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Most of The World Could Be 100% Powered With Renewables by 2050

So technology doesn't advance? Already 10% of US power comes from wind and solar while in Europe its 30%.

Technology does advance, but there are often places where advancements stop until there is another new discovery. To have faith that we will be able to achieve something that does not yet have the required cost effective technology is a very silly notion.
 
I always wondered why if carbon is such an immediate problem then why not go nuclear.

Nuclear has its problems too. Primarily activists against it. With what we have learned over the years, safety truly is a concern, and new nuclear plants that would past the safety concerns of the majority would be ridiculously expensive. What would happen if we had one Fukushima Daiichi type incidents in the states? You can never 100% protect against all possibilities of disaster.

Myself, I would like to see nuclear developed better, but I don't see it being the solution either without spending significantly more on electricity. Right now, natural gas and continued use of coal is our best cost effective solution.
 
You also have positive examples from all around the world to be inspired and learn from. That Scotland got 68 percent of its electricity from renewable in 2017.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...scotland-climate-change-oil-gas-a8283166.html

While Denmark in the same year got 43 percent of their electricity from wind power.

https://www.thelocal.dk/20180111/denmark-set-wind-power-record-in-2017-ministry

While India is planning to get 60 nearly percent of their electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2027.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/21/india-renewable-energy-paris-climate-summit-target

Some places have stable enough minimum wind levels to count on. Do you think that applies across the globe?

Natural resources vary by location. Wind and solar are no exception to that.
 
In the California Chevron trial it is the defense which is citing the IPCC. Why? Because of the consistent acknowledgements of uncertainty.

IT's so funny that the IPCC et. al. claim so many uncertainties, yet are 95% confident in their modelling. I'm sure the laws of evidence in court must favor Chevron's usage of such documented data.

The stench of the IPCC will be put in public record now!
 
IT's so funny that the IPCC et. al. claim so many uncertainties, yet are 95% confident in their modelling. I'm sure the laws of evidence in court must favor Chevron's usage of such documented data.

The stench of the IPCC will be put in public record now!

Multiple ironies.
 
Some places have stable enough minimum wind levels to count on. Do you think that applies across the globe?

Natural resources vary by location. Wind and solar are no exception to that.

Given that the majority of human industry is in the temperate lands wind is generally avilible enough should a decent method of harnessing be developed.
 
Technology does advance, but there are often places where advancements stop until there is another new discovery. To have faith that we will be able to achieve something that does not yet have the required cost effective technology is a very silly notion.

Its not faith, merely a projection. When I see continual advancement, then I can project more advancement in the future unless the trend stops. E.g. computer technology.
 
Its not faith, merely a projection. When I see continual advancement, then I can project more advancement in the future unless the trend stops. E.g. computer technology.

Yes, and why do trends stop?

How can we expect the trend for wind and solar to continue, without cost effective storage for when the wind isn't strong, and the sun is down?
 
Yes, and why do trends stop?

How can we expect the trend for wind and solar to continue, without cost effective storage for when the wind isn't strong, and the sun is down?

There is no sign that our battery technology is going to stagnate.
 
Renewables Fail: fossil fuels, coal, same dominance of our energy mix as 20 years ago


Despite 20 years of non-stop propaganda and belligerent namecalling, strangely, expert green policies have achieved exactly nothing of what they said they aimed for. Coal provided 38% of our power in 1998 and it is still the same 38% in 2017. The non-fossil fuel sector has actually declined slightly as nukes decrease.
We spent billions doing exactly what was asked. Perhaps following the advice of people who think the debate is over and “denier” is a scientific term might not be the best national energy policy?
Fuel shares in global power generation for the last 20 years | BP Energy Review, 2018.
Long-term dominance of fossil fuels unchallenged

Graham Lloyd, The Australian
Global demand for coal and gas to generate electricity was back on the rise last year …
Most striking had been the failure of renewable energy to make an impact on the fossil fuels share of power generation, BP group chief economist Spencer Dale said.
“Despite the extraordinary (global) growth in renewables in recent years, and the huge policy efforts to encourage a shift away from coal into cleaner, lower carbon fuels, there has been almost no improvement in the power sector fuel mix over the past 20 years,” he said.
The share of coal in the power sector in 1998 was 38 per cent, *exactly the same as 2017.
“The share of non-fossil fuel in 2017 is actually a little lower than it was 20 years ago, as the growth of renewables hasn’t offset the *declining share of nuclear,” *Mr Dale said.
h/t Pat.
Engineers and other skeptics predicted this would happen. At this point, honest Greens who care about CO2 emissions would be asking for help. Since they aren’t, we can assume the expert green policies are achieving what the Greens want, they just aren’t being honest.
If renewables were cheap and reliable the developing world would be rushing to follow the west. The Chinese are not stupid, they sign pacts to do nothing while they use coal and nukes. They tried solar, but realized it’s toxic, costs more and are cutting subsidies.
Make no mistake, renewables policies are achieving “Green” aims

Policies pretending to reduce CO2 have shrunk the role of the free market, turned a fifth of all homes in Australia into subsidized generators, and increased government control of our energy as a larger sector becomes dependent on handouts. They’ve demonized independent energy producers, created a crisis and are using that crisis to blame “privatization” and the free market. They’ve polluted the concept of a free market to the point where people came to think that a fake market where the government entirely and artificially fixed supply and demand was “free”. They’ve polluted the word pollution
If the Greens/Labor really cared about CO2 they’d be doing something different. . . .

BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2018.
 
[h=1]EU Climate Hypocrites Slash Renewable Funding Ahead of Brexit[/h]Guest essay by Eric Worrall While European leaders noisily parade their commitment to green issues on the world stage, behind the scenes the EU has quietly slashed funding for renewables, to make up the deficit which will occur when Britain leaves the EU. Eastern Europe turns to private sector as EU clean energy budget cut…
 
In the California Chevron trial it is the defense which is citing the IPCC. Why? Because of the consistent acknowledgements of uncertainty.

This is what the companies on trial have to say about climate change.

BP

"The 2015 Paris Agreement set expectations around the world for the transition to a low carbon future. BP understands the urgency and supports the aim of the agreement. And, we are dedicated to being part of the solution."

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/sustainability/climate-change/a-low-carbon-future.html

Chevron

"At Chevron, we believe that managing climate change risks is an important element of our strategic focus to return superior value to stockholders. Although we cannot forecast exactly what will happen in the future, we believe Chevron’s governance, risk management and strategy processes are sufficient to mitigate the risks and capture opportunities associated with climate change. Throughout our long history, we have shown our resilience through our ability to adapt to changing conditions in the marketplace, and we will continue to adjust our business as needed to effectively and proactively manage climate change risks."


https://www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility/climate-change

Exxon Mobile

"The risk of climate change is clear and the risk warrants action. Increasing carbon emissions in the atmosphere are having a warming effect. There is a broad scientific and policy consensus that action must be taken to further quantify and assess the risks."


Our position | ExxonMobil

Shell

"We have recognised the importance of the climate challenge for a long time now, and we share our knowledge, experience and understanding of the energy system with policymakers.

Government policy should provide incentives for investment, balancing environmental objectives and economic growth, encouraging a range of solutions that include oil, gas and renewables. Meaningful government-led carbon pricing mechanisms are also needed, along with carbon capture and storage (CCS), if society is to achieve its climate goals."


https://www.shell.com/sustainabilit...ns/climate-change-public-policy-position.html

That even the fossil fuel companies have to acknowledge the need for action on climate change.
 
Some places have stable enough minimum wind levels to count on. Do you think that applies across the globe?

Natural resources vary by location. Wind and solar are no exception to that.

USA and many other places have advantage compared to Denmark that got 43 percent of their electricity from wind power in 2017. For example, that USA and many other countries are less densely populated than Denmark so there can be more suitable places for wind power. Contiguous United States and most of the countries in the world are closer to the equator compared to Denmark leading to greater opportunities for solar power including concentrated solar power with thermal storage that can produce electricity on demand. USA and many other countries also have hydropower that can have a regulatory function compared to Denmark that doesn’t have any hydropower.
 
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Renewables Fail: fossil fuels, coal, same dominance of our energy mix as 20 years ago


Despite 20 years of non-stop propaganda and belligerent namecalling, strangely, expert green policies have achieved exactly nothing of what they said they aimed for. Coal provided 38% of our power in 1998 and it is still the same 38% in 2017. The non-fossil fuel sector has actually declined slightly as nukes decrease.
We spent billions doing exactly what was asked. Perhaps following the advice of people who think the debate is over and “denier” is a scientific term might not be the best national energy policy?
Fuel shares in global power generation for the last 20 years | BP Energy Review, 2018.
Long-term dominance of fossil fuels unchallenged


Jack Hays, I shortened your post because it became over the limit with my reply.

Your graph shows a steady increase of renewable energy while coal continue to drop during the last couple of year, a trend that will continue.

That for example that renewable energy are already starting to become cheaper than coal in India.

"Renewable energy costs have fallen 50% in two years, and are forecast to continue dropping apace. New wind and solar is now 20% cheaper than existing coal-fired generation’s average wholesale power price, and 65% of India’s coal power generation is being sold at higher rates than new renewable energy bids in competitive power auctions.

The tipping point may have been 2016-2017, when renewable energy installations surpassed coal for the first time, adding twice the capacity. Coal plants nationwide already only run around half of the time, nearly every Indian coal plant violates the country’s new air pollution standard, and India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has proposed closing nearly 50 GW of coal capacity by 2027. Retrofitting the plants that remains open will each cost millions to achieve compliance, so running already uneconomic plants will get more expensive as plants run less often and generate less profit."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/energy...ts-more-than-new-wind-and-solar/#3f9b309e4c0f

While EU have raised its renewable energy targets to that 32 percent of all energy will be from renewables by 2030.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/14/eu-raises-renewable-energy-targets-to-32-by-2030

That even in USA with their very pro coal Trump administration the coal companies have a pessimistic view of the future of coal.

"Many power generators contacted said Trump’s June 1 announcement hasn’t altered their plans to retire old units even as the administration dangles the prospect of using emergency powers to force grid operators to buy power from struggling plants.

“I will tell you it is not a matter of if we are going to retire our coal fleet in this nation, it’s just a matter of when,” Ben Fowke, Xcel Energy Inc.’s chief executive officer, said June 6 at a utility trade group conference. The company announced later that day that it would retire two coal-fired units in Colorado and add thousands of megawatts of capacity from renewable power and natural gas.

That trend has been underway for years. Since 2010, nearly 40 percent of the capacity of the nation’s fleet of coal-fired power plants has either been shut down or designated for closure, according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade-group that represents coal-fired utilities and mining companies such as Peabody Energy Corp., and Murray Energy Corp."


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...shutting-despite-trump-s-order-to-rescue-them
 
Interesting study about how circular economy can contribute to halving EU's C02 emissions from heavy industries.

"So far, discussions of industry emissions have focussed on the supply side: reducing the emissions from the production of steel, cement, chemicals, etc. Far less attention has been given to the demand side: how a more circular economy could reduce emissions through better use and reuse of the materials that already exist in the economy. This study aims to bridge that gap. It explores a broad range of opportunities for the four largest materials in terms of emissions (steel, plastics, aluminium and cement) and two large use segments for these materials (passenger cars and buildings).

The key conclusion is that a more circular economy can make deep cuts to emissions from heavy industry: in an ambitious scenario, as much as 296 million tonnes CO2 per year in the EU by 2050, out of 530 in total – and some 3.6 billion tonnes per year globally. Demand-side measures thus can take us more than halfway to net-zero emissions from EU industry, and hold as much promise as those on the supply side. Moreover, they are often economically attractive."

https://media.sitra.fi/2018/06/1213...y-a-powerful-force-for-climate-mitigation.pdf
 
By 2050 most of the world could be 100% powered with renewable energy while at the same lead to a net increase of 24 million new jobs, according to a new 2050 roadmap.



https://www.sciencealert.com/most-of-the-world-could-be-100-powered-by-renewables-by-2050

Direct link to the study: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CountriesWWS.pdf

So basically, it's going to take 50M jobs to do the work of 30M jobs. Sounds expensive. I don't actually buy the job projections, though.
 
Lots of things could happen if they were wanted "badly enough" but as demand for fossil fuels falls so does their cost because their supply exists. IMHO, short of a huge tax (effective ban?) on these current fossil fuels it is extremely unlikely to happen.

I'll be laughing pretty hard when much of the world, especially the EU, spends a ton of money on solar and wind energy and then the USA solves energy by inventing nuclear fusion power plants before the rest of the world even gets their renewable energy plan fully implemented.
 
This is what the companies on trial have to say about climate change.

BP

"The 2015 Paris Agreement set expectations around the world for the transition to a low carbon future. BP understands the urgency and supports the aim of the agreement. And, we are dedicated to being part of the solution."

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/sustainability/climate-change/a-low-carbon-future.html

Chevron

"At Chevron, we believe that managing climate change risks is an important element of our strategic focus to return superior value to stockholders. Although we cannot forecast exactly what will happen in the future, we believe Chevron’s governance, risk management and strategy processes are sufficient to mitigate the risks and capture opportunities associated with climate change. Throughout our long history, we have shown our resilience through our ability to adapt to changing conditions in the marketplace, and we will continue to adjust our business as needed to effectively and proactively manage climate change risks."


https://www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility/climate-change

Exxon Mobile

"The risk of climate change is clear and the risk warrants action. Increasing carbon emissions in the atmosphere are having a warming effect. There is a broad scientific and policy consensus that action must be taken to further quantify and assess the risks."


Our position | ExxonMobil

Shell

"We have recognised the importance of the climate challenge for a long time now, and we share our knowledge, experience and understanding of the energy system with policymakers.

Government policy should provide incentives for investment, balancing environmental objectives and economic growth, encouraging a range of solutions that include oil, gas and renewables. Meaningful government-led carbon pricing mechanisms are also needed, along with carbon capture and storage (CCS), if society is to achieve its climate goals."


https://www.shell.com/sustainabilit...ns/climate-change-public-policy-position.html

That even the fossil fuel companies have to acknowledge the need for action on climate change.

It is excellent legal strategy.
 
Jack Hays, I shortened your post because it became over the limit with my reply.

Your graph shows a steady increase of renewable energy while coal continue to drop during the last couple of year, a trend that will continue.

That for example that renewable energy are already starting to become cheaper than coal in India.

"Renewable energy costs have fallen 50% in two years, and are forecast to continue dropping apace. New wind and solar is now 20% cheaper than existing coal-fired generation’s average wholesale power price, and 65% of India’s coal power generation is being sold at higher rates than new renewable energy bids in competitive power auctions.

The tipping point may have been 2016-2017, when renewable energy installations surpassed coal for the first time, adding twice the capacity. Coal plants nationwide already only run around half of the time, nearly every Indian coal plant violates the country’s new air pollution standard, and India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has proposed closing nearly 50 GW of coal capacity by 2027. Retrofitting the plants that remains open will each cost millions to achieve compliance, so running already uneconomic plants will get more expensive as plants run less often and generate less profit."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/energy...ts-more-than-new-wind-and-solar/#3f9b309e4c0f

While EU have raised its renewable energy targets to that 32 percent of all energy will be from renewables by 2030.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/14/eu-raises-renewable-energy-targets-to-32-by-2030

That even in USA with their very pro coal Trump administration the coal companies have a pessimistic view of the future of coal.

"Many power generators contacted said Trump’s June 1 announcement hasn’t altered their plans to retire old units even as the administration dangles the prospect of using emergency powers to force grid operators to buy power from struggling plants.

“I will tell you it is not a matter of if we are going to retire our coal fleet in this nation, it’s just a matter of when,” Ben Fowke, Xcel Energy Inc.’s chief executive officer, said June 6 at a utility trade group conference. The company announced later that day that it would retire two coal-fired units in Colorado and add thousands of megawatts of capacity from renewable power and natural gas.

That trend has been underway for years. Since 2010, nearly 40 percent of the capacity of the nation’s fleet of coal-fired power plants has either been shut down or designated for closure, according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade-group that represents coal-fired utilities and mining companies such as Peabody Energy Corp., and Murray Energy Corp."


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...shutting-despite-trump-s-order-to-rescue-them

And yet, coal today provides the same percentage of our power as twenty years ago.
 
So basically, it's going to take 50M jobs to do the work of 30M jobs. Sounds expensive. I don't actually buy the job projections, though.

Labor costs of just one of many costs of a products. So, more jobs don’t have to mean higher costs. There renewable energy already is starting to out compete fossil fuels.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...zed-by-plunge-in-cost-of-renewables-bnef-says

Also, with renewables you don’t have to pay for costly wars and military bases in the Middle East. That you have had to do to protect the flow of cheap oil.
 
And yet, coal today provides the same percentage of our power as twenty years ago.

Yes, sadly it took too long time to act on climate change. While thankfully you are now starting to see needed action and during the last couple of years you have seen a decline in coal and a steady increase in renewables.

Also, that 157 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity were added worldwide in 2017 more than double than the 70 GW of net new capacity from fossil fuels in the same year.

New renewable energy capacity double fossil fuel growth in record-breaking 2017: UN report - Science News - ABC News
 
Yes, sadly it took too long time to act on climate change. While thankfully you are now starting to see needed action and during the last couple of years you have seen a decline in coal and a steady increase in renewables.

Also, that 157 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity were added worldwide in 2017 more than double than the 70 GW of net new capacity from fossil fuels in the same year.

New renewable energy capacity double fossil fuel growth in record-breaking 2017: UN report - Science News - ABC News

But the 70GW of fossil fuel power works when you want it.

The other stuff is so intermittant that it is almost counter productive.
 
Labor costs of just one of many costs of a products. So, more jobs don’t have to mean higher costs. There renewable energy already is starting to out compete fossil fuels.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...zed-by-plunge-in-cost-of-renewables-bnef-says

Also, with renewables you don’t have to pay for costly wars and military bases in the Middle East. That you have had to do to protect the flow of cheap oil.

Renewables are just starting to become viable. They are not outcompeting fossil fuels in any major, natural way. Renewables often get subsidies, too. If renewables outcompete fossil fuels that's great! I'm actually a big fan of solar energy, not such a big fan of wind energy. We don't have to pick a single source of energy, we can have a diversity of energy sources.

I also disagree that we won't have to pay for costly bases in the Middle East if we don't rely on oil. We still have interests around the world to protect, and that means having a presence in every part of the world. This is not just for resources, but having the ability to strike anywhere at any time militarily, as well as having the ability to spread culture, react to humanitarian issues, etc.
 
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