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Renewable Energy Policies Actually Work (arstechnica.com)
Renewable energy use and reduced energy use overall have helped carbon emissions remain flat or below average as the global economy continued to grow over the years. But, as new research has found, government policy also appears to play a large role. Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Ars Technica: The researchers started by identifying countries that show a "peak and decline" pattern of carbon emissions since the 1990s. They came up with 18, all but one of them in Europe -- the exception is the United States. For comparison, they created two different control groups of 30 countries, neither of which has seen emissions decline. One group saw high GDP growth, while the second saw moderate economic growth; in the past, these would have been associated with corresponding changes in emissions. Within each country, the researchers looked into whether there were government energy policies that could influence the trajectory of emissions. They also examined four items that could drive changes in emissions: total energy use, share of energy provided by fossil fuels, the carbon intensity of the overall energy mix, and efficiency (as measured by energy losses during use). On average, emissions in the decline group dropped by 2.4 percent over the decade between 2005 and 2015.
Half of this drop came from lowering the percentage of fossil fuels used, with renewables making a large contribution; another 35 percent came from a drop in energy use. But the most significant factor varied from country to country. Austria, Finland, and Sweden saw a drop in the share of fossil fuels within their energy mix. In contrast, a drop in total energy use was the biggest factor for France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. was an odd one out, with all four possible factors playing significant roles in causing emissions to drop. For the two control groups, however, there was a single dominant factor: total energy use counted for 75 and 80 percent of the change in the low- and high-economic growth groups, respectively. But there was considerably more variability in the low-economic growth group. All of the high-growth group saw increased energy use contribute 60 percent of the growth in emissions or more. In contrast, some of the low-growth group actually saw their energy use drop. So why are some countries so successful at dropping their emissions? Part of it is likely to be economic growth, but the biggest reason may have to do with government policies. "By 2015, the countries in the group that saw declining emissions had an average of 35 policies that promoted renewable energy and another 23 that promoted energy efficiency," reports Ars Technica. "Both of those numbers are significantly higher than the averages for the control groups. And there's evidence that these policies are effective. The number of pro-efficiency policies correlated with the drop in energy use, while the number of renewable policies correlated with the drop in the share of fossil fuels."
Half of this drop came from lowering the percentage of fossil fuels used, with renewables making a large contribution; another 35 percent came from a drop in energy use. But the most significant factor varied from country to country. Austria, Finland, and Sweden saw a drop in the share of fossil fuels within their energy mix. In contrast, a drop in total energy use was the biggest factor for France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. was an odd one out, with all four possible factors playing significant roles in causing emissions to drop. For the two control groups, however, there was a single dominant factor: total energy use counted for 75 and 80 percent of the change in the low- and high-economic growth groups, respectively. But there was considerably more variability in the low-economic growth group. All of the high-growth group saw increased energy use contribute 60 percent of the growth in emissions or more. In contrast, some of the low-growth group actually saw their energy use drop. So why are some countries so successful at dropping their emissions? Part of it is likely to be economic growth, but the biggest reason may have to do with government policies. "By 2015, the countries in the group that saw declining emissions had an average of 35 policies that promoted renewable energy and another 23 that promoted energy efficiency," reports Ars Technica. "Both of those numbers are significantly higher than the averages for the control groups. And there's evidence that these policies are effective. The number of pro-efficiency policies correlated with the drop in energy use, while the number of renewable policies correlated with the drop in the share of fossil fuels."
Georgetown, Texas tried to go the renewables route. They ended up paying more and getting less.
Thanks to renewables, Australia ended up paying $500 a day per family for electricity.
America, the country that didn't sign the Paris accord, dropped CO2 emissions more than anyone else.
It's currently technologically impossible for renewables to provide baseload power at a competitive, or even reasonable, price, and will not do so anytime in the near future no matter how much religious environmentalists claim otherwise.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
So why are some countries so successful at dropping their emissions? Part of it is likely to be economic growth, but the biggest reason may have to do with government policies.
Ya think. And where do those "government policies" come from?
In the U.S. one of our two major political parties represents a minority of voters but thanks to our voting system has had a stranglehold on policy and that party is dedicated to doing everything possible to maximize donor profit. To them that means oppose anything and everything that has anything to do with mitigating climate change. For that matter anything to do with preserving or improving the environment. Our current EPA head was appointed for the express purpose of destroying the EPA.
Their mindless followers vote them in being mesmerized by keywords like "job creation" and chimeras like "the liberals are coming to get your guns." They will churn up FUD with their industry-funded studies. Much you will see repeated right here on /.
Don't look to the U.S. to help with this problem until we get rid of the minority rule. The majority wants something done about climate change.
"The majority wants something done about climate change."
Really?
How many members of this so-called "majority" are willing to forgo automobile and air travel? How many are willing to forgo carbon-based, grid-tied electrical service in favor of on-premise solar or wind generation?
The majority may want something done about climate change - but only if it doesn't mean a reduction in quality of life and someone else pays for it.
Climate change policy is doomed to fail. It is a financial boondoggle and the major carbon emitters (China and India) simply don't give a hoot what you want.
Seems like a lot of effort creating specific conditions to try and make leftist policies look effective... why would anyone doubt the findings.
Really what is up with this endless damn stream of propaganda here on slashdot.
Apparently a site that was originally focused on computer tech and Linux in particular, has morphed into the hobby horse of people in a doomsday cult.
Wow blogs quoting other blogs using .jpg files with numbers on them with no way to tell where the numbers came from. Its all a big circle jerk of blogs propping up fake-news.
If you believe such weak sources, I have a bridge and swamp land to sell you.
by order of the Nazi left.
Now we'll run out of dinosaur juice for sure. If it was really vegetable oil from ancient plants real news would have told us.
cease fire stand down,, conspire to occupy the truth.. there's more than enough of everything to go around.. that's the spirit..
Both of your links are to extreme right wing, anti-environmental web sites. The information is dubious, at best.
The US did sign the Paris accord. The US didn't pull out until Donnie Dipshit pulled out only very recently.
What is a "reasonable price" for human health and well-being, exactly? Neither of the links you provided even considered measurable financial benefits (or otherwise) benefits from cleaner power.
How can you see into the future, to say that it will be technologically impossible to provide enough clean energy?
I don't respond to AC's.
In the U.S. one of our two major political parties represents a minority of voters but thanks to our voting system has had a stranglehold on policy and that party is dedicated to doing everything possible to maximize donor profit.
California has 55 electoral votes, 7 of which are due to illegals(*). The US census counts people, not citizens, in an area to determine how many electoral votes a state gets.
California gets a significant extra amount of influence in elections due to the electoral college - are you willing to give that up?
Also, the EC is what keeps California and NY from ganging up on all the other states. In effect, it prevents the US from having a civil war, and breaking up into smaller national entities.
Are you willing to give *that* up? Just because your candidate lost the popular vote?
And finally, House representatives are also allocated by the census count. California gets 7 more reps due to its illegal population.
All of which means California gets to dominate affairs in the US house of representatives and presidential elections out of proportion to their electorate.
Their mindless followers vote them in being mesmerized by keywords like "job creation" and chimeras like "the liberals are coming to get your guns." They will churn up FUD with their industry-funded studies.
a) A lot of jobs *were* created. Chrysler just opened an idled plant, creating 6500 more. Look around - the economy is doing great!
b) The house just passed a law making private sale of guns illegal. Also, NY just passed a gun confiscation law, which is ripe for abuse.
(*) About 2.3 million illegals, at 700,000 per house rep/electoral vote. The electoral formula is non-linear, and estimates of illegals are sketchy, but it's about right.
(Incidentally, this is why the Dems are so much against the wall. They don't care about any of the issues - cost, crime, jobs, and so on - that's not their problem to fix. That's why Pelosi kept the government shutdown past $6 billion to avoid spending $5 billion on a wall "that would do nothing". It would have been more cost effective to build the wall even if it did do "nothing".)
So why are some countries so successful at dropping their emissions?
Because they export their polluting industries to the 3rd world like the US did to Mexico? This is an excellent example of an intentionally misleading analysis. CO2 emissions in CA and Germany have increased from 2010 till today. This is the period when we actually had a renewable energy policy, and the increase in CO2 was mostly due to bad renewable energy policy and doesn't count the extra emissions from methane we had during that same period.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Hmmm... US emissions are down, so we must be exporting it to Mexico? I guess that's why Mexico's emissions are also trending down. Couldn't be we've let that "evil invisible hand" of capitalism work, could it?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Couldn't be we've let that "evil invisible hand" of capitalism work, could it?
The Obama administration did quite a bit to promote renewables, higher emission/efficiency standards for vehicles, and limit CO2 production overall. Sometimes the invisible hand isn't that invisible. With that said, it's true that the market often only needs a gentle nudge in the right direction and can then take over.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
that top-down government forced renewables policies are NOT needed. The authors try to dodge this by decrying the US as an outlier, but the US emissions fell WITHOUT garbage like the Paris climate deal and WITHOUT worshiping the ICPP and adopting their eceonomy-wrecking and liberty-stealing ideas.
Not only did US emissions fall without all that garbage, raising the question of whether all the other countries mentioned would have better off with more freedom,
but the real elephant in the room here is that we're still all pretending that a normal element without which all life on Earth would end (CO2) is some sort of "pollutant" that must be regulated. It turns out that the Earth is a rather spiffy complex system in which something like an excess of CO2 does not cause doom but actually leads to an increase in CO2 absorbing vegitation which could be a handy way to feed the hungry.
Carbon is normally neither created nor destroyed, it just echoes about within the ecosystems and the geology of the Earth. If we stop using carbon, it does not cease to exist, it sits there sequestered in plants or the soil or the seas. If we use all the available carbon and even bind it to oxygen, it does not all blow up into the sky and end the world, it encourages plant life, the plants take it in, and when they die it returns to the soil. Worrying about carbon and even carbon dioxide is just plain silly. The climate folks are behaving like many other academics - they fixate on their field, convince themselves that their field is the most important one, and ignore other fields dealing with the same stuff. They act like the kid with a hammer who suddenly thinks everything is a nail.
It's just a shell game. The fundamental trend over the time period in question has been to move all industrial production to China. Global CO2 increased because industrial activity increased. But the LOCATION of the production shifted to China. So if the laws are working, all they are doing is helping speed the catastrophic decline of the West's industrial base, and boosting China's GDP.
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
See https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard click on SA to see what happens when green ideologues gain control of your political system. Tomorrow's forecast for the wholesale spot price of power from 1430 to 1930 is $14500/MWh. Guess what happens to industry and business when faced with costs like that?
Putin needs to get oil prices up or he's going to have to go looking for loans to stay in power.
The Chinese would like to keep oil prices down until they get some more nukes built. They didn't get all the radiation fearmongering propaganda that the Russians fed the western media.
The Europeans are for anything that diminishes the power of the US, and so is the US media, even if they don't get their party line from Moscow via the European media anymore.
The people who actually pay the bills have given up on most of the above as hopeless dolts by now, so the volume level keeps getting higher to attract more attention.
I hear Feinstein is going to set AOC on fire on the Capitol steps to promote the Green Bad Deal.
Fun times.
The proponents of "green" energy always point to the early wins. There are a lot of easy wins early on in the process, when most energy still comes from nuclear, coal, or whatever. Those existing plants can adjust their output to allow for the massive fluctuations of solar and wind generation, as long as the solar/wind is a minor part of the grid.
Things change when solar/wind become a large part of the generation capacity. On sunny summer days, Germany doesn't know what to do with all it's solar energy, and they've been know to pay other countries to take it. In bad weather, they import energy. Renewable energy on the massive scale Germany has implemented It only works, because they can leech off the capabilities of the countries around them. Germany's energy looks cleaner, because someone else is burning extra coal. If Germany is really does close their nuclear plants, the situation will get massively worse.
Unless large scale energy storage is solved, renewable energy will remain limited in its potential. In addition, we will always need something to handle baseline load, for which nuclear remains the greenest and safest option.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The EU successfully prevented the export of CO2 emissions by simply including emissions in the country of manufacture when calculating carbon taxes on EU companies. It also passed laws like RoHS that forced Chinese factories to clean up even though they were out of jurisdiction.
Emissions since 2010 is a carefully cherry picked timeframe. Emissions are still falling, there was just a blip which was at its lowest point in 2010 due to the global financial crisis that is now being corrected.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's remarkable how people who deride green energy often use free market ideals to do so. Then when green energy uses free market ideals, those same people deride green energy for using free market mechanisms! Maybe even, (gasp), requiring market forces to work correctly!
We already know that solar and wind are bursty in nature. Larger, more effective grids with more capacity are going to be needed to load balance. Pay someone to take the power, sure, why not? As long as it isn't more than transient payments, and all the major players are doing it, what's the issue exactly? Power systems only need to make money on net, not on every single damn transaction. Even small business owners know this.
However the point is that it is Germany's decision to do so. Why the F- are you telling Germans what to do with German power? Germans aren't exactly known for making garbage systems that don't work, but that's exactly what you are accusing them of doing here.
So, you got any more crap you just pulled out of your ass? Or is that all of it?
proclaiming a fallacy is a fallacy. Show it is a fallacy, retard.
Treaties are binding.
Yet the EU has a much lower CO2 footprint.
Explain that, fuckwit.
The only voter fraud and illegal voter registration were by trump's own election team.
You are deliberately changing words. The claim was minority of voters. Not electoral college voters, retard.
The political Right says:
Everything government does is screwed up and expensive!
"Study says government policy works"
Uhhhhh, government effectiveness is wrong, er, morally speaking!
"Renewable energy is key to long-term human survival"
Renewables are Communism, and besides Climate Change is a hoax!
"Renewables will use market mechanisms and Climate Change is scientifically sound and accepted"
Fake News! Fake News! MAGA!