HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Almost 45 years after we were told not to burn all that coal, we are still burning all that coal.

https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

But 45 years from now we’ll be smart enough to reverse all the damage we did for almost a century.

⬐ is_true

It's a hard problem, it's similar to what happens when developed countries ask those underdeveloped to not exploit it's natural resources the way they did to get where they are now.

⬐ wahnfrieden

Lot of people have let optimism for science and technology get in the way of responsibility for risks that breakthroughs don’t come quickly enough

I hear all kinds of narratives on this. According to this EPA article, US emissions are down 20% since 2005.

https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...

Of course, global emissions are way up but we were warned 40 years ago about global coal use.

https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

⬐ bombcar

The US has continued to export emissions to other countries, as we export more and more manufacturing.

⬐ melling

Yes, everyone knows this.

China built the second largest economy, the second largest military, and 3x as much greenhouse gas on the back of US consumer spending.

But hey, people on HN don’t like it when you point out stuff like this.

I think people are hoping for plausible deniability.

With half a century of warning, how did we end up in this climate mess?

“ hey, let’s blame the oil companies“

⬐ ch4s3

Only 16% of US imports come from China. The majority of US imports are from nations with falling emissions. Obviously that isn't perfectly illustrative of exact shares of CO2 represented by those imports, but it's a useful proxy.

⬐ melling

China is responsible for 27% of total global emissions.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/06/chinas-greenhouse-gas-em...

Some of it can be tied directly to US trade, and some of it can be tied to taking the all those profits and building internally. We exported all that manufacturing which used a lot of dirty coal

The US is 11% of the total.

⬐ ch4s3

My point is that the US didn't "export all of its manufacturing" or all of its consumption emissions. Both statements are demonstrably false. Even still, of China's emissions only half are industrial. In the US manufacturing accounts for ~22% of emissions. If all of that manufacturing came back to the US, emissions would likely be lower, especially because we're phasing out coal. Don't get me wrong, it's a problem but the narrative that the US is only cutting emissions because of China's manufacturing is stupid.

⬐ melling

Nowhere did I say we exported all of our manufacturing.

China produces half of the world’s steel, for example. Most used internally.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_p...

Largest cement producer in the world by far:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/267364/world-cement-prod...

All that industrialization…got China to 27% of total emissions.

When the US released oil from its reserves it has to be sent overseas because of the lack of domestic refineries

https://www.corporateknights.com/energy/is-the-sun-setting-o...

Anyway, yes, part of the reason the US has dropped is because we have closed coal power plants in favor of natural gas, for example. But that’s another discussion

⬐ ch4s3

I was responding mostly to the topic of the original comment.

⬐ ch4s3

This isn't entirely true. The US still manufactures a lot of stuff, but does so more efficiently than in the past. The bulk of imported emissions other than electronics and a few minerals are in goods and raw materials that we trade around within NAFTA. A lot of our trade partners are also reducing emissions, even as they export to us. China is our largest partner in terms of our imports, but it only accounts for 16%, while Canada and Mexico represent 14% each.

⬐ landemva

Yep, the smelters for making engine blocks are in Mexico to pollute over there.

⬐ ch4s3

Mexico is still cutting emissions year over year, as I mentioned in another comment Mexico, Canada, and the US are all making CO2 cuts. So even if that particular emissions is moved around all of NAFTA is making emissions progress.

That’s not correct. There are large emission issues that would should tackle first. How we generate electricity is one of them.

Carl Sagan warned us almost 40 years ago that coal would be a future problem.

https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

That was clearly a large problem that could have been addressed, and still needs to be ASAP.

Coal-fired power stations emit over 10 Gt of carbon dioxide each year,[4] about one fifth of world greenhouse gas emissions, so are the single largest cause of climate change. 8500 coal power plants in the world.

“Coal-fired power stations emit over 10 Gt of carbon dioxide each year,[4] about one fifth of world greenhouse gas emissions, so are the single largest cause of climate change.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-fired_power_station

So, we start the discussion with air travel, trying to reduce 2% to under 2%. While we’ve ignored 20% of global emissions.

We actually cost ourselves decades. So many miracles needed by 2050, when we could be talking 2070.

Now, let’s just tell everyone we need to do everything at once.

⬐ WastingMyTime89

> That’s not correct. There are large emission issues that would should tackle first.

No we should and can and are working on tackling everything at once because we don’t have the time to sit on our ass and wait for others to solve issues which don’t affect us before moving if we want our way of life to survive.

There is no valid reason to work sequentially here.

A quick google search gives us plenty of past published projections and how they fared:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-m...

You can also watch Carl Sagan break it down in front of congress back in 1985 for just 15 minutes of your time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI

Why do we want to blame the oil companies? So the bad guy isn’t consumers? We need 100 million barrels of oil a day! Bottled war, plastic containers for takeout food, SUVs, …

40% of global electricity is from coal. That’s much worse than oil.

We burn more coal than ever.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/265507/global-coal-consu...

Let’s all watch Carl Sagan from 1985 and figure out how to solve this multi-generational problem.

https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

He warned us not to use coal. Did we listen?

At the very least, we can buy ourselves a couple extra decades.

Update:

Got immediately downvoted so clearly I can’t respond.

Now I’m going to optimize my website so it uses less electricity then blog about which computer language uses less electricity.

Climate change is a form of bike shedding. We talk about a bunch of irrelevant ideas rather than addressing the real issues.

But hey, oil companies knew and didn’t tell us what we already knew. We’re off the hook!

Let’s keep sending climate change deniers to Washington:

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/climate-deniers-117...

⬐ e_i_pi_2

I had an initial negative reaction to this comment and tried to figure out why - I think the main reason is that you're putting the blame on individuals for systemic problems. I don't think any amount of individual people trying to be better is going to counteract the damage being done at scale by our large companies. There's definitely a bunch of issues where collective action can work great, but everyone at BP recycling isn't going to fix the next time they set the ocean on fire or get them to stop drilling for oil.

This feels kinda like other arguments I see for systemic problems where we blame individuals in the US - we have the most people in jail because they make bad decisions, we have the most shootings because those people are bad, we have so much obesity because people don't have self control, etc - but all these are happening across the population and not in other countries so the cause can't be the individual people, it has to be caused by the environment we're in.

As another argument that ignores the blame question altogether - it's just about how we can make the biggest impact the fastest. It's much easier to pass a law saying that makes it prohibitively expensive to be an oil company than it is to say people need to limit their driving more, and the downstream effect will be the same with less people using oil

⬐ lotsofpulp

> It's much easier to pass a law saying that makes it prohibitively expensive to be an oil company than it is to say people need to limit their driving more, and the downstream effect will be the same with less people using oil

I do not see why this would be the case. Politician who is advertising that they will vote against proposals to increase gas taxes would also advertise that they will vote against proposals to make being an oil company prohibitively expensive so that gas prices can go lower or stay low.

In the US, we still have a whole political party that removes drilling restrictions and is eager to install pipelines and do whatever is necessary to enable fossil fuel consumption, and they are a very popular party.

⬐ e_i_pi_2

Agreed - I wasn't trying to say that this is actually a likely outcome, just that it makes more sense to hold companies accountable than individuals

⬐ slothtrop

So, oil and coal then. Unless you had a different point.

⬐ AyyWS

Pretty sure the point was that we should take personal responsibility for our actions.

⬐ sputr

Responsibility should be placed where it can actually change something.

Yes, when dealing with things in our own lives it's usually best to go with "at your own feet", not mater who the actors are, since the only person whose actions you can change are your own.

But as far as climate goes, we, the individuals (who happen to not be rich at the moment) have no power to change anything. So taking personal responsibility will change nothing.

Well, actually, people taking personal responsibility for the climate have possibly made it worse by redirecting the attention to themselves.

⬐ powerhour

I'm down. Let's start by making the oil companies take "personal" responsibility for the externalities they create, including the amount of warming they have caused (and that they know they have caused). Perhaps with a carbon tax.

⬐ ehnto

Whether it's fair or not, personal responsibility has been very clearly pointed out and it's not changed anything. People are shitty and selfish, or sometimes just naive, and at their best, when they do everything they should, they are impotent.

Consumers are not just going to pull on their big boy pants and stop consuming, and we'll all live happily in a recovered ecosystem eating organic corn by candlelight. It has to be regulation on industry, and improvements to production (eg ditch coal power generation). Stop it where it matters, where impacts have the scale to actually matter.

I've been riding my bike to work this whole damn time! I think we're going to have to be a bit more ambitious.

⬐ slothtrop

Governments in the West make it a matter of explicit policy to increase consumption. That is what immigration rates are for, to prop up GDP, then every newcomer from the 3rd-world gets a larger carbon footprint overnight. It makes no sense to blame consumers for that.

If the serious consideration for those posturing starts and ends with consumption, then the consistent approach would be to oppose immigration. They do not, because it was never the point. Self-righteously indignation and signaling is.

Saying this with the awareness that both right-wing detractors and far-leftists like to target consumers/consumption, as for the latter it dovetails with their anti-Capitalism. Just look at the fusion energy thread from the other day, people are voicing concern that carbon-neutral and cheaper energy would lead to people buying more things. Westerners are struggling to get by, with purchasing power stagnating for years, and yet it's being projected they're practically drowning in useless stuff compared to their grandparents.

⬐ dccoolgai

The obvious contrapositive to this is what happened during the pandemic: everyone stopped driving for a couple months and it had... Almost no impact. The curtain is pulled back now: the call for "individual responsibility" is exposed as cynical the PR tactic it is... Much like "plastic recycling". The fact is 1) Big corporations 2) Big corporations and 3) Big corporations in concert with the legislators they've captured are responsible for climate change. As an individual the most effective behavior you can exhibit to limit climate change is to vote with 1) Your Democracy while you still have it and more importantly 2) Your wallet.

⬐ marincounty

None

⬐ jacksnipe

I’ll bite. Regardless of how you feel about this, oil companies deserve extra blame because their scientists predicted climate change due to oil consumption, and were hushed up and the research never shared.

⬐ masklinn

> were hushed up and the research never shared.

More than that, they used the time to prepare propaganda.

Sounds more like a long-term plan…

“It will take €10 trillion of investment by 2050 for Europe to transform its energy infrastructure”

In case anyone is wondering how we got here, it required almost 40 years of not doing much to solve the problem. We’ll need another 30 years of effort.

I imagine because we waited so long, we shortened our window to solve the problem. Thus requiring more money and a couple additional miracles.

The multi-generational effort did turn out to be a problem. And all that coal in China. Carl Sagan understood the issues so well.

https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

I think a better TLDR is: Europe relied on fossil fuels that it can no longer obtain. Blame clean energy nuclear power which the world refused to adopt over the past 30 years.

This was a classic “Pay now or pay later”. Congratulations, it’s 4 decades later and we made the wrong choice and waited for solar, wind, and those batteries.

https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

⬐ freemint

> the world refused to adopt over the past 30 years.

Are you pro building nuclear plats in every region on earth?

Should developing countries build their own nuclear industry or be dependent on foreign powers for their basic electricity?

⬐ shmel

What is wrong with nuclear plants in every region?

⬐ adrianN

In some regions it is harder to ensure that nobody steals radioactive material or blows the plant up than in others.

⬐ melling

Are any of these regions in the top 10 or 15 world economies?

Someone is trying to waste everyone’s time by saying “you want nuclear energy everywhere?!”

Small countries are a rounding error for global emissions.

If the world’s 10 or 15 largest economies…

⬐ freemint

> Small countries are a rounding error for global emissions.

Not if they are allowed to develop too. Are they not allowed to develop to western living and energy use standards per capita?

⬐ melling

Nope. I’ll let you do the math.

Here’s a hint. China and India combined have 2.5 billion people

⬐ freemint

Taking before pandemic numbers of GDP and population numbers by 2100 from here https://www.populationpyramid.net/population-size-per-countr... , the top 15 of economies will only account for 40% of world population. ~25% coming from India and China as you said.

So 6 billion people living in these "small economy countries" will not appreciate your sentiment.

⬐ skrause

Almost all of the EU's uranium also has to be imported from non-EU sources, just like fossil fuels. So it's not really better if you want actual energy independence.

⬐ steeve

France's Uranium strategic reserves are 3 years. The main supplier is Canada. France has Uranium mines, but they were closed since it was cheaper to import. They still do exist, though.

⬐ melling

My main point was we could have avoided half a century of massive coal usage. 40% of global power is still from coal.

It appears that we still need to resort to coal instead of renewables:

https://globalnews.ca/news/8993093/german-europe-coal-energy...

⬐ ohgodplsno

Mostly because it's not financially interesting, in the same way that the US did not pump oil on its own territory for the longest time because it wasn't worth it. There are 200 uranium mines in France.

⬐ melling

Yes, I agree. Coal was much cheaper. Back to my “pay now, pay later” point.

⬐ himinlomax

Uranium fuel is a non issue. It's imported because there are very cheap sources abroad and it's a tiny fraction of nuclear power cost. There are known uranium sources in France, they're just not exploited at the moment because that would be a waste of money. But they're there in case demand rises.

⬐ tomjen3

How many cargo planes with Uranium do you have to fly to satisfy the entire requirement of France for a year?

Compared to the same for LNG?

⬐ Zealotux

But uranium is much easier to store due to its energy density, and we can rely on better sources for it such as Canada and Australia, and not questionable countries like for oil.

⬐ pomian

Yes. It is much better if Canada and Australia are left with contaminated tailings ponds, that are full of acidic and radioactive waste. Those countries are definitely nimby.

⬐ melling

Coal, the current solution, is definitely a much better choice. No residual mess to clean up.

Kicking the climate change can down the road even farther requires a few more additional miracles. Heck, we still don’t see climate change as a major problem:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/us/politics/climate-chang...

⬐ belorn

Tailings ponds exist for all mining. This is why groundwater leakage is a major issue in all mining operations. Regardless if you mine for steel, copper, coal, rare earth minerals, or uranium, operations like those will also bring to surface heavy metals, sulfides and radioactive contents.

Northern Sweden is known for its iron ore mines, and people who live anywhere near those areas are recommended to install radon detectors. The iron from those mines is then used in multiple countries, leaving behind the contaminated water and air in Sweden.

Squirrel!

Time to watch Carl Sagan discuss climate change in 1985 then explain why 40% of global electricity is generated from coal.

https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

It’s 2022 and 40% of global electricity is from coal. We just hit 10% from solar and wind.

Here’s Carl Sagan from 1985:

https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

He said China would use all that coal and they did.

We lost decades of time. Now we need a few additional miracles.

⬐ ncmncm

And instead we have people proposing we do nothing at all while they try to build nukes.

⬐ melling

not exactly sure what this is referring to. Please add a little substance to which someone can respond.

Think we’d all like to see much more wind and solar. And wouldn’t it be nice if we reached 10% EV usage in 5 years?

⬐ ncmncm

Money is fungible. A dollar split between pouring concrete for a nuke and paying for coal in the meantime is a dollar not available to spend on immediately much more productive solar.

⬐ ZeroGravitas

"Usage" is a bit vague but we're already at 10% EV sales worldwide since it doubled for each of the last couple of years:

> Growth has been particularly impressive over the last three years, even as the global pandemic shrank the market for conventional cars and as manufacturers started grappling with supply chain bottlenecks. In 2019, 2.2 million electric cars were sold, representing just 2.5% of global car sales. In 2020, the overall car market contracted but electric car sales bucked the trend, rising to 3 million and representing 4.1% of total car sales. In 2021, electric car sales more than doubled to 6.6 million, representing close to 9% of the global car market and more than tripling their market share from two years earlier. All the net growth in global car sales in 2021 came from electric cars.

You'd think EVs and Nuclear would be a great pairing but it's unusual to see someone praising both. A somewhat weird place to be in preferring nuclear to gas (and renewables) but not EV to ICE.

⬐ ZeroGravitas

Solar and wind are cheap. Mostly due to scale. A scale we could have reached faster if people didn't keep repeating false things like:

"Renewables are not a viable solution to energy needs on their own”

You should check out graphs of renewables deployment (minus hydro which has been steady for a while) it makes reaching 10% wind/solar a lot more hopeful than you state it. The growth is staggering.

> There are now 50 countries that have crossed that 10% wind and solar generation mark, and seven countries hit that milestone in 2021: China, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Argentina, Hungary, and El Salvador, according to the report. Three countries in particular have shown a particularly fast transition, with Vietnam, Australia, and the Netherlands having moved 8% of their total electricity demand over to wind and solar from fossil fuels in only the last two years. These countries set a precedent, Jones says, to show other policy makers “there are ways to do this and not worry about keeping the lights on.”

I think it is important to remember that anti-renewables messaging has been around for a very long time. The panels might have needed to come off for repairs but definitely could have been put back up. Casually discarding even a public relations action like this likely had negative impacts on the discussion and many people taking the issue seriously for years to come. I don't know specifically how anti-renewables Regan was personally, but he definitely was the leader of a party that most strongly fought climate change messaging and actions in recent years.

Here is Carl Sagan testifying before congress in 1985 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI

Admittedly this hasn't necessarily been as strongly polarizing as it was during the 2010s, there was a time that it was a bipartisan issue that unified both parties in the interest of reducing foreign energy dependence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzDjjUAt3zc

⬐ fsociety999

Right. Very valid point. It’s entirely possible removing them was partially politically motivated or perhaps more accurately, it was politically motivated to LEAVE them off after the work was complete.

It has traditionally not been in the best interests of many politicians (in both parties) to promote renewable energy over fossil fuels sadly.

It may have changed since then, but even the “Green New Deal” originally did not include cutting tax subsidies for fossil fuels as part of its terms.

⬐ dylan604

> tax subsidies for fossil fuels

Does an industry that produces billions of dollars in profit per quarter really need subsidies?

⬐ jaltekruse

I think we're seeing pretty clear evidence of it right now. Americans in sprawling cities that get used to low gas prices buy giant gas guzzling cars and then freak out like none other when prices go up. The subsidies are almost certainly helping to line some investor and executive pockets, but they probably also have some effect driving down prices.

⬐ brimble

I remember my dad talking, in the 90s, about how silly the solar panels were and how good it was that Reagan took them off. It's how I became aware of that having happened, in the first place, in fact.

Whatever the intent behind removing them, by the time it filtered through pop culture and the media, the message was "Reagan thinks the solar panels were dumb and wasteful and you should too".

Look at how many details this guy (Carl Sagan) conveyed in his 15' speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI in a way that potentially everyone understood. I wonder if every explanation was like his, if nuance wouldn't be well communicated, even to large groups.

…or we could simply stop burning coal to generate electricity. We are using record amounts globally.

Almost 40 years ago Carl Sagan warned us about increasing coal usage by other countries

https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

He starts discussing other countries around 14:30 and mentions China using increasing amounts of coal around 15m

⬐ zwirbl

Getting rid of coal is a really important goal and would be much easier to achieve if "we" reduce our energy consumption. One way to achieve that is stop wasting energy with resistive heating

⬐ seunosewa

Resistive heaters are actually more efficient than heat exchangers at lower temperatures.

⬐ melling

It has been almost 4 decades.

China now emits almost twice as much greenhouse gas as the United States.

What Sagan predicted 40 years ago came true. “Even if the United States and Russia…”

We’ve essentially squandered half a century.

⬐ pessimizer

> China now emits almost twice as much greenhouse gas as the United States.

China has over four times the population of the US.

edit: i.e. comparing China to the US is like comparing the US to Germany or France. We're polluting twice as much, and a good amount of the pollution in China is for exporting to us.

⬐ melling

In the 1980’s I imagine the United States was emitting 10 times as much as China on an absolute basis.

However, as Carl Sagan warned, China had huge coal reserves and they put them to use.

Other countries are doing the same , of course.

Hence global coal usage for power generation is at records.

⬐ timeon

From global point of view if there is demand for energy they will burn the coal. New sources of energy are not replacing the old ones, just covering new demand. You can point to any country while missing where the demand is coming from.

https://ourworldindata.org/global-energy-200-years

⬐ acdha

… and did so because a few large companies recognized how much money they could save by trumping up a controversy around a scientific consensus which was largely settled by the Reagan administration. It’s really aggravating now to hear people complain that it’d cost too much to do anything, knowing not just that this is untrue but also that it would have been much cheaper if we’d made minor changes back then.

Almost. But those that did were not listened to as in this case where Carl Sagan clearly explains the situation before policy makers almost 40 yrs ago [1]

1: https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI

⬐ 8bitsrule

It's very sad to sit here, watch Carl spell it out, and recognize that 40 years later very little significant progress has been made. Much of the sadness is for the assessment of human leadership that it leads to.

⬐ melling

Almost 40 years later…

Record coal use globally to generate electricity

https://time.com/6129192/international-energy-agency-coal-20...

⬐ Proven

None

⬐ HamburgerEmoji

Al Gore, looking on, went on to make all kinds of false doomsday predictions. He revised some of them, moving the year out, and those failed too. I can't recall -- was every single prediction in "An Inconvenient Truth" false, or just most of them?

Anyway, sure. The greenhouse effect is a thing. But the climate system is a lot more complicated than a glass aquarium with some CO2 in it. It's not a high school science fair project, it's the most complex of complex systems with millions of phenomena all affecting each other. So no, we can't just code up a model and see what it's going to do. It's fundamentally not amenable to simulation.

So we look to the past. We have pretty good ideas what was going on with CO2 and temperature for at least 500M years, more like 2B years. If mankind adding 100ppm over a century is supposed to cause a disaster, why didn't adding ten times that much cause a disaster when it happened in the past? CO2 has actually been around 20x what it is now. Present CO2 levels are just up off their all time lowest point. We're actually much closer to a dangerous low point of CO2, since plant respiration fails at around 150ppm.