Above, from Democracy Now.
At about 3:45 in the short clip above, Lee Fang states part of the conundrum that energy suppliers are in right now. Let’s just talk about natural gas.
We’re about to start exporting significant quantities of gas. Fossil fuel advocates have been pointing to natural gas supplies, bolstered by fracking technology, as a bright spot in the economy – and evidence of a “100 year supply”, yadda yadda etc etc.
As a result, a lot of new natural gas generators have been built in recent years, and we’re told that this is a good thing because of lower carbon footprint attributed to natural gas. That is of course controversial, but let’s stipulate for now that, ok, gas is less polluting.
There may be, nevertheless, to mix metaphors, a developing train wreck in the pipeline.
Utilities in New England have announced electricity rates hikes on the order of 30 percent to 50 percent, making prices some of the highest in the history of the continental United States.
For Sage and other consumers, these changes seem to have come out of nowhere, but in reality, they have been a long time coming. Between the years of 2000 and 2013, New England went from getting 15 percent of its energy from natural gas to 46 percent. That’s dozens of power plants getting built.
But the pipelines to supply those power plants? Not so much.
At the same time, with the fracking boom just a few hundred miles west driving down gas prices, more and more homeowners were switching to natural gas for heating.
So now when it gets cold and everyone turns on their heat, the pipelines connecting New England to the Marcellus Shale are maxed out.
Power plant operators are left to bid on the little bit of gas that’s left over for them, and the prices can get out of hand.
“In New England, this winter, based on what’s been recently trading, is likely to have the highest natural gas prices on planet Earth,” says Taff Tschamler, chief operating officer of energy supplier North American Power.
Gas for January delivery is trading at nearly $19 per million BTUs. Gas in Japan, which relies entirely on imported gas and often has the world’s highest prices, is forecast to cost less than $18 this winter.
OK, so, this fuel, which is supposed to be a boon to our economy because its cheap, and which we have been rushing toward, because its cheap, and which we’ve been told is going to stay cheap, is about to get way more expensive.
In 2010, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Charif Souki bet on the shale boom and proposed the export terminal. Despite the risks, he managed to line up billions in financing; that’s given Cheniere a two-year head start on the half-dozen other LNG export terminals planned along the Gulf Coast. In 2013, Souki was the highest-paid CEO of a U.S. public company ($142 million), and Cheniere is now poised to become one of the most important exporters in the global LNG market. “The impact we’re having on the rest of the world sometimes surprises us,” says Souki. “We’re going to represent 25 percent of the gas sold to Spain. We’re going to feed enough gas to England to heat 1.8 million homes.”
Cheniere says it will be the largest buyer of U.S. natural gas by 2020. Its liquefaction plant in Louisiana and another planned for Texas will allow it to ship about 6 percent of all the gas produced in the U.S. It’s locked buyers into 20-year contracts based on the cost of natural gas within the U.S., which averaged $4.47 per million BTUs for the first nine months of 2014. For a new customer in Asia, a delivery based on September prices would cost about $11.64, after fees. A customer in Europe would pay about $9.64. “This is the first time that there will be LNG on the market that is truly price-sensitive and totally open to the destination that needs it most,” says Souki. “You won’t have a few producers able to decide arbitrarily what they want to charge.”
MIDLAND, Mich. — As Dow Chemical’s chief executive, Andrew N. Liveris has made himself into something of an outcast among his fellow business leaders.
The reason? He is spearheading a public campaign against increased exports of natural gas, which he sees as a threat to a manufacturing renaissance in the United States, not to mention his own company’s bottom line. But many others say such exports would provide far more benefits to the country than drawbacks, all part of a transformation that promises to increase the nation’s weight in the global economy.
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Mr. Liveris concedes that the interests of his company coincide with his views. But he says that as the chief executive of Dow Chemical he also represents the interests of energy consumers at large, and he understands better than most what high gas prices can mean for the economy.He says he remembers the impact of escalating domestic natural gas prices between 2001 and 2005, when the company was forced to cancel plans to build a $4 billion chemical plant in Texas.
“I’m protecting my shareholders,” he said, adding that $5 billion to $6 billion in new Dow Chemical investments were depending on the continuation of low gas prices “and not repeating the ‘01-to-’05 movie.”
“What would make that repeat movie occur?” he asked rhetorically. He pointed to his native Australia, which he said exported 90 percent of its gas. That has caused, he said, “the collapse of the manufacturing sector — and, by the way, the retail sector’s paying through the nose. We’re paying Japanese electricity prices in Australia, yet Australia is gas-rich.”
Increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports would spur production and investment, “outweighing” a modest price increase for consumers, according to a new study.
The Energy Department’s stat shop said on Wednesday that more natural gas shipments overseas would result in “economic gains,” but at a cost to consumers.
“Increased LNG exports lead to increased natural gas prices,” the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its report.
But, gas markets in the U.S. would “balance in response to increased LNG exports” by increasing production.
In turn, “increased energy production spurs investment, which more than offsets the adverse impact of somewhat higher energy prices,” the report states.
At a time when resurgent domestic natural gas production and low natural gas prices are regularly in the news, it can be easy to forget that efficiency programs remain the cheapest and least risky natural gas resource. ACEEE’s recent review of the cost of electric and natural gas utility energy efficiency programs, The Best Value for America’s Energy Dollar, updated the research of a previous study.
Guess what? The findings confirm that natural gas efficiency remains the least-cost thermal resource.
The figure below compares the average cost of a therm of saved natural gas from utility programs implemented over eight recent years to the average U.S. price of a therm of natural gas supply. In every year for which we have data, efficiency programs cost less than supply.
Perhaps even more significantly, the average cost of efficiency across these years is nearly flat and is lower than the price of natural gas as far back as the U.S. Energy Information Administration has collected this data.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory:
As wind power finds it more difficult to compete with gas-fired generation on the basis of near- term cost, it will increasingly need to rely on other attributes, such as its “portfolio” or “hedge” value, as justification for inclusion in the power mix. This article investigates the degree to which wind power can still serve as a cost-effective hedge against rising natural gas prices, given the significant reduction in gas prices in recent years, coupled with expectations that prices will remain low for many years to come. It does so by drawing upon a rich sample of long-term power purchase agreements (“PPAs”) between existing wind generators and electric utilities in the U.S., and comparing the contracted prices at which utilities will be buying wind power from these existing projects for decades to come to a variety of long-term projections of the fuel costs of gas-fired generation modeled by the Energy Information Administration (“EIA”).
The wind PPA sample – consisting of 287 contracts totaling more than 23.5 GW of operating wind capacity in the U.S. – exhibits a high degree of long-term price stability. On average and in real dollar terms, the buyers of the wind energy in the PPA sample will pay no more per MWh twenty years from now as they do today. In contrast, natural gas prices are difficult to lock in for any significant duration, making it hard to capitalize on today’s low prices. Although short-term gas price risk can be effectively hedged using conventional hedging instruments (like futures, options, and bilateral physical supply contracts), these instruments come up short when one tries to lock in prices over longer terms – e.g., greater than five or ten years. It is over these longer durations where inherently stable-priced generation sources like wind power hold a rather unique competitive advantage.
Comparing the wind PPA sample to the range of long-term gas price projections reveals that even in today’s low gas price environment, and with the promise of shale gas having driven down future gas price expectations, wind power can still provide long-term protection against many of the higher-priced natural gas scenarios contemplated by the EIA. This is particularly true among the most recent wind PPAs in the sample, which likely better represent current wind pricing, at least on a national average basis. These newer wind contracts not only provide ample long-term hedge value, but on average are also directly competitive with gas-fired generation in the near term.
Natural gas prices stand a good chance of going up, or at least, remaining, as they traditionally have been – volatile.
Meanwhile, alternatives to buying gas range from incredibly cheap efficiency, too cheap and getting cheaper wind – with the added advantage of locked in price stability – and increasingly, photovoltaic solar.
So, my question is – congressional fossil fuel wackjobs notwithstanding – is there anything that can stop the onrushing renewable freight train?
There are other problems as well. Fracking is costing the industry.
http://srsroccoreport.com/condition-red-fracking-is-destroying-oil-gas-companies-balance-sheets/condition-red-fracking-is-destroying-oil-gas-companies-balance-sheets/
1. Wind IS cheap. But it’s not getting cheaper, and hasn’t been for at least 10 years now.
2. Efficiency is cheap too, because it pays for itself. But although efficiency has clear economic benefits (and should be pursued for that reason) it doesn’t reduce overall energy demand because of rebound effects. Even as this has gotten a lot of play in the press recently, all commentators have been looking at the problem through the blinkers of the economist, and all have missed citing the most important paper on rebound since Jevons. I refer to Garrett 2011:
Garrett, T. J. (2011). Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide?. Climatic change, 104(3-4), 437-455.
Garrett considers civilization as a whole to be a thermodynamic engine, which sustains itself through a self-perpetuating feedback loop (the economy). The bottom line is that energy efficiency is inextricably tied with economic efficiency, such that you cannot increase one without increasing the other. Thus increased energy efficiency causes increased economic growth, which results in no net reduction in energy usage.
Those who rely on energy efficiency to solve the climate crisis are sending us in the wrong direction. There is only one way to solve the climate crisis: we must decarbonize the economy, and rapidly.
yes we must decarbonize, but your comment contains errors.
Wind is getting cheaper
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2013/08/06/new-study-finds-that-the-price-of-wind-energy-in-the-united-states-is-near-an-all-time-low/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z1CIndBgIg
http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-6809e%20ppt.pdf
the Jevons paradox stuff is bullshit, tantamount to saying, “I love my efficient car so much – I drove to work twice!”
http://climatecrocks.com/2014/07/29/for-utilities-reality-is-a-jolt/
moreover, meaningless to the degree that new energy can be generated with renewables.
Peter – I’m not sure you understand what Jevons Paradox is. It’s basically that efficiencies cause cheaper prices, which in turn eventually (not right away)cause more use. People find a new and different ways to use it, and eventually the total usage grows.
Let’s take an example – LED TVs. They’re highly efficient compared to TVs from the 50s and 60s. But as flat screen have been adopted, we’re starting to see them everywhere – multiple displays in McDonalds, billboards on the highway, even little TVs running ads to you while pumping gas. There hadn’t been electricity usage there before, but now there is, because it’s cost efficient and possible to do so.
That’s a simple example, but it’s the point. People won’t drive to work twice, of course, but they might drive more to other places if they have lower bills, and they’ll also find a way to use the money they save by the efficiency, which will require the energy use in other ways.
It’s borne out by the data. We’ve made great strides in energy efficiency the past 2 decades, and yet here’s what our consumption pattern is (dated 2009, takes out the fluctuation from the recession):
http://www.energyliteracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/electricityproductionhistorical.png
The only real way to defeat Jevons Paradox is to raise prices while enacting efficiencies. This can be done with a carbon tax, but it could also be done by a peaking in fossil carbon production, too. It can also be beat if prices rise in other areas (health, home, etc.), or if average wages decline.
“moreover, meaningless to the degree that new energy can be generated with renewables.”
No, it’s not. The total source mix for electricity is the full picture. You can’t just take renewables as a separate source, because they’re not. Rising consumption, via any mechanism, in a system that uses a majority of fossil carbon for energy will continue (and often increase) that fossil carbon usage. It’s not a reason to stop building out renewables or creating greater efficiency, of course, but until we start seeing a system that is 80-90% renewables and/or nuclear, efficiencies by themselves won’t make a significant difference towards climate change mitigation. It’s unpleasant, but reality can often be that way.
Jevons doesn’t mean all the efficiency is used up. There are exceptions.
http://policyintegrity.org/files/publications/The_Rebound_Effect.pdf
On the flip side, the matter of relative cost does have an effect. Markets respond to cost by becoming more efficient. The real problem is not efficiency. The problem is increasing demand.
The status quo economic markets encourage growth. Make one that encourages steady state and quality of life instead.
Your patronizing tone is just one more indication of cluelessness.
Yeah, I think I know what Jevon’s paradox is. Obviously you didn’t get my point because you go on to say “but until we start seeing a system that is 80-90% renewables and/or nuclear, efficiencies by themselves won’t make a significant difference towards climate change mitigation”
well, duh.
the thing is, its easier to get to 90 percent renewables when you are more efficient. There is no scenario to get where we want to go without vastly increased efficiency.
Peter – you called Jevons Paradox “bullshit”. What else am I supposed to think?
It’s not bullshit. There’s a bunch of studies out there verifying it, and you can see that there is little to no indication of energy efficiency making a noticeable dent in consumption patterns when examining the data.
For example:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3033186/the-worlds-most-energy-efficient-countries
Germany:
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=81&c=gm&l=en
I’m saying these things because they HAVE to be figured in when examining best courses towards climate change mitigation. Otherwise, we’re just spinning our wheels, trying the same things over and over, and always being surprised when the results are the same.
I’m sorry for being “clueless”. I can be educated by telling me how/where I’m wrong with examples. Thanks.
Two other things: My apologies for a patronizing tone. I don’t intend it consciously, but I’m certain it comes across. I’m sorry.
Secondly: “the thing is, its easier to get to 90 percent renewables when you are more efficient. There is no scenario to get where we want to go without vastly increased efficiency.”
I think vastly increased efficiency is going to happen. I’m just not convinced it creates an easier scenario for increasing renewables percentages – and that’s largely because of Jevon’s Paradox and similar economic theories. In what I see, technology spurs growth, which creates higher levels of consumption as it ripples through the economy – pretty much always. It doesn’t make sense on the surface, at all, but maybe I could be pointed to contradictory data.
Lowered consumption, however, when added with efficiency would work – and in a capitalist economy the price mechanism is practically the only way to achieve lower consumption.
Greenman, I have to admit I didn’t see anything patronizing in Jimbills comment, just an attempt to counter-argue a point.
I must agree with jim here, I am sure he did not mean to patronize at all. It is true that as efficiency has grown we have just freed up more time and energy to spend it on other things. The average household today have all kinds of gadgets and a gazillion treks in cars to cover all kinds of “vital activities” for a full and “happy” life. (that was ironic btw).
I quite agree with you that renewables can fill a large portion of our fossil fuel usage if we could reap the benefits of efficiency by NOT consuming more when we have the free time/energy. In essence for renewables to even fill a part of it we need to both be more efficient and reduce our consumption – which goes against the growth model from which our economies rely upon.
So while technology and green energy is certainly possible, I am not so sure our free market ideals will keep Jevons Paradox from ruining the whole thing. Personally I believe we need to grab this at the root of the capitalist system and find a way of defining “enough” consumption for each individual, without going completely communist on people. Freedom within certain limits of consumption. Who really defined freedom as the right to consume as much as I possibly can? I can certainly see other non-consuming things I could fill my life without feeling that I am loosing out – and I might even feel like I am helping our planet get off the fossil fuel train which is really more important in the long run.
Article in Washington Post today says that Hummers are beginning to move off the used car lots where they have been sitting for years, and that sales of larger SUV’s and pickups are also rising in comparison to smaller and more fuel-efficient cars—-all because of lower gas prices (which will not remain so for long). The “consumer” and “growth” mentality rules, unfortunately.
For every percentage the interest rate has dropped here in Norway, the pricing of houses and peoples mortgages have grown. We bought our home approx 10 years ago, and today we could sell it at twice the price.
That’s a doubling in 10 years of what people here are expected to return to the banks by converting earths “stuff” into products and the energy that goes into the whole process of being productive to pay that loan.
And yet if everything on the earth were 50% more efficient in energy use, we’d only have to put up 50% of the wind, 50% of the solar, 50% of the storage, etc., than we would have to otherwise.
I have a suspicion most of those TV’s in McDonald’s, etc. are there because the shape and weight of the TV are more accommodating with regard to area use than the big, boxy ones of yesteryear.
Perhaps energy use has more to do with the huge, huge ones you see in metropolises? Then again, they are replacing billboards that were lit up with giant flood-lights that probably weren’t very energy efficient to begin with.
“And yet if everything on the earth were 50% more efficient in energy use, we’d only have to put up 50% of the wind, 50% of the solar, 50% of the storage, etc., than we would have to otherwise.”
Andrew – that’s what Jevons Paradox (JP) directly refutes. To my knowledge, there is no serious study that contradicts a rebound effect (or JP) from energy efficiency. I lean towards believing in the Khazzoom-Brookes postulate (supported by Garrett), which is more extreme than the study that Christopher posted (with the additional thought that economic growth isn’t 100% a result of efficiency – there are other causes, too). This version of the rebound effect isn’t as solidly supported to my knowledge, but not effectively refuted, either, and it’s backed by energy usage patterns up to now. I can’t find the signal for where energy efficiency is convincingly lowering total energy usage on either the national, world, or per capita basis. There is a stall in the data since the recession, but I think that’s highly likely to be the recession – lowered spending power, increased prices – and not energy efficiency itself.
On the flat screen thing. I was in an office building today, and pretty much every desk had multiple screens. One desk had a 50 inch screen with a spreadsheet on it. Each monitor itself is far more efficient than the CRTs of 10 years ago, but what’s the total energy usage now?
Again, I’m not refuting efficiency itself. It’s important. I’m saying that we need to factor in Jevons Paradox (not dismiss it) when examining strategies for our energy future. I happen to believe strongly in de-growth (not just steady state, and not de-carbonization of energy as a sole strategy), and JP happens to be one of cornerstones why. Once you see the implications of it, they’re pretty profound.
But…JP is also very, very bad news for our chances in regards to both energy use itself and with climate change mitigation. I’m open to seeing how/where it’s wrong in studies or data.
I haven’t put enough reading time in to give JP a ye or nay, but it just feels as though the effect is not 100% elastic at steady state or otherwise, nor a large forcing factor concerning causing, or cutting, carbon emissions within the 10, 20, or 30 year timescale++.
Energy prices are not 100% elastic as there is a base cost in acquiring energy; dropping energy use by 50% in aggregate for a local grid, wouldn’t result in 50% cheaper energy due to this base cost; there is a diminishing return in reduction. Further when you consider scale, a city that has x demand and y power plants has a similar energy cost to a (unconnected) city that has 4x demand and 4y power plants. Using efficiency to curb the latter city’s demand to 2x would result in 2y plants closing shop and a similar price of energy; in other words supply is modulated instead of price*, thus capital cannot flow away and cause energy use somewhere else.
Diverting money away from direct energy use and allocating it to goods and services is dilutive to energy use: not buying 50 gallons of gas @ $4, but instead using that selfsame $200 to buy junk at Walmart does not cause the energy equivalent of 50 gallons of gas to be used (as the cost of the energy used is only a proportion of the cost of such goods; discounting variants in one’s local cost versus the manufactures’ costs). Further some services are quite low in energy intensity per unit cost such as a $5,000 painting. A $7,000 per acre wooded lot (real property) causes no energy to be used in a deed transaction. The folks receiving the 5k or 7k aren’t going to spend it all on energy.
There are barriers to entry for energy use.
There are limiting factors in energy surplus locales such as time and saturation.
Further we’re not at global steady state (there are still many, many people in energy poverty that want more energy, than there are people with a surplus; and population continues to rise) so it’s hard to use global metrics to argue a mid-term fatalist JP phenomenon, especially with organic, non-rebound use rapidly coming online: OldGuy tells us China put up a number of coal plants equal to the US capacity within a decade or something like that++. They didn’t do that fundamentally because the US or anyone else cut demand enough to let them get in the game cheaper. Indeed something more ravishing could be argued: Western Industrial Revolution creates wealth wealth bleeds into China China uses wealth to invoke its own fast paced industrial revolution. In this scenario a slow accumulation to large energy use begets rapid large energy use; or more correctly, large amounts of work (Joules) begets large amounts of work. And indeed the speed at which China came online organically marginalizes JP with regard to carbon emissions. [Growth will be adjudicated through resource limitation and population stabilization]
What we’re really talking about here is: can the rate of efficiency implementation outpace the rate of rebound quick enough that supply can be taken offline (so that price modulation* is averted) before energy disruption can occur? Local rebound effects definitely have incomplete elasticity, and retrofit efficiency measures cause stark vertical drops in demand whilst the rebound would have a first order climb converging upon a point defined by local elasticity, saturation, limiting factors, &c. Aggressive implementation should be able to locally defeat rebound. Now if all locales in the world set were pushing hard on efficiency (again in a manner which more supply is modulated than price), then my statement concerning 50% world reduction should make a bit more sense. Further, concerning new energy demand coming online secondary to growth, again the more efficient this is, the better chance new renewables have of coming online in sufficient quantity to chase the newly created load.
As far as capturing local capital outflow via carbon tax – the tax must be used for either more efficiency implementation or growth in non-carbon energy. If it’s just given to the government to spend somewhere else or given as a corporate tax cut then the rebound effect is not broken. Efficiency creating capital to purchase more efficiency is a positive feedback that works against the rebound.
Andrew – Hi. That reference on Jevons is from one of your previous posts. Its from policy integrity.org. Thanks for that. Jevons isn’t all or nothing seems to be the message. Something in between.
Hi Christopher – My instinct tells me because it has a local effect that is marginal, then aggressive efficiency implementation that modulates supply instead of price would overwhelm it. [See my post above from today’s date (I just posted)].
Jevons Paradox is also a direct result from having access to cheap energy packaged in a way that allows us to consume it more rapidly. An example of this is that where people lived within walking distance to school, shops and work – the car allowed us to settle ourselves in places far away from these things. The efficiency of the cars has further stretched how far away people are willing to travel to e.g. get to work. Some even commute with cheap flights every weekend where I live, only possible because the total energy efficiency/cost of one flight has gone down. The sum of all this is ofc that each individual’s total energy usage has steadily grown.
I find this “right to commute X miles” one of the biggest problems on society today. I frequently see people looking for a special home with the right properties and hardly ever flinch at them having to travel 2 hours every day just to get to/from work. What kind of life is that? Do they realize how they waste energy to fulfill some ego dream of a particular home? Do they realize that the 2 hour trek every day also reduces their freedom/spare time? Do they realize that these treks also makes their lives more stressful?
Somewhere we converted our freedom to a rat race. I always thought as technology and automation came, humanity would be freed up to work on more philosophical and moral issues, and have lots of spare time to actually relax, read more and generally use their brains more. I feel we have all been shepherd into some consumption pipe-dream created by a few powerful men.
It looks to me that past the late 1990’s to 2000, the rate of accumulation is slowing. Plus if you correct the curve for population growth, I bet it would be only 4/5ths or 3/4ths as high as it is.
Andrew – I read the above posts. This is responding to them.
It’s not just about the price of electricity itself. It’s about the inputs to electricity. Even closing the plants reduces demand of its given resource – like coal and natural gas, principally, or even PV panels. This causes a drop in prices, and that brings demand back up in other sectors of the global economy.
But, on the price of electricity itself, which is inherently localized, a drop in aggregate prices in a given region would cause an eventual rebound. People would use either more electricity in other ways, or they’d use the saved money for other items and services, requiring energy inputs in their own ways.
You’re saying a closed plant due to a drop in demand would cause prices to level out. Surely, this does happen in the system, but efficiencies aren’t immediate. Neither is the rebound effect. It’s a steady loss/gain that generally equates into gain over time in a growing economy.
Now, I don’t think that gain is 100% the result of efficiency measures. But efficiencies tend to stimulate growth in the system, and we haven’t hit a point where efficiencies overwhelm the energy consumption behind that growth.
In highly developed areas in the past 10-15 years, there is a leveling off of the rate of energy growth – yes. Part of this ‘might’ be efficiencies, but part of it might also be rising energy prices (oil especially) causing lower consumption, part of it might be the simple fact that once humans reach a certain level of energy inputs, they don’t need as continually high a rate of energy input as they needed previously, and part of it might be the effect of offshoring manufacturing.
What I’m looking for are clear cases of energy efficiencies reducing total energy use. You’d expect to see a highly efficient place, like Germany, with a steady population, start to drop its energy consumption with those efficiencies – and yet it’s not there.
Additionally, growth in any area stimulates growth elsewhere. Germany’s GDP growth contributes to growth in developing countries, and global energy consumption rises. When one looks at world use, it’s a near perfect growth pattern, which is pretty much what Tim Garrett’s study was about:
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=eg_egy_prod_kt_oe&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false
“Diverting money away from direct energy use and allocating it to goods and services is dilutive to energy use: not buying 50 gallons of gas @ $4, but instead using that selfsame $200 to buy junk at Walmart does not cause the energy equivalent of 50 gallons of gas to be used (as the cost of the energy used is only a proportion of the cost of such goods; discounting variants in one’s local cost versus the manufactures’ costs).”
Actually, it probably does, because it stimulates the economy for those products. Each of those pieces of junk don’t just have the embedded energy of the production and distribution itself, they also have the energy the workers use to help create it, the energy the consumers use to go back and forth buying and using it, and the demand for those products ripples forwards in the economy, causing more eventual growth. That’s what Khazzoom-Brookes is saying. This is difficult to conclusively prove, however – although the growth patterns support it.
“Further some services are quite low in energy intensity per unit cost such as a $5,000 painting. A $7,000 per acre wooded lot (real property) causes no energy to be used in a deed transaction. The folks receiving the 5k or 7k aren’t going to spend it all on energy. ”
I think you might be pointing out another causal agent for the “decoupling” of energy use and GDP growth in the highly developed countries more than anything else.
“And indeed the speed at which China came online organically marginalizes JP with regard to carbon emissions.”
No arguments with this part. Again, I’m not saying efficiency causes 100% of the global growth – only that it helps stimulate it.
“What we’re really talking about here is: can the rate of efficiency implementation outpace the rate of rebound quick enough that supply can be taken offline (so that price modulation* is averted) before energy disruption can occur?”
Well, that’s the question. So far I don’t see examples of it. Also, I’m concerned that a diminishing returns effect happens with energy efficiency, too. We’ve had pretty dramatic efficiency measures since 1990. Undoubtedly, they’ll continue, but at what rate? Is it reasonable to expect they’d be significantly higher in the next 20 years as opposed to the last 20? And if that did indeed happen, what would stop the rebound of a highly stimulated global economy over the long-term?
That is what Christopher addresses by saying we need an enforced steady state, or what I’m saying by the need for increases prices across the board. Only those two options (minus a collapse) would seem to really address the situation.
“Further, concerning new energy demand coming online secondary to growth, again the more efficient this is, the better chance new renewables have of coming online in sufficient quantity to chase the newly created load.”
Growth is impersonal, and doesn’t care whether its energy inputs are solar or coal, just as long as it has those inputs. So far, fossil carbon use is rising at just as high a rate as alternatives (in many cases, higher, in some cases, lower). In a functional capitalist economy, over time, price is the main consideration. We can ‘fudge’ it a bit, however, by requiring renewables by government mandates, as Germany is doing, or by pricing fossil carbon at higher rates. I’m in favor of both of those options.
On a global basis, I don’t see any reason to agree with efficiency measures helping improve the situation WITHOUT lowered growth. You probably have a point, however, on a country-by-country basis.
“As far as capturing local capital outflow via carbon tax – the tax must be used for either more efficiency implementation or growth in non-carbon energy. If it’s just given to the government to spend somewhere else or given as a corporate tax cut then the rebound effect is not broken”
Totally, 100% agree.
From your own linked source: “Wind energy prices—particularly in the central U.S.— now rival the lows set back in 2003”. Which means that wind costs have been going sideways since then … just as I said above.
You can badmouth rebound all you want. What you cannot do is show one case in human history where overall energy use has gone down. Ever. For any reason. In spite of the fact that energy efficiency has increased dramatically and in many ways during that time.
Hmm. I wonder why more efficiency is NOT working? Maybe there’s some basic physical reason for that? Gee, if ONLY there were some scientist who had actually studied that, maybe I could read his paper.
Naaah, sounds like way too much work. That sciencey stuff, who needs it?
Keith – You are commenting to the reference Peter gave.
“Wind energy prices—particularly in the central U.S.— now rival the lows set back in 2003″
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2013/08/06/new-study-finds-that-the-price-of-wind-energy-in-the-united-states-is-near-an-all-time-low/
That comment is circa 2012. See the reference I gave for 2014.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Price-of-US-Wind-Power-at-All-Time-Low-of-2.5-Cents-Per-Kilowatt-Hour
At 2.5c/kwhr PPAs and with gas getting more expensive and volatile, wind is emerging as the low cost leader.
Wind power costs are even lower now and continuing to decline to levels below 2003. At this point, it does not matter that much. What is happening now is that higher hub heights and larger diameters are expanding the range of useful siting areas. Also, changes in the modes of operation and efficiency are improving energy output.
“Falling wind turbine pricing continues to reduce installed project costs: “Wind turbine prices have fallen 20 percent to 40 percent from their peak in 2008,” according to the report, and these declines are driving project costs down. Installed costs averaged $1,630 per kilowatt last year, down more than $600 per kilowatt from the apparent peak in 2009.”
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Price-of-US-Wind-Power-at-All-Time-Low-of-2.5-Cents-Per-Kilowatt-Hour
“So, the most recent DOE analysis finds that wind power is at 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, an “all-time low.” One of the authors of the report, Berkeley Lab Staff Scientist Ryan Wiser, wrote, “This is especially notable because, enabled by technology advancements, wind projects have increasingly been built in lower-wind-speed areas.”
the only way for wind to not get cheaper is if the wind itself gets more expensive. Since the wind is free…
(material costs for construction: same problem faces wind as faces fossil plants, nuclear, etc: it balances out)
Sorry, that’s just not true.
Wind got more expensive between ’03 and ’08 because wind turbines got bigger. The cost of a wind turbine scales with its mass, and the mass of a wind turbine scales with the cube of the rotor diameter. But the energy available in the wind scales with the square of the rotor diameter. Some of that can be recouped if the larger rotor diameter leads to higher capacity factors (and it does). But there comes a limit where that is no longer true.
So there will be a little bit of up-and-down as the market figures out what size really is the most economical. Once the market has reached that stage (which is where we are now), wind prices will have stabilized. There might be small gains yet from manufacturing at scale, but not much.
Keith – please. You are making classic mistakes. There are references and analysis to why turbines got more expensive during that period. There was a boom. Cranes and skilled workers were in such short supply that supply could not keep up with demand. Turbine size, hub height lower energy cost. Give it another try. Look up some references.
I have to laugh at the accusation of “classic mistakes” being made. The classic mistake I see Arcus demonstrating here is his oft-repeated one of looking up meaningless “references”, most of which are laced with opinion from biased parties and “projections” based on localized and short term “trends”, and then nattering on endlessly with like-minded souls about how they indicate a bright future.
I will say YET AGAIN, look at the graph jimbills included in his comment made on November 6, 2014 at 2:07 pm. Look at the reality of the past 60 years in this country and take off the “bright-sided” glasses long enough to glimpse some truth.
Add in what is likely going to happen once the Repugnants get rolling on their agenda now that they control both chambers of congress.
(And we talk about deniers being delusional and unable to face facts. Lord love a duck!)
If you want to explain why wind energy costs rose post 2008, you also have to explain why they dropped again to a level lower than 2008. This reference gives a simple analysis of the factors involved in costs. What is not shown is how much cost/kwhr depends on siting. Even a modest change in siting can change the numbers. Lower quality sites were used at that time.
http://www.awea.org/Resources/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=5547
There are some other factors involved. The inconsistency in PTCs has caused construction to be fitful. Those years produced a boom that lead to shortages of manpower, equipment and materials. Had that transition been more smooth, there might have been a smoother transition in costs.
Since then, capacity factors have increased for a variety of reasons and supply constraints have been minimized.
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2013/08/06/new-study-finds-that-the-price-of-wind-energy-in-the-united-states-is-near-an-all-time-low/
It’s supremely ironic (and stupid) that just as the price of electricity in New England is destined to skyrocket this winter, the region will be closing down one of its largest sources of non-fossil generation, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, because of political opposition driven by the irrational fear of nuclear power.
Are you sure it’s not closing down because it’s not economical?
Article about it:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/27/vermont-yankee-nuclear-plant-close-2014
ppp251 – NPP surely are closing because of economics. Yankee was on Coopers list as likely to be shut down. So was Kewaunee. They are both gone now. The list references Moodys, a reliable source.
https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf
Nuclear is low carbon, granted, but not carbon-free. The enrichment step in nuclear fuel production generates about 45% of the GHG for nukes, for example.
It is not political opposition shutting down nukes.
And the concerns about nuclear power are legitimate, not irrational. These include the potential diversion of either weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, or even highly radioactive used fuel rods for a dirty bomb. The nuclear plants and the fuel chain are vulnerable to terrorist attack. The greater risk is not to the reactor pressure vessel or its containment building, but rather the steam generator building, which would fairely quickly lead to a LOCA. Upstream dam failure poses risks. The poor, benighted Fort Calhoun reactor in Nebraska has been incapacitated since 2011 flooding on the Missouri River even absent such failure. And let us not forget Fukushima.
Even give these logical concerns about the safety of nuclear power though, political opposition to nuclear power over the last 70 years has not accomplished much.
But the economics are deadly for these plants. Even with various subsidies to this presumably mature industry, including the Price-Anderson Act as modified, subsidies which add up to about 5.5 cents per kWh, nukes simply cannot compete. The four plants closed in 2013 and Vermont Yankee slated for closure this year are simply financial albatrosses around the necks of their utilities.
Whether someone is an opponent or proponent of nuclear power, one thing that we should be able to agree on is that we should let the market decide.
The closure of Vermont Yankee will be therefore neither ironic or stupid, but simply the most rational decision.
swlawrence – thanks for mentioning Fort Calhoun. Long term unplanned outages like Fort Calhoun are discarded in some load factor statistics. When included, load factor is much lower and cost is affected. Cooper shows about 70% load factor when long term outages are included. Most of his references are sourced from a Moodys analysis. Coopers analysis picked Yankee as one of the NPP likely to shut down due to economics. There are a few in Illinois that Exelon are attempting to keep open with political support for a bailout.
Here is an important quote from Cooper.
“In the long term, new nuclear reactors are uneconomic because there are numerous low carbon alternatives that are less costly and less risk.”
https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf
Embarrassing, but I just figured out that people were sending comments. I am an amateur at this. I have finished the 450 page 19 chapter book finally, am working on nailing down all of the image credits. I see you share my assessments about nuclear energy. You might want to check out chapter 9 when I get around to posting it here. Thanks for your interest.
It is being closed down because it is leaking radioactive water and a wall fell down.
It is too expensive to fix.
High Nuclear Costs, Cheap Natural Gas
The small facility’s high cost, along with competition from lower-priced natural gas, contributed to the closure of the 605-megawatt, single unit, boiling water reactor, according to Entergy.
Christoper Recchia, commissioner of Vermont’s Public Service Department, an executive branch organization that represents the public’s interest in matters of energy, said the Yankee decision wasn’t entirely a surprise. “We always knew that the size of it and the age of it would be challenges economically, and that clearly drove business decisions,” said Recchia, whose organization supported the closure of Vermont Yankee
Recchia said the closure won’t impact in-state power use at all. “In Vermont, we actually don’t use any of the power from Yankee anymore. It’s a big power plant, the biggest one in Vermont, but we get no electricity from it at all,” he said, noting that Yankee electricity is shipped elsewhere on the New England grid.
In a 2012 study, ISO New England, the grid operator for six New England states, determined that the region’s electric grid would remain stable and reliable without Vermont Yankee because local electric companies had upgraded infrastructure across the region.
Operational problems in recent years contributed to the plant’s woes. In 2007 one of Yankee Power’s cooling towers collapsed, leaving a visible, gaping hole and increasing questions about the facility’s reliability. During 2010 and 2011 Vermont’s Department of Health reported traces of radioactive tritium in the Connecticut River and sourced them to the plant, though Entergy said its own tests found levels below detectable minimums. In 2011, Vermont’s Department of Health also reported that fish were found with detectable levels of strontium-90 a few miles upstream from the plant.
http://energyblog.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/27/economics-force-vermont-yankee-nuclear-power-plant-to-close/
The “high costs” of Vermont Yankee include extorted payments for environmental projects on the opposite side of the state, and a targeted generation tax that applies to nothing else. There is nothing in those costs that is inherent to the technology or the plant; it is all politics (and IMO should have been declared un-Constitutional, as bills of attainder).
Yup. And people are going to demand that cheaper energy be used to keep their bills down. Since Vermont Yankee is being forced off the grid in New England, the available backups are petroleum and… coal.
Totally foreseen, yet the usual suspects are all “Who knew?”
Not when wind has a 30% capacity factor; your price is going to be driven largely by whatever backs it up. Nuclear has a 90+% CF (and Vermont Yankee is about to complete a fourth breaker-to-breaker run), but its value is systematically denigrated.
There’s the little detail that what really matters isn’t what its output costs in general, but what its output costs when you need it the most.
Wind has 30% capacity factor but 97-98% availability. So with overbuilding you can met more than 30% of demand. It lowers capacity factor but not by much (depending on how much you overbuild).
Let’s look at some numbers. EIA published capital cost estimates for various power plants:
gas turbine (advanced combined cycle) – $1000/kW
onshore wind – $2200/kW
uranium – $5500/kW
So according to EIA overbuilding onshore wind 2x and having a gas turbine backup is cheaper than nuclear.
This is typical load duration curve for wind:
It’s clear that single turbine with 26% CF needs 74% of backup generation, if the load is constant at 100% of nameplate capacity.
But if you look at multiple turbines (say Nordic average) and assume that load is only at 50% of nameplate capacity (which means spill some excess), then the backup is only ~50% of generation (however, backup capacity must match peak demand).
So let’s put some numbers on this. Let’s assume that load is constant at 5000MW. Overbuilding wind at 10000MW would meet half of the demand, the other half must be provided by gas turbine backup (which must be installed at the same capacity as peak load, which is 5000MW in this case).
In monetary terms, using EIA numbers above I get $22bn for wind and $5bn for gas backup, so $27bn for total capital costs. Nuclear at 90% CF would require $30.5bn for capital costs.
However, nuclear doesn’t emit CO2 and wind+gas would stand at about 150-200g/kWh. But in the real world gas turbines are already built, so building wind would just save fuel (gas). So because of historical legacy wind reduces the same amount of emissions as nuclear, at least up to a point where it must be spilled.
Hm, image doesn’t seem to work, maybe this will be better.
http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/images/2-14.jpg
An interesting follow-up is how does that compare to world and France.
Since 45% of world electricity comes from coal and further 25% from gas, the average world emissions are about 600g/kWh. Building a hypothethical wind+gas system would reduce that to 150-200g/kWh. A substantial reduction but nuclear heavy France achieved 90g/kWh which is even better.
On the first look economics favors wind+gas, emissions favor nuclear. If we take wind+gas with CCS, then emissions are roughly the same, but price for backup is higher which makes wind+gas slightly more expensive than nuclear (though not much). However, this comparison is not entirely honest because french nuclear CF is not 90% but 75%. Lower CF increases cost of nuclear, so overall I call it a tie.
Ppp251 – backup capacity is called reserves by professionals. Reserve calculations are complicated, based on forecasts. Right now, reserves are minuscule, nowhere near as high as those calculations. There are papers online.
Weather forecasts can only tell you how much reserves you need one day in advance, but since it’s not possible to build power plant in one day you have to plan for overall reserves capacity several years ahead.
Right now additional reserves for wind are non-existent, because wind just shares reserves with other power plants. But if wind grows above 20-30%, then more reserves will be required.
ppp251- I generally agree. It would be good to discuss this openly. I am not so sure about the additional reserves required. I used to think that was true. Now I find some references that challenge that. In the references I find, the amount of reserves is not significantly greater relative to todays system mix. Here is the reference challenging the greater reserves necessary at high integrations. I have not read it yet. Most papers support the notion. IMO, its difficult to make generalizations because local conditions can make it easier or harder to integrate renewables. Case in point, any place with large amounts of hydro is easier.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4682642&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel5%2F59%2F4762160%2F04682642.pdf%3Farnumber%3D4682642
“Using a Monte Carlo simulation, the proposed technique for setting the SR requirements is then compared with the traditional deterministic criterion (i.e., the capacity of the largest online infeed), an approach to cope with wind imbalances and an approach that combines the traditional criterion with the approach to cope with wind imbalances. The results show that, contrary to what is commonly believed, an increased wind power penetration does not necessarily require larger amounts of SR.”
Here is an interesting paper on the subject of reserves.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/49019.pdf
ppp251 – Are those costs per kw may be overnight costs? In that case, the costs For uranium, the long construction times will result in higher relative costs increasing finance costs.
Christopher Arcus, your first link talks about spinning reserves and your second about wind penetration between 5-33%, which is still low enough that it doesn’t increase reserve capacity.
The point remains – if wind increases substantially above 30% then more reserves will be needed.
Agreed. Thats the consensus.
Whoops. IEA came out with a report showing higher levels of integration, perhaps 45% or more, before reserves start to add to costs. Its because of the difference between todays renewable additions to the BAU power system compared to tomorrows system which will be purpose built for more renewables.
http://www.iea.org/media/presentations/PowerOfTransformation_Factsheet.pdf
http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/Irish_innovation/article_1027293_printer.shtml
What on earth does that mean? 97% of the time you can get SOMETHING from wind… but HOW much, and what do you have to spend to get it? You won’t say… because it destroys your argument.
I searched the linked document for the string “2200” and did not find it. You are mis-quoting.
Your conclusion is wrong because you fail to account for availability, required overbuilding and fuel and O&M cost. The O&M for onshore wind is 3x as much per nameplate kW as NGCC.
Onshore wind @ 30% CF: $2200/kW(nameplate), $7333/kW(avg).
Fuel cost: 0
CO2 emissions: 0
O&M: $40/kW/yr (1.37¢/kWh)
Gas turbine, $1000/kW:
Fuel cost: $12/mmBTU LHV, 9.1¢/kWh @ 45% efficiency
CO2 emissions: 440 gCO2/kWh
O&M: $13/kW/yr (cost/kWh depends on utilization)
If you build out to 150% of average demand, you’ll have 500-1000 hours per year when you have to spill power because wind generation exceeds instantaneous demand. This increases the wind O&M cost to perhaps 1.6-1.7¢/kWh actually delivered. Amortizing $2200 over 20 years @ 7% interest is $204.68/year, or 7.8¢/kWh. Total, not including transmission system build-outs, is around 9.5¢/kWh for the 45% of demand this actually covers. Then you need 100% backup from gas turbines ($1000 per kW of peak demand), plus fuel to cover the 55% of demand not met by wind. Amortization is 1.9¢/kWh, O&M is 0.27¢/kWh, fuel is 9.1¢, total 11.3¢/kWh.
None of this includes getting electricity from the plants to the customers.
A nuclear plant, costing $5500/kW with the same amortization and 90% CF, has amortization cost of only 6.5¢/kWh. This is far cheaper than a system based on wind… and China is building plants for half that much.
It’s on page 6, overnight capital cost for onshore wind per kW: $2,213
O&M figures are also given in EIA capital cost estimates (also on page 6). Let me give you that link again:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/capitalcost/pdf/updated_capcost.pdf
You have too high fuel cost for gas turbine and you should add 1.2cents/kWh for O&M for nuclear. The result is as I’ve written, it’s a tie.
Hi ppp251 – this reference just in time for a discussion of reliability.
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/11/07/renewable-energy-integration-trouble-midwest/
Cleantechnica is an echo chamber. They ban all technically-savvy critics.
Shush! Do not interfere with Arcus’ bright-sidedness by pointing out to him the failings of the many green “cheerleading” sites he links us to like Cleantechnica or the business sites like Forbes and the WSJ that are concerned only with projecting profit and what may happen with stock prices rather than climate science. He refuses to see all the red flags scattered throughout these pieces like “But”, “would”, “could”, “would likely be”, “announced a GOAL”, and “could prove competitive”.
Arcus lives in fear and ignorance of the reality of fossil fuel consumption (coal in particular), the truth about nuclear power, “growth”, and the immutability of natural law regarding populations that exceed the bounds of sustainability. Please don’t make him cry.
Then reply to the quote from Cooper. His references are Moodys.
https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf
“In the long term, new nuclear reactors are uneconomic because there are numerous low carbon alternatives that are less costly and less risk.”
“His references are Moody’s”? LOL Is that the same Moody’s that was largely to blame for the recent financial crisis and recession? The Moody’s that caused many trillions of dollars of wealth held by average Americans to evaporate? The Moody’s that worked in collusion with Wall Street to screw us all? Really confidence inspiring.
Yep, Arcus never saw a “reference” he didn’t like, PROVIDED that “reference” supported his half-assed understanding of what is really going on in this country and the world. Ignorance is bliss.
I don’t doubt that 40% of wind and solar can be integrated, but that includes adequate reserves capacity to cover peak load.
German simulations for 100% renewable grid very clearly state that enough gas turbines (using renewable methane in this case) is needed to ensure reliability at all times.
Solar and wind may cover 70-80% of the load, but there’s always a week or two per year that you won’t have enough wind and solar. Given that a week or two of storage is not possible with pumped hydro or batteries, this implies gas turbines.
Will anyone ever pay attention to the graphs like the one jimbills posted at 2:07 and try to come to grips with what they say? Anyone who is not color blind or self-deluded should be able to understand that all our talk about efficiency, the growth of renewables, etc. etc. simply ignores the reality of a nine-fold increase in electricity generation since 1950, and what fuel sources were used. Little change is likely in that picture, particularly when it is expanded to the whole world—-we will continue to use fossil fuels, CO2 levels will go up, the Earth will get warmer, we frogs will slowly boil—-and I ask anyone to show us a graph that says that is NOT so.
Was life so horrible in 1950? That’s what I’d like to know.
I was only 10, but it seemed pretty good to me. There were only 150 million Americans and fewer than 3 billion humans on the whole planet, life was simpler, and AGW and over-exploitation of the planet was just beginning. Times were not easy for some in the world, but all in all, we were better off in the sense that we were not yet on the path to total self-destruction that we are on now.
Yeah we were only exploding nukes in the free atmosphere and heading for the Cuban missile crisis. Ah, most people were under dictatorship and anti gay anti black discrimination rampant. Single mothers were considered on par with prostitutes. In the meanwhile famines were a dozen a year and Mao became the largest mass murderer in history. Whatever was wrong with that.
/sarc
Yes, the history of man is filled with “horribleness”, and the 50’s had its share. The fact is that many of the problems that Omno identifies were beginning to be addressed and progress was being made. There WAS hope that there would be a better future for mankind. That hope is fading.
I know how this goes. In the late 90s the world wide web became the World Wide Wait because the infrastructure wasn’t ready for Netscape. Lots of investment and the promise of high returns brought Cisco to become a behemoth of a company, followed by the inevitable bust.
The excess infrastructure caused then prices to collapse enabling Skype and Google Earth and the iPhone. The rest is history.
From 1950, there was a 9 fold increase in US electricity generation. Yet, in the future, we do not expect that. Why? There is a decoupling of GNP from electrical energy use. The annual rate of electricity consumption growth has dropped.
Its unlikely there will be a similar rise in energy use over the same period in the future.
http://climatecrocks.com/2011/09/08/in-spite-of-gadgets-galore-us-homes-using-less-power/
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323689604578217831371436110
It must be tough to be so fearful of looking at truth that one has to walk around like the emperor with no clothes and pretend that “references” to projections about renewables hold more weight than looking at projections based on the last 60 years of fossil fuel use. Here’s one about coal in India, although it is from Forbes and is therefore a bit suspect, since it is based on economics, not science, and is underlain by the Forbes “mission” of promoting capitalism at any cost. It does parallel what other sources say about coal in India, China, and Australia, and the world at large.
and http://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2014/11/09/india-will-be-using-and-importing-more-coal/2/
Electricity use in the U.S. is going down, says Arcus? Based on new gadgets? No, it was more because of the recession. Let’s look 60 years ahead and realize that the U.S. is likely to add 100+ million souls to its population by 2074. Only a complete denier would say that we will not be needing more electricity.
Also 60 years out, the world population is projected to increase by 3 billion (and some estimates say double that, although that won’t happen). Does anyone with half a brain and any imagination at all think that the worldwide engine of capitalism is going to convert to renewables fast enough to keep CO2 levels from rising to CAGW levels? Realists know that isn’t going to happen unless the effects of AGW suddenly worsen to the point that we are forced to act soon. Otherwise, we remain the slowly boiling frogs, and if we do wake up to the truth let’s hope that whatever SHTF can be mitigated to the point that mankind survives.
I hate to pick on Arcus because he obviously cares, and it appears that he has thought about the DKE to the point that he has stopped talking about methanogens, methanotrophs, and volcanoes and stayed more with a topic he has some expertise in. But I must yet again point out to everyone that he apparently has not upped his game in the graph reading department—-if he had, he would have answered my many requests for comment on jimbill’s graph about the history of energy sources.
(OT for E-Pot)
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