> With a bit of social pressure we should be able to extinct the fossil fuel industry

Taking Europe versus China, California versus Texas, it seems like social pressure is less effective than markets. Let markets build the power source they want to build and lo and behold you get lots of solar and wind and batteries.

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Retric 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That’s true today, it wasn’t true when Germany was heavily subsidizing solar to get economies of scale going.

Solar is historically a great example where public / private collaboration actually had a place. Even if today it’s time to let market forces work.

	▲	matthewdgreen 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Solar is just one technology. Decarbonizing successfully requires still further huge investments in batteries, modular nuclear reactors, CO2 removal, zero-carbon steel production, aviation e-fuels, non-fossil plastics, etc. But yes, hopefully we've unlocked enough economic advantage with just that one technology to get us 90% of the way there just on the basis of economics. (If the current administration doesn't find some way to sabotage it.)
	▲	hvb2 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's just a shame that they didn't end up enjoying the spoils very long. They had very good panels that were researched and produced in Germany but they got completely wiped out by cheap Chinese products

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floatrock 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a cute ideal, but you can't disentangle government from the energy sector. It's too big.

How do markets build infrastructure as large as an LNG terminal without the government tipping the scales with various guarantees? How do you build a literal coastline of refineries without government clearing the way with permissive regulations? How can you say "let markets figure it out" when the US military is the acquisition department of Halliburton's Iraqi joint venture?

Pretending "markets can figure it out if we just remove government subsidies" is hopelessly naiive. Geopolitics is mostly energy policy.

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-]

> you can't disentangle government from the energy sector

Nobody argued as much. My point is the net effect of social pressure on the energy transformation has been costly—financially and politically—for relatively little bang.

	▲	cmrdporcupine 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Because the opponents of it have the deepest pockets of literally anybody in the world. A whole class of parasites who have made their lives as highwaymen on the densest energy source (outside of uranium) -- that literally comes out of the ground -- have spent at least the last 20 years actively suppressing alternatives. In some places (see Alberta, Canada), they have literally outlawed renewable developments. In this context political advocacy, education, and subsidy remain absolutely imperative. There is no "free market" way out of the current situation regardless of how economically viable solar is. In the real world markets and power are intrinsically linked. It's also actually also an emergency