Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by hef19898 on Thursday December 03, 2020 @07:42AM
(#25288279)
Saudi seems to be pushing solar and green hydrogen pretty aggrssively. I know that there are several intiatives ongoing in that direction. And having a lot of real estate pretty suitable for solar and green hydrogen, that seems like one alternative. Other countries might have bigger issues, so.
Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by simonebrunozzi on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @11:23PM
(#25285353)
The quote is really profound. Thanks for sharing it. I haven't heard of Axel Oxenstierna before, but I am looking him up right now.
Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by mooreds on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @10:03PM
(#25284836)
If geopolitics + trends is interesting to you, I highly recommend "Disunited Nations": https://zeihan.com/disunited-nations/
Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by tuatoru on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @10:27PM
(#25284992)
Thanks!
Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by MR4D on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @11:15PM
(#25285315)
But read his other book first: Accidental Superpower.
Also, he narrates that book but not the new one. Which is too bad because his narration is truly additive to the book.
Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by mooreds on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @11:40PM
(#25285453)
Good point, "The Accidental Superpower" is wondrous in scope and ideas. The "Absent Superpower", the sequel, is OK; had some interesting insights about shale and the coming removal of the USA from the world. But the first book is timeless.
His Twitter feed is high signal as well: https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/
Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by ashtonkem on Thursday December 03, 2020 @12:43AM
(#25285812)
Increasingly, I wonder if the Absent Superpower is going to miss a lot of predictions due to the reduced importance of fossil fuels, which is the main driver of his narrative.
Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by wonnage on Thursday December 03, 2020 @01:38AM
(#25286154)
I would rate his series of books more historical fantasy than anything else.
Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by FooHentai on Thursday December 03, 2020 @03:53AM
(#25286974)
Zeihan is Pop Geopolitics, rendering the subject about as accessible and interesting as it could ever be to a wide audience but is as divergent from the real work as you would expect from pop- anything. Most obviously, Zeihan ignites the reader's imagination of apocalyptic futures without ever explicitly predicting or detailing them.
The future will far more likely turn out to be mundanely unpleasant rather than captivatingly apocalyptic. But that wouldn't keep the audience that Zeihan has on the edge of it's seat and so while many others in his field think that way, they're not garnering the same kind of views.
I find his stuff very engaging and there's a lot to be taken from it, but it should be taken with a skeptical mindset of 'what's the most boring way this might play out' to approach some kind of truth.
That's kind of sad.
A long time ago (just before the GFC) I looked at trends in climate change (Arctic sea ice specifically, but that's just a canary), demography, China's GDP, and things like PV/Wind learning curves, and said to myself: "things will get interesting in 2023, plus or minus 7 years." Meaning, geopolitically.
Covid seems to have accelerated events, but the trends were all there way back then, visible to anyone who had the time to think about them. I seem to recall reading warnings by internal think tanks in the US Military that were penned in 2005 or so, warning of these very issues.
Still, I have printed and blu-tacked up the quote from Axel Oxenstierna: "Do you not know, my son, with how very little wisdom the world is governed?"[1].
So I shouldn't be surprised.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Oxenstierna#Quotation