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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@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
