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The Almighty Buck Power

Bloomberg: Investment In Renewable Energy Needs To Quadruple By 2030 (bloomberg.com) 102

To reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5C, investment in renewable energy sources needs to surpass finance flows to fossil fuels by a factor of four over the next decade, according to research from BloombergNEF. From the report: Currently, about 90 cents goes to low-carbon energy sources for every $1 put toward fossil fuels. That ratio needs to change dramatically by 2030, with an average $4 invested in renewables for every $1 allocated to high-polluting energy supplies, analysts at BNEF said. For context, that ratio has never before crossed the 1:1 mark. The numbers show that the decarbonization of the global economy is an undertaking with few parallels in modern history. Investment in the global energy system may climb to as much as $114.4 trillion by 2050, as dollars pour into renewable energy sources including wind and solar, according to BNEF.

This decade "is a vital time to kick-start investing in the energy transition and prevent back-loading emission reductions," the BNEF analysts wrote in a report published Thursday. Scientists have said global greenhouse-gas emissions need to halve by 2030 to avoid catastrophic impacts of climate change. BNEF's research was commissioned by the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a coalition of banks, asset managers and insurers overseeing a combined $135 trillion of assets. The analysis was aimed at determining the level of investment required to reach net zero and limit global temperature increases to no more 1.5C under seven scenarios from the International Energy Agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Network for Greening the Financial System. Comparing investment in low-carbon energy supplies with fossil fuels "offers a new view on how corporations, state and non-state organizations and financial institutions can align their financing activity to climate scenarios," BNEF said.

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Bloomberg: Investment In Renewable Energy Needs To Quadruple By 2030

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  • It will in Europe (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07, 2022 @06:09AM (#62946131)

    It's clear that Putin's gas and oil ain't coming back, so at least Europe will be forced to go all in on renewables and nuclear.

    Not sure how we get the rest of the world like China, India, and the Americas on board though because it literally took Europe having no choice to even get Europe to start looking down that route. Even if the investment leads to a boom in Europe in no longer having external energy dependencies it'll still take time to get there and still take time for other countries to see that and want in on it.

    • Last year Chinese people bought more electric and hybrid cars than the rest of the world put together. They have the worlds largest renewable projects and are pushing the envelope there. Yes, they pollute but they also have a lot of industry which is understandable. That takes longer to fix. They are working on that since China suffers a lot from the pollution.

      India is working on the worlds cheapest electric car and trying to move away from fossil fuels but India is a slower country. Once economics become v

      • by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Friday October 07, 2022 @08:30AM (#62946335)
        It's an illusion. China has more first-time car buyers because of the historically sudden emergence of their middle-class, so their market is being largely created by the current wave. But its economy is actually radically conservative, and becomes practically inert once it reaches a certain point of development. A lot of the claimed EV market is being saturated by hybrids and awkward products of varying quality, which will become a drag on the transitional pace and infrastructure deployment while developed economies leap directly from ICE to high-quality BEVs.
        • by digiti ( 200497 )

          That's a fair assessment. Still there's a huge amount of investment in green energy within China. It's crucial for their energy independence and they understand that. The idea that they aren't moving in that direction is detached from objective reality and is a talking point of the oil and gas lobby.

          • They're developing a lot of green energy in total, but they're not committing to it as much as advertised (they're developing it in tandem with fossil fuels). Only the historically huge amount of money flowing into China from abroad has let them somewhat ignore that, but personality traits are reemerging.
      • by Budenny ( 888916 ) on Friday October 07, 2022 @08:34AM (#62946345)

        Makes no difference how many electric cars they buy. Makes no difference how many turbines they install, or how much solar. Makes no difference if they emit for exports, or if their historical emissions are still lower than the West's, or if their per capita emissions are lower (they are at about EU levels in fact, and rising).

        The fact is, they are raising their emissions on top of the one third or so of global emissions they are currently doing. They are mining and burning more coal than the rest of the world put together. They have huge amounts of coal fired generating capacity in planning and implementation.

        And as long as they do this there is nothing much anyone else can do to lower global emissions. The West only does around 25% of global emissions. The US does about 5 billion tons out of a total of 37 billion.

        You notice that, as usual, this story doesn't specify who exactly has to make these investments. Its the usual pattern, first predict disaster, then move on to saying that action is needed, without saying who has to act, and then argue that the US or the UK or wherever should do it.

        And never say what effect it will have, if they do. As a for instance of the most absurd kind, the UK currently does around 450 million tons out of the global total of 37 billion. And yet the political class there seem to think that they should take the country to Net Zero 'because climate'.

        And have never once said how much difference they think it will make to global emissions, if they do that. Or how much difference the reduction will make to global temps. The answer in both cases is none. So say again why to do this?

        This is what you get from asking a bunch of literary critics and equality and media studies people with neither math, science nor engineering knowledge to plan your national energy systems.

        Lets close all the coal plants and replace them with wind turbines. Then all of a sudden they notice there is this thing called intermittency. Or more likely they just deny it, and blame the blackouts on 'corporate greed' by some unspecified corporations.

        Close your coal generation without having anything fit for purpose to replace it with, and what you will get is blackouts. As the UK is now admitting is likely this winter.

        Of course the other ridiculous thing they are doing is ship wood pellets made from virgin forests across the Atlantic to burn in power stations, and they think that's green!

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by digiti ( 200497 )

          So we shouldn't vote either? Millions vote so what would my single ballot do?

          They dig coal because it's economical. Once it stops being economical they will stop.
          We already see farmers in backward countries setting up solar panels and windmills. The economies are better than relying on the grid even now. Continued improvement and better manufacturing would strengthen that advantage and reduce the number of payback years (initial investment) required for this to be profitable. Better/cheaper storage solution

          • As early technology adopters we'll have better infrastructure and a leg up on the newer technology/infrastructure.

            Actually, being later adopters of most any tech has the benefits of letting others go through the pain and cost of development and finding and solving infrastructure issues.

            Building yours out later after studying the "lessons learned" from others that pioneered things lets you do it more smoothly and if there have been competing standards for things, you can pick the one that "won" and not ris

            • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

              by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

              Can you provide a single example of where EV, green technology has provided any sort of economic incentive to early adopters - or adopters in general?

              Keep in mind that every single "green" technology sans nuclear and hydro are net-negative for lifetime energy production.

          • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

            No, of course you shouldn't vote. When has voting ever changed anything?

            It hasn't ever.

            And no, I'm not being hyperbolic.

            Your vote does not matter, statistically or otherwise. In fact, nobody's does, and that's before accounting for widely accepted and acknowledged vote suppression, manipulation, and outright fraud throughout the entire world.

            The voting process is not secure, by design. Democracy is the opiate of the masses, truly - it subdues you into thinking you're making a difference and helping.

            You are

          • by Budenny ( 888916 )

            "So we shouldn't vote either? Millions vote so what would my single ballot do?"

            This is a complete non-sequitur. Its nothing like voting. You vote because its a civic duty, its participation in your society in ways the society considers important. You don't vote because it will in itself have much effect, nor does anyone urge you to vote for that reason.

            But people are urging us to reduce emissions with the implied promise that our actions are a duty because of the effects they will have on global emissions

        • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          The intermittency of wind isn't a big problem, just link a bunch of wind farms together across a wide area so if the wind stops at one wind farm, the others will continue supplying power to the grid.

          California's recent near-shortages started around 6pm each evening when PV panels stopped producing electricity and ended around 9-10pm when the nightly wind picked up. During this time, people were returning from work and running their air conditioners to cool down their homes after a hot day. This problem will

        • There is one way to strongarm non-western nations into transitioning off fossil fuels. Once Western economies are significantly decarbonized establish a carbon tariff that becomes more punitive over time. With that in place either more manufacture onshores back to Western nations (reducing emissions overall), or other countries begin to adopt less carbon intensive standards (reducing emissions overall). You could even get cute and have a portion of the tariff scale based on a nations overall emissions no

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Every time there is a story about emissions the hand-wringing "what about China" brigade comes out.

          China is a developing nation. They are having an industrial revolution, like the West did.

          They are committed to their peak per capital emissions being much lower than the West's, and peaking much sooner than we did. They are currently ahead of schedule on those targets too, exceeding them.

          They will peak lower and sooner, and then start to fall. All predictions and plants for keeping warming under 1.5C are base

      • by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Friday October 07, 2022 @11:30AM (#62946909)

        Last year Chinese people bought more electric and hybrid cars than the rest of the world put together. They have the worlds largest renewable projects and are pushing the envelope there. Yes, they pollute but they also have a lot of industry which is understandable. That takes longer to fix. They are working on that since China suffers a lot from the pollution.

        I'm sure someone can check on this but it also looks like China has more civil nuclear power reactors under construction than the rest of the world combined. Why is this very important always left out from the list of things China is doing to produce energy, reduce pollution, and gain energy independence?

        If China is going to be claimed to be the model to follow then we need to be honest on what the model shows. Leave out nuclear power and that leaves a misleading image on what the model tells us is important. That would be like putting up someone as a model for weight loss but leaving out that they smoke like a chimney. It could be the smoking that is important to the weight loss. It could also show that maybe this model isn't really a model to follow after all.

        Is nuclear power a bad idea? Then stop bringing up China as a model to follow. If nuclear power is a good idea then that should be mentioned every time China is mentioned as a model to follow.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Nuclear in China is a not a good thing.

          First, it's already obsolete. Old designs, and the energy it produces is vastly more expensive than wind and solar. If it wasn't for the fact that the government is backing those plants, they wouldn't get built. China is big enough and growing fast enough to waste money on nuclear, just in case it turns out to not be a complete waste of time and money, but that's not a good economic model for others to follow.

          Secondly, do you trust the Chinese government to run those r

      • I'm more worried about the USA. They are the "virtue signaling" for the rest of the world. Everyone copies what happens there. If the USA flips to renewables hard then everyone will copy. It will also make the economics even more compelling thanks to economics of scale.

        I think we in the US will go renewables...

        BUT, we likely will hit fossil fuels again HARD first...especially in light of the latest OPEC moves.

        We have to get our economy a bit back to normal and we are completely dependent upon fossil fuel

    • We need more global warming to drive the wind turbines better.
    • by BigZee ( 769371 )
      The UK is about to issue a whole bunch of licenses for North Sea oil and gas. I can't say just how stupid a policy this is but it's what they've decided to do.
      • The UK is about to issue a whole bunch of licenses for North Sea oil and gas. I can't say just how stupid a policy this is but it's what they've decided to do.

        You need to make sure you can depend on the energy sources you currently rely on first, to steady your economy and lifestyles...before you can develop and move to renewables in a steady and planned fashion.

        You don't want the current lights to "go out" and then have to build up infrastructure, manufacturing and all by flaming torches and campfires.

  • by Generic User Account ( 6782004 ) on Friday October 07, 2022 @06:46AM (#62946179)

    But allow me to add an anti-capitalist side note: Growth isn't going to fix it. An increased investment in renewable energy is not going to limit global warming. To do that, you have to stop putting money into fossil fuels. Got it? No more burning stuff or it won't matter how many more solar panels you buy.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      What? You mean... burning stuff produces CO2?! And... if we burn less stuff, our children & grandchildren will live in a less hellish world?! OMG, my mind's about to explode!!
    • by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Friday October 07, 2022 @07:14AM (#62946227) Homepage
      We're making major progress here. Per a capita CO2 has gone down in a whole bunch of countries in the last few years, and this trend started even before Covid. And economic growth and CO2 production levels are essentially decoupled and this is even when you take into account "offshoring" of some CO2 via manufacturing. See https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/climate-change-co2-emissions-fall-in-18-countries-with-strong-policies-study-finds-1.5032468 [www.cbc.ca]. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions [ourworldindata.org]. We do need to stop burning fossil fuels, but growth is not the cause of this problem. If anything, it is the exact opposite: as we have more financial opportunities for new solar, wind, nuclear, etc. that helps deal with the fossil fuel problem. Growth here actively helps reduce fossil fuel use.
      • by Torvac ( 691504 )
        isnt the reason for the decline covid ? and other factors now "after" covid ? in theory there is no decline there is just less industry atm, nobody really did anything ?
        • As I noted in my comment, this trend started *before* Covid, so no. The first link I gave is from a study which explicitly stopped their data set right before Covid to avoid that issue. The second link you can see visually in the graphs they give that the trends are present even if you cut the data set off in 2019.
      • Growth does not fix global warming. Moar solar does not fix global warming if CO2 emissions keep rising. "Per capita" reductions don't matter if the total keeps rising. Capitalists have a knack for choosing bad metrics that let them keep ravaging the planet. The only thing that helps is bringing down total global CO2 emissions. "Investment in renewable energiy needs to quadruple" suggests that investments in renewable energy is a useful metric for battling global warming, but it is a derivative metric with

        • On the contrary, if you reduce per a capita enough, you get close to zero CO2 production. So, yes, per a capita does matter. It is true that if the world population were growing rapidly then per a capita wouldn't be a great metric, but population isn't growing that much, so this is an ok metric. And yes, quadrupling low CO2 power, solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, etc. is important by itself, because it displaces high CO2 power. All of these power systems replace fossil fuel systems. The upkeep of solar and wind
          • On the contrary, if you reduce per a capita enough, you get close to zero CO2 production.

            No, reducing per capita does not equal reducing the total, especially not per capita "in a whole bunch of countries" as in your previous comment. Total global CO2 emissions is the only metric that matters with regard to global warming, and it's arguably a much simpler metric. Of course you can hope that investments in renewables will replace fossil fuel systems, but there is no guarantee for that, and again, the only metric that matters is total global CO2 emissions. Investing in renewables is a necessary,

            • by jbengt ( 874751 )

              No, reducing per capita does not equal reducing the total, especially not per capita "in a whole bunch of countries" as in your previous comment.

              No, the only condition for which reducing per capita does not equal reducing the total, is if the total population increases at a high rate. Even then, reducing CO2 output per capita to near zero will reduce total CO2 output to near zero.

              • The global population is projected to increase well into the 2050s. And yes, while it isn't as straightforward as saying "population isn't growing that much", you can add conditions so that a "per capita" becomes meaningful with regard to global warming. But if you say "lower per capita until total global emissions decline", it effectively stops being "per capita" and becomes "global total". And when you understand that, you have to ask yourself why someone wanted you to look at "per capita in a whole bunch

                • Per a capita is really useful because it tells us if we're making progress as individuals, and because it lets us compare countries. If a country has a higher per a capita than another country, it means the other country likely has more room for improvement that's easy. For example, US per a capita CO2 is larger than most European countries. There's no "misdirection" going on. Total CO2 and per a capita measure different aspects of the problem. Regardless, reducing total CO2 is going to still require exact
                  • With "per capita" you immediately run into problems with attributing emissions, for example when one country does the manufacturing, but many consumers of the products are in a different country. This creates an opportunity for "green-washing", and it turns a simple (but difficult) goal into something that can be politicized six ways to Sunday. It lets people point at investments in green technology as a cause for per capita reductions when emissions are just shifted around and total emissions are actually

                    • The problem of offshoring emissions is a real one. In the very first comment in this thread I explicitly noted that the drop in per a capita admissions took issues of offshoring into account. There's also nothing specific to offhshoring as an issue connected to per a captita; it is a problem just as much when one looks at a country's total CO2 output. But since the data in question, takes it into account, that's not an issue. Similarly, your comment about solar power needing to replace fossil fuels is accur
                    • Total global CO2 emissions are UP. That is the opposite of what needs to happen. If your metric shows that we're making progress, it's a shit metric, and more of the same "per capita" improvements are not going to help. I don't know what else I can tell you if that doesn't register with you.

                    • Derivatives are a thing. You can have a function f(x) which is increasing (so f'(x) is positive) but where f''(x) is negative). You can have a car moving forward, even as its speed is decreasing. It is true that we're not doing as much as we should be doing. But a major part of what needs to be done is the production of new wind and new solar. Magically calling for degrowth isn't going to make that go away. At this point I'll note that when I explicitly pointed out that the data set involved looked at the i
                    • Look at the title: "Investment in Renewable Energy Needs to Quadruple By 2030". For the stated goal of limiting global warming, that is likely true, probably an understatement even, but it's not sufficient. Because I can almost guarantee that even if investment quadruples, CO2 emissions are not going to decrease. It's just the way the economy works. If you don't buy the fossil fuels, someone else will jump on the opportunity. And that's why an increase in renewables doesn't do jack shit about global warming

                    • Instead of just reading just the title, it might help to read the actual article. The analysis in question is specifically looking at what is needed to get zero CO2 by 2050, with economic growth taken into account. So you can't just dismiss it as "just the way the economy works." And there's a specific reason for that; if we make solar and other forms of power cheap enough, then they will be cheap enough that they will always be cheaper than fossil fuels. That's going to be difficult for some specific appli
    • by sinij ( 911942 )

      To do that, you have to stop putting money into fossil fuels. Got it?

      You need to be honest what that means. It means: Spending significant part of your income on food and drastic reduction in non-plant food sources. Multi-generational shared living spaces or small condos in large urban towers. No international tourism.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Given the alternatives, that is cheap....

        • by sinij ( 911942 )
          I have seen no evidence that any alternatives were considered by self-admitted anti-capitalists. I will go further, I have seen no evidence that calls for carbon-neutral economy is anything but anti-capitalism. The economic destruction that I pointed to in the earlier post is not an unfortunate side effect but the intended consequence.
          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Sooo, your argument is "do nothing about climate change, because that would be anti-capitalist"? Or is it, "climate change is no real, because some people have invented it to destroy capitalism"? Or is it "despite the actual experts not seeing any alternative to carbon-neutral, I insist there are some!"

            Way to deal with an existential crisis that the actual scientists in that area have reliably predicted for about 40 years now! Just claim it is all a conspiracy and not real! Just claim all the experts are st

      • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

        To do that, you have to stop putting money into fossil fuels. Got it?

        You need to be honest what that means. It means: Spending significant part of your income on food and drastic reduction in non-plant food sources. Multi-generational shared living spaces or small condos in large urban towers. No international tourism.

        None of what you say is true. This is the propaganda perpetrated by the fossil fuel industry, that if we stop feeding them trillions of dollars, our lifestyle will drop to third world standards. They are saying this for one reason only: to protect their trillions of dollars of profit.

        This is just as true as it was when the whaling industry said that if they stopped providing whale oil for lamps, the world would go dark, or the spray-can industry saying that if we stopped using freon in spray cans, the exis

        • To do that, you have to stop putting money into fossil fuels. Got it?

          You need to be honest what that means. It means: Spending significant part of your income on food and drastic reduction in non-plant food sources. Multi-generational shared living spaces or small condos in large urban towers. No international tourism.

          None of what you say is true. This is the propaganda perpetrated by the fossil fuel industry, that if we stop feeding them trillions of dollars, our lifestyle will drop to third world standards....

          Switching from one technology to another, historically, has typically increased standard of living, not decreased.

          Electricity-based flights are barely capable of doing puddle jump flights with empty loads. Yes, the technology will improve, but at the incremental pace we're doing so, I doubt we'll see transoceanic flights happening without fossil fuel in my lifetime. I mean, maybe it'd be possible if society were cool with planes being run on uranium, but I have greater confidence in the electricity-based flights happening first due to the fact that nobody is going to want to get on those planes any more than anyone is

          • You are making up your own alternative technologies then saying that the technology you made up isn't as good as existing technology.

            In general, all problems have multiple possible real-world solutions, not just "well, here's the most obvious thing that I, somebody who has never worked on the technology, thought of." The aggregate work of a million or so technology developers is likely to come up with different solutions, some of which are going to be better.

            Also: not solving every use of fossil fuel is n

            • You are making up your own alternative technologies then saying that the technology you made up isn't as good as existing technology.

              No, that's not what I'm saying. Let me try illustrating my point with some numbers.
              There are some much higher buildings in New York City, but a reasonable average is 10 floors. Assume 20 apartments per floor, and that's 200 apartments in a building.

              A common space heater takes about 1,200 watts to power, and for a 950 sqft apartment, you'll likely want two. 2,400 watts * 200 apartments = 480Kw to heat. Now,let's add some boilers, a low end one takes about 600W, but we'll assume some larger industrial units t

              • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

                You are making up your own alternative technologies then saying that the technology you made up isn't as good as existing technology.

                No, that's not what I'm saying.

                That is precisely what you were saying. You started with the last item on the list, international tourism, jumped to "the only possible way to do international tourism without a large expenditure of fossil fuels is by electric airplanes" and then jumped to "and in my opinion these won't be economically feasible."

                Then the next one you didn't even bother to propose an alternate, you just said food production needs fossil fuels because farmers won't give up their 50 year old tractors. My guess from that comme

                • You started with the last item on the list, international tourism, jumped to "the only possible way to do international tourism without a large expenditure of fossil fuels is by electric airplanes" and then jumped to "and in my opinion these won't be economically feasible."

                  ...and I also said I'd be thrilled to hear of a solution I've not yet heard about. If you've got a citation for a means of air travel that doesn't involve fossil fuels or batteries, I am 100% sincerely interested in learning something new. Please provide one because otherwise your argument essentially comprises of "nu uh, you're dumb because you don't know everything". You're right, I don't, but you haven't introduced any new information that validates your claim over mine. Please, enlighten me: what is you

                  • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

                    You started with the last item on the list, international tourism, jumped to "the only possible way to do international tourism without a large expenditure of fossil fuels is by electric airplanes" and then jumped to "and in my opinion these won't be economically feasible."

                    ...and I also said I'd be thrilled to hear of a solution I've not yet heard about.

                    Which is precisely my definition of techno-pessimism. "I can't think of a solution offhand, so therefore it's not possible."

                    If you've got a citation for a means of air travel that doesn't involve fossil fuels or batteries, I am 100% sincerely interested in learning something new.

                    Not my burden of proof. It is your burden to say "I have exhaustively thought of every possible solution to the problem and proven that none of them can work," not mine.

                    However, with one minutes of thought, instead of the zero minutes you gave it, try synthetic fuel produced by solar energy. [google.com]

      • To do that, you have to stop putting money into fossil fuels. Got it?

        You need to be honest what that means. It means: Spending significant part of your income on food and drastic reduction in non-plant food sources. Multi-generational shared living spaces or small condos in large urban towers. No international tourism.

        No thank you.

        And that is not going to be an easy sell to most of the people in the world.

        Look, you gotta make people WANT the new way of doing things...carrots go a lot further than bea

        • by sinij ( 911942 )

          To do that, you have to stop putting money into fossil fuels. Got it?

          You need to be honest what that means. It means: Spending significant part of your income on food and drastic reduction in non-plant food sources. Multi-generational shared living spaces or small condos in large urban towers. No international tourism.

          No thank you.

          And that is not going to be an easy sell to most of the people in the world.

          In other words you want to deceive (or force) the population to endure hardships to achieve goals that you defined.

          Do you understand why this won't work? If not, let me explain: a) humanity on the whole is not stupid, there is no chance you will be able to fool enough people long enough to succeed in your goal b) humanity on the whole is very powerful, there is no chance you will be able to subjugate enough people long enough to succeed in your goal.

          • In other words you want to deceive (or force) the population to endure hardships to achieve goals that you defined.

            No, quite the opposite.

            I'm saying, do NOT make it painful or make for hardships, but NOT trying to switch over to it, before it is fully developed and ready.

            We should not cut the legs out from under fossil fuels while we're still so dependent upon them.

            I say pump fossils as much as possible now, to cut reliance on other countries (ie Russia and OPEC)....be self reliant, stabilize our econom

            • by sinij ( 911942 )

              We should not cut the legs out from under fossil fuels while we're still so dependent upon them.

              In that case we fully agree.

    • But if you don't burn stuff you have no solar panels, nor do you have the copper to connect them.

    • But allow me to add an anti-capitalist side note: Growth isn't going to fix it. An increased investment in renewable energy is not going to limit global warming. To do that, you have to stop putting money into fossil fuels. Got it? No more burning stuff or it won't matter how many more solar panels you buy.

      So, you are thinking we need to turn out all the lights currently, and develop and deploy the new renewables tech and infrastructure by candle light?

      You gotta have what you depend on currently UNTIL you

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      The title claims quadrupling investment, but the summary describes changing the *ratio* from 1:4 in favour of fossil fuels, to 4:1 in favour of renewables.

  • by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Friday October 07, 2022 @08:25AM (#62946323) Journal

    Then we will see if the Nuclear Industry is sustainable as nuclear advocates claim.

    The inevitable collapse of the Nuclear Industry as completely nonviable, even with subsidies, will lead to the redirection of investment into even more innovative solar, wind, and geothermal projects.

    We'll do fine without nuclear.

    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      Then we will see if the Nuclear Industry is sustainable as nuclear advocates claim.

      Current generation of nuclear power plants suck; they are ferociously expensive, and not even sustainable (to be sustainable, we'd need fuel reprocessing.)

      Yet to be determined if the next generation can be as good as the nuclear advocates say it will. Maybe.

      The inevitable collapse of the Nuclear Industry as completely nonviable, even with subsidies, will lead to the redirection of investment into even more innovative solar, wind, and geothermal projects.

      Not clear it's inevitable. Nuclear definitely has problems. The problems are in principle solvable. Can we solve them? Well, that remains to be seen.

      We'll do fine without nuclear.

      The climate problem could be solved without nuclear, but nuclear power would, if it could be done cheap

      • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        Then we will see if the Nuclear Industry is sustainable as nuclear advocates claim.

        Current generation of nuclear power plants suck; they are ferociously expensive, and not even sustainable

        The Price Anderson Act is an Insurance wavier that was originally intended when the Nuclear Industry was becoming established. Essentially if an accident like Fukushima occurs in the US the liability for the loss is placed on the home-owner who chooses to live in the potential fall out zone of a Nuclear Power Plant.

        It's intent was to impose that condition on home owners until Nuclear Power proved itself safe. In this context when I say sustainable I mean, can the nuclear industry secure insurance to c

    • Germany has failed to decarbonize without nuclear. And that is after spending 500 billion euros on renewables.
      • by Uecker ( 1842596 )

        Electricity production from coal in Germany 2010 - 2021: 117 TWh -> 55 TWh, from lignite: 146 TWh -> 110 TWh.

        So decarbonization (which is still ongoing) is obviously not failing.

        But what was achieved by spending 500 billion is creating an economy of scale that brought down prices for solar and wind down so much, that they are now cost competitive and investments are increasing. The nuclear industry (where also a huge amount of mount was poured into) never achieved it. It is still so expensive that no

    • Repeal the solar power subsidies and we'll see if solar power is as sustainable as the advocates claim.

      I'm fine with repealing any subsidies for energy. Here's the problem though, if there's no insurance company large enough to cover large civil projects like hydroelectric dams and nuclear power plants then the lights go out.

      I don't know the details of the Price Anderson act but it is apparently something viewed as a subsidy for the nuclear power industry. Id would be nice to live in a world without a nee

      • I'm fine with repealing any subsidies for energy. Here's the problem though,

        It only applies to nuclear power plants.

        I don't know the details of the Price Anderson act but Go ahead and repeal it.

        great to know that your support is there. The very existence of the P.A act demonstrates why nuclear power is a failure.

        You can all try to go without it but when places like Japan and Germany tried they failed.

        Yeah, like they tried *with* it. No Price Anderson to waive their liability to other countries in case of an accident. They have to deal with the reality of nuclear power and its inherent risk. Another reason why Nuclear Power fails.

        We can all try to do the same thing and expect a different result. That would be the definition of insanity though.

        That's why many countries don't want to repeat the mistakes other countries have made with Nuclear Power. That woul

  • If the recent past is any guide. From: https://twitter.com/Josh_Gabba... [twitter.com]

    "One of the more surprising findings" in public energy finance database is that not only is finance for fossil fuels much higher, clean energy finance from G20 countries hasn't gone up that much - despite commitments, says

    No way in hell do we get to net zero by 2050 barring some miraculous carbon capture technology and a huge surplus of energy to run it.

    Global coal consumption remains near its peak. https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]

  • Hold on to yer wallets, folks. They are coming for your paycheck, for the glory of God, er, I mean the new God, Climatus.

  • "reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5C"

    Does this not look both completely arbitrary and un-substantiated by anyone else? Laughable, really.

    The premise here is wrong. It's always wrong. "Limit global warming by 1.5C" - based on projections, projections which have time and time again, proven themselves incorrect.

    We are now 50 years into this charade of consistently incorrect data, models, and resulting predictions. I don't have enough faith to believe a word of it - because that's

  • Also, 1.5C? That is already unreachable. But limiting to 2.5C may just be barely possible, so the more is done, the better.

  • Instead of wasting billions trying to get criminals to vote Democrat.

A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -- Thomas Jefferson

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