[jacquesm]

Massive investments in renewables, capping your personal energy budget to something reasonable rather than what you can afford from a financial perspective, aiming for energy neutrality in buildings (doable, I've seen demonstration setups in the early 2000's).

And even then: we can no longer avoid climate change, you can take that to the bank. The very best we can do is limit the impact of the climate change that is inevitable now.

[rsj_hn]

"capping your energy budget" is a non-starter. I oppose it, the majority opposes it, and this is a good way of getting kicked out of power and then having even your realistic policies rolled back. Unless you're the type of person who enjoys being right rather than being effective, you'll make reasonable proposals that have a chance of being enacted, rather than unreasonable proposals that lose elections.

The future is one of cheap, abundant energy, that is growing in use. It is one of increasing industrialization and output. Increasing consumption and production. If you can't find a way to get there, then you'll be left behind as the rest of the world chooses a different path.

[jacquesm]

Yes, god forbid we would enact realistic policies. No, instead, let's stick our heads in the sand and kick the bucket down the road a generation. That's worked so well so far.

Elections are great, right up to the point where you are going to have to make very harsh decisions affecting the majority. I predict our democratic institutions will be a casualty of climate change long before we will allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by climate change itself.

[rsj_hn]

Capping total energy usage is not realistic. It's never happened in human history. It's not going to happen in the future. No one in any position of power has even proposed it. You are putting your head in the sand if you think that this is what will happen.

GDP will grow. Energy usage per capita will grow. Technology will increase. Output and consumption will increase. That is what we do, as a species, as we try to improve our condition. Trying to say that "oh, we'll just stop and cap energy use" is not only unrealistic, but it's impossible to achieve, because any nation that does that will just be outcompeted by rival nations that don't. Then people will flee to the sane nation while the insane nation collapses.

I get that some people on the green fringe don't like industrialization, but opposing rising living standards, rising output, all of which require rising energy usage, is always a losing proposition.

[dane-pgp]

> Capping total energy usage is not realistic. It's never happened in human history.

In a sense, it has happened, but not in the form of an explicit mandate but just due to pre-existing technological and economic trends. Here is a graph of "Primary Energy Consumption per capita" for various countries, showing that the EU, US, and Canada have all passed their peak:

https://energsustainsoc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

[jacquesm]

Capping total energy usage is not only realistic, if you're under 35 you will see it in your lifetime unless fusion becomes a reality.

[rsj_hn]

I guarantee you that energy use is going to grow at about 3% per annum over the next 50 years. After that, it will most likely increase.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41433

If we discover cheap fusion, that number will go up.

Oh, and people will still be eating beef, driving personal automobiles, flying planes, sending rockets into space, and powering factories, too.

[jacquesm]

Your ability to predict the future must have made you a fortune.

[dmitriid]

> Yes, god forbid we would enact realistic policies.

What's your realistic policy for energy storage that's required for renewables?

[jacquesm]

Offloading the problem to the consumer. If you want power continuity then you will have to provide it yourself. If you want reliable power that will be available but a significant premium over the unreliable version, and there will be a limited supply of that reliable power.

Pumped storage where available will help a lot, grid scale battery systems are nowhere near powerful enough to take on a significant fraction of the worlds powersupply so we'll have to make do.

Rationing of critical resources has many historical precedents, it's time we realized that power is not infinitely available at will, even though we would very much like it to be that way.

[dmitriid]

> If you want reliable power that will be available but a significant premium over the unreliable version, and there will be a limited supply of that reliable power.

Ah yes. What a libertarian view of the world. The rich will get the power while the unfortunate ones won't even be able to refrigerate their food. Medical equipment will fail. People will freeze in winter. Trains will not run. etc.

Also. How do you propose to separate reliable and non-reliable energy sources? By building a parallel energy grid?

How is this a realistic policy?

> Rationing of critical resources has many historical precedents, it's time we realized that power is not infinitely available at will

It's not unlimited. However, it's not as scarce and limited as you want to make it.

[jacquesm]

It's not libertarian at all, it is simply realistic. Keep in mind that the power grid as it is today is already unreliable, it's just that we've started to think about it as 100% available. But there are many reasons why it can - and often does - fail and we have build our processes around that.

Just like we do not need a separate grid for green energy we do not need one for reliable and unreliable sources, case in point: we already use reliable and unreliable sources right now, it's just that we do not bill differently for them.

As for medical equipment, refrigeration and trains: it is clear that some consumption will need to be sourced from reliable sources or at least sources with sufficient overlap during generation that their chance of failure is small.

Power is not as scarce and unlimited as I believe it well may become in the near future, and if you look at this through a slightly wider lens (developing world vs developed world) then you'll see that in many countries this situation is a reality today, but instead of being billed differently and given a choice the power will simply fail.

[slowmovintarget]

So only the rich get continuous power?

[jacquesm]

It's already like that if you look at it on a country-by-country basis, and rolling blackouts have been a thing for a long time even in developed countries, even if their use is for a different reason.

And in combination with an energy budget it's more a matter of whether you need continuity or if you can get by and save some money. I've lived in places where energy delivery was flaky an intermittent and everybody gets by, the only problem is with industrial processes that are hard or even impossible to restart, for everybody else continuity can be optional, especially if there is some possible prediction of when it will be available and when it will not.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

I oppose you.

[lisper]

It seems a bit peculiar to respond to the question "how can we avoid climate change without nuclear energy?" by advocating renewables and then following that with "we can no longer avoid climate change." Maybe we can avoid climate change with nuclear energy even though we can't without it. And even if we can't avoid it under any circumstances, maybe we can mitigate the net negative consequences more effectively with nuclear than without.

[jacquesm]

We can't avoid it. We will be able to mitigate, and nuclear will help with mitigation, but it's a means to an end, and not 'our best bet', just one of many bets, and hopefully one that will pay off in time. But weighing the alternatives of investing every $ into renewables rather than into nuclear for a much more immediate pay-off is a difficult matter, hence the all-out push of the nuclear lobby. And as for the 'solar and wind' lobby, it exists, but is far less powerful.

[tuatoru]

> Massive investments in renewables

Massive investments will be made either way, either in replacing worn-out fossil fuel plant or in renewables. The cost is a given.

Renewables look cheaper: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-23/biden-...