Of course, the consequences of climate change are billions cast into abject poverty, wars over resources and land, and so on. Moreover, if we do away with carbon subsidies (i.e., implement carbon pricing and border adjustments), then yes the cost of fossil fuel energy goes up, the consequence is the society adapts to using power more efficiently. We make less disposable shit, our industrial processes improve to keep costs down, etc. Further still, nuclear fission is still a perfectly good option, and we have reactor designs that are dramatically smaller, safer, and cheaper than previous generations (with projections for the levelized cost of energy comparing favorably with that of fossil fuels today).
> Of course, the consequences of climate change are billions cast into abject poverty
That may be true, but I was referring to the effects of switching to renewables too early. Since given our technology, the cost per MW is higher from renewables, switching to renewables (as a society) has massive costs. If we rise the price of the MW a 10%, that's a +10% on every MW from now until we find something better. That could be a long time, which means the impact of these costs could be gigantic. As I've commented elsewhere in this article, a 0.75% reduction on GDP over 100 years is equivalent to losing more than the entire (current) annual GDP, that's not nothing! Growth is how we've managed to move millions out of poverty, we should think it through before sacrificing growth.
I hope we could agree though, that the cost of switching to renewables too early is negligible compared to the cost of switching too late. If that can be agreed on by all, the relevant questions are
1) when do we think it would be too late?
2) how certain are we of that date?
3) how long will it take to switch to renewables? and
4) How certain are we of that date?
I don't disagree with your basic premise. Personally I think the answer to 1) is 140 years, so no reason to panic or dawdle. But it's important to remember that the more the economy grows before the switch to renewables is complete, the harder it becomes to make the switch. And, a better invention in renewables without the energy to scale it up won't do us much good, a significant part of our nonrenewables needs to be invested in renewables or the next 140 years of invention won't be much use.
> that the cost of switching to renewables too early is negligible compared to the cost of switching too late.
Smaller yes, but I wouldn't call it negligible.
> the more the economy grows before the switch to renewables is complete, the harder it becomes to make the switch.
That one I think you got reversed. Think that one through, the economy now is way greater than it was in 1980, do you really think we were better prepared for the switch back then?
>That one I think you got reversed. Think that one through, the economy now is way greater than it was in 1980, do you really think we were better prepared for the switch back then?
I wasn't clear. We become better prepared to switch but the switch itself becomes harder. The 1980 economy was smaller, therefore it would have required fewer renewable energy sources to replicate using only renewable energy. Sure, renewable energy is more available today than in 1980, but that's due in large part to people since 1980 being willing to invest in something other than fossil fuels, despite the lower margins.
> We become better prepared to switch but the switch itself becomes harder.
But that’s the trick, for instance, now that solar is under the cost of gas, improvements in solar have slowed down, but now everyone is trying to make batteries.
It’s very unlikely that the pattern won’t repeat itself, in 2050 (or 2070), we will probably be in a better position to do the switch, even if total energy consumption has grown.
I too am cautiously optimistic, but I'm worried about complacency. Innovation doesn't just happen, it takes a lot of hard work. If we don't keep in mind the cost of not innovating, I'm concerned we won't adequately reward that work.
"Of course, the consequences of climate change are billions cast into abject poverty"
The only way to end climate change is to have a serious debate about population control. But no one wants difficult debates (at least people that matter). Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse. I foresee a population explosion into areas once uninhabitable.
> Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse.
Doubling the population will make things worse in 40 years. How is this hard? Double chickens? Double cows? Double coal plants? wtf? lol. You are the fool. Trying googling "when does population double".
> Doubling the population will make things worse in 40 years. How is this hard? Double chickens? Double cows? Double coal plants? wtf? lol. You are the fool. Trying googling "when does population double".
Ooooff.
1. The population isn't projected to double even in the next century much less the next 40 years. In the next eighty years, the population is expected to increase by only 40%. If you took your own advice ("Google") then you'd know this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_grow...
2. You're incorrectly assuming that the greenhouse gas emissions scales linearly with the population size *even as the emissions per MWh approaches zero. The demand for energy does indeed scale with population (probably sublinearly, but not going to pick that nit right now), but the goal is to drive down the emissions per unit energy to nearly zero much faster than population grows.
"You're incorrectly assuming that the greenhouse gas emissions scales linearly with the population size *even as the emissions per MWh approaches zero."
No it will not be linear. If you have a population that is exponential.
Pretty sure you could just price in carbon. Poverty is more like not driving an f150 2 hours to your job at office, not max eating 6 steaks a week, taking shorter showers, and turning your AC in south Texas in August from 62 to 78
Your point is excellent, but ironically (of all vehicles to pick on) Ford is coming out with an all-electric F150 next year. Which kind of makes an even more profound point: we don't need to give up our luxuries, but we do need our luxuries to become more efficient. If you switch to an electric water heater, you can enjoy your long, hot showers without worrying about carbon pricing driving up your bill.
> The only way to end climate change is to have a serious debate about population control.
It’s always disturbing how quickly this stuff goes from here to “we have to prevent other people from having kids rather than having Americans stop consuming”. Get your neighbor out of their F150 before trying to sterilize the global south.
> Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse.
Fusion. Fission has been done for your entire lifetime.
> I foresee a population explosion into areas once uninhabitable.
Apparently your foresight doesn’t involve actually bothering to check the fertility rate in any nation. If you’d done that, you’d realize that birth rates drop as nations get richer. Most of the world is below replacement rate, and world populations are expected to peak in the year 2100 and begin falling.
The thing that actually limits reproduction isn’t resources, but child mortality and interest. Once you can expect your children to survive infancy, most people want fewer of them.
"F150 before trying to sterilize the global south"
Right. So people not buying a f150 will help combat the climate destruction of a doubling population in the next 40 years. Is this a joke? I don't understand how a smart group can say such stupid things.
The parent was clearly exaggerating. The point was pretty obviously that Americans should curb their appetite for carbon before proposing extreme population control policies for others. Which is an eminently reasonable point, and sad that it has to be articulated explicitly.
More seriously, "getting your neighbor out of their F150" or any other "personal responsibility" approach is doomed to fail because citizens don't have appropriate information to make informed environmental choices (we can't accurately estimate how much carbon goes into the manufacture of the products and services they consume) which is why carbon pricing is necessary.
a really serious conversation about population control is an armed conflict and only a fool will think otherwise. I think you can choose to not have children, but if you want to force others to not have children, prepare to be at war because that's what it will come to.
An actual debate on population control would be looking at reducing the number of children in the developed world even more, and discouraging suburban housing.
Energy subsidies for vulnerable people are an option that negates your only argument against the most sane option of switching to renewable and nuclear ASAP, at least in extremely wealthy countries like the USA.
"As a society, every extra dollar spent on pricier energy is an extra dollar that can’t go to social programs, or to new start up, or anywhere."
I am not buying it, energy is cheap, so we waste it by shipping a pair of jeans three times across the world, to deliver fast fashion the consumer needs, so that on average they can wear some low quality bullshit made woth slave labour 7 times and then throw it away, to be shipped into some poor country for 'recycling' and have it end up in the ocean.
Or catch shrimp near our shores, ship it to philipines to be peeled, and then shipping it back.
Passivehaus standard was developed decades ago, it is several times better than the maximim energy efficiency rating in UK of 'A+'. The number of houses that meet either of these standard is a fucking 0%. Check newbuilds in Uk, half of then can't manage energy rating of C, its, disgracefull! Almost none of them have a heat recovery ventilation system or a heat pump.
We waste 20-30% of energy we generate on heating leaky homes.
My parents used to buy groceries at the market by weight, today a 300 g steak comes with 200g plastic packaging. 70% of my trash is plapackaging. The recycling rate is 9%. Efficient free market my ass.
The only place I know that sells food without plastic us an hour travel away, it's a hipster place with organic-artisian authentic beans at 1,000% markup. There is nobody who sells milk in a container I could return to them when it's empty, mo matter how much I pay.
What bancrupts an average consumer? Unaffordable housing, education and healthcare. None of these things are dictated by energy price.
> If you are arguing to stop subsidies for fossil fuels, sure! Let's do it.
I'll be all in on that. That's not my point at all.
> Without any subsidies and with externalities accounted for, fossil fuels would be even more expensive than renewables.
Wow, slow down there.
First, subsidies are a confounding factor. I don't care who signs the check, we're all paying for it in one way or another. Let's just assume we join all of the worlds wealth into a big pot somehow, and can magically distribute it as we desire.
Externalities are important though, because we will pay them anyway, so that one counts.
LCOE for solar and wind is lower, but we can't build a whole network with wind and solar because they're unreliable. The "popular" (hyped) solution is storage, but storage is so expensive that the LCOE for Solar/Wind + Storage blows us through the roof again!
I'd love to have some real solution, a renewable and reliable source with LCOE similar to natural gas, but until we have one we need to accept the fact that natural gas is in our mixture of energy sources is a good thing.
If trillions weren't being spent on useless military purposes, you would have a point. Also, a good amount of money in the economy is wasted on stuff like new iPhones every year, bigger cars, plastic crap, Bitcoin GPUs, huge data centers for better ads, etc.
There's plenty of room for a reduction in consumption with minimal impact on lifestyle in the developed world.
Many would claim that every extra dollar spent on renewables is reducing the environmental debt that we’ve accumulated, that we have to will pay for, with very real dollars, since we’ve subsidize our energy cost with future remediation costs.
You can explain or justify the costs however you like. That's not the issue. I'm not making any claims as to the suitability of spending more or less into renewables, just pointing the obvious but often forgotten consequence, that every dollar spent here is a dollar you can't spend in another place.
Swapping to renewables at once would have an impact that can very easily overshadow any remediation costs. Even tiny cost increases now will produce vast difference 100 years forward due to compounding.
Just as a thought experiment, if the costs of switching to renewable energy are >0.72% of GDP, and the remedial costs are around 18T$ (in today's money) in 100 years, you're still better off not switching to renewables.
Every extra dollar saved on cheaper energy actually goes to lining some billionaire's pockets in some untaxed hole. And then eventually the people who would benefit from said social program will instead have to pay back a climate debt in the future.
If we are going to just made up magic pockets where infinite money lies, then we can justify whatever we please.
The point of my comment is that it doesn't matter where the money is. Even if you were to pay it through massive taxes to the rich (assume no loopholes, no funny accounting tricks possible), the ones picking up the tab are the poor people of the future, because even if all millionaires are evil movie villains, taking their money will hurt growth, and growth compounds. Reducing growth now can be a catastrophe when compounded over 100, 200, 500 years.
This growth fallacy is the main thing driving so much environmental destruction in the first place. Most effort is being wasted on churn rather than creating advancement, and this is increasing as time goes on (fake jobs). Until we reprioritize the economy to make efficiency gains translate into leisure gains, talking about "growth" is just cover for business as usual.
> Switch to renewables and drastically increase energy costs, which will trap millions of people into poverty, and put millions more in risk
This feels like a bad faith take out of the gate (whether or not it's intended)... are there no mechanisms for subsidies to abate these issues? are renewables more likely to increase wealth gaps than other fuels?
Sure, but aren't fossil fuels also subsidized? Haven't the costs been reduced due to the economies of scale and time? Are the environmental downsides not considered part of the cost?
I get it, renewables are still more expensive, but are they really doomed to trap more people in poverty?
Couldn't one argue that the unbalanced economic systems are the primary thing that traps people in poverty and the cost of energy is simply a minor factor? There are certainly countries with low energy costs and high poverty rates.
Fossil fuels are heavily subsidized. Most places in the world allow the fossil fuel industry to write-off their pollution costs, and many other places go further even than that.
Moreover, it's disingenuous of the OP to suggest that renewables lead to "millions trapped in poverty" while fossil fuels merely result in "climate change" (as though climate change doesn't imply billions trapped in poverty).
> Haven't the costs been reduced due to the economies of scale and time?
That's a sunken cost fallacy. What we have already spent doesn't matter. What matters is what we choose today, and what consequences does it bring.
> Are the environmental downsides not considered part of the cost?
Off course, that's the main issue. Environmental costs are gigantic, but they are also far into the future.
> renewables are still more expensive, but are they really doomed to trap more people in poverty?
Anything that hampers growth will have massive consequences on the long run. Higher energy prices will heavily reduce growth, even if we assume that there's margin for efficiency to be gained from economies of scale and technology improvements.
> Couldn't one argue that the unbalanced economic systems are the primary thing that traps people in poverty and the cost of energy is simply a minor factor?
You could argue the first one if you'd like, I won't because it would be getting off topic. As for the second, the cost of energy is a massive factor into the economy, because energy underpins anything we do. The only real solution we've found to poverty is growth. The worlds wealth follows an exponential, tampering with the base has serious implications when you are looking at climatic timescales.
> There are certainly countries with low energy costs and high poverty rates.
Let me try to explain in another way.
We are at a crossroads. Whatever our past is, our current situation, it's no matter now, that's behind us. We can choose path A, or path B.
Path A (continue to use natural gas) keeps us going. We know that at some point we'll have to deal with the consequences of climate change, but we can modulate our use, and take our time. We are making the future costs higher, there's no doubt about that, but we might be better equipped to switch to renewables in 40 years. There's no reason to rush the switch.
Path B (completely switching to renewables now). This will limit our growth for sure. It will also require us to sort out now how best to handle the transition, because rising prices with our current system will leave a lot of people without heating in the winter, or unable to use appliances like dishwashers (I'm in Spain, our energy cost has been rising constantly, we are seeing this happening). We will need to change a lot in very short time. Our future climate costs will be lower.
In some sense, by choosing path A, we are betting that we will find better solutions at some point in the future. If we choose path B but if some new amazing renewable technology appears in say, 75 years, we've made a huge mistake.
Thanks for explaining it, this makes a lot more sense. But isn't reality more like... option C? Which is work towards B while still relying on A to fill the gaps?
Does moving towards B also produce growth because it's a process that will take decades?
Only because profits are privatized while costs and tail risks are largely socialized, for the fossil fuel industry. If they paid their environmental impact costs, no driller or coal miner could operate profitably.
>It’s just simple arithmetic, however you want to subsidize or socialize the cost, the fact is that renewables have higher cost per MW.
All the more reason for a carbon price. If the cost from renewables is genuinely more expensive than climate destabilization, then make the price explicit and the market will sort the practical from the pointless.
If there's one thing markets are good at, it's choosing the cheaper option. But they need a price signal to work on in the first place.
>are renewables more likely to increase wealth gaps than other fuels?
Given that renewable generation solutions can be purchased by a much larger percentage of the world population than nonrenewable ones, they probably do a lot to decrease wealth gaps. Since they require more energy invested per energy paid back though, it's probably accurate to suppose that the total wealth in the system would be reduced by such a trend.
Renewables as currently implemented have significant effective capacity issues - wind not blowing, or sun not shining, or whatever - and overbuilding them still won’t solve that.
Storage is currently very expensive, and this is not likely to meaningfully (as in decrease by an order of magnitude or more in cost) change anytime soon.
That means that you need to buy and maintain more equipment for the same kwh at the plug than you would with a typical power plant. Fossil
Fuels are incredibly energy dense and really cheap to extract, even with the nutty new technologies required in many places.
I'd love for the world to see that Option 4 would be great (I'd chose that one too!), but it's not a politically viable option. I was limiting the options to the "realistic" ones, given our current constraints.
If you don’t like fracking, that’s alright, but sustaining ourselves without it it’s not really an option. Right now our options are:
1) Use coal, accept the consequences of the increased climate change.
2) Keep using gas, reduce the future costs of climate change, deal later with the speculative consequences you mention.
3) Switch to renewables and drastically increase energy costs, which will trap millions of people into poverty, and put millions more in risk.