The complete phasing-out of fossil fuels is not realistic, China's top climate official said, adding that these climate-warming fuels must continue to play a vital role in maintaining global energy security.
The complete phasing-out of fossil fuels is not realistic, China's top climate official said, adding that these climate-warming fuels must continue to play a vital role in maintaining global energy security.
They're probably right in a very general sense, at least in the short and medium terms. Fossil fuels have a lot of qualities that make them hard to out compete for some tasks. But we can get the usage of them back to levels that aren't destructive to our habitats. And in the long term it's absolutely possible to eliminate their use.
Fossil fuels have a lot of qualities that make them hard to out compete for some tasks.
Yeap, unfortunately from a engineering standpoint it's hard not to take advantage of such an energy dense fuel. Even if we had completely invested in nuclear power, there would still be scenarios where it would logistically make more sense to bring fuel to creat energy rather than transporting that energy.
And in the long term it's absolutely possible to eliminate their use.
I think it'll be possible to potentially eliminate their use as a fuel source, but I'm not sure if we'll ever eliminate our need for hydrocarbons for things like plastics, solvents, and fertilizers.
We need to move away from fossil fuels for obvious reasons, but one of the things I'm kinda afraid of as we transition away from them is that fossil fuels corporations will use the global poor as hostages.
The most populated regions on the globe are dependent on cheap hydrocarbon base fertilizers to maintain the nitrogen content of their soil. The reason these fertilizers are so affordable is their production is a byproduct of massive amounts of fuel refining.
It wouldn't surprise me if the corporations started to cut the production or access of fertilizer to large populations of the global poor, as a "look at what the leftist are making me do to the poor" tactic.
Right now he is probably right. The current grid storage solutions are usually Lion or LiPho and neither is really cheap enough and the entire power system will scew towards enormous overproduction with less storage as a result. But there are plenty of grid size storage solutions being developed that have the $ per KWH that will make it more viable.
One possibility is that we use all that excess power for carbon capture or hydrogen production so that we can burn CO2 producing fuels or hydrogen when the sun and wind aren't blowing for days at a time. It's all viable the pieces exist it's about building them more than anything.
Nothing is going to change with inaction. We all need to be proactive in this change. Simply stating we cannot, because we have not done enough in the past, should not mean we must carry on in that fashion.
Doesn’t matter, if they’re still gonna burn coal I shouldn’t have to switch to renewables either, or at the very least not on the quick timetable. Either all in or not at all, it’s not like the effects above 2C aren’t going to kill everyone anyway
Carbon is carbon, mass is mass, and heat is heat, none of it cares about population size, we could just as easily look at it as a per-gdp basis, and it would be just as useful
Government of China says we don’t need to change, or at least they don’t, I don’t think I should either then. Especially considering no climate change policy works without the whole world decarbonizing, including China, regardless of how small their number looks on a per capita basis
Dude isn't wrong: fossil fuels are just really good for a bunch of industrial operations. Doesn't stop China from leading the world in the manufacture and deployment of solar panels, manufacture and deployment of wind turbines, development and deployment of nuclear power plants, development and deployment of hydroelectric power plants...