Renewable Energy: Can We Get There?
Senior energy analyst Glenn Doty is highly critical of this piece, which provides an ostensible roadmap to 100% renewable energy; his comments are here.
My response:
First, let’s acknowledge that there are optimistic people whose analyses are more rigorous.
One thing is certain: if we are to have a low-carbon future, it will derive from a rich blend of technologies converging: nuclear, solar, wind, a variety of efficiency solutions, a combination of long-distance power transmission and energy storage to deal with intermittency, and niche solutions where resources happen to be strong: hydro, geothermal, and biomass.
I would also point out that, as a friend says, “The future always looks like the past, until it looks like something else entirely.” Breakthroughs in any and all of the above are possible, perhaps even probable, and the pace of evolution in this (and all arenas of science) continues to accelerate. Remember the Black Swan Effect.
Changes in government policy will help. The current administration has done everything it can to function as a wrecking ball to the environment so as to support the billionaires who brought it to power, but that won’t last, and a progressive administration will go a long way to move all this forward.
Craig,
“Global Energy System based on 100% Renewable Energy – Power, Heat, Transport and Desalination Sectors” conducted by the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the Energy Watch Group (EWG) from Germany.
The authors of the report aptly dedicated their work to a precocious 16 year old school girl !
I agree with Glenn’s analysis. The entire premise and methodology of the report is not only utopian and unrealistic, but infantile. The report could easily have been authored by a group of 16 year old’s.
The report is an excellent example of how passion and “belief” combine to influence erroneous popular opinion, especially when repeated in mainstream media.
This sort of material is also great fodder for equally naive(or opportunistically cynical) “progressive” political candidates to exploit as public policy.
Craig,I suggest you learn to cope with the current US administration since it appears likely to remain in office for the next six years.
Clean(er) technology progress has not slowed under the present US administration, if anything it’s intensified.
A strong US economy is essential to fund the sort of investment clean(er) technology requires. The investment may not be in technologies you favour, but that doesn’t make those innovations any less valid, or the contribution by those technologies to a low carbon future any less significant.
Hopefully, once the political trauma suffered by the Democrat Party has settled down and sanity returns to governing the world’s biggest economy, legislators can begin concentrating on formulating and enacting the sort of laws and policies that will benefit the American people.
At the moment the US Federal legislature is dysfunctional. The Democrat majority has only one policy, to repudiate and negate the policies of the administration on a personal basis.
This is a weakness (also a strength) in the US political system. For the system to work, legislators should employ “safeguard” powers sparingly and only in extreme circumstances.
Hating the President’s personality, style or manners, should not justify refusing to carry out duties of legislative enactment.
Refusing to accept the legitimacy of the President’s election, is not a responsible use of the chambers powers.
If the Democrats truly wanted to legitimize the unfortunate “Dreamers” they have it within their power to pass legislation to that effect. .
Of course, such legislation must pass the Senate( and be signed by the President) but at least the issue would be clear and reflect the views of US legislators.
There is so much good an active Congress could achieve for the American people. Release of the Mueller report, should have allowed Congress to get on with the job they were elected to perform.
Pursuing neverending “investigations” into the President’s personal life at the expense of focusing on important issues requiring serious debate and considered legislation, is not only an irresponsible betrayal of the US taxpayer, but obsessive and prurient.
Prurient obsessive behaviour is unattractive in tabloid journalists, in legislators it’s beyond reprehensible.
The US southern border crises is worsening. Tragically, large numbers of illegal migrants are carrying highly infectious, antibiotic resistant diseases. Many were acquired in traumatic and tragic circumstances during the trek to the US border.
It’s impossible not to feel compassion for these victims, but it’s irresponsible to both the illegals and the safety of US citizens to import an epidemic.
Congress can help, but while elected representatives fight pointless internecine wars with one another, nothing positive will be achieved.