The cost of renewables is plummeting, heat pumps are selling like crazy, and red states are raking in cash from the IRA. There’s no stopping the inevitable.

  • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    AI boom and Cryptocoin mining will eat up all the spare energy.

    We are fucked.

    Unless AI and Crypto crash soon. Which maybe even Trump/Elon/Peter Thiel cannot prevent. As I’ve said before: presidents do not control the economy. Things will crash when they want to crash…

    • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      Some sense to this - global emissions probably just peaked because China’s housing bubble burst - responsible for much more CO2 than AI/crypto, and even a communist government can’t effectively control such crashes. So no, we are not f****d, but not always saved for noble reasons.
      Also regarding crypto - how much of that was sustained by russians evading sanctions - which new team in US is likely to remove ?

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        So no, we are not f****d, but not always saved for noble reasons.

        Yeah, this statement here is likely closer to the truth than what I wrote earlier.

        Also regarding crypto - how much of that was sustained by russians evading sanctions - which new team in US is likely to remove ?

        Hmmm.

        Non noble reasons ehhhh? Does Team Trump really want to open free trade with Russia? That really goes against his platform of isolationist racists.

        I know Elon Musk wants trade with Russia for that Lithium, Aluminum and Titanium. But Trump also cannot look weak.

        Elon will have huge influence (he did appear in the Ukrainian x Trump talk after all). But officially I don’t think I’ve seen anything suggesting Elon Musk influence over foreign policy.

  • HenriVolney
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    1 month ago

    The issue is NOT cleaner energies. The issue is less consumption. There’s no other way.

    • solo@slrpnk.netOP
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      1 month ago

      I would argue that the issue is the model of endless growth of capitalism because this is what drives energy consumption.

  • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyz
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    1 month ago

    Indeed there is huge momentum in renewable costs. I recall 20 years ago climate economists starting to model endogenous technological change, but they just had to invent ’ learning curves’ with magic numbers. Now it has happened.
    On the other hand, I still wish heat pumps were cheaper. Where I live, the cost is inflated by the requirement for installation by people qualified with refrigerant gases.