The_Walrus wrote:
Crimadella wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
In theory, I think a radical investment in green technology could be extremely good for the economy as well as the environment. It's a real technical challenge that creates high-skilled jobs as well as more manual construction jobs. Everything from constructing wind turbines to re-insulating houses via installing EV charging points will help create jobs and inject stimulus into the economy. And sometimes you need to couple investment with "stick" legislation to make people abandon their polluting lifestyles. But these policies need to be thought out properly - it seems the Green New Deal people haven't even thought about domestic energy consumption for example, or smart grids, and they've dismissed most of the best tools we have.
That's one of the things I think is outrageous, the fact that valuable green technology already exists yet corporations buy the patents up, blocking people from being able to use the technology. So it's not that we don't have the technology to put a huge dent in CO2 output, so pumping more resources into creating more technology will likely follow the same current course, we really need to focus on doing something about allowing corporations to buy up patents and sit on useful technology without any intentions on using it.
I think it would be great all around for people who patent there creations to be able to sell there technology to multiple companies or individuals and outlaw the ability for one company to buy the patent and prevent others from having access to the technology. The original designer gets to make more money off of their idea(Great!), then it adds more competition which drives prices down and opens up the possibility for more people to start business rather than having corporations be able to dominate so fiercely.
I know I've responded to this in the other thread - I don't think very much patent trolling goes on in this field - but I think it's worth noting that innovation has already lowered the carbon emissions of most countries significantly. I think the UK currently has its lowest emissions for 150 years or something equally ridiculous. Wind and solar power are now capable of competing with fossil fuels without subsidy. We're soon going to see floating wind turbines in deep seas. And with technologies like insulation and electric cars, the issue isn't the engineering so much as the practicalities - people need places to charge their cars and expect that if they wait a few years then the government will pay for their insulation.
Electricity and cars get a lot of attention and rightly so but they are only part of the problem. Currently almost all manufacturing (including wind turbines and solar panels) and much of the world's food supply (via Haber Bosch nitrogen fixation) rely on fossil fuels. Also all plastics.
Also while reaching economic competitiveness is a major milestone for solar + wind, I do not think they have the capability to provide all the world's energy. Some areas in the world are better suited to capture solar power and wind power than others. Also with the development of 3rd world countries the energy demand of the world is predicted to increase dramatically by 2050 (I think the last estimate I saw was an increase to 50 quads of energy demand).
There is a lot more technical development yet to be done particularly on the manufacturing/chemical production side. We should invest in it, but it's a mistake to tell people if we just build enough solar panels and make enough charging stations we'll solve the problem.
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"Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is power."
09 Mar 2019, 3:07 am
