“Investors and consumers balk at costs of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, highlighting painful economics of climate mitigation,” says Greg Ip at the Wall Street Journal.
Who Wants to Pay for the Green Transition?
Greg Ip, one of my favorite columnists on the Wall Street Journal explains Why No One Wants to Pay for the Green Transition
In the past few years, Washington and Wall Street started fantasizing that the transition to net-zero carbon emissions could be an economic bonanza. “When I think climate change, I think jobs,” President Biden said. When Wall Street heard green energy, it saw profits. As Ford Motor launched an electric Mustang and pickup truck, its market value topped $100 billion for the first time.
This year the fantasy ended. With electric vehicle demand falling short of expectations, manufacturers are dialing back production and buying back stock instead. Offshore wind developers have canceled projects. The S&P Global Clean Energy Index has fallen 30% this year. Ford’s market cap is down to $42 billion.
This doesn’t mean the transition to net zero is over. Officials meeting this week at the United Nations climate conference are just as worried about climate change. Renewable energy continues to expand. In the very long run, it is still the case that economic welfare will be higher with less global warming.
But the economics of getting to net zero remain, fundamentally, dismal: Someone has to pay for it, and shareholders and consumers decided this year it wouldn’t be them.
Technological transformations are positive supply shocks: a new, more efficient technology comes along, and investment naturally gravitates toward this new technology because it is profitable.
By contrast, the green transition is driven by public policy. It is “a negative supply shock, with an accompanying need to finance investments whose profitability cannot be taken for granted,” French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry wrote in a report commissioned by the French prime minister and released in English in November. “By putting a price—financial or implicit—on a free resource (the climate), the transition increases production costs, with no guarantee that the reduction in energy costs will eventually offset them, while the investments it calls for do not increase productive capacity but must nevertheless be financed.”
Two Paragraph Summary
We already have an infrastructure that efficiently delivers energy. There are natural gas pipelines, gasoline refineries, and gas stations.
Green energy proponents want to not only trash something that is working and replace it with something new, the new idea will overload the existing power grid.
People understand this adds to costs, despite idiotic claims by politicians stating otherwise.
Fantasy Beliefs
And to top it off, people see all the hype over the world ending, and those claims are increasingly understood as hype by anyone with any bit of common sense.
The $100+ trillion price tags have people concerned.
EVs Coming Anyway
For many people who don’t drive far and have access to a fast charger in their house, EVs make sense. The move to EVs will happen over time, assuming the cost of batteries does not go out of sight.
My one disagreement with Ip is his comment “This doesn’t mean the transition to net zero is over.”
His comment may even be correct, but what is the timeline? I see no chance by 2050.
ESG Advocates Want to Amend the Constitution to Address Climate Change
ESG advocates may be in agreement with my comment because it has them proposing crazy ideas to get there.
In case you missed it, please see ESG Advocates Want to Amend the Constitution to Address Climate Change
There is no risk of a constitutional change. But the threat is not moot.
Understanding the Risk
There were over 20 contributors to the proposed economic and constitutional madness.
I hate giving this the time of day because there is literally zero chance the constitution will be amended to address climate change.
However, it is not beyond the scope of imagination for a president to declare an emergency and seek special powers to deal with it, with Congress approving. Some call for President Biden to do that now.
Ask any of the idiots creating billions of tons of CO2 to go to COP28 a couple simple questions.
Can you hazard a guess how much sea levels have risen since the end of the last ice age 15 to 20,000 years ago?
Do you have any idea what the climate was like on the north coast of Greenland some 2 and a half milllion years ago just before the onset of the latest glaciation period?
None of the morons, nor any other member of the climate cult would have any clue as to the answers.
Yet they want to use the full force of sovereign powers to impoverish all of mankind and end civilization
NetZero == Genocide
I will disagree with your world view. Genocide is the continued use of FFs. The world is in the begining of using a far friendlier energy for our lives and the life on earth.
Please explain how wind, solar, and batteries are friendlier. The existing system is far better for the environment than the impact from wind, solar, and batteries.
Lol! That’s hilarious!
“ Yet they want to use the full force of sovereign powers to impoverish all of mankind and end civilization”
That’s a little over the top, don’t you think?
There are 80,000 people going to COP28. I would hazard a guess that a handful of radical climate activists “might” subscribe to that extreme statement. And no one listens to them anyway. Do you even understand what the COP28 agenda is? And where it’s being held? And what will likely come out of it?
Are you aware of what the previous 27 COPs accomplished? Not much. We are still using more fossil fuels each and every year. Its why I remain heavily invested in oil and gas stocks.
The green energy argument goes off the rails when it tries to completely eliminate fossil fuels. The focus should be on increasing the share of renewables to 50% (not 100%), and reducing consumption by increasing taxes on fuels. Income taxes should be cut, and gas and electricity charges should be taxed more — much like the rest of the world. Carbon offsets are a scam.
I don’t disgree with taxing FFs. It gets soundly defeated by a very powerful wealth FF lobby. I do disagree with you on the 100%. We actually need to go to about 200% of more of RE. From intermittant production of RE energy we need more transmission and storage to fill in the valleys of low production of clean energy.
Eventually prices of EVs will come down where economics make sense to buy EVs. The price of gas would have to be below $1.00 per gallon to fall in line with what it costs to drive an EV.
Gen X here. Screw this crap and the majority of our govt raw. Ive straight up 100% had it with these clowns and this sh$tshow. Every day I wake up im like you got to be kidding me. It’s just beyond asinine on so many levels. A pure power and profit play by Mr. Ketchup and idiots like him. Once again we have a huge following of tards willingly screwing themselves over thinking they are doing good. I won’t be surprised to see this all come to a head and it’s way past due!
Lol….Mr. Ketchup…..lol. First time I’ve heard that one. My go to name is “House Plant Potato Man”.
Damn good post R Johnson. I totally agree.
What now is a long time ago in the late 1990s I looked into the Global Warming issue because it seemed like something physically relevant. That exercise led to me to understand that the entire premise is made up. I have only occasionally looked at what is going on in this growing and voracious community in the years since. Now we call it climate change because from satellite data, it appears that the overall planet is cooling slightly. That trend is barely above the noise, so I wouldn’t put too much stock into those measurements. Everything else is comprised of made up outputs.
The models have never been able to be rewound and predict current temperatures. The code of the models themselves is hidden. We don’t know how many fudge factors are in there. We do know that there is an assumed gain in the models that adjusts air moisture based upon the CO2 levels. We also know that every grad student that wanted funding for their graduate project needed to include global warming or climate change in the thesis title. Otherwise: No money.
Michael Chrichton wrote a book titled “State of Fear”, in which he included numerous footnotes to prove his point. We have since witnessed the destruction of publicly-owned temperature data sets by the global climate change crowd. Their conclusions are based upon secretly held computer models. We have witnessed the changing of temperature baselines from the 1930 on, etc. (multiple times) We have witnessed the abandonment of sophisticated sea water temperature measurement data to go back to the old drop a bucket in the ocean and then use a manually read thermometer reading method. Because that data better fits their desired outcome.
As others have pointed out,the IPCC conclusions are simply not supportable.
This isn’t science. Not even close. Computer models are not science.
It is a huge bureaucratic behemoth that is intertwined with every government and university.
No one has yet to explain what the correct temperature of the earth should be for optimum life support. And importantly WHY?
We keep hearing about the costs incurred by Global Climate Change. However, there isn’t any data to support these statements. They are simply assertions. There have been a number of studies that show that the frequency of major storms, such as hurricanes has not increased.
The logical conclusion is that the entire “green” energy program is a huge scam.
The most important question to be asked is: How many people are you willing to kill to perpetuate this scam? Make no doubt, when you extract this much wealth from the global economy, it is sentencing poor people to death. Of course they have no voice in these affairs, so their opinions/desires, don’t count.
Wow. So much info. And almost all of it wrong. Is that deliberate?
“ Now we call it climate change because from satellite data, it appears that the overall planet is cooling slightly.”
Nonsense. Satellite data show that the mesosphere, 30-50 miles up is cooling, exactly as predicted, while the troposphere, the lower atmosphere where most of the greenhouse gasses lie, is warming, exactly as predicted.
“ The models have never been able to be rewound and predict current temperatures.”
More nonsense. The models have been very accurate, for both hindcasts and forecasts.
“ The code of the models themselves is hidden.”
Nope. Most models are open source.
In fact, almost every single thing you say is just more garbage. That’s pretty impressive; to be that wrong.
What a sad, sad article. America won’t help save the world because it cannot make a profit. What a sad indictment of how America looks at life. No profit, then no life.
Martin, you really need to talk with PapaDave about this.
He’ll set you straight.
Capitalism has both strengths and failings. Some people cannot let go of a thing that will work to destroy everyone. Capitalism has to get it or it will destroy itself.
By Rystad Energy – Nov 29, 2023, 3:00 PM CST
link to oilprice.com
The world goes to work building our future for all the generations to come.
There are lots of good companies working on this. How to balance out the changes needed to keep us headed towards a net zero goal.
link to mckinsey.com
A successful net-zero transition will require achieving not one objective but four interdependent ones: emissions reduction, affordability, reliability, and industrial competitiveness.
If the system was sustainable within our atmosphere, then why change.Its now clear that a FF society is long term detrimental to us. Adding co2 to the atmosphere helps earth to get warmer than before, putting some life on earth in jeopardy. An economist knows that doing nothing costs way more than the cost of green energy change itself. Once the details are laid out, its obvious green energy is the way to go.
Here’s some good comedy. Bill Nye the science guy vs MIT atmospheric Physicist Richard Lindzen.
link to youtu.be
Shouldn’t the heading read:
The Green Fantasy Ends Because Consumers “CAN’T” Pay for It!
Isn’t that the reality? The Government, CRE, Renters, College Students, etc. Are all broke or going broke. So many more are on their way right behind them too. Like Banks, Automotive Manufacturers, Unions, etc. Don’t forget Disney, Budweiser, Target, and more to come there as well.
For the CLIMATE CRISIS!!! fanatics, cost is not a factor. In fact, driving peoples’ energy access into the middle ages is just what they want to happen. Backing the nutballs are the politicians and their vulture capital cronies: the former see a downtrodden, literally powerless population as easy to control, while the latter see only profits in gutting existing infrastructure and profiting fast off firesales. Taken together, the three pillars of ESG insanity are the real enemies of the people.
Actually clean energy in the long is cheaper than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels must be conditioned and delivered before it can be used while renewable energy is delivered directly to your home from its production location by wire. Its better than Amazon
By that illogic, it would be cheaper to power your car by wood than petrol. After all, wood grows by the side of the road, while petrol has to be shipped to the fuel station…
FFs suffers a 25% disadvantage of economics due to just getting it to preperation to be used. As RE gets cheaper and cheaper, FFs drops off the face of the earth as a practical source of energy.
If that were the case you wouldn’t need government subsidies and the market would automatically invest in it.
World wide, FFs gets huge support. Its surprising how huge it is. At some point FFs will no longer be practical to receive gov support.
Fossil Fuels Received $5.9 Trillion In Subsidies in 2020, Report Finds
Ridiculous! They are allowed to write off capital expenditures and depreciation but idiot greenies find this unacceptable. Plus governments get huge windfalls of gas tax. Try thinking I stead of regurgitation.
Should a climate destroying industry get write offs? This is worse than addictive drugs. An addictive drug destroys the user and a few other people. FF burning destroys nearly everything.
Dr. Patrick Moore, former member and co-founder of Greenpeace, wrote an excellent book detailing how Co2 is not the devil it’s made out to be. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. Lots of supporting data with citations are included in the book.
“Fake Invisible Catastrophies and Threats of Doom”
Climate change, much like politics and ahem…..bitcoin, has taken on the characteristics of a religion. It has a clergy…..Greta, AL Gore, etc…..it has religious like tenets…….”Co2 is bad”, repent if ye spew Co2 (unless you are uber rich or well connected then ye can purchase an indulgence), and it has a goal…..to stop Co2 from being input into the atmosphere lest ye burn.
Everyone says religion is on the decline in the west. I call BS on that.
“Everyone says religion is on the decline in the west. I call BS on that”
Superstitions is the correct term for what you are describing. Not religion.
Long before there were proper religions, people had all manners of haphazard, poorly if at all thought-through arbitrary superstitions. Over time, it became obvious that they were all inconsistent, both in between them and internally.
They then, among higher civilizations, evolved into much more battle tested and thought out belief systems: Religions. The dominant ones which have been refined into highly sophisticated and hard-to-assail thought systems which have stood the tests of billions of sceptical people over throusands of years.
The height of religions’ development coincided with; or were the immediate precursors to, the peak of human civilization and intellectual development. Not coincidentally.
Now that we are way, way past that now somewhat quaint civilizational peak; “we” are largely back to simple, raw, incoherent and arbitrary, childish superstitions again. None of which has much in common with any stood-the-test-of-time-and-space religion at all. Instead being no more reliable and well founded than the sort of beliefs about the world which leads young dogs to chase their tail and bark at the mirror.
“…Long before there were proper religions…”
Your statement above validates my point. I’m glad you are the arbiter of what is or is not a “proper religion”.
The fact of the matter is that all religions have some level of superstition as thier basis. I understand that you may not BELIEVE that and that’s your business. However, believing does not equal reality.
Religion vs superstition; is analogous to science vs hunch: In both cases, the former has been seriously pounded on by heavyweight practitioners over an extended period. The latter, not so much.
Outside of pure logic, everything has superstition as its basis. Beyond logic, all knowledge/faith, is only about what you choose to believe.
Oatmeal is not a priori a healthier breakfast than crankcase oil. Yet most people still choose to accept that it is, based on the fact that those who eat the former tending to live long lives, while those who eat the latter, have had a nasty tenddency to croak rather quickly. Over time leading most to choose to believe that those strill around in large numbers, are so due to finding a more correct solution to the “healthiest breakfast” question, than the ones who believed differently, and then died. The same heuristic can be applied to multi billion strong world religions, vis-a-vis all the myriaids of strange occult superstitions which have, over the years, been tried and found similarly wanting. Whether the superstitions be weird shamanisms or end-of-the-world-last-week Thuneberganity.
If we all just believe and clap real hard we can bring Tinker Bell back.
We have a niece who visited this past Thanksgiving in her Tesla. They live only 175 miles away but when she was pulling out, they were stressing about finding an EV station somewhere so they could get home with ONE charge. The next morning, they reported that the Tesla had run down to a 2.5% remaining capacity and there were NO charging stations out yonder (ag. country, Nor Cal)…the four of them slept in the car until a tow truck came out at 2:30am and towed them into his TOW YARD….
That is the FANTASY of EV ONLY Auto’s. It is so ludicrous when REAL WORLD issues arise. My Niece had not brought the proper equipment to even slow charge her Tesla.
“…A 120 volt outlet will supply 2 to 3 miles of range per hour of charge. If you charge overnight and drive less than 30 to 40 miles per day…” That is the reality of Tesla charging. STUPID, ain’t it?
A 50 amp breaker and 6 awg wire to a p1440 outlet, is all it takes. I set up charging in rural areas for myself at my relatives so that I can charge at level 2 at these locations. If you happen to have a friend or relative that will help out, you are in good stead. Otherwise pay an electrician to do it for you. If you can afford a Tesla, you can afford an electrician.
It wasn’t his Tesla, it was his nieces. Reading comprehension trumps smugness every time.
Talking about the neice was assumed you would get that.
Level 2 charging, after 116 miles, my car charges up in about 3.5 to 4 hours.
My car loads a 400-mile range of gas in less than 3 minutes.
For myself, I don’t go more than the range of the battery bank on a regular basis. If you do, it would be wise to take 20 or 30 minutes to stretch, bathroom break before you move on.
I guess it works out fine when you don’t have anywhere to go.
Really? Its the rural areas and my impatient wife that is a little more effort. Just the same there were relatives showing up to the Iowa funeral from Colorado in their EVs. 5 years from now, this won’t be an issue anymore.
A level 2 charger, 50 amp breaker, 6 awg wire, and a p1440 outlet. For less than $150, I put it in myself. If she can afford a tesla I’m shw can pay an electrician to put one in for her.
Couldn’t he just pour a couple of gallons of electricity (at $10/gallon) into their Tesla?
It’s so easy, isn’t it?
They are developing mobile batteries.
Wrong.
The green fantasy will never end as long as the government keeps wasting our money on it.
I’m no socialist but the cost of a transition is huge and will be born disproportionally by those who least contribute individually – the poor. Increasing their cost of living beyond their means is not going to lead to a happy outcome.
True. But it’s been that way for a long time and I would not expect that to change.
Each one of us must first do what we can to look after our own welfare, our family, our friends. For the vast majority of earth’s 8 billion inhabitants, that’s the best they can do.
Once we are happy with that we can contribute to our community. A few reach this stage.
Then we can focus on the rest of the world. Very few can reach this stage.
This is a smart comment by you. People who are poor, and even Middle Class folks FEEL and ARE poor due to Inflation alone, have NO time or inclination to be spending MORE money on doing the world “some good.” I agree that cars spew smog and I have been to foreign countries where the air quality it TERRIBLE in bigger cities…and it makes SENSE to bad AUTO’s there (or autos with ICE)….but, to get anywhere else and enjoy the country side, then we got Diesel Buses or ICE or DIESEL CARS and TRUCKS. Workers need powerful diesel trucks to tow those trailers with materials. It is NOT going to be easy. Philanthropists are normally MILLIONAIRES and now they will have to be MULTI-MILLIONAIRES to afford to contribute to EV LIMO’s.
This just the beginning of switching off of FFs in a serious way. The Tesla semi went over a 1000 miles in one day. Batteries and electric motors can take over most of the FF transportation scence. By the time we reach 80 to 90 percent substitution, the last difficult parts will be worked out for operating without dependence on FFs.
When do you think that we will reach 80 to 90% substitution in transportation? Maybe in 50 years? Which will reduce overall emissions by maybe 10%. 50 years from now.
Too slow. Too late. Won’t make much of a difference.
S curve implies exponential growth. Even the low 40% by 2030 is a decent number. 62 to 86% of world market by 2030 bites the carbon industry right in the ##$.
link to cleantechnica.com
Following an “S-curve”* trajectory, already established by leading EV markets in Northern Europe and China, implies that global EV sales will increase at least sixfold by 2030, to enjoy a market share of 62% to 86% of new vehicle sales, the analysis shows. By contrast, current established projections see EVs reaching only around 40% market share by 2030, despite having been consistently revised higher to try and keep up with the exponential growth already underway.
The Future Of Electric Vehicles In The U.S. To 2050September 13, 2017
Share
New modeling using the Energy Policy Simulator forecasts electric vehicle sales will make up 65 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales by 2050, and could reach up to 75 percent by 2050 in the event of high oil prices or strong technology cost declines. The modeling includes expected market share expansion and penetration levels, the effects of internal factors like battery prices, external factors like oil prices and government policy support, and related national electricity demand.
S curve implies exponential growth. Even the low 40% by 2030 is a decent number. 62 to 86% of world market by 2030 hurts the carbon industry big time.
link to cleantechnica.com
Following an “S-curve”* trajectory, already established by leading EV markets in Northern Europe and China, implies that global EV sales will increase at least sixfold by 2030, to enjoy a market share of 62% to 86% of new vehicle sales, the analysis shows. By contrast, current established projections see EVs reaching only around 40% market share by 2030, despite having been consistently revised higher to try and keep up with the exponential growth already underway.
The Future Of Electric Vehicles In The U.S. To 2050September 13, 2017
Share
New modeling using the Energy Policy Simulator forecasts electric vehicle sales will make up 65 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales by 2050, and could reach up to 75 percent by 2050 in the event of high oil prices or strong technology cost declines. The modeling includes expected market share expansion and penetration levels, the effects of internal factors like battery prices, external factors like oil prices and government policy support, and related national electricity demand.
S curve adaption is an interesting phenomena. Fossil fuels are going to have a big bite out of their market at a faster and faster pace this decade. At some point it will no longer be to the advantage of the consumer when the ice legacy autos abandon FF technology. 2035 is a big number that the legacy manufacturers are commiting to. In a short time from now, the new EVs will exceed the scapped ICE mobiles.
FFs will have to have some formula to produce less and less oil per year at a profit. We will see if they stumble several times trying to do so.
You can forget your S curve.
The rapid growth is EV sales is already slowing. The big growth is now in Plug-In Hybrids. And that is in the two largest markets; the US and China.
Which is a good thing. It will allow for reduced emissions without overloading the grids. A more sensible way to move forward.
From Bloomberg. Start reading a little wider.
No sign of an EV slowdown
For all the headlines written recently about how EV demand is faltering, the data definitely doesn’t support this — at least not yet.
Sales of passenger EVs are on pace to hit 14 million this year, up 36% from 2022. In the US, where most of the concerns about demand have been raised, sales are growing even faster and will be up 50% this year. Sales might be short of what some manufacturers were hoping for, but have been in line with BNEF’s forecast from the beginning of the year, and most industries would be very happy with this kind of growth rate.
When people resort to percentage instead of numbers, you know in advance the numbers are small and likely distorted as well.
What percentage of people in the US, not China, buy EVs?
What is the US number of EVs vs ICE or regular hybrid?
Society may come come up to speed or not. The consequences are spelled out for us. Its like addiction to something that destroys us. We get it and change or we suffer for it.
The poor are paying now in a majority fossil fuel society. Our summers are getting hotter and they can’t afford airconditioning. Their homes will be 110 to 120*F inside while a mile away, it can be a cool 75*F. More fossil fuels makes this disparity even worse.
Yep. But we are failing badly at changing this in any significant way.
To realize we are failing is a good thing. A good dose of hopium and struggle for change. Its part of the human dna.
Recognizing we are failing is just the beginning.
Fortunately a mile away is within the range of most EVs.
The digital age, coupled with the majority of the information streams being provided by those who will profit handsomely in wealth and/or power by controlling the narrative and influencing society to do their bidding, has led to the current paradigm, whereby the masses have smoke and sunshine blown simultaneously up their collective anal orifices from innumerable media outlets across the globe.
Not surprising that the push back is happening as many have not been influenced and more are becoming aware of the false drivel being force fed them in vast amounts. Saddening to see how many still can’t see the larger picture, though.
They might “want to” but they cannot reasonably do so. But mark my words, they will be forced into it sooner or later not by regulations but by cost. Electricity bills are going to go from a monthly nuisance to a monthly noose. PV solar is the escape hatch. You install it when you are 50 (because it is expensive), do most of the work yourself, and it lasts until you are old with almost no maintenance.
I have found, in my dotage, that my personal maintenance costs are increasing dramatically.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/ip3/www.swissre.com.icohttps://www.swissre.com › dam › jcr:e73ee7c3-7f83-4c17-a2b8-8ef23a8d3312 › swiss-re-institute-expertise-publication-economics-of-climate-change.pdf
PDF April 2021 The economics of climate change: no action not an optionThe economics of climate change: no action not an option 01 Executive summary 02 Key takeaways 04 Climate change: … Agreement and 2050 net-zero emissions targets are not met. Many emerging … show in large shifts in asset values and higher cost of doing business as the world moves to a low-
Sometimes we have to pay to change so that future generations can have a decent place to live in.
“ Sometimes we have to pay to change so that future generations can have a decent place to live ”
But we aren’t. And we won’t. It’s very difficult to get people to sacrifice today for the benefit of those a hundred years from now. We focus most of our attention on solving immediate problems, rather than future problems. Particularly when we know that we won’t be around for that future problem.
Lets take electric cars. EVs. Record numbers of EVs being sold every year. Some portion of the owners are well aware of the benefits of clean energy feeding EVs. Part of pressuring utilities for clean energy change is by owning an EV. That alone is enough to make a utility giggle with delight to be that provider,
They are still a small percentage of sales overall and only people with homes where they can install chargers are buying them. More than half the population are renters and do not have access to chargers at their dwellings.
You can charge from a 120 volt outlet. I don’t, but I do know of people who do exactly that.
If we stay fixed in place and don’t change, then you are correct. If we change our infrastructure to demand access for charging for all, then solutions will come forward for them.
Insignificant. Our efforts to reduce emissions are failing. You seem to take solace from increasing EV sales numbers. That’s like trying to slow a speeding train by hitting it with mosquitos.
RE is increasing year and year and getting cheaper. Same with EVs. Tesla may have its $25,000 car ready by 2025. EVs in reality are still in their infancy. Tesla is opening up its superchargers to almost all manufacturers. There is a huge amount of change coming.
I may not present to whole picture everytime I talk. Clean energy and electrification will carry most of the load for straightening out the past and correctly use energy in the future.
The only thing that makes utilities giggle with delight is profits.
If clean energy makes them less competitive they don’t giggle. In the same vein, consumers giggle at lower prices and don’t giggle at green energy.
You are welcome to describe yourself as you wish. What everyone else thinks is a different story and I doubt you are that in touch with the sentimate in society.
I can’t imagine an electric utility not being excited to provide service when the FFs can no longer do so. They are being asked to expand and do so without pollution.
The world is increasing investments every year into RE. The economics of business as usual holds if we stick with fossil fuels. Business as usual staying with fossil fuels is the fool’s path for the correct impact on our earth living system.
“ The world is increasing investments every year into RE.”
Correct. And after doing that for decades, we still are not adding enough RE to even meet our annual energy demand increases. Which is why we continue to use MORE fossil fuels each year.
At what point do you expect fossil fuel use to finally begin to decrease? My guess is around 2035.
We are currently at 420 ppm CO2. By 2035, we will be at 450 ppm. And CO2 levels will keep rising, even as we finally begin to reduce fossil fuel use.
It is highly likely that we will reach 500 ppm by 2060.
“The optimal CO2 levels for the above ground biomass were 945, 915, and 1151 ppm, and for the total biomass were 915, 1178, and 1386 ppm”
But hey, those are just scientists, why pay any attention when fossil fuel investors can bloviate here – continuously. When some idiots get the bit between their teeth there’s no stopping ’em.
That is insulting. You’re an asshole.
Optimal for grass.
“ The optimal CO2 levels for the above ground biomass were 945, 915, and 1151 ppm, and for the total biomass were 915, 1178, and 1386 ppm for tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, and Kentucky bluegrass, respectively“
How about optimal CO2 levels for man. Between 280 and 350.
link to climate.mit.edu
Go f*ck yourself.
Papa, you probably won’t see this but I’ve added it just the same.
US Navy submariners are typically exposed to 2000-5000 ppm CO2. The Navy gets concerned when levels exceed 10,000 ppm.
280-350 ppm as an optimum is purely arbitrary and essentially hysterical hokum.
Nothing to crow about. At some point, the younger generation steps in who as steeped in the past as we are. There will be a difference towards what’s needed for energy sustainability.
Fossil fuel is finite. Mike Johnson doesn’t care about the climate change.
China and India barter with Putin and Iran. China traded in Yuan with the Saudis. China is slowing down. Less paper oil and less dirty oil might cure fossil fuel consumption.
Ceasefires are finite. Hamas launched a rocket attack. Israel responded. Hamas knocked off Hezbollah plans to takeover N.Israel. The surprise element was compromised.
There is hope that Nasrallah will not play a second fiddle. But if the war expands and becomes a war between Israel and Iran oil prices will popup.
The Fed might not cut rates waiting for more data. Rates might rise, even during recessions
The Green fantasy is still alive and kicking in Europe. If you talk to some typical young Germans you find they absolutely buy into it 100%. They really believe, with a cult-like fervor, that there is a climate crisis and that everyone must massively reduce their lifestyle in order to “save the planet”. I attribute this to the massive propaganda efforts in the schools currently underway in the EU totalitarian state. It may take a couple of generations to get total support, but the EU at least will not give up on its new religion.
Personally, I fully support global warming, it’s cold out, so I have sensibly converted everything I own to burning high-sulphur coal for improved efficiency. Including my 36 cyl HumVee, which I leave idling in the driveway 24/7, in case I need to go out. The coal-fired coffee-maker is working well too, next I am getting a coal-fired toothbrush.
Do your part.
You gest, but every time the govt attempts to pressure or force me to be “green,” especially when it’s illogical, this is exactly what I instinctively *want* to do, whereas organically, absent the authoritarians, I’m a conservationist.
Invest in horse futures. In 100 years people will be living like they did in the 1800s. No amount of “endless growth” wishful thinking will change that. We have a finite amount of non-renewable resources.
Nonsense. The amount of resources available on Earth doesn’t change at all. There is today exactly the same amount of carbon, iron, aluminum etc as there was 500 years ago. [The only exception to this would be nuclear fuels, which do get used up. Kind of ironic that some people want to replace carbon-based energy sources which are 100% renewable with nuclear energy, which isn’t renewable].
Natural resources are like “sideline cash” – they may move around and change form, but they are never used up.
The carbon contained in a body of oil or a seam of coal is very different to the carbon floating around the atmosphere – one is immediately exploitable for energy and the other isn’t….
There you go again bringing up those pesky laws of thermodynamics
Need to start looking at the bigger picture. Don’t think we have hundreds of years to figure this out.
Seems like we are off to a slow start.
link to worldometers.info).
Reserves grow with new exploration, so the 47 year calculation will grow
“Don’t think we have hundreds of years to figure this out.”
There is no “we.”
And furthermore; to add insult to injury; anhyone who can’t even figure that out, will certainly never be able to figure anything else out neither.
OTOH; and on a more positive note: Come hundreds of years from now: Individuals then alive will still be figuringout their then own situation, and their own immediate environment, out. Just as people; as well as other life forms; always have been.
The only people who keep falling for “thiiings are diiiiiiferent thiiiiiis tiiiiiime” are, as always, people clinically unable to figure anything out;
When Biden, Kamala, Obama, Hillary and the rest of the gang showcase all the solar panels on their multi-million dollar homes with no gas stoves, electric grass cutting gardeners, EVs in the driveway I will take it serious. Until that time no. It is a ruse perpetrated on average people. Nothing more.
The climate used to be free. Dying also used to be free. Sunshine, rain, snow, clouds, wind, all used to be free, just as dying, used to be the cheapest part of living, but there is a political party in the United States, which is making both of those totally affordable.
Dying was never free. Shoot, for centuries, the poor’s biggest expenditure was funeral insurance, so they’d at least have a dignified sendoff.
I get 38 mpg hwy and 29 city. I spend $100 a month on petrol. My car is paid off with 40,000 miles on it. Four year loan.
Do I need an EV?
Chineese manufactured EVs are the only way EVs will be affordable by the common person. I believe myself to be common and until EV costs hit a level below $30 000 and can drive 500 miles on a charge, I have no interest.
China is also making more plug-in hybrid EVs because Chinese consumers are showing a desire for their dual fuel flexibility. PHEV sales up 72%. Sales of Extended Range Hybrids (with bigger batteries) are up 157%.
Here are the Chinese sales numbers from the first 9 months of (2022) and 2023, and the % change.
ICE: (10,634,837) 9,498,794 -11%
BEV: (3,076,827) 3,503,656 +14%
PHEV: (798,164) 1,370,324. +72%
HEV: (619,640) 525,096. -15%
ERHEV: (153,925) 395,390. +157%
FCV: (128) 300. 134%
“However, it is not beyond the scope of imagination for a president to declare an emergency and seek special powers to deal with it”
That was my expectation/prediction when Trump declared an immigration “emergency” and grabbed special powers to build a wall.
Climate emergency and gun violence emergency will be the consequences.
“ The Green Fantasy Ends Because Consumers Don’t Want to Pay for It”
Close. More like:
“The Green Transition is Currently Failing Because Consumers Don’t Want to Pay For It and Don’t Want to Give Up Their Current Lifestyle”
Or perhaps you could word it like this:
“We have very little hope in preventing Global Warming and Climate Change from getting worse because consumers don’t want to pay for it”
Whether you want to call it the Green “Movement”, Climate Activist
Movement, or something else; it certainly hasn’t ended. And it isn’t going to.
Because Global Warming and Climate Change are going to keep getting worse, as the world fails in transitioning away from fossil fuels. So the “activists” are only going to get more desperate, destructive and violent. Never mind glueing yourself to the road, or throwing paint at classic art; expect to see pipelines being sabotaged, and other acts of eco-terrorism.
We are not at the End. We are actually at the Beginning of a multi-decade movement. Which will get increasingly violent.
As always, there is nothing I can personally do about this situation except recognize it, and then profit from it. Which is what I have already been doing for the last 3 years.
Consumers also don’t want to pay higher homeowners insurance premiums, higher food prices, etc, caused by climate change but unfortunately there is no way around that.
True. Costs will go up. Nothing I can do about that either. Except to continue to grow my wealth so I can afford these extra costs.
Until the 3+ billion people in China, southeast Asia and India stop striving for more affluent lifestyles, it’s all just pissing in the wind for the climate activists in the West.
Correct.
Invest accordingly.
@ NC….Correct. I watched a documentary a few years ago regarding climate warming. The minister of energy from India was interviewed. She was a pretty smart woman. India was and is planning more coal-fired electricity generating stations. Obviously, those facilities would be pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere. She said that the West is hypocritical in demanding India to cease building the coal-fired stations.
She went on to say that it was the West that contributed the far-greater percentage of CO2 emissions over the past 100 years and have obtained a first-world lifestyle. Now, India is trying to catch up and needs coal-fired energy to do so. She states that India didn’t cause the problem…the West did. But now all of the developed countries want to inhibit 3rd world countries from catching up, at least by eliminating coal fired energy. India has coal to fuel their ambitions.
Yep. Another reason why emissions will keep rising and global warming is just going to keep getting worse.
“Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.”
Unfortunately they didn’t mention profits.
More mirth PapaDave, more mirth.
We all have our reasons to follow and comment on this blog. Mine is to gain and share knowledge, in order to increase wealth. And you are here to……..be funny, tell jokes, lighten the mood? Which is fine. You do you. I will do me.
If we had a competent, rational government, the emphasis would be focused on transitioning to other energy source because of the finite amount of fossil fuels. A big part of that would include energy efficiency in housing and transportation. Just doing what Europe does by placing a large tax on gas would force people to be wiser about their transportation choice.
As to the CO2 hysteria I would point people to Prof. William Herper’s presentation linked to below. Those with a reasonable scientific background should be able to follow it. I also like the fact that he explores the benefits of CO2 for plant life and the psychological aspects of the climate hysteria.
link to youtu.be
There is some pretty strong evidence that plants won’t do as well in many areas.
Lol. William “Happer” is a paid shill, similar to the shills who promoted cigarettes as good for people. He is neither a climate scientist, botanist or phytologist.
Regarding plants; they need many inputs in the correct combination in order to thrive. Increasing a single input, like CO2, while seemingly a modest positive, guarantees nothing, without a corresponding change in other inputs. Take water. Increasing CO2 doesn’t help crops if there is also too much water, which causes flooded fields. Too little water causes drought and loss of crops. It’s a delicate balance of inputs.
Also, in case you care; roughly 30% of man’s CO2 emissions end up in plants. 30% end up in the oceans, and 40% goes to increasing levels in the atmosphere.
Papa Dave, How naive you are. The climate scientists never had it so good. They survive on Fdderal Grant’s and those Federal grant are only given to those that spout the party line. No one has deeper pockets than the Feds.
Also it is a fact that the earth is greening. Increased CO2 allows plants to thrive with less water. Thus, leading to the greening of more arid places.
Finally insulting a man who towers intellectually over you is in bad form. I doubt you can add fractions let alone excel in a hard science or make valuable science and engineering contributions.
Believe what you want Alex. I deal with reality. And I invest based on that reality. Which has made me wealthy.
I have made a fortune on my investments in oil and gas stocks over the last 3 years. Before that, I made a killing in tech stocks.
My success is based on my understanding of what is happening in the world. Not on fantasies that the weak minded want to cling to.
And yes, Happer is a well-known shill. He is smart enough to know he can cash in on peddling misinformation to the ignorant.
you are gambler, aka stock picker. Im not impressed
Why should I care what you think? If you want to impress me, give me some actionable info that I can make use of. Otherwise, you are useless to me.
Right on.
Unless you can make a profit off of someone it’s best to ignore them.
Everyone things they’re a genius in a bull market. I suspect your one of the lemmings who accidentally won a lottery and now you think your a genius. Here ya go, what’s 1/3 + 5/7 ?
Hint! Common denominator.
Any fees paid to Happer are donated to the non-profit “CO2 Coalition” – he says that he has never been paid a dime for any of his climate-change-related work. Instead of insulting, and even libelling him, can you refute his science…?
I don’t have to. Many others already have. He is a shill, making money by telling the ignorant what they want to hear.
link to skepticalscience.com
link to west.web.unc.edu
link to amp.theguardian.com
link to jeffreybennett.com
link to debunkingdenial.com
link to mashable.com
I could go on. But that’s probably enough.
None of those links addresses Happer’s central argument put forward in the lecture that Alex linked to – the Stefan-Bolztman formula which allegedly proves that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 400 ppm to 800 ppm will lead to only a one percent reduction in thermal radiation to space, which corresponds to a rise in temperature of 0.71 degrees Celcius
Life on this planet would not be possible without carbon. There was much more Co2 in the atmosphere in the past and the earth didn’t burn up. In fact quite the opposite occured. How do I know this? The fossil record along with ice and rock cores clearly show this was the case. Atmospheric Co2 levels have gone up and down throughout Earth’s history with no discernable correlation to temperature (again confirmed by ice and rock cores). But here we are. It seems to me that modern mankind is constantly seeking out a boogie man to slay. Fear is the new vogue commodity.
“ Life on this planet would not be possible without carbon.”
Correct. CO2 in the atmosphere is necessary for life as we know it. The question is what level of CO2 is ideal for life as we know it?
“ Atmospheric Co2 levels have gone up and down throughout Earth’s history with no discernable correlation to temperature (again confirmed by ice and rock cores)”
Wrong. Ice and rock core samples confirm that temperatures and CO2 levels go up and down together.
For example:
400 ppm CO2 (5 million years ago)
Temperatures were 3C (5F) higher than today. Ocean levels were 50-70 feet higher.
300 ppm (the upper limit for the last 3 million years till man screwed it up)
Great conditions for life as we know it.
180 ppm (the lower limit for the last 3 million years)
A mile of ice over New York. Not conducive to life as we know it.
0 ppm (a few billion years ago)
Temperatures were -18C (0F) and the earth was a frozen ball.
420 ppm (our current level, up from 280 ppm, just 200 years ago)
So we are heading back to conditions like 5 million years ago.
You are cherry picking. Look at a graph that includes both atompsheric Co2 and temp. over the last 500 million years. Sometimes temp. and Co2 track each other, others times they are going in opposite directions of each other. In other words, there is no discernable correlation.
Atmospheric Co2 has been dropping precipitously over the last 160 million years to the low of 180 PPM which occured during the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago. It rose slightly to 280 PPM during the post glacial warming. At 150 PPM (Co2), plants begin to suffocate, below that level they die. That tipping point was getting dangerously close due to more and more carbon becoming sequestered in raw fossil fuels, certain sedimentary rocks (think limestone), and other natural Co2 sinks. There’s no reason to suspect that atmospheric Co2 would not have continued its decline until all plant life died off or was severly encumbered by a lack of atmospheric Co2. No plants = no food chain.
Had mankind not started buring fossil fuels and, as a result, restored some balance; the planet could have been headed towards a massive plant die off.
It is well documented that the increase in atompheric Co2 has resulted in a massive greening effect on the planet. In fact many commercial greenhouses will pump in Co2 to levels of 800 PPM to 1,200 PPM to maximum plant growth.
Carbon = life……
Yes. Let’s look at the graph of 500 million years of temperature vs CO2.
link to earth.org
Well look at that. Temp and CO2 track together through 500 million years.
Of course, the most recent past few million years is the most accurate because of the multiple sources of data that we have collected from that time period.
Now look at the graph for the last million years. Watch the CO2 levels alternate from a low of 180 to a high of 300 ppm over repeated 100,000 year time periods. Which matches perfectly with temperature fluctuations, ice ages, and interglacial periods.
“ Had mankind not started buring fossil fuels and, as a result, restored some balance; the planet could have been headed towards a massive plant die off.”
Garbage. Even when CO2 declined as low as 180 ppm and ice ages happened, plants have not been wiped off the planet. They’re still here. And you’re trying to make it sound like this would happen soon, when we are 50,000 years away from a natural ice age happening. And of course, a natural ice age can’t happen when we are pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere.
And again, CO2 is merely one input need for plant growth. Increasing it, by itself, guarantees nothing without the other inputs.
Water is another input. Too much water and fields of crops get flooded out. Not enough water and crops wither in a drought. Not enough nutrients in the soil, and crops suffer. Disease. Pests. Etc. Plant life needs an appropriate balance.
Your focus on CO2 as the only thing plants need is misplaced.
Are you daft or just illiterate?
I said at 150 PPM plants begin to suffocate and below that they die. So stating that during the last ice age Co2 dropped to 180 PPM and plants didn’t die is silly. Of course they didn’t!!!!
I never said increasing Co2 by itself would result in increases in plant growth. But the results speak for themselves and they have been well documented.
As for your chart I’m not going to argue it. It’s pointless. You have your sources and I have mine so arguing them will just turn into a stupid waste of my time pissing match.
Carbon = Life
At some point in the future all of this BS about Co2 will be debunked and looked upon as cult like superstition at best.
Lol! This is getting fun!
Just how do you think that we are going to get to 150 ppm CO2?
CO2 levels have naturally ranged between 180 ppm and 300 ppm during every 100k year “grand cycle” for the last million years. Till man goosed it to 420ppm.
If we could snap our fingers and stop all human emissions today, the excess CO2 in the atmosphere would begin to drop out. To remove all of man’s excess CO2 naturally would take between 300 and 1000 years.
link to climate.nasa.gov
So, maybe 300 years from now, we might get back to 280ppm, which is where we were before we began burning fossil fuels.
Your “grand cycle” could then resume and perhaps after another 50,000 years we can get down to the 180 ppm level.
So, why are you worried about 150 ppm? And how and when do we get to that level?
Curious minds want to know.
Of course, this all assumes that man can stop emissions. Which we can’t. So we will keep increasing CO2 levels by roughly 2.5 ppm every year for many more decades. 435 ppm by 2030.
I note a strong correlation over the past 150 years between increasing atmospheric CO2 levels and the number of non-productive rent-seeking parasites greedily pursing profit and wealth.
We need to make yet another model and verify this.
The most efficient transportation is the bicycle. Most of the energy use goes into moving forward. The rest is heat which is countered by sweating. The auto, electric, steam, coal, or otherwise, dissipates its inefficiency in the form of heat as well. Even the brakes heat up when you stop (all energy is conserved). The energy used to accelerate is loss to the friction in the brakes when you try to stop. Musk says Teslas capture that (good for him). The sun is a nuclear furnace that heats up over time as it has to burn heavier and heavier elements, as all nuclear furnaces do. Everyday the sun comes up and 1/3 of its energy heats Earth back up from the heat lost to space during the night, 1/3 is captured by the plants, and 1/3 is available to be captured by us. Just be smart about it.
Somehow there is this shortsigtedness about global warming. The economics on this are quite clear, the faster we go at converting to clean energy, the more money we save over the decades.
link to reuters.com
Climate inaction costlier than net zero transition: Reuters pollBy Swathi Nair
A “business-as-usual” trajectory leading to temperature rises of 1.6C, 2.4C and 4.4C by 2030, 2050 and 2100 respectively would result in 2.4% lost output by 2030, 10% by 2050 and 18% by 2100, according to the median replies to the survey.
In contrast, if countries can jointly limit the temperature rise to 1.4C by the end of the century, the loss to global output would be reduced to 2.0% by 2030, 2.3% by 2050 and 2.5% by 2100, they forecast.
Do you believe all the bullshit you read?
I wouldn’t dismiss what Jeff posted.
As we all know, the future is hard to predict, particularly future economics. I suspect that eventually, the economic cost of inaction on global warming will exceed the economic cost of action. But I don’t know when that will happen.
What is easier to predict is that CO2 levels (and other GHGs) will continue to increase because we are currently incapable of reducing our use of fossil fuels. Higher levels will mean more warming and more climate change economic impacts.
The argument then turns to “how big” are the impacts. Which, apparently, is what the article referenced is attempting to do.
As you well know, the problem is we can never know the answer to the path not taken.
When we arrive at those dates we’ll be able to measure the economy at whatever the current level of climate change is. But what we won’t be able to do is measure it at any other level of climate change because there aren’t parallel earths to compare to. So it’s essentially useless to attempt to predict dates as far away as 2050 and 2100.
You have it backwards. We know that CO2 levels will continue to increase. We also know that these increases will accelerate global warming. We just don’t know who quickly this acceleration will happen. It could be far worse than we think. Or it could be more benign. Either way, it is important to understand the range of future possibilities in order to make informed decisions.
Take the Insurance industry as an example. They are adjusting their policy rates or even refusing to insure, based on a range of future projections. They don’t throw up their hands and say, “since we don’t know the future precisely”, we won’t change anything. That would be self defeating. They look at the future possibilities, given the best info available and then make informed decisions.
Pretty sure insurance companies charge for today’s conditions, not tomorrows. That’s because you pay on a yearly basis and each year they assess risk for the upcoming year. So they don’t care at all today what climate is going to be like in 2050 because in 2049 they’d figure out what to charge for 2050 based on conditions in 2049. In other words, they don’t care whether the climate is the same as now, better or worse.
So whatever impacts people are claiming today are going to happen in 2050 or 2100 (10% worse economy, 50% worse, 10% better) etc don’t matter at all. The reason is that we won’t know until those dates exactly what the economy is based on the current conditions then. So it’s silly for someone to predict 10% worse economy due to climate change because there won’t anything to compare to (for example if temps rise say 2C by 2050 and the economy is 10% worse, no one can say that it would be 10% better if warming was 1C or 0C because there is no parallel earth to measure against where that happens, all they can do is guess).
“ Pretty sure insurance companies charge for today’s conditions, not tomorrows.”
Then you would be wrong.
Maybe you can propose in a future post how everyone in the US and EU should go back to riding bicycles, eating no more than 1500 calories a day, and never traveling outside their neighborhood so that the Chinese and Indians can have their turn at affluent lifestyles. Except the elites, of course. Their important work entitles them to private jets and mansions on Martha’s Vineyard.
It just might be vice versa. You believe what you print online in spite of the evidence against it.
My sources against your sources. The world is headed to net zero and you aren’t?
Jeff, we and our many generations of ancestors have lived through an unusually benevolent climate period. There are grand cycles to climate.
It seems doubtful that humans can change these cycles, and to proceed with mitigation experiments, with unknown outcomes seems risky to me..
“ we and our many generations of ancestors have lived through an unusually benevolent climate period.”
Correct. The current life on earth has developed in an unusually benevolent climate period. CO2 levels were relatively steady at 280 ppm throughout that 10,000 year time period.
“ There are grand cycles to climate.”
Correct. The most prominent of these is the 100,000 year cycle that we have been repeating over and over again for the last 3 million years. In each 100,000 year “grand cycle”, CO2 levels decline for tens of thousands of years till they reach a low of 180 ppm. By the time they reach that level, there is a mile of ice over New York.
Then, in the next stage of the “grand cycle”, again over tens of thousands of years, CO2 levels increase to 300 ppm. The ice recedes, the planet warms.
Where are we currently in these grand cycles? Apparently we have been in the cooling phase for the last 5000 or so years. And we should remain in this cooling phase of the cycle for tens of thousands more years. In another 50k years, there will be a mile of ice over New York again. Or maybe not.
“ It seems doubtful that humans can change these cycles”
Wrong.
Humans DO have an impact. Ever since we began agriculture and started multiplying in numbers, humans have been altering the natural CO2 (and CH4) levels by a small amount. This actually helped offset the natural decline in CO2 that was occurring in the grand cycle and kept CO2 levels at 280 ppm for many centuries.
But then, 200 years ago, we began burning fossil fuels. Game changer. Fossil fuel use resulted in an economic boom, and a subsequent population boom, from 1 billion humans to 8 billion. And CO2 levels began to rise quickly as those increasing numbers of humans burned more and more fossil fuels.
It used to take tens of thousand of years to increase CO2 from a natural low of 180 ppm to a natural high of 300 ppm. An increase of 120 ppm in that very long time frame.
Man has raised CO2 levels from 280 ppm to 420 ppm in just 200 years! An increase of 140 ppm.
This is not natural. It is not part of any grand cycle. It is man’s emissions. We know this because of the different isotopes of carbon in the atmospheric CO2 levels.
Now, CO2 levels have been naturally this high in the past. But it took many tens of thousands of years to get there. Not 200 years.
CO2 levels were 400 ppm, 5 million years ago. At that time, global temperatures were 3C warmer (5F) and ocean levels were 50-70 feet higher. Which is where we are headed. We just don’t know how quickly we will get there. In the past these changes happened over time periods of 20,000 years or more. Man has accelerated these changes in to time periods of a few hundred years. But it is difficult to anticipate exactly how quickly the changes will take place because there is no historical precedent to go by.
It is going to be “interesting” to watch these changes unfold over the next few decades.
Unless we plan on living to be 150 years old, we won’t be around to watch it unfold
Correct. Which is why we won’t be able to do much about it. That’s always one of my major points which so few here seem to understand. People seem to think that I am advocating for action on global warming. I am not advocating for anything. I am simply explaining the reality of what is happening in the world today. Which is crucial for making the right investment decisions.
Invest accordingly.
Short answer is that science has ferreted out what has caused the recent warming of the last 150 years. It is all us. We did it and now its time to undo it.
Entropy “works” in one direction.
Any contradictions are pure hubris.
I don’t see the connection you are making. Doing work with the earth’s natural energy is what I mostly talk about. Entropy seems to describle what you can’t work with.
Entropy is a scientific concept that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the microscopic description of nature in statistical physics, and to the principles of information theory
Apparently the “green transition” will require at least a ten-times increase in the production of eleven different minerals. Peter Zeihan points out that there has never been even a doubling of any mineral production in any ten-year period in history
Which is just one of many reasons why it will be so difficult to transition away from fossil fuels.
Got oil?
You give me gas.
The amount of wear and tear on the earth and on life itself on earth would be greatly reduced. There is no greater harm to the earth than fossil fuels.
FOssil fuels is a very extractive industry. So much so that the prediction for extraction of the green industry of 2040 is 545 times less than the 15 billion tons per year of the present fossil fuel industry.
A Fossil Fuel Economy Requires 535x More Mining Than a Clean Energy EconomyTransitioning to clean energy would reduce the volume and harm of mining dramatically
How does pumping out an oil or gas reservoir harm the planet…?
Coal for starters. Including oil and gas, we do 15 billion tons a year. 2040 estimate of green minerals needed is 40 millions tons a year.
link to distilled.earth
Green minerals by 2040 will be 545 times less mining than for the fossil industry. Its clearly a turn for the better.
Strangely enough in just a short time, the price of the necessary materials are coming down. Battery packs are predicted to hit the $100/kw-hr sweetspot in a few years. The groans from the FF sector are going to get louder soon.
Well we know one thing for certain, politically driven science and government boondoggles are one of the surest ways to squander the built up capital of a nation. The other being stupid wars.
Big tobacco and FFs used the same disinformation campaign strategy. Another words lying to the public that their product is safe.
Agree with stupid wars. Disagree with politcally driven science. Bias is purposely ferreted out of science data. Very easy to do. This isn’t just the United States. This is the whole world. Our earths natural cooling system is shifted warmer by our emissions of GHGs into the atmosphere.
Getting too little attention and write up is that the Greens oppose all extractive industries, particularly those to obtain energy. They oppose everything about coal from digging it up to consumers using it. They oppose oil and gas from the same. It appears they also oppose hydroelectric, from damming the river and installing generators to delivering the electricity to consumers.
Getting too little attention and write up is that what appeals to Greens the most is demand destruction. Changes in our life style and standard of living that decrease our use of energy and most every other resource. Some Greens even say that a smaller world population, particularly of consuming materialist Americans, would be good.
How many people agree with that?
Only the ones that are not depopulated – that I am sure of.
Since when does the U.S. Government care about the consumer?
or the Constitution……
This whole thing was botched from the start, just like in the 1990s with methanol, ethanol and natgas as vehicle fuels (which I know something about). You cant just throw this to the whims of the markets. It has to be done correctly. For one thing, forget about climate change for a minute. IF the cheap oil has been found and oil is gonna cost probably more than the average family can afford, you need something else. But there must be a transition time which should have started 20 years ago. We need vehicles that run on gasoline AND batteries, at least for awhile. Like the Civil War that grinded on for 3 years before it really got going, or WWII which also took 3 years before it got going, we are in that time when “phony war” will be everywhere. Bring back the Chevy Volt and lets get started with bi-fueled vehicles before we run out of time. I prefer capitalism, but this aint gonna work that way this time.