[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Azure

I appreciate your effort in this thread to talk about these issues, but posts like this are why its quite obvious that your perspective on this issue is simply not based in reality.

No offense but your perspective on this matter comes across as someone who has a vested financial interest in seeing natural gas production and exports increase. And while there's a good case to be made that they should, you're going overboard with your denigrative comments against the environmental movement.

Countries are pouring billions into coal simply because they have NO otheralternative. Natural gas is not readily available, especially in China, whereas coal is abundant and cheap. China is building out renewables faster than any country on earth, and it is LITERALLY not capable of replacing coal. How that is not clear to the anti-fossil fuel crowd is beyond me.

China and other countries are making massive investments in coal because they see the immediate & growing market for it. So yes profitability is a big part of the picture. But my question for you is how did we get to this point in the first place? Why did we as a species not make it a much larger priority decades ago to invest heavily in renewables/clean energy? Again, largely because of fossil fuel company funded climate denial efforts. Quite honestly, you're completely misplacing the blame when it comes to the situation humanity is currently in.

The emission reduction process was simply.
Short term, replace coal with natural gas. The US did this and cut their overall emissions 20% since 2005.

Medium term build out proven renewable sources. Solar, wind, etc. Obviously this technology is getting better, but it is STILL not capable of providing even close to our baseload power needs.

Long-term focus on nuclear, including SMR and other technologies that are clean and long-lasting, and are capable of providing base load capacity regardless of weather. Something renewables cannot do.

Longer-longer term, focus on high capacity energy storage & grid improvements.

No, that's how YOU see the process going in the coming decades. In reality, the timelines on these things have to be moved up substantially from your idea of what they should be. It will be difficult, expensive, and painful, but ultimately less painful than the alternative.

I'm not sure what part of the process you think we're at, but it is quite clear we cannot move past the first stage.
Next year we will be in a worse position in terms of worldwide emissions rates from coal burning than at any point in the last 15 years. 1 step forward, 10 steps back. 100% due to the anti-fossil fuel morons who spent the last 10-15 years making bloody sure natural gas gets as LITTLE support as possible. Pretty sure you are part of that crowd. Congrats. Nothing like allowing delusional fantasies turn into actual policy decisions which end up coming back to screw us over.

Your deification of natural gas is quite cringe. Even if the entire world switched to natural gas overnight, we'd still be in a dangerous, urgent situation regarding the climate crisis. NG isn't the savior you make it out to be.