Will advances in solar technology mean we can rapidly transition off fossil fuels (whilst maintaining current rates of energy consumption)?
Roughly: will tech along get us to a decent “green transition” i.e. off fossil fuels in the (very) near-term – without e.g. all that “degrowth” stuff.
I ask this both out of general interest and as a basic sensemaking question regarding the climate crisis.
The simple answer is no. Even if we are very optimistic about solar technology, it is not going to replace fossil fuels. Electric aeroplanes aren’t going to be a thing. And nobody has any intention of of leaving viable fossil fuels in the ground anyway.
Roughly: will tech along get us to a decent “green transition” i.e. off fossil fuels in the (very) near-term – without e.g. all that “degrowth” stuff.
Growth has to end, one way or another. The human operation on Planet Earth needs to get much smaller before there is any hope of a stabilisation of our ecological problems. The relevance of “degrowth” is about to what extent this contraction process is managed and fair. “Degrowth” is the socially ideal version of contraction, and “collapse” is the chaotic default that will occur if attempts at degrowth fail (and they will).
Last summer I attended the Bloomberg Green Festival in Seattle. (Link to this year’s version below). We could have a lot of fun with this over in the Bourdieu/“taste” discussion! Anyway, in my Cascadian homeland, wealth, power, greenwashing, and technical innovation - some of which may indeed be desirable - all go hand in hand.
Microsoft and Amazon are big sponsors of this. They are both striving for net zero. By purchasing nuclear power for their massive data centers. Also, last year Microsoft did a big preso on bio jet fuel research. Because, as you correctly note, battery planes are not a thing.
A lot of people worry presently about the coming of techno feudalism. I more or less am counting on it - which implies that I see it coming like or not - but also that the future of the world may revolve around which lords and barons triumph over which other lords and barons. (In this scenario, I’m minor gentry, in case anyone was curious …)
What I’m seeing at conferences like this is the future of the energy grid, and likely the future of planetary governance as well. It probably won’t be for everyone. Most of the world should be leaning into low-tech permaculture, and not counting on nuke-powered AI or humanoid robots to do their manual labor. “Free” AI is not exactly free.
Just in the US, or across the whole of the Western world?
An interesting podcast on the broader subject with Mario Giampietro
More like the entire world. China is certainly playing it that way.
China is run by Marxists who are committed to ecocivilisation as a national goal. So I don’t really understand that comment.
I’ve seen quite a few Nate Hagens episodes. What jumps out about this one for you?
@RobertBunge Oh, just Mario Giampietro… He’s warning about technological optimism, saying that you can’t work towards meaningful energy efficiencies while continuing with growth oriented economy. He also says that energy efficiency doesn’t necessarily translate into less energy consumption. He’s criticising politicians for deliberately engaging in “wishful thinking” about feasibility of sorting our problems without fundamentally changing the way we live.
I have no opinion on the subject (which is very much of scientific nature)…
This is pretty standard for Nate Hagens and his many guests. Here is a direct link to all of it for those who wish to view more.
Would you recommend the channel? When you said it “is pretty standard for Nate” - did you mean that he covers those topics or that he usually cautions against technological optimism?
Very much so. In a recent book chapter on futurism, I cited Nate as the polar opposite of tech optimist Ray Kurzweil. Nate has a background in environmental economics. He, shows, for example, how the supply chain for solar panels and wind turbines itself burns carbon. Nate has very pessimistic ideas about long term growth and does not imagine many technical genies coming out the bottle.
I find Nate Hagens views are usually well-informed and balanced, as far as I am in a position to judge. He is among a small number of people I generally trust as a source.
I don’t disagree, exactly. But I think we have to start thinking in timelines.
On the short timeline of the life of current adults, we absolutely have to get to carbon neutral as fast as possible. Whatever we do, e.g. EVs, will not be sustainable. (because nothing we do is sustainable) But the longer it takes to get the climate stabilized, whether thats 50 years or 500, the worse the climate situation will be and therefore the harder it will be to get to sustainable.
On the long timeline of our great-grandchildren or longer, the population simply has to shrink radically to whatever level - 1 billion? - the Earth can manage. But the culture, the religions, the politics and tech must also radically change… and so forth.
So this is all blindingly obvious, and people know it, but they tend to talk in absolutes. ‘No, electric cars are not sustainable, no, batteries probably won’t fly large airplanes long distances.’ Those are binary answers though, when we need complex answers. We need a transition period to get off fossil fuels and we may only get down to 20% fossil fuel share in say 30 years, as a best case. But thats way better than 50-50. Undoubtedly we’ll burn a lot of coal and oil, I just hope we’ll use it wisely.
Similarly we have to plan for a lot of half measures in order to get closer to carbon neutral. We have to give up a lot of social expenditure and we have to have a wealth tax or a serious carbon tax, or something similar. But if we try too many of these half-measures, then we won’t have the resources to get anywhere, so it’s a crisis and needs triage.
If we go full MAGA/billionaire/technofeudalism then all bets are off. If we have a serious depression and financial collapse, then that will help a lot for carbon, but there won’t be any resources to rebuild anything.
I’ll respond to your critiques, if you care to make them.
Your idea of thinking in timelines is very good. I tend to think of systems as cycles within cycles within cycles … At any given moment some are rising and some are falling. Some change quickly. Others more slowly. I personally don’t think much about metacrisis solutions. I think more about metacrisis navigation = whatever gives the future more options and opportunities. Among other cycles, generations hand off to one another. How best to hand off is a question that occupies my thinking quite a bit.
The whole concept of “carbon neutral” is toxic bullshit, as far as I am concerned. It is deeply misleading about the actual cause of climate change, which it the movement of fossil carbon into short-term circulation. All that matters is the total amount of carbon which has moved by the time humans stop moving it. How does “carbon neutrality” help, apart from to string things along for slightly longer?
What I am saying is that if what we really want to do is limit climate change, rather than merely giving the impression that we are doing so, we have to talk about leaving fossil fuels in the ground. But nobody is talking about that, are they?
Good points @JohnPFisher
There are “holding actions” where any near-term win may buy some time and then there are the big paradigmatic shifts.
And agree that getting to carbon neutral asap would be valuable – though i don’t see it happening atm without a significant breakdown (or a major breakthrough in e.g. fusion).
BTW wonder what you think about the Dark Renaissance thesis and the 3 paths
The whole concept of “carbon neutral” is toxic bullshit,
Well moving the carbon around is exactly what we need to do. We must stop putting it into the atmosphere, and one day start removing it from the atmosphere. So I should have called it “net-zero” or some other current phrase, but what I meant was - stop increasing the CO2 and other GHG in the atmosphere.
You may have guessed it, but I was thinking of jet engines. As yet there is no viable idea of replacement of jet engines on a power-weight -fuel basis. We really need to keep flying, so that means some kind of fuel that ends up with no net increase of GHG. I am guessing that flying will be more restricted as well.
Don’t know about that, will look at it. thanks
We cannot move it out of the ground without making climate change worse.
One day? Don’t you think it is a bit late for saying that? What makes you think that “one day” we’re going to invent a technology cheap and efficient enough to take carbon out of the atmosphere and permanently return it under ground? This is just empty words – promises about a future which is never going to happen.
So I should have called it “net-zero” or some other current phrase, but what I meant was - stop increasing the CO2 and other GHG in the atmosphere.
There is no way to do this apart from to leave it in the ground. That is the whole point I am making.
As yet there is no viable idea of replacement of jet engines on a power-weight -fuel basis. We really need to keep flying
No. We are going to have to stop flying. I have not been on a plane for over 20 years and I will never go on one again.
From my perspective, your post does not belong here. It is pure “old paradigm”, with not the slightest trace of understanding of what is wrong with it. Please don’t take that personally. I do not mean to attack you, but I have no choice but to robustly challenge what you are saying.
