I came across this post on Climatechange:
‘’We are telling ourselves pretty stories, and it’s not helpful
There are a few common stories I see popping up on here and the internet often. “Renewables are now much cheaper than fossil sources.”
“We will be net zero by given time frame and get rid of fossil fuels soon”
The unspoken one is that there is nothing else to be done about climate change other than cleaning up the energy system.
**This is NOT a pro-nuclear piece or anti-renewables**. I’m writing this because I think these slightly rose-colored views we give ourselves are harmful. There are many pieces in this puzzle and by not acknowledging blindspots we will overdo some things, underdo others, miss doing certain things entirely, and ultimately get this wrong.
**Fossil fuels are an incredibly tough boss match**. Neither renewables nor nuclear can stand up to it at present time. When we first rip something we need out of the earth, they tend to be bound up in dioxide form, for example, silicon dioxide. In order to get pure silicon out we have to break the silicon dioxide bond with a LOT of thermal energy and need a reductant that it reacts with, carbon. Basically coal is thrown in a 1700 degree celsius furnace with the silicon dioxide to get a pure material out. Feeding in thermal energy is how a lot of stuff is born and that’s often also true even when it comes from recylced sources.
This heat energy approaches **1c/kWh.** Looking at coal, its energy density and its commodity price assuming close to 100% efficiency of burning it, the thermal and reductant manufacturing inputs are dirt cheap, this is the birth cradle of our renewables meant to save us, this is what we ultimately have to compete with.
Now if you have a solar system in Germany that produces electricity at say 9 cents per kWh and you feed it back into its own input, a hypothetical electric tungsten resistance furnance heater with some captured carbon source, or green hydrogen. Those new panels are now no longer the price of the first set made by coal, not even close. The silicon ingots already go for barely more than these incredibly cheap energy inputs that were fed in. Even in Saudi Arabia with 2c/kWh solar but only 25% capacity factor, we are not even close. Nuclear in its current form is also not there. Renewables are only cheap, because of the wonder of fossil fuels that were fed in, in the first place.
This means that things do not just get more expensive. Once you shut off the fossil sources at the origin, it all collapses. **Civilizational output drops dramatically.** There is less “excess” energy to do all the things that we currently do, such as for example maintain medical and scientific institutions that allow us to adapt in the face of adversity, say inventing the next set of antibiotics when we desperately need will need them.
**This will not be easy, nor will it be fast**. Acknowledging that I think will allow us to make better decisions. There will be a lot of temperature increase. Maybe if we acknowledge that, we can work on making natural ecosystems and its inhabitants more resilient to it. Maybe we could stop growing homogenous factory farm trees for biomass generation that is then lumped in with wind and solar statistics, instead create more mixed tree forests to have higher population and diversity of species that are then more likely to be able to adapt to the climate change.
I don’t have the answers, **I am just trying to say there may be some creative things we are missing because we are so narrowed in on this rose-colored story and this single set solution.**
Maybe we can make the ocean more resilient to climate change by exploding it’s fish and whale population through fertiziling it and in the process removing 3-12 billion tons of CO2 annually. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2309262-scientists-want-to-restore-the-oceans-with-artificial-whale-poo/
These things are not getting a lot of attention. We have foregone old environtalism which seemed more rich in its concerns, for narrow climate change focus specifically the energy system.
Instead we are engaged in flamewars, especially between the pro-nuclear and pro-renewables camps, which is incredibly counter productive, because neither side wants to now look at the limitations of each energy system, and so we can’t use them effectively. We can’t say for example well why are we putting up panels in Canada, because that would be acknowledging that they are not the perfect energy solution in every single regard. **Engineers design based on tradeoffs which means being aware of BOTH strengths and limitations so that you can efficiently place all the pieces in the right places.**
I think we have to pull on every single lever to get through this. Some clever environmental hacks like described above, continued use of renewables but in a targeted and cost effective manner, yes also immense focus on nuclear, energy efficiency measures such as heat pumps, insulation, etc. The solution has to be diverse to be robust.
I do think because the energy density of uranium is so unbelievably high we may be able to go much further there, but I do NOT want to go into it here because I don’t want to be dismissed as some pro-nuclear shill. As far as I go am pro-nuclear + pro-RE. Maybe we should all be.
I have an Electrical Engineering background but have NOT worked in the energy industry. My Engineering and physics background is a helpful lense but I’m learning from the outside as you all are as well. I am open to being wrong, but please be kind to my ego as we all should be. If I come across as arrogant, I apologize, deep down I’m aware that i’m not smart, **I’m an overevolved ape who can only hold 4 things at a time in his working memory and who has to come together with other overevolved apes in order to figure out how to go up against the black gold that planet Earth baked with hundreds of millions of years worth of solar energy**. I think the best thing we can do to get started, is just being humble and open minded, which really is just saying making ourselves vulnerable and then committing to not attacking others in their now vulnerable state.
Idk why I even wrote this up lol, maybe it’s helpful, probably not.
Happy holidays!’’
I would be interested in hearing what people think.
by Pondy001