Dec 16, 2022Liked by Packy McCormick, Daniel McCormick
Favorite Optimism post yet! The fact that humans have achieved Q>1 nuclear fusion already is unbelievable. Definitely think you should do a year in review of Optimism if possible: Include all the optimistic things people have done in 2022 and a brief summary of what to be optimistic about going into 2023. Just food for thought!
Dec 16, 2022Liked by Packy McCormick, Daniel McCormick
Love that Stripe is taking on this initiate. I can't wait until this is the standard in Tech, rather than the exception. Carbon removal is an important and necessary strategy for addressing climate change and reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It's so important because:
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main driver of climate change. It is the most abundant greenhouse gas, and it traps heat in the Earth's atmosphere, leading to warming temperatures and a range of negative impacts on the planet. Carbon removal helps to reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and mitigate its warming effects.
- The more CO2 that is present in the atmosphere, the harder it becomes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon removal is a necessary complement to emission reduction efforts, as it helps to "buy time" and slow the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations while we work to transition to cleaner energy sources and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
- Carbon removal can help to reduce the impacts of climate change that are already underway. While it is important to reduce emissions to prevent future warming, we are already experiencing the consequences of a warming planet, such as sea level rise, extreme weather events, and harm to ecosystems and biodiversity. Carbon removal can help to reduce some of these impacts by removing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in a stable form.
- Carbon removal can provide economic and social benefits. Many carbon removal technologies, such as afforestation and reforestation, can create jobs and support local communities. Additionally, investing in carbon removal can help to reduce the costs of climate change, which are likely to be significant if we fail to address the problem.
Overall, carbon removal is one of the most essential part of the solution to climate change. It is necessary to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations, slow the pace of global warming, and mitigate the impacts of climate change that are already underway. Love that Stripe is leading the way here, well done!
I'm going to comment the exact same comment than on Noah's newsletter because I feel that you too might be *massively* downplaying climate change threats: yes the IEA revised it's estimates upwards, but we are still lagging behind on both annual investment needs and annual emission reductions.
From the same IEA report: "For electricity, in order to reach the installed capacity needed to generate 69% of electricity from renewables by 2030, average annual net additions need to be *30% higher for solar PV and more than twice as high for wind*.
👆 and that just for energy generation, but investments are also lagging behind on batteries, hydrogen, carbon capture, biofuels, etc. (see: (https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2022/overview-and-key-findings)). We are also miles away from the energy efficiency progress we should be making if we wanted to see the annual GDP/emissions decoupling of 7.5% needed for IEA's scenarios to work.
So the IEA revising its estimates upwards does not mean we're going to save the planet from destruction (and anyways, the planet will be fine in long-run. We might just not be there to enjoy the views). The reality is that we're still lagging behind on every existing metric ...
Same thing with fusion - I agree it is exciting and that we should be optimists. But even the most optimists agree we won't have it in time for it to be meaningful at keeping temperature below 1.5/2 degrees.
I see minimal progress to reverse the "fusion is 10 years away, for the last 70 years" reality.
Nuclear fission never had a problem with net energy gain - it was all about control.
This fusion test is nice but the reality is that the example generated enough excess power to light a 100 watt bulb for maybe 3 hours.
It is nowhere remotely close to even replacing the energy required to consolidate the fusion materials (tritium), to mine the commodities and build the structures used in the experiment or even to generate the electricity needed to charge the capacitors that held the energy that was "exceeded".
>1 EROEI has not been demonstrated, control at useful scale has not been advanced, etc etc. much less a clear path to grid level power generation at 60%+ cap factors required to actually be of use.
The counterpart to this "success" is how nuclear fission works: literally throw (or even just drop) sufficient fissionable mass into a ball. In Japan in 1999, a couple of nuclear workers started a net energy gain nuclear fission reaction when they decided to smartly skip over some steps in their nuclear fuel movement labor by dumping several multiples of nuclear fuel into a bucket instead of moving specified amounts, one at a time, as they were supposed to.
Favorite Optimism post yet! The fact that humans have achieved Q>1 nuclear fusion already is unbelievable. Definitely think you should do a year in review of Optimism if possible: Include all the optimistic things people have done in 2022 and a brief summary of what to be optimistic about going into 2023. Just food for thought!
Love that Stripe is taking on this initiate. I can't wait until this is the standard in Tech, rather than the exception. Carbon removal is an important and necessary strategy for addressing climate change and reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It's so important because:
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main driver of climate change. It is the most abundant greenhouse gas, and it traps heat in the Earth's atmosphere, leading to warming temperatures and a range of negative impacts on the planet. Carbon removal helps to reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and mitigate its warming effects.
- The more CO2 that is present in the atmosphere, the harder it becomes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon removal is a necessary complement to emission reduction efforts, as it helps to "buy time" and slow the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations while we work to transition to cleaner energy sources and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
- Carbon removal can help to reduce the impacts of climate change that are already underway. While it is important to reduce emissions to prevent future warming, we are already experiencing the consequences of a warming planet, such as sea level rise, extreme weather events, and harm to ecosystems and biodiversity. Carbon removal can help to reduce some of these impacts by removing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in a stable form.
- Carbon removal can provide economic and social benefits. Many carbon removal technologies, such as afforestation and reforestation, can create jobs and support local communities. Additionally, investing in carbon removal can help to reduce the costs of climate change, which are likely to be significant if we fail to address the problem.
Overall, carbon removal is one of the most essential part of the solution to climate change. It is necessary to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations, slow the pace of global warming, and mitigate the impacts of climate change that are already underway. Love that Stripe is leading the way here, well done!
I'm going to comment the exact same comment than on Noah's newsletter because I feel that you too might be *massively* downplaying climate change threats: yes the IEA revised it's estimates upwards, but we are still lagging behind on both annual investment needs and annual emission reductions.
From the same IEA report: "For electricity, in order to reach the installed capacity needed to generate 69% of electricity from renewables by 2030, average annual net additions need to be *30% higher for solar PV and more than twice as high for wind*.
Clean energy investments should roughly triple from $1tn/annum today to $3tn every year for the next 30 years if we want to stay at 1.5 (i.e. we won't). And that's assuming we can (i.e. we have enough space, smart grids are developed, we have enough resources and space to build those RE power plants, etc.). (https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/11/03/the-world-is-missing-its-lofty-climate-targets-time-for-some-realism)
👆 and that just for energy generation, but investments are also lagging behind on batteries, hydrogen, carbon capture, biofuels, etc. (see: (https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2022/overview-and-key-findings)). We are also miles away from the energy efficiency progress we should be making if we wanted to see the annual GDP/emissions decoupling of 7.5% needed for IEA's scenarios to work.
Also, battery prices are going up because supply chains are not ready to match the growing demand, which itself is due to lack of supply chain investments. Supply chain underdevelopments risk derailing the energy transition (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/oil-and-gas/our-insights/could-supply-chain-issues-derail-the-energy-transition).
So the IEA revising its estimates upwards does not mean we're going to save the planet from destruction (and anyways, the planet will be fine in long-run. We might just not be there to enjoy the views). The reality is that we're still lagging behind on every existing metric ...
Same thing with fusion - I agree it is exciting and that we should be optimists. But even the most optimists agree we won't have it in time for it to be meaningful at keeping temperature below 1.5/2 degrees.
Peer reviewed science is dead.
We need a new kind of science based on what science really is: Can your experiment be independently replicated?
Listen to the
@balajis
Srinivasan talking about this on The Knowledge Project podcast:
Start at 26:10
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+kowledge+project+balaji&view=detail&mid=35DE2BA7D38A7A3B41C635DE2BA7D38A7A3B41C6&FORM=VIRE
Read about decentralized and transparent systems here:
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/embrace-decentralized-systems-fear
Re: Fusion
Don't hold your breath.
I see minimal progress to reverse the "fusion is 10 years away, for the last 70 years" reality.
Nuclear fission never had a problem with net energy gain - it was all about control.
This fusion test is nice but the reality is that the example generated enough excess power to light a 100 watt bulb for maybe 3 hours.
It is nowhere remotely close to even replacing the energy required to consolidate the fusion materials (tritium), to mine the commodities and build the structures used in the experiment or even to generate the electricity needed to charge the capacitors that held the energy that was "exceeded".
>1 EROEI has not been demonstrated, control at useful scale has not been advanced, etc etc. much less a clear path to grid level power generation at 60%+ cap factors required to actually be of use.
The counterpart to this "success" is how nuclear fission works: literally throw (or even just drop) sufficient fissionable mass into a ball. In Japan in 1999, a couple of nuclear workers started a net energy gain nuclear fission reaction when they decided to smartly skip over some steps in their nuclear fuel movement labor by dumping several multiples of nuclear fuel into a bucket instead of moving specified amounts, one at a time, as they were supposed to.