Your article reminds me of one of my favorite lessons I used to use in my classroom of high school algebra students: Which would you prefer, $2 million today, or $0.01 today, $0.02 tomorrow, $0.04 the next day, and so on for 30 days? Most students, of course, would roll their eyes and choose the $2 million. Then we would do some calculating, and discover that on the thirtieth day, they would receive $10,737,418.24. That's in addition to the $5,368,709.12 they received on the 29th day, the $2,684,354.56 they received on the 28th day, etc.
If the use of fossil fuel (for the specified period of approximately 6 months) has dropped by a third in one year in California, to approximately 24,000 GWh, and it continues to drop at the same rate for the next 5 years, the result is less than 3,200 GWh - in five years. Obviously any mathematical model like this is simply a rough estimate, and obviously there are many mitigating factors. But the fact is, the changes happening over just a few years can be quite extraordinary.
Nine percent of our energy from solar sounds pretty insignificant - especially when we consider the fact that 10 years ago it was less than 1 percent. Just like that one cent on the first day and two cents the second day, etc., sounds pretty inconsequential. But that's the beauty of exponential growth - pretty soon we reach the "OMG" level, and people begin to take note.
Never underestimate the power of mathematics. And never, ever underestimate the power of one vote.
Hello! I'm a 16 year old girl in my Junior year of high school and I love reading your articles. I use your articles in my weekly assignment of "current events" where I must read an article and talk about why the subject is important to be talked about. My teacher absolutely loves your articles and ended up making your articles the mandatory read for our Current Events assignment. You're just great! Thank you for writing these, as a teenage girl in this generation it is not easy, your articles give me a better understanding and grounded insight on the important things to focus on in life.
I agree. Solar is now climbing the steep part of the curve. And we learned in 2008 is how exquisitely dependent the fossil industry is on demand. A 2% drop in oil demand led to a 50% drop in the price of gasoline. And gasoline new care sales are falling fast (now 84%) despite a price advantage. Solar electricity generation, on the other hand, is cheaper than fossil, and held back mainly by interconnection delays and utility obstruction. Almost all new generation capacity is now renewable, primarily solar. It's happening. Here's a song about a solar spill: http://musicalscalpel.com/2015/12/solar-spill/
What's great about you is we can rely on you for bottom line truth. Like who knows whether Covid vaccines will kill us? Some of the people I respect most say they will. But some say they won't. What is a mere human to believe? In that vein, from decades ago when you did a talk for the Donut organization I belonged to, I knew you were the go-to person about climate change. Much gratitude!
Bill, pessimists will claim there arren’t enough (profitably extractable re both energy and money) rare metals on the planet for even the first generation of renewables we need - and what happens when they all need replacing?
Do you have a good source re that, pretty please? I’d love to know for sure.
Latest stuff, which I've written about a bit before, comes from the Rocky Mountain Institute. Highly encouraging on the prospects for a circular mining economy
I am not sure that is a comment from a pessimist, though. At the very least, it's a valid question. I would love to also see real calculations on the impact of mining to create all these solar panels.
Everything that is proposed and pursued appears to little too late; the mineral extractions are catastrophic for the people where the mines are. We need a "Pearl Harbor moment" - basically shutting down much of the civilian consumer economy, taking care of people's needs while focusing all efforts on avoiding what causes greenhouse gas releases and sequestering huge amounts of carbon by preventing organic material from decomposing or burning. We need a comprehensive response, not small steps while preserving an economy that is driven by profit seeking. And please recognize, pursuing a simple, ethical life largely coincides with pursuing health and happiness. See https://humanecivilization.org/climate-emergency/ H. Aeschbach, MD, co-founder and president of Humane Civilization Worldwide
Prof Simon Michaux is the leading expert, researcher & comprehensive thinker on this. The short take is no, renewables can't replace FFs. Google his name and you will find many videos/ interviews. I recommend starting with the one titled "The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels..."
First of all, let me preface my comment that I think the general idea of solar is a great thing, and replacing fossil fuel usage with solar is a great thing, too, at least in principle. But I have some unanswered questions (along with my attempts to answer them):
1. What is the environmental impact of the entirety of mining to produce these solar panels, and does that just shift the problem from atmospheric CO2 to habitat degradation? (I tried to search on Google scholar for this but could not find a reasonable answer on the impacts of mining regarding the increase in solar panels).
2. Once fossil fuel usage drops in the most advanced countries, that will theoretically drop the demand and hence the price -- how likely will it be for developing countries to pick up the slack so to speak and increase their use of fossil fuels to do even more things. For example, although I'm from North America, I've had the experience of living in Brazil for the past couple years, and the way things are down here, it seems almost impossible that this country WOULDN'T capitalize on slightly cheaper fossil fuel prices to do even more environmental damage to the Amazon.
3. Once we have an infrastructure of VERY CHEAP energy, this will significantly lower the cost of living in the long-term, or at least the cost of doing things that require energy. So then, what are we going to do with all that energy? With the majority philosophy of economic growth, that still indicates to me more expansion into natural habitats, especially in developing countries that might buy this cheap energy.
Again, not bashing too much on solar, but my gut and experience with human nature still leaves me unsure of how our essentially greedy nature will properly handle large amounts of cheap energy (which translates into greater abilities to do what they want).
You might say "yes, we have to handle the climate crisis because it's the most pressing", and I do agree with the sentiment, but I wonder if the endgame is all that rosy. In other words, is it even possible to solve human destruction within the current economic system? Or do we need a revolution?
We must not ask how to transition to a (luxurious) all-electric future, mining huge quantities of Cobalt with child and waring factions fighting over more mines, etc. Replacing 1.2 billion cars and trucks with electric ones - that is crazy. Studying transportation systems: we need to build ultra-light vehicles, up to the size of narrow subcompact vans, for short distance use and a dense network of light rail lines, most small, narrow track, largely built with wood and bamboo rather than steel. And we must halt most other greenhouse gas releases by reforming industries and land management, with plant-based diets.
What we need is an emergency top-down approach (as during WWII) to halt the crazy developments, not tinker with approaches that are too slow: to save the world as we know it, CO2 and methane levels must dramatically decrease, and soon; otherwise feedback loops will continue worsening climate instability and warming of the planed. see https://humanecivilization.org/climate-emergency/
Those are really good, legitimate questions. I hope Bill McKibben, or at least another expert answers them. I will give it a try, although it includes some guessing & hearsay.
1. Some minerals, most notably lithium, are mined to use in solar panels & other means of providing solar energy, which can be environmentally destructive. They are also relatively rare & China apparently has a corner on the market. I read somewhere recently that a new technology that doesn't require lithium to provide solar energy is being developed. I hope that's true.
2. I think lower demand & lower price would hopefully put out of business most of the now extremely lucrative & pernicious oil, coal & gas companies. If solar energy can be made widely available & practical for the whole world, I would expect that it would not be worth it for companies & countries to peddle fossil fuels. Governments could & should also impose hefty fines, etc. for environmental & health consequences of fossil fuel production, which would make it not worthwhile to produce fossil fuels. I don't expect fossil fuel production to completely vanish because there are uses for petroleum besides energy production, but at least most of the environmentally destructive oil, gas & coal can stay undisturbed in the ground, which is necessary if this planet is to remain inhabitable, and that amount which is necessary for other uses for which there are no feasible alternatives currently, can be conserved for these alternate uses.
Lower demand is not in the cards, nor is reducing FF production and reducing emissions in the cards. I explain why at length in my comments to Bill in this thread. Our energy ecosystem, underpinning every part of the global economy, is 96+% FF-based. Solar & wind play an insignificant roll. Hefty fines and vague notions about reducing consumption are not going to keep anything in the ground.
I certainly hope so with regard to the economic factors. But one must also take into account some local politics, and Brazil is on a different plane than the U.S., and I'd expect that's true for many developing countries. Not a knock against solar, but it's something to keep in mind for us who are trying to make things better.
Thanks Bill. Another great newlsetter and very encouraging to hear about the growth in solar. One small caution is that your piece says that the same thing is happening with the wind industry. However, wind is facing a lot more obstacles and is slowing down in growth, as some solid reporting by Michael Thomas has pointed out. It's an industry that needs more support than solar. https://www.distilled.earth/p/why-wind-energy-is-in-a-state-of
From a Brit, thanks for this heartening report on renewables. Over here, we sometimes feel as though USA is a monolith monoculture of megacar-petrol-gas-tumbledryers-aircon&overheating, and a place where everyone has their head in the sand about climate change. We need to be informed that this dismal picture isn't true and that US also has plenty of people working for sustainability and repair.
In 2023 in the US, "About 60% of electricity generation was from fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. About 19% was from nuclear energy, and about 21% was from renewable energy sources." (EIA) (Of that 21%, wind contributed ~10%, hydro ~5.7% and solar ~4%.)
But consider that electricity is only ~20% of TOTAL US energy, (the other ~80% from FFs.) So, the renewables' ~21% share of the power sector's ~20% of TOTAL energy (21% of 20%) gives us renewables at ~4.2% of total US energy. (Globally, renewables accounted for about the same 4% of total energy. )
A study by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that the US could reach 100% clean power (including nuclear) by 2035 if significant challenges are met. Assuming that goal is reached by 2035, a decade away, the US & the world will still be burning FFs for ~80% of primary energy...because the list of civilization's processes & products that require FFs and that can't be electrified to a helpful degree is long, including manufacture of steel, cement, glass, fertilizers, petrochemicals, plastics & electronics; mining, long distance shipping, aviation, all types of construction, bridges & roads, infrastructure buildout & maintenance. And of course making solar & wind units & EVs entirely depends on FF energy, incurring hefty carbon footprints.
So, this is the bigger energy picture not discussed by renewables boosters. I have to firmly disagree , Bill, and say that solar in the current & future energy mix IS very marginal, and that by the numbers & trends we are definitely not "on the cusp of a true explosion that could change the world." When Mark Jacobson, or NRDC, RMI, UCS, Greenpeace, Sunrise & many other influential enviro/climate orgs make the claim that renewables will deliver a "100% clean energy future", it's a false projection made without a shred of actual evidence. Instead the evidence is that FFs will dominate & will continue to destabilize the Earth System & ravage what is left of Nature. And if that's the case, Bill, if we have arrived at The End of Nature, maybe we need to be asking harder questions about what is still possible.
Among the things that solar has no chance of mitigating: saturation of the planet with plastics & forever chemicals; ocean heating & acidification; total CO2e emissions; ever increasing FF use; increasing drought, flooding, & hurricane intensity; global sea ice & glacial ice melting; AMOC slowdown & jetstream disruption; climate aggravated crop failures; bird & insect extinctions and phenological disruption across all ecosystems; relentless deforestation and extraction of every finite resource. Add to all this the global political commitment to FF-powered unrelenting war, international & domestic.
So, given the big picture, where does the dubious promise of renewable energy fit in? It doesn't in my well researched opinion. Any gains in the power sector for renewables will be marginal and have no effect on the trajectory toward ecological & consequent societal collapse. Time to reconsider this myopic focus on renewables and ask serious questions about the future.
so, the hope is that renewable electricty replaces most of the things we use liquid fuel for now. that's why i wrote so much about evs , heat pumps, and induction cooktops
That was my hope also until about 10 years ago. But the sectors mentioned above, manufacturing, mining, construction, etc. can't be significantly leveraged with electricity to reduce their reliance on FF s. We have to be inclusive of all factors if we are to make sense of the energy ecosystem and realistically judge how much it can be made cleaner.
Thank you, Bill. I'm very glad to be a Californian. In 2011 I put both solar voltaic and solar hot water panels on my roof. My publicly owned utility company gave me great cash incentives as did the Federal Government under Barack Obama. In spite of Gavin Newsom we continue to progress to eliminating the use of fossil fuels. I would also like to point out that while we are the 5th largest economy, one of the 4 ahead of us in the United States - of which, like or not, we are a member.
Thanks for much for your efforts, Bill. Very Grateful.
Question: I live in the SF Bay Area, North Bay … with all the refineries ;-). We 1960’s era house originally built to provide housing for the “service industry” in these refinery towns. We have had solar for over 10 years. Have you ever heard of Sapling Energy in Burlingame? I been getting a lot of marketing from them for a “free evaluation”.
Peace to you.
P.S. Back in the early ‘70s our family car was not a Station Wagon but a blue, standard issue jump seats, Checker Marathon with a tent trailer in tow. I got my learner’s permit in ’71 and drove the rig on a family coast to coast camping trip. . . . . Anyway. . . “Let the Day Begin!"
With your title Here Comes the Sun I thought you might talk about the sun and solar cycles. I’ve been casually studying solar weather for years now. The increase of erratic weather is happening to all planets in our solar system that are being observed. Climate change is not earth centric. We’re also in the midst of a geomagnetic excursion. The South Pole is no longer even on Antarctica. The North Pole is in Siberia. This instability has greatly weakened the protective sheath of earth created by balanced magnetic poles. It’s why Aurora was seen as far south as northern Arizona this summer from a geomagnetic storm that was moderate. That’s crazy and should not be happening. More solar energy and cosmic radiation is entering our atmosphere, heating the planet and causing havoc on weather systems, lightning and tectonic activity . I have yet to come across a climate scientist who is aware and open minded to the ‘bigger picture’ of other factors that are likely contributing, possibly much more, than just green house gas emissions. These factors I mention are but a few. They are also in contradiction often to the mainstream climate science narrative and are poo pooed. I would love to see a holistic POV that accounts for the totality of climate factors that are not so insular to metrics that support the desired outcome of the science being studied. It will take open minds, collaboration and true science rigor where people are willing to challenge the momentum of climate change and green energy and extend their perspectives beyond just the small blue ball we call earth. Scientists seem to hang out in their own silos. I hope they cross pollinate more and relax the egos.
Your article reminds me of one of my favorite lessons I used to use in my classroom of high school algebra students: Which would you prefer, $2 million today, or $0.01 today, $0.02 tomorrow, $0.04 the next day, and so on for 30 days? Most students, of course, would roll their eyes and choose the $2 million. Then we would do some calculating, and discover that on the thirtieth day, they would receive $10,737,418.24. That's in addition to the $5,368,709.12 they received on the 29th day, the $2,684,354.56 they received on the 28th day, etc.
If the use of fossil fuel (for the specified period of approximately 6 months) has dropped by a third in one year in California, to approximately 24,000 GWh, and it continues to drop at the same rate for the next 5 years, the result is less than 3,200 GWh - in five years. Obviously any mathematical model like this is simply a rough estimate, and obviously there are many mitigating factors. But the fact is, the changes happening over just a few years can be quite extraordinary.
Nine percent of our energy from solar sounds pretty insignificant - especially when we consider the fact that 10 years ago it was less than 1 percent. Just like that one cent on the first day and two cents the second day, etc., sounds pretty inconsequential. But that's the beauty of exponential growth - pretty soon we reach the "OMG" level, and people begin to take note.
Never underestimate the power of mathematics. And never, ever underestimate the power of one vote.
amen. couldn't have (and didn't) say it better myself
Hello! I'm a 16 year old girl in my Junior year of high school and I love reading your articles. I use your articles in my weekly assignment of "current events" where I must read an article and talk about why the subject is important to be talked about. My teacher absolutely loves your articles and ended up making your articles the mandatory read for our Current Events assignment. You're just great! Thank you for writing these, as a teenage girl in this generation it is not easy, your articles give me a better understanding and grounded insight on the important things to focus on in life.
Thank you for reading and for caring!
I agree. Solar is now climbing the steep part of the curve. And we learned in 2008 is how exquisitely dependent the fossil industry is on demand. A 2% drop in oil demand led to a 50% drop in the price of gasoline. And gasoline new care sales are falling fast (now 84%) despite a price advantage. Solar electricity generation, on the other hand, is cheaper than fossil, and held back mainly by interconnection delays and utility obstruction. Almost all new generation capacity is now renewable, primarily solar. It's happening. Here's a song about a solar spill: http://musicalscalpel.com/2015/12/solar-spill/
What's great about you is we can rely on you for bottom line truth. Like who knows whether Covid vaccines will kill us? Some of the people I respect most say they will. But some say they won't. What is a mere human to believe? In that vein, from decades ago when you did a talk for the Donut organization I belonged to, I knew you were the go-to person about climate change. Much gratitude!
We need to lead by example by permanently ending all of our carbon emissions!
Bill, pessimists will claim there arren’t enough (profitably extractable re both energy and money) rare metals on the planet for even the first generation of renewables we need - and what happens when they all need replacing?
Do you have a good source re that, pretty please? I’d love to know for sure.
Latest stuff, which I've written about a bit before, comes from the Rocky Mountain Institute. Highly encouraging on the prospects for a circular mining economy
https://rmi.org/insight/the-battery-mineral-loop/#:~:text=The%20path%20from%20extraction%20to%20circularity&text=Battery%20minerals%20are%20not%20the,mineral%20extraction%20altogether%20by%202050.
I am not sure that is a comment from a pessimist, though. At the very least, it's a valid question. I would love to also see real calculations on the impact of mining to create all these solar panels.
Everything that is proposed and pursued appears to little too late; the mineral extractions are catastrophic for the people where the mines are. We need a "Pearl Harbor moment" - basically shutting down much of the civilian consumer economy, taking care of people's needs while focusing all efforts on avoiding what causes greenhouse gas releases and sequestering huge amounts of carbon by preventing organic material from decomposing or burning. We need a comprehensive response, not small steps while preserving an economy that is driven by profit seeking. And please recognize, pursuing a simple, ethical life largely coincides with pursuing health and happiness. See https://humanecivilization.org/climate-emergency/ H. Aeschbach, MD, co-founder and president of Humane Civilization Worldwide
Prof Simon Michaux is the leading expert, researcher & comprehensive thinker on this. The short take is no, renewables can't replace FFs. Google his name and you will find many videos/ interviews. I recommend starting with the one titled "The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels..."
First of all, let me preface my comment that I think the general idea of solar is a great thing, and replacing fossil fuel usage with solar is a great thing, too, at least in principle. But I have some unanswered questions (along with my attempts to answer them):
1. What is the environmental impact of the entirety of mining to produce these solar panels, and does that just shift the problem from atmospheric CO2 to habitat degradation? (I tried to search on Google scholar for this but could not find a reasonable answer on the impacts of mining regarding the increase in solar panels).
2. Once fossil fuel usage drops in the most advanced countries, that will theoretically drop the demand and hence the price -- how likely will it be for developing countries to pick up the slack so to speak and increase their use of fossil fuels to do even more things. For example, although I'm from North America, I've had the experience of living in Brazil for the past couple years, and the way things are down here, it seems almost impossible that this country WOULDN'T capitalize on slightly cheaper fossil fuel prices to do even more environmental damage to the Amazon.
3. Once we have an infrastructure of VERY CHEAP energy, this will significantly lower the cost of living in the long-term, or at least the cost of doing things that require energy. So then, what are we going to do with all that energy? With the majority philosophy of economic growth, that still indicates to me more expansion into natural habitats, especially in developing countries that might buy this cheap energy.
Again, not bashing too much on solar, but my gut and experience with human nature still leaves me unsure of how our essentially greedy nature will properly handle large amounts of cheap energy (which translates into greater abilities to do what they want).
You might say "yes, we have to handle the climate crisis because it's the most pressing", and I do agree with the sentiment, but I wonder if the endgame is all that rosy. In other words, is it even possible to solve human destruction within the current economic system? Or do we need a revolution?
We must not ask how to transition to a (luxurious) all-electric future, mining huge quantities of Cobalt with child and waring factions fighting over more mines, etc. Replacing 1.2 billion cars and trucks with electric ones - that is crazy. Studying transportation systems: we need to build ultra-light vehicles, up to the size of narrow subcompact vans, for short distance use and a dense network of light rail lines, most small, narrow track, largely built with wood and bamboo rather than steel. And we must halt most other greenhouse gas releases by reforming industries and land management, with plant-based diets.
What we need is an emergency top-down approach (as during WWII) to halt the crazy developments, not tinker with approaches that are too slow: to save the world as we know it, CO2 and methane levels must dramatically decrease, and soon; otherwise feedback loops will continue worsening climate instability and warming of the planed. see https://humanecivilization.org/climate-emergency/
I do agree we need to do something right now, like an emergency approach, but humanity is not going to do it without being forced to.
Those are really good, legitimate questions. I hope Bill McKibben, or at least another expert answers them. I will give it a try, although it includes some guessing & hearsay.
1. Some minerals, most notably lithium, are mined to use in solar panels & other means of providing solar energy, which can be environmentally destructive. They are also relatively rare & China apparently has a corner on the market. I read somewhere recently that a new technology that doesn't require lithium to provide solar energy is being developed. I hope that's true.
2. I think lower demand & lower price would hopefully put out of business most of the now extremely lucrative & pernicious oil, coal & gas companies. If solar energy can be made widely available & practical for the whole world, I would expect that it would not be worth it for companies & countries to peddle fossil fuels. Governments could & should also impose hefty fines, etc. for environmental & health consequences of fossil fuel production, which would make it not worthwhile to produce fossil fuels. I don't expect fossil fuel production to completely vanish because there are uses for petroleum besides energy production, but at least most of the environmentally destructive oil, gas & coal can stay undisturbed in the ground, which is necessary if this planet is to remain inhabitable, and that amount which is necessary for other uses for which there are no feasible alternatives currently, can be conserved for these alternate uses.
Lower demand is not in the cards, nor is reducing FF production and reducing emissions in the cards. I explain why at length in my comments to Bill in this thread. Our energy ecosystem, underpinning every part of the global economy, is 96+% FF-based. Solar & wind play an insignificant roll. Hefty fines and vague notions about reducing consumption are not going to keep anything in the ground.
I certainly hope so with regard to the economic factors. But one must also take into account some local politics, and Brazil is on a different plane than the U.S., and I'd expect that's true for many developing countries. Not a knock against solar, but it's something to keep in mind for us who are trying to make things better.
Thanks Bill. Another great newlsetter and very encouraging to hear about the growth in solar. One small caution is that your piece says that the same thing is happening with the wind industry. However, wind is facing a lot more obstacles and is slowing down in growth, as some solid reporting by Michael Thomas has pointed out. It's an industry that needs more support than solar. https://www.distilled.earth/p/why-wind-energy-is-in-a-state-of
thanks.
From a Brit, thanks for this heartening report on renewables. Over here, we sometimes feel as though USA is a monolith monoculture of megacar-petrol-gas-tumbledryers-aircon&overheating, and a place where everyone has their head in the sand about climate change. We need to be informed that this dismal picture isn't true and that US also has plenty of people working for sustainability and repair.
Those who would claim that continued fracking, etc. & exporting of LNG, etc. is necessary
are dangerously out of steo with physical reality.
In 2023 in the US, "About 60% of electricity generation was from fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. About 19% was from nuclear energy, and about 21% was from renewable energy sources." (EIA) (Of that 21%, wind contributed ~10%, hydro ~5.7% and solar ~4%.)
But consider that electricity is only ~20% of TOTAL US energy, (the other ~80% from FFs.) So, the renewables' ~21% share of the power sector's ~20% of TOTAL energy (21% of 20%) gives us renewables at ~4.2% of total US energy. (Globally, renewables accounted for about the same 4% of total energy. )
A study by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that the US could reach 100% clean power (including nuclear) by 2035 if significant challenges are met. Assuming that goal is reached by 2035, a decade away, the US & the world will still be burning FFs for ~80% of primary energy...because the list of civilization's processes & products that require FFs and that can't be electrified to a helpful degree is long, including manufacture of steel, cement, glass, fertilizers, petrochemicals, plastics & electronics; mining, long distance shipping, aviation, all types of construction, bridges & roads, infrastructure buildout & maintenance. And of course making solar & wind units & EVs entirely depends on FF energy, incurring hefty carbon footprints.
So, this is the bigger energy picture not discussed by renewables boosters. I have to firmly disagree , Bill, and say that solar in the current & future energy mix IS very marginal, and that by the numbers & trends we are definitely not "on the cusp of a true explosion that could change the world." When Mark Jacobson, or NRDC, RMI, UCS, Greenpeace, Sunrise & many other influential enviro/climate orgs make the claim that renewables will deliver a "100% clean energy future", it's a false projection made without a shred of actual evidence. Instead the evidence is that FFs will dominate & will continue to destabilize the Earth System & ravage what is left of Nature. And if that's the case, Bill, if we have arrived at The End of Nature, maybe we need to be asking harder questions about what is still possible.
Among the things that solar has no chance of mitigating: saturation of the planet with plastics & forever chemicals; ocean heating & acidification; total CO2e emissions; ever increasing FF use; increasing drought, flooding, & hurricane intensity; global sea ice & glacial ice melting; AMOC slowdown & jetstream disruption; climate aggravated crop failures; bird & insect extinctions and phenological disruption across all ecosystems; relentless deforestation and extraction of every finite resource. Add to all this the global political commitment to FF-powered unrelenting war, international & domestic.
So, given the big picture, where does the dubious promise of renewable energy fit in? It doesn't in my well researched opinion. Any gains in the power sector for renewables will be marginal and have no effect on the trajectory toward ecological & consequent societal collapse. Time to reconsider this myopic focus on renewables and ask serious questions about the future.
so, the hope is that renewable electricty replaces most of the things we use liquid fuel for now. that's why i wrote so much about evs , heat pumps, and induction cooktops
That was my hope also until about 10 years ago. But the sectors mentioned above, manufacturing, mining, construction, etc. can't be significantly leveraged with electricity to reduce their reliance on FF s. We have to be inclusive of all factors if we are to make sense of the energy ecosystem and realistically judge how much it can be made cleaner.
Amazing work. Thank you Bill….
Thank you, Bill. I'm very glad to be a Californian. In 2011 I put both solar voltaic and solar hot water panels on my roof. My publicly owned utility company gave me great cash incentives as did the Federal Government under Barack Obama. In spite of Gavin Newsom we continue to progress to eliminating the use of fossil fuels. I would also like to point out that while we are the 5th largest economy, one of the 4 ahead of us in the United States - of which, like or not, we are a member.
Thanks for much for your efforts, Bill. Very Grateful.
Question: I live in the SF Bay Area, North Bay … with all the refineries ;-). We 1960’s era house originally built to provide housing for the “service industry” in these refinery towns. We have had solar for over 10 years. Have you ever heard of Sapling Energy in Burlingame? I been getting a lot of marketing from them for a “free evaluation”.
Peace to you.
P.S. Back in the early ‘70s our family car was not a Station Wagon but a blue, standard issue jump seats, Checker Marathon with a tent trailer in tow. I got my learner’s permit in ’71 and drove the rig on a family coast to coast camping trip. . . . . Anyway. . . “Let the Day Begin!"
Democratic party of freedom wants CAGW denial to be a crime (Walz).
Real criminals are the bellicose, screeching, fearmongers and their bogus GHE.
Believe = religion
Think = opinion
Know = science
Here’s what I know.
You??
Water vapor, clouds, ice, snow create 30% albedo which makes the Earth cooler not warmer.
W/o GHE there is no water and Earth goes lunarific, a barren rock ball, 400 K lit side, 100 K dark refuting a warming GHE.
“TFK_bams09” GHE heat balance graphic and ubiquitous clones don’t balance plus violate LoT.
Kinetic heat transfer processes of contiguous atmospheric molecules render a surface black body and it’s “extra” upwelling GHE energy impossible.
GHE is bogus and CAGW a scam so alarmists must resort to fear mongering, lies, lawsuits, censorship and violence.
With your title Here Comes the Sun I thought you might talk about the sun and solar cycles. I’ve been casually studying solar weather for years now. The increase of erratic weather is happening to all planets in our solar system that are being observed. Climate change is not earth centric. We’re also in the midst of a geomagnetic excursion. The South Pole is no longer even on Antarctica. The North Pole is in Siberia. This instability has greatly weakened the protective sheath of earth created by balanced magnetic poles. It’s why Aurora was seen as far south as northern Arizona this summer from a geomagnetic storm that was moderate. That’s crazy and should not be happening. More solar energy and cosmic radiation is entering our atmosphere, heating the planet and causing havoc on weather systems, lightning and tectonic activity . I have yet to come across a climate scientist who is aware and open minded to the ‘bigger picture’ of other factors that are likely contributing, possibly much more, than just green house gas emissions. These factors I mention are but a few. They are also in contradiction often to the mainstream climate science narrative and are poo pooed. I would love to see a holistic POV that accounts for the totality of climate factors that are not so insular to metrics that support the desired outcome of the science being studied. It will take open minds, collaboration and true science rigor where people are willing to challenge the momentum of climate change and green energy and extend their perspectives beyond just the small blue ball we call earth. Scientists seem to hang out in their own silos. I hope they cross pollinate more and relax the egos.