The Big Misconception About Clean Energy
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- … I’ve been thinking about energy use all wrong.
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As long as most of our energy still comes from fossil fuels, we’re in kind of a trap. Using less energy is our only real option to slow climate change. So most of us have heard only one message throughout our lives: “Conserve energy. Because terrible things will happen if we don’t.”
That’s true. But I now think of it as “the stick” of climate communication - the way to get people to care about climate change based on fear and desperation.
I think it’s time to talk about “the carrot” - the way to get people to work toward clean energy based on hope and audacious ambition.
This video explains why, with help from my former colleague at Vox, Matt Yglesias. As renewable energy continues to get cheaper, as more and more clean energy technologies become more viable, we have an opportunity to look ahead toward a better future. What would you do with abundant clean energy?
Chapters:
00:00 We’re thinking about energy wrong
01:17 The stick: climate change
02:25 Why you’re taught to conserve energy
03:23 Why we should use more clean energy
04:36 The carrot: energy abundance
05:38 Why poor countries need more energy
06:39 Why everyone needs more energy
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Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s CZcams Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?
Sources and additional reading:
- “The case for more energy,” Matt Yglesias, Slow Boring: www.slowboring.com/p/energy-a...
- “The world’s energy problem,” Our World In Data: ourworldindata.org/worlds-ene...
- “How Americans see climate change and the environment in 7 charts,” Pew Research Center: www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...
- “How to drive fossil fuels out of the US economy, quickly,” Vox: www.vox.com/energy-and-enviro...
- “Energy: Key Charts,” Our World In Data: ourworldindata.org/energy-key...
- “Why nuclear plants are shutting down,” Vox (previous episode I produced on clean energy dynamics): • Why nuclear plants are...
Vox: www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/
Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16-35 mm F2.8 GM
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Music: Musicbed
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Welcome to the joke down low (an idea 100% in reference to Answer In Progress’ awesome “joke below the fold” - I always scroll down to see them and always wanted to do this myself too):
What do wind turbines think of renewable energy?
They’re big fans.
Find a way to use the word “fan” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one ;)
If you're seeing this video as "private" or if something happens and it stops playing, please try refreshing! There seems to be a publishing problem this morning, and I'm trying to fix it. Sorry, friends
An amazing video as usual :-). Thanks for this show!
Woohoo! New content from you! Woohoo!
I think this is fixed! CZcams did have a publishing bug this morning for many creators, but it should be all set now.
@@CleoAbram
Was fine for me, great vid, thank you :)
Did you take a CZcams class from Johnny Harris because this feels very familiar.
The last line kinda cleared it up for me, "the goal isn't less energy, it's more, and we can only have more by going clean"
I read 'the goal' as 'the coal' at first.. I'm not even german lol
There is NO climate crisis ,
96% of all CO2 is produced naturally its NOT humans
CO2 does NOT control the Temp .
CO2 increase lags behind an increase in Temp by 800 years
We here in Texas, several years ago had a big push for wind energy & green energy. Last 2 years it has gotten so cold that green energy production almost brought the Texas electric grid to shut down but we still pay some of the highest electric rates in the US. We are now building regular electric generators.
@@abelgarcia5432 The Texas power outages weren't due to green energy.. Natural gas and nuclear were also knocked off-line. The problem was that none of these sources, regardless of whether they were green or not, were designed to withstand cold temperatures.
@@abelgarcia5432 A Few things. First off your electricity rates are nowhere near the highest in the country. There are 24 states with higher rates than Texas there are 10 states with more than double the rates and 4 states with triple your rages and 1 at approx. 4 times. Second, that was a one in a 100 year storm that was made worse by some bad planning and a completely isolated grid that has little to do with green energy. The last statement is curious one as Texas or most states for that matter haven't stopped building standard generation stations like natural gas, they've just shut down the more inefficient dirtier ones. The transition from fossil fuels to greener solutions will not be without its problems but these problems are no longer insurmountable, we do have the technology to make it happen. Texas will be a leader in this field just as it was with oil.
We’ve had the answer for a long time, nuclear energy. We need to re access how sustainable it actually is
Thank you, I just wanned to say that :-)
Nuclear is not the answer either. While consuming nuclear energy is relatively clean, it’s byproducts (nuclear waste) are horrendous headaches to store and dispose of.
@@tramkwan4274 That is simply not true. It's illegal for whatever reason to recycle nuclear waste in USA. So yes, you have to store it. But there are simple and safe ways to store it. It's solved. Done. Let's talk abou something way more important. We have to re-open topic about new, more efficient and reliable reactor designs.
Nuclear is not the answer for next thousands of years, but it absolutely is the answer for next hunderds of years for sure.
@@nestoNESTOnesto storing nuclear waste isn’t as easy as you suggest. Gold standard is to create geologic tombs/depositories. Cost of digging these massive holes is one thing - ensuring that nothing goes wrong over the next hundreds of years is another. There’s no guarantee that even the most (current) stable of geologic formations can shift or have displacement over time - and then the ramifications of leakage/spill could be devastating.
It’s better than coal though.
@@tramkwan4274 the world's first permanent nuclear waste repository will be operational next year in Finland. Build 455m underground and the constitution started in 2004.
We have only 5 nuclear power plants.
No matter what the subject is, I’ll watch you discuss it because you’re so passionate about it that it’s quite interesting! You go girl!
While i totally agree with clean energy, Javon's paradox always seems to pop up. We no doubt lead excellent lives because of energy. But there is a point where it becomes cheaper, easier, less polluting and we just end up using it more and more. Conservation is important. Living with an energy budget isn't a bad thing considering human nature.
This
For me, the genre of Solarpunk has given me a huge chunk of this mind shift and positivity (the carrot) to see a much better future, if we fight for it. Besides, doomerism doesn't lead us anywhere and only supports the forces interested in maintaining the status quo, which are mainly fossil fuel companies of course. So yes, we all should be looking forward to a future that we want to see, one that is bright, just and sustainable.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk
I love the idea of Solarpunk, but for some reason people always put a political spin on it, unnecessarily polarizing it, making it much less likely to succeed.
@@Embassy_of_Jupiter The goal was never to convince people to change. It was to force changes by weather modification and ecoterrorism. The technocrats knew Republicans would never agree to these changes. Not to mention the US economy is kept afloat by oil.
Look into hydrothermal carbonization! We can make carbon neutral fuel from our waste water system
if you enjoyed this video i highly recommend watching next:
Second Thought - The Importance Of Revolutionary Optimism
“The goal isn’t to use less energy, or even to just replace fossil fuels. The goal is vastly more energy…” STANDING OVATION TIME.
I agree. Finally somebody understands that the only realistic long term objective is to allow everybody to use more energy but do it in sustainable way.
As for the sensible ways to do that, wind and solar need LOTS of energy storage capability, nuclear and hydropower are basically the only green energy sources that do not require additional energy storage. We should be building Tesla Megapacks or similar stuff everywhere right now. That's because nuclear (fission) power is not sustainable either with current light water reactors and all hydropower that can be practically built has already been built.
The whole world could go with solar and wind if we had good enough energy storage capability. As in ability to store electricity for half a year.
One possible solution is to build so much solar and wind that you can use extra electricity to generate artificial fuel (basically get hydrogen with electrolysis with water, combine with CO2 from various sources to generate ethanol which is very stable and easy to store for long term storage). Forget people talking about storing hydrogen. The tanks required for that are so expensive that it makes zero sense. The big problem with liquid energy storage (as in fully synthetic ethanol or methanol or gas or diesel or kerosine) is that we don't have fuel cell technology for the scale we need. We would need 500 MW fuel cells when the current state of art is close to 1 MW for hydrogen and probably way less than 0.1 MW for ethanol.
@@MikkoRantalainen I think energy storage is the most exciting field right now. It’s the key to a stable, inexpensive, decentralized grid, and there are SO many fascinating ways to do it! Not just batteries, but gravitational storage, thermal storage, gyroscopic, and more. And even with batteries, there are better grid-scale ideas than lithium ion out there - iron-air is a good example. Grid batteries don’t need to be totally compact or have high discharge rates the way, say, electric car batteries do. Grid batteries need to be cheap and durable. But once we have enough storage in place, adding almost infinite power with nothing more than wind and sunshine becomes very practical.
@@davestagner I think flow batteries with huge tanks would be a nice solution in the long run for grid storage. However, we need to start doing something today and huge Li-ion fields are proven solution that does work. It's more expensive than some potential future solutions but those future solutions may still turn out to be sour.
I don't think that we should build just li-ion systems in long run because that technology is obviously far from perfect, too.
@@MikkoRantalainen I think you're looking at this the wrong way, and you're not alone. The discussion about the global energy transition so often focuses on which form of green energy is _the_ solution to climate change, but that's the wrong way to look at it. That's not to say there's not a discussion to be had; after all, each form of green energy has its downsides. Nuclear fission is green but not renewable and leaves radioactive waste. Hydropower requires flooding parts of river basins and comes with forced relocation of inhabitants or damage to archaeological sites. Geothermal power comes with concerns about anthropogenic earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Wind power comes with noise pollution and damage to local bird and bat populations, as well as having a highly weather-dependent yield. Solar power is equally, if not more, weather-dependent. Tidal power, wave power and osmotic power use up valuable coastline areas and may damage local fish populations. I could go on.
When discussing the energy transition people love to throw mud at each other over these (and other) downsides of particular forms of green energy, but lose sight of the fact that every single one of them is better than existing fossil fuel-based power sources. It's not really worth having the discussion about which type of energy humanity should ideally switch to, because the idea of all (or even most) of our energy coming from a single source is an unrealistic one, and more importantly, the clock is ticking. If we want to tackle this monumental crisis before it gets completely out of hand, our attitude needs to be "As long as it doesn't burn fossil fuels, anything goes!" instead of "Let's wait until we've collectively decided what the optimal source of energy is, and then go all-in on that."
From your comments it's pretty clear that you too want to stress the urgency of doing something _now,_ and I appreciate that, but I fear that by focusing on solar and wind, and shoving nuclear and hydro aside as you do, you're making the same mistake that so many people make when thinking about the energy transition.
@@rjfaber1991 I agree that I presented a bit simplified version but the major point I was trying to express is that we need energy storage systems. Everything else is easy and there're lots of possible solutions there.
And I totally agree that we shouldn't use just a single method for everything.
Your passion and ability to explain things throughly in an entertaining manner is amazing. What a welcome relief from the 24/hr news cycle.
Our house is an example of this in a small way. We used to do everything we could to save energy for the climate, but this year to avoid being ripped off (which I hate) by UK energy prices, I've fitted lots of solar panels. Now on a bright day we run around looking for things to turn on, washing to do, it's all dried in the tumble dryer- and we export the maximum that the grid will allow us to. Will probably have to get a bit more careful in the autumn though.
So, as a south African I have a slightly different perspective. It's a bit of both. We do need more energy to bring up more people to a comfortable middle class lifestyle with ovens, fridges, microwaves etc. But, in America you have these huge refrigerators that you honestly don't need that are a waste of energy and waste of food as just one example.
It's making things more efficient where possible and changing people's mindsets around wasteful usage as well as redirecting that same energy to awesome projects like urban farming or salt water desalination.
There are still so many areas where we can improve and reduce before we even get to using even more energy. For example if you have better laid out cities and towns then you can walk to work/shops instead of drive. Those are efficiencies that have to be taken into consideration as well.
I agree 100%. And that's not even because I'm also a South African.
Hoping South Africa can continue their investment in nuclear energy. My friends at Africa 4 Nuclear are working on this
A South African talking about energy, #LoadShedding.
I agree with u, I am South African
I'm South American and agree with u. The waste mindset impact tremendously the world. No just more clean energy to waste more energy, but more clean energy to use consciously and efficiently.
@@pitsitsebe718 damn load shedding is the worst 😂 hopefully one day eskom won't be terrible 😅
I agree with the idea of promoting a positive vision of what could be, but i strongly disagree with the fact that we have to aim to consume more energy. The "renewable" energy is also based in non-renewable materials, which required a much more complex energy network to be stable, has a strong impact in the environment and increases other problems such as land use conflicts.
We need good positive stories, but we also need to acknowledge the necessity of finde an socio-political alternative to the neoliberal centralized government that rule the majority of the nations in the world. That is for me the best way of finding positive stories which do not foster tecnooptimistic thinking about solutions that might lead us to a state of extreme fragility in the face of climate change an material depletion.
Search for those stories, because there is a lot of people working on them. :)
Your point is certainly valid and it was not answered by the fact this was a big picture, thought provoking piece rather that delving into the specifics. But it is quite possible to increase renewables and storage of that energy. Storage is required to ease the impact on grids and the most obvious examples of renewables we use today are dependent on conditions (sun, wind, water) whereas at most of the traditional fossil fuel solutions are steady (gas, coal).
The point about using renewables to drive high energy conversions was the most important point. That is, to drive very high power demanding process that in turn reduce the need to spend more on fossil fuel energy sources, such as desalination plants for drinking water or to create hydrogen from water to drive hydrogen powered devices (cars, turbines etc).
Yes that is true and if you want to really use more energy but much more efficient than fossil fuel, nuclear fission reactor is the answer.
@@mandelamohammad904 of course this is slowly falling out of failure. Particularly with the increase in solar efficiency. Nuclear takes up far less land than anything else (solar takes up less land than coal mining though to be fair for same output). Takes a remarkably small amount of land to be successful with solar. Australia is building a solar farm which will supply Singapore with 15% of its total power requirement.
Although it will be the largest solar farm when done, it's taking an insignificant amount of land in Australia and will certainly not be creating the issues that nuclear fission brings.
@@inodesnet what are the issues of nuclear that you are concerned with?
100% agreed. The vision of perpetuating our resource-intensive consumer-based society, but with green energy, only solves one piece of what ails us culturally. We need to fundamentally change how our economy functions and what we protect and value in order to move forward. Green energy is a prerequisite for that future, but it should not be the end goal.
You are a very insightful young lady. I am old. I won't be around to see people like yourself accomplish the things that will save the planet. You WILL solve that problem. Thanks
Green energy is not green when ALL the factors involved are considered. Rarely addressed is the cost and damages of mining raw materials needed and the DISPOSAL of the main components, solar panels and wind turbine blades. Plus the need to maintain a backup source of power for periods of no sun and wind.
This
This has been true for a lot of people here in Finland for years.
But one of the difficult changes in state of mind and way to think is, that there isn't one solution to replace fossilefuel based energysourses. The answer is to use simultanously three or four different sustainable energysourses: Sun, wind, water, hydrogen, etc.
I just love these videos of yours, 'keep them coming' 😎
You'd also not be bogged down by one overworked section of the economy, ie you can use more manpower to complete projects in parallel
Stop looking for magical one source solutions. You've got insane amounts of wind along the coast, as well as wave energy, even some pockets of geothermal energy. Not much for solar, that whole north thing and all.
Hydrogen energy, it's unicorn farts. Gotta get hydrogen somehow, gonna get a unicorn to fart it out? No, didn't think so, that requires either catalysts or magical, Harry Potter waving his magical phallus about free energy. A small hint, the latter ain't gonna happen.
Increasing efficiency is one area that helps tremendously. Using wind along the coast and higher elevations contributes greatly as well, ocean wave energy helps a lot too. Won't replace everything at current technology levels, but it'll lower the final bill by a lot.
An efficiency model I like is one I use myself. I love cooking with gas, which is tremendously inefficient and I've even got camping gear kits I've modified for pots and pans to catch the blow-by heat from the flames that I retain for camping.
Induction heating is far more efficient, controllable and well, precise in cooking. Use the hell out of it. The cost basically is electrical energy utilized over NG fuel and well, copper and chips and transistors controlling coils.
This is an excellent episode! It’s critical that we understand that energy itself is hugely abundant relative to our needs, but we only need to know how to access it. As we unlock this, we will realize via economies of scale that this form of energy(solar, wind etc.) is far cheaper to access than the expensive fossil fuels that we currently use, with GHG reduction almost a by-product of transition to a huge amount of new energy that we need to power a much more positive future. Looking forward to seeing more episodes on this topic.
@@ShannonBarber78 OK, under that specific scenario, there is only one solution, global thermonuclear war.
See my above for more detail.
But, I do believe in clean coal - it's used to filter municipal water supplies.
We can't mass produce antibiotics, as overuse made our current antibiotics ineffective. Doctor being a quack and prescribing antibiotics for a virus ruined their effectiveness, underdosing by patients before the infection was extinct added to it.
As for food, you've gone hungry just when? I have, but I had a sour stomach, so it was go without or vomit and I've had enough of that with whateverinhell this bug is, it'll pass and well, is.
You embrace a religion and don't know it, embracing one view as faithful fact, never investigating.
And that's the fatal flaw in global civilization, whatever that means.
Everyone races to the quick fix way, putting a bandage onto a wound, ignoring the arterial bleeding. I slap a bandage on, evaluate, see bleeding isn't controlled and advance to more advanced care to control bleeding before the heart runs out of stuff to pump.
This is great!! I just recently discovered Cleo's channel and am now in the process of binging every video! :D Thanks so much!
Great message and a wonderful job of delivering it so concisely! Grand schemes that require big energy - such as producing drinkable water from sea water - are also part of bringing the clean future here quicker:
These tasks can use up excess renewable energy when the grid can't handle it. This in turn means we can have more renewables on the grid now, rather than having to wait until large-scale energy storage becomes economically viable.
Love seeing you do your own thing and thrive!!!
Thank you so much! As someone who works in tech, I've been so down about how much energy we waste from things like running massive clusters of servers on machine learning tasks that barely solve any relevant problems. This is the perspective shift and practical optimism I've been searching for. So excited for your upcoming videos!
"Thank you so much! As someone who works in tech, I've been so down about how much energy we waste from things like running massive clusters of servers on machine learning tasks that barely solve any relevant problems"
The energy is not wasted. Perhaps your projects is, but that's a whole different story.
You're talking about Nuclear power then! If we're talking about a power source with superior energy density, power intensity, safety, scalability and lowest opportunity cost, Nuclear is the best answer. I look forward to your future content! keep up the positive messaging, love it!
"superior energy density" You know, Safeas, 95% of the people commenting on the nee to go all-renewable right away have zero understanding (or even awareness) of the concept of energy density. If they did, most of them would recognize what a fantasy they are promoting. It should be a required topic in high school science. It's not complicated, but it explains why fossil fuels are very hard to dismiss, and it's why nuclear is the only rational way forward.
Bravo, We ( the actual environmental engineers and scientists) have been saying that since the seventies, when the options were made apparent. using more energy pointlessly is just stupid! The problem comes from those who have vested interests in when, how and who make the changes. This is because those choices are who makes and keeps the money.
This video literally changed my perspective about thinking of clean energy in a more positive sense. I do hope more people can see what clean energy means.
if you enjoyed this video i highly recommend watching next:
Second Thought - The Importance Of Revolutionary Optimism
Can you explain how this changed your view? What concrete benefit do you imagine in a future where rich countries use even more energy than they do now?
(I absolutely agree that poor countries have a right to more energy to improve their living conditions)
@@Friek555 I think i have a different view about this situation, i think the most important things that a clean energy would achieve is :- a) put an end to the Monopoly that the oil rich countries hold over rest of the world & b) yes the developed countries will become cleaner & will have more energy but they have to think about all the poor countries that won't be able to make this transition happen because we need a cleaner planet not clean countries to make this work.
Our access to energy that isn't the food we eat gives us a greater standard of living than at any point in human history. This is very true, we need to use more energy.
Because of the nature of science, what we're emitting in order to have that energy needs to be invested in getting us off that old energy source.
I am 70 and for over five decades I've heard people say the earth has only 10 years left and it keeps changing every decade.
Cleo, I really enjoyed this video and felt encouraged and uplifted after viewing. Thank you for creating/ promoting this concept. I teach auto repair at a community college. I have noticed that all the data I regarding vehicle emissions over the lifetime of a vehicle seems to assume that all vehicles last the same number of miles before hitting the junk yard. If you come across a decent infograph or video regarding lifetime vehicle emissions please share as I would love to pass it on to other teachers and to students. Thank you again for what you do!
"The sheer audacity that it's gonna take to get there-"
I'm on board, and I've just followed you from Johnny Harris's video. I love the optimistic approach you have! It just makes life a little more colorful
HEAR, HEAR!
I think it would be useful to also show nuclear power plants when talking about clean energy. I know it's quite a sensible topic, but looking at the data nuclear energy could be incredibly useful. Lowest CO2-eq. emissions, lowest material requirements, lowest land use, lowest death rate, the data is clear that this source as clean as traditional renewables, if not more.
Moreover, if countries such as the US and those in the EU restarted building reactors in series, both construction costs and time would go down, and even now, countries that kept alive their nuclear program like South Korea are building reactors in other countries in decent time frames, like in the UAE, 7-8 years for 1.4 GW reactors that will live at least 60 years. That's quite a lot of reliable, baseload power, and the unused heat could be used for several things, such as hydrogen production, water desalinization and district heating, all things that we will need in the future.
Maybe an entire video on nuclear might be too much, but a general video on low-carbon sources would definitely be very educational! Most people see solar and wind energy as utopic energy sources, when they also have downside and cons, whereas for nuclear it seems only these are mentioned, but never the pros, which are quite a lot, especially considering we have to fight climate change and maintain energy security, all while significantly increasing such consumption.
This is a nice idea, but have you looked into the problems with spent radioactive fuel rods and burying them deep in the Earth's rock strata? We would ideally need to continue with energy consumption, but I don't know - do we really need all the silly gadgets and appliances that consume large amounts of energy to produce, package and deliver to a consumer market, then consumer energy to dispose of, whether it gets recycled or not? Maybe not MORE consumption of smarter energy, but a hybrid of SMART consumption of smart energy...?
@@dharma_404 The waste is a non-issue, it's the most controlled waste ever, has not caused any death in 70 years of civil nuclear energy industry and is easily manageable. All HLW fits in a football field 3 meters tall.
If we keep having the same way of using energy, consumption will definitely rise, after all, people in developing countries will rightfully want to consume more so to increase their standard of living.
Nuclear can help in basically all sectors, from electricity generation and heating (district heating), water desalinization, ammonia and hydrogen production, even in the shipping industry by having nuclear-powered ships, like we already have aircraft carriers, icebreakers and submarines.
Just need to make people understand that nuclear power is incredibly clean, safe and reliable and that they do not have to fear radiation.
@@Akkothen We don't really need all the energy we think we do (because as a society we're neurotic WRT materialism and waste). Nuclear maybe for the short term while we figure out alternatives, and perhaps event a hybrid approach where nuclear plays more of a supplemental role. If one thinks about it, it doesn't take much to understand that burying spent radioactive fuel rods (half life of thirty years or so) is not sustainable, and like most problems we think we can just bury and forget about, will come back to haunt us.
We probably need to do some serious thinking about all the unnecessary stuff that is produced in the name of "commerce" (really, for we need 20+ brands of shampoo, each with 5-10 artificial scent variants, and additional varieties with varying moisture/hair-type/colouring? Not to mention conditioners which is almost as extensive).
Most problems that the world faces are the result of negligence: neglecting to cleanup industrial processes; neglecting to consider the impacts of mass marketing; neglecting to consider peoples' way of life; neglecting to limit economic activity, and the greed that ensues - it goes on. And with the thinking presented neglecting to understand that there just have to be limits.
@@dharma_404
No there doesn't have to be any limit at all and yes we need all these "appliances and gadgets", it's called progress and it shall not stop. If u don't want it u are free to live alone in ur cave but u shall not prevent the rest of us to indulge in new tech products and services as we please.
@@dharma_404 You write, "We don't really need all the energy we think we do". I would argue that we probably need *more* energy than we think we do. Let's say we had decided, in 1973, when the first oil crisis hit, that we would simply place a cap on our per capita energy consumption. It would have been argued, "We have people running air conditioners who don't really need them" or "People can get perfectly clean with a cold shower; why pay to heat the water?" and things like that. So fine, we cap energy at 1973 levels, because "We don't really need all the energy we think we do". How would life be different today?
Well, for one thing, you and I would not be conversing over the internet, because computers take a *huge* chunk of our energy demand. So the wisdom of suggesting in 1973 that we don't need more energy would mean no computers, no internet, no smart phones or tablets. But in fact, these things make our lives better. What if we had had this cap in place in 1933, when the world really was broke? Well, only a minority of US homes would have refrigerators today.
You see, any cap placed by any authority at any time effectively locks us in place. Even if you say, "but we can make things more efficient", well, yes, but the mental effort spent in making energy more efficient is mental effort not spent on improving our lives. And just as most Americans realize it would be unfair to say that some people can have refrigerators because they had them earlier but others cannot (and I know that's not literally the intent, but bear with me), it is also immoral to say that we in the developed world can have all these wonderful life improvements but those in the Third World cannot because we need to be more efficient with our energy.
So a cap placed in 2023 because "we don't really need all the energy we think we do" is going to deprive us of a better life in the future, one that has advances that today we just can't imagine, just as very few people in 1973 could envision the internet and the smart phone.
New subscriber here. I really like the way you explain things by breaking them down into simple concepts the average person can relate to. On the topic of energy, have you considered looking into Thorium Salt Reactors as a potential future clean energy source?
Nicely done!
I appreciate that you don’t argue about who’s right and offer thoughts about what’s right.
Thank you for spreading good messages and positivity! You're the type of person the world needs
Damnnnn!!! everytime i get a notification that you uploaded a video I jump and tune in right away (Came here from Johnny Harris)
love your videos!!
Totally agree, I love the production quality of these videos
As usual Great video!!!
Fantastic video, it needs more people out there pushing this message into the mainstream media 👍
The only problem is big money, the oil and power companies will try and suppress this as they have a huge vested interest in preserving the status quo.
Great video Cleo, always love your Huge if trues! This is a really interesting viewpoint! I’ve been watching a bunch of renewable energy videos from you, Wren from Corridor Crew, and the guy from Real Engineering. 1 thing I’m still so confused about is how to get more renewable energy. I know, more solar panels and other renewable energy sources, and more energy storage capacity, but how do we make those, where do we get the stuff to make them, and does getting that stuff effect the environment too? Can we do it in a way where it doesn’t effect the environment, or at least less?
Long comment sorry…I discovered you somewhat recently in the Shorts and love your videos! Keep it up! And hope you’re in good health! (I just watched your video on artificial wombs)
Can't wait for the episodes! Emphasis on nuclear power would be interesting, as how countries are considering it back in relation to the current geopolitical situation.
What I've read is that the issue with especially bringing back nuclear energy is just the cost and not the out cry about the radioactive waste. Compared to wind and solar in many regions power plants as we used to know them aren't economically viable
It's NOT clean though
@@resolecca It's literally cleaner than wind (which dumps massive amounts of microplastics and BPA into the oceans) and solar panels (which have lots of toxic elements in them). Both also require mining _vast_ amounts of various resources compared to nuclear (rare earths, silicon, copper, iron), and any mining activity is inherently destructive.
At the very least nuclear power is more or less equivalent to renewables, with the difference that it can replace baseload power production NOW, not some 25-30 years into the future when the magical mystical batteries we've already been getting promised for the last 15 years finally arrive.
The reason you have this preconception against nuclear power is that the people who have been knowingly destroying the planet for the last 50 years have made you hate it with propaganda. At the beginning of nuclear power most environmentalists were exstatic about it, because they saw it as a clean replacement for coal and hydro, but then the major movements got coopted by fossil fuel interestes and turned against it.
Fossil fuels kill 7 million people a year directly just with air pollution. That's the equivalent of *4.8 Chernobyls A DAY,* and yet somehow people rabidly oppose nuclear power plants but barely think about fossil fuels.
@@resolecca how so?
@@resolecca aside from the small amount of radioactive waste, I'd say it's much cleaner than most renewables.
It doesn't ruin ecosystems like hydro, it doesn't kill birds like wind, and it doesn't use too much land and resources like solar. Rooftop solar and offshore wind however has great potential
Wow....This is fantastic Cleo! I've always looked at individuals throughout history and wondered why some were capable of feats the rest couldn't and it always comes back to their attitude to not be limited by preconceived notions. That's exactly what this is and how we can apply this to the future we all want. Brilliant. I think I'm going to love your channel!
I saw a documentary on greening of a small part of the Sinai peninsula . They interviewed an old man . He told them that that hill a mile or so away . When he was young you could not see it because of the trees . Now there no trees not one . The need for energy and ignorance of how to care for the land caused that . After 12 + years of restoration ,water runs in the creek all year long . Tall grass to feed the the stock ,and dozens of trees and more coming . Because of CO2 the planet is greener now than it was 100 years ago I have seen it on my own land . In1988 we bought 4 acres of heavily wooded land . It had very little under growth . Now all of the trails are grown over with under growth I have to clear the trails to use them .The first 5 years the trails needed no clearing now I have to do it every year .
this is exactly right... we have been brainwashed to think of environmental solutions as giving up things when developing sustainable energy is actually an idea of abundance.
Exept we don't have ONLY a co² problem. If we keep cutting down the amazon forest, does it matter if we do it with clean energy or not ?
@@popydev that too is caused by corporate farming. this version of capitalism is indistinguishable from feudalism for its injustice and imbalance.
We could go 100% clean energy tomorrow, and still collapse the biosphere.
@@DreamersOfReality damage the biosphere, yes. collapse, no. life is a lot more tenacious than that. it is true that we have already caused enough damage to disrupt the norms we have evolved in. we are not, however, to the point where the whole thing is going to come down. the sooner we pull our heads out, the less the damage will be.
The part where Cleo discussed what we COULD do if we had cleaner energy really made me tear up a bit. The world would be a completely different place. :'s
what is "clean energy" ?
if you enjoyed this video i highly recommend watching next:
Second Thought - The Importance Of Revolutionary Optimism
@@sudanid something that doesn't exist!
Mine is.!.!.!.. I have a ground mounted solar array in the yard....., well, several, actually.!.!. 20KW in all.!.!. The power co-op sends "me" money nearly every month, for the excess power I send to the grid, and I "get Paid" to charge my own EV.!.!.!. I also have solar thermal, 15 KW, which is much more efficient than PV, but more "diff" to install, soldering pipes and all, but free of the zoning regs that Utes have lobbied to keep "average people" from learning about "ELectric stuff", and doing for themselves.!.!.!. Yeah, they, (your local government), want you to pay them to permit and inspect YOUR solar installation.!.!.!. I see that may have a safety point here, but some rules seem designed to keep people from DIY'ing their way through.!.!.!. You can find RE classes that will tutor you through the process.!.!.!. If you have no experience, it can be a long journey, but the rewards are awesome.!.!.!.
@@Saiputera Even if we can't, what do you want us to do? Just accept that the world is ending and die in hellfire? We might have doomed our world forever, but that's not an excuse to just accept our fate, roll over and die.
I totally agree, I'm a SF fan. I remember telling someone 50 years ago: "if you want to get rich, find a way to use natural energy." Our problem is not a lack , but most of the time, we try to survive the PLENTY of energy around us: lightning, wind, volcanoes...we don't have to "make" energy,, just find a way to steal it from Nature. I love your "positive" thinking I hear in the younger generations, "lets go crazy", even the sky is not a limit anymore.BTW thank you!
We are at a point in our level of technology where we have the know how to make clean energy. Wind and solar have come a long way. A lot of the drawbacks of either are being reduced, such as redesigning wind turbines.
We have made big strides in power storage that allow us to store enough solar power to carry through the nights and cloudy days.
But the big problem is the fear people have of making sacrifices in their quality of life to achieve totally clean energy production. That is where we need to change the perspective.
Now I’m a big fan of your work:) Glad you left Vox to create your own brand. Content is informational, explained well and smooth so you’ll do well. Btw, make sure add best way to contact you for sponsorships🙂
Your video is inspirational, Cleo, and you are absolutely right. We shall never solve our problems if we believe we can't!
Thank you
You beautifully name our greatest challenge
Changing human perception
So glad I have found your work
Shari g as widely as I am able to
Absolutely true. Tremendously important. Must watch.
It really brightens my day to see this perspective repackaged into a more accessible, mainstream form. It comes up a lot when talking sci-fi, but people who are not sci-fi nerds tend to have trouble telling the "science" parts from the "fiction" parts, so I never found a compelling way to win people over. Now I have a short, engaging, all-around perfect video to point people towards, so thank you very much for making this!
Wow! The video is so cool! Cool transitions! Cool editing! Cool everything!🔥🔥🔥
He hits on it there, "Commercially". We have solutions, but they don't work in our current economic system. This is the main problem, $$$. If we move to a resource based economic system and use the earth's vast abundance to help everyone thrive. We'll, I'd get up every day and work tirelessly for that!
The discovery of oil peaked in 1964. I was 16 then. Now I'm 74.
Since then, discoveries of oil have declined each decade. According to Rystad Energy, discoveries are now below 10 million barrels PA.
Mankind consumes 36 billion barrels PA.
The situation is unsustainable.
Mankind must get off oil before demand exceeds supply.
I live on renewable energy.
It is doable!
I'm obsessed with your channel, can't wait to see what you create next.
Just came from Johnny Harris's channel, I'm already hooked on yours! You both have excellent mindsets and reasoning skills that I love to watch, thank you!
You are right. We need a "Vision of Hope" to inspire and motivate us to work for a better tomorrow.
>Carbon capture maybe a good idea however there *are more pollutants from fossil fuels than just carbon.*
>Glad there was a mention that countries like the U.S.A. do the vastly more pollution that some others.
>On hardline (and some softline) goods there this though that we can sweep it under the rug, that is bury it a landfill.
>Though provoking like _The Nation_ magazine on the issues of the day. Thanks Cleo Abram for sharing another prescriptive! A fanatic of such things.
the problem with this story is 'zero carbon' energy sometimes was mistaken as 'free energy'
when did anyone claim it was free? it's definitely less expensive than paying billions to big oil in tax-payer dollars as subsidies, though.
@@snowballeffect7812 it's not , the least expensive option is nuclear energie but it doesnt mean it's the best
no those are the tin hat kooks
They know their place
@@snowballeffect7812 i think by free energy OP meant infinite amount of energy, not the price of it?
@@zumabbar for current civilizational intents and purposes, it is infinite, at least until Kardashev ranking increases.
Yes!!! Thank you!!! I've been reading The Story of More by Hope Jahren the last couple weeks (haven't finished yet), but I have found myself frustrated with the approach it feels like she is pressing, which is going back to a world of LESS. Trust me, I'll be the first one to say we need to buy less, eat less (mainly meat), waste less, drive less, and fly less... but to completely reject things like energy, household plumbing, plastic and global supply chains is to reject the things that have brought us enormous value and prosperity. It's not about LESS... it's about different. Thank you! Loving Huge If True!
I'm sorry but plastic is probably one of the worst things to happen to this planet, as bad as climate change. You probably consume a credit card's worth of plastic per week. Not to mention how bad it is for the oceans and marine life.
Looking at things from as many viewpoints as possible is something most of us should do more of.
Thank you so much for this. 👍
The trick is boot strapping clean energy. Initially, a lot of fossil fuel gets burned to produce panels, wind turbines, etc. But I agree in the long term we need to make the shift. So conservation and switching seems best right now.
I think another huge problem is how we ideate a sustainable future.
We miss out on things like walkable city designs, locally grown produce, efficient home construction and more.
All because they don't fit our idea of "Green Technology"
American cities for example are the worst kind of cities for the environment just because of their design. It may be long term solving, but changing cities could cut a massive amount of carbon output.
Locally grown produce can only be achieved through indoor/vertical farming, which WAS talked about in the video. This is because every crop needs different environmets which can only be done by spreading production around the globe OR having a climate controled farm (aka indoors)
Here are the two breakthrough Technologies in development that will make the single handedly biggest contributions to our environmental challenge:
1) TPV SunCell Plasma Reactor (Clean energy superabundance that will be cheaper and faster to deploy than all other energy technology, including solar farms).
2) Usky Transport (Technology that will be enable efficient development of fully-pedestrianized multi-cluster urban settlements that are agriculturally self-sufficient, while enabling public transport to respect the needs of social distancing).
You make such an important point. To run with the walkable cities example, we completely handicap ourselves when we constrain our imagination to car centric cities. A new grocery store in a residential area without one and the ability to safely walk there is orders of magnitude better than replacing a gas guzzler with a Tesla.
@@tonysimpleman It's so refreshing to see this kind of interaction on this platform. It's usually just stupid internet fights over nothing. I just wanted to point this out and thank you!
This awesome! We need to get the word out there that is not energy that’s bad, it’s what what energy and where it comes from. More energy = better lives!!
Yeah, but... Efficiency
Energy isn't the point, just a means to do something. Using less energy to accomplish the same things when possible is just better in every way. One of those ways is having more energy available for doing other things.
It is a bit like money. Speaking of which, efficiency is still quite often the cheapest way of getting more energy to use for other applications.
The only way to deliver more energy is fossil fuels. "Renewable" "green" energy is a myth.
last year my family has switched to renewables, like, fully. We installed solar panels (close to 30kWp total), installed geothermal heatpump (sold old gas boiler/heater), bought two EVs (sold old gas guzlers). We are completely self-sufficient and zero fossil/CO2.
And the funny part is... we spend less on bank's loan on everything, than we did on gas/petrol.
Ditto
On its hottest day just a week or so ago, 37% of the energy Texas used came from Renewable Energy. We live here in Phoenix, where for the past 21 days our high temperatures have been well above 110 degrees Fahrenheit. So, yes, we need more energy, but like you said, it needs to be clean energy.
Watched this video a few months ago, today i rewatched it and think it’s more important than ever before to understand this! Well done!⚡️👍
Hoping for Europe to reconsider Nuclear fission.
It's the Germans who decided to shut their nukes down and buy gas from Russia instead.
Thank you. I agree with you. Reduce Carbon output good, increase energy via clean sources great !
What if the big misconception is that we must continue with this increasingly rapid technological innovation at a pace we cannot control as a society ??? Slowing down might be the key to having a better life without using more and more and more...
"What if the big misconception is that we must continue with this increasingly rapid technological innovation at a pace we cannot control as a society ??? Slowing down might be the key to having a better life without using more and more and more..."
Nonsense. The rapid technological innovation is what have enabled this high standard of living that we are enjoying today.
Finally, someone who said that we should use more energy, not less ! but in a ethical way of generating it.
What "ethical" means of generating energy are you referring to?
Yeah.. but "clean" energy?? Basically.. no FF.. that's not possible and won't be for a long long time
Just understand that the "We" is the entire planet.
People like you and me should work hard on using less.
@@hotdognl70 How do you define "using less"? Specifically, what will we be using less of, and what will we use to replace it?
@@johnford2508 Topic was about energy and no, we do not have to replace it. Just try to use less.
Abundance is a goal, let's do the work! I started a YIMBY group for Northern Virginia and it sure beats sitting around and complaining about how expensive housing is.
LET'S GOOOO
Civilizations are massive heat engines regardless of how they're powered. We often forget that it took a certain amount of air pollution to make the world conducive for life. It's all about upsetting the balance, which we have clearly been doing for some time. So we should be careful what we wish for. By decreasing atmospheric aerosols by just 30% we could send temperatures skyrocketing!
Here in Oregon diesel is a bad thing. I’ve owned and used diesel my 64 years of life with no Lung problems ( so far). All the local farmers I know I haven’t heard of anyone dying of lung cancer that didn’t smoke. Electric tractors , combines etc have yet to be seen at the local level. They are starting to be seen on CZcams. Farmers don’t drive tractors to transport themselves for shopping, vacations or other activities . Most farmers are 60 plus years old and extremely expensive new equipment is hard to justify. I think our mail delivery could be twice a week, maybe Amazon, ups , usps, and all the other instant gratification thing could be cut back also. Let’s think about house sizes and insulation
I think this is a really smart take, but I think this ignores some of the amazing things hidden within the “energy diet” half of this.
Sure, having a clean energy economy means that we done NEED to conserve, but if we apply the same level of innovation to passive methods of conservation that don’t reduce quality of life, we can actually improve things from both ends.
Think of the shift from incandescent bulbs to LEDs. This is part of the energy diet that is not just saving energy, but improving rather than decreasing the quality of life.
An absurd amount of energy goes into building heating and cooling, especially housing that older and less efficient. Sure we can keep using more clean energy to heat it, but we can also throw up some insulation and use less clean energy as well.
And while clean energy abundance means we don’t HAVE to focus on improvements from the energy diet end of things, we have the capacity to do so without actually making any real sacrifices.
What do you mean by housing older and less efficient?
@@peoplesrepublicofunitedear2337 Over the last 100 years, our scientific understanding of buildings and building technology has advance an insane amount, but a lot of buildings around the world were built more than 100 years ago, that don’t include any of this modern building understanding and technology (like a better understanding of how insulation works).
I live in the US, but the house I live in was built in the early 1900s.
The “energy diet” concept assumes we have to make energy sacrifices to reduce energy consumption, but we don’t really have to, we just have to work on bringing older buildings up to modern standards.
Sure, if we have clean energy, we can just keep pumping energy into drafty and under-insulated structures. But we can also make those old structure more energy efficient and save energy.
Clean energy and not being wasteful with energy, are not mutually exclusive strategies.
A couple other examples in the world of the building industry of was to improve efficiency.
Energy Recovery Ventilators exist which extract heat energy from stale building air as its exhausted from the building and use it to pre-heat fresh air with that energy.
Transitioning towards all-electric appliances and equipment which can meet building needs with flexibility for energy sourcing.
Upgrading insulation in order structures, so that they can contain the energy they’re using.
The modern versions of many building technologies are incredibly efficient and effective, it’s just that it’s only implemented in the brand new construction.
The video is flirting with some dangerously comforting notions if misunderstood or misapplied. Dramatic increases in clean energy generation such that they'd outstrip fossil fuels and allow further consumption is a foreseeable fantasy. Decreasing usage is a difficult but available and necessary part of the solution: functionally the same as an increase in energy production. Why even seperate the two when they do the same thing?
@@snizami I disagree, with nuclear fission, we will have almost infinite clean energy. That’s when things will advance rapidly. We are in some weird middle grown right now.
@@politcallycorrect5816being in that weird middle ground is what makes these hyper-optimistic outlooks so perilous. Fussion is not happening anytime soon if at all. It's theoretically and technically completely possible but practically prohibitive to install and scale. Fusion plants will have extremely high capital costs something that's already a significant barrier to the construction of regular fission powerplants.
Thinking that people above the age of 10 still don't intuitively understand this feels incredibly demoralizing. If people don't see this, how can we ever hope to rally folks around complex problems? We can continue to explain things to people, but we can't do the understanding for them: they have to do that on their own, and the fact that people understand so little is terrifying.
Don't worry, it is coming. Every revolution is followed by a correction towards sanity. Prohibition seemed like a good idea to fix a huge problem. The drug war seemed like a good idea to help fight crime. Both of those examples receded over time, leaving us with a tempered movement towards the right direction. The global warming panic is starting to recede and is leaving us towards a better future with market leaders driving towards finding solutions to our problems that make sense and are not draconian.
@@Saiputera Mother nature is no kinder to lemmings jumping off a cliff. And I'd take an activist over a couch potato any day.
Yes! Using energy to improve life is A GOOD THING. Except for that CO2 issue ...
Eli Dourado has written that heat extracted from the top 200 miles of the Earth's crust potentially has 23,000 times as much total energy as all of the fossil fuels ever used or known to exist in the ground. It wouldn't be cheap or fast to develop, but it says that a hundred years from now we could we in a much better place using much MORE energy than we do today.
Some of Matt's "contrarian" suggestions deserve a much wider audience (e.g. "One Billion Americans"). Thank for promoting this one!
Changing our consumption patterns so that the Earth has time to regenerate is critical. All "clean" energy alternatives come with significant environmental and ethical issues. We spend outrageous amounts of resources just for the sake of status and laziness, not exactly altruistic or scientific endeavors. Regardless of the energy source, we need to cut back.
We probably need to target more energy use globally, but still try to limit it in our countries where it's already a very high level.
That's where the message here is a bit confusing.
Of course you may aim to reach such high clean energy production that everyone can consume even more than we already do, but you have to admit it's probably over ambitious and we should at least realize it won't be possible anytime soon (not in the next 60 years anyway)
Right. There is a bottleneck we must pass through, during which the wealthy will have to consume less. However, it won't take 60 years I don't think. More like 30-40. Or possibly even less with all the right policies, initiatives.
"but still try to limit it in our countries where it's already a very high level." Why? Because it is impossible for life to get better than it is right now? What if we had adopted your proposal 50 years ago? Then no one would have a personal computer today. Who knows what else can happen with more energy?
@@alan2102X Define wealthy. The great thing about marxism is spending other people's money. Until it runs out. Making the "wealthy" use less energy is marxism.
@@BS-vx8dg The West in general and U.S. in particular has become massively wealthier in GDP terms over the last 50 years, with little or no improvement of quality or length of life, and even decline in most areas. Medical cost per capita is now fully twice that of other developed countries while our life expectancy is lower AND FALLING, while others are higher and rising. Many other examples, not least shocking statistics on suicidality in young people, obesity and diabetes across all strata, deaths of despair, etc. etc. It is obvious that our country is a total mess in spite of (perhaps even because of) our great wealth. Our system is set up to generate wealth, not health, happiness, sanity, contentment, much less joy and fulfillment. There is actually a fairly strong inverse relationship of wealth with those end points, as vividly illustrated by a recent international study of mental health across all nations, finding that the leading country (best mental health) is... drumroll... Tanzania! With a per capita income of $ONE thousand!
[And, in case it was not clear: "wealth" = energy, pretty much. Having more wealth means you can consume more energy and the products thereof (all the physical stuff that energy yields).]
@@dannygreen7473
1 Wealthy: oh, I would say in excess of 3X global per capita GDP, which is currently $12-14K. Hence $36-42K. Just roughly. We could argue about nominal versus PPP, differing cost structures in different places, etc., so it is not precise, but as a starting point not bad.
2 Marxism is not about spending other people's money. You are confusing that with capitalism, which IS about spending other people's money. Capitalism is ALL about stealing the fruits of labor from others.
This video (and the yet to be released video on how to get there) should be made mandatory for every politician of every country that has the capacity to drive us towards the world that Matt and Cleo envision.
The prettiest and smartest CZcamsr on my subscription list. Always enjoyable listening to your videos. 😊
Politicians love creating fear, voters embrace it & a whole false narrative of return to the past becomes an ugly fog hiding the fabulous future. Technologies like fossil, nuclear that create heat, then steam are obsolete, the multitudes of humanity need abundant low cost clean power & for the first time in history we can deliver it, not just in rich nations but in all nations. This is the most extraordinary blessing & we need to celebrate it. Thanks for sharing!
a lovely dose of hopeful thinking, just what us activists need! thank you so much Cleo, great work
Solved 60 years ago. Nuclear.
This video does of course have an unhealthy bias, but looking beyond that we should all be able to agree on one highlighted topic: today’s youth can/should shift their attention from 'consuming less' over to innovating more realistic clean/sustainable energy (& waste / recycling) alternatives, equal to or greater than what we currently have with finite fossil fuel options.
We will need solid energy options when going to the Moon and Mars, mind you.
Please mention what bias are you talking about? I am not able see it.
What bias, can you tell us ?
Seems to be a bit of a marketing issue. Instead of an energy diet, promise: "Same great taste, none of the carbon!"
If we don't curtail our use of natural resources, the biosphere is still gonna collapse. Green energy won't change that.
A fleet of machines chopping down the Amazon are still a problem even if they're all "clean".
The problem with clean energy is it takes a LOT of energy to produce, which is nearly wholly done is other countries (wind mills, solar panels, battery components, etc) that aren't exactly (at all) concerned with clean energy or the environment. Furthermore, the long term lack of recycling in these products, once they are no longer useful, has yet to be discovered. Ask the Congolese, who mine, by hand, the cobalt from the mowed down jungle whether lithium batteries are clean energy.
Great topic and delivery. Loved watching you break this down. Thank you 🙏🏽
Nice. Let's keep dreamin' then.
Somebody will do something... right?
I hope so.. I can only house up to 3 refugees in my small flat.
My confirmation bias is tingling! This is the positive lookout on life that I always preach. Not being too scared to have children because "look how shitty the world is" while having the best life anyone ever had in their family history.
Get more energy. Get energy costs down. I'm full on with that.
More energy for what? If we wipe out life on earth with renewable energy, is that good or bad?
I look for conflicts with reality, physics, chemistry, etc.
Found a few points of disagreement and addressed them above.
Both sides have cemented themselves into unrealistic and impossible positions.
C'est merde, find a better solution and don't stay married to one viewpoint, for that's a religion.
Not confirmation bias if it's already been solved. Nuclear.
This is a video that I wish many people would watch. We need abundant energy. We will be using lots of energy but it must become much cleaner. I have followed Matt Yglesias for a long time and he (and you) are right.
You are so right. Take my own country, the UK. Far from fixed, but in 2003 5% of annual electricity production came from renewables. Today ? (2023) - 46%.
The issue with this video is that it assumes low energy solution as an inferior solution, but a low energy solution might be a superior solution, just the economics is not in its favor, like more efficient electrical appliances (refrigerator, AC) costs more.
Same is true for those carbon absorption machines, economics don't allow that. They need government incentives/mandates to be viable and same should be made available for "low energy" solutions.
Congrats Cleo on tackling such an itchy issue. I'm an Consultant on electric energy generation and tend to think out of the box. And for years have been saying that in third world countries as mine is, we have no room for less energy. We need more. And we are fairly well into wind, solar and nuclear energy. Also one of the world's largest lithium producers and now starting to invest strongly on green hydrogen. So to find your thesis is more energy, not less, but cleaner is a breath of fresh air to me.
I believe one of our biggest issues is that we waste too much energy world wide. Energy should be respected and not wasted. Regretfully society does not respect things that are cheap and abundant. So maybe energy should just be clean, ethical and fairly priced. So that way is it used with respect and efficiently. Not cheap…
Spooning out the hopium in ample portions. There's no free lunch folks, get over it.
I mean, idk about you all, but how the hell didn't you realise that clean energy is a good thing instead of just mitigating a bad thing? This video just sounds like common sense to me.
Honestly too common to be worth mentioning.
I think it's an issue of a lot of the fossil fuel lobbies and right wing politics telling people that green/ecological/renewables = starving to death in the cold. Look into it: this rhetoric is broadly propagated. When people froze to death in Texas during last year's winter storm, they blamed solar and wind, even when solar actually output higher than expected *despite* some failures in the hardware... while ALL energy infrastructure had problems and shutdowns due to the temperatures that are regularly experienced by the same types of energy systems in other parts of the world. They simply had never "winterized" to mitigate against this edge case scenario, or because it cost too much.
Like your new shift in perspective - audacity, courage, compassion towards all, yes!
Also: Great job on the vid, y'all. Clear, looks great and very entertaining. Thanks, folks.
Pie in the sky.
I like the pitch @cloe abrams. In my view the goal is not more or less pollution or energy, it is balance. We use what the earth provides us without abusing it and with responsible consciousness as to the impacts of such use. No more fish, dont eat fish. Can’t breath the air, stop polluting. The problem is always wanting more of everything without allowing for the rest and reestablishment phase. Even with more energy, on our current path we’d still devastate other resources like trees, water, air, rocks.
Energy is such a corruption industry as well. How can we pose this so that the super rich oil, coal and electric companies don't pour water on renewable energy progress?
Vote out the politicians who continue to support those TRILLIONS of revenues generated by fossil fuels and then the only source of the necessary funds: CARBON TAX FOSSIL FUEL companies. (why do you think they fight so hard against it?)
A lot of companies are doing pledges to become carbon neutral in the next decade. If it will happen, that's up for debate. But I'm glad that more and more attention is being given now by the enterprise world. That combined with good policy making, hopefully can drive some change. Very good video! Excellent editing, by the way!
Yea, Woolworths are going carbon green... Pity their shopping centre loading docks fountain plastic and styrofoam into the suburbs and oceans...
I agree with your last two sentences, great video!
But what I think you are missing out on the whole “companies going carbon neutral” is the fact that they aren’t going carbon neutral, they are just exporting the carbon emissions and shifting the blame to companies in countries abroad.
Look at Zara’s ESG score: best in the market!
Look at Zara’s industry: one of the most damaging industries to our world, not only carbon wise, but chemicals and water and whatever you want.
BUT HEY! Zara is clean baby! Zara emits *0 carbon*! Oh wait, no, actually, they just started relying on thousands of smaller unaudited sweatshops in 3rd world countries to emit that CO2 for them… but hey, its not Zara emitting it directly, thus, ZARA=CO2 free.
This is what we call Carbon Accounting and Exporting emissions. They are tricks, lies to make you feel good and make you believe that they are doing something, while peddling the same shit.
@@agustinkrupka I think you might have misread what I wrote. I'm not saying companies are actually carbon neutral or will get there (hence my "that's up for debate" line). I said that it's good that there's conversation around the topic AND that good policy making is needed to control the type of problems you described in your comment.
I, personally, rather see companies talk about the issue and do minimal effort to move the needle than stay silent and business as usual.
Talk is cheap.
Hello Cleo! Greetings from Chile. Thank you for your work.
I would like to emphasize that the problem is a bit bigger. As humanity, we are no longer in a position to continue increasing our energy consumption. We are at such a critical point that simply netting to zero is not enough. Now, what we must do is restore and regenerate part of what we have destroyed. I recommend the book "The Future We Choose" by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac. I am unsure if it has been translated into English, but it contains highly relevant information on this topic.
I also invite you to investigate in relation to "clean" energies. While they may be clean for the end user as they do not emit CO2, they are not emission-free. The mining necessary to extract the minerals for solar panels, wind turbine motors, electrical components, and lithium batteries has already caused a lot of ecosystem damage, using large amounts of water and consuming a significant amount of fossil fuels for production and transportation.
Therefore, while using clean energies is less harmful than using fossil fuels, these energies are not emission-free and have collateral effects.
Indeed so. I think the latter issue you highlighted is in particular a problem in Chile, where ground water levels have dropped materially as a direct consequence of lithium mining? I think it is pretty clear that nuclear power is our best bet as a source of clean energy for a transition period until we develop commercially viable fusion energy. Nuclear energy is Co2 neutral, it uses far less raw material in the construction of its plants than renewable energy sources, and it is the only energy source that does not emit its waste emissions into the atmosphere. The problem of waste storage has now been technologically solved to a degree that it is no longer a biting constraint. It therefore seems that the most intimidating problem nuclear power still faces is public discontent, but this discontent is fuelled by a memory of previous, and now outdated, challenges in the storage of nuclear waste, and an irrational fear of accidents fuelled by headline-grabbing disasters that would have been - and will be in future - entirely preventable.
@@ralphhebgen7067 The GHG emissions due to manufacturing of clean energy technologies has been, by and large, substantially overstated. Have you considered the CO2 emissions from the concrete and steel in a typical nuclear plant? Compared to the minimal material involved in a PV array, I think PV is cleaner by far than nuclear.
Pessimism and depression run amok in the U.S and most of us can't or won't believe in change for good. People say that digging up the minerals for solar panels, hydrogen batteries and nuclear plants takes a vast amount of fossil fuel use by construction machines. There will always be push back to change.
Your channel has really helped me watched something productive and relaxing thank you.
I was a little skeptical of the title of the video but I’m glad I kept watching. You explained everything very well and I hope more people can see this and understand the bigger picture of the fight against climate change and pushing for more clean energy. As an environmental student I can’t wait work in the field and hopefully bring clean energy to impoverished communities and to see much better improvement in the quality of life for everyone, not just the people who can afford it!
What would humans do with abundant clean energy?
That is probably the best question asked in the video, and the answer is :
"Unless we change how our economy works, we’ll keep doing exactly what we are doing with fossil fuels: we’ll use it to power continued extraction and production, at an ever-increasing rate, placing ever-increasing pressure on the living world, because that’s what capitalism requires. Clean energy might help deal with emissions, but it does nothing to reverse deforestation, overfishing, soil depletion and mass extinction. A growth-obsessed economy powered by clean energy will still tip us into ecological disaster. "
By the way, what is "clean energy" in the first place Cleo? Do people even realise what it means and require to make the so-called "clean-energy"?
Rising deployment of clean energy technologies is set to supercharge demand for critical minerals for example ... (an issue that Johnny Harris discusses with Cleo here: czcams.com/video/2_T5DgsO0jc/video.html&), so why keeping denying the real problem?
I'd love to know your thoughts on the book LESS IS MORE by Jason Hickel.
"Technology is absolutely essential in the fight against ecological breakdown. But scientists are clear that they will not be enough, on their own, to fix the problem. Why? Because in a GROWTH-oriented economy, efficiency improvements that could help us reduce our impact are harnessed instead to advance the objectives of growth - to pull ever-larger swathes of nature into circuits of extraction and production. It’s not our technology that’s the problem. It’s growth."
The ecological crisis is an inevitable consequence of this system based on PERPERTUAL GROWTH on a finite planet.
Climate change is not the problem, it's only a symptom, and the ecological breakdown due to loss of biodiversity is equally (if not more) threatening to human existence.
"Fredric Jameson once famously said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. This isn’t so surprising, really. After all, capitalism is all we know. Even if we were to somehow put an end to it, what would happen afterwards? What would we replace it with? How odd. We are a culture that is enamoured of newness, obsessed with invention and innovation. We claim to celebrate creative, out-of-the-box thinking. Certainly we would never say of a smartphone or a piece of art, "This is the best gadget or painting that has ever been created and it will never be surpassed, and we shouldn’t even try! It would be naïve to underestimate the power of human creativity. " So why is it that, when it comes to our economic system, we have so readily swallowed the line that capitalism is the only possible option and we shouldn’t even think about creating something better?
I'd love to see someone with as much followers as Cleo coming with bolder, more fundamental questions instead of feeding people with false hope that technology will allow us to keep our insane consumerist lifestyle forever and offer it to everyone on the planet...
Hi Cleo
I have just stumbled across this video. You make a great point. This beautiful planet of ours has all that we need. We have clean water delivered from the skies on a regular basis. This starts out as undrinkable sea water but through the natural processes falls to the ground, refreshed and usable again.
There is enough of everything on our wonderful planet including energy. We just need to take the politics out of its production and distribution. Over the last 200 years by the use of fossil fuels mankind has doubled life expectance (for mankind).
We have developed technology that surpasses even the wildest science fiction writers of my childhood.
If we can get past these next 30 years and develop ways to harness the planets energy properly then we should be full of optimism.
I totally agree with increasing energy production.
My issue is with the premise of the video - that anthropomorphic climate change is significant and that CO2 is bad. It simply isn’t true!