Answer: They are far too useful.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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are they? If you add their utility and total negative externalities they are essentially un-useful. We have the technology now to phase them out over the next 10-20 years. All that is lacking is the political will.
Now != 10-20 years, when power outages are solved, then we can talk.
read the article. The writer isn't advocating to ban them now, no one is. The title isn't Why don't we ban fossil fuels now.
The point of the article is that we can try to innovate alongside fossil fuels with renewables, but petro companies are actually finding new efficiencies and reducing the costs of oil extraction. The IMF predicts $15/barrel oil by 2050. Oil will take another century to go away unless it is "banned". No one means they're going to make it illegal, but to effectively put a heavy hand of regulation on industry to cease fossil operations and to switch to renewables.
The article is paywalled.
The non-paywalled link is at the top of the thread.
Notice how that was posted an hour AFTER my comment?
The bottom, now.
Man it's going to blow your mind to know that petro companies are using oil money to buy up lithium and silicon mines as fast as they can.
The largest oil companies in the world are on track to becoming the largest suppliers of raw materials for solar panels and batteries. Oil companies have figured out that they can play both games at the same time. Sell as much oil and solar panel/lithium material and make hand over fist in cash.
The writer isn't advocating to ban them now, no one is.
I am.
Synthetic fuels are viable (in some countries you are already able to buy them), many countries around the world still subsidize oil production - stop thhose subsidiaries, put them in Synthetic fuels, make splitting a part of the co2 that's being pulled from the air mandatory and we've solved a lot of issues, because now there not only an alternative, there a solution for getting co2 out of the atmosphere. Porsche does it, Neste (not to be confused with Nestlé!) as well, CAC started the pilot production as well...it works, it's viable, it's not that much more expensive and most countries have some form of co2 tax on products made from oil anyway.
Ban fossile fuels after 2030 and fuck all those greedy oil companies sideways.
Are all major custom fuel types (gasoline, natural gas, coal, kerosene/jet fuel, propane) available in synthetic, with little to no modification of the hardware using it, and able to scale to immediately cover our global usage?
The writer isn't advocating to ban them now, no one is.
I am.
...
Ban fossile fuels after 2030
Why 2030? You just said you are advocating to ban them now.
Are all major custom fuel types (gasoline, natural gas, coal, kerosene/jet fuel, propane) available in synthetic, with little to no modification of the hardware using it, and able to scale to immediately cover our global usage?
Yes, because you are simply exchanging the "basic" ingredient "crude oil". All refineries basically need some simple temperature and production process changes, and bobs your uncle.
And there is less modification needed. Back in the GDR when the Trabi with it's two stroke engine came to market, they made some Tests with a Lloyd (basically the same concept but from West Germany). Somewhere along testing they has major issues with the Trabant engine throwing rods everywhere after a few 1000 km - for Testing, they used the West Germany Oil instead of soviet. The production process was similar, the crude oil however not. It had a lot of contamination that made combustion very bad. 70 years later, a lot of this is being treated in the refinery, but there's still lots of unwanted stuff in most fuels, be it Diesel, Gasoline or whatever (one of the reasons, why additives are needed).
A few auto clubs did Tests in Germany and Europe over the last 2 years with those fuels and found, while the co2 emissions do not change (why would they, the co2 neutrality is being delt with in the production of the fuel), other emissions reduce dramatically. AIRBUS did Tests with so called SAF (sustainable air fuel) and they found that NOx and soot emissions where reduced by over 60% at crusing altitude. Mazda tested the new 6-Cylinder Diesel they developed with such fuel and they found, with all the filters and stuff, there's basically only Co2 and some hydrocarbons leaving the tailpipe.
Basically, there's still lots of crap in the fuel from the crude oil, that can't be refined out properly.
As for the scaling, yeah in theory it would be possible...but there would be a huge need for subsidiaries - making production dirt cheap, so those greedy fuckers in the oil companies still get their expected rate of return. In Europe that's influenced heavily with the carbon tax getting more and more expensive and customers not paying 3 Euros per Liter...
Why 2030? You just said you are advocating to ban them now.
I am. But it would need all world governments to unite - so theoretically absolutely possible (remember CFCs?), practically in this political world environment? No.
So you need countries to "go the long way" doing it now up to 2030 (so production capacity can ramp up) and simply forcing the fossile competition out of the market by being cheaper.
Within 25 years it's mostly going away anyhow in the passenger vehicle market. Within 25 years there's no way its going away for ships and planes. Possibly not for commercial trucks, and not completely for ag either. Certainly not the military. Then theres all the smaller uses and other oils needed and propane and whatnot from it, but that's getting into relatively small potatoes.
But anyone thinking the world can manage to just ban oil over the next 25 years and everyone is going to agree to it, you're far too simple minded and naive.
And anyone arguing against banning fossile fuels has no idea what has been achieved with synthetic fuels. Fossile fuels will get extremely expensive in most European countries due to co2 taxes, making synthetic fuels with a negative co2 footprint extremely cheap. And a negative co2 footprint is pretty easy to achieve. Putting 5% more of the co2 needed for 1 liter in the ground, pulls it from the atmosphere, so 1 liter of synthetic fuel can have net negative co2 emissions - which would be a tax incentive, making the fuel cheaper.
Then you'd know it's not possible to make enough synthetic fuel to supply current demand.
It is. But it would need all world governments to unite - so theoretically absolutely possible (remember CFCs?), practically I'm this environment? No.
So you need countries to "go the long way" doing it now up to 2030 (so production capacity can ramp up) and simply forcing the fossile competition out of the market by being cheaper.
Man, I think you need to read up and understand the processes on how synthetic fuel is actually made. Because it takes a massive amount of energy to make the stuff. The only carbon neutral way to do it would take even more energy. It's only going to be scalable to a replacement of gasoline level if you start strapping nuclear power plants to all the hydrolysis and carbon air capture machines you'd need.
You should keep up with developments ;) There are a number of different ways to produce "synthetic" fuels, specifically from special plants, that grow in very difficult environments (like deserts), there's also different algae plants in scale testing (Mexico has some of the largest) and so on.
Apart from that, the argument that it needs huge amounts of power is pretty mute.
Are you gonna pay for me to have an electric car (which are unaffordable)?
Because a carbon tax incremented over a period of years would achieve the desired outcome with much less administrative burden and economic impact.
We should use fossil fuels sometimes - when it's worth paying the real cost!
Problem is the total accumulated CO2 already there. We would need to be net zero yesterday to mitigate imo.
Capitalistic institutions haven't been serious or motivated enough to make any real effort. They'll make up their next cop-out like carbon credits or whatever
It can, and will, get worse.
A carbon tax is a specific, simple, policy that voters could form a broad coalition around to implement.
You'd think that.. it sunk the Australian government when they tried to implement it 10-15 yrs ago
Canada has one, though it's not particularly aggressive, as far as I can tell. They redistribute the tax money so no one actually pays extra over the full year, but high carbon products are still more expensive.
I have no idea how the tax is calculated.
the first step to caring for a injury is to stop further harm. a combat medic covers their patient's wounds from falling dust and dirt by placing their body between - then evacuates the patient to safer location.
we have to stop the bullshit uses of petrochemicals. the flagrant waste, the waste for recreation, the waste for convenience, toys etc.
plastics for food, plastics for medical tech, industrial use and exploration - force everything else to reusables.
the best way to overcome the enormous build-up already accumulated IS TO STOP ADDING TO IT IMMEDIATELY.
Because having an electric car is for rich people and is poor can't fucking afford a Tesla
You're acting like there aren't affordable used EVs that would function perfectly well for people in a position to have an EV
My 2018 Leaf is more than sufficient for the majority of commuters and is cheaper than last year's Honda Civic. Oh and bonus, a lot of them just had their batteries swapped under warranty due to a manufacturing defect and have a fresh new battery and warranty!
So, assuming someone either has the ability to charge at home or close to (I lived with this car in an apartment complex for a year so yes even that is possible, if not annoying) then they should be able to locate an affordable EV if that's their desired engine type
Why don't we ban sharing links with paywalls?
That should absolutely be against the sub rules, if you post a paywalled link you should also be required to post the archive link.
Or, just post with the archive link to begin with.
I haven't experienced the NY times paywall in awhile. I don't mean to sound lectury but there really is no reason to not use Firefox desktop or mobile with ublock origin. It is so much nicer of a web experience, and NY times has some nice articles.
<.< Fuck iOS people then, I suppose.
I just downloaded Firefox and installed uBlock on my phone to test this. Didn't work. Any specific settings?
Edit: hmm OK, figured out the custom filter import for paywalls... do you feel comfortable adding Javascript managed by random people to your browser?
For anyone who doesn't know this... Install uBlock > My filters > scroll down until you see import...
Import these two:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/liamengland1/miscfilters/master/antipaywall.txt
https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filters/-/raw/main/bpc-paywall-filter.txt
I don't know... I don't feel comfortable doing this. I usually only install trusted stuff in my machines. This feels like an easy way to get screwed.
That person could go rogue and then you have malicious Javascript running next to your credentials on every tab.
Edit 2: after checking in detail, those filters aren't Javascript logic. So it seems fine. I thought it was some form of minimized Javascript
I was actually mistaken in my earlier comment, I meant to say Bypass Paywalls Clean, but actually that add-on was removed previously from the Firefox store due to a copyright claim (it became too popular). I have it installed because it was only removed from the store, not from users who had it installed already.
Like you found out though your searching though, the BPC filter list can be imported into uBlock Origin through it's settings menu.
I think it is still nice to assume that most users don't have these plugins or filters, and to provide the archived version of the page. That way the effort to find the content is done a single time by a single person instead of everyone.
Because the people running our country make a lot of money off of them.
The entire industry employs a great number of people. It’s not so simple to just ban all fossil fuels (even if it is what we need to do) and leave millions out of work. Think of how many industries rely on fossil fuels as well, just to move things or people around. All those jobs go bye-bye overnight too.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t ban fossil fuels, but the fallout from doing so needs to be addressed before it becomes a problem in the first place.
Obviously yes but it could be done. We have the resources and labor power to do it but we don't
Definitely worth thinking about for the future. Right now it would fuck over a whole lot of working class people. We need to get robust public transit up and running.
a whole lot of working class people
it would fuck over our entire economy and infrastructure. it's an asinine question to pose by itself, in a vacuum.
But we will have to get there, especially for the optional shit - cruise ships, motorcross, snow-mobiling, pleasure / recreation boats and RVs - if it's optional, aka, not absolutely necessary to the business of righting the ecosystem, it goes.
Let people cruise and moto and snowmobile on renewably derived electricity if they absolutely HAVE to have these luxuries, but no more 2-strokes spewing unburned gas into the ecosystem, no more 'environmental cruises' to the arctic where these fucks burn bunker oil constantly in the last 'mostly untouched' ecosystem on the planet.
The only question is: how serious are we, as a species, about stopping the pain?
Because at the rate we're going, we won't - and will doom our species and ecosystem, and it's coming QUICK. 1.5c is gone already lol. The mountains are not regaining snowpack. the AMOC is wobbling. Once that goes, large parts of the ecosystem will falter.
So can we quickly do the mature thing and put away the toys, and struggle with a single focus on saving ourselves?
Or will we let the dipshits and assholes vroom vroom their way to our collective destruction, because we decided long ago to let the stupids drive the bus?
Because if you just ban them you would destroy the economy of basically everyone, even your community probably.
Wonder what'll happen to the economy when we cook ourselves to death
Nah, we'll bounce back probably
The economy isn't real
Government would burn a lot of fossil fuels in the effort to save you from the sin of doing it yourself