UN Report Urges Global End To Fossil Fuel Exploration by 2030 (theguardian.com) 120
Fossil fuel exploration should cease globally by 2030 and funding to rescue poor countries from the impacts of the climate crisis should reach $200bn to $400bn a year by the same date, according to proposals in a UN report before the next climate summit. The Guardian: Countries were still "way off track" to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the report found, and much more action would be needed to make it possible to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels. The UN's synthesis report on the global stocktake, published on Wednesday, will form the basis for discussions at the Cop28 conference in Dubai, which begins at the end of November. The global stocktake is a process mandated under the Paris agreement, intended to check every five years on countries' progress on meeting their emissions-cutting goals.
Simon Stiell, the UN's climate chief, said the report offered a range of actions for governments to consider. "[These are] clear targets which provide a north star for the action that is required by countries," he said. Greenhouse gas emissions are still rising but there is broad agreement they must peak by 2025 at the latest if there is to be a chance of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C. "This is a major opportunity being presented for the course correction that is so urgently called for," Stiell said. "[The report] lays out elements that can be incorporated into a response." But while most countries agreed on the need to change direction, he said, there was "significant divergence" on how to achieve the changes needed.
Simon Stiell, the UN's climate chief, said the report offered a range of actions for governments to consider. "[These are] clear targets which provide a north star for the action that is required by countries," he said. Greenhouse gas emissions are still rising but there is broad agreement they must peak by 2025 at the latest if there is to be a chance of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C. "This is a major opportunity being presented for the course correction that is so urgently called for," Stiell said. "[The report] lays out elements that can be incorporated into a response." But while most countries agreed on the need to change direction, he said, there was "significant divergence" on how to achieve the changes needed.
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That's perfectly fine to use it for fertilizer. We need to quit burning the stuff for energy.
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Get the US out of the UN (Score:2, Insightful)
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And what will that achieve, rulling of the evil sino-russo empire?
Re:Get the US out of the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently God will reverse thermodynamics or something. You're dealing with a delusional idiot, so it probably isn't even that coherent.
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Apparently God will reverse thermodynamics or something. You're dealing with a delusional idiot, so it probably isn't even that coherent.
You just explained in 1 sentence the entire level of comprehension and creativity to be found at the UN.
+1 if I had mod points
What's your beef? (Score:1)
NATO has given the Western world a semblance of stability during its brief tenure. The UN has done the same for the planet. If the UN didn't exist now, we'd still have to create it. What's your beef exactly?
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NATO has given the Western world a semblance of stability during its brief tenure. The UN has done the same for the planet.
Really? Because UN was able to stop several ethnic cleansing events during its tenure? Because UN is able to stop Israeli atrocities against Palestinians? Because UN stopped US from invading all these countries? [wikipedia.org]
My biggest beef with the UN is the 5 countries that have veto power. Get rid of the veto power and a lot of things will straighten out.
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The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and approving any changes to the UN Charter.
Everything I mentioned was about war and peace, which would all fall under the purview of UNSC. But even more falls under them, because any change to the UN Charter would have to pass UNSC and thus could be vetoed by any of the five. The result is that the power still lies with these 5 and not UN as a whole. According to the main Wikipedia page on UN:
The veto power is controversial. Supporters regard it as a promoter of international stability, a check against military interventions, and a critical safeguard against United States domination. Critics say that the veto is the most undemocratic element of the UN, as well as the main cause of inaction on war crimes and crimes against humanity, as it effectively prevents UN action against the permanent members and their allies.
The critics' beef is legitimate, as has been seen ove
You first. (Score:2, Insightful)
After all UN delegate travel is renewable powered, and all UN arms are manufactured using only renewable power, and all UN vehicles are 100% electric, then we'll think about it.
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As far as your other point, "you first" - what are you, 12? grow up.
Re:You first. (Score:5, Insightful)
The ban on exploration is a dumb idea. It is "environmental theater" rather than something that will actually help.
In 2030, the world will still be using plenty of fossil fuels, and many of those fuels are from very dirty sources. Canadian tarsands are one example: Extracting the oil is a filthy energy-intensive process. German and Australian lignite are other filthy fuels.
So we should continue to look for clean sources to replace dirty sources: Light "sweet" oil to replace high-sulfur heavy crude. More gas to replace coal.
Obviously, we should continue to roll out renewables, EVs, and heat pumps, but those will be far from dominant in seven years.
We need to fight AGW on all fronts using reality-based solutions, not silly fantasies.
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I pretty much agree with you. Society needs to function in order to build out renewables, buy expensive but more energy efficient cars, appliances, etc. But I surely would like to see much more done in PV department. I want to see all shopping centers, any large building, covered in PV panels, and most houses where practical. I do not advocate cutting trees to allow sunlight onto PV panels on roofs.
I want to see domestic PV production. (all countries)
I've personally installed a couple dozen PV systems about
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I want to see all shopping centers, any large building, covered in PV panels
I see that as more environmental theater. Grid-scale large arrays cost half as much per kwh generated as bespoke rooftop installations.
Perhaps rooftops can be made more cost-effective, but the government should not be "picking winners" by subsidizing panels on roofs but not big arrays in the desert.
the market died quickly, partly because govt. grant / subsidy programs ended
The money spent on subsidies could have been much more wisely spent on R&D to develop panels that don't need subsidies.
HOAs that forbid PV panels on the front-facing roofs. Stupid. Need a law barring any impediment to PV systems.
We have that in California. HOAs are prohibited by law from restricting solar installatio
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R&D to develop panels that don't need subsidies
Good luck with that, the progression of PV efficiency flat-lined about 15 years ago. Perhaps we should stop allowing people to put PV in places that aren't sunny because the EROEI of solar is only 4 so most places where they are deployed need to be very sunny or at very high elevation. Germany is not such a place and all their PVs actually make CO2 emissions per watt worse than just burning gas.
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Germany is not such a place and all their PVs actually make CO2 emissions per watt worse than just burning gas.
I'm curious about your statement. I don't know the research or numbers. Are you talking about all the CO2 produced in the mining, manufacturing, installation, and transportation involved in PVs is more than they will displace if they're not well lit?
I'm asking generally, but also- I have some nice trees, so shade, but I'm thinking about buying some used and/or broken PVs that I'd buy cheap and fix and use.
I'd be getting some use out of ones that otherwise might go to landfill or scrap.
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Society needs to function in order to build out renewables
Not only that, society needs to somehow start mining asteroids to do that. We have about 2 years worth of what is necessary here on Earth. Or we could just use nuclear power, your choice. Which do you think will be cheaper and more efficient? Mining Copper, Cobalt and a dozen other metals at 10-100x our current rate or nuclear plants?
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I've always been strongly in favor of nuclear. It's sad, almost tragic, that new nuclear power generation pretty much stopped 40 years ago. I'm encouraged by seeing continuing R&D in potentially better reactor / generation system designs, including much smaller systems.
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The ban on exploration is a dumb idea. It is "environmental theater" rather than something that will actually help.
It's beyond dumb - it's ridiculously unenforceable.
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"Canadian tarsands are one example: Extracting the oil is a filthy energy-intensive process."
It's an easy target, isn't it? Except that when you consider quantity of export and the relative emission rate, if Canada just stopped being... there... it wouldn't save you. If all production from the oilsands stopped entirely, it wouldn't move the needle. You want to make a big difference, you go after the largest net producers - and consumers - of carbon. And Canada ain't it.
"But Canada are among the highest per
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There are fewer people in Canada than live in Tokyo
Population of Canada now, 40,406,348, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n... [statcan.gc.ca]
Population of Tokyo, 9.73 million, Tokyo prefecture, 14.09 million, Metro area, 37.468 million, as of 2018 and dropping, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
That bitumen is mostly exported and is a source of lots of carbon and we're all sharing the same planet
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Of course it is. But I'm saying that if you're looking for some place to direct your ire, doing it against the oilsands makes you feel good, but it wouldn't do anything to solve the problem even if you got 100% of your way and it vanished. It's an emotional target, not a rational one. It's politically useful.
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So your saying that the 4th (3rd by some estimates) largest reserve of oil (166.3 billion barrels) in the world doesn't matter? What does matter in your estimation? And can we influence Venezuela, Saudi Arabia or Russia as easily as the bitumen reserves, which by the way produce more CO2 per barrel then other sources due to having to burn a barrel of oil to produce a barrel or in other words, for every two barrels dug up, one makes it to the refinery.
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There you go with the non-sequiturs. You sidestep the contribution to the problem by divorcing data points from their context. It would take Canada 83 years at the current extraction rate to use those proven reserves. So what percent of those reserves matter? Whatever percent is used before demand changes make it unreasonable to bother. No more than that.
Your post does not change the fact that bitching about Canada is not useful when solving the problem, but it is emotionally fulfilling.
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I can influence what Canada does, unlike Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or Russia. And they're Bitumen sands, not oil sands.
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Oil sands is the current colloquial term (except for angry people). Bitumen sands is fine, too, in my opinion. But yes, you can influence what Canada does. And it'll do you no good whatsoever. That's pretty much my point. It's misdirected effort.
Canada provides about 6% of the world supply. If Canada stopped doing that, there's no reason to think that the new source (and there's no evidence it wouldn't be replaced) would be much cleaner. After all, the US buys nearly all of it, and they have the largest sha
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And how to influence what America does, besides setting an example.
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You think the US pays attention to examples? :)
Thanks for the civil discussion. Appreciated.
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You think the US pays attention to examples? :)
No, it's the only thing I could think of :)
Thanks for the civil discussion. Appreciated.
Likewise
Re: You first. (Score:2)
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Strangely enough the regressives who push this bullshit are always doing everything they can to prevent what they demand of others from being achieved in the first place.
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They are clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
The world relies on energy to operate. Yeah I'm all supporting the kind of fuel exploitation that pollutes the world.. but in order to end it, an alternative must be in place. Has that alternative been found and proved to be capable of sustaining world civilization? I'm sick and tired of all these garbage about ending abc but there's no xyz replacement in sight.
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They're not asking countries to stop producing oil by 2030 , they're asking countries to stop looking for it. The likely idea behind this is that over time this will result in higher oil prices that will encourage adoption of more renewables.
Of course this is unlikely to happen until it happens on its own due to oil prices going down which wont happen until more renewables are adopted. There's just too much money in oil production for poor nations to sign on to anything like this
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they're asking countries to stop looking for it.
No, they are asking countries to not install new extraction infrastructure (oil derricks and pipelines) starting in 2030. We have done this before, in 2014-2015 the ESG people (read money managers for public sector unions, known on wall street as dumb money) stopped investing in new FF projects. The result was more money for existing extraction and when Russian gas started coming offline that effect spiked. Europe ended up paying several times more for their energy than normal. They lucked out last wint
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Well I can read in both the Slashdot headline and in the cited Guardian headline that it's fossil fuel exploration they're asking to stop. Unfortunately however the cited article doesnt really give any more details and I cant find many more details on a casual google search. If you can cite a source that shows that they're asking for something beyond a halt to exploration then please cite it, otherwise I have no reason to question the headlines (and neither would you).
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Has that alternative been found and proved to be capable of sustaining world civilization?
The alternative has existed for decades, but Fossil Fuel propaganda pretty much killed it in many countries. So I will give another shout-out to France, where they were sane with using nuclear energy.
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Grid scale battery storage is already very competitive on price. However, it won't make up the largest proportion of battery storage - vehicles will. Vehicle 2 Grid allows the owner to recover some of the value from their car by providing a small amount of energy back to the grid at peak times. The degradation on the battery is minimal, and can even help maintain it when the car isn't getting much use.
There are other forms of storage too - pumped water, compressed air etc. And other forms of renewables, lik
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The only things I know about are wind and solar. But these don't have the ability to maintain power over a long duration. What happens when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine for weeks, or even months?
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Can you share what those alternatives are?
Nuclear power
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Do you think thermodynamics can be suspended because we're not ready yet? You know how you get ready; you do it and you make the damaging energy technology so expensive that everyone moves on over. Anything else is just an excuse to do fuck all.
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The right wing will never allow large nuclear deployment, too expensive and the oil industry will spend a lot of money to get that point across, just like they did to discourage the left wing previously. Capitalism in action, using the capital to make money and the return on propaganda is high.
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Only half of crude oil goes for fuel. The rest is for plastics, engineering materials, chemical raw materials etc.
The de-sulfurization process used in petroleum refining (both oil & natural gas) generates tons upon tons of sulfur that would otherwise be mined by the cheapest of labor in the poorest of countries in the most dangerous of working conditions.
That recovered sulfur goes into many useful products like sulfuric acid (a useful chemical in the refining of other minerals), fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides, medical drugs, and even batteries (in recent research).
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Have you got a link? While it is true that making nitrogen fertilizer needs heat and hydrogen (and atmospheric nitrogen), that heat and hydrogen mostly comes from natural gas. It is hard to find the percentage of fossil fuels used to make ammonia but according to this (and others) fertilizer production is responsible for about 2-3% of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, https://phys.org/news/2023-01-... [phys.org] seems 2-3% is something we can live with.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinene... [eia.gov] says in America, only 7% of fossi
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They are saying no more exploration by 2030, but already discovered oil and coal fields will keep being exploited long after that.
We have alternatives for most of our fossil fuel usage. Some are not mature enough yet, but we have a clear path to getting them there. Note that I said fuel, plastics and other oil products are a different matter.
insanity (Score:2, Troll)
It's like they want to crash the world economy as quickly and painfully as possible.
shipping and agriculture for starters.. but hey, at least you traded in your car for a hybrid/electric -- right?
greenwashed idiots.
Re: insanity (Score:2)
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https://www.eia.gov/todayinene... [eia.gov] 93% of fossil fuels in America are burnt.
Nuclear would be great but we don't have the uranium, there's no political will to study alternatives and there is no political will to invest money in nuclear when the campaign contributions come from the fossil fuel industry. The same ones that have convinced you that 50% is not burnt
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Are you going to pry any of the trillions (Score:2)
WTF (Score:2)
of dollars that we've shifted to the top in the last 40 years so that we can afford to do that without disrupting people's lives? Because if not it ain't gonna happen. Voters in democracies will block it and people in dictatorships don't get a say.
Can you not write a complete sentence? "of dollars" is meaningless. You used to have interesting things to say but lately it is all incomplete sentences. Perhaps time to get checked for Alzheimer's.
too little, too late (Score:2)
There is too much profit in oil/gas and too much political power in the companies the profit off them. Given the ownership of the US electronical system by
There's a sea-change in the comments (Score:2)
Re: There's a sea-change in the comments (Score:2)
It's noon. Past quitting time in Moscow and Tehran and lunch break in Beijing. Give it a few hours.
Do they know the world is kind of big?... (Score:1)
Here on a south capital of brazil the only time I saw a electric car was... never. I know they exist on the city, peaple talk about it.. but this could be only rumors... /s
But hey, 2030 is WAY off, I'm sure this will change!
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Here on a south capital of brazil the only time I saw a electric car was... never.
What is the electricity cost like there? In $ per kWh, Brazil is cheaper than the USA. But if there are demand charges, that could come back to bite you.
And replace it with... (Score:5, Insightful)
Good theory UN. Mandates don't work. Actual plans that address the myriad issues with this work. We've seen mandates like this for decades and they always move or get missed because there's no plan behind it. Get a plan, then the world might take it seriously.
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There's no EV version of airplanes.
Yes, I doubt there will be anytime soon
There's not nearly enough energy density in any form of energy storage that makes commercial shipping viable on all electric.
There is sail for non-perishables paired with electric for very large ships.
but long haul trucking is kind of out.
I do not know, I think it is possible with investments. With fed regulations limiting drive time, the truckers could charge up over night in rest areas. The rest areas where I am are full with large trucks.
Rail can be electrified in theory, but that's only happening at a very moderate pace globally.
Yes, the best place for fossil fuel reduction. But the dumb large city I by me is replacing their electric trolleys with gas buses right now. The are saying, oh, we will go to electric in
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Don't worry, they are working on making sure you cannot fly at all
https://www.letsrun.com/forum/... [letsrun.com]
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They should replace it with synthetic hydrocarbon fuels made from CO2, water and energy from non-carbon sources, including nuclear as well as renewables.
The underlying technology for synthesising hydrocarbons as been around for 100 years and is well understood. Oil companies have huge numbers of chemical engineers and are perfectly capably of deploying it at industrial scale, if they have an incentive. Banning exploration would be an incentive to start. Banning new wells would be the next step, followed, ev
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Getting the oil companies to switch from pumping oil out of the ground to making oil from CO2 and H2O has the potential to make 1.5 billion vehicles carbon neutral without the trillions on capital expense to replace them all
The problem is it's damn near impossible to do. Oil from the ground is the cheapest option and they already invested in extracting it.
It's easier to just replace them by replacing fossil fuel vehicles with electric ones as people naturally replace their cars anyway.
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For agriculture and industrial machines, electric is better. More torque and no mucking about with gearing. Farmers can make electricity themselves from wind and solar, and being businesses can make the capital investment.
Obviously we need to make sure these technologies filter down to developing nations too. For a lot of them, renewables are ideal because they can produce the energy where they need it. No need to travel long distances to get fuel, or rely on a potentially unstable grid. And it doesn't end
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Unicorn Fart (Score:1)
for all energy need. Accept no substitution.
No more pardons! (Score:3)
1970 through Peake Oil: We are running out of oil, we need government control!
No, we aren't. [juliansimon.com]
Today: We need to pretend to run out of oil!
Fair enough, but pardon me if I fear your motives are more concerned with getting in the way for bribery than environment.
It's the extractiony, stupid. (Score:2)
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Help China and India (Score:2)
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Are they crappy at selling a good idea?
Unfortunately this takes a fair bit of nuance to understand, but basically the major problem with politics in the US is their funding model. It takes an incredible amount of money to fund an election campaign along with keeping that public relations machine moving after being elected, so politicians on both sides of the aisle are largely funded with campaign contributions. While this is supposed to come from local constituents, all to often the money comes from large multi-national corporations through do
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This, of course, is nothing new. I don't know if he was the first to do it, but Howard Hughes was famous/notorious for doing exactly that. Not only did he contribute to all the candidates from the two major parties, if there was a third-party candidate that looked like he had a reasonable chance of winning, Hughes w
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Re:Oil trolls are winning in USA (Score:4, Informative)
"Renewables are actually a way to escape much of the see-saw price problem, "
False
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
"This paper shows that intermittent renewable generation transmits volatility to the electricity price. The question is how to integrate electricity from variable sources more smoothly in the electricity market to reduce effects on the price.
On the one hand, improved interconnection of electricity markets within Europe will reduce market effects of variable renewable electricity on market prices. Better grid connection can not only be fostered by new cables but also by using existing capacity more efficiently in an improved market coupling regime (Hulle, 2009, Monopolkommission, 2011, Schaber et al., 2012).
On the other hand, a generation system with flexible conventional capacity as well as electricity storage helps balancing fluctuations of renewable energy and therefore reducing effects on the electricity price. Flexible generation operates at high variable but low fixed costs and can therefore be switched on and off to equalise low renewable power feed-in. The main difficulty of both options, storage and flexible generation capacity, is their investment cost. Providing responsive generation capacity needs to be profitable. With more renewables in the power system, conventional plants will mainly balance renewable fluctuation and therefore operate fewer full-load hours. Recovering the investment costs for flexible conventional units during these load hours will become more difficult (Klessmann et al., 2008, Klinge Jacobsen and Zvingilaite, 2010, Steggals et al., 2011, Traber and Kemfert, 2011). Periods with peak prices, which allow plant operators to generate revenues, become less certain and predictable due to the high variability of renewable electricity generation. The increased refinancing risk questions the viability of investments in flexible conventional capacity, and the market price might fail to give sufficiently strong investment signals."
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Utility co's can pool the cost of renewable variability, so that customers get a relatively flat bill. We can't do that with oil because prices are controlled mostly by OPEC, outside the US.
In my opinion there should be "peak pricing" of about a 30% markup to encourage people to say not do their laundry at the worst times of day. But that isn't a necessity, just a suggestion.
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Re:Oil trolls are winning in USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, a GOOD idea sells itself.
If we had, just for instance, EV's readily available at affordable prices and the supporting recharging infrastructure already in full or even nearly full force and the grid to support it, to where it competed with ICE ownership and convenience of use....people would be flocking to it.
The trouble is..with people trying to SELL the new way, before it is actually ready and for some reason, trying to cut the legs out of the energy and transportation that supports modern society today, before it can be switched over without collapsing economies and societies.
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But EV's are available at affordable prices. The recharging infrastructure is adequate for the existing fleet and considerable investment is being made to expand it. All the car companies are moving to EV as fast as they are able, and peak oil demand is predicted in ~2028.
What could really tank economies and societies is the sunk cost of oil infrastructure suddenly becoming almost worthless.
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Ok, exactly what do you consider an "affordable price" for an EV in the US?
The charging is there IF you happen to be fortunate enough to be able to afford your own single family dwelling where you can afford to install a charger to charge overnight (as everyone seems to promote as best practice).
What about all the people that rent? Those wit
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The average selling price for a new car in the USA is about $47k. The Tesla Model Y (the world's best selling car) starts at $43,990. The Model 3 starts at $38,990 before the $7,500 federal credit. The Chevy Bolt is $26,500.
As for chargers, I live in a semi-rural town and there are 7 of them within 3 miles of my house. About the same distance as the gas stations. $5 billion was invested in new charging stations last year, much of it in the USA.
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Remember, a GOOD idea sells itself.
Sure, but the problem is there is about enough Li on Earth to build 1 year worth of all cars sold currently if they were all EVs. That's not based on the amount of Li we have found, that's based on a calculation about how much Li is in Earth's crust total. So it might be a good idea, but it doesn't scale and it wastes a finite resource. Consider this, 1 Tesla with a 80KwH battery removes 1 person's CO2 emissions from driving. Now split that battery into 4 and make 4 Volts, so now you save about 3.6 pers
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If you don't work 12 hours a day, thank a liberal.
If you don't work 6 or 6 and a half days a week, thank a liberal.
If you don't risk mutilation when you go to work, thank a liberal.
If your children go to school instead of work, thank a liberal.
If your work doesn't poison you, thank a liberal.
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