“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is going to cost a lot (both in terms of dollars and effort), and it is going to produce few if any demonstrable climate results for decades to come (if ever).”
The scientific community—or especially that part of it which holds the opinion that not enough is being done to mitigate potential climate change—is struggling with why the general public (and hence policymakers) are not heeding their call to action on global warming.
In a recent post, I pointed to one reason: the fast diminishing role that any U.S.-side mitigation would have in curbing greenhouse gas emissions enough to measurably affect global climate. This is a classic bang-for-the-buck evaluation. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is going to cost a lot (both in terms of dollars and effort), and it is going to produce few if any demonstrable climate results for decades to come (if ever).…
Continue Reading“Solar subsidies are a placebo which is giving the general public a sense of security about our energy future and is robbing the motivation of those entrepreneurs that could actually address our energy problems.”
“In the near term, perhaps our bigger concern than climate change is anthropogenic energy policy.”
In a recent Economist on-line debate, the affirmative motion “This house believes that subsidizing renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels” was surprisingly defeated.
In his closing remarks, the moderator softened his strident opposition to the negative case, even admitting that “subsidizing renewable energy, is wasteful and perhaps inadequate [to address
climate-change concerns].”
Beyond the Climate Debate
The debate, indeed, reopened the question whether anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcing was a serious planetary environmental concern. But such focus short-changed what I think is the more important question for the Economist.…
Continue Reading“This house believes that subsidizing renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.”
– ECONOMIST magazine, Online debate, November 8–18, 2011
Yesterday we reviewed the surprising rebuke of renewable energy–and the underlying premise that fossil fuels were inherently unsustainable–by an international voting audience.
Today we revisit the essential question: Can renewable energy really help ‘wean the world off fossil fuels’?
Although the affirmative’s Matthias Fripp, moderator James Astill, and their colleagues evaded this fundamental question, here is a sampling of oft-heard rationales, most if not all of which were implicit in Astill’s comments and final announcement. Windpower (providing more than 75% of any politically correct renewable portfolio), we are told, helps to:
… Continue Reading(a) Reduce reliance on foreign oil;
(b) Substitute for coal;
(c) Complement the fuels used in our electricity generation portfolios;
(d) Provide a fair return to wind investors while making them feel good about helping save the world;
(e) Spawn discretionary revenues to help bootstrap our economic doldrums;
f) Create new jobs;
(g) Establish leadership credentials to encourage the rest of the world to follow our example; and
(h) Serve as a bridge to newer, better technologies in some more enlightened future.