Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

Energy determinism is one of the worst theories of civilization.

I remember that book "Hubbert's peak" that came out around 2000, to his credit he did say that the bullet could be dodged if somebody figured out how to deliver energy into shale in such a way to get the trapped oil and gas out and you know somebody did.

Some other guys had a site called "dieoff.com" that predicted that electric grids would go down circa 2013.

The one thing that is predictable about energy pricing is that it is volatile in the short term and remarkably stable in the long term.

We have enough energy in the nuclear waste that is already above ground to run our civlization for a few centuries, we may not have the will to use it yet, but that will will materialize if things get dire enough. Fukushima set things back a few decades, but it is not a story about nuclear power being dangerous as much as it is the operators being too cheap to spend $1M fortifying the diesel generator installation a bit.

Decreasing use of fossil fuels isn't a problem of having no alternative.

As the article alludes, it is a political problem. Many powerful governments are controlled to some degree by fossil-fuel tycoons (including the US), and these vastly wealthy people won't allow their governments to switch.

By that argument, chemical companies would not have allowed the switch from CFCs to HFCs and then the switch from HFCs to fluoroketones.

Actually the chemical industry made huge amounts of $$$ from each transition. For instance, you can't get a generic asthma inhaler now because all of the CFC-free formulations are patented and by the time those go off patent they will have finally determined it is safe to puff fluoroketones and they will ban HFCs and there will be another decades of paying extra for asthma inhalers.

My argument wasn't absolute. Many, many incumbents have blocked important social change. Exxon is a classic energy example (covering up climate change once they knew it was happening). Another is the maker of TurboTax blocking reforms to the US tax filing system because it would have killed their product.

Sometimes big industries suffer due to policy decisions. Sometimes they take advantage of change and make money. Sometimes they use their money to fight the change instead.

Oil companies happen to fall into the last category with no sign things will change.

If Exxon is covering up climate change, they are doing a pretty damn poor job of it considering the hysteria in most media about it.

The tax system was insane long before Turbo Tax came on the scene. Sure they may have a vested interest in the status quo but they didn't create the insanity and they are not the primary cause it's not being reduced.

They did cover it up and had a lot of success: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_co...

Not quite the same. In the switchover from CFC to HFC, it was mainly the same companies making both chemicals. In the switchover from fossil fuels to renewable/green energy, you are moving production from one group of well established suppliers to a group of mostly newcomers. While many of the larger energy suppliers are invested in numerous energy plays, the bulk have a singular focus on one energy source. (Source: family in petroleum industry).

It is literally a problem of not having good enough alternatives. Fossil fuels have an energy density of 30-40MJ/kg. Also they provide power on demand. Ignoring climate effects, they are pretty close to ideal. Lithium ion batteries have less than 10% the density. Teslas only work by making up for the horrible inefficiency of passenger cars, and by devoting significantly more of the car's mass to energy storage. So far I haven't heard much at all about battery powered freight transportation.

Solar, nuclear, hydrogen (for freight), hydro...

Anyway, we don't need to use 0 fossil fuels to stop climate change.

Those all have significant hurdles to be overcome. Wind and solar both require significant infrastructure along. Nuclear has political issues and even without them the build out would/should be slow. Hydrogen is horribly inefficient. Hydro is very dependent on the terrain and has environmental impact problems.

I'm not saying they aren't part of the solution. But, we need to recognize the scale and complexity of the problem. Solving or at least weathering it will require multiple angles of attack, significant time, effort, engineering work and quite likely scientific advancement.

Occam's razor. Getting off fossil fuels is expensive. Alternatives cost more. Many governments have invested heavily into green energy, and face resistance from the public about the best high energy costs - come to Ontario where the highly visible wind generators have become a scapegoat for the fact that we went from having the cheapest power in Canada/USA to the most expensive (they're a small part of the reason, but they make a good scapegoat). The government recently floated the idea of moving new houses to electrical heating and was pilloried for it.

The public wants to go green, but only if nobody has to be inconvenienced with it.

decreasing fossil fuels is merely one step in reducing some types of impact on the environment; not all of which are bad. The impact of cement creation is still immense and during China's building spree it likely rivaled fossil fuels. Throw in all the energy spent to raise livestock into the mix as well.

its this simpleton idea that fixing fossil fuel consumption is a magic bullet. when I see these articles I usually get part way through and think, okay it would be nice if he read more than the top to search results in google before writing this tripe

Fossil-fuel tycoons have never exerted significant* control over the government in most of the US, and I doubt they've any more control outside the US. At least in Europe, the Green Party effectively nulls the voice of energy executives ( with the possible exception of those who have significant revenue from the North Sea ).

*There are cases, but they're mostly in the past and in the wake of the rebalancing during the post-WWII era.

It is a problem of alternatives; the alternatives aren't really in place yet. Ironically, the wealthy can afford them.

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