Discussion
"So, if we want to transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, it's going to require our manufacturing an enormous number of PV panels and wind turbines. We're going to have to make that transition something like 10 times the current rate at which we're introducing renewable energy infrastructure."
#RichardHeinberg, 2017
#podcasts #RRR#GreeningTheApocalypse#RenewableEnergy#PealOil#FossilFuels
World solar capacity is growing in excess of 30% per year, which makes the doubling time 27 months. So we're on pace to have 10 times our current capacity in 2032. Of course, the rate in accelerating so it won't take tgat long. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country
We're already 5 times higher than 2017 when the article you shared was written. https://ember-energy.org/data/chinas-solar-pv-export-explorer/
Great. But how much of that renewable energy infrastructure is being manufactured using renewable energy? Are we making significant progress towards a self-powering system?
In this interview Heinberg also talks about the need to make renewable energy infrastructure self-hosting, to borrow a geek phrase. In other words, we need to be using energy that's renewable to make PV panels and wind turbines and so on. Imagine if all the renewables powering hyperscale datacentres, so corporations can spy on us and manipulate us with generative models, was being used to manufacture sustainable tech.
"Mostly, people in government, and people in say, the banking sector and in the financial industries, are completely clouded in their view by the apparent necessity of maintaining economic growth. They simply cannot imagine a future in which economic growth does not continue, and I think that really is an extraordinary hindrance to their being able to really engage honestly with these kinds of issues."
#RichardHeinberg, 2017
What does a sustainable internet look like in a successful degrowth scenario? Where we're massively reducing the energy and resources going into luxury production, to make sure everyone has the essentials of life.
Are computers even part of this picture? Or do we regress to something like ham radio as our inter-bioregion communication tool?
I imagine personal computers in a world without the capitalist growth imperative wouldn't be more sophisticated than those from the 1990s. Use of computers would be utilitarian, not addictive and all-consuming.
There would be an Internet of these computers, where each computer is both client and server, as originally intended. Nothing resembling a data center anywhere except in government/universities.
Actually, you have been only setting a few constraints, which are right, according to us.
But what kind of political and social goals have you set ? Have set any ? Are you wishing to reuse existing infrastructure, that is a chess board were we will always play the blacks and loose, or are you getting more ambitious politicaly ?
Agreed. This definitely comes under the umbrella of luxury production.
> General purpose compute is getting very perf-per-watt efficient
... when it's running, but what does a full life cycle analysis look like? Eg the energy costs of manufacture, including mining of raw materials, and end-of-life disposal.
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