digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Treat the shift to renewable energy (wind, solar, and nuclear, connected through an Internet of Things smart grid) as a third industrial revolution that should be pursued actively, funded through taxes on the super rich and fossil fuel subsidy reform, and supported by voting for science-minded politicians. The video argues that renewables became cheaper and more efficient than fossil fuels around November 2018, and that the transition creates jobs if workers are retrained.
Key Points
- The video defines three industrial revolutions by three elements each: a communication method, a transportation mechanism, and a power source (coal and steam in the first, phones, radio, TV, cheap oil and cars in the second, internet, electric/hybrid vehicles, and solar, wind, and nuclear in the third).
- Solar cost fell from $76 per photovoltaic cell in 1977 to about 50 cents today, and lithium battery prices fell 79 percent from 2010 to 2017 ($1,000 to $209 per kWh).
- A smart grid using the Internet of Things could let wind turbines and other power sources communicate and optimize as a group, with one U.S. study projecting 60 percent higher energy efficiency over 20 years.
- Proposed funding includes a 70 percent tax on income above $10 million (estimated $72 to $170 billion per year), plus removing fossil fuel subsidies (about $5.3 trillion in 2015) and adding carbon taxes.
- Job transition: a conservative estimate found that jobs in wind, solar, and nuclear already outnumber fossil fuel jobs three to one, so retraining oil and coal workers into solar, battery, and grid construction is presented as essential.
- The video says CO2 emissions were likely to be 8 percent lower by the end of 2020 than in 2019 due to the pandemic (a drop of 128 gigatons, the biggest since WWII), and warns emissions typically rebound after downturns unless green stimulus is used, as happened after 2008.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: The video's actionable advice is to vote for politicians who will tax the rich, subsidize fossil fuels less, support carbon taxes that make fossil fuels more expensive while rewarding green innovation, and listen to scientists. Governments should direct stimulus into wind and solar jobs, grid infrastructure, Internet of Things systems, building energy retrofits, and public transportation, and run programs that retrain coal and oil workers for green work. Examples to copy include Canada's Iron and Earth group asking for retraining oil workers to install solar on public buildings such as schools, and Germany's tax subsidies for green and solar energy, with early adopters now selling power back to the grid. Germany plans to phase out coal over 20 years with a $40 billion investment in coal regions to retrain workers.
- The video cites 18 countries (including China, India, France, the Netherlands, and Ireland) planning to phase out sales of fossil-fuel vehicles over the next decade, and Bank of America projects 40 percent of car sales electric by 2030.
- Caveats: the video says that electric cars charged on fossil-fuel grids are much less green, and that lithium batteries still have negative environmental impacts. It also acknowledges that no single answer exists for funding the transition.
- Context: the video says 60 percent of top U.S. corporations paid zero federal income tax in 2018, and Amazon paid none despite $11.2 billion in profit.
- The video cites a 2017 figure that China provided 45 percent of global renewable investment and plans to get 62 percent of its energy from renewable sources in 30 years.
Bottom Line
The video frames renewable energy as already economically competitive and presents the transition as a policy and political choice, with the main obstacles being funding, worker retraining, and the fossil fuel industry's influence on public opinion.
