The complete phasing-out of fossil fuels is not realistic, China’s top climate official said, adding that these climate-warming fuels must continue to play a vital role in maintaining global energy security.
Ah okay. Guess we’ll die then. 🤷🏻
This feels relevant
That’s why never have a chance. This greedy bastards full of shit do not give a fuck about the planet. Play a vital role in maintaining global energy security mean keep digging money, keep maintain the power, richs and poors, create and consolidate a world where the 1% can keep going around the globe with airplanes, build villas same as medieval castles, buy testla to feeling ecofriendly, having someone below like slaves to feeling important, while offert them a life of work for nothing. Buying my cars, consume my petroil, spread your legs and open your butthole. This world is doomed and smell.
Most of China’s increased electricity demand is to bring poor people who are currently farming in rural fields into urban jobs within big cities. It’s to help meet the growing demand of a population that currently has:
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296 cars/1000p (US: 908/1000p)
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73.7% Internet connectivity (US: 92%)
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Limited heating capacity because of very little natural gas supply (US: this basically isn’t a problem because the US has infinite gas reserves)
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Rolling blackouts in the summer because of AC use since China and other countries that make up the Global South have been disproportionately affected by climate change (US: this isn’t really a problem)
But yes, please feel free to blame the rich… but please don’t ignore the fact that you ARE the rich.
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They’re probably right in a very general sense, at least in the short and medium terms. Fossil fuels have a lot of qualities that make them hard to out compete for some tasks. But we can get the usage of them back to levels that aren’t destructive to our habitats. And in the long term it’s absolutely possible to eliminate their use.
Fossil fuels have a lot of qualities that make them hard to out compete for some tasks.
Yeap, unfortunately from a engineering standpoint it’s hard not to take advantage of such an energy dense fuel. Even if we had completely invested in nuclear power, there would still be scenarios where it would logistically make more sense to bring fuel to creat energy rather than transporting that energy.
And in the long term it’s absolutely possible to eliminate their use.
I think it’ll be possible to potentially eliminate their use as a fuel source, but I’m not sure if we’ll ever eliminate our need for hydrocarbons for things like plastics, solvents, and fertilizers.
We need to move away from fossil fuels for obvious reasons, but one of the things I’m kinda afraid of as we transition away from them is that fossil fuels corporations will use the global poor as hostages.
The most populated regions on the globe are dependent on cheap hydrocarbon base fertilizers to maintain the nitrogen content of their soil. The reason these fertilizers are so affordable is their production is a byproduct of massive amounts of fuel refining.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the corporations started to cut the production or access of fertilizer to large populations of the global poor, as a “look at what the leftist are making me do to the poor” tactic.
Right now he is probably right. The current grid storage solutions are usually Lion or LiPho and neither is really cheap enough and the entire power system will scew towards enormous overproduction with less storage as a result. But there are plenty of grid size storage solutions being developed that have the $ per KWH that will make it more viable.
One possibility is that we use all that excess power for carbon capture or hydrogen production so that we can burn CO2 producing fuels or hydrogen when the sun and wind aren’t blowing for days at a time. It’s all viable the pieces exist it’s about building them more than anything.
Nothing is going to change with inaction. We all need to be proactive in this change. Simply stating we cannot, because we have not done enough in the past, should not mean we must carry on in that fashion.
China is still leading in solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro deployment…
I’m sure China would be happy to harness geothermal too, but they don’t really have dense geothermal capacity to exploit.
The best energy storage we have is pumping hydro.
Pump water up a hill when power is cheap, let if flow downhill and spin a flywheel when production drops.
Huge battery banks with limited recharge cycles is stupid when all you need is some water and a high spot to put it.
Isn’t that less efficient because of motor losses, drag, etc? It’s also heavily dependent on geography.
Then why the hell are the rest of us even trying?
Because it’s additive?
Doesn’t matter, if they’re still gonna burn coal I shouldn’t have to switch to renewables either, or at the very least not on the quick timetable. Either all in or not at all, it’s not like the effects above 2C aren’t going to kill everyone anyway
What an idiotic sentiment
Unfortunately it’s an easy sentiment to promulgate. It taps into feelings of fairness and justice. Those are some very foundational emotional drivers for humans
However, I think there’s a chance to turn that sort of reasoning around. Like if we appeal to the idea of right and wrong. If using fossil fuels is like stealing or assault or worse, then the fact that someone else is doing it doesn’t suddenly make it ok. It makes the person doing it a bad person.
The problem with fossil fuel use currently is that so many people are using them and whole countries and ways of life have been built around using them. Getting rid of fossil fuels has the potential to be as disruptive as getting rid of slavery.
Effects above 2C will not, in fact, “Kill everyone.” The idea that this whole thing is some binary condition between “Everything is fine” and “Everyone dies” is complete nonsense. Every fraction of a degree we reduce or prevent will make a difference to survivability and quality of life for people all across the planet.
It all matters (in the sense that every country, big and small, should be trying to decarbonise; obviously, those efforts should be targeted on billionaires and massive pollution driving industries where we’ll make an actual difference, not completely ineffectual headline grabbed like plastic bags and drinking straws).
Because on a per-capita basis, you still outpollute China by a factor of at least 2?
Because unlike China, your government moves incredibly slowly and needs more momentum to actually accomplish change?
Per capita basis
Carbon is carbon, mass is mass, and heat is heat, none of it cares about population size, we could just as easily look at it as a per-gdp basis, and it would be just as useful
Government of China says we don’t need to change, or at least they don’t, I don’t think I should either then. Especially considering no climate change policy works without the whole world decarbonizing, including China, regardless of how small their number looks on a per capita basis
China is moving faster on renewables than every other country. China is moving faster on EVs than every other country.
Who’s not changing?
All these different measures and not the only one that matters lol
If you feel like giving China a domestic supply of O&G so they can switch their coal plants to gas ones, be my guest.
That’s been the single greatest contributor to reduced emissions in North America and Europe over the past few decades.
That’s wild considering we’ve almost used up all of the fossil fuel reserves on earth. So good luck to this guy after 2060 I guess?
The people in charge who can’t see beyond this quarter’s financial reports will be dead by then, so they don’t care.
Dude isn’t wrong: fossil fuels are just really good for a bunch of industrial operations. Doesn’t stop China from leading the world in the manufacture and deployment of solar panels, manufacture and deployment of wind turbines, development and deployment of nuclear power plants, development and deployment of hydroelectric power plants…
