I think molten salt thermal storage is the other option I remember hearing talked about.
Fair enough, I'm open to hearing more about that.
1. How many of them do you need to power a city of 7 million people for a week?
2. How much does each of the above cost? What does that translate into per customer, what does it add to the price of "cheap" solar and wind power?
3. How much land does it take up?
---
Serious questions, if the answers are reasonable, then perhaps it is worth following up on. I honestly have no idea what the answers might be, but if anyone knows, post away.
What ISN'T addressed in all these news stories are two things:
1. 24/7 dependable power 2. The per-KWh price of that power
---
I'm perfectly happy to have tons of solar, I have nothing against solar at all, bring it on.
So long as my per KWh price stays around 10 cents per KWh and the power is 24/7 dependable and I can use as much or as little as I want, whenever I want.
Address THOSE points and you'll find me on board with wind and solar.
What I REALLY see however is that power prices will go up and dependability will go down.
Note: Telling me that I can no longer use my appliances whenever I want is part of the dependability going down.
Most smart meter plans don't have you unable to use appliances at some times of day but rather if you want, you have to pay more. Not the same thing.
That works when you have coal and natural gas as your backup power source.
It doesn't if you go to the all wind/solar dream of some people. It has been suggested over and over that a "Smart Grid 2.0" would be able to turn your appliances on and off as power demand ebbed and flowed, which would probably be needed based on a wind/solar only grid.
It is also worth noting that I pay 10 cents per KWh now and I can use my stuff any time of the day or night, the price is the same. You're suggesting that I switch to a new grid that requires that I pay more money to have what I already have today?
Pick two... I have not seen anything that says you can have all three, and that is the problem... it is the 800lb gorilla in the living room that no one wants to talk about...
Your wife couldn't accommodate a 'start later' button on the dishwasher?
Of course she could, she could also hand wash them...
Why should she have to?
It is also worth noting that we do an average of 2 dishwasher loads a day, on the weekend sometimes 3 loads.
You can't timeshift them all, she often does the dishes during the day so they are clean when the kids get home.
There is still much tension between Germany and Russia.
Yes, completely unrelated issue (or maybe not)... This is why Germany should have nuclear weapons, it removes Russia from being a threat while not having to depend on other nations (America) to come to their defense.
To avoid yet another nuclear weapons program, I would support simply selling 100 warheads from the US arsenal to Germany so they can have one without having to do all the R&D.
Paying $0.50 kwh is a price they figure they can afford to pay
Yes, but that is again stupid... Even nuclear isn't that expensive... They could have a complete solution for 100% nuclear power for half that price...
so it seems like in 4000 hours I wold have paid for my panel. Now that's 4000 peak hours. Lets say we get about 4 peak hours per day. That would be then 1000 days or a little under 3 years to pay for it. And that ignores all the energy I would get outside those 4 hours, which presumably is probably about an equivalent amount all total.
This seems to be way faster payback than I would expect it to be.
Yep, you found the problem...
I also pay 10 cents per KWh and my payback period for putting solar on the roof is more than 15 years, and that is assuming net metering is guaranteed to stay for 15 years (which is not actually guaranteed)
The panels are indeed pretty cheap, at about a buck a watt, or less, depending on what you buy.
The panels could be FREE, and it still is only marginally worth doing, because of the cost of putting them on the roof, the inverter, etc.
We don't have any hills here... there aren't any hills for 500 miles... and where is all that water going to come from? Have you done the math on how high you need to lift the water and how much you need, to provide X power?
I did, about a year ago, and the numbers are just nuts.
It sounds great, and in theory it works fine, but it doesn't work at large scale in the real world.
This is not fusion. Solutions to storage are within reach, but they were never developed because there simply was no need.
When I was 10 years old, Fusion was just 20 years away.
Now that I'm 40, Fusion is 30 years away.
You claim solutions to storage are within reach, great, call me when you have them. Until then, you can't plan for them.
And in addition to these storage methods, there's still a lot we can with smart grids in combination with electric cars, and flexible manufacturing around cheap energy.
Just because something is technically possible, doesn't mean it will happen. Our current power grid is old and there is little interest in changing it. Politics and economics cannot be ignored.
Probably true. But maybe we can keep it below 3C rise, or 4C rise
I don't think we'll hold to 4c either, the numbers are what they are...
Pulling numbers from the climate scientists who have been warning us from years, what I see is that the proven reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas in the ground is now over 3 trillion tons worth of CO2. We can emit, give or take, half a trillion tons more CO2 and have a better than 50% chance to hold under 2 degrees C.
But those 3 trillion tons of CO2 are already accounted for on the balance sheets of the world, from Saudi Aramco to Exxon to Russia, the world's financial markets expect that to all be burned. We are spending tens of billions to find even MORE coal, oil, and natural gas.
To hold to 2 degrees, we have to leave 80% of what is proven reserves in the ground. Politically and economically, there is exactly zero chance that will happen.
We spent 150 years getting addicted to fossil fuels, it will likely take a hundred years to wean ourselves off of this stuff. By that time, it will be far too late when it comes to CO2. We probably passed the point of no return 30 years ago and probably the "easy point" to change it 50 years ago.
But since no one wants to hear that, we keep talking about hybrids and solar panels, how much is being installed, while ignoring total numbers because they are ugly as sin.
NREL forecasts that if we build a modern grid and implement smart metering
Remind me again what "smart metering" means?
Oh yea, the one where you tell my wife what time of day she can and cannot use the appliances?
Yea, that is a non-starter.
Germany discovered that it's tax incentive system didn't adequately take those effects into account. As a result it's actually shifting from nuke and natural gas to coal in a race to the bottom to have the cheapest form of neccessary backup power. It appears that they may stall out on further deployment until they can remedy the right balance.
All while paying triple the energy rates of the United States.
The Germans are the smartest dumb people I've ever met. (I'm of German ancestry living in the US)
That all sounds great, if most of them weren't propaganda pieces with little basis in reality.
For example:
India is on track to soar past a goal to deploy more than 100 gigawatts of solar power by 2022
Great, wonderful... maybe that'll power all the air conditioners that Indians generally don't have (but some do I suppose).
It will help with daytime peak power, and that's a good thing. But the assumption seems to be among many people that if they can do that, they can just go ahead and go all wind/solar.
---
What is missing is the big picture conversation. Lots of stories posted about specific detail points that support a narative, without actually HAVING a narrative that has a beginning, middle, and end.
All of the stories posted for the past month are nice, but they don't fix the CO2 problem.
Even if you don't believe in climate change or you don't care about climate change
I do, and I do care. CO2 is a massive problem, but none of the stuff being done is going to alter the outcome by enough to matter. That is the great lie, that people can take comfort buying a hybrid or installing LEDs and they are saving the planet.
I suppose it helps, much in the way a bucket brigade would have bought another 10 min for the Titanic to not sink, but everyone would just be fooling themselves. The changes required to hold global temps below 2c rise over 1800 are simply not going to happen, they are way, way too extreme.
There have been mixed messages coming from China lately. The countryâ(TM)s carbon emissions may be declining more than a decade earlier than anticipated, thanks in part to reductions in coal power. And yet, China is planning 210 new coal-fired power plants despite existing overcapacity. Why?
I looked at that credit card. However, if you read the reviews, people are saying that if you don't carry a balance, then, at some point, they are going to drop your credit limit to just above your balance for that month. This results in you having a maxed-out credit card and tanks your credit score. No thanks.
I imagine that many people are poor at paying on time, so over time their credit limit gets lowered rather than raised.
Then they complain because it must be someone else's fault. The irony of course is that their complaints make no sense. If they don't carry a balance, then the limit would go to zero. Instead they complain that the limit is lowered to the balance. That they claim they don't carry.
---
I got my Store Card a year ago, when they launched the 5% back (March 15, 2015). I started off with a $2,000 limit, which after 3 months and a request was raised to $4,000. About 6 months after that, they raised it to $6,000 without my asking. Two weeks ago, it was raised again, to $17,000.
I never carry a balance, it is paid in full each month. Actually more so, since a few months last year I spent more than the credit limit and had to make extra payments. I pay no interest and get a ton of money back.
If you pay in full each month, then your concerns are moot, since you have no balance to have the limit lowered to. More likely you'll end up with a huge limit.:)
Pretty much every year, Chase Freedom has 5% cash back on amazon (for up to $1500 spending)
That is a good deal, people should of course do that if Chase likes them.:)
This year Discover also had the 5% back on $1500, except that new cardholders get double cash back for a year.
My wife has one of those, we use it for sure. The thing is, all those spending limits are annoying. If you buy a lot of stuff, like we do, the 5% unlimited is rather nice.
Also, even without jumping through the hoops I do, nobody should be getting 0% cash back from their credit card. 1% cash back cards are a-dime-a-dozen, and everybody should have access to one of those. Even 2 percent isn't hard...citi double cash, fidelity amex, now fidelity visa. And that 2% is good everywhere...so everyone should get one of those cards. So really your premium for the amazon 5% card is just 3%. So you really need to spend $3333 at amazon for the prime to break even.
That is all true...
Of course, the $3,333 to "break even" assumes that you place no value on Prime itself. Between the movies and music, the free shipping, etc. we paid for it before the 5%.:)
We seriously buy EVERYTHING from them, including the kitchen sink:
For a French press you pour in the coffee, add hot water, wait a minute or two, and press the large button on top:-)
I'd say that's about as easy as good coffee gets.
Are there any that I can set on a timer and have them brew at 7am in the morning automatically so when I walk downstairs, a pot of fresh coffee is ready?:)
They're only worth trillions if the demand says so.
Right, and that's my point. Governments will do whatever it takes to ensure that will happen, at least for awhile...
If you were to write off $20 trillion in balance sheet value from the world, there is a decent chance that you wouldn't have an economy the next day. It would make 2008/2009 look like a small speed bump.
And demand will not continue for ever
Of course not, but it will continue far beyond where it needed to have stopped. We have perhaps 550 gigatons left of CO2 that we can emit, total, to keep global average temps below 2 degrees. The known reserves are 6 times that. We are emitting 20+ gigatons a year.
At our current rate, we can emit Carbon for 25 more years, then we must stop, cold turkey. The reality is that our emissions are going up, not down.
EVs predicted to make up one quarter of the global market in just 10 years.
That report has to be smoking something.:) To do that, 7.5 million EVs will have to be sold to hit that target. That is up from almost nothing today.
I'll even be kind and consider plug in stuff like the Chevy Volt to be an "EV", since that is in the 540,000 cars sold in 2015 that could be called an "EV". True EVs with no gas engine are a rounding error.
For that report to be true, all car companies would have to be working on making most car models into EVs now, because cars tend to have 10 year development cycles. Auto companies take a long time to turn and change.
That is of course beside the point. The whole idea is to leave the bulk of the dead dinos in the ground. Since that simply isn't going to happen, we really should start having the conversation on what to do with a changed world that is coming.
Many people miss this in the cluttered Amazon web site, however if you're a Prime member and you sign up for an Amazon Store Credit Card, you get 5% back on almost everything you buy.
Spend $2,000 in a year and Prime becomes free then...
It really isn't hard to spend $2,000 a year on Amazon. Between Amazon PrimePantry, Subscribe and Save, computer stuff, games, etc. it adds up really fast.
We also have an Amazon Echo, and Alexa plays free streaming music, almost anything you can imagine asking for is there. My Dad visited two weeks ago and when I introduced him to Alexa, he thought she was kinda stupid, until I said, "Dad, she'll play you music for free", and he said "yea right, lets hear some Willie Nelson", so I said, "Alexa, play Willie Nelson", and she promptly started playing songs. I pointed out to him that I do not and have never owned anything by him. He was impressed...
Anyway, we can disagree about the transition time, but consider this: The average lifespan of a coal power plant is about 40 years - and many of them are due for replacement fairly soon. Knowing what we now know, it would be insane to replace them with more coal plants
Logically, I understand your viewpoint... but consider this:
"According to a new Greenpeace analysis, in the first nine months of 2015 Chinaâ(TM)s central and provincial governments issued environmental approvals to 155 coal-fired power plants â" thatâ(TM)s four per week."
At the end of the day, the goal to replace fossil fuels runs into a $20 trillion dollar roadblock... money... The known reserves in the ground are already accounted for above ground on balance sheets...
"The largest U.S. independent refiners are bullish on domestic gasoline demand as super-cheap fuel and the lure of bigger vehicles entice more consumers.
Valero Energy Corp and Phillips 66 both say they are in "max gasoline mode," pumping out as much as they can as a mild winter, economic uncertainty and a stinging slump in oil drilling squeezed U.S. diesel demand.
They still see export demand growth for both gasoline and diesel, but at home expectations are for rising gasoline demand, despite concerns the U.S. economy could soften in 2016."
As gas gets cheaper, demand for it will pick up. There are over a billion cars in the world, many of them 20 years old. EVs will continue to grow of course, but last year 75 million cars were sold world-wide, about half a million of them EVs (most of those plug in hybrids that still use gas).
This path isn't going to change by 2050. Even if we wanted it to, it can't, because of economics. Many governments, for better or worse, are addicted to coal, oil, and natural gas, they won't allow them to change faster, we'll have an economic disaster on our hands.
Or do you really think Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the USA are going to leave all those trillions of dollars in the ground?
Slashdot Mirror
I think molten salt thermal storage is the other option I remember hearing talked about.
Fair enough, I'm open to hearing more about that.
1. How many of them do you need to power a city of 7 million people for a week?
2. How much does each of the above cost? What does that translate into per customer, what does it add to the price of "cheap" solar and wind power?
3. How much land does it take up?
---
Serious questions, if the answers are reasonable, then perhaps it is worth following up on. I honestly have no idea what the answers might be, but if anyone knows, post away.
When it's dark in Connecticut, it could be still broad daylight in San Diego.
Yep, now explain how you plan to move the power from Connecticut to San Diego and I'll be a bit more impressed.
Please note the existing lack of national power grid between the two places and the transmission losses going that far.
Side note: There are many hours when it is dark in both places, or when it is snowing in Connecticut while cloudy in San Diego.
What ISN'T addressed in all these news stories are two things:
1. 24/7 dependable power
2. The per-KWh price of that power
---
I'm perfectly happy to have tons of solar, I have nothing against solar at all, bring it on.
So long as my per KWh price stays around 10 cents per KWh and the power is 24/7 dependable and I can use as much or as little as I want, whenever I want.
Address THOSE points and you'll find me on board with wind and solar.
What I REALLY see however is that power prices will go up and dependability will go down.
Note: Telling me that I can no longer use my appliances whenever I want is part of the dependability going down.
Most smart meter plans don't have you unable to use appliances at some times of day but rather if you want, you have to pay more. Not the same thing.
That works when you have coal and natural gas as your backup power source.
It doesn't if you go to the all wind/solar dream of some people. It has been suggested over and over that a "Smart Grid 2.0" would be able to turn your appliances on and off as power demand ebbed and flowed, which would probably be needed based on a wind/solar only grid.
It is also worth noting that I pay 10 cents per KWh now and I can use my stuff any time of the day or night, the price is the same. You're suggesting that I switch to a new grid that requires that I pay more money to have what I already have today?
Thanks, but I'll pass.
Cheap and clean energy benefits everyone.
Cheap, clean, dependable...
Pick two... I have not seen anything that says you can have all three, and that is the problem... it is the 800lb gorilla in the living room that no one wants to talk about...
Your wife couldn't accommodate a 'start later' button on the dishwasher?
Of course she could, she could also hand wash them...
Why should she have to?
It is also worth noting that we do an average of 2 dishwasher loads a day, on the weekend sometimes 3 loads.
You can't timeshift them all, she often does the dishes during the day so they are clean when the kids get home.
There is still much tension between Germany and Russia.
Yes, completely unrelated issue (or maybe not)... This is why Germany should have nuclear weapons, it removes Russia from being a threat while not having to depend on other nations (America) to come to their defense.
To avoid yet another nuclear weapons program, I would support simply selling 100 warheads from the US arsenal to Germany so they can have one without having to do all the R&D.
Paying $0.50 kwh is a price they figure they can afford to pay
Yes, but that is again stupid... Even nuclear isn't that expensive... They could have a complete solution for 100% nuclear power for half that price...
so it seems like in 4000 hours I wold have paid for my panel. Now that's 4000 peak hours. Lets say we get about 4 peak hours per day. That would be then 1000 days or a little under 3 years to pay for it. And that ignores all the energy I would get outside those 4 hours, which presumably is probably about an equivalent amount all total.
This seems to be way faster payback than I would expect it to be.
Yep, you found the problem...
I also pay 10 cents per KWh and my payback period for putting solar on the roof is more than 15 years, and that is assuming net metering is guaranteed to stay for 15 years (which is not actually guaranteed)
The panels are indeed pretty cheap, at about a buck a watt, or less, depending on what you buy.
The panels could be FREE, and it still is only marginally worth doing, because of the cost of putting them on the roof, the inverter, etc.
I think the name you're looking for is Musk.
The poster above you said "cheap"... nothing Musk is doing is "cheap"...
Those wall batteries? Yea, stupid crazy expensive... call me when a zero gets knocked off the price and then you'll have something.
We don't have any hills here... there aren't any hills for 500 miles... and where is all that water going to come from? Have you done the math on how high you need to lift the water and how much you need, to provide X power?
I did, about a year ago, and the numbers are just nuts.
It sounds great, and in theory it works fine, but it doesn't work at large scale in the real world.
This is not fusion. Solutions to storage are within reach, but they were never developed because there simply was no need.
When I was 10 years old, Fusion was just 20 years away.
Now that I'm 40, Fusion is 30 years away.
You claim solutions to storage are within reach, great, call me when you have them. Until then, you can't plan for them.
And in addition to these storage methods, there's still a lot we can with smart grids in combination with electric cars, and flexible manufacturing around cheap energy.
Just because something is technically possible, doesn't mean it will happen. Our current power grid is old and there is little interest in changing it. Politics and economics cannot be ignored.
Probably true. But maybe we can keep it below 3C rise, or 4C rise
I don't think we'll hold to 4c either, the numbers are what they are...
Pulling numbers from the climate scientists who have been warning us from years, what I see is that the proven reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas in the ground is now over 3 trillion tons worth of CO2. We can emit, give or take, half a trillion tons more CO2 and have a better than 50% chance to hold under 2 degrees C.
But those 3 trillion tons of CO2 are already accounted for on the balance sheets of the world, from Saudi Aramco to Exxon to Russia, the world's financial markets expect that to all be burned. We are spending tens of billions to find even MORE coal, oil, and natural gas.
To hold to 2 degrees, we have to leave 80% of what is proven reserves in the ground. Politically and economically, there is exactly zero chance that will happen.
We spent 150 years getting addicted to fossil fuels, it will likely take a hundred years to wean ourselves off of this stuff. By that time, it will be far too late when it comes to CO2. We probably passed the point of no return 30 years ago and probably the "easy point" to change it 50 years ago.
But since no one wants to hear that, we keep talking about hybrids and solar panels, how much is being installed, while ignoring total numbers because they are ugly as sin.
NREL forecasts that if we build a modern grid and implement smart metering
Remind me again what "smart metering" means?
Oh yea, the one where you tell my wife what time of day she can and cannot use the appliances?
Yea, that is a non-starter.
Germany discovered that it's tax incentive system didn't adequately take those effects into account. As a result it's actually shifting from nuke and natural gas to coal in a race to the bottom to have the cheapest form of neccessary backup power. It appears that they may stall out on further deployment until they can remedy the right balance.
All while paying triple the energy rates of the United States.
The Germans are the smartest dumb people I've ever met. (I'm of German ancestry living in the US)
And as solar becomes more widespread, there will be plenty of money to be made in storage, so the techniques will be developed.
Ahh yes, the... "someone will invent the solution" line...
Where is our Fusion power again?
Just because there is a need for better storage doesn't mean it will be found, or found cheaply.
That all sounds great, if most of them weren't propaganda pieces with little basis in reality.
For example:
India is on track to soar past a goal to deploy more than 100 gigawatts of solar power by 2022
Great, wonderful... maybe that'll power all the air conditioners that Indians generally don't have (but some do I suppose).
It will help with daytime peak power, and that's a good thing. But the assumption seems to be among many people that if they can do that, they can just go ahead and go all wind/solar.
---
What is missing is the big picture conversation. Lots of stories posted about specific detail points that support a narative, without actually HAVING a narrative that has a beginning, middle, and end.
All of the stories posted for the past month are nice, but they don't fix the CO2 problem.
Even if you don't believe in climate change or you don't care about climate change
I do, and I do care. CO2 is a massive problem, but none of the stuff being done is going to alter the outcome by enough to matter. That is the great lie, that people can take comfort buying a hybrid or installing LEDs and they are saving the planet.
I suppose it helps, much in the way a bucket brigade would have bought another 10 min for the Titanic to not sink, but everyone would just be fooling themselves. The changes required to hold global temps below 2c rise over 1800 are simply not going to happen, they are way, way too extreme.
There have been mixed messages coming from China lately. The countryâ(TM)s carbon emissions may be declining more than a decade earlier than anticipated, thanks in part to reductions in coal power. And yet, China is planning 210 new coal-fired power plants despite existing overcapacity. Why?
http://bit.ly/1qCWXzc
Is China doubling down on its coal
power bubble?
Over 210 new coal-fired power plant projects being permitted in China -
Version updated in Feb 2016
http://bit.ly/1Shj4Gf
They aren't, and most of those are old enough to be archived... actually, they all are...
Lord, how many of these are going to get posted?
I notice the number of comments is dropping, posting more of these won't boost viewership for very long...
I looked at that credit card. However, if you read the reviews, people are saying that if you don't carry a balance, then, at some point, they are going to drop your credit limit to just above your balance for that month. This results in you having a maxed-out credit card and tanks your credit score. No thanks.
I imagine that many people are poor at paying on time, so over time their credit limit gets lowered rather than raised.
Then they complain because it must be someone else's fault. The irony of course is that their complaints make no sense. If they don't carry a balance, then the limit would go to zero. Instead they complain that the limit is lowered to the balance. That they claim they don't carry.
---
I got my Store Card a year ago, when they launched the 5% back (March 15, 2015). I started off with a $2,000 limit, which after 3 months and a request was raised to $4,000. About 6 months after that, they raised it to $6,000 without my asking. Two weeks ago, it was raised again, to $17,000.
I never carry a balance, it is paid in full each month. Actually more so, since a few months last year I spent more than the credit limit and had to make extra payments. I pay no interest and get a ton of money back.
If you pay in full each month, then your concerns are moot, since you have no balance to have the limit lowered to. More likely you'll end up with a huge limit. :)
Pretty much every year, Chase Freedom has 5% cash back on amazon (for up to $1500 spending)
That is a good deal, people should of course do that if Chase likes them. :)
This year Discover also had the 5% back on $1500, except that new cardholders get double cash back for a year.
My wife has one of those, we use it for sure. The thing is, all those spending limits are annoying. If you buy a lot of stuff, like we do, the 5% unlimited is rather nice.
Also, even without jumping through the hoops I do, nobody should be getting 0% cash back from their credit card. 1% cash back cards are a-dime-a-dozen, and everybody should have access to one of those. Even 2 percent isn't hard...citi double cash, fidelity amex, now fidelity visa. And that 2% is good everywhere...so everyone should get one of those cards. So really your premium for the amazon 5% card is just 3%. So you really need to spend $3333 at amazon for the prime to break even.
That is all true...
Of course, the $3,333 to "break even" assumes that you place no value on Prime itself. Between the movies and music, the free shipping, etc. we paid for it before the 5%. :)
We seriously buy EVERYTHING from them, including the kitchen sink:
Moen Double Sink - Stainless Steel - $100:
http://amzn.to/1VBjsS4
15 foot Trampoline - $330
http://amzn.to/23IfR9C
Bounty Paper Towels - $25
http://amzn.to/1VBkgq1
Women's Sunny Riding Boots - $35
http://amzn.to/1pemQUT
We hardly have to buy anything, anywhere else. Only fresh and frozen groceries, otherwise it all comes from Amazon.
Compute CPU power is not much more than it was 3 years back.
In some regards, that is true, in others, less so.
Haswell to Skylake is rather pointless, but Sandy Bridge to Skylake is not, depending on what you're doing.
The other factor is power consumption, which has been Intel's real focus.
Does this get posted by script, or does someone actually bother to type it?
Can someone explain why it is funny? I don't get it.
For a French press you pour in the coffee, add hot water, wait a minute or two, and press the large button on top :-)
I'd say that's about as easy as good coffee gets.
Are there any that I can set on a timer and have them brew at 7am in the morning automatically so when I walk downstairs, a pot of fresh coffee is ready? :)
They're only worth trillions if the demand says so.
Right, and that's my point. Governments will do whatever it takes to ensure that will happen, at least for awhile...
If you were to write off $20 trillion in balance sheet value from the world, there is a decent chance that you wouldn't have an economy the next day. It would make 2008/2009 look like a small speed bump.
And demand will not continue for ever
Of course not, but it will continue far beyond where it needed to have stopped. We have perhaps 550 gigatons left of CO2 that we can emit, total, to keep global average temps below 2 degrees. The known reserves are 6 times that. We are emitting 20+ gigatons a year.
At our current rate, we can emit Carbon for 25 more years, then we must stop, cold turkey. The reality is that our emissions are going up, not down.
EVs predicted to make up one quarter of the global market in just 10 years.
That report has to be smoking something. :) To do that, 7.5 million EVs will have to be sold to hit that target. That is up from almost nothing today.
I'll even be kind and consider plug in stuff like the Chevy Volt to be an "EV", since that is in the 540,000 cars sold in 2015 that could be called an "EV". True EVs with no gas engine are a rounding error.
For that report to be true, all car companies would have to be working on making most car models into EVs now, because cars tend to have 10 year development cycles. Auto companies take a long time to turn and change.
That is of course beside the point. The whole idea is to leave the bulk of the dead dinos in the ground. Since that simply isn't going to happen, we really should start having the conversation on what to do with a changed world that is coming.
Many people miss this in the cluttered Amazon web site, however if you're a Prime member and you sign up for an Amazon Store Credit Card, you get 5% back on almost everything you buy.
Spend $2,000 in a year and Prime becomes free then...
It really isn't hard to spend $2,000 a year on Amazon. Between Amazon PrimePantry, Subscribe and Save, computer stuff, games, etc. it adds up really fast.
We also have an Amazon Echo, and Alexa plays free streaming music, almost anything you can imagine asking for is there. My Dad visited two weeks ago and when I introduced him to Alexa, he thought she was kinda stupid, until I said, "Dad, she'll play you music for free", and he said "yea right, lets hear some Willie Nelson", so I said, "Alexa, play Willie Nelson", and she promptly started playing songs. I pointed out to him that I do not and have never owned anything by him. He was impressed...
30 days of free Prime
http://amzn.to/1U3RCwJ
Amazon Store Card - 5% back
http://amzn.to/1rcXZ5W
Anyway, we can disagree about the transition time, but consider this: The average lifespan of a coal power plant is about 40 years - and many of them are due for replacement fairly soon. Knowing what we now know, it would be insane to replace them with more coal plants
Logically, I understand your viewpoint... but consider this:
http://energydesk.greenpeace.o...
"According to a new Greenpeace analysis, in the first nine months of 2015 Chinaâ(TM)s central and provincial governments issued environmental approvals to 155 coal-fired power plants â" thatâ(TM)s four per week."
At the end of the day, the goal to replace fossil fuels runs into a $20 trillion dollar roadblock... money... The known reserves in the ground are already accounted for above ground on balance sheets...
http://www.reuters.com/article...
"The largest U.S. independent refiners are bullish on domestic gasoline demand as super-cheap fuel and the lure of bigger vehicles entice more consumers.
Valero Energy Corp and Phillips 66 both say they are in "max gasoline mode," pumping out as much as they can as a mild winter, economic uncertainty and a stinging slump in oil drilling squeezed U.S. diesel demand.
They still see export demand growth for both gasoline and diesel, but at home expectations are for rising gasoline demand, despite concerns the U.S. economy could soften in 2016."
As gas gets cheaper, demand for it will pick up. There are over a billion cars in the world, many of them 20 years old. EVs will continue to grow of course, but last year 75 million cars were sold world-wide, about half a million of them EVs (most of those plug in hybrids that still use gas).
This path isn't going to change by 2050. Even if we wanted it to, it can't, because of economics. Many governments, for better or worse, are addicted to coal, oil, and natural gas, they won't allow them to change faster, we'll have an economic disaster on our hands.
Or do you really think Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the USA are going to leave all those trillions of dollars in the ground?