I see that Kamala Harris now has an extensive issues page on her website. People have been whining about its absence forever, and now that it's here I predict that about 17 people will bother reading it.
My favorite is this one:
Politically, I'm sure this is a winner. Logically, not so much. It is, unfortunately, all but impossible that we'll ever seriously tackle climate without some kind of carbon tax or cap-and-trade. Even the solar revolution won't be enough to do it on its own.
Maybe she just needs to do more mainstream media interviews, Kevin? Those will surely delve deep into the serious problems facing America today, and give voters a fair and detailed briefing on her policies to tackle them. Right? Isn’t that how it works?
Literally LOLed at this, Austin. Awesome.
The U.S. will never take all the actions the climate doomers want. Any rise in gas prices will elect Republicans.
We have to win, not be "right." Period.
Dude, all we need is sufficient storage so we can use all the solar we gather; and offshore wind to provide the baseline.
We went from having the largest heat related brownouts and Public Safety Power Shutoffs to having none in our region since the Moss Landing batteries went online.
'Doomer'? What's doomy about saying it's in reach? Seems like the doomer is you.
We also need lots of new transmission lines. I work for an electric utility, and it has been immensely frustrating watching leftist activists protesting the construction of new transmission lines and tying them up in as much red tape as possible.
Oh yeah. I've observed many times that their enthusiasm for 'alternative energy' is in inverse proportion to any real knowledge or lived experience on the subject. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "We need more wind power right now! Also, I have irrefutable reasons for not installing those windmills where I can see them." Ugh.
Using the phrase "climate doomers" marks you as someone not to be taken seriously, I hope it was meant ironically.
The IRA is already a big step forwards. It was explicitly NOT cap-and-trade, which already failed under Obama. Instead it's all carrots in the form of tax breaks. So much so that it's spending 4X as much in red states as blue! That'll make it politically tough to undo.
What really matters, though, is what China does since they're far and away the largest emitter. Things are actually looking good there! They may peak this year. All the G7 have been heading downwards for a long time. We'll see peak worldwide emissions in another year or two.
while a step forward, it is also meeting maybe, maybe, 1% of the need.
all sticks no carrots, is fine, but how is it being paid for?
not really beating the sean trende rap with that last line.
Not doing these things will cost more money in the long run, that's how it's "paid for".
Ah, the "carrots, not sticks" conventional wisdom.
I applaud the IRA because it's at least *something* to address climate change. But "carrots and sticks" are a mirage. The IRA subsidies are carrots for some people (those who are in a position to take advantage of its tax breaks and rebates) and sticks for others (all taxpayers). On the other hand, a carbon tax that redistributes *all* revenue equally to U.S. residents would be a stick for fossil fuel companies and a carrot for 2/3 of Americans (see https://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact-study/), especially those of lower income. Isn't that what most people would *say* they want?
But of course any political consultant would have a heart attack at the sound of it because to most Americans *The Economy ≡ the Price of Gas*.
Unemployment? Inflation? Stock market? GDP? Interest rates? Wage growth?
Hah. That 8-foot-tall sign at the corner gas station is all they see. That's why most proposed carbon tax legislation includes an exemption for retail gasoline.
It says energy costs, which could be solar + efficiency rather than just cheaper energy. The abundance dems want enough cheap sources of carbon free energy and better more efficient stuff so that you get more use out of the energy you use and you can use more energy without needing to deliberately cut back in any way.
don't worry, elon musk will be announcing tesla's home-based tokomaks for delivery in 2025
stellarators will be available in 2027 for under $30k and you can pre-order for $15k
I'll go pick them up in my Roadster 2.
Solar, wind, storage, and extending the life of existing nuclear plants should bring down electricity costs if we had the political will to do it. Cancel the entire manned space flight budget. which is idiotic, and we would have $8B/ year for clean energy right there. I also see no reason to line Leon's pockets to indulge his ludicrous Mars fantasies.
Absent "Leon's" Mars fantasies, there would be no starlink. Starlink alone is worth every government dollar invested in Spacex.
...we would have $8B/ year for clean energy right there...
I'm getting flashbacks of Dr. Evil. Do you have any idea how much $8B is?
My point is that you can buy a lot of wind and solar for a tiny fraction of the federal budget.
Ahh, yes, cancel science because we totally need to fight among projects to deny all of them funding.
Also... 8 billions? In what year?
I'm all for science, but the robots are much better at it for a far, far lower cost. The Artemis budget for 2025 is $8b.
Why do you want to kill humanity's future?
And even if we cut carbon emissions to zero tomorrow, there is still far too much carbon etc. in the atmosphere now. In other words, we will probably need carbon sequestration, and probably some geo-engineering.
Or, more likely, we will not get anywhere near enough of that and we will suck it up in terms of more human suffering, with the poor and weak getting the worst of it, as is the general rule of things.
The only really proven carbon sequestration technology is growing trees and we are cutting them down faster than they grow. As long as humans display all the long term planning skills of wine yeast dramatic temperature increases are inevitable.
even wine yeast aren't stupid enough to roll coal in their duallys and buy their schizophrenic kids ar's
Not everyone.
We invested in 400 acres and are letting the trees grow.
Because we could and it seemed like the right thing to do. Better than a new Tesla or fancy vacation home with solar panels and heat pumps.
Governments of the world will take action on climate only after their elites are hurt. Only after the damage can't be wished away. Only when all the elites bunkers are underwater or without AC.
complete bollocks
the barriers to action around the world are more Populist (see Germany see France - populist backlash against "elite" driven EE mandates) not elites. (the other factors important are existing state energy companies mired in backwards looking management as well as unions, each obstructing over near-term self-interest).
People everyone do not like change period and oppose reflexively. Humans are humans.
solar and wind will make energy cheaper soon. we just need to keep building it and not letting oil companies use secret groups to stop it. https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-prospects-for-offshore-wind-in?r=bito&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Storage…
Nope. Intermittent energy is intermittent.
Simplistic and superficial
Transversal long-distance transmission on power wheeling opens up economies of scale.
Falling storage pricing on new-old tech now is opening as well market-levelised cost competitiveness.
The issues are less intermittancy but for elec the distribution and frequency management, which is engineering upgrade, a problem of investment time and smoothing of processing.
Proving your innumeracy yet again. But tell me, how much do you think a thousand terawatts of storage cost? How much do you think the additional lines and interconnects would cost? How long do you think it would take to get the necessary permits and negotiate/buy the requisite right-of-ways.
You claim to be numerate despite the many times you've royally screwed the pooch? This is your big chance to prove it. Oh, and since it's you ... show your work.
Proving your unfamiliarity with terms. You cannot store terawatts. You can only store terawatt-hours. Speaking of screwing the pooch...
well that is gonna leave a mark
Chuckle, not really. Sanity check: look at the magnitude of the output.
ON EDIT: Well, it didn't leave a mark, but it definitely smarted!
Oops, my bad. That should have been a thousand terawatt-hours, of course. Call it a bit less than two weeks of the annual energy budget for the U.S.
Of course, a quick sanity check could have told you that. Do you have any idea of what that power level would imply? But still ... my bad.
You DON'T need that much storage. Half a day should be lots. Remember that a sizeable chunk of power generation will not be intermittent; that's nuclear, hydro, geothermal, etc. We can live with a brownout every few years if that's what it takes to keep the cost of storage within bounds.
In this scenario, you're entirely correct. But. There is a certain segment that I can only describe as anti-nuke. Not no way, not no how. And in _that_ scenario, yes, you're absolutely going to need a thousand terawatt-hours of storage. I'm not saying that it can't be done or that it wouldn't be cheaper than including the nuclear option. I'm just saying you're going to have to honestly address those costs. Saying that solar and wind are so cheap and quick to build out without addressing storage and network issues is ... not going to lead to a, shall we say, productive discussion.
Correct. Another tradeoff is overbuilding production and curtailing energy at times in order to build less storage.
Nonsensical. Usage is intermittent and cyclical, just like renewables.
Louns is an idiot, but storage is the key.
We haven't have a heat related brownout here on the coast since the Moss Landing facility opened, and what we need is more renewables like offshore wind and storage.
You're gonna need about a thousand terawatt-hours of storage. Not saying it couldn't be done but ... you can't resolve the issue by simply saying 'Well, buy more batteries then!'
not in the way you're claiming. Multiple diverse intermittent and non-intermittent energy sources over a continent scale grid are much less intermittent than you claim.
One can not simply resolve the issue to "oil groups"
There are huge infra investment needs to upgrade grid to allow connexion
Solar and many forms of wind are indeed now actually cheaper than most hydrocarbon gen, HOWEVER, this can not be delivered at cheaper end-rate without massive deepening of the energy infra for distribution - notably the grid at largest scale (continental level to notalby enable geo-time differential) or one ends up with instability
However, with this, RE with base support (nuclear quite advisable) to decarbonise along with storage is a path to materially lower energy costs which is a double positive.
I think Kevin may have posted about this earlier,almost all new electrical plant construction is based on renewables or batteries (even though they don't generate electricity themselves, are considered as plants on the grid since they can dispatch electricity).
see also (watch out for "notifications" request):
https://energycentral.com/c/gn/chart-nearly-all-new-us-power-plants-built-2024-will-be-clean-energy
That one is literally funded by an oil group.
"Lower energy costs" is pretty vague. But the other side of it is mandating more efficient appliances and lighting, which only Democrats have supported and Republicans are always against. With lighting first we oppressed them by mandating those Obama Bulbs saving 75% on energy while lasting ten times longer, and more recently those LED Biden Bulbs using half the energy of a CFL and lasting even longer. And today the LEDs are about as cheap as anything else ever was.
Note: sometimes those LED bulbs, like the CFLS, fail about as soon as an incandescent one would have despite the claims.
Consumer retail action is borderline pointless
While energy efficiency investment is useful, your consumer focus is losing the forest for the trees.
Decarbonisation of energy production by at-scale enablement of lowest cost Rewewables which on Levelised Cost basis are now beating almost all hydrocarbons needs scale infra for distribution ("retail" elec distribution) and transmission. Ease the infra for this and smooth dev of storage at lowest cost and RE is beating on basic economics.
Industry level indsutrial scale heat and power are where one can move needles - and where dollars and cents arguments will flow generally.
fail about as soon as an incandescent one
while led's can last 20 years poorly made power controllers and limited thermal management in some bulbs can cause them to fail much faster
and good luck figuring out which bulbs are designed properly
You have to buy the better ones, not the cheaper ones if you are putting them into enclosed fixtures. I went through a bunch of cheap LEDs before reading up on things and trying the better ones with proper heat sinks and boom, the light over stairs that is really, really hard to access has used the same bulb for about five yeas now.
This is just campaign rhetoric: "I promise to do good things and not do bad things! Vote for me!"
Right. I hope Kevin doesn't think "I will raise your energy costs!" is smart politics.
No, higher energy costs are not needed, that will simply strangle
What is needed is enablement of comparatively falling energy costs - on RE side on a net basis
Triggering rises in hydrocarbon costs will simply trigger populist lashing out (see France and Germany, even UK) which will only delay and derail investment
Ensuring that RE is advantaged on infrastructure and driving down energy costs is the path forward - and generally feasible if one does not fall into all-too-typical Lefty tendancy to hair-shirtism.
RE enablement notably includes massive grid infra uprade (and permits smoothing), driving efficiency. Lower net cost of energy and you get positive feedback.
"Lower energy costs and tackle the climate crisis."
That's not only a politically winning message, it's logically and empirically true. Converting from fossil fuels to renewables is unquestionably a move from high-cost to low-cost energy.
Of course, there are costs of conversion. There are market imbalances that may need tweaking to incentivize businesses and consumers to make the switch. Credits and incentives will need to be part of the solution, and people who need help should get whatever they need. Let's not forget the biggest savings may be avoiding the enormous bill for the disasters that climate change will bring otherwise.
We need to stop worrying about relatively minor costs and start thinking of the enormous benefits of investing.
In other words, stop thinking like Republicans who can't let go of the past.
I believe Kevin is making at the very least an oblique reference to Jevons paradox. Which is sometimes applicable and sometimes not.
We don't need higher energy costs. We need higher costs for putting carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. So that consumers and businesses have a direct incentive to switch from high-greenhouse-gas to low- or no-greenhouse-gas choices. So that power companies install solar panels or wind turbines instead of gas-fired turbines because that's the most cost-efficient way to generate electricity. Subsidies might work. A carbon tax where the revenue is rebated 100% per capita might work; low-carbon users would see cash in their pockets from that.
Sure, that's what we need, and quite a bit more than that, IMHO. But do you really think there is a realistic chance of that ever happening in this country? So, sigh, science and technology are going to have to save the day, just like Americans have always expected them to.
Good call on the power vs. energy units BTW. I shouldn't have snarked at a fair call.
Hear hear! Making clean energy cheaper does little to shut down fossil energy. It does keep increased demand cleaner, but perversely may increase consumption. We can't reverse the emissions curve without making fossil energy no longer an economical investment.
Carbon pricing is one of the reasons EU per-capita emissions are half of those in the U.S. Canada is doing it. South Korea, the UK, and many others are doing it. Even CHINA is pricing carbon.
There's only one reason it hasn't been done here: because it would work.
Whenever the same tired arguments come up, I post the same tired references:
Yes, the links are kinda getting long in the tooth, but these are Fermi problems and susceptible to analysis via basic physics/chemistry. Also, the figures for consumption have changed; they've gotten bigger, and not in a good way
This is bullshit. We don't need 336Twh of storage for the usa; we are allowed to burn natural gas for backup; we wouldn't use lead-acid batteries; and batteries provide benefits to the grid beyond their ability to provide long term storage.
The consumer side cost savings we might have expected from green energy electricity is being sucked up by utilities' climate change mitigation.
So, electricity costs are rising significantly faster than inflation. Is that what you want? Probably not.
We need higher fossil fuel energy prices.
You're wrong. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61903
A carbon tax would have been nice, but is no longer needed. Solar and Wind are now cheaper than coal. Solar and wind and batteries will continue to grow faster and become even more cheaper.
It costs $20 to pump a barrel of oil in places with low pumping costs. That can produce around 20 gallons of gas so an ICE can drive around 600 miles. An EV needs 150 kwh for that same distance. As long as your solar+wind electricity has a wholesale cost of less than about 13 cents / kwh (ignoring refining costs), the EV is cheaper to drive.
So, yeah, we have a lot of embedded fossil fuel using stuff. As our water heaters and furnaces and ICEs reach end of life, they will be replaced with better electric versions. We still need to scale up the electric system to support that load. But by 2030, all new electricity production will be solar+wind, and all new energy production will be electric. At that point, the expensive fossil fuels will be rapidly pushed out of our energy system.
Energy will be cheaper and cleaner.