I have said these things before, but they bear repeating in one place.
You can tell them that it no longer matters what they believe, because renewable energy is cheaper than coal, and we are closing in on oil and natural gas.
Of Two Global Warming Debates, One is Over
The world passed Peak Coal in 2013, as first noted by Goldman-Sachs, no den of tree-huggers. Coal has been in severe decline, with massive bankruptcies and cancellations of plant and port construction worldwide. It can only get worse for the industry, like candles and whale oil and draft horses and the proverbial buggy-whip makers before them.
Global Warming: Pundit Wrong Again
History of rail transport in Great Britain 1830–1922: Railroad Mania
The boom years were 1836 and 1845–47, when Parliament authorized 8,000 miles of lines at a projected cost of £200 million, which was about the same value as the country’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at that time.
So, 10% or so of GDP on railroad lines alone if it were spread out over the whole decade, not counting the value of rolling stock, with a huge Return On Investment. We need far less than 10% of GDP, which would be much more than a trillion dollars annually in the US. Current global investment in renewables has been running about $300 billion, which buys considerably more capacity every year.
Electric vehicles are not yet ready for the mass market, but they are making inroads here and there for short-haul buses and trucks, and commuter cars. As batteries improve, so will the range of EVs. We are at 230 miles, and can look forward to more than 400 miles fairly soon. EVs are already cheaper than gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles over their full lifetimes for anybody who is satisfied with their range. EVs, including cars, trucks, and trains, will give us Peak Oil.
Peak Gasoline Looming Out of Smog in India, China
As batteries improve they will also enable large-scale grid storage for electricity. This has started to happen, and will also accelerate with each new generation of battery technology. Storage will then displace peaker natural gas plants for load balancing, and will enable time-shifting for intermittent renewables. So that is Peak Gas.
Taken together, we get Peak Carbon, and the beginning of the slide down to Carbon Neutrality and beyond. Here are two of the best sources of data on what is possible and what is already happening.
The Solutions Project global map for getting to 100% renewables
CAIT Climate Data Explorer of national plans under the COPS21 Paris Agreement
How to Solve Global Warming
We know what to do about Global Warming, but we do not all know that we know what to do, much less that we are doing it.
The MSM doesn't want to tell us that. It prefers the controversy. The financial press and the analyst community report on various aspects of it regularly: WSJ, Bloomberg/Business Week, The Economist, The Financial Times, various energy industry publications, Goldman-Sachs, PriceWaterhouseCoopers,…
The last two excuses of the Denialists have collapsed.
- Nonsense: China, India, and the developing countries around the world will never agree, or will only pretend to agree. Fact: Except that they all did, and started taking serious action, apart from Syria and Donald Trump. But the US is going ahead anyway, even in the Reddest states like Kansas and Texas.
- Nonsense: Going to renewables will destroy the US and global economies. Fact: Except that lower costs mean a boost to local, state, national, and global economic growth.
This is no longer about ideology, but about real money. The markets that the Right professes to love and revere so much have spoken.