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Re:The World Doesn’t Need a New Gigantic Particle Collider by adrianN on Sunday June 28, 2020 @02:37PM (#23671010)
We have the technology to get at least to 80% carbon neutrality and we're on a very tight time schedule. Asking for "more research" before investing massively into the things we already know how to do is stupid. Improving the economics must come after we delayed the existential threat.
Re:The World Doesn’t Need a New Gigantic Particle Collider by philwelch on Sunday June 28, 2020 @04:06PM (#23671647)
We had the technology to get to 80% carbon neutrality for centuries. Preindustrial society was 80% of the way to carbon neutrality compared to today. The only problem is that people aren't willing to accept a preindustrial standard of living. In other words, they are unwilling to live materially poorer lives than they do today. So from that perspective, it's purely a question of "improving the economics".

Perhaps what you meant was that we have the technology to do it without completely abandoning industrial civilization--though maybe people will have to sacrifice some things, like eating meat, driving private cars, or living in climate-controlled private spaces. And maybe that's an easier sell. But it's also a false dichotomy. Developing the technology to reach higher levels of carbon neutrality more quickly and more economically can and must happen at the same time that we do what we can today. Building more renewable power generation can happen at the very same time that we prototype carbon capture systems for natural gas power plants, battery-electric vehicles, or Sabatier-process closed-loop carbon-neutral natural gas production (which, incidentally, is also something we'll need on Mars). We can build Generation III nuclear plants now while researching Generation IV nuclear plants to build later. We can work now on making all of our technology more energy-efficient while developing fusion power to deliver unlimited, carbon-neutral energy for generations to come.

Re:The World Doesn’t Need a New Gigantic Particle Collider by techphys_91 on Sunday June 28, 2020 @03:05PM (#23671195)
It isn't either-or though. Yes, we should do whatever we can do right now, but we should also be looking for ways we can do better in 50 years time.