Sky-high fossil fuel prices drove people around the world toward clean energy. But even as the Strait of Hormuz reopens, they may not turn back.

4 days ago by silence7 to c/climate

Sky-high fossil fuel prices drove people around the world toward clean energy. But even as the Strait of Hormuz reopens, they may not turn back.
NaibofTabr 31 points 4 days ago

Donald Trump has done more to promote clean energy use than any single person in history.

It's absolutely 5d chess.

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ltxrtquq 14 points 4 days ago

I'll agree, but only in the sense that he's losing badly. Trump has been and continues to be all about fossil fuels, he's just an idiot and incompetent and ruins everything around him.

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notsosure 10 points 4 days ago

The three Cs that define Trump: chaos, corruption and cruelty.

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GenosseFlosse 8 points 4 days ago

Oh and don't forget child***!

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Gsus4 10 points 4 days ago

Could be a lesson to fossil backers: back an unpredictable clown and you may end up worse than the alternative.

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HailSeitan 6 points 4 days ago path: 0 24327698 24328343, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor 17 points 4 days ago

The moment you try an EV for more than the 5 minutes test drive, you realize that there's no going back. Even with its "drawbacks", it's far superior to ICE vehicles. I haven't met anyone yet that said "I'll go back to gas because I don't like my EV".

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Junkers_Klunker 7 points 4 days ago

I’ve met one once, but his usecase was pretty wild so I kinda understand him.

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5715 4 points 4 days ago

It's all contrarianism. Arguments and experiences don't matter to those who are loud (influencing the quiet, the undecided, the nostalgic).

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quick_snail 2 points 3 days ago

Privacy.

Once you realize they're watching you in the cameras and recoding you with the microphones and your GPS locations and selling that data...

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vorpuni 1 point 3 days ago

I like classic cars. Owning an EV made me realise I never cared what gets them moving, I just hate modern cars. I wish I could retrofit a Citroen CX with absurdly powerful electric motors and a decent battery.

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notsosure 7 points 4 days ago

Bought an EV well before the Iran war clusterfuck. I’m never going back: driving an EV is more comfortable, better for the climate… and cheaper 💰🤑💶🪎

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Cypher 5 points 4 days ago

Once you go B…. EV you never go back

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zurohki 4 points 4 days ago

Fuel prices have pushed a lot of people and businesses to finally buy their first electric car or truck or crane or bulldozer or whatever, and they aren't going to set it on fire and replace it with diesel gear if fuel prices go back down again. At most, they'll sell it to someone else who will use it instead. Those electric equipment purchases have permanently removed fuel demand.

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fizzle 3 points 4 days ago

That's a bit dramatic.

The fuel prices have certainly made EVs more desirable, and that change in perception won't dissipate.

However, manufacturers didn't magically have more product arriving at market for consumers to buy in the few months this crisis lasted.

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Tollana1234567 1 point 4 days ago

probably cut the costs on equipment and maitenance, granted they might need more specialized maitenenace care.

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Jumi 3 points 3 days ago

Aaaand it's closed again...

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iocase 1 point 3 days ago

What I find fascinating about all of this is everyone is so complacent. We're speeding towards a brick wall at 200 mph and everyone is acting like the US can print the missing oil...

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inari 3 points 4 days ago

Japan will. I doubt they learned anything from this crisis.

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eleitl -2 points 4 days ago

World primary energy use shows an effectively constant fraction of fossil in the overall use. There is no "turning back" from something that doesn't exist.

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silence7 3 points 4 days ago

Primary is a terrible way to look at things when most of the energy in fossil fuels is wasted as heat, but it isn't wasted for renewables. You end up seeing almost no shift when large changes are happening

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eleitl -1 points 4 days ago

You can't use heat pumps for high-temperature industrial processes. And heat pumps and EVs need grid upgrade and renewable infra which are energy-intensive.

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silence7 4 points 4 days ago

You can get industrial heat pumps which put out 200°C now. Resistive above that.

And yes, we need a large electrical system build-out. Which is happening anyways for AI. Just with fossil fuels behind it instead of wind and solar.

The alternative to shifting off of fossil fuels is a seriously degraded world

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eleitl 1 point 4 days ago

The fossil use in thermal and chemical inputs below is way beyond heat pumps so they count 1:1 in primary energy.

  1. Iron, Steel, and Metal Processing

These processes require some of the highest temperatures in manufacturing to extract, melt, and purify metals.

Blast Furnace Smelting: 1,500 °C - 2,000 °C — Used to reduce iron ore into liquid pig iron.

Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) Steelmaking: 1,600 °C - 1,700 °C — Melts recycled scrap steel to produce new steel.

Metal Casting and Founding: 1,200 °C - 1,600 °C — Melting metals like aluminum, copper, and iron into molds.

Heat Treating (Annealing, Hardening, Tempering): 400 °C - 1,100 °C — Controlled heating and cooling processes to alter the physical and chemical properties of steel and alloys.

  1. Ceramics, Glass, and Cement

These involve extreme heating to drive off moisture, chemically alter minerals, and melt raw materials into durable goods.

Cement Clinkering (Rotary Kilns): ~ 1,450 °C — Heats limestone and clay to form cement clinker.

Glass Melting: 1,200 °C - 1,600 °C — Melts silica sand, soda ash, and limestone into molten glass.

Ceramic Firing / Sintering: 1,000 °C - 1,400 °C — Hardens and bonds ceramic materials to produce brick, tiles, and advanced technical ceramics.

Lime Calcination: 850 °C - 950 °C — Decomposes limestone into calcium oxide (quicklime) and carbon dioxide.

  1. Chemical Processing and Petroleum Refining

High temperatures are utilized in the petrochemical sector for cracking, reforming, and producing core industrial gases.

Steam Cracking: 750 °C - 900 °C — Breaks down heavy hydrocarbons into lighter, valuable alkenes (like ethylene).

Steam Methane Reforming: 700 °C - 1,000 °C — Reacts steam with natural gas to produce synthesis gas and hydrogen.

Ammonia Production (Haber-Bosch process): ~ 400 °C - 500 °C — Requires both high heat and high pressure to synthesize ammonia.

  1. Refining and Mining

These processes are responsible for extracting precious metals and purifying chemical elements from mined ores.

Copper / Zinc Smelting: 1,100 °C - 1,300 °C — Melts copper and zinc ores to remove impurities.

Calcination of Alumina (Bayer Process): 1,000 °C - 1,200 °C — Removes water from aluminum hydroxide to produce alumina.

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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world.  About 1C of total warming.  Second chart:  about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability.  Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases.  About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

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