Bro just ignoring all the ships we’ll need to carry all that wind and sunlight
Inaccurate statement.
https://qz.com/2113243/forty-percent-of-all-shipping-cargo-consists-of-fossil-fuels
40% of traffic is for petrochemicals, which according to this article is coal, oil, gas, and things derived from them, which would include fertilizer and plastics and probably some other stuff too like industrial lubricants, asphalt etc. Not just fossil fuels, so not all that 40% would be affected by a switch to renewable energy. It’s also worth noting that building out renewable energy generation involves shipping a lot of hardware around the globe as well.
Industrial lubricants and asphalt fit my definition of petrochemicals
But then so do plastics
That last sentence, yep. People don’t tend to factor in the carbon footprint of building anything they deem environmentally friendly. There’s a cost/benefit analysis to be made. A bad idea may actually be worse than what it’s replacing, or not beneficial enough to pursue.
There may be carbon emitted in creating green energy but green energy is ultimately reducing demand for hydrocarbons, which is better than sequestration. Also you need to factor into the operational life of the green tech. If you do, it’s pretty clear pretty fast that it’s beneficial to go with green energy options. The argument you’re making is a common strawman argument for not investing in green energy.
Interestingly you’re both correct.
We swapped to ICE vehicles as they were cleaner than shit covered streets from all the horses, making a new problem.
Renewable energy is much cleaner long term- but what new issues are we not seeing? If we through ourselves head first into this (and we need to) what did we miss?
For all the things you think of when you hear “renewables”, that analysis has already been made, and it’s overwhelmingly better in every way to ditch fossil fuels.
I’d assume this is true over any sufficiently long time horizon.
I’d guess it’s like 20 years for a lotta stuff? i.e. short enough the average Lemming would benefit in their lifetime
Do we know what the percentage is after subtracting out things derived from fossil fuels? I looked at the article and tried to do the math, but it seems like the stats are bundled together.
localizing and streamlining production is a bigger factor to climate change anyway imo
technology and production should absolutely not be as centralized and wasteful as it currently is.
localizing and streamlining production
These are two distinct goals, sometimes that work against each other. Localization is often a tradeoff between saving energy on transport and logistics versus economies of scale in production, and the right balance might look different for different things.
The carbon footprint of a banana shipped across the globe is still far less than that of the typical backyard chicken, because the act of raising a chicken at home is so inefficient (including with commercially purchased feed driven home in a passenger car) that it can’t compete on energy/carbon footprint.
There are products where going local saves energy, but that’s not by any means a universal correlation.
Don’t forget that if those other things which are derived from them are reduced too that would be a massive win for the health of the planet and everything living on it. Without primarily consuming the fuel component of petrochemicals I think it would drastically change the economics of producing the derivatives and make them scarcer. It looks like a win-win.
Also it requires shipping oil to fuel the mining operations needed to produce full scale renewable energy. But if we wait a little bit the quality of power output from the same mining inputs will improve which means renewable later requires less total mining than full scale renewable now, and so you will use less fuel to do that smaller amount of mining.
What people don’t realize is that the expense of renewable technology mostly is fuel. Fuel to mine it, fuel to move the raw materials, fuel to refine it, fuel to manufacture it, fuel to ship it to you. The total labor is quite small. So if taken on a specific case the financial perspective alone of a particular application of renewable vs conventional energy the numbers don’t add up then likely the renewable is less green. If you wait a little bit for the green cost to come down that indicates improved efficiencies and now it actually is green.
So the answer to make the world more green is not to shift our calculations to spend money on green solutions beyond financial sense. It’s to work on technology to lower green costs until it naturally makes sense and thereby also make it more green at the same time.
So if taken on a specific case the financial perspective alone of a particular application of renewable vs conventional energy the numbers don’t add up then likely the renewable is less green.
Renewables are more climate efficient and cheaper. Today. All this included. A wind turbine, depending on size, position etc, generates the amount of power used in it’s construction within 2.5 - 11 months. Over it’s life cycle it generates about 40x the energy you put in. There is no valid excuse to keep burning stuff because it appears cheaper short-term.
Another way to look at it: the shipping industry will take a beating while everyone transitions.
If anyone is left wondering why there’s so much institutional resistance to changing our energy diet, its institutions like this that are lobbying and generating the propaganda behind it. Energy companies are just one faction.
Or they’d just ship something else? They’d lose some money and scrap a few ships, but the drop in costs would make it more economical to ship whatever else people want, like lumber and funko pops.
Good lord I hate Funko Pops. Them and Minions™ are are the false idols of consumerism.
Look, let me tell you something. A Minion died for you. A Minion paid the price of sin for you and me that we deserve. Why? Because they love you. And if you think Minions are a false idol, then keep on scrolling. But if you know that a Minion died for your sins, type ‘wonderful savior’ and smash that upvote button
Joke’s on you when we get even more ships sending the sun and wind around the world, idiot.
Why don’t we just have one or two very big ships, powered by nuclear reactors. Like, 40-50 kilometers long each, with hydrofoils, top speed just under mach one. Zip around and deliver everyone’s shit with big deck-mounted gauss guns that fire packages right to your doorstep as the ship screams past the nearest coastline.
Currently seeking angel investors for 500m buy-in, or I’ll take a 200kg of plutonium, if you’ve got that.
What if I live in the geographic center of a continent? How do I know which coastline cannon to order from?
You have me thinking of like… A ring around the equator with space elevators on it (with stations at the top), and “rail” tracks, with trains traveling between all the stations. Gaussian launchers sending packages to your nearest delivery depot.
Project Atlantis would be an excellent start. Not much in that for Europe though
It’s a ring around the Pacific rim, held aloft by centrifugal effects like a whirled billy
I haven’t had billy tea in too long
Believe it or not, that’s a feasible (ish) plan for a space elevator we could build right now. Instead of having a counterweight at GEO that’s pulling on a carbon nanotube rope, you have a ring spinning inside another ring in LEO. The outer ring could be made of Kevlar, and IIRC, it would take something like a year or two of all current Kevlar production. You then need four stations approximately equidistant apart around the equator to act as counterweights.
The station for the Pacific would itself be quite the engineering challenge. Not a lot of land you can use at the place you need.
Okay, trying to wrap my brain around this one at 4:15am.
Is the idea that a ring around earth basically floats there because it’s around the whole planet? Like, when it attempts to fall towards earth on one side, it would require it to move up on the other, away from gravity? So it’s perpetually falling towards earth, but balanced because it’s also falling in the opposite direction on the other side of the of the planet?
Or have I completely misunderstood?
Also, one of the videos mentioned it would need to be filled with something (I forget now), in a vacuum tube that ran its whole length… What happens if the vacuum tube gets a hole in it? Does the whole thing break apart and crash to earth?
I want the future they describe, but I can’t say that I understand it lol
