Mastodawn

Peter Gleick Mar 9

Interesting to think that Donald Trump may have, completely inadvertently and at a horrific cost, finally woken up the world to how urgent it is we get off our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.
Electrify everything.
Ban the production of gasoline-powered vehicles.
Tax oil companies dry.
Subsidize all renewables and EVs.

Andrew Zonenberg

@petergleick I don't understand why more governments around the world don't see "our entire economy revolves around an expensive quantity in limited supply, primarily found in one of the most war-torn and politically unstable regions in the planet" as a serious national security risk.

Like, forget all of the environmental concerns, if your country were utterly dependent on corn or steel or any other commodity only found in a region that was constantly at war causing random price spikes, you'd think you'd be making removal of that dependency a nationwide priority.

@azonenberg @petergleick

Sounds like a supply chain risk 😜

@azonenberg @petergleick I guess it’s partly because many of the people in those governments have vast amounts of personal wealth coming from the companies that produce those commodities.

Archmage of Procrastination Mar 9

@WiteWulf @azonenberg @petergleick

Yep

@azonenberg dependancy on politically high risk countries again does not pay out, it literally only pays out for the polititians signing the contracts. Green - renewable energy - is available in independance of politics as long as the sun shines and the wind blows.
And there lies the answer why our politicians cling so hard on fossil resources: it fills their personal pockets.
#politics #energycrisis #TrumpEpsteinFilesDistractionAttemptWar
@petergleick
edit: 1 typo removed

GhostOnTheHalfShell Mar 9

@Ilka4You @azonenberg @petergleick

If you have a global supply chain to produce solar and wind.

The presumption is swapping out the energy source for the planet killing global economy, to make the CO2 go away and that will save us when the problem is a planet killing global economy.

It will never ever live within planetary boundaries because it’s structured on being outside of them. The cheapest and healthiest and most prosperous pathway is to re-localize economies.

Misuse Case Mar 9

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @Ilka4You @azonenberg @petergleick People be like “sunshine is free and it’s everywhere,” but the rare earths for making solar panels and batteries are not.

Connor Cadellin Mar 9

@MisuseCase @GhostOnTheHalfShell @Ilka4You @azonenberg @petergleick on the battery front there's been progress recently on sodium ion, which doesn't require rare earth metals. The first sodium ion EV is launching this year.

Misuse Case Mar 9

@cadellin @GhostOnTheHalfShell @Ilka4You @azonenberg @petergleick Well if we could stop using lithium and cobalt mined with child slave labor that would be nice.

@MisuseCase agreed, it would be. Science is tirelessly working on this. Politics cut fundings as they please to continue the cash flow to their pockets.

@cadellin @GhostOnTheHalfShell @azonenberg @petergleick

@MisuseCase
For grid storage, lithium ion batteries, which contain cobalt and nickel, aren't suitable. Lithium iron phosphate has only lithium as a rare mineral, so it's cheaper, and it's also more durable, safer, and more cold tolerant, so it's already becoming the default for all large scale batteries. And even the lithium is eliminated in sodium batteries, which improve again upon cost, durability, safety, and cold temperature performance; they lose out on energy density, but noone cares about that for grid storage.
@cadellin @GhostOnTheHalfShell @Ilka4You @azonenberg @petergleick

@MisuseCase I recognize this is over simplyfied - in a post that is limited to 500 signs you kinda have to rely on ppls common sense and ability to use it.
Weigh up the pro & contra - you might be suprised how beneficial sustainability is. I am stating renewable energy can be unrelated to political dependancies, I DID NOT say it is for free.

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @azonenberg @petergleick

Misuse Case Mar 9

@Ilka4You @GhostOnTheHalfShell @azonenberg @petergleick I am not saying that because I don’t know how renewables work or because I don’t know how they compare to burning dead dinosaurs. I’m saying that because I *do* know.

"Mediocre Bunny" Evelyn Mar 9

@azonenberg @petergleick
But (and I am not enough of a political scholar to really know this), isn’t it the dependency of powerful nations on a crucial commodity in less powerful nations that leads to a lot of that political instability?
A global switch to renewable energy (which, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for) could be expected to heighten tensions in areas rich in say, lithium, while some oil-rich areas might finally cool off.

Andrew Zonenberg Mar 9

@Gorfram @petergleick to some extent but the 3 major abrahamic faiths have been at each other's throats over the region for millennia (I won't even get into Sunni vs Shiite infighting etc). The tribes of Afghanistan haven't got along for ages either although I don't think the conflict is quiiite as old.

Adding oil disputes to the mix is just another match on a dumpster fire that's been burning for generations. The region would have been a massive supply chain risk no matter what.

Roger Moore Mar 9

@Gorfram @azonenberg @petergleick
There's a key difference: batteries can be recycled. Fossil fuels are taken out of the ground, burned, and released into the air. Batteries gradually degrade over time, but the valuable materials in them can be recovered and used to make new batteries.

Roger Moore Mar 9

@Gorfram @azonenberg @petergleick
I strongly recommend a recent video from @TechConnectify that talks about this at length. He makes a very clear distinction between reusable energy infrastructure, like solar panels and rechargeable batteries, and consumables like fossil fuels.

https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=T71MHlqDSm1I07Q5

You are being misled about renewable energy technology.

YouTube

Sandor Spruit 🇪🇺🇳🇱🇺🇦🇨🇦Mar 9

@azonenberg @petergleick I think that, over the last decades at least, you could have made a decent case against the use of fossil fuels without even mentioning climate change.

@azonenberg @patrickhadfield @petergleick Of course there is an obvious link between resources, war and political instability 🤔

🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳Mar 9

@azonenberg @petergleick
it's constantly at war because if the US, Russia, and/or Europe isn't starting wars there, it's selling weapons to warlords, dictators, and other repressive regimes there.
It's almost as if the massive oil companies and non middle eastern oil producing countries benefit from the instability of supply from there, and the sudden price hikes that result from these conflicts.

James Tweedie Mar 9

@azonenberg @petergleick Worth reading these in relation to food production/supply. Very long read!
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:codfx2epdduamfycuyi5fjpb/post/3mgn7w7anxc23

George Monbiot (@georgemonbiot.bsky.social)

In 2023, I sought to explain to a parliamentary committee what a structural collapse of the global food system would look like, and why this this is plausible - even likely. I think the likelihood has just ratcheted up a notch. I beg you to read and understand. Thanks https://www.monbiot.com/2023/03/09/the-hunger-gap/

Bluesky Social