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Study: Global Warming Solvable If Fossil Fuel Subsidies Given To Clean Energy
An anonymous reader writes A research team at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, says it has studied how much it would cost for governments to stick to their worldwide global warming goal. They've concluded that for "a 70 per cent chance of keeping below 2 degrees Celsius, the investment will have to rise to $1.2 trillion a year." Where to get that money? The researchers say that "global investment in energy is already $1 trillion a year and rising" with more than half going to fossil fuel energy. If those subsidies were spent on renewable energy instead, the researchers hypothesize that "global warming would be close to being solved."
. . .the government gets out of the re-distribution business?
That if you REALLY want to eliminate fossil fuel usage, the big spending is going to have to be on dams and nuclear reactors.
Watch any video of Amory Lovins and wonder why he isn't in charge of energy in the USA.
TFA is loonie. According to its own data, the "fossil fuel subsidies" it is hoping to redirect are those that third-world OPEC type countries currently give to their own populations in the form of supercheap oil. Withholding that money would be regime suicide (plus possibly population genocide).
Title refers to Global Warming. I thought it was changed to Climate Change to make it a little more plausible after the coldest winter in anyone's memory? I don't understand why we're trying so desperately to solve a something that is a natural cycle of nature. It's masterful how the 'clean energy' folks keep making hail mary passes to go after piles of cash. My greatest fear is that one of these times, through sheer and blind luck, they're going to catch one. It's fucking criminal; I say take all the bank CEO's and global warming scientists and throw them in cells right alongside of Bernie Madoff - or better yet, send them to Iraq with 'Jesus Loves You' sandwich boards on. What's going to happen when we 'solve' the global warming problem that never existed, by artificially cooling Earth, and then the trend swings the other way? Snowball Earth? Fuck, leave things along. Please. Just leave them alone for once. And stop trying to reach into my pocket and grab my wallet, or I'll break your hand.
Energy is a lot like roads an bridges in the way it promotes prosperity by its very existence. One can imagine a world where energy does not need military protection or special tax treatment, but it would be a world where national rivalries in power and economics are much subdues compared to the present. We're not there yet, but a rapid transition to renewable energy could probably get us closer more than just about any other move. Let's make the switch.
Maybe it could theoretically work (or maybe not), but it's irrelevant because almost impossible to do.
The problem is: how do you take away money (subsidies) from those who have a lot of it (partly precisely from subsidies)?
They can spend a lot for lobbying and public relations in general. The industries which would need to receive these subsidies don't have comparable means for their campaigns, and in part these industries don't even exist yet, because the money is lacking to develop them.
In social movements, many poor can force a few rich to pay more.
But industries are different. How do a few poor convince that the money of many very rich industries (which also feed many workers) should go to them?
Well we have known this for a long long time. Problem is how do we get the government to stop subsidizing fossil fuel?
Voting against the tea party nutcases might be a good start. They are they ones forcing these subsidies: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/29/...
Land Area that is needed to power the whole world with solar panels using existing technology: http://www.gembapantarei.com/s...
Well ... people have a "green" conscious but a non-green wallet. Bumping up the cost of fuel will mean reduction in their standard of living. That may not go down well.
I'm absolutely sure that you can reduce emissions that way. But at what cost?
Power plants are not being built for fun, they actually serve a purpose, namely that of generating electricity in places that need electricity. In the world today, that happens mainly in places where electricity is scarce and absolutely needed to get out of poverty. It so happens to be the case that fossil power plants are much less expensive on a per-kWh basis and far more reliable than wind and solar. Hydro is a serious competitor but it doesn't matter where you want to build a hydrodam, there will always be greenpeace or some other transnational pseudo-environmental outfit that will organize protests for whatever madeup reason without any sort of constructive suggestions or criticism at all. (To pick the most recent example, Chile could have replaced some 20% of electricity generation with hydro, but protests against the dam prevented it.)
What happens when you invest the money that currently goes to fossil power plants into "renewables" like solar or wind? (Which are the only ones left for the most part.) You'll have less power. You'll have a completely unreliable supply of power. Sure that "solves" the problem, but only if you pretent that electricity really isn't necessary. Which is what our so-called enviromentalists tend to think, because they live in countries where there has never been such a problem.
TFA sez this:
" ... global investment in energy is already $1 trillion a year and rising with more than half going to fossil fuel energy. If those subsidies were spent on renewable energy instead, the researchers hypothesize that "global warming would be close to being solved ..."
Let's look at hot the real world operates ...
China subsidizes its solar panel companies - making the solar panels cheap, - and according to the researchers of the TFA, that is a good thing, right ?
Nope !
The rest of the world cried foul, and start slapping taxes on solar panels which came from China
Why is that ?
Well ... the main business of _any_ government on earth is not to save the Earth. Their main business is POLITICS and because of that, they simply can ***NOT*** let cheap solar panels to come into their country, even if their own country does not produce any solar panel at all
That's the real world to you, researchers !
Suppose you had a bank account with $20,000,000,000,000 (20 trillion) in it. That's so much wealth that it can be considered infinite for all practical purposes. There is no monarchy, but with that much resources in your name, you are practically king for life, your children are king for life, your children's children are king for life.
Then one day some hippies tell you that you shouldn't withdraw your money from this bank because it will destroy the lives of billions of people. They're saying we need to invest in renewable energy so save ourselves. So you face a dillema:
A. Keep your infinite bank account, and be the king of a world where billions of people are doomed.
B. Give up your infinite bank account, and be a nobody in a world where everyone is much better off.
What do you choose? What do they choose? Keep in mind, most of those who have this infinite bank account are not the compassionate kind of people.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-G...
http://dailysignal.com/2012/10...
That last link says global fossil fuels subsidies are $540B, less than half the necessary amount they've calculated. The headline is plainly wrong. They're saying we'd have to take all the money currently spent developing fossil fuels (including in the private sector), along with an additional $200B/year to do this.
Eliminate all subsidies. Why create a real problem, as the result of an imagined one.
Global warming is a natural phenomena, connected to Sun and Earth cycles.
Burning fossil fuels do NOT make it worse.
Nor there is anything we can do to make it lighter.
The only thing that happens is great tremendous THEFT of peoples money, that are mostly wasted by traitors.
And economic stagnation due to high prices of fuel and energy (in EU 4 times more expensive than they should be).
It's time to hang these political and scientific traitors.
Hmm, let us take a look at this LIMITS-Paper...
Who pays these subsidies and who receives it:
"Oil-exporting countries were responsible for approximately two-thirds of total fossil subsidies, while greater than 95% of all direct subsidies occurred in developing countries."
So the citizens of oil-exporting countries and the poorest of the world should pay more for energy so that the green sector can make more money?
I'm all for ending fossil fuel subsidies. While we're at it, we should also end the other major subsidy related to carbon emissions: agricultural subsidies.
But that won't reduce carbon emissions appreciably, even if we took all that money and handed it to "green energy companies" on a silver platter.
Hydroelectric is good, in the places where it makes sense such as Niagara Falls.
To provide for all of US energy needs would require 20,000 dams, each with the capacity of Hoover dam. Because Hoover was located in one of the best places possible, it flooded only 100 square miles. We' e already dammed most of the best spots, so new dams would be in less ideal places.
The 20,000 dams required would flood 80% of the continental US, so that's probably not a solution. There may be a few places remaining to add a little bit more hydro. However, we should keep in mind hydro is responsible for all of the catastrophic accidents that kill thousands of people. See for example Banqiao. Also, the MAIN reason to avoid fossil fuels is greenhouse gases, and hydro produces about the same amount of greenhouse gases, so it doesn't really help with the primary goal. International Rivers has some good information about that if you're interested.
Nuclear makes a lot of sense, with the one main drawback being a concern about safety. A worst-case nuclear accident could, in theory, kill a lot of people. On the other hand, hydro and coal actually DO kill thousands of people. Solar electric doesn't kill people, but it doesn't produce reliable electricity either, so it's only indirectly dangerous - wasting time and money playing with solar ensures that we remain stuck with coal.
What does 'solvable' mean? Woodstock mean temperature 1968? These hippies don't even know what they're selling. Give subsidies to the politically connected? I'd rather burn by beloved hydrocarbon fuels. In the last 6 years I have made a fortune investing in companies that are out of favor. Big oil, big pharma, genetically modified agribusiness. It look like my run of luck will continue.
an ill wind that blows no good
Doesn't Robin Hood Theory go for bad politics as well as bad energy? And would not be limited to only one area of life.
Take the money from those lousy, good for nothing, bad politicians in office, and all kinds of good can be done!
Why limit yourselves to only fixing energy? Get those ignorant, self-serving, A#%holes out of office! The rest will fall into line at the same time.
We need to start by ending ALL money spent by the governments that supports or benefits the coal industry (direct subsidies, governments building rail lines, ports etc to benefit the coal industry, building new coal fired power stations instead of building better alternatives etc)
And no I dont care if you loose your job because no-one wants the coal your mine (or mining town) produces anymore, much like I dont care that people no longer want asbestos or buggy whips or any other obsolete technology.
Today the countries of the "Developing World" crying for money were in the centuries preceding the fist A.D. the "Developed World" of the day. At those time the economies of the Developed World in Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe were based on "renewable" forms of energy such as solar, water and wind. Then the economic collapse occurred and the Developed World's cities and institutions all but failed as the Roman Optimum Period drew to a close. The Little Ice Age changed building standards and forced those of the day to find and utilize other fuel sources for energy after deforesting much of Europe, Asia and the Americas. In the day the "super" fuel coal was discovered. Gradually over the centuries the peoples engineered new ways to burn coal to greater effect. Then after the re-discoveries of electricity and magnetism and the manufacturing of conducting wire, coal burning chambers were mated to supply heat to steam engines which turned large circular magnets to produce alternating current and Paris became the 'City of Light'. Prosperity flourished except for those countries of the former Developed World who held to their cherished beliefs that solar, water and wind were all that were needed and their economies remained in stagnation for centuries.
Lets start with SHOW US THE NUMBERS AND YOUR ANALYSIS METHOD
too many 'studies' have been quoted by leftists and others which were political hogwash contrived to meet an agenda.
Make sure such a report include accurate impact data on the economy this planned changes are applied to.
If Country As economy is wrecked and Country Bs never bothers to change their policies and cancels/removed the benefits then what good is this plan the study proposes.
The problem is not that fossil fuels gets subsidies. The problem is that there are subsidies. Don't shift the subsidies and give them to someone else. It is time to end all subsidies.
No fossil fuel subsidies -> gasoline will rise to it's natural price of about $16/gallon, electric prices will rise and there will be more interest in renewables and efficiency.
No farm subsidies -> food prices will rise for the worst foods but less so for better foods and more local foods.
No mortgage deduction (a subsidy) -> cost of loans will go up but home prices will actually drop.
While we're at it, pay politicians only minimum wage and change taxation to a simple flat income tax over the poverty x 150% and institute a national sales tax of 7%, local real estate taxes only on buildings (not land) and virtually all other taxes should be eliminated. Then keep it that way for the next 100 years. Make things predictable.
They don't have data on the US, and Western Europe. They have China, but ~$13 billion goes to oil, and ~$3.3 billion goes to coal. So, yeah. The big industrialized, consuming nations can change squat. This report is worthless to people in that big industrialized, consuming nations.
In summary, if you give Al Gore subsidies, he will fix global warming.
What a farce.
Does your employer the redirector for advertisers also have nuclear power companies as customers ray?
You're no expert on this subject. You're an advertiser and no expert there either http://it.slashdot.org/comment... since you made gigantic technical mistakes and ran from backing up your own erroneous words here also raymorris http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
It's ALREADY solved! There's been no warming for 20 years, and now there's a slight cooling!
Next problem?
... global warming'...
But I'm amazed these retards actually used the phrase 'global warming', since the new accepted LIE is to use the deliberately misleading phrase 'climate change', which is MEANT to mean "catastropic man-made global warming', and is IMPLIED every time they use it...
Just go to www.climatedepot.com and start reading the truth about this ridiculous 'global warming' scam. These 'scientists' are just shysters in it for the money, and my, doesn't it show.
I have absolutely no power of a large corporation. They're so big I can't boycott them without basically dropping off the grid, in which case I cease to matter anyway. I would need to be a billionaire to have any say in them as an individual.
At least with the Gov't I have a chance, however small. It's happened before. In the 50s, 60s and 70s we saw a massive decline in the power of the aristocracy (fyi, America has an aristocracy, they just don't like to talk about themselves). We saw huge decreases in wealth inequality. Most of this was fueled by Unions along with a bit of the aristocracy turning on itself (Frank Roosevelt). Still, it's _possible_, however unlikely.
And what's the worst that can happend? At the end of the day it doesn't make any difference to me if the jack boot in my neck is a public or private jack boot. Might as well take a chance with Gov't.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
that the AGW hypothesis is all about money? I doubt it.
And yet if you asked 100 astrophysicists if the science of gravity is settled enough to precisely place an orbiter on a planet 35 million miles away, 97 would say yes and 3 would punch you in the face for being an idiot.
I though these days if you mentioned glowball waaming,
you must be an idiot.
Glow ball warmies deny putting the pseudo back into science.
A child in the park says to his father, an economist, "look dad, there's a twenty under that bench!" Dad replied, "Nonsense, son, if there were a twenty there, someone would have picked it up!"
The green energy industry is getting billions if not trillions of dollars in subsidies all over the planet. They get 10x more than the coal industry. Yet they need more money still? The reason they are running out of money is because the technologies they front are not efficient and are cash traps for slush funds for more "green" propoganda.
Be more specific with what you are proposing.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/06/satellites-show-no-global-warming-for-17-years-5-months/
The crux of it is this in your statement; "...settled enough". There are still many things we do not fully understand about gravity and your 97 astrophysicists would understand they do not have all the answers.
The three remaining astrophysicists would get run over at the next zebra crossing next to the nearest black hole. Which would serve them right for being an asshats to think they have all the answers.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
It's good to see Al has work, even if it is in Austria.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
What is the problem we are solving again?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Surely that is the most sustainable option?
A worst case nuclear accident would kill a lot of people, assuming we continue to build nuclear power plants like we have in the 1950s. If we build modern nuclear power plants then a worst case nuclear accident would be no worse than that of a coal plant and certainly less than that of a hydro electric failure.
We need to build waste annihilating molten salt reactors. We get cheap and safe power while burning up the stockpiled nuclear "waste" from the solid fuel plants.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
What do people call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.
Alternative energy does not work because if it did we would not call it alternative energy any more. We've been subsidizing wind and solar for decades, at some point we have to make it sink or swim on its own.
I've been told many times by people here on Slashdot on how wind and solar are as cheap as anything else. If that is true then why does it need a subsidy any more? People would be building out wind and solar power because its profitable to do so.
We don't burn coal and natural gas because we are evil bastards that put money before our children. We burn fossil fuels because they make a profit, a profit we need to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate our children.
What subsidies do is take money from those that know how to make money and give it to people that don't. If people knew how to make money with wind and solar they wouldn't be lobbying government for subsidies, they'd be too busy making money so that they can feed the children to lobby for subsidies.
The problem I see is not subsidies but taxes. Prohibition of alcohol set back bio fuel research at least fifty years. Right now if you want to do research in alcohol as a fuel you have all kinds of legal hoops to jump through to prove that people aren't drinking it. Prohibition of alcohol is gone but we still have prohibitive taxes and regulation.
Regulation is killing all kinds of beneficial research. Anything nuclear gets killed before they can even get started. We can't even build solar panels in the USA because of EPA regulations.
Just mentioning this will likely get me modded into oblivion but I'll say it anyway. The NOAA has been caught altering historical temperature data. There is no global warming. The hottest period on record has been in the 1930s, all annual temperatures have been lower. The US federal government does not care about global warming either because they know its not happening or because they are too busy "spreading the wealth" to buy votes. My proof? The physical plant that heats the federal buildings in DC is powered by coal. If they we concerned about global warming then they'd be removing the plank from their own eye first.
The problem is subsidies, not the solution. Companies are rewarded for following the rules laid out by the government, not for actually solving the problem. A free market solves problems.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The funny thing is that solar does kill more people per MWh than almost everything else. All those people falling from roofs while installing PV panels do add up pretty fast considering the tiny amounts of energy it converts to electrical. PV doesn't scale very well, big molten salt plants are safer for now, but if/when they start failing, I guess it will be pretty nasty as well, but at least those are not built anywhere near anything usually.
If only the public would give all of their money to the bankers then the banking crisis will be solved. Honest guy.
ha ha ha ha ha ha, ho ho ho ho, ha ha ha ha ha ha, ho ho ho ho, .....
OMG, almost fell off my chair.
Renewables are only viable if we find ways to store energy effectively ... kind of like the way fossil fuels do.
Otherwise, virtually all the renewables need some form of backup, usually fossil fuel based ... so you'll still need fossil fuels.
And by the way, the most touted renewables (wind/solar) favour only a fortunate few on the planet. So come up with a way of shipping that stored power ... kind of like the way fossil fuels can be shipped to wherever power is needed.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
I thought the point of no return was already at hand, but now if subsidies (aka peoples hard-working tax dollars) are diverted to "clean" energy, why the problem will be solved. Don't you just love wish fulfillment and magical thought. I wish I wasn't such a pessimist and could think rainbows and unicorns, you know because science.
CO2 has continued to rise by 8-10% over the last 17+ years but temperatures have not. That FACT is born out by all 5 of the datasets (3 balloon and 2 satellite) which clearly show between a 14 to almost 18 year period with no warming.
The scientific method requires theories be tested with experiments and observational data. So my question is "How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit that the theory of CO2 controlling the climate is WRONG?".
20 years? Almost there. 30? NEVER? If the last one then you are engaging in belief not science.
How about some predictions that have been accurate? Dr Libby from the mid 1970s has the longest accurate prediction (30+ years), Dr Easterbrook is at 12+ and Dr Abdussamatov 8+. All cite cyclical factors and their theories do not rely on CO2 as a factor.
It may be hard to wean economies off burning carbon under current technological conditions, and all to our peril. Without economic incentives, it will be hard to persuade people to get out of the business of producing energy that comes from burning carbon. There are a couple of reasons for this !) The Grid was planned to make use of the abundant and cheap Carbon energy resources. Don't forget that when Oil Company Ads rig the argument about renewables not being available. The grid doesn't go to places where there might be abundant renewable energy resources and the Utilities aren't going to build the grid out there if there is no incentive to do so. 2) Renewables are not yet reliably available to meet instantaneous demand for energy that relying on Carbon burning has been able to satisfy. There is no economical way to store energy for later use, so even though there might actually be a huge abundance of renewable energy out there, there is no way to store it for later use.
Nuclear, fission and fusion, has a bad rap and it might eventually have to be used to address these issues. I have seen the argument about the investment in high pressure water reactors that use U-235 and produce weapons grade products, Pu, as a side effect, the risks of using them and the counter arguments about using Th based unpressurized reactors instead. I don't have the expertise to know if the advocates for a complete change in our nuclear energy strategy are right or not, but if we have been avoiding a safer alternative for economic and political, even military reasons, that is something that needs to be examined. A safer nuclear power source with a resource that is regarded as a contaminant and is over abundant in the refining of the other rare earths that we badly need, must get consideration.
Surely if fusion ever becomes practicable and it can be done without producing radioactive wastes, that would drastically change the energy equation, as would the use of Th reactors, if they are comparatively safe. Proper use of these could reduce the need to burn Carbon.
The idea that renewable energy will replace these subsidies in those economies is ludricous. Small farms that depend on fossil fuel for subsistence farming, small fishermen who depend on subsidized fuel to power their boats, and many other small businesses simply cannot substitute "renewable energy" for diesel power. Thousands of cars that burn cheap gasoline (Venezuela) or cheap natural gas (Iraq) are not going to be suddenly fueled by batteries charged from solar and wind power. Economies that derive most of the national revenue (the Middle East) from oil and gas production owned by the State, are not going to find a new source of revenue to feed and cloth their population with by generating solar and wind power. Their conclusion could not be more naive or more unrealistic.
The article ultimately points to an IEA website for the data on subsidies. If you look there (http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/resources/energysubsidies/ ), much of the subsidies are in the form of fuel price subsidies in developing countries (see http://www.iea.org/subsidy/ind... ). According to a 2009 IEA document (http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media/weowebsite/energysubsidies/second_joint_report.pdf ), this accounts for $312 billion a year. The rest is attributed to "tax expenditures, under-priced access to scarce resources under government control (e.g. land) and the transfer of risks to governments (e.g., via concessional loans or guarantees. These subsidies are more difficult to identify and estimate compared with direct consumer subsidies." If you take away fuel subsidies in India, for example, many people could not even cook their food, much less get around. In many countries eliminating fuel subsidies would result in mass hardship and even civil disruption. Blithely assuming such subsidies can be eliminated is not a practical solution.
The bulk what can be consider "subsidies", under any reasonable definition, are targeted at renewables. In fact, 2/3 of energy "subsidies" are artificially sustaining the renewables market: http://cornerstonemag.net/u-s-...