Inflation/Gas Prices/Rising Prices in General

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Are you of the belief that generally speaking people would have been less inclined to invest in greener technology and R&D had they known that fossil fuel usage was more damaging to our environment than we had previously been lead to believe?

While it’d be frankly near impossible to determine with any certainty exactly how much or how little green technology may have been set back as a result of misleading information regarding fossil fuel use, I think you’d probably agree that the misinformation played at least some role in slowing down earlier investments in greener technology.

That isn’t big bad oil boogie man rhetoric, it’s just common sense.

Do you think better batteries are thing that would have been developed sooner if we had just thrown more money at it? Lithium batteries are decades old, with endless amounts of research and development. So no, I don't think we'd be any further along. Unless some step-change technology was discovered, we'd be right where we are. But the odds of that are much lower in 1995 than today, due to all the associated developments and knowledge gains over the decades.

The only role misinformation played was delaying us ignoring reality for a little longer. We still ignore reality, we just did it more ignorantly before.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Are you of the belief that generally speaking people would have been less inclined to invest in greener technology and R&D had they known that fossil fuel usage was more damaging to our environment than we had previously been lead to believe?

While it’d be frankly near impossible to determine with any certainty exactly how much or how little green technology may have been set back as a result of misleading information regarding fossil fuel use, I think you’d probably agree that the misinformation played at least some role in slowing down earlier investments in greener technology.

That isn’t big bad oil boogie man rhetoric, it’s just common sense.

There has always been a massive incentive for companies to develop better energy storage and battery technology. Even with full fossil fuel use that would be a massive game changer. A device that doesn't require constant energy input is kind of the holy grail of consumer products.

There was nothing deliberately impeding, for example of the development of the Lithium Ion battery. You had multiple massive corporations pouring large amounts of resources into their development. All the large electronics corporations had been competing with/collaborating on that technology since the 1970s.

[Leondros]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Are you of the belief that generally speaking people would have been less inclined to invest in greener technology and R&D had they known that fossil fuel usage was more damaging to our environment than we had previously been lead to believe?

While it’d be frankly near impossible to determine with any certainty exactly how much or how little green technology may have been set back as a result of misleading information regarding fossil fuel use, I think you’d probably agree that the misinformation played at least some role in slowing down earlier investments in greener technology.

That isn’t big bad oil boogie man rhetoric, it’s just common sense.

Debatable. We all have the information now and we STILL are having a hard time developing the technology and scaling. This is with massive subsidies. This isn't simply a time issue - this is semiconductors, microchips, software development, the whole shebang. Its not like this technology would have been propelled forward without these. 15 years ago people didn't have smart phones - think about that.

To say misleading information is to blame for being behind on the green transition is disingenuous. Btw - how is Advent working out for you? I believe you said it would be $20 by now? Just goes to show how even the cutting edge green tech is still being delayed by supporting technology and adoption...

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Are you of the belief that generally speaking people would have been less inclined to invest in greener technology and R&D had they known that fossil fuel usage was more damaging to our environment than we had previously been lead to believe?

While it’d be frankly near impossible to determine with any certainty exactly how much or how little green technology may have been set back as a result of misleading information regarding fossil fuel use, I think you’d probably agree that the misinformation played at least some role in slowing down earlier investments in greener technology.

That isn’t big bad oil boogie man rhetoric, it’s just common sense.

That's just it. It's the butterfly effect. If much more was invested by governments in clean energy back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s, we would no doubt be further along than we are now. For example, say Japan had invested more into better and safer nuclear, the Fukushima accident probably doesn't happen, Germany and other countries don't shut down or stall development of nuclear out of fear of the technology, and the worldwide market would be less dependent on Russian fossil fuels (and FFs in general) as compared to what it is now. It's likely that similar things can be said about solar technology, wind technology, perovskyte technology, battery technology etc... lots of things would be further along because we would have had an understanding much sooner and much more emphatically, that the future of our species depends on what we do in the present.

due to all the associated developments and knowledge gains over the decades.

And how were those developments and knowlege gains made? Through investment and urgency. More investment and urgency sooner would almost certainly have made things happen faster.

Originally Posted by blankall

We can't even get people to invest in nuclear now, knowing where fossil fuels are taking us.

Yup. The Fukushima effect. And it would not suprise me in the least if fossil fuel dirty money contributed to the stoking of those fears.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

That's just it. It's the butterfly effect. If much more was invested by governments in clean energy back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s, we would no doubt be further along than we are now. For example, say Japan had invested more into better and safer nuclear, the Fukushima accident probably doesn't happen, Germany and other countries don't shut down or stall development of nuclear out of fear of the technology, and the worldwide market would be less dependent on Russian fossil fuels (and FFs in general) as compared to what it is now. It's likely that similar things can be said about solar technology, wind technology, perovskyte technology, battery technology etc... lots of things would be further along because we would have had an understanding much sooner and much more emphatically, that the future of our species depends on what we do in the present.

We can't even get people to invest in nuclear now, knowing where fossil fuels are taking us.

[Leondros]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

That's just it. It's the butterfly effect. If much more was invested by governments in clean energy back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s, we would no doubt be further along than we are now. For example, say Japan had invested more into better and safer nuclear, the Fukushima accident probably doesn't happen, Germany and other countries don't shut down or stall development of nuclear out of fear of the technology, and the worldwide market would be less dependent on Russian fossil fuels (and FFs in general) as compared to what it is now. It's likely that similar things can be said about solar technology, wind technology, perovskyte technology, battery technology etc... lots of things would be further along because we would have had an understanding much sooner and much more emphatically, that the future of our species depends on what we do in the present.

The butterfly effect? I am not even going to bother having a civilized discussion with you. Man, give me whatever the hell you are smoking because this argument is hilarious.

[blankall]

There's actually a massive detriment to investing in green infrastructure ahead of its time. IMO a lot of these solar and wind farms are going to have to be abandoned/torn down as they will become obsolete before they've even recouped their inputs.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by blankall

There has always been a massive incentive for companies to develop better energy storage and battery technology. Even with full fossil fuel use that would be a massive game changer. A device that doesn't require constant energy input is kind of the holy grail of consumer products.

There was nothing deliberately impeding, for example of the development of the Lithium Ion battery. You had multiple massive corporations pouring large amounts of resources into their development. All the large electronics corporations had been competing with/collaborating on that technology since the 1970s.

Even with power tools you could tell battery development was really stalling. Year after year the rate of improvements were really small, and that market is MASSIVE, with billions being thrown at R&D.

Tesla (as one example) has effectively had unlimited money to throw at the battery problem and they've accomplished what? Very little? On a big scale even their megapacks and battery packs are not revolutionary at all. Just maybe better at being manufactured.

Such a strange reality people must live in when they think the reason humans haven't developed the technology to replace fossil fuels is because of those evil oil companies spreading misinformation.

In terms of green energy, who has been a bigger detriment to nuclear energy? Climate change acknowledgers, or climate change deniers?

Good God it is like talking with 5 year olds when this subject comes up. I don't know how you stand it.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

It’s like complaining about obesity and then having a little bitch fest when inflation hits the food and all of it gets more expensive. “Oh but people can afford less food now so obesity will go down! How dare you complain, hypocrite!” Thrilling logic, I’m sure, but a little out of touch

There is absolutely no reason to think that if food becomes more expensive obesity rates will drop. In fact there is good reason to think the opposite - losing weight is actually something that is more likely when people have more time and money available to them. There is absolutely good reason to believe that higher gas prices will decrease vehicle emissions. This is a terrible analogy.

It's definitely like falling backwards into step 3 though, it's not like these hiked gas prices are a deliberate attempt to curb emissions. No one said they were. But the whinging about them from the myriad people who are "bummed about an extra 20 bucks at the pump", who otherwise like to consider themselves progressive about climate change remains idiotic and exactly the sort of "no, someone ELSE should pay for these things I want to happen for the betterment of the world" self-delusion that is so utterly irritating to witness.

EDIT: For the record, by the way, my cars are absolutely in no way fuel efficient, I don't drive them very much and will drive them even less than usual as a result of the current gas prices. I'm fine if stuff has to cost more to help change peoples' behaviour and I'm prepared to change mine as well. But I'm also not living paycheck to paycheck so I'm sure my view on that front will be dismissed summarily.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

I expected Mathgod to have a better understanding of economics.

You haven't paid attention to his past threads then.

[Mathgod]

Yeah, really good stuff guys. I mean if you don't buy into right wing propaganda hook line and sinker, it clearly means you "don't understand economics". Got it.

And battery technology is all there could ever possibly be to solving the energy crisis. Good to know. There's no other way we could have ever possibly got off fossil fuels. Super.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Yeah, really good stuff guys. I mean if you don't buy into right wing propaganda hook line and sinker, it clearly means you "don't understand economics". Got it.

And battery technology is all there could ever possibly be to solving the energy crisis. Good to know. There's no other way we could have ever possibly got off fossil fuels. Super.

I know people are ganging up on you. However, we actually do need better battery technology to get off fossil fuels. The reason being is that fossil fuels are like batteries, in that they store energy. You can transport them and unleash the energy elsewhere, as needed. If you have, for example, a wind farm, the power is coming in as the wind turbines turn, but then stops when they don't. People's power use is never going to exactly coincide with that windbine turning, you also need to transport the energy from the farm and into the device/vehicle.

I also don't think there was some conspiracy or misinformation campaign to avoid better technology. For example, if you'd been able to develop and patent a modern cell phone battery in 1985, you'd rule the world. You would have been able to corner the electronics market, then the media market, etc...

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Yeah, really good stuff guys. I mean if you don't buy into right wing propaganda hook line and sinker, it clearly means you "don't understand economics". Got it.

And battery technology is all there could ever possibly be to solving the energy crisis. Good to know. There's no other way we could have ever possibly got off fossil fuels. Super.

Without energy storage you sure aren't. Hydrocarbons are just store of energy. So ya. Find a better one. Sounds like you think this is easy.

[White Out 403]

The idea that demand doesn't drive innovation is the kind of vacuous horse crap talking point one clings on to temporarily when you want to win an argument. Of course if the oil industry didn't spend billions ####ting all over green energy we'd be further along. What an absurd thing to even debate. Why else would they have funded these efforts?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Do you think better batteries are thing that would have been developed sooner if we had just thrown more money at it?

Yes. The technology has improved over time due to investment, as has every advancement in oil and gas extraction technology. It costs money for research and development.

Lithium batteries are decades old, with endless amounts of research and development.

You’re going to have to specify how you define the word endless in this context.

So no, I don't think we'd be any further along. Unless some step-change technology was discovered, we'd be right where we are. But the odds of that are much lower in 1995 than today, due to all the associated developments and knowledge gains over the decades.

The only role misinformation played was delaying us ignoring reality for a little longer. We still ignore reality, we just did it more ignorantly before.

We can probably agree that fossil fuels provide a lot of energy relatively inexpensively compared to a number of alternatives, and that if you didn’t know there was a long term downside to its use there’d be no reason to invest in a cleaner form of energy.

Research and development requires investment capital. Had the truth been known earlier it’s almost a certainty that you would have seen an earlier uptick in the investment of green technology, much like we’ve been seeing recently. Think of how much even internal combustion engines have evolved in the last 100 years, 50 years, 25 years or even the last 10 years and ask yourself do you seriously think even as little as an extra 5 years of earlier research in a green tech wouldn’t have had an impact? Because if that’s the case it sounds like you’re essentially arguing that green energy technology hasn’t advanced at all in the past 5 years. Which is certainly not the case.

[chedder]

Originally Posted by blankall

There's actually a massive detriment to investing in green infrastructure ahead of its time. IMO a lot of these solar and wind farms are going to have to be abandoned/torn down as they will become obsolete before they've even recouped their inputs.

And that's going to be an environmental catastrophe. Oh well, just bury them.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Leondros

To say misleading information is to blame for being behind on the green transition is disingenuous. Btw - how is Advent working out for you? I believe you said it would be $20 by now? Just goes to show how even the cutting edge green tech is still being delayed by supporting technology and adoption..

I said what now?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Yes. The technology has improved over time due to investment, as has every advancement in oil and gas extraction technology. It costs money for research and development.

You’re going to have to specify how you define the word endless in this context.

We can probably agree that fossil fuels provide a lot of energy relatively inexpensively compared to a number of alternatives, and that if you didn’t know there was a long term downside to its use there’d be no reason to invest in a cleaner form of energy.

Research and development requires investment capital. Had the truth been known earlier it’s almost a certainty that you would have seen an earlier uptick in the investment of green technology, much like we’ve been seeing recently. Think of how much even internal combustion engines have evolved in the last 100 years, 50 years, 25 years or even the last 10 years and ask yourself do you seriously think even as little as an extra 5 years of earlier research in a green tech wouldn’t have had an impact? Because if that’s the case it sounds like you’re essentially arguing that green energy technology hasn’t advanced at all in the past 5 years. Which is certainly not the case.

"Endless" as in no amount of "we need this" would have changed progress. The demand for a better battery has always been around, and the reward would be massive for whoever did it.

I just disagree that we would be further along. The battery and generation advancements have all required cutting edge microprocessors(no getting around that limit quicker), material sciences(also would not have accelerated with market pressures) and critically, the extraction of material and the manufacturing advances. I just don't see the argument that throwing more demand at those sectors would have significantly affected their ability to develop any quicker.

From the people here who clearly disagree with my assessment, I'd be interested to see your alternate timeline had we started shifting in the early 80's. Let's say we are at the phase of transition we are now, back in 2000. What technologies would be where we are now, back then? What advancements would allow them to circumvent the shortcomings of the fields I mentioned earlier? I'm curious what that world looks like. And don't just say "like now, but 20 years earlier" because that would be impossible.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

There is absolutely no reason to think that if food becomes more expensive obesity rates will drop. In fact there is good reason to think the opposite - losing weight is actually something that is more likely when people have more time and money available to them. There is absolutely good reason to believe that higher gas prices will decrease vehicle emissions. This is a terrible analogy.

It's definitely like falling backwards into step 3 though, it's not like these hiked gas prices are a deliberate attempt to curb emissions. No one said they were. But the whinging about them from the myriad people who are "bummed about an extra 20 bucks at the pump", who otherwise like to consider themselves progressive about climate change remains idiotic and exactly the sort of "no, someone ELSE should pay for these things I want to happen for the betterment of the world" self-delusion that is so utterly irritating to witness.

EDIT: For the record, by the way, my cars are absolutely in no way fuel efficient, I don't drive them very much and will drive them even less than usual as a result of the current gas prices. I'm fine if stuff has to cost more to help change peoples' behaviour and I'm prepared to change mine as well. But I'm also not living paycheck to paycheck so I'm sure my view on that front will be dismissed summarily.

1. My analogy was great.

2. Given what we know about emissions and how they need to be curbed to have a meaningful difference, it’s actually kind of idiotic to think that the small sub-section of people A) able to simply drive less and/or B) able to make a near-term switch to a more efficient (electric/hybrid) vehicle, while the largest emitters remain the same or ramp up production, will make any meaningful difference. You’re railing against self-delusions while, you guessed it, deluding yourself into believing this is some worthy sacrifice.

3. You should be dismissed. Not just for not living paycheque to paycheque and owning multiple cars you can just choose to drive less, but mostly (and this is important) for saying “whingeing” instead of “whining.”

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

For example, say Japan had invested more into better and safer nuclear, the Fukushima accident probably doesn't happen, Germany and other countries don't shut down or stall development of nuclear out of fear of the technology, and the worldwide market would be less dependent on Russian fossil fuels (and FFs in general) as compared to what it is now.

I don’t think that a lack of research can be blamed for the Fukushima disaster or that additional research would have probably prevented it. There are some scenarios where Mother Nature is going to win every time.