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0 pointsJumpCrisscross3y ago0 comments

> becomes significantly more expensive, it's game over for developed countries

This is wholly unsustained. Yes, marginal luxuries will become less accessible, though not inaccessible. Flying, food variety, et cetera. But the sustainable cost of clean energy, and industrial processes running at those levels, is within traditional fuels’ long-term error bars [1]. The discrepancy in access to that energy will persist between the developed and developing worlds.

(EROI is difficult to calculate. Once you take into account shipping costs, the EROI of PV approximates that of oil.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricit...

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KptMarchewa3y ago

LCOE does not take most important thing of renewables into account - when the energy is actually available. Turns out it's extremely unstable, not only in the day/night cycle, but also around the year. December is black hole in Poland, less than hour of sunlight a day and weak wind.

lazide3y ago

Nitrogen Fertilizer production is a base for the modern world that billions would die without, and with no identified economic replacement. It relies on fossil fuel to be produced. It is produced in the 100s of millions of metric tons a year.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nitrogen_fertilizer_con...]

The closest non-fossil fuel alternatives are various types of hydrolysis, which at current natural gas prices on the US are 3-10x more expensive per kg of hydrogen produced.

If you want world population to drop precipitously, make it expensive to produce THAT.

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