A surprise solar boom reveals a fatal flaw in our climate change projections

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/388506/solar-energy-power-projections-climate-change-pakistan

by rntn • 2 years ago

30 28 2 years ago

vox.com

toomuchtodo• 2 years ago

https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-solar-power-renewable-energy-...

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/The-Uni...

hedora2• 2 years ago

So, there are two problems?

First, even though we’ve known we have to transition off fossil fuels since the 1980’s, governments and individual investors bet we’d keep using them through the 2030’s.

Second, solar panels are now so cheap, they’re fueling economic growth and quality of life improvements in places that developed regions think shouldn’t have those things.

I’m having a really hard time seeing the downside here.

For what it’s worth, these problems aren’t limited to developing regions: In California, we’re seeing exactly the same effects: PG&E’s cost structure is insane, and they thought they could just pass the burden to consumers indefinitely.

I guess I should feel guilty that my solar panels cover the electricity demand of our vehicles, so now we’ll have fewer oil / natural gas wars and that’ll put a bunch of human rights violators out of a job?

bluefirebrand2• 2 years ago

they’re fueling economic growth and quality of life improvements in places that developed regions think shouldn’t have those things

This strikes me as both extremely cynical and missing the point

Even if you celebrate the rising quality of life across the world, you have to acknowledge that a knock-on effect of rising quality of life is going to be that those regions that are catching up to the first world are going to be polluting more, just like the first world currently does

If climate models were not including this source of increased pollution from rising living standards then the models are probably wrong and increased cheap solar may inadvertently be resulting in a net increase in overall pollution and worsening climate change. It is worth analyzing if this is the case or not, and if it is the case then we probably need to adjust climate plans somehow

It seems like a similar situation to how introducing western medical care and pharmaceuticals led to population explosions in many countries as they started to live longer and more children survived to adulthood, without adjusting the number of children families were having

Similarly it is not surprising that increasing the available power in a country could similarly create a consumption explosion as their standard of living suddenly skyrockets

thworp2• 2 years ago

Climate change is going to have more of an impact on people who have little resources and are already suffering from a lack of infrastructure, healthcare and stability. If these populations get more resources and can afford more services, they can be better prepared. Should they continue to suffer today‘s very real problems only to prevent the predicted but not certain worse suffering later?

rini173• 2 years ago

The issue is made clear here:

When oil got cheap and plentiful after World War II, humans didn’t enjoy the savings. They built more cars.

In the same way cheap solar will induce massive demand for all kinds of stuff, which is still made by emitting CO2. Like, yes, your car has lower carbon footprint than ICE car. But it has some, and far from negligible. And when billions of newly minted middle class buy their own first car, it will add up, even if these are all solar powered BEVs.

Maybe it will turn into a nonproblem, idk(that happens rarely)...but our predictions and projections ough to be fixed in any case.

RandomThoughts33• 2 years ago

And when billions of newly minted middle class buy their own first car

Where are these supposed billions?

Because populations are either already contracting or on the verge of contracting nearly everywhere: China, India, Nigeria, even Pakistan, etc.

The first things people do when they get richer is that they stop having so many kids.

anonymouskimmer2• 2 years ago

I think the greatest chance of this turning into a "nonproblem" is for these developing countries to skip ahead of the developed countries (particularly the US). Most countries are a lot smaller than the US and can do even better than cars with E-bikes and good public transportation infrastructure in the cities. In the country I would think cars are less needed given the percent of the population who are farmers or the like. I would think a community owned or rental car kind of situation would be a lot more efficient and cost effective than private ownership.

For right now housing improvements and household appliances deliver a lot more value. They, too, will use power, but they can also save power through efficiency advances.

bitwize• 2 years ago

The three P's: powerdown, permaculture, population control. Industrial civilization and reproducing too quickly must be made taboo. The only way humanity survives is as small pockets of preindustrial, agrarian societies, and in far fewer numbers than exist today. We can -- and humans have -- endured for millennia this way. Industrial civilization has less than a century on its rapidly ticking clock.

" If you believe the myths of science, the Tolowa lived in this region for at least 12,500 years. If you believe the myths of the Tolowa, they lived here since the beginning of time." --Derrick Jensen

Oh, and uh, forget about going to space.

RandomThoughts33• 2 years ago

The article is so all over the place, it’s hard to understand the point it’s making.

It mixes together different agencies doing forecasting for different purposes and widely fail to actually go where it should. I’m starting to wonder if it’s not a puff piece from a company with an interest in pretending that the target for emissions should be higher (it probably is actually).

As it doesn’t at all address how the IPCC scenarios which are the main tools for political discussion nowadays use energy consumption forecasting, it’s kind of completely useless.

Spoiler alerts, the IPCC does scenarios based modelling using five broadly different scenarios called SSP which take into account economic development and its impact (with varying levels depending of the SSP). The point is that this covers a broad range of possibilities. Plus, these SSP are reviewed for each reports while trying to take into account what was misestimated (speed of development of renewable was one thing which was underestimated before). The problem pointed in the Vox article basically doesn’t exist.

psiconaut• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

tim333• 2 years ago

fatal flaw in our climate change projections... We need better models.

I think the future is inherently a bit unpredictable. We probably need policies that can deal with a wide range of outcomes more than better models.

It's a good thing that solar panel production is cracking away on exponential growth and hopefully batteries will pick up as well.

There's even some good news recently on carbon absorbtion tech https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/29/covalent...

A surprise solar boom reveals a fatal flaw in our climate change projections

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