[vlovich123]

For grid power, nuclear and hydro beat oil by significant margins. For shipping we’d need to deploy nuclear reactors that could be safe to operate on the seas. For cars and trains, electrified tied to a fossil free grid is enough and is happening however slowly. For planes and land shipping trucks that’s trickier and not sure what the answer there would be. But if we cut shipping, grid and automotive fossil fuels we’d be reducing global emissions to almost 0. It’s not enough at this point due to unlocked runaway effects meaning the 1.5C warming is long in our rearview in terms of being an unavoidable result and it’ll take us a long time to transition based on the current political approaches which means I suspect 3C or even worse is highly likely within the next 50 years.

Beyond arresting the worsening conditions (which we’re failing at spectacularly) I’m not sure how to unwind the damage. Technology is unlikely to save us unless we get insanely lucky somehow (like fusion reactors that are trivial to scale and trivial to make cheaply and then shoving all that energy into carbon recapture at a scale we don’t know how to do because even at current levels it’s diffuse enough that it takes a long time to capture a small amount of carbon).

[matthewdgreen]

Ultimately we’re going to need to get lucky on grid decarbonization (recent solar PV and wind bulldouts, particularly in China, are an incredibly welcome sign that this is happening.) And I’m afraid we might also need to do some kind of geoengineering. I’m much more nervous about the second part, because the first seems to be on an economic glide path that might make it self-fulfilling. But the second relies on a lot of coordination that might not happen.

[SV_BubbleTime]

That’s all very ideal. And until it happens, oil and coal are key.

I’m all on board for nuclear. So just start convincing the “green” types that are stopping it.