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Originally Posted by Solecismic
Let me try and summarize.
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This was your best post of the discussion as it relates to facts, by far. Credit where credit is due. I won't belabor it by trying to respond to everything, but a few key points:
- The NERC link doesn't work.
- The IFO study is better than the previous one you linked. It has some of the same problems, and I'll not bother getting into the weeds other than to say I think their assessment of the battery side of things is quite significantly off, and I think that because of the larger body of scientific work that is available on the subject.
- I'm in agreement with you on two points; using EV batteries as part of the grid is a bad idea and shortens lifespan, and the nuclear power that's been mentioned.
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Originally Posted by Solecismic
I would argue that mankind's standard of living depends on reliable energy and many of the products (like plastics and fertilizers) that we create from fossil fuels.
Life expectancy:
File:Life expectancy by world region, from 1770 to 2018.svg - Wikipedia
Eliminating fossil fuel use is more than just changing cars or how electricity is produced. If we stop making fertilizer, people will starve in many places around the world. With the increase in life expectancy has come a dramatic increase in world population. They need to eat.
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This is where it starts to really go off the rails IMO. Nobody in this discussion is remotely close to saying 'eliminate fossil fuels'. It's not 'fossil fuels are evil and no matter what they must stop'. Even the net-zero approach isn't that, it is
way more moderate; by definition, all it means is still using one whale of a lot of fossil fuels, just limiting them to the point where we're not adding to the catastrophic climate damage we've already caused (goes without saying they'll last a lot longer in that eventuality as well). Not undoing any of the damage. Just not doing more and stopping the continual acceleration of excessive fossil fuel use, because without doing that we're horribly damaging the future of the increased population, the land many of them live on, their chances of being able to eat - you know, all those benefits that your rightly cite that we've gained.
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Originally Posted by Solecismic
When you're spending up to 10% of GDP, as Germany plans, just to pay the electric bills... that's a sign that you're causing a lot of harm with your policies.
You would call these "generalities." I don't. I'm only trying to show that starting this transition early has an enormous cost.
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I wouldn't call this a generality per se; I would call it very bad analysis, and that's the nicest way I can put it. A few reasons why (and we could say similar things about the claim that we have plenty of time and so on but I think perhaps it's best to focus on this issue as an example):
- Part of the logic here is like paying for something with your debit card instead of cash, and then thinking you're poorer by doing so because your bank account balance dropped. Using EVs means a larger percentage of the energy is coming from electricity. Of course the electric bill goes up ... but the fuel bill also goes
down. The whole picture needs to be taken into account.
- The main problem that Europe has in terms of price increases is of course an over-reliance on energy imports. I agree that this is a policy failure, but as mentioned it's one that applies
even more so to our reliance on oil. We can't say on the one side that 'we need fossil fuels, including those we can't produce enough of domestically' and then also say 'boy is Europe dumb for relying on fossil fuel imports'. Europe would be having power problems even if they didn't have a single EV.
- There are better ways; a larger buffer is needed to account for such possible disruptions for example, but until we are in a position where we can't be crippled by OPEC waking up on the wrong side of the bed, we have no room to talk - and nothing you've proposed gets us there. The main difference between us and Europe is that we're more fortunate at the moment. That's it, and that's all.