[matthewdgreen]

Overall you’re right about fossil fuel interests blocking progress. But you’re wrong about nothing changing until “far in the future” as well as the part about “hydrogen, nuclear”* being key drivers. China has now built so much solar PV and wind that their emissions are set to peak and enter a structural decline this year. Similar trends are occurring everywhere in the world, just a couple of years behind. It’s just taking time for people to realize this is happening, because the exponential phase of an S-curve produces such fast change that even being one or two years out of date is like reading news from last century.

* As a note, hydrogen and nuclear will be relevant, but only for the last (hard) fraction of it. Ironically, promoting hydrogen and nuclear as the “only viable technology” seems to be the latest PR campaign pursued by fossil interests.

[acdha]

I think we’re actually in agreement. All I meant by that was that the fossil fuel companies have been happy to support things like an envisioned transition to hydrogen, biofuels, or nuclear power when that means it’s business as usual for decades until [hypothetically] some major change happens and our emissions will drop precipitously. Toyota is similarly happy to talk about how green they’ll be in 2040 while heavily advertising that you need a $60k ICE Tundra to drive to the office in the meantime since those have a much higher profit margin than the few hydrogen vehicles they can sell.

I strongly agree that nuclear is relevant for some last n% stuff but am hoping that the renewable boom will buy enough time to deploy it. As you noted, the capacity there has been on a reassuringly massive growth curve with no barriers to stop it other than politics.