[DesuMaiden]

[url]http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-11-26/six-myths-about-climate-
change-that-liberals-rarely-question[/url]

Myth #3: Renewable Energy Can Replace Fossil Fuels
“We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” –Barack Obama
This is a hugely important point. Everything else hinges on the myth that we might live a lifestyle similar to our current one powered by wind, solar, and biofuels. Like the conservative belief that climate change cannot be happening, liberals believe that renewable energy must be a suitable replacement. Neither view is particularly concerned with the evidence.

Conventional wisdom among American liberals assures us that we would be well on our way to a clean, green, low-carbon, renewable energy future were it not for the lobbying efforts of big oil companies and their Republican allies. The truth is far more inconvenient than this: it will be all but impossible for our current level of consumption to be powered by anything but fossil fuels. The liberal belief that energy sources such as wind, solar, and biofuels can replace oil, natural gas, and coal is a mirror image of the conservative denial of climate change: in both cases an overriding belief about the way the world works, or should work, is generally far stronger than any evidence one might present. Denial is the biggest game in town. Denial, as well as a misunderstanding about some fundamental features of energy, is what allows someone like Bill Gates assume that “an energy miracle” will be created with enough R & D. Unfortunately, the lessons of microprocessors do not teach us anything about replacing oil, coal, and natural gas.

Let me repeat this point. The truth is far more inconvenient than this: it will be all but impossible for our current level of consumption to be powered by anything but fossil fuels

So it is basically impossible for anything but fossil fuels to power our current level of consumption...there is no way wind and solar energy can provide the same quality and quantity of energy as coal, oil and natural gas. Just accept this fact and stop hyping renewable energies as the savior of industrial civilization...it is a stupid myth promoted by liberals.

Without fossil fuels, we will have to use far less energy. Just accept this fact and let's move on.

[SeaGypsy]

Now you are getting it, sort of. Except it is not exclusively Liberals who believe in seamless transition. There are plenty of Repubs, righties, believing the same nonsense, with the same wishful thinking to back it up.

[ROCKMAN]

Gypsy - Yep...replacing isn't possible today...perhaps not ever to the degree society uses energy today. But there is a place for renewables to supplement growing demand. But that obviously depends on the rate of growth and the ability to fund the expansion. I've already explained that wind is already serving as a very viable substitute in Texas. It hasn't replaced any of our ff sourced energy. And maybe never will. But it is supplying enough to meet our growth. IOW it's not economical enough to replace existing ff sources but does compete well on new construction. But there's the chicken/egg dynamic: we can afford wind thanks to our growth but the growth depends on more energy to drive it.

And just today I saw stat surprised me. I already knew that of all the new jobs created in the country in recent years about 30% were in Texas alone. But the new metric: in the last year there were more new housing starts in just the city of Houston then the entire state of California.

[DesuMaiden]

Now you are getting it, sort of. Except it is not exclusively Liberals who believe in seamless transition. There are plenty of Repubs, righties, believing the same nonsense, with the same wishful thinking to back it up.

Yeah pretty much...

[Shaved Monkey]

The problem is not replacing FF with renewables but it needs to start with the need to replace the growth economy model and peoples consumerist aspirations,thats the hard bit.

[DesuMaiden]

The problem is not replacing FF with renewables but it needs to start with the need to replace the growth economy model and peoples consumerist aspirations,thats the hard bit.

Nothing can grow indefinitely in a finite world.

[Graeme]

Exxon’s Outlook: Forecast or Fantasy?

On the day government ministers landed in Lima, Peru, for the COP20 climate talks, ExxonMobil suggested they might as well all go straight back home.

The company’s economists have done their calculations and found that fossil fuels will continue expanding for the coming decades. So the ministers are wasting their time trying to save the climate.

Today ExxonMobil released its Outlook for Energy, which it has published annually since 2005. It predicts that oil and gas use will expand throughout the period to 2040, and oil will remain the world’s largest fuel source.

In the past, most international climate summits haven’t given oil companies very much to fear. But this time round they may be getting more nervous, with proposals on the table to phase out fossil fuel emissions by 2050.

The good news? ExxonMobil’s outlook is not a forecast; it’s the company’s fantasy. This became clear as we looked deeper into the numbers.

ExxonMobil has got its forecasting wrong before. In its first Outlook in 2005, it predicted wind and solar would provide 1% of the world’s energy by 2030. Wind and solar achieved this share in 2012, after 7 years rather than 25. The world’s use of those two clean energy sources has grown rapidly, by an average rate of more than 25% per year.

So ExxonMobil won’t make the same mistake again, right? Wrong. The company is predicting growth of just 7% in wind and solar use from 2010 to 2025, leading to a market share of just 2% in 2025 and 3% in 2040.

ExxonMobil is expecting this crash in growth rates just at the time that the new technologies are becoming cost-competitive with natural gas, coal and nuclear. For example, wind and residential solar are already as cheap as gas power in Japan, the USA and much of Europe.

While wind and solar are used in power generation, oil is used mainly in transportation. So the technological challenge to oil is from electric vehicles (EVs).

Like renewables, EVs are getting rapidly cheaper. Given improvements in battery technology, investment bank UBS projects that EVs could be cost-competitive with oil-fuelled cars by 2020, even without subsidies.

In last year’s outlook, ExxonMobil took a different view, expecting batteries to stay costly, and EVs to make up only 5% of the vehicles on the road by 2040. This year, same conclusion, for a different, unspecified reason: “Even though battery costs are likely to fall in coming decades, electric vehicles will continue to face significant challenges as other alternatives also improve.” Which alternatives? A technology so advanced they can’t even tell us what it is…

There is another huge assumption behind ExxonMobil’s outlook: governments won’t take any significant action on climate change. Not just at the current conference in Lima or in Paris next year, but for the next two decades.

Responding earlier this year to the latest science on what’s needed to keep warming below an average of 2°C, the company said, “the scenario where governments restrict hydrocarbon production in a way to reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions 80 percent during the outlook period is highly unlikely”.

That’s one hell of an assumption. It neglects the political impacts of more property damage, and of disruption to food production and water supplies. It neglects the political impacts of increasing numbers of economists, military leaders and even some corporations calling for action to stop climate change. And, most important, it neglects people power: we saw it in the streets of New York in September, and we are only going to see it grow.

priceofoil

[techsan]

Myth? Well, I'm living the myth, and enjoying it.

With 12 KW of PV solar on the roof, two electric cars (Leaf and Volt), and grid power from wind, we are close to net zero and use very little fossil fuel directly.

So, is driving a Leaf "less" than driving a Suburban? Some would say so; I would not. The Leaf gets me where I'm going just as fast. My wife considers the Leaf a luxury car.

As an electrical engineer and PhD scientist who can grok the technical details, put me down as one who believes we can have a good life on renewables. Not the same energy-guzzling, wasteful approach we have been using, but a good life nonetheless.

[SeaGypsy]

Yuppie wanker. How many of the world's 7 billion can afford all that junk?

[ROCKMAN]

techsan - I believe the thread is focused on the global economy and not you an your wife. LOL. But I do applaud you for your personal effort. OTOH you're not running a manufacturing business with thousands of employees dependent upon you to keep your business profitable and their pay checks coming in. Same old problem: scalability. One example of the benefit of modern power equipment in the video below , especially for those who feel human manpower can sub for fossil fuels: in 1900 it took farmers an average of 3 minutes of labor to produce 1 kilogram of wheat. Today, thanks to fossil fuels, it takes 1 second of labor to produce a kilogram of wheat.

Here's an interest story of someone who seems to be working affectively towards the goal of the practical application of the alts. Everyone interested in real applications of alt energy should watch this video. Long but worth it IMHO.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vtQ2_Cy08mY

[DesuMaiden]

Myth? Well, I'm living the myth, and enjoying it.

With 12 KW of PV solar on the roof, two electric cars (Leaf and Volt), and grid power from wind, we are close to net zero and use very little fossil fuel directly.

So, is driving a Leaf "less" than driving a Suburban? Some would say so; I would not. The Leaf gets me where I'm going just as fast. My wife considers the Leaf a luxury car.

As an electrical engineer and PhD scientist who can grok the technical details, put me down as one who believes we can have a good life on renewables. Not the same energy-guzzling, wasteful approach we have been using, but a good life nonetheless.

I doubt the whole world can adopt alternative energies like your family did.

[dashster]

Yuppie wanker.

3.1.1 Nudity, partial nudity, or adult content: This includes any explicit images as well as language describing sex acts or erotica.

[Strummer]

Myth? Well, I'm living the myth, and enjoying it.

With 12 KW of PV solar on the roof, two electric cars (Leaf and Volt), and grid power from wind, we are close to net zero and use very little fossil fuel directly.

So, is driving a Leaf "less" than driving a Suburban? Some would say so; I would not. The Leaf gets me where I'm going just as fast. My wife considers the Leaf a luxury car.

As an electrical engineer and PhD scientist who can grok the technical details, put me down as one who believes we can have a good life on renewables. Not the same energy-guzzling, wasteful approach we have been using, but a good life nonetheless.

Congratulations to your country being able to exploit the rest of the world to enable you those things. Not sure if it's something to be proud of, though.

[SeaGypsy]

Yuppie wanker.

3.1.1 Nudity, partial nudity, or adult content: This includes any explicit images as well as language describing sex acts or erotica.

Lol... does that mean I can't call this guy a rich selfish jerk who thinks he helps the world by helping himself?

[dashster]

Myth? Well, I'm living the myth, and enjoying it.

With 12 KW of PV solar on the roof, two electric cars (Leaf and Volt), and grid power from wind, we are close to net zero and use very little fossil fuel directly.

So, is driving a Leaf "less" than driving a Suburban? Some would say so; I would not. The Leaf gets me where I'm going just as fast. My wife considers the Leaf a luxury car.

As an electrical engineer and PhD scientist who can grok the technical details, put me down as one who believes we can have a good life on renewables. Not the same energy-guzzling, wasteful approach we have been using, but a good life nonetheless.

Congratulations to your country being able to exploit the rest of the world to enable you those things. Not sure if it's something to be proud of, though.

exploit

1 : to make productive use of : utilize <exploiting your talents> <exploit your opponent's weakness>
2 : to make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own advantage <exploiting migrant farm workers>

Assuming you mean definition 2, in what way is his country exploiting the rest of the world in this situation?

[sparky]

.
Renewables use a lot of aluminum , alumina smelters are energy glutton , 24/7 ,it's a continuous manufacturing
structural steel is produced in very, very large smelters large amount of coal are needed both for the energy and the process
nickel also is used ,it is called the devil metal due to its horribly expensive energy processing cost
silicium for solar panel are made with fossil fuel , there is no alternative

It is typical of greenies wannabee to concentrate on their individual consumption as being the end all of conservation
no concept whatsoever of where all those little green goodies com from

[dorlomin]

Conventional wisdom among American liberals assures us

Jesus wept, who cares what they think?

What about those of us who think that renewables will allow a power down with a significant energy input from them. Losing out on dispatchability but gaining in terms of sustainability and (soon) cost?

[techsan]

It strikes me as funny that my post gets such a reaction.

We have an average-sized roof, 2500 square foot house, and the solar covers less than half the roof area.

People criticize the cost, which is quite modest compared to the alternatives. For example, I got an ad from the Chevy dealer for a Suburban for $52K: for that price one can get both a Leaf and a Volt.

The cost of 3 years of gasoline for an average gasoline car will buy solar panels to power an electric car for the same number of miles per year for the rest of your life. The electric car is 7 times as energy-efficient as a gasoline car; I get a measured value of 4.2 miles per KWH, equivalent to 140 miles per gallon.

So, rather than being considered expensive and unsustainable, what I am doing is actually less expensive and more sustainable than what most people are already doing.

[Strummer]

what I am doing is actually less expensive and more sustainable than what most people are already doing.

Most people within your tiny little bubble, you mean.