Coal produces about 33% of global electricitySolar and wind produce 8–9% eachElectricity meets about 20% of total energy demandhttps://www.visualcapitalist.com/coal-still-powers-more-electricity/
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@urlyman Maybe. But from what I've seen, normal price signals aren't enough. @knud @gerrymcgovern
@dnkboston hence my use of the word “enforced”. The lived experience of relative absence will drive change. And perhaps, out of a deficit of technological ubiquity will come a reconnection with forms of abundance that have always been there and still are, just
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@knud
There is no such thing as 100% recycling. The true recycling rate for modern electronics is probably about 5%, and every year electronics become less and less recyclable.You always hear about sodium batteries replacing lithium--always a solution just around the corner. Meanwhile, in the USA alone 100 new lithium mines are planned.
@gerrymcgovern I rolled my eyes when I saw that a few weeks ago. But I remember also reading that they were rejected as a nuclear reactor solution because sodium is so unstable (*Nuclear Is Not The Solution*, Ramana). That's really not a concern for batteries? @knud
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@gerrymcgovern I rolled my eyes when I saw that a few weeks ago. But I remember also reading that they were rejected as a nuclear reactor solution because sodium is so unstable (*Nuclear Is Not The Solution*, Ramana). That's really not a concern for batteries? @knud
@dnkboston
And it's not a little itonic that batteries are being sold as clean and green. You would struggle to think of anything more toxic, with long lasting damage, than batteries. But then, the tech optimists were AI long before AI; all full of hallucinations.
@knud -
@gerrymcgovern @dnkboston @knud as for some people believe, hell some people believe the moon is made of cheese. Most of the rest of the non American world is moving forward into sustainable transition away from fossil fuels, and there's a global fertility crisis anyway. No one is having kids outside of Africa. (But I tell ya, when I say the future is African I have to hide in a bomb shelter for a week.) Renewables are real, and good, and happening in most of the world
@quinn The future is African, and it's about damn time.
We do get a lot of sun, but photovoltaic tech currently depends on elements that require devastating extraction. People seem unimpressed when I point out damage to ecosystems or human health, but hopefully they will be paused by how often these wastes can be radioactive.
Many people in native nations lived long lives without electricity. The big things seemed to be 1) clean surroundings and 2) adequate food.
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@dnkboston hence my use of the word “enforced”. The lived experience of relative absence will drive change. And perhaps, out of a deficit of technological ubiquity will come a reconnection with forms of abundance that have always been there and still are, just
@urlyman Policy=enforcement? @knud @gerrymcgovern
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@dnkboston
And it's not a little itonic that batteries are being sold as clean and green. You would struggle to think of anything more toxic, with long lasting damage, than batteries. But then, the tech optimists were AI long before AI; all full of hallucinations.
@knud@gerrymcgovern I admit, when I read the critique of batteries in Zehner's book a decade ago, something in me broke. We've been told they are the solution for so long. @knud
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@quinn The future is African, and it's about damn time.
We do get a lot of sun, but photovoltaic tech currently depends on elements that require devastating extraction. People seem unimpressed when I point out damage to ecosystems or human health, but hopefully they will be paused by how often these wastes can be radioactive.
Many people in native nations lived long lives without electricity. The big things seemed to be 1) clean surroundings and 2) adequate food.
@dnkboston @gerrymcgovern @knud the thing is we can recover and recycle these things, we even have the processes down, we just haven't.
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@urlyman Policy=enforcement? @knud @gerrymcgovern
@dnkboston no, that’s not where I’m coming from. Unavailability, intermittency.
When oil becomes unprofitable it becomes less extracted. As it becomes less profitable the cost of capital heads sharply up. As do all of oil’s supply chain dependents, including metals, many of which are independently heading along similar trajectories https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/111374066310651684
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@dnkboston @gerrymcgovern @knud the thing is we can recover and recycle these things, we even have the processes down, we just haven't.
@quinn Recover and recycle what?
I look at the Mississippi, and I want to cry. I hope it can be revived, but we'd have to stop actively polluting it so it could. Same for hundreds of other waterways.
The financial incentives to recycle electronics as well as components like solar panels are not there, so when it gets done, it's by poorer people in poorer countries. Reading about those "processes" makes me never want to buy anything again.
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@dnkboston no, that’s not where I’m coming from. Unavailability, intermittency.
When oil becomes unprofitable it becomes less extracted. As it becomes less profitable the cost of capital heads sharply up. As do all of oil’s supply chain dependents, including metals, many of which are independently heading along similar trajectories https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/111374066310651684
@urlyman I keep thinking about something Charles Mann wrote a decade ago. There's never been Peak Oil, thanks to the determination of governments and oil companies to keep it flowing, which fostered "innovative" tech to do so.
I don't think oil will become difficult enough to extract in my lifetime.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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@urlyman I keep thinking about something Charles Mann wrote a decade ago. There's never been Peak Oil, thanks to the determination of governments and oil companies to keep it flowing, which fostered "innovative" tech to do so.
I don't think oil will become difficult enough to extract in my lifetime.
@dnkboston
I've been listening to some talks on the subject and talking to some experts, and there are definite signs that we have peaked and that oil and gas will become more and more expensive, with all the implications that has for food, industry, etc. -
@dnkboston
I've been listening to some talks on the subject and talking to some experts, and there are definite signs that we have peaked and that oil and gas will become more and more expensive, with all the implications that has for food, industry, etc.@gerrymcgovern Because of Hormuz? Or even without that? @urlyman @knud
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@quinn Recover and recycle what?
I look at the Mississippi, and I want to cry. I hope it can be revived, but we'd have to stop actively polluting it so it could. Same for hundreds of other waterways.
The financial incentives to recycle electronics as well as components like solar panels are not there, so when it gets done, it's by poorer people in poorer countries. Reading about those "processes" makes me never want to buy anything again.
@dnkboston
E-waste "recycling" is such a monstrous, cynical con. Basically, the Global North dumping it in the Global South where it poisons life, air, water, soil.Every year, electronics become less recyclable, the economy becomes more linear and toxic to life. And yet the fantasy of e-waste recycling is marketed just like it has been by the plastics industry.
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@gerrymcgovern Because of Hormuz? Or even without that? @urlyman @knud
@dnkboston perhaps accelerated by (too hard to see) but for sure without it anyway.
The energy return on investment (EROI) of a barrel of oil around 1940 was 1:100. i.e. You get 100 barrels out for every 1 you invest in extraction. Today, the global average is about 1:15. Joseph Tainter thinks that it becomes unsustainable at about 1:10 because of the upfront costs of exploration and field development.
That said, the EROI variance is large. So…
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@quinn Recover and recycle what?
I look at the Mississippi, and I want to cry. I hope it can be revived, but we'd have to stop actively polluting it so it could. Same for hundreds of other waterways.
The financial incentives to recycle electronics as well as components like solar panels are not there, so when it gets done, it's by poorer people in poorer countries. Reading about those "processes" makes me never want to buy anything again.
@dnkboston @gerrymcgovern @knud no way I'd pretend there's not a lot to moving parts, or a lot to do, but doomer degrowth has serious downsides, one of which is you're never going to convince people to let their children suffer and die without trying to help them. We are already turning the population curve, we are already bathed in energy. Microbes are already evolving to eat plastic. The earth will be fine, we're just fucking ourselves up.
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@dnkboston perhaps accelerated by (too hard to see) but for sure without it anyway.
The energy return on investment (EROI) of a barrel of oil around 1940 was 1:100. i.e. You get 100 barrels out for every 1 you invest in extraction. Today, the global average is about 1:15. Joseph Tainter thinks that it becomes unsustainable at about 1:10 because of the upfront costs of exploration and field development.
That said, the EROI variance is large. So…
@dnkboston What happens is degrees of intermittency. Which accelerates the decline of the whole system.
The paradox is that as oil price goes up that can prop up the viability of extraction in given fields but it doesn’t change that the overall supply of a non-renewable resource chaotically declines
