Renewables can be combustion from the renewable sources such as waste based diesels or heaters (like the burning of the olive pits for the heating, a financing project of the daughter affiliate in the maghreb of who I work for). This meeting certain technical criteria as set in the COP process and with the entities like the Green Climate Funds.
The 100% renewables push by the green Left I find to be harmful as it is pushing beyond where the actual technology that is economically / financially viable can support at this time, which is damaging as it gives reason to the (mostly american) anti-action factions.
It would be better to set a goal that is more lower but aggressive than to set a goal that is in fact completely unfeasible from the economic point of view.
If a target is the 100 per cent of the electrical production, this may be realistic for some circumstances and countries (if it is counting also the nuclear from the idea of the non carbon) but it is damaging as a goal if it is all the energy consumption as it sets ups for the failure or the pushing of the policies that will cause the serious backlashes.
When Kennedy proposed that Americans go to the Moon, it was beyond where the technology was economically / financial viable at that time. That’s why they are goals, something to strive toward. The change to renewables will not happen overnight, but it will happen a lot faster with some political will.
This plan would require an enormous central planning bureaucracy and would completely obliterate the quasi free market in energy. There would be no ability for the bureaucracy to assess alternatives through economic calculation. It would be a boondoggle on par with the Soviet disasters of the 20th century.
I could see something like his working in a comic book however.
Going to the moon was a big waste of resources that would seem puny in comparison to the mammoth waste of resources that would occur if the US govt centrally planned the energy production of the United States.
A discrete project under the full control of a single department of the government and the complete change in the energy source of a modern economy are not the things that are comparable.
It is like comparing making a cake at the home and setting up a large catering company, saying once you made the cake at home, so obviously you can do a catering for 10 thousand people.
So you’re taking her at her word by putting words into her mouth that she never said? This is why we can’t have nice arguments.
Non-renewable fuels are coal, oil, and gas. They come with known environmental issues that will add to the most overwhelmingly important crisis of the century, global climate change.
Any time you talk against renewables you must by default be advocating the continued use of coal, oil, and gas, and possibly the increased use of those fuels since the global market is ever expanding.
The U.S. government, BTW, is not going to ever centrally plan anything, so take that argument away unless you really do want to hear mocking laughter.
If that’s your position, come out and say it directly. If that’s not your position, then what the hell is it? Lay it out in so many words.
The UK is on target to get renewable energy to 30% by 2020.
40.7%: Gas-fired power stations
28.1%: Renewables
22.5%: Nuclear plants
1.3%: Coal-fired power stations
7.4%: Electricity imports
Big investments in huge fleets of wind turbines located some miles off shore. They are monsters but their construction out at sea neatly fits in with the steady decline in off-shore Oil and Gas business.
Part of the UK renewable energy comes from burning ‘biomass’ in the form of wood chips imported from the US and Canada. The biggest coal power generating plant in the UK is Drax at 3.9 GW and this quite a long way towards being converted from coal to biomass. The move away from coal has been very dramatic. In the UK the Coal industry was the source of some monumental political battles between the government and the miners in the 1980s which the government eventually won and that led to the steady and deliberate decline of the industry for political reasons.
Emerging technologies like grid batteries for storage and smart meters to attenuate demand could make the whole generation system a lot easier to manage. Energy demand is actually going down because of LED lighting. DC Grids are becoming viable. The auto business is moving towards EV. There are a lot of advances, everything to play for.
Most of the big economies have developed energy policies to move away from fossil fuels and towards renewables, preferably from low carbon sources. There is a lot to do both on the generation and the demand side. Each country has its own set of circumstances dictated by geography and existing infrastructure.
But many of the policies were developed following the Stern report in 2006, which was the wake up call that climate change would have an economic impact that had to be planned for long term.
On the contrary there are also vested interests that each country has to bear that may slow progress.
In the US that would be the Koch Brothers.
The US should be leading the way in renewable power generation, it has huge natural resources.
I never put words in her mouth. She said “energy”, this includes ICE autos right? Right. Thanks.
Fossil fuel technology is probably one of the top 10 greatest technological advancements in human history. Before they were developed, life was cold, brutal and short for nearly everyone. In Europe, humans hibernated through the winter as recently as the 19th century. Since then, billions use them to keep themselves warm and not many people die due to climate.
I favor a free market in energy production coupled with an adequate recognition of property rights in courts that will hold companies responsible for pollutants. This would do away with acceptable thresholds for pollutants and force a move to cleaner energy production without central planning.
For the cost of the futile and disastrous Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US could have put 6KW of solar power on every house in the country, generating over 720 TWH of electricity per year. The total US generating capacity is around 4,000 TWH.
Part of the problem here is that energy companies aren’t being held responsible for pollutants. At all. In fact, given various projections of the cost of climate change, if we were to hold energy companies responsible for their pollutants, they would essentially cease to exist. And one of the parties in the US is actively against holding them responsible in any way - y’know, the guys who think global warming is a hoax.
Also, ever heard the expression “a pinch of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? Why yes, punishing people who pollute once they’ve polluted is a possibility. It doesn’t actually solve the problem of pollution, though - it just means that people lose money on doing so.
But, as said, we’re nowhere near actually doing that. In europe, we’re a little closer, and in Germany, the tax on gas is about 6 bucks a gallon. Would you be in favor of that sort of tax on unleaded gasoline?
I’m not really in disagreement with you on the main point, but it is still “odd”. Odd just means unusual. How many countries are in the same category as Norway? Norway is unusual in this respect. And again, your cite is for electricity, not all sources of energy. So, expecting to get to 100% renewable energy is odd.
I’m not sure why you want to hold onto the idea that it’s not “odd”, but if you really do, I’ll agree to disagree. It’s a minor point and we’re in agreement on everything else.
Wait. Are we not doing it because it’s impossible or are we not doing it because we can’t figure out how to? You seem to be trying to make both arguments.
I’m just wondering about the correlation between people who claim to be taking this speech as negative and people who claim “You didn’t build that” meant Obama hates small-business owners.
That’s truly a shame. I agree the government is a poor custodian of society’s resources.
No. What I did was ask for some different interpretations. Some think it is hyperbole to be dismissed. Some think it is a laudable goal and others are posting their favorite plans.
I provided a strict interpretation of the text for a jumping off point.
Into the abyss of not waning to learn new things, as we can see from the previous and current posts.
Like for example, that government can help. Otherwise we should continue to worry about things like cholera or other bad things before there were water works and sewage systems in the big cities of developed nations nowadays.
Seems clear enough to me. We can’t be like Norway because, well, we aren’t like them. We can’t figure that out because, again, we aren’t Norway. It’s like asking why Norway isn’t like the US. Why doesn’t Norway have a big fleet or Hollywood? Aren’t they smart enough to figure out how to do that? We have them after all.
As for 100% renewable energy in the US, it’s not impossible. It’s just really unfeasible from a practical perspective. You’d need to get a bunch of nuclear power plants built as well as solar panels and wind used to it’s maximum. It’s a matter of scale, really…the US has built more power generation wrt renewables than Canada actually uses in it’s entirety…and I believe California generates more renewable energy than Norway produces in it’s entirety. Building 100% renewable energy generation in the US would simply cost more than we would be willing to spend, both economically and politically, at least if we are talking about on any sort of realistic time table. We aren’t going to built a few hundred nuclear power plants…or even a few dozen. Hell, we aren’t going to complete one any time soon. We aren’t going to build vast solar arrays in the deserts and smart grids to get the power to where it’s needed on a scale that will make solar more than a niche energy source…in America. We probably won’t be building solar panels on every house either. Just a few people, such as myself (bet you don’t have solar on your house, and if you do you are probably one of few in your neighborhood). Why? Because it costs too much for most people. We aren’t going to build vast wind farms because in many places that are tier 1 locations we have either already tapped it or NIMBY. We aren’t going to be building any new hydro-electric plants because we have tapped out most of the good places decades ago, and frankly environmentalists won’t allow it (rightfully IMHO). We could tap geo-thermal in some locations better than what we are, but we probably won’t and it wouldn’t make a huge difference.
What we will do is what we have been doing…slowly building renewables where it’s economically feasible. Folks like me will adopt solar for our homes and dream of Tesla Powerwalls when they can afford it. Other folks will slowly buy electric cars as the envelope on their capabilities continue to expand. Maybe one day the US will build a new fission power plant or two…we can always dream. But we aren’t going to suddenly jump from where we are wrt fossil fuels use to anything remotely like renewables taking their place because the US uses a staggering amount of energy, and that sort of capacity simply costs more than we are willing to pay…economically or politically. When I see the US clearing the way for nuclear power plants to be built in quantities capable of even keeping the current percentage of production stable, let alone increasing it, when I see the ability to economically store solar and wind available on the scales we’d need it, when I see other alternatives come forward…hell, when I see electric cars at a price point and even in the ballpark for capabilities close to current ICE/fossil fuel vehicles, well THEN I’ll think it’s possible. Until then 100%…or even 50%…is a pipe dream on any sort of timescale not measured in decades. Might as well hope for fusion or consider orbital microwave beamed power as feasible or even possible. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t build renewable energy…but then, we are doing that already, and it continues to inch up. At one time wind and solar were like 1% (and nuclear was almost 30%). While nuclear has fallen, the other two have stepped up (wind is 30% in California today).
Not in the quote you gave. The word energy doesn’t appear. You are putting words into her mouth. And they are nonsense.
So was the steam engine. Are you out there campaigning for them?
There you go with “central planning” again. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez never used those words either, did she?
Who introduced them into the thread? You. You ludicrously labeled a statement by engineers that 100% renewable power supplies are engineeringly feasible by 2050 as achievable only by central planning and then insinuated that A O-C was advocating that. There aren’t enough eyeroll smilies on the whole Internet for you.
Nope. You don’t get get away with it. Let’s have an honest debate about real things that people actually say in place of your straw men, fearmongering, ignorance, and poisoned wells.
