Well, depends what you mean by "economically plausible". I can give you a pile of technical solutions. They all cost more than business as usual, but not *that* much more. So a governmental push, such as a suitable carbon price applied to concrete and steelmaking, could get them going. (They're not declining in cost like solar and batteries, sadly.)
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Ever read the novel _The Gods Themselves_ by Isaac Asimov? Go read it if you haven't. Good description of mass psychology. At this point I don't have much, if any, respect for the ability of the average human to think more than ten seconds ahead. (Though this may be due to the epidemic of childhood lead poisoning from leaded gasoline, so maybe it'll get better.) We can only do our best to manipulate these lemmings into not stampeding off of cliffs and or at least not taking us with them...
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
I don't think that will matter as much 20 years from now. With ubiquitous sustainable energy that's nearly free, I think we'll see a meaningful shift toward more logical project spending. Maybe the two party system will even be eliminated!
What's keeping us from doing "the right things" today? It's legacy interests(mostly fossil) desperate to hold on to their siphon. They'll be long gone in 20 years and a less influenced version of public consensus can hold far greater sway than it does now.
Do we honestly think it's going to take American consumers a long time to latch onto Elon's dream once it's in front of them as a tangible and affordable product? I don't think we'll need a governmental push, if anything we need to get the puppet pieces of gov't out of the way.
This is some really good deep thinking here. We definitely need a systems approach that understands how resentment feeds back into the system. There are so many examples of this where policy gains in one election cycle leads to a backlash in the next.
I don't have any great answers here, but I would point out that the basic reason why I would prefer the price of oil and gas to remain low. Basically we need low prices to minimize over investment in building up fossil resources. This is more than just a financial concern about stranded assets. This is also a concern about displaced workers and vulnerable governments. Boom and bust cycles take an incredible human toll, even leading to increases in suicide and other behavioral problems. Opioids, anyone? So we need to be very careful not to overinvest in twilight industries. And the best way to do that is through low market prices, rather than regulation. Regulation feeds a ready made denial narrative, "If it wasn't for that goddamn government regulation, the coal industry would be just fine." No, it wouldn't. There are much deeper economic forces at work. Responsible politicians are an easy scapegoat here, but even having a Trump-like administration recklessly favor coal will not, cannot overcome the economics of an obsolete industry. The denial mechanisms do not help. Indeed they can magnify the social, oolitical and economic damage done.
Basically, coal, nuclear, and even natural gas cannot compete with the combination of wind, solar and batteries pushing below $30/MWh. Likewise diesel trucks won't be able to compete with electric trucks carving 25% off the per mile cost of trucking. Lots of jobs will be lost for reasons of economic competition, and there is nothing governments can do about it but make things worse.
But these developments also create myriad new jobs and new entrepreneurial opportunities. Folks that are not all caught up in denial and grievance responses (workers, businesses, and governments) will be in a much better place to see those opportunities and benefit from them. Denial and grievance are paralyzing at all levels. We really do need to cultivate some optimism just to be adaptive and entrepreneurial in the face of change. This is not exactly the same as saying that tech will solve all our problems, but being enthusiastic and on the lookout for the new opportunities is absolutely needed just to move forward. This is why true entrepreneurs like Musk are so important, not just for the technology that they bring to market, but for the inspiration to see the new opportunities right in front of our nose.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Interesting article by Bill McKibben in the Guardian.
It says the battle has moved from the political arena to the financial arena and cites the recent decision of New York State to divest fossil fuels and sue the fossil companies as a sign of the sea change.
New York City just declared war on the oil industry | Bill McKibben
I think it's out of the hands of the politicians now. The financial drivers are too strong.
Actually, I think the basic problem is the lack of a market to drive the innovation needed. Last I checked BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration) would cost around $100 per net tonne CO2 removed from atmosphere. So to reduce carbon ppm by 1 point would require on order of 10 Gt of negative emissions at a cost of $1T. So in a global economy with about $76T GDP, ponying up $1T just to move 1 ppm down would be a massive undertaking.
Now if we had a market big enough for innovation to drive the cost down to say $10/tonne, we're still looking at a $100B drag on the global economy, more than 1% of GDP, to move 1 ppm down. Maybe that would be economically feasible.
But how do you create such a market in the first place. A carbon tax of say $50/tonne could be put into a fund that auctions off a bounty for effective CCS. The bounty on removing 1 tonne may start at around $100, but decline over time as competition drives innovation and investment. So at first 1 tonne would be removed for every 2 tonnes emitted and taxed, but once the bounty falls below $50/tonne, there would be more than 1 tonne removed for every tonne emitted and taxed. Such a tax scheme would immediately motivate the build out of CCS on existing fossil plants to avoid the tax. But if these plants were to start mixing in renewable fuels (bioenergy), they could become net negative emitters (BECCS) and benefit from the bounty on carbon removal. This would allow fossil generators to envision a profitable use for their plants well into the future. They would become BECCS plants over time.
So while I could envision such a market, it still would require significant political buy-in. We'd need to agree on both a carbon tax and that the carbon revenue would be put toward carbon removal. So this is not a revenue neutral carbon tax as thoughtful conservatives could get behind, and it does not put the carbon tax revenue into things like public transit and renewable energy as liberals would like. It is simply a disposal fee on order of $1.65T per year to cover removal of waste. It's very unsexy, but it is essentially what must happen to actually reduce atmospheric carbon. Moreover, such a system would work best and most equitably if it were done on a global basis. You want one market for carbon removal to tap the most economical of solutions out there anywhere on the planet, as some countries may have certain advantages in this market. And you want to be sure that all countries are kicking in their fair share of the tax revenue. But all this is a very tall order for international political cooperation.
I hope there is smarter way to frame this that really could work toward a solution. How?
5 Energy Sector Predictions For 2018 | OilPrice.com
Okay, this trifling article from Robert Rapier got me thinking about the correlation of Tesla stock price and the price of oil. Rapier is predicting:
Okay, enough Seasame Street. Could we see Tesla trade with positive correlation to energy markets this year? It feels like that could be the case. @ValueAnalyst Is betting on it. And it seems that as oil breaks out to the high side, that investor might see Tesla in a new light. Strong demand for gasoline as prices go high does imply more demand for EVs. Not that demand is a problem, but that this is the connection many investors do make in their own thinking. It certainly shines a spot light on Tesla as a way to hedge any shortness in oil.
So Rapier could just be hedging his predictions. What do y'all think? Will Tesla trade with oil this year?
Okay, this trifling article from Robert Rapier got me thinking about the correlation of Tesla stock price and the price of oil. Rapier is predicting:
- US crude production is up, new record.
- Oil price is up, hits $70.
- Natural gas price is up, average above $3/mmBtu.
- US gasoline demand is up, new record.
- Tesla stock is down, closing year below $312.
Okay, enough Seasame Street. Could we see Tesla trade with positive correlation to energy markets this year? It feels like that could be the case. @ValueAnalyst Is betting on it. And it seems that as oil breaks out to the high side, that investor might see Tesla in a new light. Strong demand for gasoline as prices go high does imply more demand for EVs. Not that demand is a problem, but that this is the connection many investors do make in their own thinking. It certainly shines a spot light on Tesla as a way to hedge any shortness in oil.
So Rapier could just be hedging his predictions. What do y'all think? Will Tesla trade with oil this year?
I don't really know what oil will do this year, but I think tsla will likely go up considerably unless model 3's start failing big time or the stock market crashes. Oil and tsla used to be heavily correlated with causation, but I don't think that is the case anymore in any big way, unless oil starts going a lot higher to the point where people stop buying/driving suvs again.
Or burning in it in space while making human an interplanetary species
I am guessing it would take millions of rocket launches though, to burn all of that, possibly impractical, atmosphere-mined methane.
Or burning in it in space while making human an interplanetary species
I am guessing it would take millions of rocket launches though, to burn all of that, possibly impractical, atmosphere-mined methane.
I guess you're being sarcastic but many influential people think that. So I'll ignore the wink and miss the joke: isn't the #1 reason to go to Mars to find an habitable place in case we can't survive on Earth?
– How Tesla Will Change The World - Wait But Why
Ok but we'd far exceed this stupidity by trying to colonize Mars while ruining Earth's biosphere in the process.
What could be the chance to turn Mars into an habitable planet if we're not even able to preserve our local biosphere?
What Mars can offer that Earth does not? Do you expect people on Mars to be smarter than Earthlings? Is there a way to make Mars viable that can't be done preventively here on Earth? If going is to Mars is just to learn and try, at what point should we suspend the experiment if it contributes significantly to local global warming?
This is a serious question. Although I'd love to make Mars viable, too many people starts to believe we should colonize it at Earth's expense.
Here's the thought experiment – too extreme and polarizing but still valid: If in the next 30 years, indicators show that we're heading toward runaway global warming. Would you:
A) stop all greenhouse gas emissions, including rocket launches until we can fix global warming here on Earth. That means we might miss our chance to "hard fork" mankind (cf. Interstellar)
B) accelerate the colonization program, even if it implies aggravating Earth's global warming that might lead us to end up with two inhabitable planets.
What is the benefit of option B? Who would want to start with two dead floating rocks instead of salvaging a still-alive biosphere?
Elon is *currently* leaning toward option B because no one is certain that we'll reach this point of no return. He's doing his best to keep two options for as long as possible (I won't discuss the threats from AI and hazardous asteroids here).
Elon would probably accept to suspend SpaceX activity at some point. But I fear that his followers and all those who would have invested time and money in the Mars dream would not. Let call this the Church of "Let's go to Mars at all cost" (which I think is just a subset of the transhumanist movement).
In other words: what is the actual difference between the today's Global Warming Skeptics and tomorrow Mars At All Cost Fanatics? Deep down, those who deny global warming just know that cheap fossil fuel brings growth and prosperity.
Could the Mars fanatics turn into tomorrow's deniers? I certainly fear they will. I believe they will soon outnumber the Global Warming Skeptics and be far more powerful and influential in their quest.
Edit: look at what's going on with AI. Who can tell what makes life singular? Who even tries? I know very few people working on this – mostly French researchers/philosophers like Gilbert Simondon, Miguel Benasayag, Bernard Stiegler, Aurelien Barreau, Alain Prochiantz, perhaps Stanislas Dehaene also (...) but their voice is completely inaudible in the deluge of AI results and promises. Just like the world invested all it could into fossil fuels and missed/denied its harmful consequences, we're doomed to repeat this with AI and space colonization.
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Reciprocity
Active Member
This is where your argument falls short, the reason for becoming multi planetary had little to do with global warming and now to do with the inevitability of a sudden mass Extinction event. There is no choice really, if man kind is to survive in the long term, we must colonize the local solar neighborhood and later, out side of the solar system as the sun won't last forever.
Are you familiar with the Fermi paradox? I believe wait but why had a simple explanation of the Fermi paradox that rings true to me in that we must become multi planetary to survive long term.
The have is also that if we as humans stop pushing the limits of humanity, we become less then human and at some point will pay the price.
Here is a thought experiment for you. What if we just all went back to the stone ages in terms of tech. At some point an asteroid or some other mass Extinction event would occur, but yeah the environment would probably "heal" at some point. Maybe temps and co2 rise above levels today naturally and we die off anyway.
C - Debug the CO2+H2O -> CH4+O2 process needed on Mars, here on Earth to also make the launches from Earth carbon neutral.
Just in case this wasn't obvious, C is A+B (or both/and)
Using carbon neutral CH4 for seasonal energy storage at high latitudes would be a considerable contribution to priority A.
Exactly! The thing is: runaway global warming is currently regarded by most researchers as the most probable cause of future mass extinction events.
I'd argue that it isn't just global warming but the whole spectrum of anthropocene's effect but let's take care of one thing at a time for the sake of the discussion...
That's why I keep saying that we only disagree on timing. My point is that the speed at which we're aggravating global warming is much higher than the speed at which we're transitioning.
Yes, we're going forward but the main resisting forces are moving to battlefields that we are taking seriously. In a nutshell, I'm arguing that we focus too much on technology and economics without considering the social and ideological issues that are against the very thing we're fighting for. Even worst, we are not aware of the dangerous believes that are motivating many proponents of the energy transition.
Again, I fully agree. We should think about both the short term and the long term and find the right balance is incredibly difficult. It will get harder as the transition to sustainability is further delayed. As the short term risk increases (again, I'm mostly talking about runaway global warming), other long term threats should be deprioritize.
Why worry about the sun dying in billions of years when most scientists (including cosmologists) say they #1 threat is climate change? It's all about priorities.
Which Great Filter hypotheses seem the most probable for man kind today? There's a good list on Wikipedia: Fermi paradox - Wikipedia
You can easily distinguish between internal or external threats.
As you might guess, I strongly believe the most probable scenario is "civilization usually destroy themselves". I recommend the reading of Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island (American Scientist, 2006) as an example of the collapse of a quasi-isolated civilization. Also, these XKCD comics.
Oh, I should also have linked to Biosphere 2 - Wikipedia
You'll love it: it's the story of the most successful biodome experiment whose goal was to create a closed ecological system to support and maintain human life in outer space. Long story short: the experiment stopped after it was vandalized by scientists who protested the new management... led by none other than Stephen Bannon
The Strange History of Steve Bannon and the Biosphere 2 Experiment
"Scientists broke into the dome to sound the alarm about Bannon's involvement"
"This one's a huge "OH *sugar*" for scientists: Tampering with an in-progress experiment and contaminating the entire dome."
"He was accused of harassing employees"
This is a good example of the collapse of a living system because of human failure (aka social/ideological issues).
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mspohr
Well-Known Member
There is no half life for CO2. It doesn't spontaneously degrade. It goes somewhere (the ocean, etc.) where it has further untoward effects.
Oh, I should also have linked to Biosphere 2 - Wikipedia
You'll love it: it's the story of the most successful biodome experiment whose goal was to create a closed ecological system to support and maintain human life in outer space. Long story short: the experiment stopped after it was vandalized by scientists who protested the new management... led by none other than Stephen Bannon
The Strange History of Steve Bannon and the Biosphere 2 Experiment
"Scientists broke into the dome to sound the alarm about Bannon's involvement"
"This one's a huge "OH *sugar*" for scientists: Tampering with an in-progress experiment and contaminating the entire dome."
"He was accused of harassing employees"
This is a good example of the collapse of a living system because of human failure (aka social/ideological issues).
Then we're doomed for extinction, because you can't fix stupid, lazy, and greedy. It's inherent to the human condition. Maybe AI's replacing humans is the best thing to preserve "humanity" and all other living things?
No, we are not talking about a half-life based on spontaneous degradation. Carbon eventually finds its way back into geological layer beyond the biosphere. So there is very slow process of re-fossilization and we can model the median time it takes for a carbon atom to go randomly from emission into the biosphere to geological deposition, source to sink. That median time to deposition is called the half-life.
Compartment models with sinks have exponential decay in the long run.
Multi-compartment model - Wikipedia
Exponential decay - Wikipedia
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