Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens

The point of that comment is not that the talking is happening, it's that the hope of action isn't going to be blocked by industry-captured and plain moronic countries like Saudia Arabia and US, respectively.

Even if these countries are a smaller part of the climate affecting processes, any forward motion is good at this point. They can also help build economies of scale, and take advantage of the myriad economic benefits of renewables that other countries are leaving on the table.

Even artificially limiting their availability causing prices to shoot up does not quench the thirst. I am always confused why the conversation seems to be about switching the toggle switch from fossil fuels only to renewables only. It's obvious the best way is more of potentiometer where you slowly change from one by adding renewables to the point of being able to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels. We're seeing it happen all across the planet. That should be the low bar.

Brazil has had a pretty active program of converting cane sugar to ethanol for a while now.

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

Sugar cane doesn't require replanting every year either, like corn does.

Plants are actually not a good converter of solar energy to chemical energy though. They capture a few percent of it.

Solar cells are able to capture about 10 times that, a much smaller footprint.

Unfortunately the crisis will get much, much worse before ordinary people go "Wait, so, we're all going to die? How do we prevent that?" and the idea that it's too late isn't compatible with their model of the world so they will reach for increasingly crude "solutions" to what they have belatedly realised is a dire situation.

It might I suppose be fun to catalogue, what are the priorities? Do we kill all the poor people before we decide that maybe we can't afford to keep obligate carnivores as pets? How about the elderly? When do the animals kept for meat go, is that later? At some point I expect there's a backlash, a phase where the populists who insisted that say, if we just murdered everybody with the wrong skin colour, or the wrong religious beliefs or whatever that would fix it - well what if we kill the populists instead? But it won't last, following is in people's nature.

Fossil fuel consumption declines, belatedly, as the human population goes extinct. The mass extinctions eventually settle into a new order. The warm, damp rock is slightly warmer, for a while, and a few non-human niches expand and something else occupies them. And maybe one day an intelligent life eventually wonders why, according to the best available data, in the long depths of pre-history there was a weird climate spike. Huh.

"if we simply run out of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, we're just too good at getting them and too motivated to do so."

Less oil, more wars about it.

A brazilian "senior policy adviser" patting himself on the back over a conference taking place is always amusing. One could easily get the impression the brazilian government was not actively taxing the crap out of solar panels, solar installations, electrical vehicles, pretty much every good alternative to fossil fuels, literally right now.

The only way we make meaningful progress has never changed, for a scale that matters: have a cheaper alternative.

Good for them, but for most of the world there are no good hydropower locations left. And even when they exist building them is a local ecological disaster.

Ha! I came here to say something similar. Anyhow, I'm happy that US has found a combative way to combat climate change. I'm also disappointed.

There is no progress in CO2 reduction, we are still emiting more CO2 each year.

" Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes increased by +0.7% within 2025."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-026-00780-4

Reminds me of this onion bit: https://theonion.com/scientists-politely-remind-world-that-c...

China is currently implementing this national security strategy. Each addition EV car driving in China a car running on domestic solar+coal electricity and not running on imported oil.

China is also turning coal to synthetic fuels.

" The sector last year turned 276 million tons of coal - equivalent to almost a year of European coal use - into chemicals, oil and gas, according to the China National Petroleum and Chemical Planning Institute"

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/chines...

You can imagine the CO2 result of this strategy.

The PV revolution has happened. Most countries with significant energy grids get most of their energy from PV during the daytime. Some even get 50% of their yearly energy from PV.

Cars are a very unimportant part of changing to clean energy.

The most important part is the generation. Making specific types of cars required right now is VERY premature, and will just cause backlash.

Let's focus on just one (main) thing: Clean generation of electricity. The rest will come in due course.

> In particular, I think PHEVs should be an regulated requirement for all consumer (and probably semis, why aren't they hybrids yet just so they can have better acceleration/torque and regen braking) vehicles in ten years, with a 10-year decreasing subsidy for PHEV and a 10-year increasing penalty for car registration and new car purchases of pure ICE.

That's the actual plan for Europe. They are planning to start ICE phase-out by 2035, with only limited exceptions where it's impractical (like long-haul cargo or specialized machinery).

I actually don't think that the hybrid timeline could have been accelerated significantly. A lot of foundational technology, such as compact power electronics became accessible only by the early 2000s. Lithium batteries also became commercially viable by then.

"Support our Troops!"

(for the young'uns this is a reference to the also-senseless Iraq War, which had a follow on effect of distracting from this issue in favor of solipsistic entitlement and the adoption of SUVs. but looking back wistfully, at least the government and media didn't insult us by not even manufacturing a casus belli)

I would argue that subsidized solar panels and batteries from China are the the most important factor. If renewables weren’t economically competitive we’d see approximately zero deployment.

Yes I came to say the same thing. It's a truism that people don't care about supply till it stops.

Interruptions of supply cause people to get antsy. They start looking for alternatives. A drought leads to a surge in well-points and bore holes. Rainwater collection goes up. Electricity outages lead to generators, solar and so on, all easily installed at domestic level.

Food shortages lead to more strategic agriculture choices. Oil shortages start to make EVs more attractive. This is the first major interruption in oil supply since the 70s. I start to think the next car I buy will be electric. I already have solar so it makes sense.

The biggest way to change society is to make the perception that supply is precarious or expensive. Long after the drought ends, the lessons remain.

The leading climate-denier voice , who rails against clean energy, has also caused a world-wide understanding of how precarious our oil supply is. That lesson will stick, regardless of your politics.

I dunno. The curve of solar adoption has looked "great" since 2000. There are lots of troubles remaining like:

- storage over the 24 hour cycle - storage over yearly cycles - how to fix nitrogen for agriculture - how to make carbon-free metals - how to run the chemical industry without fossil fuels

The good news has been the expansion of solar through markets, the diffusion of innovation, competition, and something like Moore's Law. The bad news is we are reaching the saturation point for the grid being able to absorb solar energy in many places and that's going to stop the growth unless those bottlenecks are overcome.

Partially the Ukraine war got at least parts of Europe started, then adding Trumps mess on top but keeps the ball rolling.

I've heard a lot of people being critical of wind turbines, calling them ugly and wanting nothing to do with them. After the Ukraine war started I remember driving into town, seeing the five massive wind turbines at the harbour, providing three time the power the city needs, and thinking "not only do they look great, they're also part of our self sufficiency".

The US is a different place, but the hate parts of the US have towards renewable energy is pretty insane. I know the wind isn't always blow, the sun not always shining, but each installation is still one step closer to not being beholden to the whims of some crazy person in a far of land.

Yes, obviously this gas price spike is what climate change activists wanted all along, only not nearly as much as they'd like.

> One thing I'll add here is that there are a lot of energy usages for fossil fuels for which we have no alternative. Aviation is a big one.

The status of "fossil fuels" isn't crucial to these uses, it's just cheaper. You can just make kerosene, but you wouldn't because you already use fossil fuels for power. However if you have abundant energy without fossil fuels and you want kerosene for some reason you can make it for $$$$

> "No One Goes to War Over a Solar Panel"

Doesn't China have most of the exotic rare earths and stuff that you need in order to build solar panels and systems? I am not anti-solar, but I also don't think China is some guaranteed-friendly party that the whole world can trust not to wield their power once they have it.

I assume anyone who doesn't immediately recognize their planned takeover of Taiwan next year will have a hard time getting any type of raw materials like that.

FWIW, a number of the panels I've looked at are rated for 50 years

If importing solar panels is a dependency on a foreign power then so is importing oil drills and coal mining equipment.

Panels are oil drills, not oil.