Mastodawn

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.

Show thread

Andrew Zonenberg Mar 9

@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.

Show thread

"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.

Show thread

Roger Moore

@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.

Show thread

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