Pretty close. They weren’t that long ago at all.
This guy on linkedin is a good follow.
I think he’s Canadian. So you may either a) know him or b) be him…
If so, apologies!
I have met Mike a couple times. He is a great person to follow. Even though I knew this one I appreciate the heads up as I’m always looking for good sources. Thanks!
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The problem with this article is its states facts but draws the wrong conclusion. Let grant its premise that carbon capture is bullshit. Ok. Congrats. What’s the solution. I can cite the same article that hydrogen, nuclear, biofuel, widespread solar, wind, geothermal ect are bullshit.
I honestly have no idea what some of the climate change lobby wants?
Right now I’m working on two solar, one wind, one carbon capture, three biofuel, one nuclear, and one geothermal project and there are people (likely on this forum) who would claim it’s all just cover for oil and gas. 
Of course renewables are cheaper but they sure weren’t 20 years ago.
I’ve never seen a single serious analysis that suggests wind and solar alone can replace all fossil fuel. That’s the point. It has to be a group of solutions.
For what’s it worth, I’m facing the most public pushback against my two solar projects right now.
Actually building nuclear is fine. In places where it stacks up. Closing existing nuclear early was fucking criminal.
I have a specific problem with nuclear purely from a local Australian perspective, it’s being cynically promoted by the right wing party as an excuse to delay climate change action and investment in renewables.
Australia is significantly worse than the average for nuclear.
And most of those are fine. Biofuels has some land challenges to hit scale. It’s only the CCS I have a problem with and you hinted that’s it not just CCS on a coal or gas generator so it might not be as bad as the typical.
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We should delineate carbon capture and carbon capture and utilization. They latter is more problematic from a carbon balance perspective for obvious reasons.
CCS, especially targeting things like concrete manufacturing has to be part of the solution. There is no reasonable near future where these kinds of things can be 100% renewable.
It’s very very difficult to build largescale electrical transmission in North America. Most of the recent attempts have failed at the permitting stage. This will have to be solved as well.
Expand on “replace all fossil fuels”?
It can get clearly get to 95% of electricity, all heating, all transport, most, if not all industrial heat and most of shipping and aviation.
And it can do all of those with existing tech or next in the next few years of development.
There are plenty of serious analysis showing exactly that. The state of South Australia runs on 100% renewables for weeks at a time.
This is what we need to do, not fuck around with get out of jail free cards for the FF industry
Regarding the twenty years thing. This is what I mean by bad heuristics. X got better after 20 years so Y can get better in 20 years.
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It’s not bad heuristics at the non granular level. It’s obviously true that as a rule technologies get cheaper over time. Of course there are exceptions but the burden of proof falls to those who are claiming Y wont follow the same path.
As for electricity. We are having a differed of opinion on timeline. Sure I can envision a future where 95% of power is renewable. This seems like the most likely (and desirable) future. My point about the serious analysis is about the timeline.
Your comment on huge parts of Austrian running in renewables isn’t really accurate either right? None of the planes, only a tiny portion of the cars, little of the industrial and petrochemical, all of concrete manufacturing, the majority of the construction industry ect all run on fossil fuels.
Let’s stay in the heuristic thing because I think it’s really important.
Energy doesn’t work like that.
Over the last 30 years computers/iPhone got what 50,000 times faste? Ballpark?
Guess how much better coal power stations got in that period?
This is obviously true but it’s also the same logical error people who say they won’t vote dem because the party isn’t for ending capitalism.
We live in a complex political world. There is no scenario where we end fossil fuels in the next several decades so aside from the self satisfaction of being right what does such a stance achieve? Is the moral choice not to recognize the actual situation and try to reduce emissions as much as possible rather than wishcasting a world we both know can’t exist?
I agree something like an iPhone is a bad analogy. That doesn’t change my point.
Can you name a single energy technology that has not gotten cheaper over time. Imperial announced last month they have cut the cost of their oil sand production by like 30% over a couple years.
Let me ask you this? You think solar would be as cheap as is it today without a couple decades of massive r&d and public investment in things like tax incentives?
Yes and no.
There are multiple occasions where we should argue for the least bad solution. Obama over Bush. Biden over Trump. Etc. I literally did that up thread
But that’s not is being done.
It’s like
“we need to go to France”
“Okay. so our two choices are. We can either start walking or we can staple our dicks to the floor.”
“Let’s not do the last one”
“Why are you letting perfection get in the way of progress”?
CCS and all of these fossil fuel funded fantasies do not move us forward at all.
Make a guess on the coal. Ball park.
Thats not the analogy.
The analogy is we need to go to France.
Let’s walk.
No we should teleport
But that doesn’t exist
Well then there is no point in walking
I don’t know but I don’t see what point you are making? There are bad energy technologies? Who is arguing against that point?
We are disagreeing on if other technologies are bad. Coal being bad isn’t a useful data point.
But it’s not. There’s only one choice to address climate change. It’s the ramp down of FF.
That may be extremely difficult, it may be politically impossible, but if that’s the case then are zero choices. There is not technology fix for this
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Just make a guess. Use a heuristic.
The key driver of coal costs is how much energy you need to put in in terms of coal vs the energy you get out.
I’ll give you 50 years.
How much do think the efficiency improved in this period?
Apoligies if I’m beating a dead horse here. But I see it all the time.
Guy at work: I’ve invested in a company doing roof top wind
Me: it won’t work
Him: how do you know that
Me: physics
Him: you are just leaping to conclusions.
To anyone without a sound understanding of the energy and the maths. I sound like the asshole in this convo, but I’m 100% right.