear | material. You need a stable geological stratum. | callamdelaney wrote: | Lets just blame it all on brexit, it's much easier! | asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: | After reading this article, I am now informed that there has been | a price rise in natural gas. My next question is why? Demand must | be up, or supply must be down, or both. What's driving the | changes in supply and demand? For example, this article says | China has imported 2x as much LNG as last year, but still doesn't | have enough. How is that even possible? | bumbada wrote: | It is a complex issue. Usually gas is extracted as a byproduct | of coal or even oil. No coal being extracted, no gas. No | supply, big demand. Prices go up. | | Also gas tankers have waited for years on the sea without | entering port because of COVID. Lots of companies have gone | under and the supply has been disrupted. | | It takes months for a gas tanker to move and global transport | right now is chaos. | kragen wrote: | [citation needed] | taylodl wrote: | Why? Colder-than-average winter last year, warmer-than-average | summer this year. Demand is holding steady, or even increasing, | and Texas shut down supply during their freeze. | https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/why-the-natural-gas-... | gwright wrote: | https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-9-20-renewable... | sschueller wrote: | I have read that Russia had to use a lot for them selves this | summer because it was so cold this year. | dtech wrote: | Several reasons are given in the article. Hydro and wind are | down, nuclear is being phased out, coal plants are converted to | gas, among others. | jillesvangurp wrote: | I doubt the amount of megawatts add up to this simplistic | conclusion of this being because of renewables failing us or | Europe abandoning nuclear. Plenty of wind here in Germany in | the last few weeks. Hydro in Norway is a thing but it's | actually not that big of a portion of the grid across Europe | and the output is fairly stable. Nuclear has been on the | decline for many years but not that many plants actually shut | down recently. It certainly pales in comparison to the amount | of wind/solar coming online every year. Coal decline is much | more significant since the amount of that disappearing from | grids is a lot higher in recent years. | | The amount of gas usage for electricity production isn't | actually increasing that much either because coal capacity is | actually mostly being replaced with renewable energy instead. | There are maybe a few new gas plants coming online recently | but overall the proportion of gas is barely growing in the | European electricity market (unlike renewables). E.g. Germany | has actually seen a slight decrease in the overall amount of | gas consumed over the last 20 years or so: | https://www.statista.com/statistics/703657/natural-gas- | consu... | | However, the problem is not shortages or blackouts but high | prices of gas specifically. There are no blackouts in Europe | right now. Just people getting frustrated with having to pay | more for their energy. | | Partially the high prices are because of a global shift in | demand and partially this is because of e.g. CO2 emission | pricing, which is a thing in Europe. But a big part is also | that Covid lockdown restrictions have been lifted in the last | few months and economic activity and associated energy | consumption is a lot higher all over the world. Large parts | of Europe use gas for heating much more than for electricity. | Gas shortages would be a problem for that reason | specifically. So, I expect Russia will have a great year for | gas exports as they will be able to charge a premium. | | This report has a nice summary of the energy market in Europe | last month: https://aleasoft.com/beyond-price-records-august- | good-month-... | | Wind in Germany was actually improving during August. Solar | was pretty decent too though July was a bit off compared to | previous years. It's autumn now so that usually means more | wind and less solar. Lots of rain too. Good news for wind and | hydro in other words. I'm not aware of any seasonally unusual | drought or low wind predictions for the next few months. | belorn wrote: | It is important to note that construction of wind farms is | not down. 2020 had an increase in capacity of 20 GW with $31 | billion of investment in offshore wind alone. | Macha wrote: | It's less about quantity of wind plants being built, but a | unusually long period of quiet weather has led to output | being down significantly from those already in place at | time where gas was the only option to pick up the slack. | imtringued wrote: | Raw renewable share: | | Month August,September | | 2021: 52%,40% | | 2020: 48%,44% | | 2019: 46%,48% | | 2018: 38%,41% | | The thing about gas is that you can store it. If August | produces too much you can use less gas in August and use it | in September. If you take both months they average to 46% | which is the same as 2020. 10% less renewables in this | specific month isn't enough to cause price explosions | especially when the previous month had been at an all time | high. | | Data: https://energy- | charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?... | Ekaros wrote: | I have understood that storing gas and even reducing | production by a lot is not exactly simple process at scales | we use it. Same goes for oil. | asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: | Sure, but I would expect those to be part of forecasted long | term trends, and thus to be priced in gradually. I wouldn't | expect an acute shortage to result from these reasons. (I | mean clearly my expectations are wrong given what is | happening but this doesn't match my prior understanding of | how things are supposed to work.) | | I wonder if this type of event will presage a shift back to | nuclear for Europe. Nuclear and renewable are basically | Europe's only options for energy independence. A price rise | like this might make them rethink their current fuel mix. | jdhn wrote: | Unless all the heat in Europe switches over to electric | powered, you're still going to have natgas crunches from | time to time during the winter. | raxxorrax wrote: | Supply of gas isn't endangered currently, on the | contrary. There are parties competing to sell ressources. | | What drives energy prices in central Europe are | investments in changing the infrastructure to renewable. | Yes, that isn't cheap. But not really a crisis in the | common sense. Some people would like to see the gas | prices inflated perhaps. | nicoburns wrote: | This will happen eventually for climate change reasons, | but I think it's going to take a while. | fmajid wrote: | The French government is massively subsidizing | conversions from oil or gas furnaces to heat pumps, and | their electricity is majority nuclear. | fsslrisrchr wrote: | " I wouldn't expect an acute shortage to result from these | reasons. (I mean clearly my expectations are wrong given | what is happening but this doesn't match my prior | understanding of how things are supposed to work.)" | | Coal is actually pretty important to smooth out energy. | There was something fascinating I learned during the Texas | outage last year. At the time I was privy to private | exchange emails among power engineers. | | One engineer explained that one of the problems they were | having is that, with the closing of coal plants, the | reliability of the grid goes down. And with a very good | reason: You can store a massive pile of coal next to the | plant for (basically) free [1]. | | oil, by comparison, is expensive to store, natgas more | expensive still. What happens is, in the winter, the | pressure of the natgas lines goes down as consumers drive | up their thermostats. Therefore, natgas plants can't | deliver the power required _beacuse the gas isn 't there_. | So, in the N. East of the USA where there are nasty cold | snaps, power operators have piles of coal ready to be | burned in coal plants. | | Most of the power is still from natgas throughout the year, | but coal bails you out when it gets super cold (note, the | midwest doesn't need this because it's always nastily cold | there -> the natgas lines are built accordingly). | | [1] Some, having read the popular press explanations of the | outage, will complain that renewables delivered 90% of what | was requested. That's true, but only half of the story. The | 90% figure was a _de-rated_ amount of energy [2]. Basically | dispatchers knew that renewables weren 't going to deliver | and adjusted their predictions accordingly. The blackout | happened, therefore, because the power source that was | expected to show up and deliver in this situation tripped | over itself. There's no doubt natgas can deliver - it does | every winter in the North - but it can't if it's not | implemented properly, or if there's not enough gas pressure | in the lines to deal with a massive sure. | | [2] None of this is meant to be a dismissal of renewable | energy. Texas leads in renewables, and why shouldn't they? | It's a resource that (can) cleans up our environment. But i | power we can't treat things like panaceas and have to be | realistic about where we stand. | sentinel wrote: | About coal: 2030 seems to be the deadline to close all coal | burning power plants in Europe. Every year more coal power | plants will be shut down. This year was a deadline year for | some countries in the EU. | | It was all a long term plan, but poorly executed. | | Nuclear would be great. I'm not sure how many reactors are | gen 2 or gen 3. Gen 2 reactors are still risky. | Iwan-Zotow wrote: | > thus to be priced in gradually | | well, then, it is priced in, maybe just not that gradually | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | Because China isn't importing coal from Australia | gego wrote: | Entrepreneurs sold off supplies and want importers to offer | more for cheap... | eptcyka wrote: | Coal plants are being shut down and there is a drive to resume | economic activity (or even push harder to catch up) since covid | is being managed better and there's plenty of pent-up demand to | meet. That's how I see it, at least. | kasperni wrote: | Nothing conclusive, but some believe it is Russia squeezing the | prices [1][2]. In order to get Nord Stream 2 started. | | [1] https://www.ft.com/content/5ec6b18d-c855-408d-acad- | cb5779d10... | | [2] https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/us-blame- | russia... | masswerk wrote: | However, another super power promised that it would satisfy | any demands. So that can't be it... ;-) | Iwan-Zotow wrote: | Russia fulfilled each and every contract, as said in above | mentioned articles | jeltz wrote: | That does not contradict that theory. If they fulfilled | their end the more reason to put pressure on Germany. | croes wrote: | Russia delivered what was ordered and the price is way | lower than the current one. | | "Gazprom Germania is keeping a low profile when asked | about the reasons for the largely empty Rehden storage | facility. Injection and withdrawal volumes were carried | out by customers, a spokesman said in response to a | query. "Therefore, we also cannot forecast how the | development will look in the future." | Iwan-Zotow wrote: | Pressure Germany WITH WHAT exactly? I failed to see how | one could pressure Germany, and WHY Germans won't report | that "pressure" | throwaway832939 wrote: | Just passing on what I've read... | | They want Germany to fire up Nord Stream 2, from which | point onwards they can say "as seen in 2021, we can't | meet your needs without it" and it never turns off again | | https://archive.is/Dt0FH | sergeykish wrote: | Regarding Europe - Russian Federation wants additional leverage | against Ukraine, to crush its economy. Recently Putin has | claimed Ukraine transit would remain if it would disarm itself. | That's words of occupant country to occupied country (15 | thousands died, 1.5 millions have lost home). | | RF has built NS2, purely political project, and now wants to | certify it. | Ekaros wrote: | Also oil price is normalizing after period of low demand which | drove it down. This might not be big impact directly, but it | also affects in general. | | And winter is coming, which means more demand for energy in | general and less supply from solar specially. | raxxorrax wrote: | Germany has a mechanism to couple gas prices to oil prices, a | contractual requirement to appease corporations building pipe | lines. | zz865 wrote: | Will EU ever allow fracking? I guess its still easier to import | fracked gas from other countries. Blessed to have $$$ and keep | the EU environment clean. | BenoitP wrote: | https://archive.fo/2HDlM | axus wrote: | Is archive.fo different from archive.is? | gego wrote: | ...actually there should be no shortage... It's the invisible | hand of the market... it was just that those who should have | stored gas for winter use sold it of because of demand and | prices- and are now trying to pressure Exporters to offer | additional gas for cheap to fill up their tanks again... and yes, | with North Stream 2 completed, Russia could benefit from this, | too... | | So through gas market liberalisation it got very difficult to | keep reserves against the will of entrepreneurs, who decided that | their profit is more important than freezing EU citizens. Now | they want to distract from that by blaming Exporters and mainly | Russia, who delivered on time and the agreed upon amount, for not | offering more cheap gas under market value... Peak Capitalism ftw | qeternity wrote: | The difference is that under capitalism, these types of | resource shortages are so rare that we all freak when they | occur. The rest of the 99.99% of the time, commodities have | never been as cheap or as plentiful. | | Under every other system, people just came to expect shortages | of basic essentials like food and fuel. | | It may not be perfect, but it's the least worst system we have. | sentinel wrote: | I've been following this story a bit and here's what I've | noticed: | | 1. The causes seem to vary depending on who you ask. There seems | to be a combination of CO2 taxes going up, a hard winter last | year that diminished the strategic reserves, incompetent | (corrupt?) gov't institutions that didn't replenish them in | summer this year, combined with a general trend of relying more | on gas and less on coal (and nuclear to some extent). | | 2. The EU came down with a heavy hand on coal producing | countries... which does make sense, climate change is an issue. | However, this is going to disproportionately hit the poorer | countries in the block, those that still relied on antiquated | coal burning power plants. Germany has Nord Stream + some | investment in renewables, so they don't care much, France is | mostly nuclear, so again, they don't care, Italy and Spain are | warmer countries that could get fine through winter. Poland, | Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia etc. where coal plants were closed | will be hit the worst by this. | | 3. The EU doesn't negotiate as a block on gas prices. Each | country deals with Russia individually - e.g. Nord Stream being | built between Germany and Russia. That also means that the | smaller countries are at the biggest disadvantage, or are reliant | on either Germany's or Russia's benevolence in dictating gas | prices. | pornel wrote: | Poland is in a tough spot politically. Dependence on Russia is | a touchy topic, but now there's also a rising anti-EU sentiment | from the populist-nationalist government. If something is seen | as EU/Western middling then Poland will double-down on doing | the opposite (in this case rejecting renewables in favor of | coal with plans for nuclear), and still blame the EU for it. | Jiejeing wrote: | France is mostly nuclear, but most of the heating is using | natural gas (it has gone up more than 30% in price this year | alone for consumers). | Daniel_sk wrote: | 2) Slovakia will be launching 2 new reactor blocks (Mochovce 3 | and 4), one by end of year and next one within 2 years. Even | the existing two blocks create 84% of our energy and with the | next two we will become energy independent. Adding those two | blocks equals about 2 milion personal car emission "saved" | compared to having same amount produced by coal power plants. | And that's just one power plant for whole country of 5.5 | million. Fortunately we didn't go the German route and we also | get a lot of pressure from Austria to shut down our power plant | (even though it passed all strict checks and is a very safe | design). Last coal mine will be closed in 2027, but most of | them already sooner. | johnchristopher wrote: | When did Slovakia begin to build those reactors ? Trying to | compare with Belgium. | | Who is building them and for how long are there planned to | run ? How much did it cost ? | angelzen wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochovce_Nuclear_Power_Plant | | > power plant consisting of four VVER 440/V-213 pressurized | water reactors [Russian] | | > Construction of Units 3 and 4 restarted in November 2008. | They were planned initially to be completed in 2012 and | 2013,[2] but the completion date was shifted to 2016 and | 2017.[3] More recently the completion date has slipped to | 2020 and 2022. | | > [Reactor 1 & 2 have a 60 year commercial lifetime] | | https://www.reuters.com/article/slovakia- | nuclear/update-1-sl... | | > Estimates from 2019 put the cost at nearly 5.7 billion | euros ($6.89 billion). | qayxc wrote: | > Fortunately we didn't go the German route | | You're missing the fact that _all_ German nuclear power | plants are already beyond their initial lifespan and that | there simply has been no renewal of operation licenses. | | No new reactors have been built since the mid-1980s so this | isn't exactly a recent trend. The same applies to France, | btw. The newest reactor in France started construction in | 2007(!) and is expected to become operational in 2023(!). | | The next newest French reactor started construction in | 1991... | | So much for the state of nuclear power in the world's | posterchild of nuclear power. | chelical wrote: | And yet France still has half the CO2 emissions per capita | of Germany and significantly cheaper energy. | empiricus wrote: | it seems that we become too dumb to build nuclear stations. | this is worrying | sentinel wrote: | Thanks for this perspective - I was not aware of this. | Definitely a good idea and I'm personally happy to see a | resurgence in nuclear as a green solution to the climate | issue. | qwytw wrote: | Coal is still the source of 20 to 30% of all energy used in | Germany, I doubt they don't care. | sentinel wrote: | Fair - I suppose my point is that they've set themselves up | for an out better than others have. | teekert wrote: | Would we be having this crisis if it wasn't for the decisions to | close nuclear reactors and the US sabotaging the Nord Stream gas | pipeline? [0] | | [0]: https://freewestmedia.com/2020/07/06/us-intensifies- | pressure... | sentinel wrote: | Europe can probably get dirt cheap gas from the Russians, the | question is - at what cost? | sergeykish wrote: | Belarus gets gas quite cheap. The cost is independence, that | brings RF standards of living under autocratic regime which | "fights" against entire world (while its leaders gets | enormous wealth). | throwaway894345 wrote: | Personally I think closing the nuclear reactors is a terrible | idea, considering nuclear is the only clean base load | generation we have. But stopping a Russian gas pipeline seems | eminently desirable considering that fossil fuels and Russian | hegemony are both really bad things. Perhaps the US ought not | to have interfered, but it seems like a desirable outcome | nonetheless. Hopefully the energy crisis will result in the | recommissioning of those nuclear reactors (if that's even | possible) or some better alternative. | DeWilde wrote: | > Personally I think closing the nuclear reactors is a | terrible idea, considering nuclear is the only clean base | load generation we have. | | Yes | | >Perhaps the US ought not to have interfered, but it seems | like a desirable outcome nonetheless. | | No, freezing in an European winter isn't an desirable | outcome. | | Yes, gas bad and Russia evil, but shooting of your arm | because your fingers are broken isn't a smart thing to do. | Gas is already expensive in Europe and there aren't any | viable cheap alternatives, both green and non-green. Curently | at least. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > No, freezing in an European winter isn't an desirable | outcome. | | This is surely theatrics. Europeans will pay more for | heating than they usually do, and that will be the extent | of it. | qaq wrote: | There is plenty of pipeline capacity. | the-dude wrote: | > Russian hegemony | | What does this mean? | Robotbeat wrote: | Ask a Ukrainian! | datameta wrote: | Or a Georgian, or a Chechen. | the-dude wrote: | Can we conclude from your example and your parents' that | for Germany the term is hyperbole? | datameta wrote: | I am not quite sure what you are saying or implying. | | What parent comment is pointing out is that Russia has | invaded sovereign nations (cultural and economic allies) | in the 21st century. In one instance of such it would go | on to vehemently deny its involvement. | Iwan-Zotow wrote: | Looks like US and NATO doing it all the time - well, till | someone like taliban kicks them out | throwaway894345 wrote: | > well, till someone like taliban kicks them out | | You might want to learn your history if you think Russia | has never been kicked out by "someone like the Taliban". | Mind you, Afghanistan was a much more peaceful country | before the USSR invaded, but I won't fault a country too | harshly for the impossible-to-predict consequences of | meddling; however, I _will_ fault a country for the | motives of their meddling in the first place. E.g., does | a country meddle to support or overthrow a violent | regime? Do they aspire to liberate or oppress? | Iwan-Zotow wrote: | > Mind you, Afghanistan was a much more peaceful country | before the USSR invaded | | Really? Where did you get that notion? As far as I know, | it was under military junta rule | | > E.g., does a country meddle to support or overthrow a | violent regime? | | And? Daud regime in Afghanistan was violent, isn't it? | the-dude wrote: | That is not a hegemony right? | datameta wrote: | From wikipedia: | | > Hegemony is the political, economic, or military | predominance of one state over other states. | the-dude wrote: | So it isn't. Why don't you answer the question yourself? | datameta wrote: | Please explain how an invasion of a sovereign nation does | not qualify as military predominance. | teekert wrote: | Yes, and then we ask an Iranian what being influenced by | the US means, and we stop all international collaboration | and just focus on the EU. But then we shouldn't ask | southern Europeans what northern European influencing | is... | | I get that horrible things have happened, and nations did | horrible things to each other. But we are citizens and I | wish nothing but the best for citizens of other | countries. I don't want war or influencing. I would like | my gas to be a bit cheaper and preferably cleaner. | | Power to Iranian, Ukranian, Russian, EU and US (and all) | citizens. I hope we can one day untangle our leaders from | the companies in our countries and just make them do what | is best for us. | datameta wrote: | I can see your words are amicable but drawing an | equivalence of wrongdoing to another wrongdoer does not | exonerate the former (Russia). | throwaway210222 wrote: | > but drawing an equivalence of wrongdoing to another | wrongdoer does not exonerate the former (Russia). | | Incorrect, it completely exonerates them if you are going | to merrily let the the other wrongdoer carry on with the | offending behaviour. | | If you disagree, ask what's the moral case for _not_ | dealing the other wrongdoer tomorrow morning? | datameta wrote: | My deep embarassment at the peace wrecking actions of the | other wrongdoer (USA) as a citizen of the country in no | way diminishes my absolute condemnation of Russia's | actions toward Ukraine, as someone whose ancestry is from | both the perpetrator and victim nation. | throwaway210222 wrote: | My thoughts exactly. So lets deal with Russia today, and | de-fang the USA tomorrow at 9am. | | No? Why not? | | See? | datameta wrote: | I'm not quite sure if you followed what I had said. Let | us assume one can directly measure wrongdoing and | correlate a level of condemnation. For the sake of | argument let us say the USA is deserving of 100 units of | condemnation, whereas Russia is only fit to receive 50. | This is not an equation that becomes 50 and 0. All that | Russia is responsible for is still equally hegemonic, | internationally illegal, amoral, and unethical. | | In so many words I am essentially saying that | whataboutism does not add to the discourse and in fact | derails and detracts. | throwaway894345 wrote: | The "other wrongdoer" isn't doing harm on the order that | Russia is (indeed, the "other wrongdoer" does a | tremendous amount of good globally that we all | collectively ignore) but more saliently the "other | wrongdoer" supplies Europe with an order of magnitude | less natural gas than Russia. | throwaway894345 wrote: | To your point "influence" itself isn't bad, but who you | are influenced by is significant. And if you think the US | and Russia are comparable then I don't have hope for a | reasonable conversation. | throwaway894345 wrote: | "Russian influence" would probably been a clearer choice of | words. | the-dude wrote: | So what is exactly wrong with some Russian influence? As | a Dutchie I am continously influenced by Americans, | Germans, Frenchmen etc. | BurningFrog wrote: | Russia controlling much of your energy supply that they | can turn off at will gives them _power_ over you. | | Very different from choosing to watch American movies or | cooking French food. | the-dude wrote: | They can only do this one time. | | AFAIK they do not have a history of doing this, only when | terms of actual gas deals are not met. Which is common | business sense. | | edit: you are downplaying US influence. Are you aware The | Netherlands is a host for US nuclear weapons? | datameta wrote: | They used natural gas as a political lever with Ukraine | on a constant basis. The same would be the case with | Belarussia if they weren't forcefully aligned as | political allies (an attempt at which is one of the main | reasons of the Ukrainian invasion). | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | Some bitch wanted to get rich. Played with the mafia, | been a puppet for another player. Abused her position. | Vendor of warez blocked even more corruption. Bitch | shrieked in frustration. Another player saw his chance. | Vendor of warez had enough of the pranks. Disruption... | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulia_Tymoshenko | | also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otpor | Mikeb85 wrote: | Let's not pretend there was no fuckery on the Ukrainian | side. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_ | dis... | the-dude wrote: | Do you have sources Russia used this lever even though | all terms of the deal were met? ( basically, the bills | were paid ). | datameta wrote: | The gas bills had a strange ability to grow of their own | accord, almost seemingly to the whims of the natural gas | supplier. On several occasions Russia cut off supply | during winter after disputes, which affected not only | Ukraine but Europe. This was a two pronged maneuver which | was meant to sour Europe-Ukraine relations and keep | Ukraine dependent on Russia. Ukraine's attempted aligment | with Europe is perhaps the main driver of the 2014 | invasion of Ukraine by Russia. | anticodon wrote: | _the main driver of the 2014 invasion of Ukraine by | Russia_ | | There was no Russian invasion. There was a coup and | installation of Nazi government in Ukraine in 2014. Big | percent of population in Ukraine is Russian. They do not | want to live under Nazi regime that praises Hitler and | forbids to speak Russian language. Also, Ukraine has | plans to build concentration camps for Russian | population. | | So they decided to leave Ukraine and join Russia. | the-dude wrote: | So you have no sources I presume? And the bills were not | paid. | anticodon wrote: | Russia is not obliged to pay Ukrainian bills. They're | unreliable partners (both for EU and Russia), they have a | history of blackmailing EU with threats to stop gas | transit (Ukraine, not Russia threatened EU!), they're | stealing transit gas all the time. | | Besides, they're used as an enemy, as cannon fodder | against Russia. Why would Russia feed them using our | natural resources? What's our obligation? It's not their | gas, it's not their pipeline (it was built by "soviet | occupants"). | throwaway894345 wrote: | Moreover, we're not talking about the Russian people, | we're talking about Russia, the dictatorship. The US | isn't assassinating dissidents in EU countries, after | all. It's also not installing dictators in your | neighboring countries. | Zardoz84 wrote: | but they not have problems dropping bombs to children's | in other countries. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Russia backs Assad in Syria, who routinely _deliberately_ | bombed his own civilians. That seems strictly worse. | Ekaros wrote: | I think we can all agree deliberately bombing other | countries civilians is much worse than your own. And USA | is clearly doing it. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I don't agree with that at all. Governments should | protect their own citizens first and foremost, but | _deliberately_ killing civilians anywhere is abhorrent, | and the US _does not_ deliberately target civilians. When | civilians are killed by the US, it 's an accident. Assad | kills civilians to send a message. | | That said, the US should absolutely work to reduce its | collateral damage, but let's not pretend that | accidentally killing a civilian and bombing a city | (because they are disproportionately critical of your | dictatorship) are morally equivalent. | Ekaros wrote: | I would trust USA lot more if everyone from bottom to top | involved in any "accident" was summarily executed. Or at | least judged by peers of their victims. Like for latest | case I say ship everyone in chain of command and involved | in manufacturing to Afghanistan and have the local | government there deliver the justice they deserve. | | I would also expand this to known supporters and voters, | but that can be next step. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > I would also expand this to known supporters and | voters, but that can be next step. | | So you would massacre tens or hundreds of millions of | civilians because _accidentally killing civilians_ is | bad? This is the most heinous thing I 've ever read on | HN. | | > Or at least judged by peers of their victims. Like for | latest case I say ship everyone in chain of command and | involved in manufacturing to Afghanistan and have the | local government there deliver the justice they deserve. | | Ironically Afghanistan no longer does trial by peers, | they do door to door executions without any kind of trial | (certainly not trial by jury of peers). | | And of course, you're notably silent on _deliberately | targeting_ civilians in their thousands, which is what | Assad has been doing and the Kremlin implicitly supports. | Ekaros wrote: | They kept voting in these bad actors. They clearly | support these policies. Otherwise they wouldn't have | voted for them. | throwaway894345 wrote: | So that's a "yes" to my question? | | > So you would massacre tens or hundreds of millions of | civilians because accidentally killing civilians is bad? | Ekaros wrote: | At this point I think they could reasonably be considered | combatants. After all they have done nothing to prevent | murder of civilians even if they have had tools like | second amendment exactly designed for this purpose. And | no it's not massacre, it's justified death penalty for | mass-murderers. | throwaway894345 wrote: | This is the most abhorrent thing I've ever read on this | (or perhaps any) forum. I'm done with this thread. | Ekaros wrote: | Still doesn't even compare to calling mass-murder | "accidents"... Or maybe 9/11 were accidents to you too. | throwaway210222 wrote: | > accidentally killing civilians ? | | When you are killing children using rocket propelled | explosives deliberately launched into crowded urban | areas, from high-altitude unmanned vehicles, operated by | professional soldiers an ocean away, on intelligence only | you have, you are as far away from an _accidental_ | killing as is possible. | | It you hadn't passed another law threatening the | Netherlands with an invasion, you might finds yourself | having to answer for it. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Just to make sure I understand you correctly: | accidentally killing a civilian in a strike on a | terrorist is _exactly as bad_ as (or perhaps worse than) | directly bombing hundreds or thousands of civilians on | purpose? | throwaway210222 wrote: | No. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Okay, I'm glad we agree. | lostmsu wrote: | Russia doesn't have either. | anticodon wrote: | _Russia doesn 't have either._ | | Do you have proofs? Anything comparable to killing 4 | millions in Vietnam, 600,000 in Iraq (probably more), | etc, etc. | lostmsu wrote: | You appear to have an agenda, because you took the | Vietnam number from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam | _War_casualties#Total_n... and | | a) picked the "high estimates" - really bad choice for | the sake of an Internet discussion | | b) you rounded it up! | | c) you presented that number as civilians killed while it | is total deaths on both sides | | d) you tried to present that number in the context of | children killed | | e) you assume these were all killed by US, which they | weren't | | Considering grossness of the misrepresentation in your | comment, I don't think it makes sense to argue with you. | However, there's plenty of proofs for Russia not minding | killing children in its war efforts as recent as 2014, | including MH17 which had 80 children on board. | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | Hrm. Hm. Hm... | | Julian Assange? Edward Snowden? If they could 'the US' | would very much like to disappear them, by whatever | means. | | Furthermore | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio seem just | like the tip of an iceberg. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Of course those two are still alive and there's no | evidence at all that the US would like to assassinate or | "disappear" them. On the contrary, it's relatively easy | to assassinate or even kidnap someone--Russia had agents | spread nerve agent on a target's door handle and shoot | another target in the street. Certainly these things are | well within the US's capability. | | I think you're confusing "extradition and trial by jury" | with "assassination" or "disappearing". | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | I think you are confusing plausible deniability with the | propaganda you're fed. Besides that I can't confirm nor | deny having access to sources behind transtemporal | channels, or having signed NDAs with blood. Yada Yada. | | kthxbye | Ekaros wrote: | I do clearly remember however them allying with dictator | in neighbouring country, even after massive invasions and | extensions far beyond their border... | anticodon wrote: | _The US isn't assassinating dissidents in EU countries, | after all. It's also not installing dictators in your | neighboring countries._ | | This is absolutely not true. US is assassinating | dissidents all over the world all the time. | | US is installing puppet governments and staging | revolutions all the time to pursue its economical | interests. | | BTW, none of the alleged Russian assassinations were | proven. There're only "highly likely" arguments without a | single piece of evidence. And when there're counter | arguments, they are not printed in the western press. | E.g. how Germany was preparing for investigation of | "poisoning" of Navalny, before it was known that he was | "poisoned". | the-dude wrote: | You must be joking. The US assassinates people almost on | a daily basis, has installed dictators in numerous | countries and Russia is not a dictatorship, how much you | disagree with Putin. | | Futhermore, the US has been involved or started numerous | conflicts in the EU backyard, which we are forced to | cooperate in, and have no choice to take care of the | refugees. | throwaway894345 wrote: | The US assassinates _terrorists_ (and not remotely on "a | daily basis" although the US assassination attempts have | too much collateral damage). Russia assassinates | _dissidents_ (critics of Putin and his regime) on EU | soil. | | Russia is _absolutely_ a dictatorship. They just rigged | their most recent election (jailed the leading rival | politician and banned apps that informed people on how to | use their vote strategically to minimize Putin's party's | power). | 988747 wrote: | America labels its critics as "terrorist" and critics of | Russia as "dissidents". Russia of course does the exact | opposite. | | As for "rigged elections" all the US elections in the | last 50 years were rigged as well - think about | gerrymandering and deliberately blocking black and Latino | minorities from voting (by making it hard for them to | obtain proof of identity, or making them wait hours in | line at the polling stations). | throwaway894345 wrote: | > America labels its critics as "terrorist" and critics | of Russia as "dissidents". Russia of course does the | exact opposite. | | "Dissident" is just a critic of a policy or regime. It | doesn't improve Russia's hand at all to say that it only | assassinates _critics_ , and it certainly isn't an | exclusively US-held position that Alexander Litvinenko, | Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny, etc were _critics_ (as | opposed to bonafide violent terrorists). | | As for "America labels its critics as 'terrorists'": can | you name any critics that the US labeled "terrorists" and | consequently assassinated, especially on EU soil? | anticodon wrote: | _Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny_ | | There's no evidence that Putin is related to death of | these persons. BTW, Navalny is alive and well and all the | evidence shows that he was probably "poisoned" by the CIA | to create another "victim" of Putin's regime. | | Besides, Navalny is a terrorist on CIA payroll. He's | working on destroying Russia from within. He was | recruited and trained abroad and most of his "donations" | are coming from western governments and spy agencies. | Nobody trusts him here. | throwaway894345 wrote: | That's _quite_ the conspiracy theory... | Aunche wrote: | The irony here is that the US is the one pressuring the | EU to sanction the Nord 2 pipeline. They have little to | lose from its suspension. Russia is unlikely to willingly | cut off gas to Western Europe because they're hurting | themselves just as much. | adventured wrote: | The US does have something to lose. The US is now a large | natural gas exporter, and that demand pulls away from our | domestic market, which forces our prices higher. When | European natural gas prices are 4x-5x that of the US, the | foreign demand for cheaper US imports can become a | frenzy. While US prices may seem cheap by comparison to | what Europe is seeing, when you triple those prices | versus a year ago, US consumers feel that hit | significantly (with many population centers in the US | having quite cold Winter weather, expectations right now | are for a quite expensive Winter season in the US for | natural gas prices). And the US has also become a lot | more dependent on natural gas as an energy source over | the last 15-20 years, so it's increasingly sensitive to | such large price spikes; far more so than back in the | commodity bubble years of 2005-2008 which saw US natural | gas prices climb to about 3x where they're at now (before | the supply boom in the US crushed prices). | | If natural gas prices in the US keep soaring, you can | expect the Biden Administration to look into turning off | exports via whatever justification they can come up with | to make it happen. | inglor_cz wrote: | As much as I am wary about Russian influence (we were | under their yoke 1948-1989, with an outright invasion in | 1968), Gazprom never fooled around with gas deliveries | into Western Europe. | | They know that they need to maintain spotless business | reputation, precisely because Europe is already on the | fence _re_ doing any business with Russia at all and | because gas exports are the most reliable source of hard | currency for Russia. | | Turning gas off is a nuclear option for Kremlin. Not | unthinkable, but very extreme. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I agree that turning off the gas completely would be | extreme, but it doesn't have to be "turning off the gas", | it can just be meddling with the gas prices, specifically | as a lever against potential sanctions (Europe will be | less likely to sanction Russia if Russia can retaliate | where Europe is weakest). | inglor_cz wrote: | Oh yes, that is very possible. OPEC 2.0. | londons_explore wrote: | It's also pretty easy to build storage facilities so they | have to turn the gas off for a long time before the | effects are felt. Storage of LPG for an entire winters | use by a country isn't super expensive. | makomk wrote: | As far as I can tell, Europe has storage facilities but | they let Gazprom run a lot of them and for some reason | Gazprom has let them run down rather than refilling them | like they usually would over the summer... | Sebb767 wrote: | A theory I heard was that all the gas was bought up by | speculators (that seems true, actually) and now they're | slowly delivering the gas as needed to avoid speculators | eating all the cheap gas up and then blaming Gazprom once | no gas is left for the winter. | inglor_cz wrote: | Technically yes, NIMBYs might be a problem. | glogla wrote: | It's not just the risk of the strategically turning it | off. It's also creating a dependence and giving Putin | money. Those are bad by themselves. | matmatmatmat wrote: | I'm not in favor of giving Putin money, but I am in favor | of dependencies. Dependencies are what keep people from | invading each other's countries when there's trouble. | People are unlikely to start bombing their customers. | makomk wrote: | The trouble with Nord Stream 2 is that it removes the | dependencies which keep Russia from invading Eastern | European countries like Poland by creating a route to | sell gas to the richer parts of Europe that doesn't go | through them, whilst also creating a dependency that | would make it painful for the rest of Europe to take | action if Russia did such a thing. This is probably not | good for peace in Europe. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I take your point and I sort of agree, but I'm really | excited for how the transition to clean energy will | reduce the Kremlin's influence. Even without exporting so | much energy, I suspect/hope Russia's remaining economy | will still be too dependent on exports to risk attacking | anyone (especially considering that China et al would | probably strongly oppose an attack on its most lucrative | clientelle, however much it might otherwise detest them). | anticodon wrote: | _I suspect /hope Russia's remaining economy will still be | too dependent on exports to risk attacking anyone_ | | Why would Russia attack anyone? What would be the point | of such an attack? | | Why US is allowed to attack anyone, destroys whole | countries and kill millions of people, including hundreds | of thousands of civilians and everybody is ok with it | (recent examples: Libya, Afghanistan, Syria)? | throwaway894345 wrote: | > Why would Russia attack anyone? What would be the point | of such an attack? | | I was responding to the GP's hypothetical. | | > Why US is allowed to attack anyone, destroys whole | countries and kill millions of people, including hundreds | of thousands of civilians and everybody is ok with it | (recent examples: Libya, Afghanistan, Syria)? | | If you can rephrase this so it doesn't sound like overt | flame bait, I might respond. Otherwise we risk a flame | war and I don't have energy for that. | inglor_cz wrote: | Dependencies run in both directions. Russia is very | dependent on its fossil fuel exports. | dragonelite wrote: | Not much different from other sources, Europe is not | resource/energy rich like the US. | throwaway894345 wrote: | A polity which is not energy rich should have a diverse | energy portfolio so one country doesn't have too much | power. As it stands, 40% of European natural gas comes | from Russia and virtually none from the US. Investing | _more_ in Russia gives Russia tremendous power over | Europe. Diluting that investment with natural gas from | the US or some other suppliers means that Europe can | afford to walk away from any deal with any of them at | small cost to itself. Further still, divesting itself of | nuclear also worsens EU energy security, because nuclear | doesn 't require a pipeline from anywhere (yes, you have | to import Uranium, but its _very_ cheap to import per | unit energy, even at its current elevated price point). | interactivecode wrote: | The same issues apply to American control over European | power supplies or Norwegian control over European power | supplies. | | They aren't anymore dangerous for Europe. The main | difference is our existing trade deals with the US are | more embedded into the European economy than any of the | other countries. We like the US now, they are our | friends, but because they are more connected, we are more | reliant on them than others, which is dangerous in and of | itself. | smnrchrds wrote: | We Canadians felt this deeply when US kept all their | domestically-produced vaccine doses for themselves in | early 2021. We had grown accustomed to the flow of goods | and services between US and Canada being uninterrupted. | So for many of us, it was a shock and a disappointment | when the US decided to _turn off the tap_. | coryrc wrote: | It was the Canadian government which rejected allowing | Michigan to deliver vaccines to Canadians: | | https://www.wjtv.com/health/coronavirus/canadian- | government-... | smnrchrds wrote: | I am talking about the US allowing vaccine shots to be | exported to Canada, which should have been a million | doses per week. Your link is about Canadians lining up at | the border to be vaccinated in the US, which at best | would have been in the order of a few hundred doses per | week. Even if that plan went ahead, the number of | American doses getting into Canadian arms would have | been, approximately, a million doses a week short of | expectation. If the expectation is 1 million doses and | you get a thousand doses, you would be the same amount of | disappointed as getting 0 doses. | | Also, the decision to bar people from getting vaccinated | on the other side of the border was not solely a Canadian | decision. US disallowed Canadians going there to get | vaccinated too. There was a very short period of time | between the time Canadians started going to the US for | vaccines and the time US banned this practice. | | Also, your link is from July. That was right around the | time vaccines became abundant in Canada and vaccination | was opened to all regardless of age and health status. | The disappointment was in early 2021, when Canada was | still vaccinating 80+ people and US decided to vaccinate | all 16+ people before allowing vaccine exports here so we | can at least vaccinate people in elderly care homes. | | > _Canadians hoping to cross the border for the sole | purpose of getting a COVID-19 vaccine will be turned | away, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection._ | | https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/confusion- | abounds-... | throwaway894345 wrote: | Honestly, I don't know why this would be so surprising. | You're comparing the flow of goods _in a stable supply | chain_ with the unprecedented demand for a novel vaccine | for which no existing supply chain existed. _Of course_ | there wouldn 't be a ready flow of vaccine immediately, | and _of course_ every country prioritizes its own | citizens first and foremost. | | Now that demand has eased considerably, the US is now | donating more doses of vaccine than all of the other | countries on the planet combined. | adventured wrote: | You're being downvoted because you're not allowed to | point out on HN that the US is donating more vaccine | doses than the rest of the world combined. | | Just like the US donates as much food to the rest of the | world as all other nations combined and has been doing it | for a century now. | | US bad. | throwaway894345 wrote: | It certainly _feels_ like there 's a lot of unjustified | pressure on this forum to portray the US as categorically | worse than every other country. I have other | controversial opinions which are at least met by | understandable rebuttals, but this "America doesn't do | everything horribly" seems to violate some sacred taboo | (and I suspect particularly so with the European and | progressive American cohorts). | | In whichever case, a few Internet Points is a small price | to pay. :) | smnrchrds wrote: | The problem was, when vaccines were in short supply, the | US decided to prioritize all Americans, including healthy | 16 year olds, over other countries' most vulnerable and | elderly population. In early 2021, if N vaccine doses | going to another country who would have saved 1000 lives | because they were still vaccinating the most vulnerable, | the same N doses used in the US would have saved 1, | because the most vulnerable were already vaccinated and | the vaccines were being used for younger not-at-risk | population. Why should any country not criticize the US | for prioritizing one American life over 1,000 non- | American lives? | | This compares to the EU which allowed vaccine exports. | Thousands of Canadians are alive today that wouldn't have | been if the EU acted like the US. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Admittedly the United States' rollout wasn't _optimally | efficient_ , and they prioritized American lives early on | (before we knew exactly how mass vaccination would play | out, mind you--much of your criticism benefits from | hindsight). But it's unfair to criticize the US for | prioritizing American lives over foreign lives when it's | doing far more than all other countries _combined_ to | minimize the loss of foreign lives. I could spin that | into a divisive shot at Canada or the EU as you 've done | with America (and I think I could make a much more | compelling case), but I don't see the point in being | divisive when we have nothing to gain and everything to | lose from it. | | Yes, the early days of COVID vaccination were predictably | rocky. What's the excuse _today_ for not working together | to vaccinate the world? | BBC-vs-neolibs wrote: | Yeah, bring that argument when Norway occupies the | Crimean peninsula. | gego wrote: | ...this is not what happened - Russia did deliver on time | and the reserves were sold off. Now those same people cry | wolf and want Exporters to offer more for cheap... | Asmod4n wrote: | There is no solution to deal with the life killing waste of | nuclear power plants. | eropple wrote: | Depends on where you are. How deep a shaft can you reliably | bore into the Canadian Shield or the Scandes? | | I'm very pro-renewables, but nuclear power's problems are | organizational rather than waste-related, at least in much | of the developed world. | Bayart wrote: | Put it in a place where there's no life, seismic stability | and no ground water. Which is what we're doing. Nuclear | waste is remarkably dense and containable, far more than | any other kind of power-generation byproduct. | Asmod4n wrote: | You don't know if that place on earth will still be there | or in the middle of an ocean in the time the waste is | till toxic. | | We have solutions right now to get rid of coal, atom etc | completely in a couple of years, new inventions take too | much time to be ready for the market when we need them by | 2030. | qwytw wrote: | Maybe you don't, but I would expect the people designing | the sites know the half life of the materials they are | storing. Plutonium-239 for example has a halflife of | 24,000 years which is not that much in geological terms.. | Asmod4n wrote: | Do you honestly belive we can build something to keep | radioactive and toxic stuff sealed for tenthousand years? | | By the time it's still bad for carbon based lifeforms | it's as old as todays archaeology! | qwytw wrote: | Sure why not, the great pyramid is close to 5000 years | old, I'm sure with modern knowledge humans can build | something that will last much longer. In any case the | damage it can do is fairly limited compared to burning | coal. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > We have solutions right now to get rid of coal, atom | etc completely in a couple of years, | | No we do not. Renewable energy is unreliable and | unsuitable for base load generation. Until we can figure | out how to store _weeks_ worth of energy, nuclear is the | _only_ clean option for base load. | | > You don't know if that place on earth will still be | there or in the middle of an ocean in the time the waste | is till toxic. | | We do have a pretty good idea, and to the extent that we | don't, it's climate change. Pretty ironic to use climate | change as a reason to forestall nuclear considering it's | our best shot at mitigating climate change pending a | renewable energy storage miracle. | Asmod4n wrote: | Renewables are the only energy source we can afford to | use in the next few years, there is no alternative to | that. | | We tried to make nuclear energy a thing for over 50 | years, it only shows we aren't able to a) make safe use | of it and b) get a solution for the waste. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > We tried to make nuclear energy a thing for over 50 | years, | | No, we didn't. Nuclear was and is _unpopular_ for reasons | that aren 't justified by the evidence. | | > we aren't able to make safe use of it | | This is _entirely_ untrue. Nuclear is the _safest_ energy | source _by far_ , even more so than wind or solar: | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate- | worldw... | | > we couldn't get a solution for the waste. | | We know the solution for the waste, we just have to act | on it. And anyway, we have to solve for the existing | waste and once you have to dig a big hole for a little | bit of waste you can use that existing hole for a _whole | lot of waste_ with virtually no economic impact. | shakow wrote: | > we aren't able to a) make safe use of it | | Nuclear power was one of the safest energy source in the | last century. Even hydroelectrical power, which is quite | safe, has been much deadlier than nuclear accidents, and | don't get me started on the consequences of carbon-heavy | production methods. | | > b) get a solution for the waste. | | There is a solution for the waste: deep burial in stable | geological conditions. The only people saying there are | no solution do not have any other argument better | "dangerous green-glowing slime makes me afraid, | Greenpeace plz help". | 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote: | > Pretty ironic to use climate change as a reason to | forestall nuclear considering it's our best shot at | mitigating climate change pending a renewable energy | storage miracle. | | I think you're looking at this the right way. We aren't | "on the verge" of climate catastrophe, or "at the edge": | we are already over the cliff, and the rocks are getting | closer by the second. | | Our only chance is to de-carbonize energy _now_ , and the | only technology that gets us there is nuclear. | thecopy wrote: | Drill a 5km deep hole, drop it in there. | Asmod4n wrote: | You can't predict if that hole will be there for the | trillions of years it's toxic. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > You can't predict if that hole will be there for the | trillions of years it's toxic. | | Trillions of years is the wrong timescale. The earth is | only a few billion years old, and anyway the nuclear | waste won't be radiotoxic in 1-10 thousand years much | less 1 trillion. I'm pretty sure the Earth won't be | habitable (as we understand 'habitable', anyway) in 1 | trillion years. Anyway, climate change poses an | existential threat in _decades or centuries_. | [deleted] | Asmod4n wrote: | while uranium isn't that toxic compared to the other | stuff it has a half-life of 4 billions years. | | And while the earth has long forgotten about humans other | species will still be endangered by it. | reddog wrote: | So your worried about how uranium will effect the | Morlocks and the Elois? Isn't uranium a naturally | occuring element that already exists underground all over | the globe and has for billions of years? | panzagl wrote: | Uhh, you know there's already uranium under the ground, | right? | qwytw wrote: | Still infinitely preferable (even if the number was | accurate) to poisoning earth's current inhabitants by | burning coal . | wins32767 wrote: | Half-life and danger from the emitted radiation are | inversely correlated. Decay is the thing that emits | radiation, so if that takes forever, it's not emitting | much per second. | throwaway894345 wrote: | The half-life isn't the relevant metric--you don't need | the radioactivity to decay to zero (you're exposed to | non-zero levels of radiation just walking around | outside). You need it decay to environmentally tolerable | levels (roughly "the level of uranium ore"). | | Anyway, far more species are far more endangered by | climate change right now than any future species will be | by nuclear waste. | jl6 wrote: | IMHO it would be better to store nuclear waste in well | guarded sheds. There isn't _that_ much of it (less than a | million tons; a few football fields worth of sheds), and | accessible above-ground storage means you can easily | monitor it and maintain its container over time. Who | knows what will happen 5km down, out of sight? | thecopy wrote: | Relying on society is too risky. Drop them in a bore | hole, fill it up again. Done. | jl6 wrote: | I do worry about bad guys digging it back up again. | | The search for waste storage that lasts forever feels | like the search for data storage that last forever. In | the latter case, no storage medium is reliable enough in | the long run, and the better strategy is continuous | active management, moving from one storage medium to | another as technology evolves and as old media expire. | shakow wrote: | Of course there is; actually dangerous materials are | produced to the rate of a few cubic meters a year: just | sink them in lead and concrete and put them at the bottom | of a mine shaft. | | Compared to the result of having billions over billions of | over wastes in the atmosphere, I can't even understand how | people pretend it's not a no-brainer question. | mschuster91 wrote: | > just sink them in lead and concrete and put them at the | bottom of a mine shaft. | | That is, frankly, _moronic_. All you will end up with is | your groundwater leeching out the waste. We have exactly | this problem in Gorleben, and now have to spend a | boatload of money in recovering all the waste from the | former mine. | shakow wrote: | > All you will end up with is your groundwater leeching | out the waste | | No yo won't, because you will think just a bit before | drilling the mine shaft over an aquifer (https://en.wikip | edia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository) | | > We have exactly this problem in Gorleben | | Looks like the only problems you have in Gorleben are a | handful of medical-grade wastes badly conditioned and a | very vocal populace. | [deleted] | Asmod4n wrote: | The radiation in Gorleben is already destroying the salt | dome. | shakow wrote: | Would you mind sourcing that? The documents I can find (h | ttps://www.bgr.bund.de/EN/Themen/Endlagerung/Downloads/De | sc...) seem pretty happy with the current situation. | eropple wrote: | This is an important thing, IMO - aquifers go a lot | deeper into the Earth than maybe most folks realize. | quickthrowman wrote: | Put it deep enough in bedrock where there is no | groundwater, like the Finns | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel | _re... | | There is still the issue of how to communicate "Danger: | Nuclear Waste" to the people who will encounter the waste | storage facility over the next 10,000-100,000 years, but | for now we can safely store waste. | BitwiseFool wrote: | Put it somewhere extremely hard to get to without | industrialized tools. Assuming civilization doesn't | collapse, any society with the kind of resources to want | to go back in and extract the radioactive was is going to | know what radioactivity is. If you assume it does | collapse, the protection you get from a lack of power | tools and logistics makes breaking into the waste | repository prohibitively expensive. I doubt an agrarian | or non-industrial society would be able to bankroll an | expedition to a place like, say, Antarctica or the | Atacama Desert and then being digging thousands of feet | down using hand tools and ropes to find magic rocks. | | An example I'd like to cite is how one of the Sultan's of | Egypt tried to dismantle the pyramids and failed horribly | because of all the manpower involved. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure | throwaway894345 wrote: | Pretty sure in 10K years the nuclear waste will no longer | be radiotoxic. | | > The radioactivity of nuclear waste naturally decays, | and has a finite radiotoxic lifetime. Within a period of | 1,000-10,000 years, the radioactivity of HLW decays to | that of the originally mined ore. Its hazard then depends | on how concentrated it is. By comparison, other | industrial wastes (e.g. heavy metals, such as cadmium and | mercury) remain hazardous indefinitely. | | - https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear- | fuel-c... | | The above is probably some nuclear power lobby (vested | interest and all that), but I think the point is a good | one. | KptMarchewa wrote: | Yes. The better idea is to sink them in lead and leave on | the surface. | | This way if something happens to external core, you can | cheaply fix it, instead of recover them from deep mines. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Yes, the parent was being overly simplistic. You have to | be choosey about where you put your waste, but experts | currently recommend deep geologic repository as the | safest solution. In whichever case, the salient point is | that however you manage the waste it's still far less | harmful than spewing co2 into the atmosphere. Radiation | only _seems_ scarier because it is much more direct. | Jedd wrote: | > nuclear is the only clean base load generation we have. | | I'm assuming from your phrasing that you're using nuclear to | refer exclusively to nuclear fission. | | Are you really suggesting that it's 'clean' in the sense of | no greenhouse gas emissions, or radioactive (negative health | impacts) from the acquisition of the necessary fuel, the | building of fission power stations, or the operations of | same? | belorn wrote: | In comparison to burning fossil fuels which is the basis of | the energy crisis, the emissions, radiation, acquisition of | fuel, and operate seems all cleaner for a nuclear reactor | than the fossil fuel which it replace. | | Per GW/h, a fossil fueled power plant is producing a lot of | pollution that goes into the air and poison the people and | land around it. The outcome from this can be plainly seen | in the death per GW/h produced. | | The only "100%" clean base load generation we have is | actually hydro, but there are a few problems with it. We | have already maxed out, and even if we tried to build more | it would cause significant amount of greenhouse gas | emissions from topsoil decomposition. It also happens to | have one of the highest deaths per GW/h, although | thankfully we tend to attribute that to the weather rather | than the technology itself. | Teknoman117 wrote: | This. | | Nuclear fission isn't "perfect" due to the potential | risks involved, but it's one of the best things we have | going for us _right now_. The climate crisis is here, and | we have to do something pretty much immediately. We don | 't have time to argue over what's best anymore. Build | things we know work and replace those with something else | when something better comes along. | nradov wrote: | Clean enough compared to the alternatives. | throwaway894345 wrote: | It is on par with solar with respect to the emissions per | kW. Nuclear power plants emit virtually no radiation when | properly operated and maintained (indeed, coal power plants | emit more radiation into the environment). In rare cases, | accidents happen, but the risk adjusted cost of those | accidents is negligible compared to fossil fuel power. I'm | not sure what "radioactive impacts" derive from mining | Uranium, but I doubt it's non-negligible compared to the | harm imposed my fossil fuels. | ajsnigrutin wrote: | And compared to solar, they produce power even during | cold, winter nights, when you need heat the most. | | It's not the most efficiant way to heat your homes | (fission -> heat -> water -> steam engine -> electricity | -> heater), but it brings autonomy to each country (so | global issues don't affect your country), and with heat | pumps, it's not even that bad at heating. | coryrc wrote: | Add in district heating and you get cheap heat too. | Europe is often dense enough for this to work... | bialpio wrote: | I was under the impression that the last step can | potentially be made pretty efficient if it's "electricity | -> heat pump" (but that depends on the conditions). Also | - can nuclear power plants operate in combined heat and | power mode to provide district heating? That'd probably | require them to be close to highly populated areas | though. | Teknoman117 wrote: | Nuclear (fission) beats out solar for the most part in | terms of CO2 equivalent per kW/h of energy generation. | The 6-grams CO2 equivalent per kW/h figure assumes the | panel is in ideal conditions (receiving sun for all sun- | up hours during the year at equatorial to middle | latitudes and operating at a fixed temperature). For a | place like Finland, Norway, or Sweden, this goes up | 50-grams CO2 equivalent per kW/h (less power produced | over lifespan given a fixed manufacturing footprint). | Nuclear is at 4-grams per kW/h. Wind is also about | 4-grams per kW/h (again, assuming ideal conditions). | | Meanwhile, the most efficient coal fired plants are like | 700 grams of CO2 per kW/h and most are at 1000-1200 grams | per kW/h... | Teknoman117 wrote: | yes, I meant kWh. I picked up kW/h as a nasty habit from | my previous power company's billing statements. | lacksconfidence wrote: | I realize you didn't invent these terms, but is kW/h the | right metric? A plain reading of the units provided | suggests 700 grams of CO2 is released every hour for | every kW generated, but that seems unlikely. Where does | the per hour figure in? | throwaway894345 wrote: | It's almost exactly 1kg per kw/h, at least in the US: | https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 | | But yes, "per hour" is necessary because you can't | instantaneously emit a certain mass of co2. You emit over | time, just like you generate power over time. | Teknoman117 wrote: | I meant kWh. The units derivation is as follows if I | remember correctly: | | The SI unit for some absolute quantity of energy is the | "Joule". | | 1 watt = 1 joule per second (1 J/s) | | Watts can sort of be thought of as the rate at which some | absolute quantity of energy is available or able to be | consumed. | | Since energy sources are usually rated in terms of their | ability to supply an instantaneous amount of power, in | order to get back to the absolute amount of energy, you | need to multiply by the time in order to get back to just | some multiple of joules. | | 1 watt-second = 1 J/s * s = 1 J. | | So the concept holds that if we are going to measure some | amount of something (other than power) produced by a | power plant, it should be measured against the absolute | amount of power produced. Obviously this doesn't take | into account the fact that pollution generated by some | forms of power aren't linearly correlated with the power | produced - e.g. fossil fuel plants produce less | particulate pollution the hotter the fire burns, meaning | they get dirtier vs the power output the lower the output | power is set. Hence why gas turbines burn cleaner that | gas-fired steam generators (hand waving over the | efficiency differences of direct fired turbines versus | steam generation). | | Another data point is that natural gas turbines (again, | averages from the US) produce 550 grams per kWh, and | combined cycle (adding a second turbine that runs off the | exhaust heat of the first) are 435 grams CO2 per kWh. | | But the numbers I posted are what I meant. In the US, an | average of one kilogram of CO2 is emitted per kilowatt- | hour of energy (3.6 * 10^6 Joules) generated. Nuclear is | two orders of magnitude less carbon emission (versus | coal), wind and solar are comparable if deployed under | ideal conditions. Even under non-ideal conditions, they | still offer an order of magnitude improvement. | jeltz wrote: | I suspect it is a typo and that it should be grams per | kWh. | coryrc wrote: | Nit: it's kWh (kilowatts x hours), a unit of energy (like | joules or calories), not kW/h, which doesn't map to a | physical concept | Teknoman117 wrote: | Ah! Sorry, it's a nasty habit I picked up from my | previous power company's billing statements. | CyanBird wrote: | > Personally I think closing the nuclear reactors is a | terrible idea, considering nuclear is the only clean base | load generation we have | | I am very against nuclear power, on both the economic aspect, | and the health and hazards side of things, specially nuclear | waste for which there are no cold long term repositories | which inspire much trust in me | | This said, I am fully on board on keeping existing nuclear | reactors working, BUT I learned recently that radiation | itself damages/corrodes/degrades the containment vessels of | nuclear reactors over time, to the point where what was once | strong steel or titanium becomes as fragile as glass or sugar | glass (!!!)... Which is just not something that you can | repair as the damage happens at the molecular level so then | the entire reactor building needs to be basically scrapped | for the most part and the vessel rebuilt | | So, when nuclear scientists and engineers say that x reactor | has a y lifespan, they are being very serious about it | | I am despite all of that fully on board with extending the | lifespan of nuclear reactors as long as possible | raxxorrax wrote: | The energy crisis is because of prices, not necessarily | because of ressource limits. The ressources are only a tiny | amount, the rest is investments. | | Gas would be a huge ecological improvement to coal. Nuclear | power is too expensive and much of the costs are | externalized. It will only be able to compete if you weight | co2 beyond any other influence. | | I think this is mainly US propaganda to be honest. The | pipeline isn't needed for a long time to meet demands. | himinlomax wrote: | Nuclear, externalized? that's the exact opposite, as the | waste is left in the hands of the users, as opposed to | dumped in the atmosphere. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > Gas would be a huge ecological improvement to coal. | | Normally I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the | good, but we need to ramp down emissions _quickly_ and | natural gas doesn't get us near enough to the goal line. | This seems like we need to be going for bust on clean | energy, but it will be expensive. | | > I think this is mainly US propaganda to be honest. | | How do you figure? My post didn't have anything positive to | say about the US (because for some reason it reduces one's | credibility to acknowledge anything positive that happens | in the US), but only that the result seems to be desirable. | inglor_cz wrote: | Given the fact that the market with gas is global, that | the EU has almost no local sources of gas under its | control and that gas availability / price is fluctuating | rather heavily, I would try avoiding reliance on gas too. | As of today, it isn't any more reliable than wind. | raxxorrax wrote: | I meant the article and its framing, not your post. | | We cannot ramp down co2 emission to zero. The co2 balance | of building nuclear power plants will only amortize when | we already hit 1,5degC warming and it is questionable if | it helps at all considering the unknowns about operating | periods and other influences. | | Overall if we just look at Germany it wouldn't even | matter, the nation is too small, it wouldn't even make a | dent. It is still necessary to reduce emissions, but if | you zero them all, it would be less than 2% of overall | world wide emissions, even if it is on place 6. Not for | long though and it will be completely dwarfed by the US, | China and India. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > The co2 balance of building nuclear power plants will | only amortize when we already hit 1,5degC warming and it | is questionable if it helps at all considering the | unknowns about operating periods and other influences. | | This is why it's sad to decommission _existing_ plants, | but I don't think there's any legitimate question as to | whether nuclear is harmful. It's a pretty well-understood | quantity, but I'm not sure which "factors" you're | describing. | | > Overall if we just look at Germany it wouldn't even | matter, the nation is too small, it wouldn't even make a | dent. It is still necessary to reduce emissions, but if | you zero them all, it would be less than 2% of overall | world wide emissions, even if it is on place 6. Not for | long though and it will be completely dwarfed by the US, | China and India. | | No Germany alone won't make a dent directly, but it can | model leadership. It's a lot easier for other countries | to get on board when someone has paved the way. | raxxorrax wrote: | I agree, I think from a technical perspective most of | these plants are fine and they could be used for an | additional time. Since the last will shut down next year, | I would assume the plans are locked in by now. | | Nuclear has some advantages for base loads in some | scenarios, but it cannot really compete with renewables | down the road. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > Since the last will shut down next year, I would assume | the plans are locked in by now. | | Sadly, I assume you're correct. | | > Nuclear has some advantages for base loads in some | scenarios, but it cannot really compete with renewables | down the road. | | To be clear, I would love it if we could power everything | off of solar and wind, but we still don't have any | scalable technology for storing weeks worth of energy | which means that solar and wind _cannot_ be used for base | load generation. Hydro simply doesn 't have the capacity. | Nuclear is _the only_ clean energy option for base load | for the foreseeable future. Hoping for a storage tech | breakthrough in the coming decades isn 't a plan; we | should really be investing in nuclear _and_ storage in | case one of those two don 't pan out. | | Even today, there are some interesting Small Modular | Reactor (SMRs) which allow nuclear plants to be built | more quickly, safely, compactly, and efficiently than | traditional nuclear plants. We should build some of these | and iterate on them while simultaneously investing in | solving the storage problem. | cesarb wrote: | > but we still don't have any scalable technology for | storing weeks worth of energy | | Why would we need to store _weeks_ worth of energy? | Wouldn 't a more realistic amount be just a couple of | days, or even less? | throwaway894345 wrote: | You have to account for increasingly frequent continent- | scale weather patterns which can last for weeks in | extreme cases. "Weeks" is a figure I heard a few times in | the media, but even "days" is a herculean task | considering we're presently at "minutes" or worse. Note | also that part of solving for emissions means | "electrifying more applications" which means it's not | sufficient to store days or weeks of _today 's energy | demands_, but rather days or weeks of _future energy | demands_ which will be much higher (e.g., today our | entire transport industry isn 't electrified--in the | future our grid will need to supply the energy to move | cars and trucks and trains which means the overall demand | is much larger and consequently we'll have greater | storage demands). | dtech wrote: | > Overall if we just look at Germany it wouldn't even | matter, the nation is too small | | Every nation is saying this, including US pointing to | China. China is then saying they use less per capita and | started producing CO2 decades after western nations. | | Congratulations, we're not doing anything collectively. | I'm sure that'll excuse us to the inhabitants of earth in | 50-100 years. | adventured wrote: | It doesn't matter what China says, what rationalizations | are used. What matters is the total emissions output and | the direction. | | China's emissions are skyrocketing, while already being | drastically greater than the US or EU. While the US and | EU emissions have been declining gradually. | | If you have 1.4 billion people, you don't get to have the | same (high) per capita emissions output as a nation 1/4 | your population size. The world didn't force China to | have 1.4b people, it's their responsibility. The fair | target isn't parity per capita with the US, it's China | being allowed to have no more than 1/4 the per capita | emissions of the US. And that's still a terrible number, | the US is the drop dead line for where we don't want | other large countries going beyond. The problem is China | is already double that and heading a lot higher yet. | | We don't have to urgently care if Estonia were to have | the highest per capita output of emissions, they can't | destroy the planet with their emissions no matter what | they do. China can due to their population. It would be a | different context if China's emissions were declining. | | With regards to China's CO2 emissions for example, how | much more dire can it get? | | https://i.imgur.com/B6W1S3q.jpg | soperj wrote: | US is the richest nation on earth and is more responsible | for the current problem than any other nation on earth. | They have the means to reduce their emissions drastically | but choose not to. | throwaway894345 wrote: | The US should absolutely do more to reduce its emissions, | but the actions or inaction of one country doesn't impugn | or absolve others. Otherwise any country can and will | point to some other country and use some contrived | rationale like yours to justify inaction. At the end of | the day, we need all countries to meet their emissions | targets, otherwise we'll just be pointing fingers at each | other while society crumbles around us. | soperj wrote: | US is one of the main countries trying to justify | inaction. They've still cumulatively contributed nearly | double the amount of Co2 to the atmosphere as China. | throwaway894345 wrote: | This is silly. The US isn't trying to justify inaction, | and cumulative contributions isn't useful for anything. | Of course the United States' total emissions are higher-- | it industrialized nearly a century before China, long | before climate science existed or before technology | existed anywhere to reduce emissions. | | The relevant metric is the rate of change of emission-- | are we putting more or less carbon into the atmosphere | year over year, and by how much? China is continuing to | increase its emissions year over year, while the US | emissions are falling (though not quickly enough). | | Another interesting metric is the _consumptive_ emissions | --how much emissions are generated from trade (e.g., when | an American buys something produced in China, the carbon | involved in manufacturing that item is emitted in China, | but the American benefits from the pollution as well). I | actually expected the US to have much higher consumptive | emissions relative to China, but it looks like the | consumptive emissions pretty closely track the productive | emissions while being just a bit higher at 5.77 billion t | /yr (falling gradually since 2005), while China's are at | 9.86 billion t/yr and climbing. | | On the note of _consumptive_ emissions, the United States | should not only implement its own carbon pricing scheme, | but it (along with other rich countries) should also | implement a border adjustment so countries like China don | 't enjoy unfair competitive advantages because they | pollute. This would incentivize China to reduce its Co2 | or suffer heavy economic losses. It would also increase | manufacturing in countries that are more responsible. | | That said, to your point, the Democratic Party pays lip | service to environmental concerns (the current $3.5 T | budget bill is making expensive token gestures to the | environment which will cost polluters virtually nothing) | and the Republican Party isn't even doing that. So yes, | America has a lot of room for improvement (but at least | America isn't arguing that we should be allowed to | increase our emissions, contrary to Chinese arguments). | soperj wrote: | >The US isn't trying to justify inaction | | You guys just signed the Paris Agreement this year. | | >cumulative contributions isn't useful for anything | | It's the reason we're in the predicament we're in. | | >long before climate science existed or before technology | existed anywhere to reduce emissions. | | You've known about it since the 80s. You haven't reduced | emissions since then. Technology has existed for a long | time to reduce emissions. | karaterobot wrote: | Which elements of nuclear are externalized? | goodpoint wrote: | The environmental and economical cost of excavation. | | Also the environmental and economical cost and waste | management. | throwaway894345 wrote: | The environmental cost of excavation is externalized, but | it's negligible compared to that of fossil fuels | ("economical cost" is nonsense), but the environmental | cost of managing waste very much _isn 't_ externalized. | At least not in the West (less sure about China, but I'm | guessing they do roughly what we do). | scythe wrote: | >Nuclear power is too expensive | | Nuclear plant _construction_ is too expensive, sure. | Running _existing_ nuclear plants instead of shutting them | down before EoL is not too expensive. What we are talking | about in Germany is the latter. | | https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind- | ge... | throwaway894345 wrote: | Also, from my sibling comment[0]: | | > Even today, there are some interesting Small Modular | Reactor (SMRs) which allow nuclear plants to be built | more quickly, safely, compactly, and efficiently than | traditional nuclear plants. We should build some of these | and iterate on them while simultaneously investing in | solving the storage problem. | | [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28671870 | Arnt wrote: | Yes, probably. Closing many reactors has been decided and close | dates have been set, but so far few have been closed. And | there's enough other pipeline capacity, technically speaking, | except that the British probably disagree. But limited capacity | into Britain does not cause a global problem. | vorpalhex wrote: | Putting diplomatic pressure to stop relying on Russian gas, | after Russia invaded a neighbor, is not sabotage. | teekert wrote: | I think it's more complicated than that, and if we're going | to call nations on "invading other countries", or meddling in | countries internal affairs, we would not be going for US LNG | either. | | Edit: And I think the EU is capable of putting pressure on | Russia by itself, as they/we did. The US pressure is purely | self serving and for their own economic wins. Which is fine I | guess, I just would like it if we were not so sensitive to it | here in the EU. It would save us citizens a lot of money | right now. | | Edit 2: the Russians would like it too: | https://www.rt.com/business/476844-eu-russia-us-sanctions/ | farmerstan wrote: | Exporting natural gas is extremely difficult so the US | isn't profiting from it economically. That's why natural | gas is distributed via pipelines. Sending canisters of | natural gas back and forth isn't efficient. | teekert wrote: | It depends on your goals, maybe the goals are political | (and very long term economical), not economic (in the | short term). | | Many wars turned out to not be economic in the short | term, but one can argue that the US has benefited from | the rubblization of the middle east (like the shenanigans | pulled in Iran among others, as described in "confessions | of an Economic Hitman.") | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | Hrm. Hr. Hm. Why do they say so differently then? | | https://www.lngfacts.org/ | true_religion wrote: | The US is the ally of most of Western Europe (this is | important because when the US invades a country, it does so | with the help or at least foreknowledge of its allies)... | Russia is a neighbor at best. | | However, if the US invaded Italy with little warning and | took over Florence because it felt it needed warm water | port in Europe, or access to a better wine supply then | Western Europe would rightly panic and wonder how they can | disentangle themselves from US influence. | | The reason the US is allowed so much influence in the first | place is because its stays out of territorial disputes in | Europe---heck even if one occurs, it historically drags its | feet for years. | kongin wrote: | If the US invaded Panama to secure it's warm water ... | | Oh wait. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | .... That's the whole point the USA doesn't invade it's | European allies. | Ekaros wrote: | But it has allied itself with those who did. And then did | not fight to liberate them... | anticodon wrote: | USA invaded Europe during WWII and never left. I still | consider Italy and Germany occupied countries. They are | not independent, they're occupied for 76 years. | | Why and how US will invade its colonies? Italy and | Germany cannot resist any decision made by US. They have | US military bases on their soil and their own army is | deliberately made smaller and weaker than personnel of US | military bases. | onepointsixC wrote: | Why are you leaving out the context that the principal | defense alliance is _with_ America specifically in defense | against Russia? Furthermore, it 's not just US pressure, | much of Eastern Europe has been pushing against the NS2. | Claiming that the US is acting purely in self serving | motives is wildly disingenuous. | bumbada wrote: | >Why are you leaving out the context that the principal | defense alliance is with America specifically in defense | against Russia? | | Specifically against the Soviet Union, a communistic | totalitarian regime that does not exist anymore. | | Specifically it never included Ukraine as member, and | specifically the US promised that NATO will never expand | to more than the original members. | | The only countries in Europe that are against the NS2 are | those that have already pipelines or interests and are | economically harmed by more competence. | | >Claiming that the US is acting purely in self serving | motives is wildly disingenuous. | | Claiming that the US is acting purely in self serving | motives is telling the truth. The US can mind its own | business. | sergeykish wrote: | Specifically Russian Federation has invaded Ukraine. | | Specifically after signing Budapest Memorandum (Ukraine's | nuclear disarming). | | Specifically after signing Russian-Ukrainian Friendship | Treaty. | | Specifically without even admitting invasion! | | This totally invalidates all the claims regarding NATO. | That's defense alliance, everyone who has missed | opportunity to join is a total fool. | | Russian Federation is autocratic regime, just look at the | last "elections". | | East Europe countries were under USSR occupation for 40 | years. Poland is going to switch to LNG to break | dependency on RF gas. | anticodon wrote: | Specifically after Ukraine attempted to join NATO since | 1991. | | Specifically after Ukraine made speaking Russian illegal | and started treating Russian speaking population as | second class citizens. | | Specifically after Ukraine made plans to give Crimea to | US to build a US military base. | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/25/basic-notes-on- | victo... | | ctrl-f color revolutions | kongin wrote: | Because no one could be bothered closing NATO after 1993 | when the USSR stopped existing? | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | You know? It's not like the already existing pipelines | into those countries are made obsolete by NS2. It just | robs them of some...let's say 'leverage' or even | extortion. If they don't like the pipelines they can buy | LNG on the world market from whomever? | | Where is the problem with that? Cry me a river! | unethical_ban wrote: | Yes. That's the point. I don't even think it's a hidden | thing, or something to be "diplomatic" about. The issue | with NS2 that I have heard, explicitly states that it | reduces the amount of geopolitical strength Poland and | Ukraine have against Russia, while increasing the | leverage Russia has against them and the rest of Europe. | | Russia is openly an economic adversary of Europe and the | United States, and is openly hostile to several countries | in the east. Germany "went it alone", as far as I know, | in order to get better prices. | | My understanding of this topic is limited, so I admit my | ignorance here. It simply doesn't make sense to give | geopolitical strength to a rival by handicapping your | nearer neighbors. | onepointsixC wrote: | Having the transit pipelines going through Eastern Europe | meant that Russia cannot sell to their most lucrative | customer, Germany, while not selling to Eastern Europe. | Isn't it a peculiar coincidence that the moment the US | withdrew their opposition to NS2, Russia has supply | issues? With NS2 up and running they'll sell just enough | to Germany to put pressure on the Baltic states, Ukraine, | and Poland. | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | Russia has no supply issues. Gazprom is providing | infrastructure, and other suppliers pump it empty like | mad. Another one called Uniper, the largest AFAIK was at | 77% full about 2 weeks ago. Hoarded. If you were Gazprom, | and so far delivered according to contract, and even | more, would you still deliver more to the conditions of | those contracts, just so that other leeches can suck it | out, and get rich quick on a crazy market? Why? | throwaway894345 wrote: | Who are the countries which haven't invaded other | countries? As sordid as the Iraq war was, it seems strictly | better to to topple an oppressive dictator than to go | around annexing territories (or assassinating dissidents in | EU countries, or installing dictators in foreign countries, | or meddling in foreign elections, or jailing rival | politicians in your own country, or so on). I think | comparing countries' sins is pretty fruitless in general, | but I hope we can agree that whatever criticism you may | have for the US, Putin's Russia is on another level. | raxxorrax wrote: | The Russians could make the same argument of the US | meddling in Ukraine, before Crimea happened. Nato denies | it, but from their perspective it can make sense. Perhaps | they only perceived it that way when the US got involved | in the Maidan protests. That said, wrong perception is | sometimes an excuse. | throwaway894345 wrote: | What kind of meddling did the US do that is on the same | level as a full-scale invasion? Moreover, while it's | flat-out ridiculous to argue that the US and Russia are | in the same ballpark in terms of harm to Europe (or | anyone else), we don't need to fixate on this comparison | as though there is a dichotomy. | raxxorrax wrote: | You don't have to compare the steps they took, you have | to think about what the US would do if Russia gets | involved in elections in Mexico or Canada. | scythe wrote: | Why go as far as Mexico? Russia has influenced, and | continues to influence, elections in the United States. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Why? The US doesn't get involved in European elections | (so your hypothetical doesn't even make sense), but | that's besides the point. What does the US have to do | with whether or not Europe gets its energy from Russia? | Europe doesn't have to choose to put its energy supply in | the hands of Russia or US, there are other suppliers and | diversification is a really good alternative. | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | They don't need to, because they have the | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantik-Br%C3%BCcke and | other similary undemocratic institutions influencing the | shit out of anything via side-channel attacks. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I skimmed your link, but I didn't see anything damning or | undemocratic. Where are the Lukashenko-esque dictators | that the US installed in Europe? Which dissidents have | the US assassinated on EU soil? | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | Are you dumb, or what? I've written they don't need to | because they have other means, which at the end of the | day amounts to 'the same shit, but different' for the | influenced vasall states. | throwaway894345 wrote: | You wrote: | | > They don't need to, because they have the | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantik-Br%C3%BCcke and | other similary undemocratic institutions influencing the | shit out of anything via side-channel attacks. | | Which _clearly says_ that the US has "undemocratic | institutions" influencing Europe, but the link doesn't | support the idea that the A-B is antidemocratic (there's | nothing inherently "antidemocratic" about fostering | international partnership and cooperation). | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | Look...I may be naive, but if you have institutions which | push policies, empower candidates beyond the scenes, via | whichever circles, then this is undemocratic, or | otherwise called 'framing', 'setting the goal posts' to | 'game' the rules into your favour. Or cheating, or fraud, | or whatever. Which means candidates prepared that way, | and then presented as the only option(s) to give the | deceived masses the illusion of choice is simply a lie. | | edit: Of course this is not exclusive to the US, let's | just say they lead the market of political BS, k? | throwaway894345 wrote: | > if you have institutions which push policies, empower | candidates beyond the scenes | | There's nothing in your article that suggested that the | organization in question was some sort of propaganda arm | of the US government, and there's nothing undemocratic | about advocating for one's interests. You might not agree | with the advocacy, but "democracy" doesn't demand | agreement. | | > Of course this is not exclusive to the US, let's just | say they lead the market of political BS, k? | | I don't buy this at all. There are nations with actual | propaganda departments, state-run censorship, bot nets, | etc who actually directly attempt to influence elections. | | Like all other countries, the US _does_ advocate for its | own interests abroad--this is called "diplomacy" and | it's generally the least-bad kind of advocacy. However, | unlike other countries, the US does possess a lot of | clout (the world depends on America in large part for | security and prosperity, however loath we are to admit | that America or Americans serve a useful purpose). | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | By the great gods of Gonzo! | | I'm not here to spoon feed, mentor, or lecture you on | every single point you question. Furthermore it would be | disrespectful to disturb your blissful ignorance. | | Dream in peace. | unethical_ban wrote: | Literally every single political institution in the | world, from sports clubs to town councils to national | governments, have back channels and organizations that | promote agendas. It is the means by which those agendas | get put through governments that make something | legitimate or not. | | But we're going down a rabbit hole. The point is that | Russia now has more economic leverage over eastern | Europe, and for what? | sergeykish wrote: | Show me US invasion forces in Ukraine. | | Democracy support is not meddling. RF has done a lot of | harm to Ukraine even before 2014. Euromaidan was a | response against RF puppet Yanukovych. RF has used gas | prices to influence election results. Leonid Kuchma who | has built oligarchy regime elected with the help of | Kremlin. His opponent, Viacheslav Chornovil, was killed. | | It is mafia. And in RF mafia has got its own state. | teekert wrote: | Just read this book [0], sure the Chinese are doing it | too now, they read the book, the EU as well probably. | | I think it would be good to have good relations with | Russia, "where goods cross borders, armies do not." | | There are probably a lot of nice people living in Russia, | and I bet they love their children too. | | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Econ | omic_Hit... | raxxorrax wrote: | We had a far better relation to Russia in the early 21st | century and a lot of stability with that. Somehow that | got blown up without any discernible reason from my | perspective. | yurish wrote: | The reasons are quite obvious I think. Expansion of NATO | to the east and western supported color | revolutions/arabian springs after which those who rule | Russia started to understand that it is not enough to | possess nukes and be safe because you can be overthrown | from inside. | anticodon wrote: | _As sordid as the Iraq war was, it seems strictly better | to to topple an oppressive dictator_ | | I think that 600,000 Iraqis killed in that war (lower | bound) would have different opinion. | | Besides, does population of Iraq live better now? I | seriously doubt that. | Tomte wrote: | Germany does not rely on Russian gas. It's even building | expensive infrastructure for American liquified gas. | | Germany simply wants to have both options. America doesn't | want that, because in "good times" Russian gas is much | cheaper. | akmarinov wrote: | Yeah, it "only" imports 40% of its gas from Russia. 29% | from the Netherlands, 21% from Norway. | | The US doesn't even register, so it's lumped in with | "others". | Tomte wrote: | So what? It can start buying American gas within what? | Weeks? | | All the infrastructure for the ships and further | distribution is being built right now. | | Anerica is under "others", because it's too expensive. | thinkcontext wrote: | There isn't enough LNG import capacity at present to | replace Russian pipeline exports. There are quite a few | slated to be built but these projects take a long time to | get built. | | Also, even if there was sufficient capacity to import an | equal volume of LNG there's still the problem of | distributing it. Pipelines and other infrastructure have | to be built to take care of new chokepoints. | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | Isn't there? If I look at the not up to date maps from | https://www.gie.eu/publications/maps/ there is since | years. | | We can import gas which is delivered as CLNG via | Rotterdam, Zeebrugge, maybe even Dunkerque. The | infrastructure is there since years, and has enough | capacity. What is happening at the moment is just caused | by speculation, hoarders, and politics. | | All this crying is from the uninformed, multiplied by the | presstitutes. | oezi wrote: | 29% gas from netherlands is Liquified Gas, which might as | well be from the US or Qatar. | WastingMyTime89 wrote: | > Putting diplomatic pressure to stop relying on Russian gas | | Economic sanctions and legal threats towards executives of | any companies working on the project go a bit further than | diplomatic pressure. It's probably the closest things to an | act of war you can do without doing one. | | Interfering in the international dealing of a foreign country | can definitely be seen as sabotage. I personally stoped | viewing the USA as an ally of the EU after this intervention. | But to be fair I already had serious doubt after they | crippled our diplomatic efforts in Iran. | mistrial9 wrote: | reminds one of Napolean | tablespoon wrote: | > [0]: https://freewestmedia.com/2020/07/06/us-intensifies- | pressure... | | Might want to be careful with that source. It looks like it's | run by a "Swedish nationalist politician" | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1vra_Suk) and appears to | be running stories based on the Russian government-owned TASS | newswire (e.g. https://freewestmedia.com/2021/09/24/unionists- | rise-up-again...). | | Also this article shows a pretty bizarre misunderstanding to | push an Ivermectin angle: | | https://freewestmedia.com/2021/09/26/french-doctor-violently... | | > The Associated Press has meanwhile tried to claim that the | doctor was not arrested for prescribing Ivermectin and that | this was "fake news" but patients treated by the physician | confirmed that Theron had been prescribing the alternative | life-saving treatment. | | The AP article says he was arrested for assault, after throwing | things at someone who was delivering documents to him about an | investigation into problems with his medical practice. "Free | West Media" seems to be trying to imply his Ivermectin | prescriptions are proof he was arrested for doing that, but | that doesn't follow _at all_. The Ivermectin prescriptions and | assault seem like they 'd be legally independent events, and | it's quite plausible he'd never have been arrested if he hadn't | been so unreasonable as to throw things at people. | | Also, here are some of their most recent editorials: | | The Covid Lie grows like Pinocchio's nose | (https://freewestmedia.com/2021/09/27/the-covid-lie-grows- | lik...) | | Vetting Afghan immigrants for a religious comorbidity (Islam) | (https://freewestmedia.com/2021/09/23/vetting-afghan- | immigran...) | | Terrorists in Daraa, Syria hoarding large amounts of cash | (https://freewestmedia.com/2021/09/16/terrorists-in-daraa- | syr...) | | Daraa appears to be city that was recently captured by the | Syrian government from the rebels. Calling the rebels | "terrorists" seems to indicate a strong pro-Assad orientation. | makomk wrote: | Probably, but maybe not now. Russia has plenty of pipeline | capacity to export gas that they could be using but have | decided not to, and the general consensus seems to be that | they're likely doing this to put pressure on Europe to approve | Nord Stream 2. The thing is, they have a history of using their | gas supplies as a political weapon, so if it wasn't this... | | Nord Stream 2 and the cementing of European dependence on | Russian gas it represents seems like a terrible idea | geopolitically. The thing is, the more powerful European | countries like Germany which pushed for it didn't think they'd | be the ones it'd hurt. | Sideyon wrote: | But Russia actually increased its natural gas exports in 2021 | by quite a lot [1] | | [1] http://www.gazpromexport.ru/en/presscenter/news/2543/ | Iwan-Zotow wrote: | > they could be using but have decided not to | | This magical euro-thinking just boggles my mind. Do you | really think if some euro-fokks somewhere in Straussburg make | a wish for cheap NG, billions of cubic meter, then gas should | immediately appears and be available for a penny per cm? | Really? | makomk wrote: | Well, if the gas doesn't exist and can't be produced in the | first place then it hardly matters whether Nord Stream 2 is | up and running does it? The only reason the non-operation | of Nord Stream 2 would matter is if Russia had gas | available but was constrained in getting it to Europe by | pipeline capacity, which they're not - there's an unusual | amount of capacity just going unused. Yet they've been | dropping not-so-subtle hints that the problem would just go | away if Europe approved Nord Stream 2. The only way for | that to work is if Russia could sell Europe gas but | intentionally chose not to for geopolitical leverage | reasons. | Iwan-Zotow wrote: | > Well, if the gas doesn't exist and can't be produced in | the first place | | It does exist and could be produced. But it requires | discussions, contract(s), signatures, obligations, CAPEX | (and quite a lot of it), bank loans, development in the | field etc. | | Not a magic wish by someone. | | Right now Gazprom is quite busy filling up storage in the | Russia in preparation for the winter. | | > "the problem would just go away if Europe approved Nord | Stream 2" | | Really? Care to provide Putin/Miller statements? | | Export plan is already known and published. And problem | won't go away, they are much more serious that this bs | about gazprom and Russia | r00fus wrote: | It's not magical thinking if you see hidden agendas and | corruption as the root-cause of the mis-planning. | | Gray's law applies to political corruption: | http://wikidumper.blogspot.com/2007/07/greys-law.html | jeltz wrote: | No, but German could just have not shut down their nuclear | power plants. | bildung wrote: | _> Nord Stream 2 and the cementing of European dependence on | Russian gas it represents seems like a terrible idea | geopolitically._ | | Why? Central Europe isn't _that_ dependent on that gas, | because Russia isn 't the only source. OTOH Russia now has an | incentive to keep the gas and thus the Euros flowing. | kwhitefoot wrote: | Part of the problem in the UK is limited gas storage capacity. | Another problem is the slow adoption of wind and solar | generally. A third is the slow pace of construction of | interconnects between the various national grids. The arguments | about solar not being available at night and the wind not | always blowing would be mitigated if we could more easily | transport energy to where it is needed. | | The crisis, if it really is one, is mostly caused by blinkered | politicians and short term business thinking. | | But you are right in a sense; Russia is just making it clear | that they can turn off, or change the price of, the gas supply | whenever they feel like it which makes the idea of being even | more reliant on it rather scary to me. | CountDrewku wrote: | How would solar ever be a good option in the UK? | pornel wrote: | Plants use solar, and it's pretty green here ;) | | Annual average kWh/m^2 in the UK ranges from 50%-75% of | what you'd get in Spain or Italy. That's enough even for | domestic solar panels to pay for themselves. | emptysongglass wrote: | I'm happy about this. The EU wants to have its cake and eat it | too by making trade deals both with the US and some really | terrible regimes. One of Merkel's final desperate acts on her | way out was to try and push through a mega trade deal with | China which was thankfully shot down by other EU members over | Xinjiang. My own country, Denmark, gleefully agreed to push | Nord Stream 2 pipe through its waters. | | The EU may commit the fewest atrocities but they sure do love | putting money in the coffers of those who commit them. | | Here's what we can try doing instead: build more nuclear | reactors, stop funding our democratic oases by throwing money | at autocratic regimes, and stop pissing in each other's milk so | we can become a real global power that doesn't have to kowtow | to the awful to make ends meet. | cyberpunk wrote: | So you don't own any electronics with Chinese components | then? Nothing is as black and white as this.. | emptysongglass wrote: | Of course I do. But making deals with autocratic regimes is | not the way forward for the EU, at least not if we hope to | practice the democracy we preach. | tda wrote: | Even with the recent rise in prices, energy prices are still way | to low to actually influence choices most people make. Trains are | still more expensive than car travel by car, flying is still | cheaper than rail, I still don't know how much I pas to heat my | house because it is negligible compared to what I spend on other | things.... | | Energy is so important, yet so cheap. I still hear people flying | in for a two hour business meeting, or commuting by car tens of | kilometers. Only when that ceases to be economically viable we | should call the price high. Until then, I'm happy it finally | makes economical sense to reduce CO2 output. | phkahler wrote: | >> Energy is so important, yet so cheap. | | If you want a good economy you have to make the inputs flow | unimpeded. People need food, and everything else runs on | energy. It has to be a commodity. | jtbayly wrote: | It is in part the push to reduce CO2 that has caused these | prices to rise. The obvious solution is to _increase_ CO2 | production (ie burn more coal and oil) to get the price back | down. That 's the opposite of it making "economical sense to | reduce CO2 output." | fsslrisrchr wrote: | Let me guess, | | You work from home and/or you make much more than an average | person your age. Maybe you're a programmer. | | Ok let's make energy more expensive. I think it's only fair | that the pain is distributed equitably, so let's put a $0.1/Gb | tax on bandwidth [1], the cloud being one of the largest | growing emitters of CO2. | | Frankly, I liked the 90s low bandwidth internet more than | today's, everything valuable we can do today the 90s had enough | bandwidth for. Everything that is unhealthy about the internet | today typically takes bandwidth. So, I think $0.1/Gb is not | enough. | | Do you agree? | | [1] $0.1/Gb for data flowing to the end user and $0.2/Gb for | data crossing country borders. So the cloud folks don't syphon | off all the personal data of my citizens. | | [EDIT] I think only unethical_ban understood the point of this | post. That's it's easy to propose a tax for the poor for their | poor behavior. Tax yourself first! I disagree with | unethical_ban that it's a bad example - its purposely a glib | and capricious indirect carbon tax. | swsieber wrote: | That makes no sense to me. I would think you'd impose a | carbon tax or something and let the consumer prices sort | themselves out. | pkaye wrote: | Why not tax Cloud providers instead? The compute part is what | takes the most power. And maybe exclude those who use green | energy sources. | Karrot_Kream wrote: | Thanks for making this so concise. It's always easy to look | at something and say "well these people are _weak_, because I | can do without it, so I'm ready to tax/punish this behavior". | It's true that society right now has lots of profligate | energy waste, but without a path to transition out of this | wasteful energy regime, the rise in prices will affect the | most vulnerable in society. | | Sadly, historically, when society was undergoing large | changes, such as industrialization and urbanization, | marginalized peoples were never really considered. We can't | have fear of change hold back our progress, but we do need to | be careful to offer marginalized peoples ways to ease | transition into lower-energy regimes. | | Aside: I didn't even register the sarcasm in this post when I | first wrote it :D | paulsutter wrote: | Much more direct to put a carbon tax on the energy used to | power the datacenters. Some datacenters are on hydro power, | and some are on coal. Penalize the coal | | Charging for bandwidth doesn't align incentives to solve the | problem | tombert wrote: | I agree, it seems like an energy tax would be more directly | addressing the environmental impact, and the cloud services | would in turn be forced to raise their prices to a | something more accurately reflecting the cost of cleanup. | tomp wrote: | This is the reason why people hate "green solutions". | | You blame the cloud but you want to tax bandwidth. As if I | can't upload a tiny bit of code that uses tons of compute. | And again to "protect privacy" - as if exporting personal | data takes a non-negligible amount of traffic compared to | Netflix/BitTorrent. | | The only way that taxing externalities makes sense, is taxing | at the source. If cloud "takes too much energy" then tax | energy! And make it revenue neutral otherwise you're just | incentivising the government to increase taxes and waste even | more money/resources. | iso1210 wrote: | Yup, tax carbon use of energy on the way into the data | centre, let microsoft, google, amazon etc work out how they | want to charge it. | | Data centers in say south island new zealand powered by | hydro will have near-zero carbon cost and thus be cheaper | | The biggest issue with a carbon tax and data centre usage | is how to charge tax on the 'import' of services. | robocat wrote: | > Data centers in say south island new zealand powered by | hydro will have near-zero carbon cost | | This is an incorrect mental model that is unfortunately | repeated by so many people. | | All1 of the NZ hydro power is currently used by | consumers. | | If we add some extra load, then the marginal increase in | kWh is 100% generated by gas (or maybe even coal at | Huntley). | | The same problem occurs when you buy "green" energy: | unless you are careful to ensure your purchase creates | new green generation, then it is just greenwashing | (fooling oneself). This is a significant problem with CO2 | credits (not saying you shouldn't try, but don't be | surprised that CO2 production remains the same even if | you try to offset). | | 1 There may be short periods when the lakes are full, and | water is spilled instead of being used for electricity | generation, but that certainly isn't common. | heisenzombie wrote: | You're not wrong. | | Perhaps the most charitable interpretation given they | specify the South Island is they're assuming that we | would displace the energy use of the Tiwai Point | aluminium smelter. Given that's about 13% of our total | energy use, is powered by hydro dams without the grid | capacity to transport to population centres, and run by | Rio Tinto who keep threatening to throw their toys and go | home... | | (Of course, the other option would be to build the bloody | grid capacity to get energy to where we need it, but | that's a different story I guess.) | tombert wrote: | > Ok let's make energy more expensive. I think it's only fair | that the pain is distributed equitably, so let's put a | $0.1/Gb tax on bandwidth [1], the cloud being one of the | largest growing emitters of CO2. | | Even if I grant that, I suspect if you're working from home | and not business traveling, it's still a net negative of CO2 | being emitted. I would think that nearly everything that the | "cloud" replaces cost more in CO2 than the "cloud" itself. | | But I realize that your point is that it's easy to come up | with arbitrary taxes that hurt the poor, and that's a | reasonable criticism, but I don't think that that implies | that we shouldn't do _any_ kind of externallity tax on | carbon. Instead, we could use tax incentives to give a rebate | to disproportionately affected poor people for gas, or we | could use the extra revenue from the taxes to give rebates | for electric cars. | | I'm not claiming this is a perfect system, and there will | definitely be people who slip through the cracks, and that | sucks, but the cost of not doing enough about climate change | is substantially worse. | unethical_ban wrote: | Well, energy prices rising would affect cloud providers and | their costs, which would be passed on to their clients, which | would be passed on to the end user eventually. | | You tried to make a point, but your example failed. | | I see what you're saying: The parent is being glib in your | case, not realizing that a blanket increase on energy prices | would hit the working class much harder than those with the | privilege of staying home or making more money. | lostlogin wrote: | > the cloud being one of the largest growing emitters of CO2. | | I'm sure it is, but this misses the point. If someone can | work from home or have a conference call rather than travel | for a meeting, the emissions savings are huge. | | However liking a video and clicking an advert generated by a | algorithm that tracked habits... | hbrav wrote: | > I'm happy it finally makes economical sense to reduce CO2 | output. | | I'd be happy with this too. What concerns me is that some | people will look at this and say "It makes economical sense to | burn more coal". | rafale wrote: | It wouldn't make more economical sense if we taxed the | externalities. Right now, the coal plants are "using" (read | destroying) resources (air, water, ...) for free. A tax | should price in the cost of that harm in a way that make | green alternatives more competitive. | The_Double wrote: | A part of why gas prices are so high right now in the EU, | is because of ETS (emission trading scheme) prices. EU | industry has to buy CO2 emission rights, and the prices are | at an all time high right now, causing coal plants to stop | production. If the high gas prices cause more production | from the coal plants, this will push the prices up even | more. | toomuchtodo wrote: | I disagree. You must enact a ban with a firm deadline, | otherwise you end up in cryptoland where you're using | country-level amounts of energy because someone, somewhere | is willing to burn up fiat on it. This is of course | expected in late stage capitalism where trillions of | dollars are chasing returns, physical realm consequences be | damned. | | Countries are already enacting deadlines for banning | combustion vehicle sales [1], it is straightforward to | enact fossil combustion electrical generation bans in | similar fashion. The communicates to the market to no | longer fund or implement combustion generation facilities, | and investment will flow away from existing facilities | towards renewables and energy storage (whether that's | batteries, green hydrogen and/or ammonia, pumped hydro | storage, etc). Most new generation is already renewables | (due to cost, see Lazard's LCOE [2]) [3] [4] [5], what I | discuss in this comment rapidly pulls forward fossil | generation retirement (from 2030-2050 to something more | reasonable, such as no latter than 2030). | | In short, outlaw fossil combustion, and investment will | flow into clean alternatives. The planet doesn't care about | your fiat and economic system. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase- | out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic... | | [2] https://www.lazard.com/media/451419/lazards-levelized- | cost-o... | | [3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48896 | | [4] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46416 | | [5] https://www.irena.org/newsroom/pressreleases/2021/Apr/W | orld-... | epistasis wrote: | You are correct, gentle supply and demand will operate | too slowly to correct the market. | | A huge problem with the current market is that it's not | very free, entrance is too difficult for new players, and | the entrenched players have excessive political power | through regulatory capture. There are far too many | players with massive amounts of assets that would be | stranded and devalued, if they were allowed to be exposed | to competition. | | But even if there were a more free market, the speed of | capital on these sorts of scales is very slow. So even | though it may be more economically efficient to abandon a | bunch of bad coal plants and do massive deployments of | new technology, the amount of capital necessary makes it | difficult to make the transition at the economically most | cost effective pace. | | Look at all the coal plants that burn coal, despite | losing money at it. | | https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news- | insights... | bojangleslover wrote: | But nobody can quantify the cost of those externalities | hbrav wrote: | It's not an easy task, but you can certainly try. For | example: | https://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publication/the- | econ... | hbrav wrote: | Oh I 100% agree with you. | | But imagine you're the government of a country that is | struggling to provide heating over the winter. It would be | very tempting to think "Hmm, we could recommission that | coal power plant..." | candiodari wrote: | Whereas people here are suggesting "only 1000 people will | die if we don't. That'll save MORE carbon too!" | | It is not reasonable to seriously cut energy usage. It | will make the lives of the poor unliveable. Also any | meaningful decrease will make 90% of people's lives | unliveable. | | No, we clearly need innovation to make this happen, not | force. You cannot expect people to make these sorts of | sacrifices, it's not going to happen. | estaseuropano wrote: | While I fully agree on substance the market mechanisms mean | that if oil and gas are pricey all prices go up. So in a | country like Spain or Romania they are already seeing a risk of | 'energy poverty' for winter heating. Not to mention all the far | more numerous poor people who won't be able to go to work, | drive the bus that earns their living, etc. | mrfusion wrote: | Yay poverty? | choeger wrote: | Think again. These rails you seem to favor need energy to be | built: Steel needs to be made, a track has to be cleared, | machines need to operate, workers need to get to the | construction site and so on and so forth. | | Unless you propose to decide top-down which projects deserve | cheap energy and which don't, you cannot avoid the fact that | building roads and allowing car ownership is under certain | circumstances more economical than building lots of railroads. | | On top of that, imagine how commuting 10km by train vs. car | work out: By car it's a 10min ride, assuming no congestion. | Whereas the door-to-door train trip will take the better part | of an hour. | | There is a similar advantage for flying. Yes, kerosene is | comparatively cheap. But flying has an even more important | advantage over trains and that is flexibility. The network of | airports multiplies the number of potential connections whereas | train stations can only lead you along railroads. In a region | with fixed, medium-range traveling routes, say France or Japan, | the train wins, otherwise the plane is just more efficient. | Karrot_Kream wrote: | You're not making a coherent argument here. If you want to | get a holistic picture of what these systems actually cost, | it comes down to up-front investment vs ongoing costs. Rail | needs to pay high costs initially in purchasing cars, | acquiring land, and laying down track, but from there it just | becomes about maintenance costs. When it comes to roads, it's | usually a smaller one-time cost to acquire land and lay down | road, then ongoing maintenance on the road itself (which is | worse than track wear-and-tear since there's more surface to | fix, hiring crews to come into the area is more complicated, | and because conditions of usage on a road aren't as tightly | controlled.) | | To make matters complicated in practice, gas in the US (since | that's where this argument makes sense) has long been | considered the holy grail of the economy, and gas taxes have | not been raised to account for inflation since 1990. Since | the 1980s, the US has politically favored cars and airplanes | over trains and buses. Roads are never expected to make a | profit, though most transit in the US is. Aviation has had | things like the Essential Air Service that offer subsidies | for rural air routes and carriers that serve rural airports, | whereas the closest thing that transit has to this is Amtrak | mandates to service cities; these are hamfisted mandates that | Congressmen stuff into spending bills to make their | constituents happy but don't actually create the kind of | healthy market you would need to offer quality service. | Moreover Amtrak track is often leased from freight carriers | _because_ America apportions less money to rail than it does | to roads and transit, so Amtrak trains often must yield and | wait for freight trains to go first. That and the fact that | externalities from emissions aren't accounted for mean any | alternatives to the plane and the car in the US are at a | heavy disadvantage. | jltsiren wrote: | If there is no congestion, there is no railway connection, | because the number of commuters is too low to support one. | | A 10 km commute by train typically takes 30-40 minutes door- | to-door. For driving, the normal time might be 20-30 minutes, | but the variance is often much higher than by train. If | driving is consistently faster or slower than that, people | tend to switch between train and car or otherwise change | their commuting habits until congestion is back to "normal". | lumost wrote: | Energy is cheap in that most sources have low marginal cost and | high CapEx. Building energy capacity is largely an exercise of | capital formation and deployment. These capital expenditures | have fixed capacity, and lifetimes. If the capital formation | and deployment process breaks down for some reason, then there | will be an energy crises as demand outstrips supply. The cost | of energy in such a market is not the marginal cost of an extra | kWh but instead the marginal ability for energy purchasers | ability to pay which for many use cases is orders of magnitude | higher than the former number. | zthrowaway wrote: | You're unhappy people aren't forced to live like it's 1850? How | about we have alternative energy that can satisfy CO2 concerns | and provide the current standards of living we all enjoy first. | jacobolus wrote: | No, people are not unhappy that energy is cheap, but rather | that _externalities are not priced in_. The result is that | activities and goods that seem trivially cheap (so people | consume them far in excess of their needs without worrying | about the expense) turn out to have disastrous large-scale | consequences. | | Our economic system has no affordances for making choices | based on true costs - only sticker prices. When these are | systematically distorted, it causes a huge collective | problem. | thedrbrian wrote: | Can we price in the carbon cost of raising a child to the | age of 18? | | If we're going after all the fun stuff I don't want the | parents to get away scott free. | lostlogin wrote: | If items had the externalities priced in, the cost of | having a child would go up, but only in that outgoings | would increase. I suppose you could bill them based on | their CO2 and methane output. | imtringued wrote: | You can do that but it's not the parents that emit the | CO2. | greenonions wrote: | Future people will likely be carbon negative. | | Shall I give you my Venmo? | newt_slowly wrote: | Since you didn't go into detail, I'm going to guess that | you are referring to atmospheric CCS being widely | deployed in the future. Unfortunately CCS is not and will | not be practical. [1] [2] | | I can explain my critiques in more detail if you clarify | exactly what your argument is. | | [1] https://manuelgarciajr.com/2020/08/09/the- | improbability-of-c... [2] Comical, but fact-based take: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8 | [deleted] | tjader wrote: | We should price in the externality where it is caused. I | don't think raising a child emits any CO2 by itself. | | If we price in the emissions where they happen it will be | priced in for all consumers of the products that cause | them. | phdelightful wrote: | I want a small discount for sequestering carbon in my | child's body mass for several decades! | tshaddox wrote: | The average adult human contains what, like 30 pounds of | carbon? That's very little money according to the carbon | offset prices I have seen. | pzo wrote: | You have to account for: | | - all the meat and diary your child is going to consume | in those 18 years | | - all diapers that are going to be produced and disposed. | | - all methane and CO2 you child produced on an a daily | basis for those 18 years (exhaling, | digesting/pooping/farting) | | - concrete used for building this extra room for your | child | | ... | | just to name a few. | tjader wrote: | Not if the externality is priced in for each of those | products. | tombert wrote: | I don't think they're complaining that the prices are cheap | exactly, I think they're complaining that the prices are, in | a sense, inaccurate. | | No one here is saying we should all be Amish, but if gasoline | is $3 per gallon, but it costs $3 to remove the CO2 from the | atmosphere (making both these numbers up, I don't own a car), | then there's a good chance that the gas is effectively too | cheap, and the rest of us are going to have to pay to clean | it up later. If we taxed gas to be its _true_ price (cost of | extraction + refining + shipping + profit-margin + | environmental cleanup), it would help incentivize cleaner | fuels. | epistasis wrote: | And to quantify this a bit more, current costs for direct | air extraction and sequestration of CO2 are about $6/gallon | of gas. Climeworks is charging early customers $600/ton of | CO2 [1], and about 100 gallons of gas convert to a ton of | CO2. | | This sort of direct air capture will be absolutely | necessary in the second half of this century for all of our | current oaths to keep warming to 1.5C, according to the | IPCC SR1.5 report. And though many parts of the supply | chain of CO2 direct air capture might get cheaper with | time, the actual sequestration part might get harder and | more expensive with time. | | Chevron had promised to capture only a small amount of CO2 | as part of a LNG project in Australia, but is facing | massive fines because they didn't understand the geology | enough to actually sequester CO2. | | So while I'm fairly confident that we could eventually get | the tech for CO2 capture down to maybe $1/gallon of gas, | the actual sequestration is only going to get more | difficult with time. | | Every gallon of gas burned today makes 20 pounds of CO2 | that will need to be removed in the future we are burdening | future generations with an incredibly difficult debt that | we don't yet know how to pay down. | | [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22663597/largest- | direct-ai... | PeterisP wrote: | Hey, I've always had a question which perhaps you can | answer. | | In essence, we're still burning lots and lots of carbon | just to extract energy. Thermodynamics says to reverse | the process and get carbon from CO2 we need to put all | that energy back, with a hefty bonus due to | inefficiencies. | | So how can it be feasible to afford enough energy to | "unburn" a century's worth of burnt carbon if we can't | even get enough energy to avoid burning new carbon in the | first place? Like, our energy generation might double in | a few decades, but this "unburning" would require _so | much_ spare energy that it doesn 't seem likely to | achieve as soon as the second half of this century. | tombert wrote: | I could be wrong, but I think what you're referring to | would be to convert it back to _raw_ carbon. I believe | that "carbon capture" would be literally taking out the | raw CO2 and leaving it as-is, presumably holding it | underground or something, which I don't think would take | nearly that much energy. | PeterisP wrote: | The physics of storing equivalent weights of gas versus | solids - the volume and/or pressure containment required | - make it quite impractical to store meaningful amounts | (on the scale of billions of tons) of it as gas; the fact | that CO2 is just 28% carbon and 72% oxygen is comparably | a lesser issue but doesn't help as well. | | Perhaps you can avoid "unburning" it by some other | chemical process (which is why I was asking this) but | simply pumping the CO2 somewhere does not seem a | reasonable option, the only place on Earth that can | easily hold that much of CO2 gas is the general | atmosphere where it already resides. | epistasis wrote: | I agree that sequestering co2 gas is a losing game, and | that's why I think all the fossil fuel companies' plans | for CCS are pure bunk. | | Climeworks' proposal to pump it into basalt caverns, | where it chemically reacts and becomes solid, is one way | around that. | | Carbon Engineering is doing gas to liquids, and claims | that they need ~2.25 kWh of electricity to convert | atmospheric CO2 to 1 kWh worth of liquid hydrocarbons. We | will see. | | We will need gigatons/year of sequestration in 2050. It's | going to require a ton of innovation to get there. | abecedarius wrote: | Gasoline is high-energy-density using a high-power- | density portable quickly-starting/stopping engine. These | advantages can overcome the minuses in some applications. | (Fewer after the recent advances in batteries, etc.) | PeterisP wrote: | My question was more about the fact that we're still | burning extreme amounts of carbon _purely_ for energy, | not for density of energy or density of power or | portability of engines - we 're burning coal for | electricity, we're burning gas to heat homes. | | We'd need to pay back all that energy, but in the coming | decades we can't even afford the energy cost of the | relatively much simpler solution of "simply" not burning | bulk carbon for heat. | abecedarius wrote: | I don't think new coal plants are rational at all. | | Re gas heating, I sure could've used some just this past | winter during the Texas snowpocalypse. My apartment uses | electric power for heating/cooking, so electricity was a | single point of failure. Resiliency through diversity is | a point I missed above. | newt_slowly wrote: | > So how can it be feasible to afford enough energy to | "unburn" a century's worth of burnt carbon if we can't | even get enough energy to avoid burning new carbon in the | first place? | | It isn't, and it won't be. Carbon capture is a pleasing | myth we tell ourselves to avoid the massive and immediate | actions that would be necessary to avert catastrophe. | | We're addicted to fossil fuels, telling ourselves that | when we eventually sober up we can undo the damage we've | done to ourselves. | imtringued wrote: | Carbon capture will never lead to negative emissions. | What it will do is merely capture CO2 at central | locations for processes that have no alternative. | epistasis wrote: | I like the other answers you got, but will add one | observation. Once we get energy fro, non-carbon emitting | sources, it's possible to put energy into capture without | emitting more CO2 at the same time. So whether it takes | 0.5 kWh or 10 kWh to capture the amount of CO2 that | produced 1kWh for us originally, as long as it came from | renewable resources, we can largely do it. | PeterisP wrote: | My question is more about expectations of scale. If | currently renewable energy (not just electricity - | heating etc matters a lot) is something like 10% or 12% | of total energy; and we need to go to something of 300% | or even much more (to cover energy spent not on current | needs but solely to cover the "unburning" the excess of | previous century, "repaying the debt" much quicker than | we accumulated it), then that extreme growth of renewable | energy generation doesn't seem plausible to achieve in | the timeframe you suggest. | epistasis wrote: | It's been a while since I ran through the napkin math, | and I'm on mobile and can't pull up the backing links, | unfortunately, but I believe we are just barely on track | to replace all energy use with renewables in 15-20 years. | After which we should have spare production capacity, | assuming there is wind/solar close enough to the carbon | sequestration points. | | The gist is that if you look at the exponential curves of | growth of both wind and solar deployments, and assume | that we don't back off from those, you get X amount of | TWh/year in 2040. Combine that with conversion of heating | and transport to electrification, which provides huge | efficiency boosts and requires only 1/3 to 1/4 the energy | (most fossil fuel energy is just wasted). Then add in all | the parts of the developing world which will increase | their energy use to EU/China standards, and we are just | barely there. | | However I think we are likely to see big gains in | production capacity as the developing world ups their | game. They will be consuming more electricity, but also | be immensely more productive. | philipkglass wrote: | _Thermodynamics says to reverse the process and get | carbon from CO2 we need to put all that energy back, with | a hefty bonus due to inefficiencies._ | | The key insight is that you don't need to turn carbon | dioxide back into carbon. You just need to store those | carbon atoms it in a stable form that keeps them out of | the atmosphere. The most plausible way of doing that at | large scale is to accelerate the reaction of naturally | occurring silicates from rocks with atmospheric CO2. | | "From a thermodynamic point of view, inorganic carbonates | represent a lower energy state than CO2; hence the | carbonation reaction is exothermic..." | | That's from chapter 7 of the IPCC Special Report on | Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, which I recommend | reading for more details. | specialist wrote: | Yes and: | | IIRC 1 ppm of CO2 is ~1 gigaton of carbon. Roughly the | weight of Mt Everest. We're adding ~26 Everests annually. | soperj wrote: | 1 ppm of C02 ~ 2.13 gigatons of carbon, which is ~ 7.8 | gigatons of CO2. (1) We add about 43 gigatons of CO2 to | the atmosphere per year 55% of which is absorbed by | natural sinks. We're definitely not adding 26 ppm of C02 | to the atmosphere each year. | | 1.https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=45 | pfdietz wrote: | Mt. Everest has a mass of about 6 trillion tonnes. | specialist wrote: | Ugh. Stupid brain. Trying to get sense of the challenge, | I worked some numbers to try visualizing how much carbon | we're talking about. I'll refind my notes or recreate. | | Thanks. | dmitrygr wrote: | > 100 gallons of gas convert to a ton of CO2 | | Gasoline is about 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen by weight. | And its density is around 700 kg/m^3. 100 gallons is | 378.5 liters, which is 265.0 kg. That is 230.5 kg of | carbon. C is 12.011 per atom, O is 15.999, thus that | converts to 844.6kg, not a ton. Rounding up by >15% to | make numbers more impressive is not nice when we are | taking science | epistasis wrote: | A gallon of gas converts to 20 pounds of CO2, and there | are 2000 pounds in a US ton. My first web search hit, | just to make sure my memory was not faulty, was this | explanation: | | https://climatekids.nasa.gov/review/carbon/gasoline.html | | Using imperial units is always unfortunate, but when | dealing with the typical unit of gasoline in the US, it's | inevitable. | | Not sure where you are getting your numbers, perhaps | you're using a UK gallon or something? | dmitrygr wrote: | I gave all my numbers making it trivial to check that I | am using the us gallon and. Perhaps a cite for kids that | you cited isn't using more than one sig fig? | lostlogin wrote: | When I search I get a variety of answers, with the bulk | being around the same or lower CO2 emissions than your | calculation. Why does it the answer vary? Does it change | depending on the grade of the fuel? | epistasis wrote: | I have not found a single page with estimates as low as | dmitrygr's 18.6 pounds per gallon. The numbers from the | top hits ina web search for me: | | 19.64 - http://www.patagoniaalliance.org/wp- | content/uploads/2014/08/... | | 20 - | https://climatekids.nasa.gov/review/carbon/gasoline.html | | 20 - https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/contentincludes/co2_ | inc.htm | | 19.6 (converted from grams) - | https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases- | equivalencies-ca... | | "Just over 19" - | https://epicenergyblog.com/2013/05/24/how-many-pounds-of- | car... | | The next hit isn't about CO2 from burning Gas, but about | the upstream emissions that go into producing gasoline, | which it pegs at 3.3 to 6.7 per gallon - | https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/ask-mr-green/hey-mr- | green-... | | What sort of estimates are you getting? | tombert wrote: | I'm not 100% sure why you're downvoted, but I don't think | we disagree with anything. As I said on my previous post, | I was just making up the numbers, and so if it costs | $6/gallon-o-gas for CO2 extraction, then my previous | point is even more accurate (though I might not have said | it very clearly). | epistasis wrote: | Yes, I totally agree with you, did not mean to come | across as contradictory in any way. | | I do not fear being downvotes at all on this topic. If | I'm not getting downvoted by the few persistent anti- | climate-change voters here, then IMHO I am not pushing | forward the truth enough! People, even here, have a lot | more to realize about the technological, economic, and | political implications of the transition that we must go | through in the coming decades. | conductr wrote: | I realize this is a bit of a political point, but at least | in the US, we should factor in the cost of military | spending related to oil producing regions as well. I don't | know the truth, but it's not uncommon for one to believe | that the majority of policies since 9/11 were to protect | oil interests and terrorism was a convenient scapegoat. | Karrot_Kream wrote: | Historically energy usage has been used to track "human | progress" (e.g. a society that is more advanced uses more | energy), but I think this is a failed dichotomy as it doesn't | account for technology become more efficient at using energy. | If we don't price petrol/gas properly (in the face of | externalities, energy security, and possibly limited supply), | there's no incentive for academia and industry to think | ourselves out of a gas-guzzling society. | Pick-A-Hill2019 wrote: | There exists a world beyond your experience. A world in which | people on low incomes have to chose between heating and eating. | Sure - there are those that fly to meetings but there is also a | world less represented/vocal here on HN for whom this could be | (probably will be) a crisis. | | Yes, Global Warming is a problem but the people trying to keep | themselves from freezing contribute a much smaller amount than | Big-Tech and industry as a whole. | | Trying to shift the blame from corporations on to people just | trying to survive the winter is a tale of corporate white- | washing/green-washing/hand-waving/lobbying. | tshaddox wrote: | These are two separate concerns which can be dealt with | independently and simultaneously. A society which can afford | to prevent its members from suffering due to lack of food or | home heat ought to do so, and can do so via means very much | unrelated to the costs and negative externalities of jet | fuel. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | And how do you do that? | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: | One popular approach is to add a massive tax/duty on e.g. | CO2 emissions, but redistribute the revenue equally to | all citizens. | | If everyone were consuming the same amount/causing the | same amount of emissions, this would be a no-op. However, | since the rich tend to consume more, this will be a net | positive for poorer people, and at the same time it will | make decisions about activity that causes emissions more | meaningful. | | It's also much more palatable than bans or rationing, | reasonably easy to implement, and avoids the trap of | populist "ban highly visible thing of the day" approaches | that tend to lower quality of life without addressing the | real issue. | woodpanel wrote: | > _And how do you [reconcile extreme green policy goals | with income losses for the poorest]?_ | | There are no answers given usually, less so convincingly, | mostly because the ones demanding scarcity are usually | not the ones affected by it. | | Just trying to find one member of the working class / | blue collar amongst ExtencionRebllion and the like will | be a tedious task. Not so much if you look for kids of | millionaires, or of bilionaires. Or Millionaires and | Billionaires themselves. | | As of now I can only see two outcomes: | | They either start making these scarcity demands a part of | their foreign policy (meaning getting tough on the actual | global polluters, not their domestic poor people who | barely can afford one cheap vacation to the Balears per | year). | | Or we just start naming what we would have called it 150 | years ago: A top-down class-war. | nradov wrote: | The usual approach is some form of income redistribution. | dotancohen wrote: | Nationalize the railroads? | saeranv wrote: | I'm a little confused at how you think the previous comment | somehow is shifting blames from corporations to people. While | true that rising energy costs will effect consumers, it's | also one of the ways we can change the incentive structure | for corporations! | | For example: No one should be choosing between heating and | eating, from a thermodynamic perspective. It's trivial to | drastically cut heating energy through very low-tech methods: | increasing insulation in the walls, and add extra layers of | glass to your windows. The reason it's not done is because | real estate developers have no incentive to increase their | construction costs by some marginal amount since they know | that natural gas cost is so cheap no customer is going to | care about heating energy reduction. Not only that, most | customers strongly prefer the cheaper construction once | they're shown how many decades it would take for the better | building envelope to pay for itself via energy bill | reductions. Same reason there isn't a incentive to switch | from (dirty) gas to electric, install solar panels, switch to | heat pumps etc etc. | | Now consider how building related carbon emissions make up | about 40% of the total emissions, and you'll see how much of | an infuriating obstacle cheap energy is in cutting carbon | emissions. | | Yes, there will be low-income people for who this will be a | crisis, but that can be dealt with separately: government | subsidies, or government subsidies of envelope retrofits | (great stimulus idea). There is no reason frame this issue in | a us versus them manner. | tda wrote: | These high energy prices mostly hit wasteful industries like | greenhouse tomato growers. That is because they gave always | relied on cheap, subsidized natural gas. Consumers pay | approximately 75% energy tax already so even a 100% rise | before taxes results in only a 25% percent rise after. | | I live in a 100 year old, poorly insulated house with my | family of 4, and we manage to use half of the average for a | family house here. And we are not really trying, only thing | we do is limit what parts of the house we heat (not the | bedrooms) and set the temperature smartly. | | I cycle 30km to my work on an electric bike to exercise and | limit car usage. | | So yes, I really don't think the price rise will have too | much impact on consumers directly. I think most people in the | Netherlands can halve their energy consumption here with very | limited impact on QoL just by heating less and using their | car less. And if the price really gets problematic our gov | could just lower the taxation | WarOnPrivacy wrote: | > I cycle 30km to my work on an electric bike to exercise | and limit car usage. | | In most of the US that's a good way to land in the ER. | | source: son t-boned on his e-bike 6 months ago | dude4you wrote: | "wasteful industries" | | ROTFL. Like fertilizer production? | whearyou wrote: | Sounds like you guys are ok with the cold. When I lived in | cold climates I tried what you're describing to limit | spending. Living in cold indoors wrecked my mood even more | than winter generally did so I gave up on it and accepted | having to spend more on heat and save elsewhere. I guess | what I'm saying is that your approach probably wouldn't | work for everyone. Fortunately I live somewhere warmer now. | i_am_proteus wrote: | You might find this interesting: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Sources_of_hydr | o... | yxhuvud wrote: | > I live in a 100 year old, poorly insulated house | | Have you investigated if it is feasible to retrofit proper | isolation? It has been fairly common here in Sweden, though | I'd expect that by now most of the housing stock has good | isolation. Stuff like triple layers of glass in the windows | also helps a lot. | tda wrote: | Technically feasible sure, but I thibk I used 1100m3 gas | last year (would have to look it up teo be sure). So to | invest 30000 euro to save 50% of that makes no economical | sense. Only when the windows need replacement anyway I'll | upgrade to the latest and greatest. But for now I'm | conetemplating investing in a moderate air/air heatpump | (about 5000 euro, 5kw or something). I think that will | also reduce my gas consumption considerably for all but | the coldest days. Because labour is so expensive and | replacing all windows is so wastefull (they are all | oldish double layered windows) better insulation is not | so appealing. | | I must say though that a properly insulated house can | have a better climate in winter as you can keep the | humidity much higher. | bserge wrote: | How long does it take you? I do 14km in ~40 minutes on a | normal bike, was thinking an ebike would be way better. | | I was hoping to make my own, but maybe I'll cave in and | just use a Swapfiets electric... | frenchy wrote: | 14 km/40 minutes is 21 km/h. Assuming you don't live in | hilly terrain, if you use an e-bike with a 25 km/h | limiter, you can probably go a little faster, but it | won't make huge difference. | | It will probably will mean that you get less tired and | exercise less, which may be good or bad depending on your | opinion. | tda wrote: | Used to take 45-55mins on a speed pedelec (45km/h) but I | sold it and bought a regular ebike set at the US speed | limit of 32 km/h. Depending on wind it takes me 60 to 70 | minutes for 28.7 km. | xxpor wrote: | I do ~15 km in ~31 minutes on an ebike. About ~1/3rd of | the time is spent sitting at stoplights, as measured by | Strava (18 minutes moving time, 31 minutes total time). | bojangleslover wrote: | Yeah why can't the "heating vs eating" people just take | 2hrs to bike 30km to work every day like we do? | | On the flip side I respect your dedication to bike that | much thru Dutch winter! | tda wrote: | I don't think there are more than a handful of "heating | vs eating" people in the Netherlands. On the contrary; | poverty is positively correlated with obesity. | | We do have lots of baby boomers in big houses that they | heatup just for themselves. My mom has 4 times my heating | bill by herself than I have with a family of four. It | would solve a lot of problems if the elderly move to | smaller houses and leave the bigger houses for families | that need them. | Scoundreller wrote: | > It would solve a lot of problems if the elderly move to | smaller houses and leave the bigger houses for families | that need them. | | A lot of places make that kind of swap uneconomical. From | paying capital gains now instead of later, to loss of | property tax increase exemptions to loss of property tax | deferrals. Some places exempt gains on housing gains but | not other gains (kinda a problem if you downsize and take | a windfall)... | | Many places ignore housing wealth when it comes to social | assistance, but include everything else. | the8472 wrote: | How about not letting high income people use the baseline | needs of low income people to deflect responsibility for | their freely made choices? Especially when they're | responsible for a much larger fraction of the carbon | footprint. It's not _only_ on corporations. | throwawaylinux wrote: | It's pretty sickening when hundreds of billionaires and | celebrities and rulers fly their private jets to these | secretive conferences where they decide exactly how | horrible and greedy Joe Coalminer is, and what penance he | must pay for his sins. | | I can't believe people try to shrug it off as no big deal | because the absolute carbon output is small, or postulating | that they must have offset it. If there are two things | people react badly to, it is injustice / unfairness, and | hypocrisy. The ruling class has done more to turn the | average person against their climate change proposals than | just about anything else, in my opinion. Quite probably by | design, such is the blatant audacity of their double | standards. | LargoLasskhyfv wrote: | What else is new? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wasser_p | redigen_und_Wein_trin... | pier25 wrote: | I live in Mexico and there are still millions here that need | to use wood to cook or heat water. | epistasis wrote: | Wood is not a fossil fuel, so as long as forests are not | being destroyed overall for the fuel, the are carbon | neutral. | | However, people's health would probably be increased if we | could provide people electric heat. | Aulig wrote: | That's why i like the idea of a "climate dividend". Everyone | will pay a carbon tax, which then finances the climate | dividend, which is evenly paid out to the population. So if | you emit below average amounts of carbon, you will actually | be better off financially. | MonkeyClub wrote: | I wonder whether this will be like income tax, | theoretically proportional, but practically affecting the | rich less than the poor, and companies even less? | rovolo wrote: | Just to clarify this point, the income tax is progressive | and affects the rich more than the poor _on income_. A | software developer making $150k will pay 24% on | additional income while someone making $30k will pay 12% | on additional income. | | The distinction in the US is whether you make your money | through labor (max 37% tax) or capital gains (max 20% | tax). There is a lower tax rate for capitalists (who make | money via ownership of capital) vs laborers (who make | money through labor income). Furthermore, capital gains | can be delayed until you realize your gains (sell your | capital). This distinction is what practically gives the | rich lower taxes than the poor. | imtringued wrote: | All this nonsense should be rolled into a single income | tax and then the overall tax rate should be lowered. Yeah | sure there might be good reasons for a low capital gains | tax but if that is the case then there are good reasons | for a low income tax as well. The only thing the income | tax should be doing is discourage employers from piling | up all the work on as few people as possible. | | Employers prefer keeping people full time and full time | unemployed because it is more efficient per worker and | the bargaining power of the unemployed doesn't exist. If | everyone were to work according to their own demand for | labor then this bargaining power cliff wouldn't exist and | a whole lot of welfare programs could be abolished. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | I like the idea. However, I am afraid this would lead to | people with no children being disadvantaged again. | | Increased prices would clearly make it more expensive to | raise children. This would lead to more social care towards | people with children. How would you recommend solving that? | conductr wrote: | I would think the carbon tax part would be based on | carbon usage which is a factor of consumption. The entire | family's consumption. So if the rebate is $1000 per | person a family if 4 gets $4000. However the net | gain/loss is only calculated after knowing what your | family consumes. A family of 4 bicyclists may come out | ahead while a family of 4 SUV drivers may have a net | loss. | piokoch wrote: | Someone who works as a delivery guy needs to drive a car a | lot, such person would have to pay big climate dividend. Is | that ok? Probably not. | | Taxation is a road to nowhere as rich people will always | either find the way to avoid taxes or find the way to throw | the costs of those taxes on the poor. This happens with | every kind of tax. | | The only solution to decrease CO2 emission is to behave in | a rational way and use the only practical, tested and | available now clean energy source - nuclear power plants. | No amount of eco-talk will change reality that neither | solar nor wind energy plants will be able to power modern | economy. Europe is learning this the hard way right now. | | Maybe Europe will do the suicidal jump with the ideas like | "Fit for 55", and will kill its economy to lower global | emission by 0.05% but the rest of the World, which emits | much more CO2 and will emit even more when all production | will be moved from Europe to Asia or USA cannot care less. | imtringued wrote: | >Taxation is a road to nowhere as rich people will always | either find the way to avoid taxes | | The entire point of CO2 taxes is that you are supposed to | avoid them. | tapas73 wrote: | There is more than one way to avoid taxes. (hollywood | accounting) | davidw wrote: | > Someone who works as a delivery guy needs to drive a | car a lot, such person would have to pay big climate | dividend. Is that ok? Probably not. | | It gives the delivery company a big incentive to switch | to electric vehicles or ebikes or something more | efficient. This harnesses market power to push companies | to be more efficient with their resources: the ones who | are more innovative at avoiding CO2 usage will see | financial benefits. | EricE wrote: | why are you assuming an electric car will be an overall | reduction in CO2? | davidw wrote: | It's not an assumption. Of course, it depends on a lot of | things, but broadly speaking, they use less CO2. And the | great thing about a carbon tax is that this shakes out | through the system: if they're not reducing CO2, you | would see it in costs and could react accordingly. This | price signal is a lot more convenient than having to, as | an end user, try to figure out what the best and worst | things to do in terms of CO2. | wonderwonder wrote: | Company will just hire the delivery drivers as | contractors a la Uber and pass the costs onto them. | davidw wrote: | Same logic applies though. If you're a contractor and it | costs too much because gas is expensive, you either don't | do it or demand more money. Or maybe only people with | low-emissions vehicles get into it. | soperj wrote: | >Someone who works as a delivery guy needs to drive a car | a lot, such person would have to pay big climate | dividend. | | Delivery emissions should be attached to the person | getting the delivery. Otherwise you could just skip most | of your emissions by having everything delivered. | newt_slowly wrote: | It would be far to complicated to try and count every bit | of emissions like this. Instead, the emissions are taxed | at the source - when buying fuel. Therefore, the delivery | company would be paying the carbon taxes, and they could | choose to either pass those costs on to you, or to, for | example, switch to electric vehicles to be more | competitive against their rivals. | | Either way, it changes your behavior, because if delivery | is more expensive (to factor in the externalities it | causes) you will either consume less, or pay more. This | ultimately "attaches the emissions to the person getting | the delivery" but in a far less complex and less game- | able way. | stonemetal12 wrote: | I go into the store and buy a pair of shoes. Am I given a | bit of the emissions of the supply chain that delivered | it to the store from the manufacturer? | | If I order something off Amazon, do I get a say in where | the package is shipped from to control "my" emissions. | aembleton wrote: | > Am I given a bit of the emissions of the supply chain | that delivered it to the store from the manufacturer? | | Yes, you would have to use some of your carbon credits to | pay for the delivery and manufacture of the shoe. The | product would have both a monetary and a carbon price. If | you don't have enough credits, then you can buy some on | the spot market from someone who isn't using theirs up. | | This would incentivise repair of the shoe, as it may | require fewer carbon credits. | PeterisP wrote: | If delivery services emit a lot of CO2, then making | delivery services (which is not about "someone who works | as a delivery guy" but rather about the company selling | delivery services) much more expensive is a key part of | ensuring that delivery services get used less and only by | those needs where those delivery services are relatively | more important i.e. those who would be willing to pay the | significantly increased price of deliveries. | | After all, the whole point of carbon tax is to reduce | usage, not to gain revenue or penalize some people; so it | works if and only if it meaningfully changes behavior, | i.e. if the tax significantly raises prices of some | specific market goods/services and thus drives people to | use less of those specific goods/services. A simple | income-proportional tax or just "tax the rich" doesn't | incentivize reducing emissions, so it's useless for that | goal; it's perhaps useful for social equity and wealth | redistribution, but that's something not directly linked | to climate change goals. | | It's not about money, it's about CO2; driving deliveries | needs to emit less CO2 so the goal is to either get more | efficient deliveries (e.g. electric vehicles) or less | deliveries (putting some of those delivery drivers out of | jobs), and "who's paying for that" is just choosing the | most effective means to achieve these goals. | jhgb wrote: | > Someone who works as a delivery guy needs to drive a | car a lot, such person would have to pay big climate | dividend. Is that ok? Probably not. | | Probably yes, because that the whole point of Pigouvian | taxes. | 5560675260 wrote: | This would also greatly help with social coherence. First | make living costs so high, that they are unaffordable for | the underclasses, leaving them no other choice than | complete reliance on the state payouts. Then make subsidies | conditional, tiered, assigned on sufficiently complicated | rules (as a side effect this would improve employment | opportunities is public sector). And finally, whenever | serfs would choose to misbehave, there wouldn't even be a | need to intimidate - just dangle a possibility of freezing | to death in winter. | marcosdumay wrote: | Hum... Have you looked on the situation of ex-criminals? | | I really fail to imagine an unconditional transfer (like | the one you are replying to) turning into a monster of | untraceable rules. | cool_dude85 wrote: | >And finally, whenever serfs would choose to misbehave, | there wouldn't even be a need to intimidate - just dangle | a possibility of freezing to death in winter. | | This is reality today under capitalism. What happens to | me if I don't choose to work? | dnautics wrote: | you have so many no-work options. You can be nice to | people and live off their (informal) charity. You could | probably work out an arrangement where you barter | services for lodging. You could go live with relatives | that work. | cool_dude85 wrote: | Same argument applies to the quote I'm responding to. | Jackbooted gubmint thugs cut your power in winter? Go | live with relatives that have power, or get charity, or | barter things for firewood. | esalman wrote: | We used to have one hour of electricity supply followed by one | hour of blackout during the day in Summer. I'm talking about 10 | years back in the Indian subcontinent- halfway around the world | from US where I live now. Sometimes 1 hour blackout would turn | into two. A large part of the time we had supply was spent | pumping and storing water. Come to think of it, we made sure | that every drop of that water and every minute of that | electricity supply was used efficiently. I am sometimes | reminded of this memory these days when I let my standard-size | SUV idle with the AC running while waiting for a latte. | cm2187 wrote: | Or when you talk to someone in California | mint2 wrote: | It wasn't California that had its utility execs patting | themselves on the back during testimony that they were so | fast in getting the power back on to the 95% of customers | at the 7 day mark as if a whole week without power is good | and the fact that means 1 in 20 ppl took more than a week. | | Oh and if you're thinking I'm talking about Texas, I'm not. | | My point is why do people think these issues are just | California? | | Global warming and extreme weather is causing power issues | in your backyard too. | | Why do people love bashing california over issues in their | own back yard? | jjoonathan wrote: | The problem with inelastic demand is that the severity of the | problem goes from 0 to 100 very quickly as supply falls past | the inelastic threshold. Lead times are years in the energy | space, so if we don't react to forecasts and instead wait to | feel the pain we will be signing up for years of severe pain. | lambdasquirrel wrote: | The problem with this idea is that it was cheap energy that | gave rise to the middle class during the industrial revolution. | Energy acts as a force multiplier on human labor. Without it, | you need many more humans to accomplish tasks like farming and | construction. And many things just become physically | insurmountable. We just wouldn't have professions like software | engineering or even yoga teachers (the way they exist today) | without cheap abundant energy. | | Remember that it was cheap energy that allowed people to | migrate and settle in the city of their choice and thus free | themselves from the landowning class. | | With housing costs the way they are in certain cities, this is | still relevant today. | | The solution isn't to make energy more expensive, but to make | things more efficient, and to change where we get our energy | from. | bserge wrote: | On that note, these days even a few lead acid batteries and a | few solar panels at home are enough for a lot of things. | | LED lights, battery power tools, laptops, these are very | efficient compared to just 20 years ago. | | Don't really need expensive Li-Ion when you have the space | for big and heavy, but cheap SLA batteries. | empiricus wrote: | but far from enough during the winter, when you need much | more energy. for 70% of the year, yeah, a few solar panels | are enough. | Gravityloss wrote: | Yeah. There's so many subsidies and tax laws etc as well. It | seems it's really hard to refactor so the incentives would make | sense, while still keeping all groups even relatively content. | | Mass air travel will resume now that the pandemic is subsiding. | Saw plenty of airplanes on sunday already... That's a massive | fuel sink, and as far as I understand, with very low tax rate | and fuel cost. | [deleted] | yodelshady wrote: | Nuclear provided c. $50-60 /MWh in the past and even the worse | recent versions are ~$100. They're mostly that high because | investors don't trust the respective governments to not find some | arbitrary roadblock 5 years down the line. | | This on a continent with a proven track record of managing | construction projects taking _over a century_ for solely | religious purposes. | | At some point going cold whilst simultaneously cooking the planet | is a choice. Fine, make it, but it _was_ a choice. We 're not a | victim of circumstance. | paganel wrote: | That's what divesting from coal gets you, more expensive energy. | Of course this hits the poor classes a lot harder compared to the | middle-classes who pride themselves in recycling and driving an | EV that costs several tens of thousands of euros but that's | unfortunately the way the world runs, the poor get almost all of | the hardships while the better-off get to dictate the discourse. | Still sucks, though. | wyldfire wrote: | > That's what divesting from coal gets you, more expensive | energy. | | Only if you ignore its externalities and let someone else pay | for them. Coal is wickedly expensive if you consider its costs | beyond mining/transportation/storage/combustion. | paganel wrote: | I agree, but right now the externalities are also supported | by the better-off, as they can also get cancer and what have | you from dirtier air, that's one of the prime reasons for | this push. In the new regime almost all the weight falls on | the less-off. | kragen wrote: | Almost all the cancer falls on the poor, not just because | they tend to live closer to power plants (unlike carbon | dioxide, CFCs, and even sulfur dioxide, the pollution that | causes cancer is fairly localized) and work in coal mines, | but because there are more of them. | kragen wrote: | In most of the world fossil-fuel energy are more expensive than | renewable energy, which is why more coal power plants are being | shut down than built (in 02020, outside PRC; in 02021, in the | world). The advantage of fossil fuels is mostly that they're | more predictable. Britain (and the Netherlands, Germany, and a | few other places) have a particularly bad version of the | problem because they have so little sunlight. | | But the problem Europe is hitting right now is not unexpectedly | high prices, but actually running out. Blackouts, fuel pumps | running dry, empty inventories, maybe a lack of natural gas. | Such shortages can happen in one or another place because | someone gambled and lost, but when they happen systemically, | it's because of price controls; I wonder why those aren't | mentioned in the article? The international LNG market isn't | subject to price controls, but retail utility markets are | typically heavily regulated, to the point of routinely forcing | electricity distributors into unprofitability from time to | time, usually temporarily. | | Climate change is likely to cause a lot of hydroelectric | disruption over the next century as rainfall patterns move the | rainfall from where hydroelectric dams have been built to where | they haven't. | supperburg wrote: | Poor people also were against EVs before they went mainstream, | so does that count for anything? I would evangelize Tesla and | EVs in general in 2010 and the overwhelming majority of people | who thought that EVs were "dumb" were poor and lower class. A | poor person has the exact same opportunity as a rich person to | say the words "that makes sense, let's try it." | api wrote: | Cheap gas over the past 10-15 years has driven divestment from | coal as much as a push for renewables. | | As for EVs: they require a tiny fraction of the maintenance of | ICE cars and so they will eventually be far cheaper. Used EVs | are already an incredible deal in many areas. Where I live you | can get a used Leaf with 60-80 miles range (enough for daily | commute) that requires basically zero maintenance for <$8000. | Charge it at home or at work and the fuel cost is tiny too. | Dma54rhs wrote: | Most of the people in the world aka energy consumers are not | wealthy, if the price doesn't impact the "poor" you can't make | people consume less really. | fsslrisrchr wrote: | The poor, in democracy, will vote for their interests. So, | unless you abandon democracy, you won't get the poor to vote | carbon taxes. | | How about we start by putting a $1000/flight tax? Seems only | fair that the rich, mobile class start reducing their | emissions. After all, it's actually the upper classes that | consume (by far) energy in _gross terms_. | nivenkos wrote: | This just punishes those with family abroad and reduces | economic mobility. | | It'd be hard to tax private jets, so much like the EU has | just done with fuel duty, they end up exempting the super- | rich and hammering the working class with more taxes. | mint2 wrote: | It's actually more efficient for a person to fly 400mi in a | reasonably full plain than it is to drive solo in an | average American car | elevaet wrote: | The worlds poorest use far less energy than the worlds | wealthiest. If we want a world where the worlds poorest can | rise, energy policy needs to be softer on the poor, and the | richest will have to pay more of the cost. The rich countries | rose to the top on the back of historically cheap energy, to | some extent. | | "The average US citizen still consumes more than ten times | the energy of the average Indian, 4-5 times that of a | Brazilian, and three times more than China" | | https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access#per-capita- | energy-c... | Dma54rhs wrote: | Of course individually they consume less, when talking | about the mass and big numbers, ultra wealthy are a | statistical anomaly. | elevaet wrote: | Ultra wealthy aside, this is about comparing the world's | wealthiest economies to the world's poorest. There's a | 10:1 ratio of energy usage in USA vs India for example | (per capita). | rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: | Most of the poor energy footprint is not optional: | commuting (most can't live in expensive districts), | heating a single small apartment, basic food, buy a few | leisure things. | | Almost all the wealthy footprint is discretionary: air | travel, luxury purchase, package holidays... | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0579-8 | | Your "statistical anomaly" is not anecdotal, it's the | very symbol of a broken system that was designed not to | care. | | In this situation, I cannot expect the non-wealthy to | make big efforts to reduce their consumption while the | ultra rich continues to casually destroy the environment. | We're letting the rich take almost all the profit but we | ask the poor to work harder only because they're more | numerous. This can only end with violence or a | catastrophe, IMHO. | Dma54rhs wrote: | Right, but then what are options? Everything hits the | poor I agree but if you don't want to then we will just | let the global warming to run rampant and watch? | mint2 wrote: | You know what will impact the poor a lot more than it will | impact rich people? In the form of crop failures, | desertification, water scarcity, land degradation etc...? | | Climate change. | paganel wrote: | So they should market those measures for what they really | are, i.e. regressive taxes/measures that, by definition, have | a bigger impact on the poor than on the wealthy. The "let's | save the planet!" discourse controlled by the wealthy fails | to mention that (with few exceptions, lately). | CountDrewku wrote: | Why am I constantly berated with articles about how renewable | energy accounts for a large part of European energy? Are all of | these just sensationalist? I'm asking a serious question because | it seems that their renewables just aren't cutting it. | | There seems to be a large push to force America on to the same | "green" plan. If the choice is between not having enough energy | and being able to get fossil fuels from your own nation's land, | being mostly self-sustaining. I know what I'm choosing. | | Putting all your eggs in one basket just seems like a bad idea. | Yes invest in green/renewable energy but this idea that we can | just cut out fossil fuels doesn't seem to hold up. | orthecreedence wrote: | > I'm asking a serious question because it seems that their | renewables just aren't cutting it. | | Right, renewables don't cut it, and they won't without | magnitudes more investment. However, notice that France doesn't | have these problems. | | We cannot keep planning to use weather-dependent energy sources | when our climate is rapidly changing in unpredictable ways. | koheripbal wrote: | > Are all of these just sensationalist? | | Yes | Jensson wrote: | Texas 6 months ago had a worse energy crisis than western | Europe have had in a very long time. Seems like America is way | ahead of Europe in terms of unreliable power generation. | CountDrewku wrote: | That's because they got hit by an extremely rare ice storm | they weren't adequately prepared for. It really had nothing | to do with having more/less renewable energy. | | https://www.usatoday.com/in- | depth/news/nation/2021/02/16/tex... | Jensson wrote: | I didn't say it had anything to do with renewable energy, | just that they had less reliable power production. And no, | it had little to do with that storm, Texas face power | problems almost every year. It is systemic, and largely due | to politics of them cutting themselves off from other grids | and how their energy sector works. | | Europe is way more robust since the net is extremely well | connected between countries, and I don't think that | factories can buy up all available electricity like they | did in Texas causing power outages for homes. Rather Europe | would shut down the factories and let people have | electricity in their homes. Homes losing power for a few | days is a huge problem, factories shutting down for a few | days isn't a big deal. | CountDrewku wrote: | Ok sorry I misunderstood your comment. I thought you were | blaming it completely on not having enough renewables. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-27 23:00 UTC)