It has no correspondence to reality outside of its own model, so it can only optimize for capital. No other goal can be set under those conditions. So it devalues nature and communities to value itself on a relative basis. Capital doesn’t actually ‘grow’ because it is not alive, so it literally sucks the life out of the living world. The richer some become, the more death they cause. The only discipline capitalist economics has is mathematics, which is an abstract quantitative unit devoid of subjectivity, history, essence, identity, or morality. Numbers grow logarithmically, which is why they think they can get richer. But nature cannot regenerate that quickly, and so many crucial resources are finite. So all those dollars are claims on future resources which will not even exist. They are more worthless with the passage of time, hence inflation. Capitalism is a totalitarian nightmare, which not only denies basic freedom to most humans, it eviscerates the biological basis of their existence.
@@Rnankn agree. Society has been brainwashed walking towards its demise as the market creates maximum profit at the detriment of our species. I was making the argument for longer maternity and they came back with “fine as long as when the mother medically able- she return to work immediatel” Surely you want more productive and mentally stable workers in the future? it would probably be best if the mother stays with the child for long as possible in formative years. But no never mind our mammalian evolution over millions of years, since the late 70s the market demands women return to work asap because of profitability this quarter and that is all that matters.
Exactly. If a method of clean energy was made available tomorrow to completely replace oil capitalism would just use that as well as the oil. It would probably have us use that renewable energy to work out how to extract even more fossil fuels.
The doom Goblin and other eco cultists are the ones stuck in the past. Anti-modernists harking back to a pre-capitalist, pre-Enlightenment utopia where humans were more at harmony with nature. We have always had these doomsday cultists, the difference now is those ideas are mainstream in radicalised capitalist elites.
I do not want a car. I do not want the newest phone. I do not want to fly abroad. I do not want the newest clothes. I want a home, I want a future and I want the world to be a better place for my friends and family. Although it means less because I have less, I would happily have less if it meant everyone could enjoy that standard of living.
You better not want meat either. It's not all about cars, mobile phone (?) and flying or cruising. And you might not want the sun in its current cycle....
@@rdklkje13 Exactly! It's not like not having the latest wasteful tech or vacations abroad are linked to eating meat. It's like saying if you enjoy eating meat, then you should also buy the latest phone, the newest car, and force yourself to vacation abroad.
I lived in Sweden. It's huge! Population density is one twentieth of the UK. Most of their electricity comes from hydropower, installed on rivers flowing down from mountains. This wouldn't go far if the population increased 20-fold. So it's not a feasible model for the UK to follow!
Population density *where people actually live* in Sweden is comparable to the UK. - ie. Everyone lives in Greater Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö and the rest is desert.
@@bawbagindustries but that's not the point. The point is that they have a huge land area full of rivers and can use that to support a small population. If Britain's population dropped by 95%, you could generate all the power everyone needs just from renewables, because you could use all the rivers for hydro and all the land you wanted for solar, without running into geographical limits or competition from other uses of that land or rivers. If Sweden's population increased 20-fold they would reach the limit of the power they could generate using renewables (e.g. they would run out of rivers for hydropower) and would then have to add fossil or nuclear to make up the difference.
@@snoogles007 Yup, we need to drastically reduce our use of energy and restructure all societies around maximizing energy conservation. This means drastically cutting down on production, resource exploitation, and consumption... which is the direct opposite of what Capitalism demands.
Sweden sells alot of electricity to Germany, so we are producing alot more than we need. Uk has tide, massive once. They can be predicted thousands of years ahead. But for some reason every tide project gets shut down 🤔🤔🤔
I had to stop half way through. This "oh 100%" expression of agreement, that has made the journey over from America, seriously irks me to no end. It's one of those phrases that just cuts deep over and over again.
If you beamed down from Mars (or Hertfordshire) you’d be forgiven for thinking “Why doesn’t everyone do it like the Chinese…?” Then there would be a looooooong conversation….
You should also interview Nate Hagens. There are three major problems with what we call renewables 1. They require carbon based manufacturing 2. They require replacement, so are better called replaceables. 3. To replace carbon would require a massive lift in scale - we do not have the resources (metals etc)and the mines. To lift the scale and intensity of mining (extracting less from more) would be destructive to our environment. Replacing one ecological disaster with another. Economists have focused on growth and politicians have kicked the can on the environment too far. And too add to this is that “price” does not reflect the long term availability of resources. This neoclassical idea that price reflects everything is BS.
Hagens is problematic. His views on renewables are... well, ignorant to put it politely. Yes they require replacement, EVENTUALLY, but solar panels 45 years old are still grinding out power (albeit somewhat less than when new), with no end in sight. And newer tech to cool panels greatly reduces degradation. 100-year solar panels are in view. The metals issue is mostly bullshit. Michaux has been soundly debunked several times; his "analyses" are based on crazy assumptions that guarantee a negative conclusion. Not worth any further attention. Above, some guy suggested that Aaron interivew Nate Hagens, Art Berman, and William E Rees. Here was my reply: I agree with the spirit of your comment, but the specific names you mention... not so much. Those guys are missing (deliberately? or is it blindness? IDK) key aspects of the situation -- such as for example the phenomenal developments in renewable energy in recent years. Yes, our problems are an integrated whole and should be addressed as such (at least some of the time; there's also a place for narrower channels of discussion). But it should be addressed by people whose views include a grasp of all key relevant aspects of the situation. I am not seeing that in the names you mention. For example, Nate Hagens has a fixed negative position on renewables, and is now platforming nuclear advocates! He recognizes that an energy transition MUST happen, but since (only in his mind) renewables are off the table, then it has to be nuclear. A terrible, terrible mistake, and (strangely, paradoxically) wildly inconsistent with his whole "great simplification" idea.
@@Stoddardian Thank you! Your very intelligent and superbly-informed response has compelled me to rethink and reverse my views. Oh btw, when can we expect a new and revised edition of "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy"? lol
@@jonathanhoskins4034 How very strange! My reply to you has now been deleted several times. I have no idea why. RU-vid just does not like what I have to say, I guess. lol
I do kind of wonder if the hesitance to invest in renewables is that they _are_ constantly falling in price. There's a reason deflation is universally agreed to depress economic activity.
The economic case for private companies to invest in renewables sure. But if industry is collapsing in Germany due to prohibitively expensive energy costs, we can flip it on it's head. If you had the state investing in energy, no profit motive, to supply energy at the lowest prices possible, you could say to any companies wanting to invest, 'hey, if you invest here your energy costs are going to be really low.' You also have the added benefit of ordinary people having way more money in their pocket due to lower bills. If the investment in energy is state led, without the profit motive, it would actually create more economic activity. Just not in the energy sector.
I'd like to see Novara talk to Stephanie Kelton author of The Deficit Myth. So frequently we hear in political debates the phrase "how can we afford ...X " The book completely changed my perspective about what is economically possible for countries like the UK and USA.
It's true, the world needs to plant trees so fast that it hits the equivalent of a trillion new trees worth of biomass by 2060. The most efficient ways to go about this include Miyawaki forests and unconventional harvesting practices such as lollipopping, festooning, and like methods that harvest branches while leaving trunks intact. But at most 6% of CO2 can be got by direct air drawdown, by all means combined, so cap and trade, carbon trading, and other actions that tie up that 6% propping up fossil enterprises as "net zero" is a deception and a dead end.
@@Zabuzakashi I'd say it's comparatively far, far fewer, given that an estimated 7 million hectares are lost every year. In fact what I can make out, upto 2 billion are planted versus 15 billion cut down yearly.
Please have a discussion like this about animal agriculture which is responsible for at least one third of emissions. Mainstream media doesn't talk about it, independent media is free to do better.
No doubt. Hopefully with this same dude if he knows as much about that as he did about this. Have to admit I spaced some of it thinking about what he had just said.
@@JustinHalliday absolutely not, much more but the industry keeps putting legal challenges because it can by force of money. Even if it were 17%, that would still make it the single biggest impact.
Green transition is not happening over here in Germany, because we DON'T have a green+red coalition, we also have the ultra capitalist yellow party in there, which twists every attempt at transition in a way that it either doesn't happen or predominately benefits the handful of rich people they represent.
The Energiewende is not happening because the underlying assumptions are wrong. Germany has spent nearly 2 TRILLION Euro over the lifetime of the program to build out 200% nameplate capacity of wind and solar based on peak usage, only to get 49% actual coverage. Germany essentially overbuilt to compensate for lack of energy storage, only to get half of what it needs. In Ontario, Canada, we mimicked the German feed in tariff system. We spent over $60 billion in incentives to build wind, only to get 1.5% coverage, while we spent $55 billion on our entire nuclear fleet which gives us 65% coverage. Renewable energy costs NEVER INCLUDE the cost of storage to mitigate Dunkleflaute, or, the parallel "generate on demand" infrastructure needed to start up when it's cold, dark, and no wind. Renewables at their current state, DO NOT BELONG ON THE GRID. The economics only worsk at the scale of an individual building. The concepts of baseload power, seasonal power, and daily peak power are real phenomena that are satisfied by specific energy generation types. Wind and solar are not technologies that can satisfy the energy demand types to full scale. It's not even clear that going full solar and wind can generate enough excess energy to top up energy storage to cover long stretches of cold, dark, and still days. Modern economies need to be able to generate energy ON DEMAND, not at the whim of weather, nor when the Sun goes down.
@@quantummotion Thanks for reminding us that the fossil fuel complex has enough spare change lying around to pay for a forum troll here and there. Nice made up numbers, btw.
@@sascharambeaud1609I identified that I'm in a place that's 65% plus nuclear generation, shown that NUCLEAR is cheaper than solar and wind, provided no numbers on gas fired plants and I'm a fossil fuel shill? You could have called me a nuclear industry shill, but then, nuclear is HEAVILY regulated/government controlled, so it's hard to argue that now isn't it? If you want to argue about what's the best way to clean up our air, water, make stable our environment without crashing our economy - you have an obligation to yourself and your fellow citizens to educate yourself and point out what's true and what's BS. It's clear all you've done is echo assumptions and apply labels. Easier than searching, knowing something about electrical grids, understanding the costs, and paying attention to rates, incentives and percentages, I guess.
@@quantummotion Nuclear is part of the fossil fuel complex. You're turning bonding energy into heat which is used to generate elecricity. While nuclear bonding energy doesn't cause CO2 issues, it has its own problems that have been discussed at length elsewhere. It's a bit ridiculous that you're trying to sell us the energy source universally identified as one of the most expensive, if all hidden costs are factured in, as cheaper than renewables. When I'm looking at Canada's electricity generation, I'm seeing 13% from nuclear, which isn't even in the same ballpark as your 65%. And I'm not even beginning to see your numbers for storing nuclear waste safely from terrorist access for the next 20.000 years in that imaginary number you gave us as the cost of your '65% coverage'.
Re "green" capitalism. Einstein said: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." In our situation the "thinking" is "capitalism."
Well, one village per year would be a pretty doable scenario. Cities make no sense as the houses throw shadows, and the consumption is higher, (Infrastructure considered) Certain spots can, others can't be used. That's just a fact. Offshore windmills are a possibility, but you need spots with steady winds. Hydro power works in mountainous terrain. I also thought about Piezo-electric "sails" for gusty areas. Or atleast along highways, where the moving vehicles like trucks create the wind. (Should work well in Tunnels too, like a liner). Question is: Would somebody actually test such ideas?
Great interview. Fascinating interviewee! We should do everything. Carbon tax, subsidies, planning reform & public energy generation. Also do international connections like AQUIND. Then if we make "too much" electricity we can have cheap local supply and export it to other countries that do less.
Too vague, not enough concrete examples. One huge contradiction I hear is that renewables have huge costs cos of transmission being far away from end use. But nuclear is ok
I mean that's not an inherent contradiction necessarily. They're talking about land cost and how it relates to transmission costs. Renewables require much more land and so to be done for cheap are placed in areas where land is cheap (far away from people). Nuclear by contrast doesn't require as much land and so can in theory be placed closer to population centres more affordably reducing the transmission costs.
renewables are ''cheap'' because they fleece the public 3 or 4 times during their life cycle Production done in china , so no accountability for pollution or decent labor standards heavy subsidy to install extremely unreliable , so massively increases system cost , and dump the cost of back up on the public heavy transmission costs , and refitting , also dumped on the public then ''expert'' , making money out of renewable , show up telling us how ''cheap'' wind and solar are anybody serious about CO2 emission free electricity should look at public nuclear roll out in the 70ies , the main difference is it actually works , even with 80 years old tech
Variable renewables are a cargo cult. Nobody has ever demonstrated a society running principally on wind and solar. Meanwhile nuclear can provide all power for electricity and space heat, and part of the energy for process heat, and maybe all the energy for transportation.
Lol you waited till the last 30 seconds to answer the dilemma. Then ended it. I can't stand renewable advocates, they tie themselves in knots trying to ignore nuclear
The difference is 70 years old nuclear tech can de-carbonize electricity , but ofc if you're a rotten green , making money out of wind and solar , or ideologically captured , you can't mention that
I'm all for electrification of transport -- of trams, bicycles etc. Electric cars however make no sense at all. Two tonnes of steel, plastic, destructively mined rare metals etc to carry one ~70kg person around is insanely inefficient. EV policy is a distraction at best, a sleight of hand to keep us buying shiny new things while pretending it's helping.
Lifetime emissions of electric cars are much lower than combustion engines. Yes you need to make public transport much better to encourage people to use cars less. However to just give up on electric is a recipe for disaster.
@@dangriff12 "Lifetime emissions" calcs are always deliberately misleading in my experience. Crucial factors are always left out such as battery replacement costs, electricity generation methods etc. Other inputs are usually cherry-picked to suit the writer. For example the point (miles travelled) at which overall emissions begin to be lower for EVs than ICEs can be as high as 100k miles. In some countries cars may be expected to be scrapped before they even reach this number. Compare reports in the Guardian and the Telegraph -- neither will lie, but they'll come to completely different conclusions.
1. Wright’s Law - Output vs Cost not linked to time period though you can incorporate time if duration is known (Theodore Wright in 1936, Wright’s Law aims to provide a reliable framework for forecasting cost declines as a function of cumulative production. Specifically, it states that for every cumulative doubling of units produced, costs will fall by a constant percentage). 2. Moor's Law in computing processing power and Half Life in radioactivity degradation/decline are similar to Wrights Law with time period is known/incorporated for the specific product/material - Output vs Time
The problem with all our environmental problems is that money sources in our nation are erecting financial barriers to completion of alternative energy collection systems. The Chinese are showing us what we should call the best approach...with resources, funding, employing researchers, constructing projects etc. Meanwhile the U.S. insults all the social democracies. If you don't care about your life (its length, its level of health, and your future comfort), you are just accepting a shorter life, chopped short by industrial chemical poisoning.. It is really the absolute saddest in the U.S. where we need to pollute to conquer the world. WE CAN'T. We are an entire species flirting with extinction while closing our ears to the lifestyle changes the entire human race must adopt if it is to continue a few more centuries. During my life as an activist, what I found is we cannot afford to continue as we have been doing and the latest wars and pollutions are the worst we have ever experienced,
HUGELY IMPORTANT POINT. AARON, ARE YOU LISTENING? Pardon the all caps but this guy (above) just pointed to the elephant in the room. According to IMF (!), subsidies to big fossil amount to $7 TRILLION PER YEAR. Gee, I wonder if that would finance a solar farm or three? Ya think? lol
Gas prices would go up and the president would lose. Therefore not happening in a democracy until a huge majority is driving electric cars. I can see China doing that.
Why don't you identify what those purported subsidies are so we can campaign to get them removed. Nebulous virtue-signalling statements become very tedious.
Great interview. I've been hearing for some time that Renewables don't make a lot of profit but not understood why. Now I do. I also know understand why many people say that capitalism can't solve the climate crisis. Thanks Novara.
Problem with the green party is they literally oppose every single housing development, especially where I live (south east) they will not accept housing being built anywhere near their sanctuary. I'm sorry but houses need to be built and that does mean being built attached to local community that has all the amenities.
The important bit here is: Vote Green, if YOU care for the environment. Don't settle for Conservative-Green Liberals or "Compromises" of that sort. They 'll just watch the world through a champaign bottle, and claim it to be green now.
@@chester6343 Single housing development is ineffective use of the land. It would be more beneficial to have block of flats with great green spaces. I'm not saying I'm happy about it, but eventually - they would be right on in. UK needs to build more affordable housing and a new house isn't it.
Falling price of one thing like a solar panel does *not* necessarily mean deflation. Deflation is macro economic phenomenon. People will redirect the saving from falling price of one thing to other things, if the macro environment is not deflationary like in Japan from 1997 to about 2012.
glad he focused so much on Kevin Anderson's rhetoric; we need to be preventing emissions, not offsetting them, not beating around the bush and trying to have our cake and eat it. prevention. nothing else matters as much as prevention
Great conversation but disappointed by the omissions around nuclear play against Renewables, and their mad financial risks. In fact nuclear is a great example of why large infrastructure HAVE to be owned by governments as the risks involved with current “private” projects blow the costs by hundreds of percentage points.
if Henkley point was financed by sovereign loans at 1 % interest rate , it would cost 60 % less , Nuclear benefits a lot of State planning and finances , and economy of repetition to bring the cost down look at UAE nuclear reactor to see how proper nuclear projects are made the main difference nuclear works in decarbonization , the only thing wind and solar are profession at is wealth redistribution to middle class , fossil interests and financial interests from the poorest in society
Around 10:00 he speaks of preserving the natural world. The low energy density nature of wind and solar requires massive amounts of land that necessarily requires deforestation. I enjoyed the conversation and different perspective but would’ve enjoyed some more math behind the conjecture.
Even if the price of solar panels and wind turbines dropped to $0.00 , there's still the cost of the enormous swaths of land they consume. And then there's the variability and intermittency. And then there's the cost of building expensive transmission systems. After that, in order to provide for 24/7 usage, you need enormous storage facilities. Then you have to dig up 250 tons of earth for every EV you build. Then, you have to put up with the inconvenience of long charge times and continuous battery degradation. And don't forget the disposal costs of aged-out batteries and solar panels and wind turbines. Everything adds up, to the point where it's not all that easy or economical or convenient as first thought. Then you realize It's not low cost either ... but rather ... extremely expensive, a huge headache, and an enormous waste of time, money, space and resources.
If you had a spot electricity market for retail and industry consumers there would be an enormous incentive to use electricity when it's cheap, I.e. when the wind blows and the sun shines. On the other hand if a consumer needs electricity now and renewable aren't delivering, fossil fuels will generate the electricity but at an high price. You don't take into perspective that the market design of electricity generation and distribution can be changed
Capitalism could fuck anything up including any green strategy . Eco socialist & science based governance is the way to go, I like doughnut economics as an idea Love to you
I'm just going to hse your comment thread to post some academic reading suggestions in the hope that others will add to it: Is green growth happening - Jefim Vöfel & Jason Hickle Not directly climate related but an interesting idea for reducing the political lobbying power of capitalists: Limitarianism - Ingrid Robeyns Any post-humanist/more-than-human philosophy is also valluable in our approach to climate change. I was quite inspired reading some Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour. There is also a bunch if non-western explicitly anti-colonial thinkers that have relevant insights about the climate crisis; although shamefully I have to admit that I can't remember any names right now, hopefully someone else will comment some suggestions.
Your comment takes me to the election of a new President in Mexico. She's a Scientist and PhD, specializing in sustainability. I wonder if and how she will make a difference in that country?
Pick one: -Low profitability has made companies unwilling to invest. -companies compete in renewable auctions for contract for difference by offering a lower price than the competition (lowering profitability)
An interesting discussion but since much of this was centred around climate change mitigation and the author is not a climate scientist, some of the discussion points were not as well informed as they might have been. Kevin Anderson would be a good follow-up interviewee. Humanity has left it too late to avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change. Whether we like it or not, we are now committed to solar radiation management or some other form of geoengineering. It’s either that, or spend trillions of dollars annually on making carbon capture and storage work at the billion tonne scale. BAU is not an option.
Solar radiation management would have horrible environmental consequenses as well as geopolitical instability, and without really strong international cooperation will do far more harm than good in terms of preventing global warming. Since we live in somewhat of a capitalist dystopia, I don't think you're wrong about it being likely to happen, but it is very unlikely to have a possitive outcome. Direct carbon air capture isn't going to happen at scale. As you mentioned, it costs way too much. There are also massive technological, geological and political challenges that realistically make it impossible to do at any meaningfull scale. Emmisions capture in polluting industries can mitigate warming a little bit. Natural forms of carbon sequestration, mostly ecosystems restoration, are more likely to be effective than air capture technology, but also unlikely to be more than a small part of climate sollutions.
The USA still uses more fossil fuel and carbon per person than China does, even with China having so much exported industry. He emphasizes coal, but "natural gas" also produces carbon and that is what the USA is using.
China's also retrofitting and refurbishing a lot of old buildings to make them more energy efficient, even something as simple as changing all the light bulbs can drastically reduce a building's energy consumption. Old bulbs were not only wasteful of energy, they produced a lot of heat which required constant air conditioning. The new bulbs produce the same amount of light with such low energy use that you can safely unscrew them without turning them off or letting them cool.
Taxing energy is a zero sum game. It's literally the basis of everything we do. And it's cost is further multiplied by every step on the production rung via VAT.
Copper, aluminum and silica at the right grade have gone up. How can the cost of panels be going down, unless the government is distorting the mkt (China in this case).
You guys should really reach out to Simon P Michaux on the realistic green transition, current mineral issues & the energy needed to mine, process {not just for green transition, for as business as usual as well will have to face these problems too, if not more so}.
Electrification at the required pace for an all electric vehicle transportation is just impossible, we don't even have enough copper to do this. There are plenty of reports about this. Guys get informed a bit more before issuing such strong statements?
Brett is absolutely one of my favourite academics at the minute, grateful for NM for introducing me to him. I am using his work in my dissertation too and discovered he actually wrote a book with my diss advisor! Very exciting to see Marxist political economy applied realistically to modern politics - himself and Aaron are both great at this. Questioning the nationalisation arguments was very interesting, and I've been thinking this for some time in respect to investment. Lots of great stuff in this, excited to listen again already. Wish Brett had a regular podcast or something, a blog maybe because his perspecttive is always so fantastic.
Yes! Degrowth is essential in shaping our society to meet planetary boundaries, redistribution to countries that have suffered colonial extraction for 100s of years. All of this and more
@@TheBurdenOfHopeso degrowth is global Marxism? The redistribution of people and capital to make global homogenisation? Is that why we Marxists are against borders and for mass immigration even though it is unsustainable?
We should stop the subsidies to the fossil fuel industry (which includes tax breaks). And it’s worth noting that when you produce energy/electricity with fossil fuels, a lot of the energy produced is lost before it is used. Meaning that if demand etc remained the same, moving to a renewable electric production and use it efficiently ie EVs etc. you need 40% less energy production.
Furthermore, as long as most people are hating the stress in their lives being on the edge of dissolution, they will never be able to budge the self interest of capitalists.
Dear Novara Media. It is better, has more substance, to talk about human over-reach and ecological collapse with climate change being merely one sympton than only climate change within the hamster wheel of our current economic paradigm which will self-terminate. What is driving this? How to change direction? What if we don't? There are loads of podcasts and good literature about this systems perspective on where we are headed. Please interview Nate Hagens, Art Berman, William E Rees for starters. This would be helpful. Thank you.
I agree with the spirit of your comment, but the specific names you mention... not so much. Those guys are missing (deliberately? or is it blindness? IDK) key aspects of the situation -- such as for example the phenomenal developments in renewable energy in recent years. Yes, our problems are an integrated whole and should be addressed as such (at least some of the time; there's also a place for narrower channels of discussion). But it should be addressed by people whose views include a grasp of all key relevant aspects of the situation. I am not seeing that in the names you mention. For example, Nate Hagens has a fixed negative position on renewables, and is now platforming nuclear advocates! He recognizes that an energy transition MUST happen, but since (only in his mind) renewables are off the table, then it has to be nuclear. A terrible, terrible mistake, and (strangely, paradoxically) wildly inconsistent with his whole "great simplification" idea.
@@alan2102X No, they all realise that the root problem is ecological overshoot not climate change. All the energy transitions in the world will not solve this. If we had a completely 'clean' and free source of energy we would use it to crash the global ecosphere even faster.
@@TheJev25 "If we had a completely 'clean' and free source of energy we would use it to crash the global ecosphere even faster." I am familiar with that point of view. It is ugly and toxic and misanthropic AF. It bespeaks a hatred of humanity and a denial of human potentials. It is fundamentally Malthusian and, if pursued to logical ends, would result in the death of billions.
@@alan2102X I stopped listening to Nate for these reasons too. He seems so out of touch with what is happening. However, at one point I did appreciate his perspective.
Need to change the market so we pay for kW power instead of kWh energy. Cheaper for all, incentive to provide secure capacity (rather then intermittent generation), more certainty of profits (which is important unless we nationalise the energy companies), the lowest consumers pay the least and the largest consumers pay the most. Instant market mechanism to drive demand smoothing and storage.
Private Equity (PE) is interested in capturing Rents supported by monopoly or near monopoly by using their vast capital reserves to own and control the entire renewable value chain (recycling, project development, utilities) guaranteeing returns of +8% year over year (in addition to normal expenses) effectively privatizing electricity and using their capital + market power to secure mark to market wall street returns in the U.S. with almost zero risk.
The problem the Green movement need to solve is that currently Green energy lowers your standard of living and costs more. There is also growing evidence the, for example, the 'carbon footprint' of things like EV's are a lot more than people think (thanks to the batteries needed for long range). The other issue is the super power western nations are saying to the likes of China and India - "Hey you are not allowed to pollute the world with fossil fuels to grow your economies and raise your standard of living like we did". They are not going to listen, and can you blame them?
How does it lower standard of living? If people have solar panels, a small wind turbine, maybe river hydro or geo-thermal, you have free power and can even sell it.
Absolutely excellent episode! Great conversation and educational on large scale topics… well done guys! Seriously, do more of this type of conversation. Perhaps Brett and George Monbiot would be a fantastic conversation!!!
lol, the reason renewables are not "profitable" is because OPEC pumps oil out of the ground at a cost of ~5 dollars a barrel, while renewables cost more than 10x that. We pay high prices. To us it looks like renewables are "competitive" but they just aren't. Not even close. Once solar is 10x cheaper and batteries are 100x cheaper, it will be more profitable to build solar than drill for oil, but we are far away from that. His arguments about how the reason we don't have solar is because there is no solar cartel... I don't even know where to go with this. Adding a profit for every middle man up the chain will not help anything at all. You don't have solar because you live in England. There is no sun there, or in Finland. And the reason why Finland is "90% renewable" is because it buys it's manufactured goods and food from China/US/Germany/EU. That's like saying my back yard is 100% renewable because I only use a solar panel to charge my flashlight when I go out.
I founded Post Carbon Toronto in 2003. After 20 years of study here's the order of operations. Peace Water Agriculture Mobility Prosperity Solves Climate change And addresses Resource constraints
It's more important to transition off of unsustainable power sources than it is to transition onto electrical grids which are still built with fossil fuels and require fossil fuels, for forever, to be built. People have gotten so cozy with modern niceties (of which there are actually very few) that they aren't willing to face the fact that everything we've done since the invention of the steam engine has been a complete farce, a waste of time, and is in fact the definition of what we cannot use if we want to survive more then 1-2 decades from the time of writing this comment.
On the book part of the podcast: I think a little more solid theoretical assessment is missing on water, rail and electricity. They are not compatible with the requirements of an efficient competitive market. So shouldn't be privatised.
Not sure I understand the argument that investment in renewables is low because profitability is low, because the profits are competed away in the market which results in lower prices? Our bills are only going in one direction, and price per kWh to the consumer isn't even differentiated depending on the source. Needs more explaining.
Wondering how many of those new coal plants in China are supporting the production or EVS and solar panels for export .. I would spare some time thinking about the social AND environmental cost at which the Chinese produce the stuff they sell, rather than getting all excited about the low prices.. come on guys.
How do you think solar panels and EVs would be produced elsewhere? Look at Germany, they are the manufacturing hub of Europe and still using lots of fossil fuels. Do you think you will use less carbon producing these things?
China deployed more solar capacity in 2023 ALONE than the US did in its ENTIRE history. We keep saying we need to make a titanic effort, a Manhattan project, and Apollo moon landing effort to fight climate change. Only China is serious about this, and they have done so with an Apollo level + Manhattan project investment and effort every single year for the past 10 years. The west talk a big game but in the end they are not serious about fighting climate change because their economic and power structure still depend heavily on fossil fuels, and the companies that mine, drill and refine these fuels have very little incentive to move onto renewable or nuclear.
Great to have the conversation. Thank you so much. I am struggling with the cost of energy from renewables being cheaper than fossil fuels. I appreciate his argument is nuanced but There is so much evidence and research publicly available demonstrating that it’s not. Anyway still great to have the dialogue thank you so much. If possible would you be able to get Doomberg (green chicken Substack) on. I think they are coming out with the most interesting analysis on the energy market at the moment. He would add a lot of value to the debate for your viewers. Best of luck and thank you so much
Fascinating discussion as always. A fourth model (not mentioed) is community co-operative wind and solar projects. One great example is EGNI is Wales. In addition, there are companies such as Ripple Energy which allow people to buy shares in future wind farms which, in longer term, will come off energy bills (or those of inheritors). So people power does have a significant part to play in decarbonising our electricity. No mention of your ideas in Fully Automated Luxury Communism, Aaron
Solar and wind are not lower cost if you look at the full life cycle. The fact that there is no private pure capitalist examples tells you everything you need to know.
I'd start at the point that CO2 may not be causing rising temperatures. Censorship had led to a false scientific consensus - in reality climate science is far more diverse and interesting.
Wrong. It is an objecttive fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and anthropomorphic emissions are causing global warming. With business as usual we are on rack for a mean world emperature rise of 4 deg C well before the end of the centtury. We are already at 1.5 deg and each succeeding year is now a new record high. How much is the fossil fuel industry paying you to post nonsense?
Electricity accounts for 20% of all energy used (per MWID). Decarbonizing the electric generation is the easiest first step but as said we are barely transitioning. Most success has been the replacement of coal with gas in the OECD’s. The next 2 decades will be similar to the last 2; namely that the renewables will barely keep up with growth let alone result in fewer HC’s being burned.
80% of elecrtric cars are charged at home overnight when we have loads of surplus wind energy so they are actually helping to stabilise the grid and not adding to demand. Acording to Statista we reached peak electricity demand in 2005 and we are consuming around 25% less now due to more efficient light bulbs and appliances.and better insulated homes. If ou want solar without expensive land costs build solar canopies on car parks and mandate solar on all new buildings as a part of planning consent. Adam Door on Brighter Episode 10 that we shouldn't be building nuclear power stations, they're too expensive, they take too long to build if we're going to meet net zero by the target date and they just divert investment from reneables..
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What is talked about in the first 20 minutes is key and massively understates the problem. 20% of our energy usage is electricity and getting that 20% off fossil fuels is a massive challenge let alone growing it to make up that 80% of everything else. So scale it up say we can do 60% of our current economy on electricity. That will require scaling back what we do today by at least 50% as alot of industry like steel require more electricity to produce then just using coal. There is no way to get off fossil fuels without scaling the economy down. What green energy is doing is keeping the system going as it is what is allowing the energy system to grow. Fossil fuel use is not really growing, we are playing with numbers and the degrading EROI of it means more is needed just to maintain current consumption as more goes to extracting itself.
1:21:30 "What is the problem?" Margaret Thatcher (and Ronald Reagan over in the US). Their brand of neoliberal capitalism asserts that private capital is not only the most efficient at absolutely everything, but is the _only_ way things can be done efficiently. Of course that is not true, but it's a lot easier to make it _appear_ true when you also happen to be the head of the public sector and can steer it toward inefficiencies through intentional underfunding, forced austerity where it's not needed, and similar tactics. Supply-side economics is a scam perpetrated by the wealthy against the common worker. They demand that we give them all the wealth and promise that it will "trickle down" to us. And they've done a bang-up job ensuring that it stays as little more than a trickle. In most cases, we'd be far better served by generating the wealth ourselves instead of handing it off to them then turning around and having to beg for every penny we get back.
People always recommend books.Some people learn better through play. Daybreak the board game about drawdown is a nice way to have discussions with friends. If that isnt acessible the Half Earth socialism game is free online thats another fun one to check.
Why is there no link or reference to the text mentioned at around 10 minutes into this video in the description? What was the name of the book? The author? Andreas Mowe? Is this just an advert for the interviewee's book? Need more reference please.
29:15 All capitalism is is the employee - employer relationship. China is capitalist, the workers do not own and democratically operate the corporations for which they work. Capitalism isn't defined by markets, competition, or even the accumulation of capital. China is just state capitalist.
