Much positive attention has recently been given to both the potential for renewables to meet all our energy needs as well as the actual spread of solar- and wind-generated electricity. For example, the International Energy Agency recently released its much-watched World Energy Outlook 2015. The report projects that over the next 25 years, there will be a radical shift worldwide toward renewables and away from coal. But critics (such as the Energy Watch Group) say that despite the surface optimism of the IEA report, its authors actually have done this year what they have been doing for the past two decades: greatly underestimating the pace of renewables growth and thus skewing the views of even those lawmakers who favor policies designed to accelerate installation of renewables.
This underestimation has also been the case at the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2005, EIA predicted that the U.S. would have installed 60 gigawatts of wind turbines by 2030. In fact, that figure was reached in 2012. As of now, just 10 years into the EIA’s forecast, installed U.S. wind power totals 69 gigawatts, and there are projects totaling 13 more gigawatts under construction. Even at the current rate of construction, by 2030, accumulated wind installations would be more than double EIA’s forecast in 2005. But there is no reason for us not increase the actual total five- or six-fold in the next 15 years.
Well, of course, there is a reason. Politics. There are those—the Koch Bros., for example—determined to do all in their considerable power to decelerate or stop growth of renewables. In addition to erecting obstacles, such as attacks on net metering for rooftop solar, there’s the continued backing for the monstrous subsidies provided fossil fuels.
Alex Kirby at Climate News Network explains just how much money is being poured in the coffers of the fossil fuel industries. He writes in Biggest economies still backing fossil fuels:
The governments of the world’s major industrialised countries, the G20 group, are providing more than US$450 billion a year to support the production of fossil fuels.
That is almost four times the entire world’s subsidies to the rapidly growing renewable energy sector, as the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates total global renewables subsidies in 2013 at $121bn.
The G20 group agreed in 2009 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies “in the medium term”, a pledge that was repeated at its 2014 meeting in Brisbane.
But the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and campaign group Oil Change International (OCI) have now published a detailed analysis of G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production.
Their Empty Promises on G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production says researchers found that G20 support to fossil fuel production now totals $452bn. [...]
The report recommends G20 governments adopt strict timelines for the phase-out of fossil fuel production subsidies, increase transparency through improved reporting of the subsidies, and transfer government support to wider public goods, including low-carbon development and universal energy access.
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Blast from the Past
On this date at Daily Kos in 2008—Obama May OK Torture Investigation:
Should George Bush and others in his administration be prosecuted for various actions is answered with a resounding yes! if you’re Vincent Bugliosi, author of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. And, while most other critics who favor prosecution argue that lesser charges should be brought than Bugliosi would like to see, they believe it would be mistaken to let the actions of Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and crew fade into oblivion. For one thing, the main thing perhaps, allowing these leaders to escape unscathed for their actions means we can pretty much count on a repeat – only worse – a few years or decades down the road.
It's hard to imagine anybody who's watched Torturing Democracy could suggest that nothing should happen to the characters who promoted, encouraged and even set rules for torture.
But Obama advisor and Bush enabler Cass Sunstein sees things just that way. And, apparently, so does Clinton era Department of Justice official Robert Litt. As noted in today’s Washington Post: […]
"It would not be beneficial to spend a lot of time calling people up to Congress or in front of grand juries," Litt said. "It would really spend a lot of the bipartisan capital Obama managed to build up."
Vindictive. Vengeful. Partisan. Punitive. Divisive. These words have come to describe those of us who have watched the Cheney-Bush horror show of the past eight years unfold and want to see something done about it. Our problem, we are told, is that prosecuting or attempting to prosecute anyone in the outgoing administration would be a distraction for the incoming team at a time when the new President and Congress need to focus their undiluted attention on "more important matters."
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Liz Cheney for Congress? As long as it coincides with renewed interest in the Bush/Cheney pre-9/11 lapses, torture and detainee policies, I’m OK with that! Armando weighs in on torture part. Plus, have we finally reached “Peak Trump?” Or is this just another Faux-Peak “Peak Trump?”
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