OK, Oivavoi. My complaint about renewables is that they suggest an ideological stance that is too close to the stance that is the problem:
a refusal to accept limits on economic growth and energy production.
a focus on consumption patterns rather than production patterns.
a preference to reduce costs of production and tell people to “just say no” rather than reduce consumption through increasing costs of production.
a reliance on technology to boost production rather than use existing production more efficiently.
This ideology is basically one of economic growth, and is what got us into our problem in the first place.
But thank you for sharing that resource, there’s plenty there to explore. To constrain my earlier statements against renewables, I do believe in uses like:
solar water heating.
underground cold storage.
swamp coolers.
You can read more below, if you like.
renewables as a source of additional energy production, even if cheaper than fossil fuel sources, face issues with:
intermittent production
battery storage (solar, wind)
waste disposal (nuclear)
pollution risks (nuclear)
lifetime (solar, wind)
stakeholder support
nimbyism
As a quick illustration of the problem with a consumption-focused ideology, lets think about recent transportation choices in the US. In the US there have been opportunities to build fuel-efficient cars for a long time. Instead, we chose (I’m American) energy-guzzling SUV’s and big trucks. Lighter cars, lower speed limits, aerodynamic shaping, and smaller engines would have saved a lot of fuel since the 1970′s oil crisis. Carpooling, trains, recumbent bikes with traffic lights, less urbanization, fewer cars overall, energy independence, all ideas floating around back in the 1970′s. Back then we really did have time to make those changes, I think.
We could have restrained our energy production, but kept using fossil fuels without guilt and seriously reduced GHG production but just as a side effect of reducing our energy consumption overall.
Meanwhile, scientists monitoring other resource flows, like inputs to manufacturing would have been pleased to see fewer vehicles being built, fewer consumer products overall, and a slower pace of technology change, because it takes energy, mining, waste production, and environmental destruction to make products that break or are improved on too quickly.
Imagine a car from the 1980′s that gets 50mpg, seats four, and actually drives 4 people around (at 45 mph...), most of the time, but is still in use today. Who owns it? Some person who collects a ride-share credit from the state (and has for the last 35 years) to help pay for the gas. Everyone else uses bikes for short trips and trains for long ones. And they’re relatively poor in terms of material goods that they own. But they carry no debt, have a modest savings, belong to a large middle class, and are healthy and (relatively) happy. And a lot less into consumerism.
In that alternative future, fossil fuel consumption would have gone down by a lot. We wouldn’t be fracking or using shale (much). But we would still be using oil and gas, thinking worriedly about the 0.3 GAST rise we’ve seen over the last 40 years, and wondering what to do next.
But fast forward 40 years on our real timeline. Overall energy production is not a measure of sustainability. Fossil fuel production is not a measure of sustainability. GHG production is a measure but is also externalized by consumers and power producers, as much as possible (for example, a lot of US GHG’s have effects felt in other countries, that’s why some countries want reparations for our GHG production). Right now, we are talking about a future of nuclear and solar power where not only does nuclear power and renewable energy make sense, but also a bunch of restraint in other areas of consumption once we’ve solved our energy production “problem”. But that problem is really that we don’t have cheap enough energy to produce what we want with it, meaning that our consumption is unsustainable. We don’t want to conserve energy, conserve oil, or conserve resources that make our products. We could start doing that anytime. We’re not really into it.
I just don’t see Americans simultaneously accepting abundant cheap energy AND rejecting the rest of their lifestyles, come hell or high water. Which means we’ll get both. Hell and high water.
We will do everything else the same and make a bigger mess of the environment, which after this century, might not even be possible, with our cheap renewable energy and our typical pattern of overcoming resource limits and externalizing costs onto others or onto people in the future. Amazingly, there’s no talk from the public about reducing our birth rates. We still talk about the developing world as having high birth rates, places where people suffer in poverty and consume almost no resources. Given this lack of introspection and insight, I’m not expecting enlightened consumerism out of Americans, and nor should you.
We are important to ourselves, and we need to learn how to conserve. It’s simpler, and safer, to just conserve, not get all complicated with an approach like:
conserving but also making it cheaper for us if we do not conserve but decide instead to destroy the lives of some other people with our GHG emissions, resource extraction and pollution.
In reality, the US is under direct threat from climate change, regardless of our externalization efforts. Nevertheless, the externalization efforts continue.
EDIT: I’m not sure if many people use externalize the way that I do. By “externalize”, I mean indifferently shift negative consequences of actions onto other people (humans, animals, alive now or at a later time).
OK, Oivavoi. My complaint about renewables is that they suggest an ideological stance that is too close to the stance that is the problem:
a refusal to accept limits on economic growth and energy production.
a focus on consumption patterns rather than production patterns.
a preference to reduce costs of production and tell people to “just say no” rather than reduce consumption through increasing costs of production.
a reliance on technology to boost production rather than use existing production more efficiently.
This ideology is basically one of economic growth, and is what got us into our problem in the first place.
But thank you for sharing that resource, there’s plenty there to explore. To constrain my earlier statements against renewables, I do believe in uses like:
solar water heating.
underground cold storage.
swamp coolers.
You can read more below, if you like.
renewables as a source of additional energy production, even if cheaper than fossil fuel sources, face issues with:
intermittent production
battery storage (solar, wind)
waste disposal (nuclear)
pollution risks (nuclear)
lifetime (solar, wind)
stakeholder support
nimbyism
As a quick illustration of the problem with a consumption-focused ideology, lets think about recent transportation choices in the US. In the US there have been opportunities to build fuel-efficient cars for a long time. Instead, we chose (I’m American) energy-guzzling SUV’s and big trucks. Lighter cars, lower speed limits, aerodynamic shaping, and smaller engines would have saved a lot of fuel since the 1970′s oil crisis. Carpooling, trains, recumbent bikes with traffic lights, less urbanization, fewer cars overall, energy independence, all ideas floating around back in the 1970′s. Back then we really did have time to make those changes, I think.
We could have restrained our energy production, but kept using fossil fuels without guilt and seriously reduced GHG production but just as a side effect of reducing our energy consumption overall.
Meanwhile, scientists monitoring other resource flows, like inputs to manufacturing would have been pleased to see fewer vehicles being built, fewer consumer products overall, and a slower pace of technology change, because it takes energy, mining, waste production, and environmental destruction to make products that break or are improved on too quickly.
Imagine a car from the 1980′s that gets 50mpg, seats four, and actually drives 4 people around (at 45 mph...), most of the time, but is still in use today. Who owns it? Some person who collects a ride-share credit from the state (and has for the last 35 years) to help pay for the gas. Everyone else uses bikes for short trips and trains for long ones. And they’re relatively poor in terms of material goods that they own. But they carry no debt, have a modest savings, belong to a large middle class, and are healthy and (relatively) happy. And a lot less into consumerism.
In that alternative future, fossil fuel consumption would have gone down by a lot. We wouldn’t be fracking or using shale (much). But we would still be using oil and gas, thinking worriedly about the 0.3 GAST rise we’ve seen over the last 40 years, and wondering what to do next.
But fast forward 40 years on our real timeline. Overall energy production is not a measure of sustainability. Fossil fuel production is not a measure of sustainability. GHG production is a measure but is also externalized by consumers and power producers, as much as possible (for example, a lot of US GHG’s have effects felt in other countries, that’s why some countries want reparations for our GHG production). Right now, we are talking about a future of nuclear and solar power where not only does nuclear power and renewable energy make sense, but also a bunch of restraint in other areas of consumption once we’ve solved our energy production “problem”. But that problem is really that we don’t have cheap enough energy to produce what we want with it, meaning that our consumption is unsustainable. We don’t want to conserve energy, conserve oil, or conserve resources that make our products. We could start doing that anytime. We’re not really into it.
I just don’t see Americans simultaneously accepting abundant cheap energy AND rejecting the rest of their lifestyles, come hell or high water. Which means we’ll get both. Hell and high water.
We will do everything else the same and make a bigger mess of the environment, which after this century, might not even be possible, with our cheap renewable energy and our typical pattern of overcoming resource limits and externalizing costs onto others or onto people in the future. Amazingly, there’s no talk from the public about reducing our birth rates. We still talk about the developing world as having high birth rates, places where people suffer in poverty and consume almost no resources. Given this lack of introspection and insight, I’m not expecting enlightened consumerism out of Americans, and nor should you.
We are important to ourselves, and we need to learn how to conserve. It’s simpler, and safer, to just conserve, not get all complicated with an approach like:
conserving but also making it cheaper for us if we do not conserve but decide instead to destroy the lives of some other people with our GHG emissions, resource extraction and pollution.
In reality, the US is under direct threat from climate change, regardless of our externalization efforts. Nevertheless, the externalization efforts continue.
EDIT: I’m not sure if many people use externalize the way that I do. By “externalize”, I mean indifferently shift negative consequences of actions onto other people (humans, animals, alive now or at a later time).