@mr_washee_washee I've seen people argue that nuclear actually has the lowest material requirement overall. I'm not entirely convinced by that argument though!

By all means reduce the number of cars, but some of the things we will need to do to achieve that will take significant time - especially fixing housing and building more rail.

However there will still be vehicles, even if they are only buses.

@mr_washee_washee How do you propose to balance the grid without wind?

Solar panels are indeed mostly silicon, but they're not entirely made of silicon. They also use "minor metals" (indium, gallium etc) in smaller quantities. They certainly use copper, steel and aluminium.

The inverter for a solar panel might contain rare earths. The big ones for long range HVDC interconnectors very likely do.

Whatever we build will involve some amount of mining.

However given the enormous cost of the status quo, renewables are a step forward.

@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis I'm not 100% sold on either view of agriculture, as I hint at above. Certainly organic farming goes too far - yields matter, because increased land use ultimately means more deforestation. However if yields are achieved through ecosystem destroying pollution and soil degradation that ultimately reduces yields, there's a problem.

Short term, hydrogen isn't a means of storing energy, it's a vital industrial ingredient, including for fertilisers, which mostly comes from fossil gas.

Cover crops could be introduced with a net increase in yields, while storing vast amounts of carbon, but generally cannot be afforded without a specific subsidy because our agricultural system is broken.

Not to mention the immense waste caused by biofuels. And by meat and dairy.

So there's lots to discuss there as well. (But not today)

@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis It's also in opposition to the wider political picture of an alliance between fossil fuels, fascists, religion, the old right wing parties and so on, of course. 😀

That also makes it political.

@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis There are aspects of it that I disagree with.

More to the point there are implications that I disagree with. Clearly there is a need for growth in large parts of the world, and even amongst the poor in my own country.

On the other hand, there are many areas where demand reduction makes sense to speed up the transition. It is going to be many years before we have clean aviation, for instance. And a world with say 70% fewer cars in would be highly desirable for many good reasons.

Both the transition and the climate crisis will cause much suffering, requiring redistribution. Much of the work that needs to be done on efficiency can only be practically funded by the state.

And so you get degrowth: a reframing of politics and economics around a fair transition to sustainability.

Though perhaps the term isn't the ideal messaging.

I posted a relatively popular rant about how primitivism and degrowth are two very different things a while back. Can't find it right now.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion. I hope that you're right on a few things. 😀

@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis There is also the near-absolute worst case scenario where outdoor agriculture becomes untenable due to wildly inconsistent post-climate weather and the "land sharing vs land sparing" debate is forced down the land sparing route, i.e. if most food can only be grown in heated greenhouses, we'll need vast amounts of energy. In that scenario we may well need more nuclear. But if it's that bad that fast I have my doubts that civilisation can survive the transition; that sort of agriculture is very capital intensive as well as energy intensive, although it is higher yield and makes space for rewilding, and potentially could be our only option if things get really bad.

PS I am not endorsing climate controlled indoor agriculture here. I don't have a clear view on the land sharing vs land sparing thing. I know which side most "degrowth" people would take though.

@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Also I expect demand to drop somewhat in the long term. Unfortunately the more serious degrowth measures will take decades, and the peak demand from heating and EVs means we will need a lot more electricity in 2040 than we have today.

@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Fortunately we will have time to work on that. There is plenty of existing renewable plant coming to the end of its service life for us to work on recycling.

Also, hopefully longer term we move towards more rooftop solar rather than farm scale, though of course the amount of land used by solar is insignificant. Short term, farm scale is easy to install; long term, rooftop could be a requirement of construction.

Just as important, once we reach 95%+ renewable electricity, the ecological cost of building new stuff, whether recycled or not, drops dramatically.

Do we want to move towards more nuclear in the long run? Maybe so. On the other hand, the cost of renewables will continue to come down, and it's reasonable to expect the same is true of storage.

@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis The fossil fuel grid we had 20 years ago relied on gas peak plants and hydro for peaks.

Nowadays we have diesel farms (eeek!), and increasingly (thankfully!) batteries.

The actual UK grid today is only 45% fossil fuel (and some nations and states are better than that). We also have more interconnectors than we had in the past.

UK nuclear has generally been used as baseload for many decades.

@uriel238 @youpie I don't know. Safety record is somewhat mixed - Waymo *appear* to know what they're doing, while a lot of the low end semi-autonomous stuff is downright dangerous, but there were rumours about visibility problems with cyclists etc.

But my main worry is that full autonomy will lead to people driving further. If so, that'll lead to more carbon emissions.

@Atemu @Aatube Also, replacing every ICE car with an EV isn't happening. It isn't a coherent strategy. With current technology and infrastructure, anyone who doesn't have a garage or a driveway will pay a lot more per mile at a lot less convenience.

Sure, we could build charging points down the side of every street. We could wait for better EVs. But both improving public transport and expanding EVs to 100% will take time and cost significant infrastructure development and materials, beyond a certain point.

The drivers who will stop driving in response to cheaper faster more available buses are not the ones who will buy an EV. We can get them at both ends.

@mondoman712 Not working at the moment but I'll try later. Thanks!