Thought policing is like that musashi quote: “once you know the way broadly you see it in all things.”
Read taibbi’s article about how after two days of elation the media consensus is now to downplay the usefulness of mulnupiravir in case it gives ammunition to anti vaxers.
Thumb through Matt’s article and what do you know: talk about carbon capture is out of fashion because it might interfere with the Really Grave approach we all ought to have toward climate change.
It seems the Europeans have learned the lesson that it’s generally better to give it straight to the public better than we have. The “boy who cried wolf” effect is real.
I am all for much higher federal funding of basic research on nuclear and geothermal energy as well as direct air capture so that we can stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible and start to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. I agree that it would be great for the world's poor to get electricity. But "America has been on a 45-year energy diet" doesn't sound right. During that period our families have gotten smaller but our homes (many of which are kept at a higher temperature in the winter than in the summer) have gotten larger and our cars have gotten bigger and much more powerful. Leaving aside the not insignificant number of models with 500hp or more, many ordinary SUVs now boast more than 300hp.
As one travels around America, the first thought is not that we need more ways to "substitute some form of power for human effort." Returning to automobiles, most rear hatches now have a motor to open and close them--unless you have a valet, you still have to be at the opening to put things in or take them out so it's just to avoid lifting your arm? Our elites work out on electrical machines to avoid the class-defining curse of our biggest public health problem, obesity. From the standpoint of actually living a long and healthy life, it seems we've already "improve[d] living standards" too much.
Which cool invention has not been adopted because “too bad the energy requirements are so high”? Not ever more powerful off-road vehicles. Supersonic travel? A huge loss for investment bankers who fly to Europe for a meeting (while generating frequent flier miles to enjoy for personal travel tax free). Who else cares if it takes 3 hours (or 2 in Virgin's plane that will hold up to 19 passengers) or 7 hours to fly NYC-London? We're now literally flying people into space just for the thrill of it (no, Bezos's rationalizations notwithstanding, it will never be energy efficient to manufacture goods there and no, we're not going to move there either).
But your mindset, that energy is too expensive now, despite being cheaper than in virtually anywhere else in the world, unfortunately drives our climate policy. The Clean Electricity Performance Program, one of the two most important climate policies currently in the reconciliation bill, has an explicit goal of subsidizing utilities enough to keep electricity rates from rising, even as they add more expensive renewables (if they weren't more expensive the problem would solve itself) to the mix. This is neither realistic (fossil fuel prices are surging, with natural gas trading at about $5/MMBtu in the US--up from $3 for most of this year--and over $20 in EU) nor desirable, since if we don't use price to reduce demand, we're not going to be able to build enough clean energy to satisfy all the buyers, or meet emission targets.
"Without a carbon price or other substantial climate policies, reductions fall short."
"These differences in incentives open up a variety of channels for gaming and unintended consequences that could lead to large government expenditures without inducing large-scale substitution of new, clean energy supply for fossil-fueled generation".
Getting rid of the fuels that powered most improvements in living standards for almost the last three centuries within three decades is an incredibly difficult challenge. The chance that we will have carbon-free electricity too cheap to meter by then is extremely low--even if that's necessary to make the title of your last book anything but a nightmare.
This is genuinely the type of writing that I appreciate from Matt most of all (similar to one billion Americans). It's being actually imaginative about policy. Is what he's proposing quite difficult? Yes. But, it breaks out of current political paradigms that often seem like total dead ends. Much more energy is actually possible and a way to make the world better. So we should stop pretending stuff is just too expensive for energy's sake and instead just do it!
Maybe in some complex, emergent policy sense we have been on an energy diet, but I still think this is not the right way to look at things. Using fossil fuels has standard resource costs and costs of the harm coming from increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere. Mainly because of OPEC fossil fuels cost rose (granted a lot of that is monopoly though some is Hotelling pricing) and firm started finding ways to substitute capital for energy – greater efficiency.
Unfortunately, fossil fuel prices still do not include the cost of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere nor are processes to capture and store CO2 sufficiently profitable yet to avoid these increases. This is not inconsistent with the observation that for institutional reasons there are many places not enough energy even at CO2 cost inclusive costs is being used.
But I don’t see anyone really acting on a belief that we are using too much energy per se or is opposed to “more energy,” so what is the point of pointing out all the great things that could be done with cheap zero carbon energy. Even the de-growthers probably don’t oppose having cheap zero CO2 emitting energy they just don’t think it’s possible.
"I don’t want to say that electric planes are impossible (never say never!), but it’s a challenging problem because batteries are so damn heavy."
And, unlike gas tanks, they don't get any lighter as they empty. Fully depleted batteries weigh as much as fully charged ones.
"The problem is that desalination is incredibly energy intensive."
That's just one of the problems. The sludge they produce is just one more:
"More than 16,000 desalination plants scattered across the globe produce far more toxic sludge than fresh water, according to a first global assessment of the sector's industrial waste, published Monday."
"Whenever I write about building more housing in California, people start talking about water. But urban areas only account for about 10% of California’s water use. It’s not the people using all that water; it’s the farms."
Then we can talk about building more housing in California after we get electricity too cheap to meter.
I have a modest proposal to make since so many seem to think you can run an industrialized economy on wind and solar. I am told that batteries solve the intermittency problems of wind and solar. So it should be pretty straightforward to require solar arrays and wind power generators to actually install themselves the storage capacity to make their power despatchable to demand before they are allowed to connect to the grid. I wonder what they will say when they tell are told they have to do that. My guess is shit bricks.
Requiring storage will not be necessary. Where solar is abundant (e.g., Arizona), electricity will be much cheaper during the day than at night, which will create an incentive to store it for night-time use. Utilities, solar farms (if not owned by a utility), and businesses and homeowners with roof-top solar will all respond.
But how do you make all this happen? I would prefer a carbon tax to incentivize non-carbon energy development rather than have the political process inevitably substitute pork barrel handouts for objective economic and technical assessment of rival technologies.
Yup, though the failure described below isn't so much pork-barrel politics, it's the inefficiency of subsidizing the 'good' instead of taxing the bad, especially when reconciliation forces you to use a system that affects govt. revenues rather than a true Clean Energy Standard (which is less efficient than pricing carbon, but as much so).
"Carbon fees on energy-related carbon dioxide emissions remain a powerful tool to reduce emissions, and our analysis finds that carbon fees can achieve as much or more reductions than the proposed credits and CEPP can achieve on their own."
And that's if "We assume that gaming of the program is precluded." [follow link below to full report]
Which four energy economists found was not realistic:
"These differences in incentives open up a variety of channels for gaming and unintended consequences that could lead to large government expenditures without inducing large-scale substitution of new, clean energy supply for fossil-fueled generation."
I like the capitalist mindset you've been pushing Matt. Houses are too expensive? BUILD MORE HOUSES! Energy consumption is too expensive GENERATE MORE POWER! Supply AND demand are important
But the problem causing climate change is that fossil fuel prices don't account for negative externality (we're ruining our kids' lives). Solution to that is to tax carbon, which until energy is too cheap to meter means less power, not more.
"Let's replicate animal meat in labs so we can substitute for a ribeye or burger"
Why stop there? Let's engineer the *greatest steaks of all time*. Something nature could never produce.
There's this mindset where we're simply looking to substitute for the current, like we're caretakers of some ancient and storied estate where we can replace things as they break, but shouldn't actually *change* anything. Its a depressive and short-sighted way of looking at things, related to the kind of Zero Sum thinking that has everyone arguing over the existing pie instead of looking to expand the pie.
I think I'm missing something about this. Are there people who are arguing against having a lot of clean energy? My impression is that the impediments to this future are technological and fiscal, not political will or public opinion, so I'm not sure who this article is arguing against. The climate stuff that passes through secret congress is generally only the "give money to clean energy RND" stuff, right?
"Are there people who are arguing against having a lot of clean energy?"
It's quite easy to find environmentalists who implicitly (or even sometimes explicitly!) concede that their goal in reducing energy consumption is at least partially anti-capitalist/anti-consumerist in nature, not just about mitigating climate change.
Is it easy to find these people? The furtherest left climate change amelioration strategy in the mainstreamish conversation is the green new deal, which is definitely not a degrowther strategy. I didn't get the sense this article was written in response to 4 weirdos on twitter but maybe I'm wrong about that.
I half think this article was written in response to the reddit thread on Ezra Klein's last podcast with Holden Karnofsky. At times in that discussion it felt like Ezra even takes some of the anti-growth positions.
It's implicit in a lot of the "solar vs. nuclear" debates. Models that say we can meet our energy needs with just solar + wind + batteries require energy consumption to not explode. You'll see ideas about how we will need what are essentially grid wide smart thermostats which can cut down on a lot of energy usage at night when the sun isn't shining.
It's basically two different mindsets, "solar + wind + batteries" requires us to be careful with our energy usage at night/thru the winter.
The "let's build a ton of renewables and also lots of nuclear/geothermal/hydro/carbon capture" would let us have a ton of excess energy during the day/summer, and then not have to worry at night/winter.
The benefits of the second option is we can use the excess energy to do a bunch of cool shit.
I read it carefully. As I commented before (sort 'new first' and I'm the 3rd from the top), I understand how poor countries could use more energy and cheap electricity to fight climate change would be great obviously but the idea that the US has been on a 45-year energy diet is absurd (I also think we'll be doing great if we merely make energy cheap enough to end fossil fuel use in 30 years). Aside from those two uses of cheap energy, which do you think would be a big deal for you? Faster airplanes, better strawberries, lawns in Vegas, more rocketry?
Vertical agriculture and cultured meat would be two huge environmental wins that aren't possible today largely due to the cost of energy (especially true of vertical agriculture, cultured meat still needs some more R&D to "get there" but once it does energy costs will become the limiting factor for scale). Feed the world with orders of magnitude less water and land use.
Fascinating piece. I've been concerned for years, hell decades because I'm terribly old, that we as a nation have lost our narrative thread. We were plucky colonialists, then pioneers, then 'can-do' Yankees, then we 'saved the world' in WW2, rebuilt the world in the aftermath, faced down the Communists, etc... Different mythologies for different times. People need a story, and the story can't be all on the negative side - less of this, less of that, hair shirts all-around - there has to be a pay-off, a better world. There has to be a picture of what we can be, something to work for, not just something to avoid.
This is the first piece I've read that points a way to that positive narrative: not sitting in sweltering huts with the lights out and nibbling tofu, but a future of unlimited carbon-free energy, and all the coolness that would come from that. Scolding alone is not very effective. Scolding while holding up a picture of a bright future is much better. Optimism and hope.
Scolding doesn't work; pricing in the negative externality of fossil fuels does:
"Under our cost assumptions, we find that a $25/ton carbon price yields a 77% emission reduction relative to 2018 levels. The dramatic reduction comes from a large-scale closure of coal plants, investments in new wind and solar capacity, and from preservation of existing nuclear plants."
Wonderful article! This is the kind of tech/progress-positive content I subscribe for! So rare to see a mindset of energy abundance as good in these days of moralizing about not altering the environment.
I couldn‘t agree more and am glad to see Matt pushing this direction (techno optimism rather than general fatalism). I also really appreciated the (presumably intentional) casual triggering of 911 truthers with „Jet fuel, as we know, can melt steal beams“. Both substance and style in this post.
The only places I've seen it mentioned are conspiracy-theory types, so I can't give you a real reference. Maybe it's completely made up, I don't know. I don't really care enough to go down the rabbit hole, it just bugs me when people dismiss it blithely (it didn't need to melt, just soften!) without understanding the actual conspiracy theory (that something did melt it, which they argue was a controlled demolition).
I DID know that they softened rather than melted and had a vague understanding of what you just wrote, but did not know the details (at least anymore)!
Thought policing is like that musashi quote: “once you know the way broadly you see it in all things.”
Read taibbi’s article about how after two days of elation the media consensus is now to downplay the usefulness of mulnupiravir in case it gives ammunition to anti vaxers.
Thumb through Matt’s article and what do you know: talk about carbon capture is out of fashion because it might interfere with the Really Grave approach we all ought to have toward climate change.
It seems the Europeans have learned the lesson that it’s generally better to give it straight to the public better than we have. The “boy who cried wolf” effect is real.
"An important question, of course, is how you actually accomplish this. That’s going to have to wait for later posts."
Betcha 10 bucks the answer will involve loosening urban zoning regulations.
I am all for much higher federal funding of basic research on nuclear and geothermal energy as well as direct air capture so that we can stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible and start to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. I agree that it would be great for the world's poor to get electricity. But "America has been on a 45-year energy diet" doesn't sound right. During that period our families have gotten smaller but our homes (many of which are kept at a higher temperature in the winter than in the summer) have gotten larger and our cars have gotten bigger and much more powerful. Leaving aside the not insignificant number of models with 500hp or more, many ordinary SUVs now boast more than 300hp.
https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-trends-report#Highlight4
As one travels around America, the first thought is not that we need more ways to "substitute some form of power for human effort." Returning to automobiles, most rear hatches now have a motor to open and close them--unless you have a valet, you still have to be at the opening to put things in or take them out so it's just to avoid lifting your arm? Our elites work out on electrical machines to avoid the class-defining curse of our biggest public health problem, obesity. From the standpoint of actually living a long and healthy life, it seems we've already "improve[d] living standards" too much.
Which cool invention has not been adopted because “too bad the energy requirements are so high”? Not ever more powerful off-road vehicles. Supersonic travel? A huge loss for investment bankers who fly to Europe for a meeting (while generating frequent flier miles to enjoy for personal travel tax free). Who else cares if it takes 3 hours (or 2 in Virgin's plane that will hold up to 19 passengers) or 7 hours to fly NYC-London? We're now literally flying people into space just for the thrill of it (no, Bezos's rationalizations notwithstanding, it will never be energy efficient to manufacture goods there and no, we're not going to move there either).
But your mindset, that energy is too expensive now, despite being cheaper than in virtually anywhere else in the world, unfortunately drives our climate policy. The Clean Electricity Performance Program, one of the two most important climate policies currently in the reconciliation bill, has an explicit goal of subsidizing utilities enough to keep electricity rates from rising, even as they add more expensive renewables (if they weren't more expensive the problem would solve itself) to the mix. This is neither realistic (fossil fuel prices are surging, with natural gas trading at about $5/MMBtu in the US--up from $3 for most of this year--and over $20 in EU) nor desirable, since if we don't use price to reduce demand, we're not going to be able to build enough clean energy to satisfy all the buyers, or meet emission targets.
"Without a carbon price or other substantial climate policies, reductions fall short."
https://www.rff.org/news/press-releases/a-clean-electricity-performance-program-and-tax-credits-could-drive-emissions-reductionsbut-alone-are-not-enough-to-meet-us-climate-goals/
"These differences in incentives open up a variety of channels for gaming and unintended consequences that could lead to large government expenditures without inducing large-scale substitution of new, clean energy supply for fossil-fueled generation".
https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2021/10/04/the-cepp-is-not-a-clean-energy-standard/
Getting rid of the fuels that powered most improvements in living standards for almost the last three centuries within three decades is an incredibly difficult challenge. The chance that we will have carbon-free electricity too cheap to meter by then is extremely low--even if that's necessary to make the title of your last book anything but a nightmare.
This is genuinely the type of writing that I appreciate from Matt most of all (similar to one billion Americans). It's being actually imaginative about policy. Is what he's proposing quite difficult? Yes. But, it breaks out of current political paradigms that often seem like total dead ends. Much more energy is actually possible and a way to make the world better. So we should stop pretending stuff is just too expensive for energy's sake and instead just do it!
Maybe in some complex, emergent policy sense we have been on an energy diet, but I still think this is not the right way to look at things. Using fossil fuels has standard resource costs and costs of the harm coming from increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere. Mainly because of OPEC fossil fuels cost rose (granted a lot of that is monopoly though some is Hotelling pricing) and firm started finding ways to substitute capital for energy – greater efficiency.
Unfortunately, fossil fuel prices still do not include the cost of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere nor are processes to capture and store CO2 sufficiently profitable yet to avoid these increases. This is not inconsistent with the observation that for institutional reasons there are many places not enough energy even at CO2 cost inclusive costs is being used.
But I don’t see anyone really acting on a belief that we are using too much energy per se or is opposed to “more energy,” so what is the point of pointing out all the great things that could be done with cheap zero carbon energy. Even the de-growthers probably don’t oppose having cheap zero CO2 emitting energy they just don’t think it’s possible.
"I don’t want to say that electric planes are impossible (never say never!), but it’s a challenging problem because batteries are so damn heavy."
And, unlike gas tanks, they don't get any lighter as they empty. Fully depleted batteries weigh as much as fully charged ones.
"The problem is that desalination is incredibly energy intensive."
That's just one of the problems. The sludge they produce is just one more:
"More than 16,000 desalination plants scattered across the globe produce far more toxic sludge than fresh water, according to a first global assessment of the sector's industrial waste, published Monday."
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-brine-highlights-toxic-problem.html
"Whenever I write about building more housing in California, people start talking about water. But urban areas only account for about 10% of California’s water use. It’s not the people using all that water; it’s the farms."
Then we can talk about building more housing in California after we get electricity too cheap to meter.
I have a modest proposal to make since so many seem to think you can run an industrialized economy on wind and solar. I am told that batteries solve the intermittency problems of wind and solar. So it should be pretty straightforward to require solar arrays and wind power generators to actually install themselves the storage capacity to make their power despatchable to demand before they are allowed to connect to the grid. I wonder what they will say when they tell are told they have to do that. My guess is shit bricks.
Requiring storage will not be necessary. Where solar is abundant (e.g., Arizona), electricity will be much cheaper during the day than at night, which will create an incentive to store it for night-time use. Utilities, solar farms (if not owned by a utility), and businesses and homeowners with roof-top solar will all respond.
I find it weird that Western Sahara is listed as "No Data" on the map. Does Morocco not provide information for it?
But how do you make all this happen? I would prefer a carbon tax to incentivize non-carbon energy development rather than have the political process inevitably substitute pork barrel handouts for objective economic and technical assessment of rival technologies.
Yup, though the failure described below isn't so much pork-barrel politics, it's the inefficiency of subsidizing the 'good' instead of taxing the bad, especially when reconciliation forces you to use a system that affects govt. revenues rather than a true Clean Energy Standard (which is less efficient than pricing carbon, but as much so).
"Carbon fees on energy-related carbon dioxide emissions remain a powerful tool to reduce emissions, and our analysis finds that carbon fees can achieve as much or more reductions than the proposed credits and CEPP can achieve on their own."
And that's if "We assume that gaming of the program is precluded." [follow link below to full report]
https://www.rff.org/news/press-releases/a-clean-electricity-performance-program-and-tax-credits-could-drive-emissions-reductionsbut-alone-are-not-enough-to-meet-us-climate-goals/
Which four energy economists found was not realistic:
"These differences in incentives open up a variety of channels for gaming and unintended consequences that could lead to large government expenditures without inducing large-scale substitution of new, clean energy supply for fossil-fueled generation."
https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2021/10/04/the-cepp-is-not-a-clean-energy-standard/
I like the capitalist mindset you've been pushing Matt. Houses are too expensive? BUILD MORE HOUSES! Energy consumption is too expensive GENERATE MORE POWER! Supply AND demand are important
But the problem causing climate change is that fossil fuel prices don't account for negative externality (we're ruining our kids' lives). Solution to that is to tax carbon, which until energy is too cheap to meter means less power, not more.
Breath of fresh air here.
I think about this in other industries as well.
"Let's replicate animal meat in labs so we can substitute for a ribeye or burger"
Why stop there? Let's engineer the *greatest steaks of all time*. Something nature could never produce.
There's this mindset where we're simply looking to substitute for the current, like we're caretakers of some ancient and storied estate where we can replace things as they break, but shouldn't actually *change* anything. Its a depressive and short-sighted way of looking at things, related to the kind of Zero Sum thinking that has everyone arguing over the existing pie instead of looking to expand the pie.
More like this!
I think I'm missing something about this. Are there people who are arguing against having a lot of clean energy? My impression is that the impediments to this future are technological and fiscal, not political will or public opinion, so I'm not sure who this article is arguing against. The climate stuff that passes through secret congress is generally only the "give money to clean energy RND" stuff, right?
"Are there people who are arguing against having a lot of clean energy?"
It's quite easy to find environmentalists who implicitly (or even sometimes explicitly!) concede that their goal in reducing energy consumption is at least partially anti-capitalist/anti-consumerist in nature, not just about mitigating climate change.
Is it easy to find these people? The furtherest left climate change amelioration strategy in the mainstreamish conversation is the green new deal, which is definitely not a degrowther strategy. I didn't get the sense this article was written in response to 4 weirdos on twitter but maybe I'm wrong about that.
I half think this article was written in response to the reddit thread on Ezra Klein's last podcast with Holden Karnofsky. At times in that discussion it felt like Ezra even takes some of the anti-growth positions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ezraklein/comments/q1snkb/how_to_do_the_most_good/
It's implicit in a lot of the "solar vs. nuclear" debates. Models that say we can meet our energy needs with just solar + wind + batteries require energy consumption to not explode. You'll see ideas about how we will need what are essentially grid wide smart thermostats which can cut down on a lot of energy usage at night when the sun isn't shining.
It's basically two different mindsets, "solar + wind + batteries" requires us to be careful with our energy usage at night/thru the winter.
The "let's build a ton of renewables and also lots of nuclear/geothermal/hydro/carbon capture" would let us have a ton of excess energy during the day/summer, and then not have to worry at night/winter.
The benefits of the second option is we can use the excess energy to do a bunch of cool shit.
Curious what cool stuff you have not been able to do because energy is too expensive in America.
…the things discussed in the article above that you paid to read?
I read it carefully. As I commented before (sort 'new first' and I'm the 3rd from the top), I understand how poor countries could use more energy and cheap electricity to fight climate change would be great obviously but the idea that the US has been on a 45-year energy diet is absurd (I also think we'll be doing great if we merely make energy cheap enough to end fossil fuel use in 30 years). Aside from those two uses of cheap energy, which do you think would be a big deal for you? Faster airplanes, better strawberries, lawns in Vegas, more rocketry?
Vertical agriculture and cultured meat would be two huge environmental wins that aren't possible today largely due to the cost of energy (especially true of vertical agriculture, cultured meat still needs some more R&D to "get there" but once it does energy costs will become the limiting factor for scale). Feed the world with orders of magnitude less water and land use.
I don't think electricity access in Afghanistan is over 90 percent
Fascinating piece. I've been concerned for years, hell decades because I'm terribly old, that we as a nation have lost our narrative thread. We were plucky colonialists, then pioneers, then 'can-do' Yankees, then we 'saved the world' in WW2, rebuilt the world in the aftermath, faced down the Communists, etc... Different mythologies for different times. People need a story, and the story can't be all on the negative side - less of this, less of that, hair shirts all-around - there has to be a pay-off, a better world. There has to be a picture of what we can be, something to work for, not just something to avoid.
This is the first piece I've read that points a way to that positive narrative: not sitting in sweltering huts with the lights out and nibbling tofu, but a future of unlimited carbon-free energy, and all the coolness that would come from that. Scolding alone is not very effective. Scolding while holding up a picture of a bright future is much better. Optimism and hope.
You might like Saul Griffith: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2019/12/16/21024323/ezra-klein-show-saul-griffith-solve-climate-change
Scolding doesn't work; pricing in the negative externality of fossil fuels does:
"Under our cost assumptions, we find that a $25/ton carbon price yields a 77% emission reduction relative to 2018 levels. The dramatic reduction comes from a large-scale closure of coal plants, investments in new wind and solar capacity, and from preservation of existing nuclear plants."
http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2021-011.pdf
"Scolding while holding up a picture of a bright future is much better."
Agreed. Combine that with some delicious tofu recipes, and then you're really cooking.
Wonderful article! This is the kind of tech/progress-positive content I subscribe for! So rare to see a mindset of energy abundance as good in these days of moralizing about not altering the environment.
I couldn‘t agree more and am glad to see Matt pushing this direction (techno optimism rather than general fatalism). I also really appreciated the (presumably intentional) casual triggering of 911 truthers with „Jet fuel, as we know, can melt steal beams“. Both substance and style in this post.
Yeah, that was definitely unlocking a new trolling-level.
Then what caused the (reported) actually-liquid steel, which was seen by first responders and investigators?
The only places I've seen it mentioned are conspiracy-theory types, so I can't give you a real reference. Maybe it's completely made up, I don't know. I don't really care enough to go down the rabbit hole, it just bugs me when people dismiss it blithely (it didn't need to melt, just soften!) without understanding the actual conspiracy theory (that something did melt it, which they argue was a controlled demolition).
I DID know that they softened rather than melted and had a vague understanding of what you just wrote, but did not know the details (at least anymore)!
I‘m sure this thread is exactly what Matt had in mind when he wrote that line.